Christopher Newman Midwest Political Science Association 2004
Elgin Community College Dark Tobacco Patch War—Revolution Analysis
7
1908 and 1910.
39
Although some local lodges persisted in the period 1912-1915,
deterioration for the Association as a whole was inexorable with success. Achievement of
the Association goal of a price for tobacco from which a farmer could live meant that the
reason for its existence had ended. Even the Association’s periodical, the Black Patch
Journal, counseled the Night Riders, “Rider, turn the reins of your horse’s head
homeward and there dwell in peace. The human heart can not condemn your zeal, but
common sense does your foolishness.”
40
The Dark Patch Tobacco War, being limited in time and space and being well
documented, provides an opportunity to evaluate the validity of some theories of
revolution. The boom and bust in tobacco prices, coinciding with the period just before
and just after the collaboration of the American Tobacco Company and the Regie,
provides an almost textbook example of Gurr’s J-curve model of relative deprivation,
“revolutions are most likely to occur when a prolonged period of objective economic and
social development is followed by a short period of sharp reversal.”
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The success of the
Night Riders in reversing the economic effects of the J-curve steadily upward in 1906-
1909 can be used to investigate the effect when an economically generated revolutionary
movement achieves its economic goals. The Night Riders—in light of their control of
local law enforcement and judiciary—also provide an opportunity to examine the effect
of a high degree of control of coercive resources as suggested by Tilly.
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39
On Bended Knees 169.
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Tobacco Night Riders 176.
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Why Men Rebel 52-53.
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“It follows more or less directly that the greater the coercive resources—including
private armies, weapons, and segments of the national armed forces—initially controlled
by the revolutionary coalition, the more likely the transfer or power.” Charles Tilly, From
Mobilization to Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 1978)
[hereinafter “From Mobilization to Revolution”] 216.
Convention