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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism - 5. Southern Liberalism
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Chapter 2i. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 467
advisors and executors of the Northern philanthropists who wanted to do
something for the region. During the ’thirties they received a much more
potent trusteeship j
namely, to bring the New Deal into effect in the South.
The power and prestige of this function, and, even more, the entire series
of recent changes in the Southern social scene, have given them a high
political importance in the South.
As social change gains momentum in the South, the future of Southern
liberalism might become great. But it must be recognized that, outside the
sphere dominated by Washington, its actual influence today on Southern
politics Is still minor. It has as yet little organized support among the broad
masses of workers, farmers and lower middle class. It is mostly a fraternity
of individuals with independent minds, usually living in, and adjusting
to, an uncongenial social surrounding. Many of them are tolerated and even
respected because of their high standing in their professions, their family
background or their general culture. They are the intellectuals of the region
and are responsible for a large part of the entire high-grade literary, jour-
nalistic and scientific output of the region. They are so relatively few that
the student of the South and its problems can hardly avoid coming to know
first-hand and personally a representative sample of the group. They are,
indeed, the cultural facade of the South.
Here and there they have influenced state and local affairs to a limited
extent. During the ’thirties the backing from Washington increased this
type of local political influence. But nowhere in the South are they in power.
The one exception to prove the rule is former Mayor Maury Maverick
of San Antonio, Texas. A few have, however, reached out into national
politics. Only two senators in the Upper and Lower South—Claude Pepper
of Florida and Lister Hill of Alabama (successor to Justice Hugo Black)
—and two or three Southern representatives (notably, Robert Ramspeck
of Georgia) could be considered as liberals. It seems to be easier for a
Southern liberal to win a seat in Congress than to be really influential at
home. One of the most prominent of them. Justice Hugo Black, has
entered the Supreme Court after serving as senator. Quite a number of
Southern liberals have held important positions in the central New Deal
administration and thus, through Washington, moved things quite a bit
in their own South. They have been the distinguished ^^scalawags” of the
’thirties. A representative and prominent man in this group is W. W.
Alexander, the former chief of the Farm Security Administration.
But for the rest. Southern liberalism has its main stronghold in a few
universities and among newspaper editors, both found most often in the
Upper South. President Frank P, Graham of the University of North
Carolina is a national figure—which means much in the South—and is
thus strong enough even to maintain a thoroughly liberal and, in some
respects, unorthodox faculty. North Carolina is, in addition, a fairly liberal
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