The Negro Vote

Longtime Democrat Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a Harlem minister and one of three Negroes in the U.S. House of Representatives,* skillfully cadged a cigarette from Presidential Press Secretary James Hagerty one afternoon last week, flecked a speck of dust from his faultlessly tailored flannels and turned to face the assembled White House reporters. He had just come from a conference with President Eisen hower, and he had something to report: this year he likes Ike.

Powell bowed to Eisenhower's "greatest contribution" in the civil-rights field, but made it clear that one reason for his switch was that he was piqued with Adlai Stevenson for snubbing him. Most Republicans were aware that their convert is a vari-plumed politico who in the past has been found on the left, center and right of some issues. But three inescapable facts emerged from Powell's switch: 1) Lightly as Negro intellectuals may regard Powell, he is a politician of indisputable influence. He has served six consecutive House terms, is pastor of one of Harlem's biggest churches (the Abyssinian Baptist, with 9,500 members), and, above all, has a demonstrated talent for bypassing the intellectuals and communicating directly with the Negro man-in-the street. 2) His ill-fated Powell Amendment to the school-construction bill (no federal money for segregated schools) and his battle for its adoption during the last session of Congress made the name of Powell a Negro household word. 3) Sensitive to the slightest change in the Negro political pulse, Adam Powell doubtless feels there is political mileage to be made in an early jump toward the G.O.P.

Since Franklin Roosevelt's first reelection in 1936, the Negro vote has been one of the sturdiest links in the Democratic Party's often fragile chain of minority blocs. But as Powell well knows, the link is weakening under the abrasion of the civil-rights issue. In Baltimore, for instance, there are signs of a major shift in the big Negro vote--20% of the city's total. In 1952 it was Democratic, almost 7-3; this year it may split evenly between the parties. Reason for the possible shift: Maryland's steady civil-rights progress under Republican Governor Theodore McKeldin, Ike's personally encouraged desegregation of public facilities in nearby Washington. Civil rights is also challenging the bread-and-butter issues for the Negro's political attention in such cities as St. Louis, Cleveland and San Francisco.

But a 20-year habit is not broken easily, and for all the restiveness, most of the nation's estimated 3,500,000 Negro votes probably will go to Adlai Stevenson again this year. The 75% margin by which he won them in 1952, however, is now expected to be reduced to something like 60%-65%. In states where national or local races are close, e.g., Missouri, California. Michigan, Ohio, New York, such a pro-Republican shift could be all-important.

*The others: Chicago's William L. Dawson, Detroit's Charles C. Diggs Jr.. both Democrats.

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