As U.S. Representative from Mississippi for 32 years, John Elliott Rankin has been a living parody of the Confederate ideal. White hair abristle, pouchy eyes aflame, he tirelessly took the floor of the House to shrill the rebel yell of "white supremacy." In May 1942, when U.S. Negro troops were dying in battle, he attacked "the crackpots, the Communists and parlor pinks" for trying to "mongrelize" the nation. He said they were trying to persuade the Red Cross to remove labels which identified blood donors as white or colored. He was a member of...
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