Blackmail, Southern Style

At Jackson, Miss, last week, Banker Fred B. Smith rose to keynote the Democratic State Convention. He actually key-noted the mood of the whole sullen South: "Now is the time ... to let the Democrats of the nation know that the South is not the stepchild of the Party. . . ."

Had the great, long-heralded Southern revolt come at last? For three weeks New Dealers had had cause to worry. Anti-Term IV Democrats in Texas had thrown their State Convention into an uproar by threatening a Party bolt (TIME, June 5). Delegates to the South Carolina convention had also made motions of revolt. Last week, after Mississippi followed suit, a group of Southern "regulars" bustled into secret session in Louisiana. Their job: to devise strategy to lure other Southern states into the rebel camp.

Politicians and pundits had begun to speculate on a fascinating possibility: if the South's presidential electors want to be stubborn about Term IV, they can refuse to vote for the Party's presidential nominee. Precedent, rather than a Constitutional rule, is all that prompts them to string along with the people's choice. If they wish, they can return the 155-year-old Electoral College system to its original intent: to choose the best man for President, according to the electors' lights. Theoretically, the electors could disagree with the voters--even if their states had voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Roosevelt. But was the South really angry enough? Was it anti-Roosevelt enough to throw away the spoils which go to members of the majority party?

More likely, political observers concluded, the South is merely hypersensitive to Washington "interference" in Southern affairs, has decided to hit back. Even Dixie's most ardent New Dealers are tired of Yankee advice on the Negro problem, the poll tax and States' rights. Southern delegates will go to the Democratic convention in Chicago next month with a list of minimum demands: i) less Washington meddling below the Mason-Dixon line; 2) a Southern Vice President--or any Vice President but Henry Wallace; 3) a re-turn to the two-thirds rule, under which Southerners for many decades exercised an absolute veto power on the convention's choice of presidential candidates. Unless these demands are listened to with respect, the "bolting" Southerners have instructions to use a little none-too-subtle blackmail.

The great Southern revolt looked like a shrewdly planned, carefully controlled sulking spell.

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