Undecided

A clean Republican sweep of the Democratic South this autumn is as unlikely as polar bears on Peachtree Street. Nevertheless, the South is unusually restless politically. Nixon, in two trips to Dixie, has attracted more attention than Dwight Eisenhower did in the early stages of his campaigns. Poll after poll reports so many Southerners "undecided" that the Battle for the South could become the most fascinating and far-reaching of the year.

Religious Issue. Most talked about reason for Southern restlessness is Jack Kennedy's Roman Catholicism. "We haven't come as far from '28 as I thought," said a North Carolinian last week. Kennedy is being openly chastised from many a Protestant pulpit. Dr. Ward V. Barr of Gastonia, N.C.'s First Baptist Church says flatly: "I fear Catholicism more than I fear Communism."

In Nashville the Southern Baptists Convention finds its Sunday School Board pamphlet, "Baptists, Roman Catholics and Religious Freedom," in new demand. Published several years ago, the pamphlet has had modest circulation; this summer, requests for 300,000 copies have already rolled in. The religious issue is even being played with a special Southern twist. When New Orleans Archbishop Joseph Rummel issued a pastoral letter deploring the resistance to public school integration, there was an uproar from the fringe. Snarled Louisiana's arch-segregationist Leander H. Perez, himself a Catholic: "The letter can only be interpreted as the Catholic hierarchy's endorsement of Kennedy for President."*

Other Troubles. Widespread talk about the Catholic issue tends to obscure other Kennedy Southern troubles. For one, Lyndon Johnson, the South's choice for President, has generally fallen from Southern grace in his role as Kennedy's running mate. Furious at the liberal civil rights plank in the Democratic platform, his old supporters accuse him of selling out, have coined a new reading for L.B.J.: "Let's Beat Judas." Southern conservatism is on the rise and, as Southern Senators made clear in Congress last week, the conservatives are not enthusiastic over their nominee. Complained one to touring Herald Tribune Newsman Earl Mazo: "Every time you pick up the paper there's a picture of Kennedy with Reuther or Soapy Williams or another fellow like that." Almost unnoticed, moreover, the Southern G.O.P. has been rebuilding. Patronage grubbers have been replaced by fresh new workers. Admits South Carolina Democratic National Committeeman Edgar Brown: "It is now respectable to be a Republican."

Nixon is also helped by the fact that no sizable states'-rights third-party move has developed so far in the South. In past campaigns, Southerners mad at their party voted the third ticket, e.g., in 1948 when the Dixiecrats took 39 Southern electoral votes from Harry Truman (see map). This time, protest votes will likely go Republican.

Beyond Magnolias. Southern states that Nixon has an even chance of winning are Virginia, where Patriarch Harry Byrd has yet to speak a kind word for Kennedy; North Carolina, where Ike four years ago lost by only 16,000 votes and Nixon interest is running high since his Greensboro visit; Florida, where Republicans are strong and Democrats are feuding; Kentucky and Oklahoma, each with considerable religious sentiment running; Tennessee, which has long had a traditional Republican belt in the east and now has an additional G.O.P. vote in the cities; and Texas, where Lyndon Johnson's home-state appeal is countered by a large bloc of conservative Democrats.

Ike carried Louisiana in 1956, but, unlike Ike, Nixon cannot count on the pivotal voting power in the heavily Catholic downstate area and in the New Orleans Negro wards, which this time have been carefully cultivated by Mayor de-Lesseps Morrison's pro-Kennedy organization. In Arkansas, Governor Orval Faubus could hurt Kennedy if he should sit on his hands--and so far he is sitting. South Carolina's fledgling Republicans are dreamily hoping for a Nixon victory because of South Carolina's wide respect for conservative Republican Barry Goldwater, who will stump the state for Nixon. Mississippi, which once had a lethargic "black and tan" Republican organization, now has an energetic white party and big hopes; G.O.P. prospects are better in Mississippi than ever before--but not yet good enough.

The G.O.P.'s future is not all moonlight and magnolias. Early Republican surges have frightened Democrats into shirtsleeve activity. After Nixon's Greensboro triumph, for instance, Kennedy put on a Washington lunch for 60 North Carolina editors. He plans to visit the state twice this fall; Johnson will speak four times. Most dangerous obstacle at the moment for Republicans will be Southern school reopenings with concurrent integration and possible trouble, notably in New Orleans. Federal action, no matter the justice of it, could seriously damage what chances Nixon may have in a South that still remembers Little Rock.

*Last week Kennedy named Presbyterian James W. Wine, a ranking layman in the National Council of Churches, as his campaign aid on religious problems.

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