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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism - 1. The “Solid South” - 2. Southern Conservatism
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Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 455
generalities contained in the various candidates^ platforms and speeches
but usually abstain from giving information on the real issues which might
sometimes be involved.
Even admitting, therefore, that the one-party system allows for a
certain number of issues and divisions, it must be maintained that, in a
considerable degree, the one-party rule of the South obliterates healthy
democratic politics, both in national and in local affairs. There is a consider-
able amount of tryth in W. E. Du Bois’ bitter characterization:
The white primary system in the South is simply a system which compels the
white man to disenfranchise himself in order to take the vote away from the Negro.
. . . The mass of people in the South today have no knowledge as to how they are
governed or by whom. Elections have nothing to do with broad policies and social
development, but are matters of selection of friends to lucrative offices and punish-
ment of personal enemies. Local administration is a purposely disguised system of
intrigue which not even an expert could unravel,^®
2. Southern Conservatism
Democratically organized people’s movements, giving voice to the
needs of the simple citizen and a power basis for his full participation in
the control of society, do not thrive in this political atmosphere. To an
extent the lack of organized mass participation in government is a general
American characteristic.® The South shows even less popular political
interest than the rest of the country. Except for the Ku Klux Klan, which
lacked positive political goals, the Prohibition movement, which was based
more on emotion than on reason, and the Populist movement, which, in the
South as all over the country, was loose in organization and confused in
aims and which achieved little, the South has never experienced organized
mass movements of a political character.
There have been few spontaneous movements to improve the well-being
of the masses of people, such as trade unions or adult education. Even the
farmers’ cooperative movement has been lagging in the South,^^ and what
has come in has been due mainly to the efforts of the federal government.
The Southern masses do not generally organize either for advancing thei;
ideals or for protecting their group interests. The immediate reason most
often given by Southern liberals is the resistance from the political oli-
garchy which wants to keep the masses inarticulate. This has also been the
initial situation in most other regions and countries, but in these others
eventually the organized and self-disciplined mass movements have come
to form the very basis for a revitalized democracy. The deeper reasons are
again the low level of political culture in the South, which has become
solidified partly in the region’s steadfast struggle to keep the Negro from
participation.
*See Chapter 3^
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