Southern Discomfort

Once again the South is threatening to bolt from the Democratic party. Five southern states, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas are planning to refuse to bind their Presidential electors to the national party ticket. This is obviously a first step in creating a Dixiecrat movement in the Southern states that stand firmly against the Supreme Court integration decree.

Since the party split in 1948, the great political art of compromise has held the Democratic Party together. The South warned the party, and the Civil Rights plank of the Democratic platform was considerably watered down. In 1956, to the dissatisfaction of most liberals, Harry Truman himself averted an intra-party fight by dramatically taking the floor and calling for party unity at all costs.

The situation in 1960 will be different. In 1956, the Democrats were, to say the least, pessimistic about their chances in the Presidential election. But today the party is feeling confident about regaining the White House. Their sweeping victory in the off-year elections in November coupled with the fact that President Eisenhower will not be running again has given them a reason for optimism.

Paul Butler, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, recently stated that the South will have to accept a strong Civil Rights plank because the bulk of the party will not compromise. Though pronouncements of this sort are never certain, there appears to be strong sentiment among liberal Democrats not to appease the South again.

Liberals can point to Truman's victory in 1948 in spite of the four southern states that voted for the Dixiecrat Thurmond-Wright ticket. Further, the prospect of a party split has its appetizing aspects for the liberal wing of the party. A Democratic victory in 1960 achieved without the South could deprive these rebels of patronage and important committee places. This exclusion of the Dixiecrats from top party positions did not occur in 1948, but there is greater pressure in the party now for a tougher attitude towards splitting the recalcitrant South.

If the belief that the Democratic Party does not need the South to win the election prevails, and Mr. Butler keeps his word, the South will be placed in a difficult position. They will either have to swallow the strong Civil Rights plank or form a third party--and the independent movement is highly risky for the South.

Their fondest hope is that they might prevent either party candidate from receiving the necessary 269 votes for election. In this case, the choice of a President is left to the House of Representatives where each state has only one vote. Thus any large bloc of states has formidable bargaining power.

But should the South fail, it will face either the liberal Democrats or the unsympathetic Republicans. Neither prospect is very comforting to Southerners. A third party movement represents a desperate maneuver on the part of the embattled South. It would be a dangerous procedure, and failure could mean the end of conservative power within the party.

The South is not likely to take this step unless it is forced into it, and the Democratc party is probably not going to encourage disunity. But both sides are now preparing for another Civil Rights showdown. Northern and Western Democrats vow that they will demand that everybody sign an electoral "loyalty oath"--and the South is planning not to sign. 1960 is still far away, and a great deal depends on the progress of integration in the South. At the moment however, all signs point to at best an unfavorable compromise for the South, and at worst a party split that would probably be more damaging to the South than to the Democratic party.