I am going to tell the reasons why the South will stay solid. With these reasons even my fellow Southerners may disagree—they will also probably disagree among other things on my being a Southerner, and they are right. Now that is an anomalous statement, having lived in Texas all my life, but it is part of the story, and I must explain it.
When I was thirty-nine, I got to be a Congressman. Neither then nor now do I possess, what people call "Southern psychology," or at least I don't angle that way. I was what they called an "advanced liberal," to say the least of their worst. But if I ever made any statement other than that of a "liberal" or "radical" nature on any question of wages, race relations, labor relations, and a lot of other subjects, I was immediately dubbed a Southerner—just a Southerner, although the word is usually connected with some such epithet as "reactionary," or "Fascist." The supreme innuendo insult is just to call a man a Southerner, period. One columnist and radio commentator regularly, just says "suffice it to say, he is from Alabama—" That is the line of many either mistaken or professional liberals who always like to make an implication that the hill-billy is deluded, ignorant, and narrow-minded—and never had a chance to broaden his poor misshapen sub-intellect in New York City, or at least some place completely free and clear of prejudice; to wit, some place outside the South.
Now I was asked to say why the Southerners have never forgotten the Civil War. Answer—one, we lost it, and have been economically discriminated against ever since; and, two, though we have desperately tried to forget it, nobody will let us, historically, politically, economically, or comically. Jokes are made on how—but always by the Yankee who told this on us, in a patronizing way—you know the gag—"I didn't know that damnyankee wuz two words until I wuz twenty-one."
Now I was asked to say why the Southerners have never forgotten the Civil War. Answer—one, we lost it, and have been economically discriminated against ever since; and, two, though we have desperately tried to forget it, nobody will let us, historically, politically, economically, or comically. Jokes are made on how—but always by the Yankee who told this on us, in a patronizing way—you know the gag—"I didn't know that damnyankee wuz two words until I wuz twenty-one."
A Southern Congressman makes a speech—the next day the "Liberals," that is, not honest liberals, but fakers who happen to live up North, begin a barrage of epithets. They end by calling the poor fellow poor white trash, combined with the fact that he came from where, they say, there is no culture, just big, bad "Planters" (with big black hats like Simon Legree), who swear, glare, curse, and are brutal whip-cracking overlords to a persecuted and miserable tenantry, charging such helots 18% at the company-owned store, only charging the downtrodden colored people an extra 4% and giving them worse merchandise; and besides down South they have a poll tax, the smallpox, the highest syphilis rate in the country, the highest illiteracy rate, and more besides.
At this point one of my Northern cross-examiners, and even a Southerner of culture and refinement, suggest that I denounce certain Southern demagogues by name. All I can say is the proportion of demagogues is about even over the country. I suggest that you who read this, check your own list of demagogues—and also, if you voted, and have paid your poll tax, pardon me—have you registered? As for Southern demagogues, an alleged one is frequently referred to in a certain liberal journal as leader of the "Poor White Trash Bloc." Now, for your information, a po' white trash is a person not descended of slave owners; it is a term of opprobrium used by Negroes and snooty white people. What is the result? The people of Southern blood all over the country get sore; (and 88% of all Southerners are descended from non-slave owners) the alleged demagogue gets the sympathy, and becomes stronger politically. All of which is the Liberal losing his fight because he would rather be clever; he thereby makes the abolition of the poll tax still further away, and the South necessarily more solid.
My Northern advisors say answer this one—aren't we fighting for democracy? And shouldn't we therefore force the abolition of the poll tax on the South as we forced abolition of slavery, and just as we are forcing democracy on Europe? (Here I mumbled something about Vichy, King Vic, Badoglio, but let the State Department answer). But I'll answer that about the poll tax—I have fought it tooth, nail and claw, and have gotten in trouble about it—but, feeling as I do that the poll tax is not as important as military operations, and with the Southerners solidly 100% O.K. on foreign policy, why try to abolish by Federal act a State poll tax, when the Constitution clearly says that the States shall have sole determination of the qualification of voters? I am frank to say also that I do not believe the mission of the present-day Abolitionists is as important as that of their grandparents, either.
What the South needs is not lectures, abuse and jokes, but ordinary decent treatment. Talk about discrimination! For seventy-five years we have been discriminated against in freight rates. In spite of propaganda to the contrary we spend more money of our budgets on education than does New England, and then our children must leave to make a living in the North—where General Motors and Ford and the rest get them at our expense. And why do they leave? Because from 90 to 95 percent of our mortgage, banking, railroading, insurance and other companies are owned outside the South, and the economic drain on us is so terrific as to make us an economic colony of the rest of the country, and our children have to leave to make a living.
And what is the South doing, I am asked, about its race, economic and other problems? The South has the Southern Committee for Human Relations, numerous inter-racial committees, and, however it may appear to one who either doesn't have to or just doesn't live in the South, the advance has been tremendous in the last quarter century.
But I have gotten off the subject, I guess, though it all generally concerns whether the South is going solid in 1944. Certainly. Because however we Southerners try, however much our boys fight in this war, we are challenged, kidded, joked at, and still discriminated against. All of which keeps us irritable, and what is worse, keeps our standards of living for both white and black down lower than the rest of the nation. The result is, though we Southerners might rant and rave against our traditional party, come election time, with our wicked poll tax in hand (which, by the way, is used to keep up the school system) we march forward, and vote the Democratic ticket every time.
Just as the south might crack and vote against the Democratic ticket, something happens to get them back in line. I might mention a minor one. In liberal journals we read that the Southerners caused the Detroit race riots. Though a plain lie, some people continue to say it. Result: Southerners are sore about the unjust accusation: certain white racial minorities, who heavily participated in the riot, are forgotten, and the sum of substance means the problem is not solved, and the Negro gets less help because the issue has been confused by laying it all on the Southerners whose blame at most could only be partial. Even in the recent Harlem riots, generally admitted to be hoodlumism, the reports here and there are sprinkled with dark words about "Southerners."
Point: there are good people from various parts of the United States (including the Deep South). There are hoodlums, white and black.
And so I plead for common sense; too many hot words, and too many odious comparisons will get a lot of people killed. Let's quit calling each other by European insults, and call each other what we are.
Though a Hatch Act slave myself and not allowed to talk politics, I must tell you an actual fact: be you Big Southerner or Chamber of Commerce Cultured Northerner, and curse the WPA in smug violence, nevertheless, it raised the standard of living of the South. Fulminate at TVA, but it revolutionized Tennessee and much of six surrounding Southern States. And look at public improvements everywhere—great housing projects for all the people, health centers, recreational centers, schools, colleges, auditoriums, rural electrification, roads, bridges—and then look at venereal and cancer control, social security and other great advances that would take a week to print, and you will see where the South did more for itself, or rather got more done for it by the Federal government than it did in the preceding century and a half.
But, a member of the Broadminded Race said—the South has not always been solid—it voted, to an extent, against Al Smith. That weakens my argument a little, but only a very little, because anyhow, the next Democratic candidate, little birds tell me, is a Protestant, indeed a fellow Episcopalian; this is a secret—his initials, so also they tell me, are the same as yours in the mass: Friends, Democrats and Republicans. And, if it is somebody else, the South will still go solid for the reasons I've given.
Now, the South may not always be solid, and can be cracked, although not next time. Florida, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina have practically no fixed "Democratic" or Southern ideas now. If not abused, they will someday break the traces, just, for instance, as California votes Democratic if she cares to. And it is even possible that some day States like Virginia, or large parts of it, will be cracked. Probably nearly a half million people have moved into Virginia. Around Mobile huge populations have moved in. The same is true in many other places in the South. (Will some brother say a word for Vermont and Maine?)
As far as I am concerned, I would just as soon the South break up its solidity and vote differently, because that would mean for greater national unity. But the South will always stay solid, unless the rest of the nation lays off of us, and quits being funny, or nasty, or kicking us around.
Some loud-mouthed isolationists up by the Aurora Borealis go to their industrial constituents and instead of helping conditions there—instead of getting child-care centers, housing projects and decent public health systems—feed them emotional bait on the poll tax, which, to say the least, is not as important as the living conditions of their own constituents. We everywhere need constructive action in our respective parts of the country, far more than long-distance emotionalism to evade our own local and State problems; we Americans also need a lot less smugness and name calling.
In the South I can see substantial hope. A new generation is growing up—and I don't mean they are any better than our fathers and mothers—but I mean we can see the necessity for change, and moreover we see the change and progress that will take place, willynilly.
Personally, I have a feeling that things will be better—but that is another point—yes, the South will stay solid in 1944 as I told you in the first place, and, if you have read me through, thank you very much.
Let's all of us keep killing Japs, Germans and Italians, if, unfortunately, the necessity still exists when this ink is dry.
Mr. Maverick was Congressman from Texas, Mayor of San Antonio, and is now head of the Government Division, WPB.
At this point one of my Northern cross-examiners, and even a Southerner of culture and refinement, suggest that I denounce certain Southern demagogues by name. All I can say is the proportion of demagogues is about even over the country. I suggest that you who read this, check your own list of demagogues—and also, if you voted, and have paid your poll tax, pardon me—have you registered? As for Southern demagogues, an alleged one is frequently referred to in a certain liberal journal as leader of the "Poor White Trash Bloc." Now, for your information, a po' white trash is a person not descended of slave owners; it is a term of opprobrium used by Negroes and snooty white people. What is the result? The people of Southern blood all over the country get sore; (and 88% of all Southerners are descended from non-slave owners) the alleged demagogue gets the sympathy, and becomes stronger politically. All of which is the Liberal losing his fight because he would rather be clever; he thereby makes the abolition of the poll tax still further away, and the South necessarily more solid.
My Northern advisors say answer this one—aren't we fighting for democracy? And shouldn't we therefore force the abolition of the poll tax on the South as we forced abolition of slavery, and just as we are forcing democracy on Europe? (Here I mumbled something about Vichy, King Vic, Badoglio, but let the State Department answer). But I'll answer that about the poll tax—I have fought it tooth, nail and claw, and have gotten in trouble about it—but, feeling as I do that the poll tax is not as important as military operations, and with the Southerners solidly 100% O.K. on foreign policy, why try to abolish by Federal act a State poll tax, when the Constitution clearly says that the States shall have sole determination of the qualification of voters? I am frank to say also that I do not believe the mission of the present-day Abolitionists is as important as that of their grandparents, either.
What the South needs is not lectures, abuse and jokes, but ordinary decent treatment. Talk about discrimination! For seventy-five years we have been discriminated against in freight rates. In spite of propaganda to the contrary we spend more money of our budgets on education than does New England, and then our children must leave to make a living in the North—where General Motors and Ford and the rest get them at our expense. And why do they leave? Because from 90 to 95 percent of our mortgage, banking, railroading, insurance and other companies are owned outside the South, and the economic drain on us is so terrific as to make us an economic colony of the rest of the country, and our children have to leave to make a living.
And what is the South doing, I am asked, about its race, economic and other problems? The South has the Southern Committee for Human Relations, numerous inter-racial committees, and, however it may appear to one who either doesn't have to or just doesn't live in the South, the advance has been tremendous in the last quarter century.
But I have gotten off the subject, I guess, though it all generally concerns whether the South is going solid in 1944. Certainly. Because however we Southerners try, however much our boys fight in this war, we are challenged, kidded, joked at, and still discriminated against. All of which keeps us irritable, and what is worse, keeps our standards of living for both white and black down lower than the rest of the nation. The result is, though we Southerners might rant and rave against our traditional party, come election time, with our wicked poll tax in hand (which, by the way, is used to keep up the school system) we march forward, and vote the Democratic ticket every time.
Just as the south might crack and vote against the Democratic ticket, something happens to get them back in line. I might mention a minor one. In liberal journals we read that the Southerners caused the Detroit race riots. Though a plain lie, some people continue to say it. Result: Southerners are sore about the unjust accusation: certain white racial minorities, who heavily participated in the riot, are forgotten, and the sum of substance means the problem is not solved, and the Negro gets less help because the issue has been confused by laying it all on the Southerners whose blame at most could only be partial. Even in the recent Harlem riots, generally admitted to be hoodlumism, the reports here and there are sprinkled with dark words about "Southerners."
Point: there are good people from various parts of the United States (including the Deep South). There are hoodlums, white and black.
And so I plead for common sense; too many hot words, and too many odious comparisons will get a lot of people killed. Let's quit calling each other by European insults, and call each other what we are.
Though a Hatch Act slave myself and not allowed to talk politics, I must tell you an actual fact: be you Big Southerner or Chamber of Commerce Cultured Northerner, and curse the WPA in smug violence, nevertheless, it raised the standard of living of the South. Fulminate at TVA, but it revolutionized Tennessee and much of six surrounding Southern States. And look at public improvements everywhere—great housing projects for all the people, health centers, recreational centers, schools, colleges, auditoriums, rural electrification, roads, bridges—and then look at venereal and cancer control, social security and other great advances that would take a week to print, and you will see where the South did more for itself, or rather got more done for it by the Federal government than it did in the preceding century and a half.
But, a member of the Broadminded Race said—the South has not always been solid—it voted, to an extent, against Al Smith. That weakens my argument a little, but only a very little, because anyhow, the next Democratic candidate, little birds tell me, is a Protestant, indeed a fellow Episcopalian; this is a secret—his initials, so also they tell me, are the same as yours in the mass: Friends, Democrats and Republicans. And, if it is somebody else, the South will still go solid for the reasons I've given.
Now, the South may not always be solid, and can be cracked, although not next time. Florida, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina have practically no fixed "Democratic" or Southern ideas now. If not abused, they will someday break the traces, just, for instance, as California votes Democratic if she cares to. And it is even possible that some day States like Virginia, or large parts of it, will be cracked. Probably nearly a half million people have moved into Virginia. Around Mobile huge populations have moved in. The same is true in many other places in the South. (Will some brother say a word for Vermont and Maine?)
As far as I am concerned, I would just as soon the South break up its solidity and vote differently, because that would mean for greater national unity. But the South will always stay solid, unless the rest of the nation lays off of us, and quits being funny, or nasty, or kicking us around.
Some loud-mouthed isolationists up by the Aurora Borealis go to their industrial constituents and instead of helping conditions there—instead of getting child-care centers, housing projects and decent public health systems—feed them emotional bait on the poll tax, which, to say the least, is not as important as the living conditions of their own constituents. We everywhere need constructive action in our respective parts of the country, far more than long-distance emotionalism to evade our own local and State problems; we Americans also need a lot less smugness and name calling.
In the South I can see substantial hope. A new generation is growing up—and I don't mean they are any better than our fathers and mothers—but I mean we can see the necessity for change, and moreover we see the change and progress that will take place, willynilly.
Personally, I have a feeling that things will be better—but that is another point—yes, the South will stay solid in 1944 as I told you in the first place, and, if you have read me through, thank you very much.
Let's all of us keep killing Japs, Germans and Italians, if, unfortunately, the necessity still exists when this ink is dry.
Mr. Maverick was Congressman from Texas, Mayor of San Antonio, and is now head of the Government Division, WPB.
"Pic Magazine," October 12, 1943
No comments:
Post a Comment