POLITICS AND SEGREGATION
In all parts of the Republic, thoughtful people
are talking about realignment of political
parties. On many issues, including appeal to
bloc-voting Negroes in the big cities, the
Republicans and the Democrats have grown too much
alike. The South can split them by voting against
both and setting up a climate for new political
alliances.--_News and Courier_
Following the Supreme Court’s desegregation decision, politics have
reflected South Carolina’s intense preoccupation with the integration
issue. The Negro, of course, has always been an important factor in
the state’s politics. However since the New Deal period the national
political parties and the federal government have no longer been
content to allow the white South to handle the race issue without
“interference.” Reflecting the sentiment of Northern liberal elements,
they have been insistent on the extension of civil rights to Negroes
in the South. This fact, increasingly important since World War II,
has been the principal cause for the reaction against the national
Democratic Party in South Carolina in the presidential elections of
1948, 1952 and 1956. Political factions were unable to solve their
differences within one party and, at least on the level of presidential
elections, rival groups emerged to challenge the supremacy of the
regular Democratic Party. They did not contest that party’s hold on
other levels.
In state wide elections of 1954-1956 the race issue transcended all
others with but one important exception, the J. Strom Thurmond-Edgar
Brown senatorial election of 1954. Both rabid segregationists and
“liberals” criticized this concentration on race. The _News and
Courier_ believed the constant political agitation of “the race issue”
since the Supreme Court decision had upset “an era of good will,
harmony and progress” in race relations in the South. “Tension ... and
danger of civil disturbance” had replaced the previous racial harmony.
It blamed “a small militant group of white and Negro radicals” who
had revived an issue which Southern politicians had “for years” kept
out of the political arena. On the other hand David D. Carroll of
Bennettsville, risking his “freedom from ‘assault and arson,’” accused
“inter-state lynch-leaders” of stirring up the issue for private
political gain. “Thus a truth-starved South,” he said, “tragically
believes that today’s issue is a spontaneous racial crisis, never
suspecting its partial origin in sinister politics.”[399]
Appeals to keep the segregation issue out of politics have gone
unheeded. Its political worth is too great to be ignored. Segregation
was “as surefire as political fuel as home, church, mother, and Wade
Hampton,” stated the _Independent_. As a consequence, the state
suffered from “crack pot oratory and poorly considered prosecutions and
impractical laws” at a time when “imponderable, quiet, reserved, never
relenting, never compromising resistance” was needed.[400]
While the full import of the segregation decisions of the Supreme
Court was not fully realized in state politics until the presidential
campaign of 1956, the gubernatorial election of 1954 provided a good
example of the use to which South Carolina politicians put the race
issue. In that election Lieutenant Governor George Bell Timmerman
Jr. opposed Lester Bates, a Columbia businessman and a novice whose
political experience was limited to service on the Columbia City
Council. Timmerman, the successful candidate, developed two campaign
themes--the race issue and Bates’ alleged business malpractices. In
a series of unproven charges, the Lieutenant Governor made good use
of smear techniques. On May 26, a few days after the Supreme Court’s
original decision, Timmerman charged Bates with “sleeping in the same
political bed” with South Carolina NAACP officials. He declared that
the school segregation problem could not be solved “under leadership
of the NAACP’s candidate [Bates].” The following day the _Independent_
carried a political advertisement by “friends” of Timmerman which asked
South Carolinians if they wanted as governor “a man who would owe a
political debt to Mojeska Simkins [then secretary of the state NAACP],
the _Lighthouse and Informer_ [a Columbia Negro newspaper now defunct],
James M. Hinton or the NAACP?” The advertisement also wondered whether
Bates was “ashamed to admit NAACP support or afraid to deny it.”[401]
By way of degrading Bates further for his alleged connections with
the NAACP, Timmerman, even before the Court decision, declared that
the “NAACP has degenerated into a subversive organization in South
Carolina” and “lives and breathes the ‘big lie.’” (To this James M.
Hinton replied that the charges were and would remain “political
demagoguery” unless Timmerman offered substantiating evidence. He urged
Timmerman to make available to Attorney General Brownell “any and
all information” in his possession which indicated subversion in the
NAACP.)[402]
Bates was not above these same tactics. He criticized Timmerman’s
proposal that the state establish three school systems--one white,
one Negro, and one integrated--and dismissed it as a “hastily devised
plan which would include mixed schools in South Carolina.” Bates
favored segregated schools “for the peace, happiness and contentment”
of both the white and Negro races. Offering no specific proposals
to the voters, he advocated establishment of a special committee
of distinguished South Carolinians to consider ways of meeting the
problem. Action should be based on the recommendations of that
committee. Characteristically, Timmerman replied with the allegation
that Bates’ plan was “proposed” by James M. Hinton.[403]
The campaign was not without its irony. In a statement that must have
been galling to Timmerman, the Columbia _Lighthouse and Informer_,
in reference to Timmerman’s triple school system proposal, said: “It
was more than astounding and gratifying that the younger Timmerman
should show the liberality to come out openly for the mixing of the
races in a segment of the South Carolina schools. We believe he is the
first candidate for high public office to take such a stand in South
Carolina. The _Lighthouse and Informer_ congratulates Mr. Timmerman
upon the advancement he has shown in this respect.” In the same vein
the Marion _Star_ asked if the triple school proposal had been made by
Timmerman in a bid for NAACP support.[404]
In 1954-55, while attitudes were hardening on the race issue, there
was increasing criticism of the national political parties and the
traditional role of the South in national politics. Many like the
late Senator Burnet R. Maybank, felt that both national parties had
sold the South down the river. Segregationists frequently blamed the
South itself. For too long, they cried, the solid South had forfeited
its right to political consideration by remaining “in the bag” of the
Democrats.[405]
In establishing the mood of political rebellion in 1956, segregationist
bitter enders intensified their criticism of the national parties.
“Political forces at the national level,” declared the _News and
Courier_, were “lined up against the Southern way of dealing with the
race question.” This Southern way had enabled the Negro, “a late-comer
in western civilization,” to meet the challenges of the white man’s
culture. The steady progress which the Negro had made in the past
was now in danger of being destroyed by these “misguided agitators”
from outside the South. Only through unity could the white South meet
this threat. Along the same line, the _News and Courier_ criticized
the national Democratic Party for seeking Negro votes in key Northern
cities and states. “How long will bribery of minority blocs” in the
name of “welfare” control national politics, it asked. “Ever since F.
D. Roosevelt lured the Negroes away from the Republicans with bigger
and better promises, the weak rather than the strong have been shaping
the course of the Republic.” The _News and Courier_ observed that “of
all the racial and nationality groups” subjected to such bribery, the
Negro was “most easily manageable.” He had always been “managed” by
whites.[406]
Wails of woe came from other quarters. Anyone selecting his national
party on the basis of its position on the racial problem “really
has no place to go today,” declared the _Record_. Yet the paper
found itself in a dilemma. Only lukewarm toward the idea of a third
party, it eventually endorsed Eisenhower in the 1956 campaign.[407]
More outspoken was Charleston’s Representative L. Mendel Rivers. He
thought it “tragic” to see President Eisenhower and leaders of both
parties “supinely bowed to the demands of an association which follows
the Communist line of lying, of vilification and untruth aided and
abetted by an iron curtain of a Northern press which is ceaseless and
relentless in its vilification of our people.” This “capitulation” the
Charleston solon thought to be “the most fraudulent and hypocritical
surrender of principle in the history of this republic,” which if
carried to its logical conclusion would “bring a flow of blood
unequalled since the tragic times of the War Between the States.”[408]
Thomas R. Miller of Florence expressed another extreme viewpoint when
he wondered
how any loyal, intelligent Southerner, or any other white
American for that matter, can vote for a man that openly
tells the South that the Supreme Court decision was right,
is the law of the land, and should be obeyed, is more
than we can see. Stevenson is the spiritual successor to
Roosevelt, who sowed the seeds of racial hatred and started
this country down the road to Communism, and to Truman,
the happy little piano-banger, who cultivated and nurtured
both--who administered the _coup de grace_ to Southern
white civilization, who consigned unborn children to racial
mongrelization and slavery under the Black Race, which is
what the Communist has in store for the South, and which
will be the lot of our children if our people don’t wake
up! If the people don’t believe it, let them take a little
time off from pleasure-seeking, money-making, starting new
organizations and clubs every day, and study it out for
themselves. If this country isn’t going straight down the
line of the Communist pattern, then “there ain’t a dog in
Georgia.”[409]
The political course that extremists would follow in 1956 depended on
the action of the state Democratic Party. They themselves, nominally
Democrats, entertained the hope that they would be strong enough to
control the party as the Dixiecrats had done in 1948. In South Carolina
the state Democratic convention is held much earlier than in other
states. Consequently, it was in early March when the county conventions
met as preliminaries to the state convention. In many of the county
conventions, generally in the lowcountry, extremists were in control.
This was illustrated by the actions of the Florence County Democratic
convention which adopted resolutions urging restoration of the ⅔ rule
in the national party nominations; reaffirming the delegates’ firm
support of states rights; praising the Citizens Councils and urging
Democrats to give them “whole-hearted support;” commending the _News
and Courier_ “for its constancy and unfailing zeal” in fighting racial
integration; and rendering the “heartfelt thanks” of the convention
to Editor Thomas R. Waring “for his courage, his fearlessness and his
devotion to duty.”[410] Other conventions adopted similar resolutions.
The state Democratic convention met in Columbia on March 21.
Approximately 525 delegates attended, of whom two--one from Richland
County and another from Beaufort County--were Negroes.[411] Governor
Timmerman reflected the mood of the delegates in his address to the
convention:
We meet today at a time when our freedom is imperiled--our
freedom to choose our associates and the associates of our
children--our freedom to make and enforce our own local
laws in accordance with the wishes of our electorate--our
freedom to establish and maintain our own local
institutions without interference or intimidation--these
freedoms and many more are threatened by the deliberate
attempt to destroy constitutional government and to invade
rights of the states and their people....
When we think in terms of racial mixing, remember that it
was first advocated in the United States by the Communist
Party. It was then and still is a part of the Communist
program to create dissension and discord. It is a tactic in
the Communist plan to divide and conquer. Racial mixing in
the South is a very real and very meaningful part of the
Communist conspiracy.[412]
The Democratic Party of South Carolina, while recognizing a nominal
affiliation with the national Democratic Party, considers itself
autonomous in state political affairs. In contemplating their course
of action in 1956, party leaders weighed the advantages of continued
amicable relations with the national party against the disadvantages
of a potential revolt against their leadership in the state. Elements
loyal to the national party dominated the state convention. They were
strongly anti-integrationist as was evidenced by a resolution adopted
on the second day of the convention. The delegates resolved that the
Fourteenth Amendment in no way applied to education; that the Supreme
Court’s decision was an “illegal and unconstitutional” verdict based on
“sociological and psychological works of comparatively unknown authors,
some of whom were foreigners;” and that the federal government was
guilty of encroachment on the rights of the states. The strength of
party loyalty was shown by the fact that the convention agreed that
“the remedies for the ills which beset us arising from usurpations,
encroachments, unprecedented actions without legal justification and
unreasonable centralization of government” could best be resolved
within the Democratic Party.
While professing complete loyalty to the party, the convention urged
“the States of the South and all others believing in constitutional
government” to counsel together, adopt a program of joint action and
present a united front at the national convention. The Palmetto State
Democrats also urged other states to follow the South Carolina example
of adjourning their state conventions to reconvene after the national
convention.[413]
In directing the efforts of South Carolina Democrats to achieve an
all-Southern pre-convention unity, the party convention appointed a
steering committee headed by Governor Timmerman. A second purpose of
the committee was to acquaint other Southern states with the efforts
and intentions of the South Carolina Democracy. As committee chairman,
the Governor wrote letters to all Southern senators, congressmen,
governors and Democratic national committeemen. All of the letters,
prefaced with the statement “South Carolina Democrats want to remain
in the National Democratic Party,” said substantially the same thing:
The South could expect an anti-Southern platform and nominees unless
pre-convention unity could be achieved and a united front presented at
the convention.
Response to the appeal was generally disappointing. Southern senators
and congressmen considered it a “sugarcoated” Dixiecrat movement.
However, the Governor was able to secure the calling of a convention
of state party chairmen at Atlanta in July. This meeting adopted
a resolution which urged unity but within the Democratic Party.
Toward this end, another conference was recommended, this time to be
attended by Southern governors, convention delegation chairmen and
vice-chairmen, and members of the convention platform and resolutions
committee.[414]
This second parley was also held at Atlanta in early August. Four
governors and three United States senators attended along with
approximately thirty other political officials. Again advocates of
“Southern independence” were in a minority and the convention adopted
a declaration which urged unity but again within the Democratic
Party.[415] For all their efforts, Southern Democrats achieved only a
minimum of unity.
The _Morning News_ and _Independent_ were skeptical of these maneuvers,
viewing them as posing the threat of a potential third party movement.
The _Morning News_, furthermore, pointed out the inconsistency of
Southern Democrats damning the national party for its attention to
minority groups and at the same time demanding special treatment
because of minority standing.[416] But the _News and Courier_, not
forgetful of Strom Thurmond’s leadership of the Dixiecrat movement
in 1948, thought South Carolinians should take pride in Governor
Timmerman’s emergence as leader of “Southern Independence” at a time
when other Southern politicians were shielding their timidity “with the
time worn cloak of party loyalty.”[417] Others were no less critical
of the emphasis on unity within the party. The _Record_ considered the
declaration by the second Atlanta conference “quite docile,” “timid in
tone,” and “disappointing.”[418]
At the Democratic National Convention in August the South Carolina
delegation was primarily concerned with securing an acceptable
platform. Governor Timmerman spoke for the delegation before the
platform committee. He warned that a civil rights plank infringing upon
the constitutional rights of the states, a pro-integration plank, or an
approval of the school desegregation decision would insure a Democratic
defeat in November. The basic issue was not “sectionalism, race _per
se_, or special privilege,” he maintained. It was whether “this great
Democratic party of individual freedom and states rights shall survive
or ‘rot with radicalism.’”[419]
The pleadings of the Southerners were not without success for the
civil rights plank adopted by the Democrats was much milder than
it might have been. In regard to the Supreme Court decision it was
nearer the Southern position than that of the Republicans. No direct
endorsement was given the decision, and force was rejected as a
method of accomplishing compliance. However the Democrats recognized
Supreme Court decisions in general as “part of the law of the land.”
Contrary to Southern wishes, the platform also endorsed previous
Democratic accomplishments in the field of civil rights, e.g., armed
forces integration, and urged the curbing of the filibuster in Senate
debates.[420] In the latter respects the Democratic platform was
further from the Southern position than was that of the Republicans.
Reaction to the platform varied with the more moderate elements
generally considering it a compromise or a Southern victory. However,
the _News and Courier_ thought that despite “some weasel words,” the
platform represented “a complete victory for Northern viewpoint and
complete defeat of the South.” To the Charleston paper the platform
added up to “FEPC, mixed schools, Federal investigation of white
Southerners and enthusiastic endorsement of integration in the armed
forces.” The trouble was that people had their terms confused, declared
the _News and Courier_. A “compromise” on the civil rights issue would
have been no civil rights plank at all. A Southern victory on the
issue would have been a platform expressing opposition to the court
decision, invasion of states rights, FEPC and integration in the armed
forces.[421] The _Record_ characterized the platform as “an effort
at straddling, not actually the fence but an area just left of the
fence.”[422]
Concerning nominees, the South was also not without success in that
Adlai E. Stevenson, the least objectionable of the leading contenders
to the South, won the nomination for President. However, the Tennessee
liberal, Estes Kefauver, loathed by Southern extremists as a traitor to
his section, was selected for Vice-President. The general strategy of
the South Carolina delegation was to vote for Governor Timmerman as a
favorite son in the hope that a candidate less enthusiastic about the
Supreme Court decision than Stevenson would be nominated.
The _News and Courier_, as was to be expected, blasted the Democratic
ticket. It described Kefauver as “an unprincipled opportunist, a
Southerner who sold out the South for a mess of NAACP votes.” As for
Stevenson, he was “another Franklin Roosevelt.” The rasping voice of
Charleston warned that the United States would be unable to survive
“another scholar-gentleman-socialist in the White House.” In general
agreement, the _Record_ thought Stevenson would be “under virtual
compulsion from the NAACP, CIO and other integrationist groups to act
federally against the South.”[423]
The upcountry _Independent_, on the other hand, heartily endorsed the
Democratic ticket. Stevenson was characterized as “a man of decision,
wisdom and an understanding of the basic problems confronting the
American people.” The addition of Kefauver gave the Democrats “an
exceptionally strong ticket.”[424] The _Morning News_, under Editor
Rogers, was noncommittal.
The reconvening of the state party convention was the next act in the
political drama. The delegates were about equally split as to whether
to support the national party nominees or to back an independent
movement. When one state party official after another endorsed party
loyalty, the convention, by a narrow vote of 167 to 152½, officially
agreed to stand by Stevenson and Kefauver.[425] The _News and Courier_
pictured the party crawling back “‘into the bag’ of the socialistic
integrators.” Governor Timmerman, who had urged party loyalty, received
a special share of _News and Courier_ wrath. Once “one of the South’s
most lucid supporters of States Rights,” he had descended to using
“unworthy demagoguery” in supporting “his retreat from the spirit of
Southern independence.”[426]
Endorsement of the national party platform and nominees by the state
convention set the stage for another political revolt against the
Democratic Party. Such a movement, the origins of which will be noted
subsequently in greater detail, developed immediately following the
state Democratic convention. A considerable division of opinion existed
within the state over the desirability of an independent movement.
In general terms it was one of lowcountry versus upcountry. Speaking
for the latter the _Independent_ opposed “the will-o-wisp of a ‘third
party,’” which would harm rather than aid Southern efforts to preserve
segregation. It found fallacious the argument of the independents,
namely, that the Southern states, by combining forces, could throw
the election into the House of Representatives. Past political
movements had shown that the South would not unite. Moreover, even
if the election were tossed into the House, either the Democratic
or Republican candidate would be elected; the South would gain
nothing. Questioning the motives of those leading the movement, the
_Independent_ suggested that the opposition to the Democrats was based
“less on the segregation issue” than on other considerations. These, it
said pointedly, were economic--special interests arraigned against the
welfare of the working public.[427]
The _Morning News_ was also outspoken in opposing the revolt. Editor
O’Dowd thought it “politic, advantageous and wise” for South Carolina
to preserve its ties with the national Democratic Party. He chided
those South Carolina Democrats who kept themselves “in a state
of permanent rebellion against the National Party.” Such persons
served only the cause of disunity. According to O’Dowd, criticism
of the national party’s liberalism was pointless. The secret of the
party’s strength traditionally was “the presence of liberal forces”
and the balance these struck with the conservatives. He noted that
Thomas Jefferson, who was “almost sacred” to Southern Democrats, was
“further ‘left’ for his day than [Michigan Governor G. Mennen] ‘Soapy’
Williams.” Picturing the Democratic Party as the political bailiwick
of “Harriman-Williams-Kefauver and the ADA” was simply waving the red
flag. The Democratic Party, O’Dowd noted, was also the party of “Walter
George, Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson, Olin Johnston and the Southland.”
Under the new editor, James A. Rogers, the _Morning News_ changed its
political line. While not unsympathetic to the revolt, Rogers took
the common sense position that the most effective protest against the
Democratic Party was a vote for the Republican candidates.[428]
The _News and Courier_, the state’s leading press advocate of
“independence,” did not understate its editorial theme. The Democratic
Party had become infested with “goons, eggheads, radicals, and NAACP
agitators.” The Republicans were almost as bad. There was, in reality,
no place for “conservative white voters” to go. The South was not
bolting the Democratic Party; rather the party had long ago bolted the
South. The real third party was not that of the Southern Independents
but the Democratic Party gone Socialist. This situation had created
problems, not only in regard to public school integration, but also
“business interference and high cost government.” The South’s duty
was to redeem “the rest of the Republic from Negro politics” and
restore “honor, decency and liberty” to the political arena of the
nation. But the _News and Courier_ sadly acknowledged that the South’s
minority status left it in a position of such “helpless ignominy”
that its protest would probably be ineffective. Yet by voting against
both national parties Southerners could at least “preserve their self
respect.”[429]
Following refusal of the state Democratic convention to endorse
“independence,” the _News and Courier_ printed a lengthy series of
“letters to the editor” commenting on the political situation in
South Carolina. A majority of these advocated Southern independent
political action and held that the state’s delegates should have bolted
the national Democratic convention. Most urged formation of a new
Dixiecrat Party or presentation of a slate of independent electors as
a protest against both national parties. Various names were suggested
as nominees, most prominently Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia and
General Mark Clark. Another suggestion called for the formation of a
third national party which would appeal to “constitutionalists” and
conservatives like Governor J. Bracken Lee of Utah. It would oppose the
“socialism” of the other national parties.
A few of these letters were written by persons prominent in white
supremacy groups, including Micah Jenkins, state Citizens Council
president and chairman for South Carolina of the Federation for
Constitutional Government, and Stanley F. Morse, president of the Grass
Roots League of Charleston.[430] But most came from persons of no
particular significance in political circles. A sampling of quotations
taken from these letters reflects the state of mind of the writers:
Another John C. Calhoun is the crying need of this hour,
for whom we could all vote in full confidence to represent
us in Congress for constitutional government.
We don’t have any leaders in the nation today--we have
drivers. Southerners are being driven like cattle to the
slaughter.
If it ever was a time for a Ben Tillman it is now.
I am a Democrat, a follower of Jefferson, Cleveland,
Wilson, and Robert Taft. [!] I have nothing in common with
the present National Democratic Party whose name and
organization have been captured by the Radical Socialists
and semi-communists of the Northern city slums, assisted by
the crackpots, egg heads and pseudo-intellectuals of the
Northern colleges.
What the AFL-CIO is planning on doing to us is not
just “plain” brainwashing. We are in for a THOROUGH
brain-sudsing and scrubbing until every trace of our
Southern ways and traditions is gone and we come out
“integration bright.”
The complete subservience of a lot of our politicians to a
master such as party instead of principle is a deplorable
state of affairs for this nation.
Our timid and seduced politicians and their cohorts
endeavor to shield themselves by “working within the party.”
Among the letter writers the Democrats were not without their racist
supporters. One warned: “Vote Republican ... and you won’t have as
many rights as the Negro has ... the word ‘segregation’ will become
extinct.... If he [Eisenhower] is reelected you can expect worse.
Should he die, it will be ‘NIX-on’ whites and probably a desegregated
Supreme Court.”[431]
Efforts to organize an independent political movement in the state
began even before the decision of the state Democratic party to
support the national party nominees. In early June Micah Jenkins began
distributing petitions seeking the necessary 10,000 signatures to place
an independent slate of electors on the general election ballot. He
charged that the Democratic Party, made up of “radical, minority and
labor groups,” would be unable to protect the interests of the South
without alienating “the Negro, labor and the Americans for Democratic
Action radical elements.”[432] This early effort achieved negligible
success.
Following refusal of the state Democratic convention to endorse a
separate slate of independent electors, the dissident extremists
held a meeting in Columbia and organized the “South Carolinians for
Independent Electors.” Their immediate concern was to get 10,000
petition signatures which had to be in the office of the Secretary of
State not later than September 6; the organizational meeting was held
August 27. Chairman of the group was Farley Smith, son of the late
Senator “Cotton Ed” Smith. Prominent among those attending were Micah
Jenkins and S. Emory Rogers, leaders of the Citizens Council movement.
The organizational meeting issued a manifesto which declared that the
Independents were seeking to give voters of the state “an opportunity
to protest” against both national parties.[433] More than three times
the number of signatures needed were secured before the deadline, a not
inconsiderable achievement.
The Independent revolt, like that of the Dixiecrats of eight years
before, stemmed directly out of the segregation conflict. Editor Rogers
of the _Morning News_ stated flatly that the Supreme Court’s decision
was “the underlying cause” of the movement. Though there may have been
much truth to the Anderson _Independent’s_ statement that the real
reasons for the movement were economic, there was no gainsaying that
the Independents presented themselves as the champions _ne plus ultra_
of white supremacy. Such was admirably illustrated in a pamphlet which
they distributed. A brief summary is informative: A vote for Stevenson
was a vote for integration according to “the warning uttered by the
South Carolina Citizens Councils,” which were “representative of the
states rights thinking of thousands of South Carolinians.” The civil
rights platform of the Democratic Party was a “complete defeat” for
the South, adding up to “FEPC, mixed schools, Federal investigation
of white Southerners and enthusiastic endorsement of integration in
the armed forces.” (A verbatim quotation from a _News and Courier_
editorial of August 16, 1956, p. 16-A.) The regular Democratic Party
in South Carolina was a “scalawag” party, “to which most Negroes
belong.” The national Democratic Party was the mouthpiece for “Rep.
Adam Clayton Powell of Harlem, Walter Reuther of the AFL-CIO, Mrs.
Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Adlai Stevenson and the turncoat
Southerner, Estes Kefauver,” all enemies of the South.[434]
On other occasions the Independents were prone to emphasize non-racial
issues and decry “the trend toward government centralized and
socialized, in Washington.”[435] Thomas P. Stoney, former mayor of
Charleston who was to become one of the Independent electors, declared
that “the time has come to serve notice on the left-wingers and
crystal-ball gazers of both national parties that we’ve gone just as
far as we’re going” toward “100 percent socialism.”[436] Harold Booker,
a Camden newspaper man, told an Independent rally: “In fighting for the
election, you are fighting for your homes, families and Southland.”[437]
Originally the Independent electors endorsed no candidate but in
October they decided to back Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia and
Representative John Bell Williams of Mississippi for President and
Vice-President respectively. That Byrd announced he was not a candidate
did not faze the Independents. The _News and Courier_ commented that it
“would rather have Harry Byrd president than any other man in public
life.” It described Representative Williams, whose claim to fame
included popularizing the term “Black Monday,” as a “distinguished
Southerner,” the type of man “whom South Carolinians respect.”[438]
The Independents announced their position in several political
advertisements in newspapers throughout the state. Typical was the
following, which, it might be observed, directly attacked Adlai
Stevenson but did not mention President Eisenhower:
Do you want mixing of the races in schools, factories,
shops, offices, restaurants--at the point of a bayonet if
necessary? If so vote for Stevenson and Kefauver.
Do you want to do away with unlimited debate (filibuster)
which is the only protection the South has against laws
that big cities of the North will force upon us? If so,
vote for Stevenson and Kefauver who unalterably oppose
freedom of debate.
Do you want the Right-to-work law in South Carolina
repealed? If so, vote for Stevenson and Kefauver who are
dedicated to repeal of the Taft-Hartley law.
Do you want a President who would stop tests of H-bombs and
enable Russia to dominate the world? Then Stevenson is your
man. He and Bulganin want to stop these tests in America.
Do you want Socialism to replace the free and independent
form of government under which America has become the
greatest nation in the world? Then vote for either national
party. Both are dedicated to Socialism.
Do you want to live under the domination of political
machines? Then vote for and with the politicians who place
party label above principle.
The prominence given economic issues is significant. Independent
leaders had two goals: to sound the tocsin for reactionaries and to
show to the country that their movement was premised on grounds other
than racial. Economic policies advocated by Stevenson and the national
Democrats were smeared as “a new America built on Socialistic and
Communistic theories.” In view of the wide use of the term “socialism,”
the _News and Courier’s_ definition is interesting. Socialism, it
said, “would give bigger ‘benefits’ to farmers, old people, veterans,
little business men, workers, unemployed persons, the disabled and
children.” This would mean “more handouts for everyone, except the
big corporations--and the government would run them.” Inflation,
controls and higher taxes accompanied such a program. The Independents
also criticized Kefauver’s advocacy of “World Government under which
the United States of America would become a satellite nation under
Communist control.”[439]
The Independents never attracted the active support of prominent
Democrats in the state. An important exception was James F. Byrnes.
In an address which the _News and Courier_ considered “the speech of
a statesman,” the former governor, senator, war mobilizer, secretary
of state and Supreme Court justice, urged South Carolinians to desert
both national parties and to back the Independents. He criticized
Eisenhower’s support of integration in the District of Columbia and
pictured the Democratic Party, whose nomination for the vice-presidency
he had once coveted, as being “dominated by the bosses of the big
cities, the Americans for Democratic Action, the CIO and the NAACP.”
The _Independent_ received Byrnes’ speech less sympathetically. The
up-country paper declared that “the spectacle of this aging and
embittered politician trying to explain unsuccessfully how he arrived
at this dead-end would merit sympathetic pity were it not part of
a calculated effort, based upon hatred for the Democratic Party
that fed and clothed him for over 50 years, to reelect a Republican
president.”[440]
During the course of the election campaign, the _Morning News_,
_Record_, _News and Courier_ and _Independent_ each took a different
position on the question of political revolt. With the exception of
the _Morning News_, which changed editors, the papers continued the
positions which they had taken in the pre-campaign period. The _Morning
News_, under Editor Rogers, was sympathetic to the Independents but
refrained from advising its readers as to how to vote. Rogers’ proposal
for an independent movement to support the Republican candidate went
unheeded. The _Record_, too, was sympathetic to the Independents but
ultimately endorsed the Republicans. It considered a vote for the
Independents as a less effective protest than one for the G.O.P. The
_News and Courier_, which luxuriated in its own world of perpetual
political frustration, gave unqualified endorsement to the Independents
as “a grass roots protest without professional leadership.” It
represented “the people of South Carolina standing up for their rights,
in a spontaneous movement which could overthrow the forces controlling
the State Democratic Party.” Out of it might “come a force to redeem
the Republic and reshape United States history.”[441]
The Anderson _Independent_ attacked the movement, its leaders and
its motives. The “agitation” was described as “another effort to
give aid and comfort to the Republican Party and its millions of
Negro adherents.” The Independents included “an unusually high
proportion of rejected office-holders and worn-out political hacks,”
“tub-thumpers” who were using the race issue as a screen for other
issues, mainly economic. When the Independents issued a statement
decrying “the perversion of taxation to a tool of social reform for
the redistribution of wealth,” the Anderson paper concluded that they
opposed “such laws as social security, old age pensions, federal wage
and hour laws to protect workers, federal funds for school lunches,
and numerous other activities designed to benefit the vast majority
of citizens who are not blessed with the status of the independently
wealthy.”[442] This statement was not without irony in view of the
_Independent’s_ violent opposition to labor unions and to the repeal
of the state’s right-to-work law.
The same paper was no less critical of the Republicans. A vote for
either the Republicans or the Independents was “a vote for sending
South Carolina school trustees to jail.” Its editorials contained
such loaded and politically indelicate phrases as “‘Put’em in Jail’
Eisenhower,” “‘jailing judges,’” “Richard M. (for Mixer) Nixon,”
“naming Negroes to the South Carolina federal bench,” and “a vote for
Ike is a vote for integration.”[443]
In the campaign the Democrats made only slightly less use of the race
issue than did the Independents. Democratic strategy was to present
the latter as Republicans in disguise and then to attack the racial
policies of the Republicans. Democrats called Eisenhower “the greatest
integrator since Abraham Lincoln” for his endorsement of the Court
decision; his appointment of Chief Justice Earl Warren; his elimination
of segregation in the armed forces (“Except for this, it might not
be necessary to continue the draft.”); his abolition of separate
recruitments for Navy stewards; his abolition of segregation in the
Charleston Naval Yard; his abolition of segregation in all veterans
hospitals (“The helpless sick are denied any choice.”); and his
abolition of segregation in Washington. Indicative of the Democrats’
attitude was the use of a quotation from an NAACP report stating: “When
freedom, equality, and justice shall have been fully realized for every
citizen, historians of tomorrow may well look back to the year of 1953
as the beginning of the end of social discrimination and segregation in
the United States.”[444]
The Democrats made wide use of state officials in reassuring voters
that the South’s best hope lay with its traditional party. Congressman
William Jennings Bryan Dorn declared that the support of the national
Democratic Party by Senator Richard B. Russell and Herman Talmadge of
Georgia was sufficient proof for him. The Democrats also emphasized
such issues as Democratic control of Congress and the appointment of
federal judges. State executive committeeman E. P. Riley of Greenville
asked, “Do you want judges selected by our senators, who believe in our
way of life, or do you want them selected by Negro Congressman Adam
Clayton Powell ... [and] Dewey and Brownell, whose only thought of the
South is hatred?”[445]
The Republicans soft-pedalled the race issue and even made some efforts
to attract Negro votes. An undated open letter from State Republican
Chairman Oscar W. Pitts urged all South Carolinians, “regardless of
creed or color,” to support Eisenhower.[446] Barrington Parker, a
Washington attorney sponsored by the Republican National Committee,
told the Palmetto State Voters Association that “no thinking Negro
can go to the polls to vote the Democratic ticket.”[447] Political
advertisements of the only Republican candidate in the election,
Leon P. Crawford, the mayor of Clemson and the opponent of Senator
Olin D. Johnston, made no reference to the race issue. They noted,
however, Crawford’s belief in “firm aggressive pursuit of States
Rights measures.... Constitutional government of the people, for the
people and by the people ... [and] less Federal meddling in State
and local schools and other affairs.”[448] Henry Gaud, a Charleston
County Republican leader, told Carolinians that segregation was not the
issue in the election. Segregation had been used by the Independents
to get “prejudices aroused.” The real issue was “whether or not this
government is going to become totalitarian. Stevenson believes in
socialization.” He agreed with the Independents that “leftwingers and
racketeers” ruled the Democratic Party.[449]
Election results showed approximately 138,000 votes for the Democrats,
75,000 for the Republicans and 88,000 for the Independents. Generally
the upcountry counties voted strongly Democratic while the lowcountry
voted Independent. Eisenhower carried two counties, Aiken and
Beaufort in the lowcountry. The _News and Courier_, still frustrated,
expressed disappointment and indignation over the vote for Stevenson.
According to the voice of “independence,” white South Carolinians
again had betrayed themselves to the “compulsory race mixers, Northern
busybodies and professional South-baiters.” They were disloyal “to
their forefathers--such men as Wade Hampton and John Calhoun.”[450]
Some consolation was derived from the fact that for the first time
since Reconstruction, the Democratic Party in the state received less
than an absolute majority of the votes cast. Yet it should also be
noted that slightly more than 70 percent of the voters were against the
Independents.
The Negro vote cannot be evaluated accurately but indications are that
it was split fairly evenly between the Democrats and Republicans. For
example Columbia’s Ward Nine, a traditional bellwether precinct for the
Negro vote in the state, gave 551 votes to the Democrats, 504 to the
Republicans, 56 to the Independents. Many Negro dominated precincts
throughout the state went Republican, reversing the 1952 results.[451]
Then the Negroes had voted overwhelmingly Democratic.
Although most of the drive behind the Independents petered out with
the election returns, leaders of the movement endeavored to keep the
organization alive. In January 1957 a meeting was held in Columbia,
attended by 75 persons. Talk centered on plans for taking over control
of the state Democratic Party organization. Since this could not be
immediately achieved, the 75 had to be content with the establishment
of a permanent organization outside the party. Farley Smith was
reelected chairman of the Independents.[452]
Because of the large anti-Democratic vote in South Carolina in 1952
and 1956, many consider the state at last ready for a bona fide
two-party system. The more conservative, however, favor continuation
of a one-party system. M. H. Sass, in a revealing newspaper article,
thought that “the very last thing that would be desirable for South
Carolina in the foreseeable future” was the two-party system. Such, he
declared, would “result in the political fragmentation of the South
along social and economic lines.” Southern conservatives would be
aligned with non-Southern conservatives while “Southern workers and
smaller farmers would be in alliance with their national counterparts.”
Such an arrangement would not only be “a severe blow to the South’s
maintenance of its separate identity, culturally speaking,” but would
also give “the balance of political power ... to the Negro.” Under
these circumstances “questions of economic policy, labor relations,
etc., would become paramount issues.” The presence in South Carolina of
“an abundance of raw scalawag material,” said Sass, would insure chaos
if a two-party system were established.[453]
In the political arena, then, the Supreme Court’s desegregation
decision and the increasing Negro efforts to achieve integration have
resulted in a continuation and intensification of the use by South
Carolina politicians of the race issue. In 1958 indications are that
this situation will not end until the Negro vote becomes important
enough to be vied for by politicians.