SOUTH CAROLINA 905 



In 1912 Jasper county (county-seat, Ridgeland) was created from Beaufort and Hampton 

 counties, and the creation of ill-shaped counties, more than four times as long as their 

 width , was forbidden. The power of the public service commission was extended to Charleston, 

 formerly exempted, as Marion, Spartanburg, Sumter, Union and Conway still are. 



Children under 16 are not permitted to work between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. in factories, mines 

 or textile establishments, except to make up time lost by accident or by breakdown of machin- 

 ery. No child under 12 l is to be employed in them at: all. Women are not to work 

 in mercantile establishments more than 60 hours a week or 12 a day nor after 10 P.M. In 

 cities of 5,000 inhabitants or more no child under 14 (and between 10 P.M. and 5 A.M. none 

 under 18) may work as a messenger. A law of 1912 prohibits betting, pool-selling and 

 book-making. 



Finance. By a law of 1911 no bank or trust company may act as a guardian, administra- 

 tor or trustee. All municipal, county and school bonds were exempted from taxation. For 

 interest on the bonded debt the appropriation in 1912 was $295,980; the total general appro- 

 priation was $1,993,678. The report of the treasurer for the year 1912 showed a balance on 

 hand January I of $725,356. The receipts were $3,246,677, the expenditures $3,205,817, and 

 the balance December 31, 1912, $766,216. The state debt was $6,529,646 funded and 

 $164,359 fundable. 



Education. A commission to examine and revise the school law submitted its report in 

 January 1911 but although the new code was favourably reported in both houses of the 

 legislature it did not become a law either in 1911 or 1912. Fifty-one beneficiary agricultural 

 scholarships were created in 1912 in Clemson Agricultural and Mechanical College. The 

 General Education Board in October 1912 voted $5,000 to the Penn School at Helena. 



For the year ending June 30, 1912 the school enrollment (no school census is taken) was 

 33 I >587 (175.307 negroes); the average daily attendance, 227,011 (114,033 negroes); and the 

 length of the school year ranged from 23.5 weeks for whites in cities to 13.8 weeks for negroes 

 in the country. The receipts for school purposes were $2,904,039 and the disbursements, 

 $2,034,169 for whites and $346,545 for negroes. 



In 1910 in illiteracy the state's percentage, 25.7% of the whole population IO years of 

 age and over, was exceeded only by that of Louisiana, 29 %. Among whites the percentage 

 was 10.3 (13.5 in 1900); among negroes, 38.7 (52.8 in 1900). 



Penal and Charitable Institutions. In 1912 the method of capital punishment was changed 

 from hanging to electrocution. All able-bodied male convicts are to be worked on county 

 public works, except in Greenville county. Governor Blease opposed the use of convicts in a 

 hosiery mill which was reported to be a breeding-place of tuberculosis, and, when no action 

 was taken by the legislature, threatened to pardon all convicts thus employed. Circuit 

 judges are authorised to suspend sentence in certain cases, not felonies, and the probate court 

 to act as a juvenile court. Among the appropriations for 1912 were $26,000 for the South 

 Carolina Industrial School (established in 1906); $250,000 for pensions, and $17,000 for the 

 Confederate Infirmary at Columbia. 



History. Coleman Livington Blease (b. 1868), who had been a member of the lower 

 house in 1890-98 and of the state senate in 1904-08 and mayor of Newberry in 1910, 

 took office as governor in 1911. His administration has occasioned much controversy. 

 He at once came into collision with the state supreme court over appointments of 

 judges, refusing to commission the nominees of the court but submitting an " eligible " 

 list for the supreme court to choose from; and, in order apparently to remove some 

 negroes who held commissions as notaries public the nullified all the commissions, about 

 3,000 in number, that were held at the governor's pleasure, and immediately issued new 

 ones to almost all these notaries excepting a few negroes. Moreover he withheld 

 from the pardon board all papers in regard to pardons and paroles, and issued on his 

 own account a very large number of pardons with the result that charges of corruption 

 were freely made by his opponents. In July 1912 he was directly accused of selling 

 pardons, and of having negotiated, when he was state senator, with liquor dealers to 

 block any legislation affecting the state dispensary and of joining a syndicate to control 

 the sale of liquor to the dispensary. Agents who were gathering material in support 

 of these accusations refused to go to Columbia, alleging apprehensions of violence, and 

 meetings of the investigating committee were held in Augusta, Ga. In 1911 the 

 governor vetoed a large number of bills, and in 1912 out of 300 bills he approved only 

 14, 8 were passed over his veto, and 278 were not returned to the legislature within 

 the three days specified by the constitution. 



1 In December 1912 the commissioner of labour in a report on textile industries said that 

 no children under 12 were employed and that the number of children under 16 had decreased 

 from 8,432 in 1910 to 7,490 in 1912. 



