By 1900, Mississippi lagged behind other Southern states. It had a one-party government dominated by white Democrats who emphasized not raising taxes, resulting in no paved roads; residents suffered widespread illiteracy and regular epidemics of contagious diseases, the latter spread in part because of the lack of sanitation infrastructure, endemic hookworm; this was the nadir of race relations, marked by a high rate of lynchings of blacks, especially when sharecrop accounts were due to be settled and cotton prices were low; local affairs were controlled by courthouse rings; and the state had few natural assets besides prime cotton land and once important cities on the Mississippi River.