Challenge from the South

Ever since the Dixiecrat revolt of 1948, politicians and pundits have been speculating about the course Southern Democrats would follow in 1952. Truman failed to heal the rift between Northern and Southern Democrats. On the other hand, most of the Dixiecrat leaders lost ground within the Democratic Party. The South's problem this time was how to oppose Truman without leaving the party. Last week the Southern leaders disclosed the first step in their program.

At a quiet press conference on Capitol Hill, Georgia's Senator Richard Brevard Russell announced that he is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Said he: "I am a Jeffersonian Democrat who believes in the greatest practicable degree of local self-government." Would he support Harry Truman if the President is nominated? "I shall not answer that until he is and I see the platform," said straightforward Dick Russell. "... I have never been one of those men who say vote the Democratic ticket even if it destroys my country."

A Weevil's Chance. Some of the biggest stars in the Southern Democrat sky--Virginia's Senator Harry Byrd, South Carolina's Governor James Byrnes, Texas' Governor Allan Shivers, Georgia's Governor Herman Talmadge and Senator Walter George--promptly came out for Russell. All of them know that, at the moment, he has about as much chance of being nominated as a boll weevil has of winning a popularity contest at a cotton planters' picnic. Then what are they trying to do?

Most of all, they would like to encourage Harry Truman to retire, by showing him that the South is ready to stage a first-class revolt. Their greatest complaint against Truman: his race policies. They abhor the proposal for a federal fair employment practices law, which would strike at segregation. The Southerners rationalize their stand by claiming that this problem should be handled by the states.

Whether or not Russell & Co. cause Harry Truman to take himself out, they want the South to have a powerful voice in the convention, both as to platform and nominee. What they will do if the Democrats nominate Truman or a Trumanite, and adopt another all-out civil-rights plank, is uncertain. Dick Russell wouldn't say what he will do. In 1948 he let his name go before the convention, and got 263 votes. But he refused to join the Dixiecrats' post-convention bolt. After a 1952 convention defeat, the Southern Democrats could again try a third party, or they could try to swing the South to the Republican side. Unless the G.O.P. nominee is Dwight Eisenhower, the second course is no more likely than the first.

A third and more novel possibility is being widely discussed south of the Mason-Dixon line. Several Southern states have adopted or are adopting laws which keep presidential candidates' names off the general election ballot. The citizens vote, instead, only for party electors, who will be free to cast their ballots for whomever they wish when the electoral college meets next December.

The 106 electors from nine Southern states (Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia) might vote for Russell, ignoring the national Democratic nominee. They could throw the presidential election into the House of Representatives, where the Southern Democrats could hope to put over their man,* or at least to make a deal with the Republicans.

"Civil Wrongs." In 54-year-old Bachelor Russell, the Southern Democrats have an able, experienced, respected candidate. One of 13 children of a Georgia judge, he was elected to the state general assembly on his 23rd birthday, two years after he had graduated from the University of Georgia law school. He served in the assembly ten years, became its presiding officer. Inaugurated as governor in Depression-strafed 1931 (he was 33, the youngest governor in Georgia history), he slashed expenditures 32%, cut the number of state departments from 102 to 18. Two years later he went to the Senate, has been there ever since, now ranks fifth in seniority.

After supporting much of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Russell broke sharply with the Truman Administration, supported the Taft-Hartley law, opposed the Brannan farm plan. On civil rights, he has followed the Southern line without deviation, defending segregation, the filibuster and the poll tax, opposing FEPC. Arguing that "interfering" Northerners don't understand the problem, he once proposed that the South trade 1,500,000 Negroes for an equal number of Northern whites to "equalize" the racial problem. "My idea is that a good deal of civil-rights legislation should be called 'civil-wrongs' legislation," he said last week.

As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he won acclaim last year for his fair and steady hand on the MacArthur hearings. An expert back-room organizer and a skillful floor leader, he is the best parliamentarian in the Senate. As leader of the Southern bloc, holding the balance of power, he is often called the most powerful man in the Senate.

At the White House, the Russell announcement was greeted with real concern. Harry Truman, who personally respects and likes the Georgia Senator, knows that the movement Dick Russell leads is something bigger than the ineffectual revolt of the Dixiecrat fringe in 1948. It could cause an irreparable split in the Democratic Party; it could prevent the re-election of Harry Truman or the election of the heir he chooses. It cannot be laughed off.

* In the House balloting, each state would have one vote. Thus any Southern state would have just as much power as New York or California.

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