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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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Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 453
After this crisis, the Democratic one-party rule has persisted practically
unbroken until now, with the minor exception of the 1928 presidential
campaign. In spite of a formidable armor of constitutional and statutory
provisions for disfranchising the Negro and an extra-legal social pressure
to complement the statutes, the main regions of the white South still do
not dare to have any political division, lest the white factions be tempted
to seek Negro support.® The irony of the situation is that the disfranchise-
ment of the Negro had been argued as the only means of preventing
corruption at the polls and of allowing the whites to divide along natural
political lines. The second goal is obviously not reached, as the one-party
system is still retained j
since it is the only guarantee against Negro
franchise, the elimination of the one-party system would be the basis for
freedom of the whites to split. And to prevent corruption under a one-party
system in a region with the unfortunate traditions of the South—when it
is so difficult everywhere in America even when an opposition party is
present—^is practically impossible. In this vicious circle Southern politics
is caught.
The one-party system in the Souths its supporting election machine with
its restrictions, intricacies, and manipulations; its vast allowances for arbi-
trary administration; and the low political participation of even the white
people favor a de facto oligarchic regime, broken here and there, now and
then, by demagogues from Tom Watson to Huey Long, who appeal to
the lower classes among whites. The oligarchy consists of the big land-
owners, the industrialists, the bankers and the merchants.** Northern
corporate business with big investments in the region has been sharing in
the political control by this oligarchy.
There is an amazing avoidance of issues in Southern politics. ‘‘The
South votes for men—Democratic men—^but rarely ever for issues, unless
the issue is defined in black and white.”^ We have to remember that in a
measure this is a characteristic of all American politics.*" But in the South,
it is driven to its extreme. The chief direct reason for this is, of course,
the one-party system which normally keeps politics within a single political
machine and restricts the scope of political struggle to personalities and
offices. The great Southern orator of the post-Restoration period, Henry
W. Grady, gave the best rationalization of this situation as it is even today
argued by the majority of the ruling class of the region. The reason is
the Negro.
The whites understand that the slightest division on their part will revive those
desperate days [of Reconstruction]. ... So that the whites have agreed everywhere
to sink their differences on moral and economic issues, and present solid and
• There is a rump Republican party in the South, and in a few isolated areas it is actually
dominant. For a discussion of this, see Chapter 22, Section i.
‘See Chapter 33.
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