Any attempt to favor the Confederate soldiers was frowned upon. Laws providing wooden legs and free education for crippled Confederates were suspended. Militia organizations and military schools were forbidden. No uniform might be worn, no parades were permitted, no memorial and historical societies were to be organized, and no meeting of any kind could be held without a permit. The attempt to control the press resulted in what one general called "a horrible uproar." Editors were forbidden to express themselves too strongly against reconstruction; public advertising and printing were awarded only to those papers actively supporting reconstruction. Several newspapers were suppressed, a notable example being the Tuscaloosa Independent Monitor, whose editor, Ryland Randolph, was a picturesque figure in Alabama journalism and a leader in the Ku Klux Klan. The military administration was thorough, and, as a whole honest and efficient. With fewer than ten thousand soldiers the generals maintained order and carried on the reconstruction of the South. The whites made no attempt at resistance, though they were irritated by military rule and resented the loss of self-government. But most Southerners preferred the rule of the army to the alternative reign of the carpetbagger, scalawag, and negro. The extreme radicals at the North, on the other hand, were disgusted at the conservative policy of the generals. The apathy of the whites at the beginning of the military reconstruction excited surprise on all sides. Not only was there no violent opposition, but for a few weeks there was no opposition at all. The civil officials were openly unsympathetic, and the newspapers voiced dissent not untouched with disgust; others simply could not take the situation seriously because it seemed so absurd; many leaders were indifferent, while others--among them, Generals Lee, Beauregard, and Longstreet, and Governor Patton--without approving the policy, advised the whites to coöperate with the military authorities and save all they could out of the situation. General Beauregard, for instance, wrote in 1867: "If the suffrage of the negro is properly handled and directed we shall defeat our adversaries with their own weapons. The negro is Southern born. With education and property qualifications he can be made to take an interest in the affairs of the South and in its prosperity. He will side with the whites." Northern observers who were friendly to the South or who disapproved of this radical reconstruction saw the danger more clearly than the Southerners themselves, who seemed not to appreciate the full implication of the situation. In this connection the New York Herald remarked: