According to contemporary newspaper columns, at the time of his appointment as commissioner, Landis was considered a liberal on race questions; two Chicago African-American newspapers defended him against the 1921 efforts to impeach him from his judgeship. However, a number of baseball authors have ascribed racism to Landis, who they say actively perpetuated baseball's color line. James Bankes, in "The Pittsburgh Crawfords", tracing the history of that Negro league team, states that Landis, whom the author suggests was a Southerner, made "little effort to disguise his racial prejudice during 25 years in office" and "remained a steadfast foe of integration". Negro league historian John Holway termed Landis "the hard-bitten Carolinian Kennesaw Mountain Landis". In a 2000 article in "Smithsonian" magazine, writer Bruce Watson states that Landis "upheld baseball's unwritten ban on black players and did nothing to push owners toward integration". A number of authors say that Landis banned major league play against black teams for fear the white teams would lose, though they ascribe various dates for this action, and the Dodgers are known to have played black teams in and around their Havana spring training base as late as 1942.