The Only Hope

The South's dissident Dixiecrats had twice broken all modern records for emitting rebel yells, waving the Confederate flag, and complaining about the North. Nevertheless, with the Democratic National Convention and their own Birmingham convention behind them, they gathered in Houston last week and went through the noisy act all over again. The occasion: Governor J. Strom Thurmond's formal acceptance of the Dixiecrat presidential nomination.

South Carolina's Thurmond, who fervently hoped to capture Texas and its 23 electoral votes, made it plain to his cheering audience, at least, that the Dixiecrats were the only hope of the South--yes, of the whole country. He lumped Harry Truman, Tom Dewey and Henry Wallace together and solemnly declared that they all hoped to give the country the "new Russian look." Harry Truman's civil-rights program, he said, was a plot to make the U.S. a police state.

"Shall we," he yelled, "be so blind as to follow those who would lead our people along that gloomy road of disillusionment along which Hitler led the people of Germany, Mussolini led the people of Italy, and . . . Stalin is leading the people of Russia?" He strongly intimated that a sensible man would decide no.

When he was through, the Dixiecrats howled and snake-danced for a full ten minutes.

But they did not capture Texas. In an attempt to get their candidates on the ballot they took full-page newspaper advertisements, pleaded that the whole Democrat-Dixiecrat problem be presented to the voters in a referendum. The Texas State Central Committee, dominated by Governor Beauford Jester, refused. The Dixiecrats still had hope--though their chances looked slim, they were hell-bent to get control of the Texas State Democratic Convention next month.

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