bookkeeper in an Alabama bank, to be given a pardon. In, 1919 Catts publicly labeled black residents as part of "an inferior race," and refused to criticize two lynchings. He was quoted in the press as saying that "only the vagrant, vagabond, worthless negro is lynched". When the NAACP complained about these lynchings, Catts wrote denouncing the organization and blacks generally, declaring that "Your Race is always harping on the disgrace it brings to the state by a concourse of white people taking revenge for the dishonoring of a white woman, when if you would . . . [teach] your people not to kill our white officers and disgrace our white women, you would keep down a thousand times greater disgrace." During April 1919, Catts would request the US Department of Labor abolish the Florida Division of Negro Economics. He would also say at the same time that he wanted the US Employment Service's head to be replaced with a personal friend of his. He accused the black officers of the Division of inciting race riots and also said they encouraged miscegenation. Mulberry in Polk County would witness strikes from phosphate miners starting in May 1919. 3,000 workers who were both black and white would end up participating. Catts along with Sheriff Logan would tour the strike zone. After doing the tour he would make an announcement saying he was in support of those who were striking. The mining companies would respond to strikes by importing black laborers as replacements for those who were on strike. Miners who were on strike would at one point ambush a car convoy carrying these workers in the outskirts of Bartow killing a strikebreaker and wounding a mine guard who was a deputy sheriff. Another significant event during the strikes was when a group of 4 white guards from Prairie Pebble Mine would fire on Mulberry, resulting in the deaths of 3 African Americans. Sheriff Logan would arrest and jail the guards in Bartow. Catts would end up removing Logan from his office because he felt he did not do enough to prevent violence in the first place. Later life Catts was ineligible to run for reelection in 1920, and he ran for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, but lost by a large margin to incumbent Democratic Senator Duncan U. Fletcher. On April 14, 1921, the Florida Senate voted to approve a resolution