Coleman Livingston Blease
Coleman Livingston Blease, or "Coley" as he preferred to be called, was a politician whose career spanned from the 19th into the 20th Centuries.
Called a populist, a mountebank, a trouble-maker, a true friend to the working man, Coley took a populist stand and made it uniquely his own.
Why Coley Blease?
I first heard of Coley Blease reading "The Mind of the South," W.J. Cash's great historical retrospective on the growth of "the New South". I, a life-long Yankee, had just moved to South Carolina, and was interested to learn all I could about my new state.
He seemed an interesting character: his political career started in the tumultuous and difficult years following Reconstruction, through the Golden Age, through World War I and the Roaring Twenties into the Depression. Interesting years. And I kept reading about what an "interesting" character Blease was, especially his oratorical skills, his "gift of gab," his fluency with the language.
Yet, except for a few snippets of quotes, I couldn't find anything he had said or wrote!
Turns out Blease had left instructions that his personal papers all be destroyed; presumably, that was the case (though I'm still trying to find out who was to do the destroying). But surely there were records of his speeches? No official documents?
I decided what there was should be available to anyone interested (like me). So I have gathered together the messages he sent to the South Carolina State Senate while he was governor, which give a pretty good indication of the kind of his style. Plus, I've read a few books on the years during which Blease lived, and have listed them below under "documents".
Documents: Documents and sources for the information on this site. Much is available, in text or pfd form, right on this site.
Messages: Almost all of Blease's messages to the Senate, 1911 through 1915.