STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUTH

...Stevenson and his associates must conduct an educational crusade to reach the majority of Southerners —Negroes, white workers, small farmers in particular—who have been forcibly denied the ballot or who have been apathetic and resigned to a second-class citizenship...

...During the last decade it was these groups that elected Southern Senators and Congressmen who traveled under the Democratic label at home but voted with the Republican Party in Washington...

...The oil, textile, and power interests picked up the check for this highly synthetic rebellion...

...The little man from Missouri preached a forthright doctrine of civil rights up to the very end...

...Three—Despite the "one-party" press, Stevenson and his aides must expose with great force and clarity every move the Republican-dominated 83rd Congress may make to destroy the gains of the last twenty years...

...Until recently these politicians have not dared join with the Republicans openly, but at the same time they have persisted in sabotaging the Democrats' program nationally...

...Ill If Stevenson and his aides depend upon these chameleons of opportunism, they will be building a Southern Democratic party on treacherous sands...

...Finally, the middle-class of the South is coming into its own...

...Hugh White and his followers openly professed admiration for Gen...

...In desperation he is on the hunt for quick means to compensate for his vanishing influence over the voters...

...In the meantime, a group of loyal Democrats visited National Committee Chairman Frank McKin-ney...

...Led by Stevenson and prodded by necessity, the people of the South will be ready for progressive action so that a genuine Democratic Party can be built in Dixie...

...The Democratic Party then would be reduced to a regional party—without message or meaning for the nation...

...He called upon Sen...

...The Republicans know that many patronage-hungry Dixiecrats can be lured into the Republican ranks by the promise of special favors, and that many other Southerners of wealth will join the party for reasons of economic advantage...

...The Georgia story is different...

...If he succumbs to the blandishments of the Southern wing and relinquishes control, the Democratic Party will die for lack of a national appeal...

...Frank Graham did not get Truman's aid in his unsuccessful attempt to repeal the race - baiting Willis Smith...

...But if the Democratic Party is to emerge victorious in 1956 with sufficient legislative strength to pass a liberal program, retribution must go hand in hand with compassion for those Southern leaders who deserted the Party or at best gave it only lip service...

...Former Chairmen Boyle and McKinney failed to realize that the South is changing rapidly...

...Today, however, his machine has complete control of the state...

...But again, in the words of fiery Maverick, Chairman McKinney "double-crossed" the loyalists, and the Shiverites, after taking a meaningless pledge, were seated...

...Claude Pepper was snubbed by the President and the National Committee in his fight against the Tory George Smathers...

...In South Carolina, for example, a small group of loyal Democrats managed to get the names of Truman electors on the 1948 ballot...

...Clag-horns and are seeking political leaders of either major party with ability to deal with public issues on their merits...

...In almost every instance, the Democratic National Committee had traded with the conservative forces and scuttled every movement of loyal Democrats to liberate their states from the grasp of the Dixie old guard...

...By such means, the conservative leaders of the South have revolted against the liberalism of their Democratic Party...

...The ancient politicians, who sat on their hands or traded with the enemy in 1952, will return to party circles demanding the retention of their traditional powers and reminding the Young Turks that, while other states were succumbing to Eisenhower's glittering promises, only the deep South remained faithful to the Democratic cause...

...The money was channeled into the coffers of the National Committee and later made available to Sen...

...Unlike President Truman, who publicly cursed the Byrds and the Shiverites, Stevenson displayed an intimate knowledge of the economic causes for the political maladies of the South...

...He predicted with remarkable accuracy Shivers' subsequent desertion of the Party and Sen...

...He knows the newcomers will challenge his power and force the party to adopt liberal programs...

...In reality, the political battle to control the South has only begun...

...Sens...

...Like Wood-row Wilson, he has already displayed a remarkable understanding of the region's fundamental problems, but understanding is not a substitute for a first-hand acquaintance with the men and women who have been faithful to the Party's progressivism...

...In short, in matters of the South, Stevenson has "spoken the truth with love"—and on Election Day, quite ironically, only the deep South chose to support him at the polls...

...Yet if Stevenson and his aides submit to the blandishments of these backward-looking Southerners, the Democratic Party will be marked for certain defeat in 1956...

...He had a good and consistent record of liberalism, except on the question of civil rights...

...In this act—his first as party leader—Stevenson traded with the Old South to the keen disappointment of many liberal Southerners...

...It began in 1936 and flowered 12 years later in the rag-tag, abortive attempt to rob Truman of the Presidency by rigging Southern ballots and putting Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond on the ticket...

...Such a standard would bar the reseating of Sen...

...Labor was responsible for McKeller's defeat in Tennessee, and labor sacked Gov...

...Frightened by these challengers of his traditional influence, the old-line Southern politician has devised ingenious methods to control his state's electoral votes and legal tricks to keep the name of the Democratic Presidential nominee off the ballot...

...He quoted Shivers' declaration against the Democratic Party...

...Stevenson's task of leading a "positive and intelligent opposition" will not be complete, unless in attacking the Republican Administration, he exposes their Southern collaborators for what they really are—the scallawags of Northern corporate interests and enemies of progress for the common people of the South...

...With his eye upon the U. S. Senate, he allowed the Georgia electors in November to cast their ballot for the Democratic nominee, but during the campaign his faction did not raise a hand in Stevenson's behalf...

...Price Daniel's trade with the enemy...

...McKinney gave them no promises...

...But if Stevenson is true to the dictates of his conscience and the counsels of his wisest advisers, the Democratic Party will have a new birth of freedom...

...Women are voting in larger numbers, and women's civic groups are becoming centers of up-to-date political information...

...It is winning the outright Dixiecrats who in the past have been supported by Republican money...

...It supported Talmadge in his race against M. E. Thompson, and in exchange Talmadge, with his eye on future nomination to the U. S. Senate,- kept Georgia faithful to the Democratic candidate for President...

...Burnet Maybank of South Carolina, who resigned as committeeman to protest his-Party's stand on civil rights and Stevenson's subsequent endorsement of that position...

...Farmers now read newspapers and have television...

...Jerry Voorhis...

...Negroes are registering in large numbers...

...It is this seizure that Stevenson and the best elements of the Democratic Party must resist and defeat, for if the Southerners succeed, the Democratic Party will lose its appeal to the workers and farmers of the nation...

...The would-be "caretakers" would then find themselves undertakers for a splinter party dominated by Tories...

...A native of China and a graduate of Oberlin College and Union Seminary, Burgess worked for a year with former Rep...

...It is catching the imagination of the industrialists anxious to block unionism, the wealthy farmer who is rich enough to resent "socialistic" farm subsidies, and the rising young businessman too young to remember the Depression...

...Shivers of Texas and Kennon of Louisiana—who betrayed their Party to support Eisenhower — let it be known that they were still Democrats and not Republicans...

...His courage gained for him the undying enmity of many Southerners, and for the last four years he has been the convenient whipping boy of every budding Dixiecrat...

...That Party is making a special appeal to the large and small businessmen who are tiring of Sen...

...Their failure in '48 resulted in a different strategy in '52...

...The Mississippi story, clouded though it was by the confessed sale of Post Office jobs by some of Truman's 1948 supporters, is somewhat similar...

...He is therefore trying to strengthen the conventional barriers to democratic expression—the poll tax, the white primary, the county-unit system, the forcible refusal to register Negroes, and the continued domination of the state legislatures by the kept rural counties...

...For in Kefauver the emerging South had found its spokesman and had put forth its first Presidential aspirant since the Civil War...

...Shivers, Kennon, and Byrnes actually deserted the Party and threw their active support to Eisenhower...

...The Democratic Party's hope for a vigorous future in the South rests not on competing with the Republicans for the votes of the privileged, but on building among the newly emerging groups seeking means of political expression...

...In the spring of 1952 Gov...

...In effect they repudiated the spirit of their pledges at the Convention and surrendered their right to sit in the Democratic Party caucus or participate in the Party's convention four years from now...

...Among this class, the Republican Party is finding new supporters...

...During the same week Govs...

...Richard Russell for aid—but when the Georgia solon chose to rock the campaign away on his back porch in the sleepy town of Winder, Stevenson did not curse the Senator for sulking in his tent and violating his convention pledge...

...In essence they want the privileges of being a Southern Democrat without assuming any party responsibility...

...For the sake of an illusory harmony within the Party, the Administration chose to nullify the oath and to scuttle the Tennessean even in the battle for the Vice Presidency...

...He had campaigned in almost every state and had gained a host of faithful admirers...

...Maury Maverick appeared at the Chicago convention armed with a full delegation of Texas loyalists and demanded that his group rather than the Shiverites be seated...

...Republicans and Southern Democrats in Congress will renew their alliance as they continue to block social progress...

...Only by rejecting the leaders of the Old South and by lending aid and comDAVID S; BURGESS, who served as a Congregational minister in the South for five years, is executive secretary of the Georgia State Industrial Union Council...

...Olin D. Johnstone in his successful attempt to out-Dixiecrat his opponent, Strom Thurmond, in the 1950 race for the Senate...

...The prospects that the job of cleaning, streamlining, and reforming can be done are good— except, perhaps, in the South...

...Despite the well-organized and well-financed opposition, Stevenson holds the future of the Democratic Party in his hands...

...Similar has been the story of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana...

...He has spent a decade in the South, as minister and labor official, working in Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia...

...A few months after the election victory, the liberal-loyalist forces raised $10,000 at a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner for use in future elections...

...Here, in these wayward precincts, the resistance to change and the coolness toward new faces will be as pronounced as opposition to new recipes for mint juleps...

...George, Holland, Smathers, Hoey, Maybank, and others also sat out the campaign...

...Gordon Browning because of his strike-breaking activities...

...McKinney, Truman, and even Stevenson himself picked a safe Southerner, Sen...

...To them the Republican Party both locally and nationally offers only the prospect of a slow deterioration of all the social advances gained so painfully by the South during the last two decades...

...Thus the battlelines within the Democratic Party have been drawn...

...This stipulation must be announced well before any state convention at which delegates are chosen...

...With these electoral votes in his pocket, he attempts to blackmail the national party leaders into submitting to his demands, and to insist that he—and he alone—be recognized by the National Committee as the official Party spokesman...

...Two—Coupled with this emphasis on greater party loyalty, the Democratic National Committee must develop communication with the new liberal groups in the South —the forces which in the years ahead will constitute the foundation of the Democratic Party...

...He also maintained a strong stand for civil rights—without a vindictive-ness so characteristic of so many political Pharisees from the North...

...At the same time, however, Harry Truman allowed the two past chairmen of the Democratic Party to pull the rug from under those very Southerners who believed in the civil rights' cause and to betray those who have attempted to keep the South true to the Party's platform...

...These opportunists deserted the Party in 1952, and they will do it again in 1956...

...Eisenhower and things Republican...

...W^ith some major variations, the Texas battle followed the same pattern...

...Negroes, industrial workers, small farmers, and small business men—these are the scattered and sometimes unorganized groups to whom the Party must appeal in the future...

...We must get back to the principles of Thomas Jefferson," announced the embittered Governor of Louisiana who had failed to carry his state for the Republicans...

...They demanded that all delegates to the national convention be required to take a loyalty pledge to support the Party's nominee in November...

...Last month Sen...

...Maybank blandly told the press that he would not recognize Stevenson as the leader of the Party, and that he, Russell, and other Southern Senators should be the "caretakers" of the Party for the next four years...

...But these man never saw a cent of the proceeds...

...Estes Kefauver...

...And in Tennessee, up to the time of McKeller's defeat by Albert Gore, this ancient Tory rather than the liberal Estes Kefauver had been the sole recipient of the Party's patronage...

...To start such a program, Stevenson himself must tour the South...

...In 1948 the Democratic National Committee made a trade with Herman Talmadge as candidate for governor...

...Byrd and Daniel, and Govs...

...Yet in their efforts to divide the sheep from the goats in the South, Stevenson and his aides must be mindful that the Republican Party, barring a major depression during the next four years, has a growing base of support in the South...

...These "summer soldiers" will return 'to the party caucus in Congress, but they can hardly be regarded as full-fledged Democrats...

...Yet, while successfully damming the floodwaters of democratic protest by these makeshift and often illegal methods, the . traditional Southern Democrat is increasingly alarmed by the growing power of labor and other minority groups within his own national party...

...Wliite was associated, recognizing that group as the official spokesmen for Mississippi at the Convention...

...I will fight for a victory of the conservative element in the Party," declared the Texan...

...It is heartening to report that as a candidate for the Presidency, Adlai Stevenson showed a remarkable grasp of Kefauver's dilemma— and a keen understanding of the problems of the South...

...The result of this sell-out was demonstrated in the dogged refusal of the South Carolina delegation to sign the loyalty pledge at the Chicago convention, and in the eventual desertion of the Stevenson - Sparkman ticket by Byrnes himself...

...And because Kefauver tried to break the shell of the Old South in his fight for the nomination, he will face great difficulties in being renominated and re-elected to the Senate in 1954...

...In 1952, however, Talmadge jammed through his legislature a vicious electoral bill giving him virtual power to make up the November ballot, to name the Democratic electors, and to dictate their votes following the election...

...II In the Democratic convention last summer in Chicago, the Southerners developed an alliance of .expediency with the patronage-controlled delegations of the urban machines in a successful drive to dilute the original party loyalty program and to defeat the spokesman of the New South, Sen...

...Amidst such rapid change and the growing maturity of the Southern electorate, the conservative Democrat knows his power is ebbing...

...John Sparkman...

...He reasoned with Gov...

...But immediately, without specific authorization from the White House, he wrote a letter to the Mississippi Dixiecrats, with whom Gov...

...Struggle for the South By David S, Burgess Atlanta THE GREAT hope of the Democratic Party is that Adlai Stevenson will take it in hand and overhaul it from top to bottom during the next four years, especially by providing young and clean new leadership...

...Upon these convictions, a new Democratic Party can be built in the South...

...Somehow he and the party leaders in Washington failed to understand the inner meaning of Kefauver's candidacy and its relationship to the New South...

...It would also prevent the seating of committeemen who deserted their Party in 1952 to support Eisenhower...

...On the basis of such requirements, the National Committee must demand that each delegate to the 1956 Convention be prepared to sign a pledge that he will support the Party's nominee...

...The reformation of the Party in the South will multiply immediate difficulties, but the long-run advantages of creating a genuine liberal party in the South will enable the Democrats to appeal to all sections of the land as the instrument of an indigenously American progressivism...

...More working people are voting with knowledge of the public issues...

...At the same time, in the racial hate sheets and reactionary press of the South, Kefauver was labelled a Judas who had turned his back upon his own native region...

...The simultaneous nomination of James Byrnes for governor, followed by the reinstatement of a confessed Dixiecrat committeewoman from South Carolina on the Democratic National Committee,' placed 20 The PROGRESSIVE the state firmly in the hands of Dixiecrats by 1952...

...In the urban centers where Negro registration is high, even the worst demagogue of white supremacy must moderate his message and appeal openly for the Negro vote...

...Nevertheless, he was passed over by the Administration and scorned by the intellectuals...

...Adlai Stevenson was forced to inherit the Truman regime's legacy of double-talk in matters relating to the South...

...They look upon the Republican Party as the party of the North—committed to Northern advantage and the continued subjugation of the South...

...Shivers unsuccessfully—but he never reviled this opportunistic deserter of the Party...

...Sens...

...This time they successfully convinced most Southern governors and legislatures to pass bills which threatened to keep the names of future Democratic electors off the ballot in the Southern states...

...To prevent such a catastrophe, Stevenson and his lieutenants must see to it that: One—The Democratic National Committee establishes a reasonable standard of party loyalty...

...At the same time, by virtue of their seniority rights and numerical advantage, the Southern Democrats will attempt to seize the reins of their own party and thereby drive it closer to the Republican line...

...Organized labor, despite five hard years under the Taft-Hartley Law, is on the march...

...Russell refused to answer calls from party workers in Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida...

...fort to the emerging liberals of the New South, will the Democratic Party remain true to its historical tradition of progressivism and free itself from the dead grip of the past...

...Fearful that Stevenson and his aides will adopt such a forthright program, the Southern wing of the Democratic Party has already girded for battle...