Frank L. Stanton, author of some of the most popular poems and songs of his era, for thirty-six years delivered his rhymed optimism each day on the editorial page of the Atlanta Constitution. Although the Constitution championed the emerging New South, Stanton's writing--with its frequent use of Negro and poor white or "cracker" dialects--presented the old order with nostalgic fondness. As an article in the Nation said shortly after his death, Stanton represented "the sentiments of his own race both in the South where he sang and elsewhere among that large population which likes to be reminded at a distance of the plantation and the pickaninny, with remarkable fidelity." His "Just from Georgia" column led to his being designated the first poet laureate of Georgia in 1925. But, despite that distinction and the national popularity of "Mighty Lak a Rose" and others of his poems, Stanton sometimes claimed not...