Political Caravan

In the hot Aiken county courthouse, eleven South Carolina candidates sat patiently in the jury box as a twelfth exhorted the apathetic, shirt-sleeved crowd. Doggedly, a big-nosed man named Marcus Aurelius Stone lit into a rival candidate for governor. "Jimmy Byrnes played poodle dog to Molotov," cried Stone. "We'd won the ball game when Mr. Byrnes fumbled the ball and lost the game . . . But one thing he has never lost is his prestige. If he does go to town, there is an editorial. If he doesn't go to town, there is an editorial." Mr. Stone sat down to no applause, and another gubernatorial candidate took 15 minutes to explain that he favored "less government in business, more business in government." Then in strolled Jimmy Byrnes, every inch the statesman. The crowd broke into enthusiastic applause.

"All I Want." Natty in a double-breasted blue suit and shining black shoes, Byrnes beamed at the crowd and the crowd beamed back. "The more I have seen of the world, the more I think of South Carolina," said 71-year-old Jimmy Byrnes, who had held just about every big job--Senator, "Assistant President," Supreme Court Justice, Secretary of State--except the Presidency and the governorship. He explained how he had been persuaded to run for governor in the hope of "stopping the trend toward centralization of government and socialization." Concluded Byrnes: "At the end of my term, all I want is for people to say, 'Jimmy Byrnes made a good governor.'" Then he slipped briskly out the back way, as a fourth candidate for governor orated to retreating backs.

The other gubernatorial candidates were irritated but resigned. It had been that way all along the route of the political caravan, a unique South Carolina tradition which requires all candidates to stump together through each of the state's 46 counties. Byrnes did not bother to listen or reply to what his rivals said. Outside the building where he had worked as court stenographer 49 years ago, he held court in the sunlight. Then, as his Negro chauffeur held the door, he stepped into his black Cadillac and was whisked away. Said an admirer: "I'll bet he'll get 90 percent of the vote." Drawled another: "Hell, he'll get all of it."

"It Just Won't Work." By the same old South Carolina custom, the two candidates for the U.S. Senate were also touring the state together--but neither dared to affect Jimmy Byrnes's aloofness. Governor J. Strom Thurmond, who had been States Rights candidate for President in 1948, was after the Senate seat held by ex-Governor Olin D. Johnston. All over the state, Thurmond's high-pitched voice nagged at bull-like Johnston. Each tried to outmatch the other in expressing dislike for Harry Truman and his civil-rights program. Thurmond pointed out that Johnston had voted for Truman, and that he had failed to speak out for segregation in the armed forces.

Shouted Thurmond: "He's a Trumanite in Washington and a State's Righter here. It just won't work."

Johnston, a Claghorn orator himself, retorted with glaring eye: "I'm for segregation of the races. God started it and I believe in keeping it that way . . . I'm for state's rights. But you have got to be in the ring with a man to fight him--not whooping and hollering on the sidelines."

The Negroes, who had little to choose between the Senate candidates, were more interested in something that had not happened since Reconstruction days. A Negro, Alfred J. Clement Jr., was running against five-term Congressman L. Mendel Rivers in South Carolina's First District (Charleston). Clement, an official of the respected, Negro-owned North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., had spoken from the same platform as white candidates, had been refused permission only once. When election day came, of course, he wouldn't have a chance. But still . . .

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.