Midnight in Columbia

The young moon had set, enough ballots had been counted to show that Governor Olin D. Johnston was beaten, but old Senator Ellison D. ("Cotton Ed") Smith went right on campaigning. On the night of South Carolina's primary day last week, a contingent of his friends motored to Columbia from Orangeburg, 35 miles away. They wore flaming red shirts, in memory of oldtime General Wade Hamp ton, who drove the carpetbaggers back north and preserved "white supremacy." Senator Smith put on one of the shirts and. like a heavy-set Garibaldi, led the celebrants to the State House grounds. There, beside General Hampton's equestrian statue, he closed his campaign with a ringing speech to the midnight sky, ending: " 'Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet. " 'Lest we forget--lest we forget!' "

Thus closed the first of Franklin Roosevelt's major "Purge" primaries, on a note seemingly far removed from national issues. But by his "white supremacy" speeches Senator Smith reminded Southern Democrats of Franklin Roosevelt's fondness for Northern Negroes, his tacit approval of the Anti-Lynching bill. And the red shirts worn that night were in celebration of another repulse of the carpetbaggers. Instead of being purged, Mr.

Smith had a fat majority of votes, the widest margin of all his six races for the Senate. In the textile towns, millworkers had poured out to vote for Governor Johnston, aroused by President Roosevelt's promise of a better deal for labor. But many mill hands and most propertied people and almost all the cotton growers --sharecroppers as well as landlords-- trooped to the polls to vote for Cotton Ed, the farmers' friend.

"Yes, sir!" said Cotton Ed. "As my daughter Anna said this morning, I may be a heathen, but, by gad, I'm still a fightin' man!"

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