Cotton Ed Serves Notice

South Carolina's grumpy, mastiff-faced old Ellison DuRant Smith may be the Senate's No. 1 mossback, but South Carolina loves him still, treasures him as a precious relic. South Carolinians affectionately acknowledge that "Cotton Ed"*opposes progress in almost every conceivable form. But by last week many veteran Smithies had become anxious over the opposition of Sixth-Term Senator Smith to a Third Term for President Roosevelt.

Last week Cotton Ed's ancient mustaches drooped like Spanish moss as he heard disquieting news: his own home county (Lee) had named him a delegate to the State Democratic convention, but had specifically instructed its delegates to support Term III.

Cotton Ed garrumphed that he would not "sacrifice . . . the welfare of my State and Nation to be elected as a delegate . . ."; he would not be "a traitor in my own heart." For Cotton Ed Smith will never forget the ghastly shock of the hot day in June 1936, when he saw a Negro preacher offering the invocation at a Democratic National Convention session. In his view, Franklin Roosevelt is leading the party away from White Supremacy, and to Cotton Ed, White Supremacy is as real as the population of his beloved Lee County: White, 7,850, Negro, 16,246.

* The nickname he now loathes originated three decades back, when on campaign trips Mr.

Smith was wont to ride into each town perched majestically on the topmost bale of a wagonload of cotton.

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