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Grandpa Thurmond's son John saw the South meet violence with violence. John studied law and hitched his star to "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman,* South Carolina's demagogic Governor and Senator. Ben Tillman had a short answer for the Negro problem. He told the U.S. Senate: "We shot them. We are not ashamed of it ... We will not submit to Negro domination under any conditions that you may prescribe."
John Thurmond became Tillman's attorney and boss of Edgefield County. One day, when a drummer for a drug company used "hot language" about John being a Tillmanite and threatened John with a knife, John shot him dead. The jury's verdict: not guilty of murder.
John's wife was a charter member of the W.C.T.U., and a leader in the First Baptist Church of Edgefield. On the small farm which John bought to supplement his modest earnings as an attorney, they brought up three sons and three daughters. James Strom Thurmond was the next to eldest.
Dictation from the Governor. The war interrupted Strom's political career. He had had an outstanding but not distinguished record as a judge: the state supreme court reversed a higher percentage of his decisions than those of any other judge. But his record in the war was one to point to with pride. He volunteered, served with the 82nd Airborne Division, landed in a glider in Normandy, won a chestful of decorations for gallantry, transferred to the Pacific and came home a lieutenant colonel. He spun through a gubernatorial campaign against ten opponents like a maverick planetoid, and became the tenth South Carolinian governor from Edgefield County.
Strom, then 44, and catching his breath for the moment, had time for other matters, particularly pretty Jean Crouch, 21-year-old daughter of an old family friend. He appointed her "Miss South Carolina," to preside over Charleston's Azalea Festival; he brought her to the mansion to serve as his personal secretary. One day he dictated to her: "My darling Jean . . . Loving you as much as I do ... I want you to be my wife without too much delay . . ." She retired to the next room and typed out her acceptance.
Life at the Executive Mansion is bustling and informal. While the governor is running for President, everyone else is running for Thurmond. To get him to engagements, State Police Sergeant Huss Fennell drives him around at 80 m.p.h.
His wife, whom he calls "Sugar," almost always goes with him. Both Strom and Sugar are Baptists, teetotalers and nonsmokers. The virile governor keeps himself in trim by riding, walking, and standing on his head (see cut).
A Changing World. After November, what about the Dixiecrats? The chances are that they will disappear as a political entity. Having made their protest under the most dramatic circumstances possible —a presidential election—their well-to-do but amateur backers will probably return to their businesses. It is doubtful whether there are enough politicians in the party to keep it going after that. The chances are that the Dixiecrats will once again become indistinguishable from regular Southern Democrats. With the Northern Democrats out of power in Washington, the authority against which the Dixiecrats revolted will have been removed. All hands can unite once again against the common enemy—the Republicans.