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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism - 1. The “Solid South”
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454 An American Dilemma
unbroken ranks to this alien and dangerous element. This once done, the rest is easy.
Banded intelligence and responsibility will win everywhere and all the time. Against
it numbers cannot prevail.®
It is not the Negro himself who is f^sared but "the baseness of white
politicians” who might be tempted to use the Negro vote for "nefarious
purposes”:
It may be asked, then: “Why do the Southern whites fear the political domination
of the blacks?” They do not fear that directly. But the blacks are ignorant, and there-
fore easily deluded; strong of race instinct, and therefore clannish; without informa-
tion, and therefore without strong political convictions; passionate, and therefore
easily excited; poor, irresponsible, and with no idea of the integrity of the suffrage,
and therefore easily bought. The fear is that this vast swarm of ignorant, purchasable
and credulous voters will be compacted and controlled by desperate and unscrupulous
white men, and made to hold the balance of power wherever the whites are divided.
This fear has kept, and will keep, the whites “solid.” It would keep the intelligence
and responsibility of any community. North or South, solid.^
But there is a higher principle invoked to explain why "the whites shall
have clear and unmistakable control of public affairs” and why a solid
front must be preserved;
They own the property. They have the intelligence. Theirs is the responsibility.
For these reasons they are entitled to control. Beyond these reasons is a racial one.
They are the superior race, and will not and can not submit to the domination of
an inferior race.®
Against these arguments the Southern liberals hammer away. They
point out that the one-party system fosters mediocrity, demagoguery,
political apathy and irrationality. They point out that fear of the Negro
shadows every political discussion and prevents the whites from doing
anything to improve themselves. The conservative whites counter that
the Southern system does allow for political division—^in the primaries,
though not in the general elections. This, however, is a myth which South-
erners have carefully fostered: in 1940 only 36 of the 78 Democratic
primaries—^less than half—^were contested in the eight poll tax states.®
Thus, even in the primaries there is little opportunity for political division.
But undoubtedly there are sometimes real divisions even in the South
on interests and issues; poor people against rich, the hill country against
the plantation lands, the coast against the inland. But the fact that the
issues have to be fought out under cover of personalities and within a
one-party machine must, particularly in a region of inadequate political
education, confuse those issues. It has, indeed, been the tradition and the
spirit of the "Solid South” to have such confusion, as the party machine is
always sensing, and capitalizing upon, the danger of a serious political
division. The newspapers usually respect this tradition. They publish the
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