Politics and the Fifth Amendment
HOOK, SIDNEY
National Reports Atlanta Tests Two-Party System By Charles O. Lerche Jr. Atlanta In the Congressional race in Georgia's Fifth District—which includes Atlanta, the state's largest metropolitan...
...I'm going to vote for Stevenson, and I never split my ticket...
...De Kalb County, Atlanta's "bedroom suburb," is also pretty much anti-Davis...
...Most interesting are some of the rationalizations offered by Atlanta's elite when they are bluntly asked whether or not they would support Thrower: "I know Thrower's the better man, but I can't—I just can't?bring myself to vote for a Republican...
...I'm going to vote for him anyway, because I want a Democratic majority in Congress...
...Davis is the epitome of the old system...
...Tradition ("My family have always been Democrats"), history ("My grand-pappy fought at Bull Run"), provincialism ("No Yankee's going to tell me what to do"), and simple, uncomplicated inertia explain many straight-ticket votes...
...A lifelong Atlan-tan, a graduate of Emory University and past president of its alumni association, a liberal on racial, economic and international issues, he represents the forward drive of the new Republican party in the South...
...It began with a rather lengthy list of reasons why a real two-party system would be good for Georgia...
...Davis has deeply alienated Negro voters by the Washington hearings...
...Earl Warren is—in the South —a burden that every Republican has to carry...
...No one could devise a neater test of just how sincerely the two-party-system myth is believed by old-line Southerners...
...Thrower is the viable alternative who stands for the future...
...A young, liberal, dynamic attorney, Randolph Thrower, is the Republican trying to unseat the ten-year incumbent, Congressman James C. ("the Judge") Davis...
...He is for low taxes, states' rights and cotton quotas...
...Judge Davis is a run-of-the-mine Talmadge-machine hack, until recently of no importance at all in the workings of Congress...
...It turns out that the two-party system is somebody else's job, to be praised during the period between elections but fought bitterly when a real choice is presented...
...But there are other motives, somewhat more immediate and a good deal uglier, that cause Southern voters to stay with the Davises and repudiate the Throwers: 1. Race...
...I'm going to stay a Democrat...
...Southerners are being told again—openly in Alabama, covertly in Atlanta—that the Democrats are the "white man's party...
...When the Democrats control Congress, Southerners chair key committees in Congress...
...Sure, Davis is a pretty poor specimen...
...If Atlantans really believed what they have been saying for a long time, they would elect Thrower...
...Why do Southerners stick with the Democrats even when it's obvious that they have been systematically victimized by one-party rule...
...Southern reactionaries today find their most fertile territory (except for race) in foreign policy...
...Then, as if compelled to rid itself of the mark of Cain, the editorial boldly concluded: "The Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution wholeheartedly believe in the superiority of the Democratic party...
...They know that he is not the better man, that the voters don't like him or his program, and that Atlanta does not regard him as a good advertisement for the district...
...Davis and his associates are working the cotton-textile industry for all it can give (and it can give a great deal indeed), in return for promises to impose drastic quotas on Japanese cotton imports...
...traditionally...
...This is especially true in Georgia, where a murderous system of representation makes Atlanta a huge cow that is milked for the nourishment of the rest of the state...
...This in itself is a novelty...
...His committee memberships are the District of Columbia and Post Office-Civil Service units, on which he has served with no distinction whatever...
...he is against Federal aid to education, the United Nations and?apparently—the twentieth century...
...Thrower's connection with Emory University can also be expected to lend him some of the local prestige enjoyed by this institution...
...Davis gets things for Atlanta, like the new airport and the Buford Dam...
...Thus, it seems certain that the two-party system is going to flunk its test in Atlanta...
...Thrower speaks for the urban South, filled with a new middle class that cannot stomach the present Democratic leadership...
...Over the years, cynics have often noted that Southern gestures toward the two-party system have had a strangely hollow ring...
...But the people around Davis headquarters aren't particularly worried...
...Atlanta In the Congressional race in Georgia's Fifth District—which includes Atlanta, the state's largest metropolitan area—the possibility of a two-party system for the Deep South is getting a real test...
...The routine, they observe, usually goes something like this: "Yes, I believe in a two-party system...
...Thrower has already begun to take potshots at Davis's vulnerable record and has announced that he's campaigning to win...
...Republican candidates simply cannot promise this...
...3. Economic advantage...
...His campaign speeches (when he has bothered to make any) have been a predictable hodgepodge of old-style Southern reaction and new-style Southern isolationism...
...Probably the only satisfaction for those who have hoped otherwise is the realization that a lot of voters supporting the straight Democratic ticket are going to hate themselves for doing it...
...Many younger Democrats, watching Thrower, look rather wistfully to the day their own party will select candidates like him...
...His antics provoked Adlai Stevenson to sharp criticism and embarrassed even some of his supporters at home...
...A perfect example of this is the editorial which appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on September 30...
...He starts with some advantages...
...Davis's opponent, Thrower, is typical of the Republican breed now sprouting in the South's burgeoning metropolitan areas...
...Many Northern observers fail to recognize that the Democratic party in this area is really an alliance of both ends against the middle: the new Bourbons and the small farmers (tenant and proprietor alike) against the middle-class cities and Negroes everywhere...
...Practically all thinking Atlantans would agree with the theme: Under one-party rule, this state and most of the South as well has existed on a steady diet of dema-goguery, race-baiting and crushing taxes...
...The race issue is breaking out of control...
...On the surface, and using the criteria one would use anywhere else in the country, Republican chances might be considered quite favorable...
...I'll nut up with a lot for that...
...They also know, however, that Davis is the Democratic candidate?and Atlanta isn't ready for a two-party system...
...As the county with the highest per-capita income in the state and the largest percentage of native Northerners, it has little interest either in the details of Davis's platform or in the kind of leadership he offers...
...But they won't...
...There is a quiet boom under way to persuade a Deep South Senator (possibly James 0. Eastland of Mississippi) to try to relinquish his chairmanship in favor of Senator-to-be Herman Talmadge, thus "giving the South a national platform for its new leaders...
...4. Foreign policy...
...2. Regional pride...
...Congressman Davis's first real taste of national fame came from his leading part in the recent incredible "investigation" of integration in the District of Columbia schools...
...The Judge, they figure, is in again?although his majority may be a good deal smaller than usual...
...I hope lots of people join the Republican party...
...The issue is very simple: A good Republican is opposing an avowedly weak Democrat...
...Even more frightening than the actual riots in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee are the rumors of future bloodshed that sweep while and Negro communities alike, fed by conscienceless demagogues on both sides...
...Republicans in the Deep South run only to impress national headquarters in the hope of future favors...
...Following reported pressure by the Democratic National Committee, which was upset by the hearings' obvious effect on the Negro vote in both North and South, the investigation was suspended...
...The mass of lower-economic-group Southern voters has turned to isolationism as a protest against a world they don't understand, and Democratic leadership in the South is having a field day exploiting this trend...
Vol. 39 • October 1956 • No. 43
