Governor Sidney J. Catts: Florida's Bigoted Reformer

Some people are bigger than life - they just are. Sidney Johnston Catts, Florida's 22nd Governor was one of those people. In 1917, Catt became the first Governor of Florida since 1877 (during the period of Reconstruction) to represent a party other than the Democratic Party. As of this date, Catts remains the only person ever elected to a statewide office on the Prohibition ticket. However, Catts was more than just a "third-party" leader.Florida, as was the rest of America, was in turmoil for decades after the end of the Civil War. Racism, anti-foreignism, and anti-Catholicism were rampant. The states of the old Confederacy were even more receptive to intolerance than the rest of the country. This led to the rise of several loud and rambunctious demagogues. The populists won elections across the South with wild, emotional appeals to religious and racial bigotry. If the mass of voters did not agree with the intolerance preached by these men, enough did agree to elect them to afford them great power. Florida's most important addition to the Southern demagoguery was Sidney J. Catts. Catts enjoyed a meteoric rise in Florida beginning in 1916 and while he only won one election, he remained an important political figure in Sunshine State until around 1930. While many condemned Catts, and often for good reason, one cannot doubt he made some important and positive changes in the Sunshine State during his single term as Governor.Catts was a natural born earth shaker. He also threw convention to the wind. After the Florida Democratic Party connived with the State Supreme Court and denied him the Democratic nomination for Governor that he rightly won, he accepted the nomination of the Prohibition Party, defied all odds, and won the General Election. This brief volume sketches the life and political career of Sidney Catts. It is a fair accounting of Catts the man and Catts the politician. There is no doubt that Sydney Catts was a great reformer and there is no doubt that he was a raging bigot. It would not be fair to the reader, or to Catts, to leave out either side of his story. This book also looks at the age in which Catts lived and the attitudes of that age.