BYRD'S PYRRHIC VICTORY
George, David G.
Byrd's Pyrrhic Victory He Needed Republican Votes to Beat Liberal Democrat By DAVID G. GEORGE RICHMOND, Va. THE BYRD DYNASTY IN VIRGINIA was shaken to its foundations in the Democratic primary...
...5) Miller carried nearly all of the larger cities and 20 counties, including nearly every suburban county...
...tions in Ford plants...
...After mentioning the high rate of accidents in American industries, the article turns to American farming...
...These essentially conservative persons, who were responsible lor the policy of hedging by Miller and other liberal candidates, have now l>een shown to lack the local influence to which they pretended...
...The city of Roanoke gave Dewey 6,548 last year against 5,236 for Truman...
...Later, members of the administration look over the film, and woe to the workman who appears to be not too active and prompt, or -— God forbid — exchanges a remark or two with the man next to him: liis fate is settled at once...
...Recently, for example, a 'mechanical supervisor' made its appearance in certain shops...
...Here it no^es "the position of semi-slavery" as characterizing the condition of sharecroppers, and discusses the "peonage" of Mexican farmhands in the Southern states...
...e THE ARTICLE THEN TELLS the story of one such victim of the Ford system, the worker Philip Caruso who, after many years of work at the plant, was one day "dismissed from work because of his physical unsuitability for assembly line work, having been turned into an invalid by the inhuman exploitation...
...The article, entitled "Slave Labor in the U.S.A.," gees on: "In its cruelty and ruthlecsness the exploitation of workers by American monopolists surpasses all the forms of exploitation of man by man that ever existed...
...Finally, they could capture the Governorship in 1903, thereby proving that the machine's Republican-aided minority Mineak-through in 1949 was a Pyrrhicvictory...
...One can judge of the furious growth of this exploitation of workers by the fact that the net profits of corporations in manufacturing industries were only 3 per cent in relation to invested capital in 1036, but 12.6 per cent in the years of the war, and more than 20 per cent in the postwar years...
...6) If Virginia election laws provided for a run-off primary when no candidate receives a majority in Ihe first primary...
...BATTLE'S VICTORY was obviously a Republican-Dixiecrat coalition triumph but it still falls far short of being a cause for rejoicing in the reactionary camp...
...Ford also turns the motion picture to the service of exploitation...
...There the Byrd forces can still influence some Negro votes by contributions to churches, state jobs and other appeals to venality...
...4) Miller carried three Congressional Districts, and would have carried at least three others, except tor the divided anti-Byrd vote...
...APOLOGISTS OF AMERICAN capitalism," continues the article, "strain every nerve to convince tho whole world that the United States has a high level of wages...
...Labor has made fine progress, but has yet to develop adequate skilled political leadership, or even a third of its voting potential...
...In the Democratic primary Roanoke gave Battle 5,363 against 4,372 for Miller, 1,626 for Edwards and 950 for Arnold...
...In the U.S.A...
...But Byrd pressure in the closing week cut Edwards down, especially in Richmond, where he polled only 4,000 of 34,000 votes cast in the city of which he was formerly mayor...
...Miller would almost certainly be the winner...
...About 320,000 people voted in this primary, compared with the previous record of 223,000...
...Women are paid half as much for their work as men are...
...In dealing with the latter question it refers to a statement made in ^he New York Times by a Methodist parson, Hecker, as describing the conditions of serfdom on the plantations at Daytona Beach, Florida...
...The Negroes, splendidly led in many sections and on the state level, have serious points of weakness in soma localities, especially in parts of the First and Second (Newport News and Norfolk) Districts...
...The cast-offs from the Byrd machine, together with a number of cautious "fence-sitters" of the past, have exerted too much influence upon the liberal forces...
...2) The winning margin was more than • u p p 1 i e d by approximately , 40,000 Republicans who responded to desperate appeals to enter the Democratic primary to save the Byrd machine...
...For example, the two "stuffed shirt" precincts in Richmond's west end are staunchly Republican...
...Never before hud the machine polled less than 63 per cent of the vote...
...UNTIL THE VOTES were counted, liberals had hoped that Edwards, and to a lesser extent Arnold, would attract machine votes...
...Edwards received 15 per cent of the vote, while Arnold got 7. Miller got 35 per cent...
...THE BYRD DYNASTY IN VIRGINIA was shaken to its foundations in the Democratic primary on August 2. Competent observers regard the outcome as a Pyrrhic victory for Byrd, won only with the full support of his Republican allies...
...In the Second and Third Districts, represented in Congress by conservatives Porter Hardy Jr...
...Their influenca should be greatly reduced as a result of the recent primary, in which tho great bulk of the nnti-B^rd vote was obviously produced by the sincere liberal forces, With purposeful organization, and a clear-cut program of principles, and with candidates who can stir ever larger numbers of citizens to pay their poll taxes, register and vote, the liberal fortes couhi not be stopped in Virginia...
...Turning to the employment of women, the article says: "Even more inhuman in the United States is the exploitation of women and children...
...They should also stand a good chance against Watkins M. Abbitt in the Fourth -all the better chance because he was elected with liberal support anil has broken every pledge he made...
...Most of all, the liberal forces must reorganize on a statewide basis, with a definite program based upon principles, as well as common understanding...
...unfortunaUjj^much of it from liberal ranks...
...Breakdown of the vote by Congressional Districts shows that the Byrd delegation in the House of Representatives, which cast eight of its nine votes for the Wood Labor Bill, is in for trouble in the 1950 primaries...
...Anyone able to add can figure for himself that the primary vote exceeded the Dewey-Truman vote, and that the Republicans constituted Battle's main strength...
...laws prescribing equal pay for equal work exist only in nine out of 48 states...
...A breakdown of the figures reveals the extent of Republican participation, especially in the cities and the eastern and northern counties...
...This time its vote fell under 43 per cent...
...Only 300 Ilichmondcrs voted in the Republican primary, which attracted about 5,000 in the entire state (as compared with Dewey's vote of 173,000...
...and J. Vaughau Gary, Miller personally triumphed, and the Byrd machine could get only about 30 per cent of tho vote...
...Even in the Eighth District, stronghold of reactionary Howard B. Smith, the Byrd forces could not muster a majority...
...TO mm THESE MEATS, the liberal forces must take stock of their weaknesses, as well as their strength...
...This is a special dial with colored lights which permits the foreman to spot automatically the workers who are slow in their work...
...It was gratefully welcomed by Battle, t—--¦David George is a free-lance writer and has long been a student of Southern politics...
...As one of the examples of work slavery the article dwells on the condi...
...The way was made easier by AttorneyGeneral Almond, who confused the election officials with conflicting opinions until few, if any, cha^Jpnges were made although Virginia's election laws clearly restrict the right of primary participation to those who supported the party's candidates at the last general election...
...The third candidate-, Horace Edwards, broke with the Byrd machine to make the race, and attracted support of a number of liberal leaders as well as some of the 50,000 Negro voters, most of whom supported Miller...
...The camera man unnotieeably photographs the assembly line work in slow motion...
...Remmie L. Arnold, wealthy pen manufacturer, spent a lot of money to gainer the smallest vote...
...It now appears that the only "safe" Byrd district next year will be the Seventh, where Burr P. Harrison is the incumbent Congressman...
...It says: "The celebrated Ford essembly line turns men into 'robots.' Ford's hirelings are ever striving to improve the sweat labor system at the plants...
...Republican participation in the primary was publicly urged by former Republican National Committeeman Henry Wise and many other leaders...
...In their attempt to justify this claim they resort to the usual cheater's trick — they quote tho so-called 'average wage.' But in the United States a thin stratum of labor aristocracy k bribed by the monopolist capital which exploits both home colonial slaves, such as Negroes, Mexicans, and representatives of other non-AngloSaxon nationalities, and the peoples of other countries, so that it is easy to use the 'average' wage as a screen hiding the beggarly wages of the overwhelming majority of U. S. A. workers who are compelled to live in semi-starvation...
...Several facts stand out as most significant: (1) Byrd's candidate for Governor, ~ John S. Battle, received only 42.7 per cent of the Vote and a margin of only some 22,000 over Francis Pickens Miller, the liberal standardbearer...
...To begin with, the Byrd myth of invincibility has been destroyed...
...In the United States there are many professions to which women are nut admitted...
...But on August 2 they cast 2,400 for Battle against 400 for Miller, with about 500 divided between Edwards and Arnold...
...The article concludes: "Capitalist America is a place where refined brutality and exploitation reign and which is a vast camp of forced labor and slavery...
...However, even in these nine states the action of these laws is extremely limited: they do not extend to the branches of economic activity in which women's labor is used most extensively...
...They could-^yroture a number of seats in 'Congress inwWML^md control of the state legislatUfelnrBSt.' ^fm^> iiiuld take Harry Byrd's seat in the United States Senate in 1952...
...This reflects a tremendously increased interest in politics which will inevitably cause more and more to vote in future years...
...With good candidates, willing and able to carry their fight into the counties, in a furrow-to-furrow campaign, liberals could win in the First, Third, -Filth, Sixth and Eighth Districts (the latter being Howard Smith's seat...
...It was a four-way contest, with Battle the undisputed choice of the Byrd forces, and Miller the choice of labor and most liberals...
...Richmond cast some 34,000 votes in the Presidential election of 1948, and the same number in the Democratic primary, despite the fact that Dewey had polled 14,569 in Richmond...
...who hailed Wise as a "patriot...
...Slave Labor in the USA •irTpHE YOKE OF BOURGEOIS I oppression," wrote Moscow's Literary Gazette recently, "the chains of hired slavery press down with increasing force on the American proletariat which is gasping for breath in the vise of unemployment, starvation, and political disfranchisement...
...The Ninth District, where Miller beat Battle by 2,000 votes, is represented by Thomas B. Fugate, who cast the only Virginia vote against the Wood Labor Bill...
...3) The Byrd candidate received a majority of the vote in only one of Virginia's nine Congressional Districts, and broke even in another...
...Liberals interpret the primary as a promise of complete victory in the near future...
...Last year they cast 3,200 votes for Dewey against 600 for Truman...
Vol. 32 • August 1949 • No. 33
