While doing research several weeks ago during that blast of frigid air from the north, I came across a word with a meaning which I had never encountered in my 85 plus years on this earth. Now for someone who has spent his entire lifetime in education, either as a student, teacher, or administrator at the local school district level or higher education (both private and public); how could this happen? I thought that I had a comprehensive education!
This is the headline which I discovered in a 1903 South Dakota weekly:
“‘WHITECAPS’ IN GREGORY.” The secondary headline: “Efforts to Drive Frank Metal Out of the Country” assured me that the story was not about the waves on the Missouri River or the largest lake in Gregory County.
The first paragraph of the news story which appeared in a number of Dakota newspapers in May of 1903 told me just about all I needed to know. “There is every prospect that the United States authorities in Sioux Falls will be called upon to run down and punish members of a ‘whitecap’ society who are terrorizing the people of a certain locality in Gregory County.”
Frank Metal, a successful and prosperous rancher, who lived on Scalp Creek, appears to be singled out as the special victim of the whitecaps. He was a law abiding farmer who lived on a prime half-section of land three miles north of Fairfax. He received the following letter through the Fairfax post office which was written with a rubber stamp:
“Mr. Frank Metal, Fairfax, S. D., March 20, 1903 — Dear Sir: We have so fare [sic] took in all your brag and bad talk about us. But we can not do this any longer. This must be stopet [sic]. So we will give you reasonable time to move out of Gregory County. 60 days time will be given in case of sixty will be past and you want move some quear thing will happen to you. Which will end your life. White Caps, Gregory County.”
Metal was a Bohemian who had always been a good citizen. He had been the victim of numerous crimes from someone in the neighborhood. His stock was poisoned, fruit trees destroyed, and a number of depredations had been committed against him during the previous six years.
It was the general belief in the Fairfax community that someone in the area was interested in getting him out of the country in order to get possession of his farm land.
The persons who sent the letter had been spotted, and no doubt sufficient proof would be had in a short time to warrant arrest by federal authorities. The matter was being vigorously pushed by good, reputable citizens, and the perpetrators will have to settle with Uncle Sam for using the mails for illegal purposes.
Whitecaps were groups who became involved in the whitecapping movement which originated in southern Indiana after the Civil War. They engaged in vigilante justice and lynching. Today, we would call their actions “domestic terrorism.”
In the sixteen years from 1884 to 1900, inclusive, the number of lynchings in the United States was 2,516. Of these, 2,080 were in the Southern States and 436 in the North. Of the victims, 1,678 were Negroes and 801 were white; 3,465 were men and 51 were women.
The different offenses for which the victims were lynched numbered 112. They ranged all the way from throwing a stone to assault and murder. Several men were lynched for writing letters to white women, one for asking a white girl to marry him and several for quarrels with white men.
Throughout the last decade of the 19th century, the cruelty of the lynchers became more pronounced. Burning at the stake and mutilation were becoming more common. During that same decade, six individuals were lynched in South Dakota and eight in Nebraska. During the first six months of 1903, forty-five individuals had already been lynched in America. And remember, the letter which Frank Metal received was dated March 20, 1903!
As early as February of 1889, the editor of the Turner County Herald made this editorial comment on page one of his paper:
“The whitecaps seem to grow in power and violence quite rapidly. It would seem as if free American citizens who elect the men to make their laws would be ashamed to break those laws, with masks over their faces as an excuse for doing what they do.”
In early 1896 an incident had been smoldering for a long time in Day County which finally resulted in violence. A rancher went to Chicago with a carload of stock, and upon his return it was alleged that he had a loathsome disease. His neighbors told him to get out of the country or suffer the consequences. He had several affidavits to substantiate the claim that he had no terrible disease.
The citizens of Day County believed that he was guilty as charged and finally carried out their threats. They caught him out in a remote area late one night and treated him to a new suit of paint and varnish. After the decorating was finished, he was taken to the county border and told to keep on going. His wife had been looked out for by the county for the past year since she was unable to care for herself.
Mob psychology has a strange way of getting individuals to do something when they are part of a group which they would never do if acting alone – remember that!
Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on January 24, 2024