Kingfish Faubus

"Can you think of anything bad in Arkansas today?" asked Governor Orval Faubus. If they could, the voters of Arkansas did not blame the man who in 1957 made Little Rock a worldwide symbol of U.S. racism. Last week, in his bid for an unprecedented fourth term, Faubus handily won the Democratic nomination (and automatic reelection) by a 68,000-plus majority over a field of four unimpressive primary opponents.

Faubus played on the voters' pocketbooks, hogged credit in hour-long harangues for everything from widows' pensions to new factories to higher teachers' pay. His opponents, avowed segregationists all, blamed "Faubusism" for the greatest flight of people from any state in the past decade, but Faubus expertly used the formula of paternalism and social welfare that long spelled success for Louisiana's late Huey ("Kingfish") Long. His victory, said the Arkansas Gazette dolefully, meant "the emergence of one political figure to dominate the state's politics as it has never been dominated before."

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