Samuel W. Small
Encyclopedia
Samuel White Small was a journalist, Methodist evangelist, and prohibitionist.

Youth

Sam Small was born on a plantation near Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...

, the son of Alexander B. Small, a newspaper editor and president of an express company. Small later said of his childhood that he was “well born…given by kindly parents all the true and religious culture that a boy could have in a loving home.” At thirteen Small enlisted in the reserves of the Confederate Army during the last months of the war. He graduated from high school in New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

 and then attended Emory & Henry College, graduating in 1871. He immediately began a career in journalism even while toying with becoming a lawyer. In 1873, he married Annie Isabelle Arnold, and they had a daughter and two sons.

Early career

The influence of his father secured Small a position as secretary to former President Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...

. In 1878, President James Garfield
James Garfield
James Abram Garfield served as the 20th President of the United States, after completing nine consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Garfield's accomplishments as President included a controversial resurgence of Presidential authority above Senatorial courtesy in executive...

 appointed Small secretary to the United States commissioner general of the Paris Exposition of 1878
Exposition Universelle (1878)
The third Paris World's Fair, called an Exposition Universelle in French, was held from 1 May through to 10 November 1878. It celebrated the recovery of France after the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.-Construction:...

. Despite his other interests, Small retained an “obsession for politics,” and near the end of his life he boasted of having “clasped hands with every president from James Buchanan
James Buchanan
James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....

 to Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...

.”

Small contributed to the Atlanta Constitution a series of dialect sketches under the persona of an old black man, “Old Si,” stories that gained him a national reputation. Unfortunately, Small had by this time descended into alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

, and when he was unable to continue, editor Evan Howell
Evan Howell
Evan Park Howell was an American politician and early telegraph operator, as well as an officer in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War....

 asked Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years...

 to try his hand at similar material.

Evangelist and prohibitionist

In September 1885, while working as a court stenographer and freelance reporter, Small covered a revival meeting of evangelist Sam Jones
Samuel Porter Jones
Samuel Porter Jones was one of the most celebrated revivalists of his day, at the close of the 19th century. Famous for his wry wit and masterful story-telling, he is credited as a principal influence on Will Rogers....

 in Cartersville, Georgia
Cartersville, Georgia
Cartersville is a town in Bartow County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 19,7314. The city is the county seat of Bartow County.-Geography:Cartersville was named for Colonel Farish Carter....

. There Small was so “overwhelmed by conviction of sin” that on arriving back in Atlanta, he immediately started drinking. Nevertheless, four days after visiting Cartersville, Small “pleaded with Christ that he would let me cling to his cross, lay down all my burdens and sins there, and be rescued and saved by his compassion.” Small’s family at first feared he was slipping into madness. Small soon began testifying to his deliverance from alcohol, and Sam Jones now came to hear him preach in Atlanta. “Small’s fame and newspaper connections ensured that his conversion would garner publicity,” and Jones invited Small to be his associate.

Although Small’s collaboration with Jones lasted only a few years, in part because of heavy debts Small had contracted while he was drinking, Small interspersed his re-entrance into journalism with preaching, lecturing, and writing two books that advocated prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...

: Pleas for Prohibition (1889) and The White Angel of the World (1891). In 1889, Small even considered becoming an Episcopal priest.

Later career

Small founded the Oklahoma City Oklahoman
The Oklahoman
The Oklahoman is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma and is the only daily newspaper that covers the entire Oklahoma City area.-Ownership:...

(1889) and the Norfolk (VA) Pilot
The Virginian-Pilot
The Virginian-Pilot is a daily newspaper based in Norfolk, Virginia, and serving the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, southeastern Virginia, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and northeastern North Carolina. The flagship property of Landmark Media Enterprises, The Pilot is Virginia's largest daily...

 (1894). Appointed a chaplain during the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...

, Small also began an English language paper in Havana. Small unsuccessfully attempted to found a Methodist college in Ogden, Utah
Ogden, Utah
Ogden is a city in Weber County, Utah, United States. Ogden serves as the county seat of Weber County. The population was 82,825 according to the 2010 Census. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history, and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a...

 before eventually finding his way back to the editorial staff of the Atlanta Constitution in 1901.

Small also lectured on behalf of the Anti-Saloon League
Anti-Saloon League
The Anti-Saloon League was the leading organization lobbying for prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century. It was a key component of the Progressive Era, and was strongest in the South and rural North, drawing heavy support from pietistic Protestant ministers and their...

. In a florid address to the Anti-Saloon League's 1917 convention in Washington, DC, Small told the cheering crowd that if the United States enacted prohibition, "then you and I may proudly expect to see this America of ours, victorious and Christianized, become not only the savior but the model and the monitor of the reconstructed civilization of the world in the future." Small also kept his hand in politics. In 1892 he ran for Congress as a prohibition-supporting Populist
Populist Party (United States)
The People's Party, also known as the "Populists", was a short-lived political party in the United States established in 1891. It was most important in 1892-96, then rapidly faded away...

.

In 1927, Bob Jones, Sr.
Bob Jones, Sr.
Robert Reynolds Jones, Sr. was an American evangelist, pioneer religious broadcaster and the founder and first president of Bob Jones University.-Early years:...

 asked Small to write a creed for the proposed Bob Jones College
Bob Jones University
Bob Jones University is a private, for-profit, non-denominational Protestant university in Greenville, South Carolina.The university was founded in 1927 by Bob Jones, Sr. , an evangelist and contemporary of Billy Sunday...

. The creed written quickly on the back of an envelope has been memorized and recited daily by generations of Bob Jones University students.

By 1930, Small was the oldest active editor in the South and still wrote three columns of editorials a day. Nevertheless, Small had been injured in a fall during the Republican National Convention of 1928, and he died in Atlanta on November 21, 1931. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...

.
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