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Uninvited Guest. When the delegates reconvened next morning they had a self-invited guest: Florida's 100% New Deal Senator Claude Pepper, good friend of Franklin Roosevelt. Unhappy Claude Pepper bustled down from Washington, raced to the speaker's rostrum, did his best to keep the South solid. For a full hour he pleaded and argued.
"The Republican Party has nothing it can offer the South as a reward for throwing ourselves into its camp, as Florida and other States did in 1928. I know of no reward the South got for that. . . . Undoubtedly, the Administration has been guilty of grievous errors, but I would rather trust the party of liberalism than wander afield. . . . The South's future lies in faithful fidelity to that party which still believes in liberalism as it did in the days of Thomas Jefferson. . . ."
The Governors listened, even applauded. But as soon as the speech was over they hauled Pepper into another closed session, started burning his ears. They emerged smiling for a pleasant ham and fried chicken lunch at the farm of Florida Comptroller J. M. Lee, then firmly hustled Pepper back for a personal frying. Not until 4 o'clock did Pepper get away, sweaty and wilted. With him he took the Governors' message to the White House: if Franklin Roosevelt wanted the South's support in 1944, he must talk turkey now.
Talk or Ballots? The only time the Solid South split was in 1928, when Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee voted against Democrat Al Smith on the issues of rum, religion and Tammany Hall. But after ten years of the New Deal the South may be cracking again. The cracks: > New Deal "meddling" with the Negro problem, which the South wants to solve in its own way and at its own chosen time. (Chief offender in Southern eyes: Eleanor Roosevelt.)
> New Deal labor legislation—anathema to the open-shop South.
>Farm policy and price control—which many a Southern farmer hates like the boll weevil.
> States' rights—a convenient term for resentments against bureaucracy, red tape, rationing forms, etc.
In the 1944 Democratic convention, the South will be solid only if it lines up unanimously against Franklin Roosevelt. It is full of potent politicos who would fight to the last ditch against Term IV or a hand-picked Roosevelt candidate.
The great unknown is whether the South's plain citizens think as their leaders do. If the rank & file are still solidly pro-Roosevelt, the rebellious noises of the leaders are only sound & fury. But if Southern citizens are losing faith in the President at anything like the rate of their leaders, the Fourth Term campaign is in for a harrowing time.