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Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 477
good share of its seats, although so few Negroes are permitted to vote.®
The large amount of nonvoting among Southern whites similarly makes
each vote count more. The small electorate, the one-party system, well-
organized local machines, as well as other factors already referred to,
create a near permanency of tenure for the average Southern member
of Congress which is seldom paralleled in the North. With seniority as a
basis for holding important committee posts in Congress, and with acquaint-
ance as an almost necessary means for participating effectively in congres-
sional activities, the Southerner’s permanency of tenure gives him a decided
advantage in Washington. This is especially true when—as now—the
Democratic party is in power: it controls the most important positions in
Congress, and it relies heavily on its disproportionate representation from
the South.
There are two important limitations, though, to the South’s influence
on the Democratic party and thereby on the nation. First, it can practically
never hope to control the Presidency, since the Democratic candidate for
President is almost sure of the South but must be especially attractive to
the North.’^* Second, the Democratic party is solicitous of the Northern
Negro and has been successfully weaning his vote away from the Republi-
can party.®
To the national Republican party, the South has for a long time been
a place from which practically no support could be expected, and Southern
Republicans were for the most part persons whose votes for nomination had
to be bought up at the national conventions.® To the Southern Republicans,
the national Republican party has been a source of federal patronage. To
Negro Republicans it has also been a traditional but failing hope. A major
exception to total weakness of the Republican party in the South, of course,
was the 1928 presidential election when Texas, Florida, North Carolina,
and Virginia bolted the Democratic candidate. Smith, because he was a
Catholic and anti-Prohibitionist. Several Republican areas may be found in
‘ In one sense, the South was helped politically by the abolition of slavery and the
ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Before then, the presence of a Negro gave the
South only three-fifths of a vote in terms of representation in Congress. After then, the
presence of a Negro—who, in most cases, was still not allowed to vote—gave the South a
full vote.
®The abolition of the two-thirds rule for nominating candidates for President and Vice-
President by the 1936 Democratic Convention removed even the South^s veto power on the
choice of candidate.
The South’s inability to capture the Presidency, coupled with the former weakness of the
national Democratic party, has given rise to the myth that the South has little influence in
national politics. As the national Democratic party has taken on new importance in recent
years, the error in this myth is being seen,
•
See Section 4 of this chapter,
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