As U.S. senator, he advocated penalties for interracial couples attempting to get married, criticized US First Lady Lou Hoover for inviting a black guest to tea at the White House, and was the architect of Section 1325.

[13] His appeal to the millworkers and sharecroppers was based on his personality and his view that made the "inarticulate masses feel that Coley was making them an important political force in the state.

"[14] In fact, little to no policy was tied to Blease but his invectives and shared tongue with the mill workers won him their favor.

[16] Blease promoted his image as a champion of the common people throughout his career, describing himself as the “poor man’s best friend”[17] while his weekly newspaper during the Twenties encouraged voters to “save South Carolina and Ring Rule and Corporate Control” and elect friends of the “Farmers and Laboring Men.”[18] Both Blease and supporters of his also promoted him as a supporter of working people.

He denounces his enemies, sticks to his friends, declares he has nothing to explain and nothing to apologize for, hits hard at the hostile press, attacks high taxes and those in office who imposed them, gives his opinion of the creation of new offices to be filled with political ‘pets,’ declares his devotion to the working man’s cause, and so on until the driving, dynamic concluding rhetoric is drowned in cheering.

He can express the grouches, the hopes, the irritations, the ambitions of those who believe in him.”Blease was elected governor in 1910 because he "knew how to play on race, religious, and class prejudices to obtain votes.

The black Republican had lost an appeal for his conviction of forgery in 1905 by an all-white jury and was sentenced to hard labor.

Refusing to serve for a conviction that he claimed resulted from racial discrimination, Murray had left the state permanently for Chicago.

A proposal put forward by Blease (and passed into law) segregated the black and white convicts of county chain gangs.

[30] Despite his racist politics and contradictory approach to reform, a number of positive measures were nevertheless enacted during Blease’s time as governor.

262) “by authorizing its enforcement by duly authorized agents of the commissioner of labor as well as by himself and the inspectors connected with the department.”[35] A law of February 1914 allowed for labor organizations with a national or international charter to “form mutual associations, incorporated or unincorporated, for the purpose of aiding their members or their beneficiaries in times of sickness and death by levying equitable assessments for the payment of sick relief or death benefits, upon compliance with the terms of this act.” Another Act from that same month provided for railroad warning boards to be erected.

In his gubernatorial inaugural address in 1911, he said: I also, in this connection, beg leave to call your attention to the evil of the habitual drinking of Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, and such like mixtures, as I fully believe they are injurious.

It would be better for our people if they had nice, respectable places where they could go and buy a good, pure glass of cold beer, than to drink such concoctions.

[45]In 1912, Blease faced Ira B. Jones in the Democratic gubernatorial primary and narrowly won the contest, and subsequently another term as governor.

[50] However, after numerous blunders including his speech at the 1912 National Governors' Conference in Richmond, Virginia, Blease's popularity had waned and the incumbent, Senator Ellison D. Smith was able to secure re-election by 15,000 votes.

[50] Lieutenant Governor Charles Aurelius Smith succeeded to the governorship and performed ceremonial functions during his five days in office.

After leaving office, Blease moved his criminal law practice from Newberry to Columbia and continued railing against his political enemies.

[51] He occupied his time giving speeches in rural towns and discussing his use of the governor's parole power in national forums.

A third candidate, Robert Archer Cooper, won the support of many textile mill owners alarmed by Bleasism and Manning's progressive reforms.

Blease placed first in the August 29 Democratic primary, but fell a few thousand votes short of the majority necessary to avoid a runoff election.

[55] But as the political climate turned more reactionary after 1919, when the state and nation suffered with postwar economic adjustments, Blease's popularity rebounded.

[57] Such an assertion in an overwhelmingly Protestant state, while the Ku Klux Klan was at the height of its power, ruined Byrnes's political hopes that year.

In 1925, he told a Charlotte, North Carolina newspaper: "I think the greatest mistake a white man ever made was to put his hand in his pocket to educate a nigger.

After immediate protests from Northern Republican Senators Walter Edge and Hiram Bingham, the poem was excluded from the Congressional Record.

[60][61] Bingham described the poem as "indecent, obscene doggerel" which gave "offense to hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens and... to the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

He brokered a compromise between dueling factions and shepherded a bill through congress which criminalized unlawful entry into the United States, thus paving the way for Section 1325.