In early April, nineteen forty-seven, a group of twenty one gentlemen took their seats around a conference table in the US Senate office building. These men had gathered to hear from Richard Brevard Russell, their fellow Southron, their unelected leader. He had called the Southern Caucus to discuss strategy.
“Well, let me first address these rumours you fellows might have heard recently,” the Georgian began. “I know there’s been much whispering about my commitment to dealing with the union problem our country faces. Apparently some people say I have gone soft on the issue. This is not true.” Murmurs from around the table. Some individuals were beginning to interject, but the leader continued. “I believe in America’s free enterprise system, I hold it in as high esteem as I do our regional traditions and ways of life,” this drew nods from all, “And I will fight for both.”
“Currently we have in Senator Taft’s bill a solution to the thuggery and communism besetting so many of our workplaces. My voice will vote ‘aye’ for the motion to read it off the Senate calendar. But,”--here he took a pained breath--“That is all I will do. For I do not think it’s in the interest of our nation for this piece of legislation to be debated, or passed.”
The stunned silence that followed was quickly broken by John Sparkman of Alabama; “Now, before you fellas jump to any hasty conclusions, let's here out what Dick has to say.”
What followed would later be described as the ‘pitch of the century’ by the youngest man present.
“We face more perilous threats than what the CIO poses. Let me employ a crude partisan metaphor… We are looking down the barrel of political irrelevancy, and that barrel is held aloft by the very men who have written this otherwise sensible law. On the floor I will congratulate the senator from Ohio for his thoughtful solutions, but gentlemen, let’s not kid ourselves--our party is in opposition, we have lost our chairmanships, we are cursed with a weak, foolish man in the Whitehouse,” the leader drew breath after those words, and in doing so implied his disdain for Truman. “Defeating the liberals and radicals in our party can not be a task we abdicate to the Republicans. If they take credit for reversing the excesses of the New Deal they’ll not only take the presidency next year, they’ll win another half-dozen seats off our weakened damnyankees.”
The reactionaries in the caucus, men like Bilbo of Mississippi, had been straining, turning red, about to explode in anger. Now Russell was making them sit back in their chairs and listen.
The power of these men assembled to protect the Southern way of life, to prevent the intermingling of the races, would no more be protected by the GOP Old Guard than it would be by the irresponsible liberals of either party, explained Russell to an increasingly receptive audience. Yes, there had been much common ground between the sane factions of both parties these last few years. Roosevelt’s court packing scheme had cemented this alliance.
But make no mistake; not only were the Republicans culturally alien to the Southland, they could win national mandates in both congress and the executive without taking a single vote in the eleven states represented by the men around the table.
That reckless man Roosevelt might come back from the dead and run in next year’s election, but if he didn’t carry these states as a Democrat he wouldn’t even become Washington dogcatcher! (This last observation got some belly laughs.)
Yes, they had the filibuster to prevent any anti-lynching laws or such that a President Dewey or Taft might put forward. They’d done it before under Democrats, they’d do it again. But senate power was a dying resource if it could only be exercised to obstruct--it was pivotal that a Democratic president be elected in 1948, or that it was at least impossible for a Republican to be re-elected in ’52. Otherwise their chances of regaining the senate look dire. And no senate committees dominated by Southern leaders meant the Caucus, our glorious band of brothers dedicated to the Lost Cause, must eventually weaken. And die.
“Therefore I have made contact with senators Lucas, Magnusson and Pepper, and have given them my assurance that if they can organise a filibuster of this bill as soon as it comes to the floor of the chamber, then they need not worry about the men of the South voting to impose cloture.” The other party would not be given any such advantage. A derailed Taft-Hartley omnibus bill meant the GOP could not exploit the unpopularity of a Democratic-aligned union movement for their own electoral gain.
“Nobody present wants me to go back to these fellows and modify my offer?”
The youngest man in the room seized the moment.
“Senator Russell,” said Lyndon Johnson, “the great people of Texas only sent me to this place a scarce eighteen months ago, but in even the furthest, hottest corners of the Lone Star State, Dick Russell’s judgement is considered inviolate. I move that this meeting endorse that judgement.”
All were in agreement. For the Southern caucus of 1947, as one historian would later write, was, “for all the world like a large and highly individualistic family, whose members are nevertheless bound by one blood.”
“Well, let me first address these rumours you fellows might have heard recently,” the Georgian began. “I know there’s been much whispering about my commitment to dealing with the union problem our country faces. Apparently some people say I have gone soft on the issue. This is not true.” Murmurs from around the table. Some individuals were beginning to interject, but the leader continued. “I believe in America’s free enterprise system, I hold it in as high esteem as I do our regional traditions and ways of life,” this drew nods from all, “And I will fight for both.”
“Currently we have in Senator Taft’s bill a solution to the thuggery and communism besetting so many of our workplaces. My voice will vote ‘aye’ for the motion to read it off the Senate calendar. But,”--here he took a pained breath--“That is all I will do. For I do not think it’s in the interest of our nation for this piece of legislation to be debated, or passed.”
The stunned silence that followed was quickly broken by John Sparkman of Alabama; “Now, before you fellas jump to any hasty conclusions, let's here out what Dick has to say.”
What followed would later be described as the ‘pitch of the century’ by the youngest man present.
“We face more perilous threats than what the CIO poses. Let me employ a crude partisan metaphor… We are looking down the barrel of political irrelevancy, and that barrel is held aloft by the very men who have written this otherwise sensible law. On the floor I will congratulate the senator from Ohio for his thoughtful solutions, but gentlemen, let’s not kid ourselves--our party is in opposition, we have lost our chairmanships, we are cursed with a weak, foolish man in the Whitehouse,” the leader drew breath after those words, and in doing so implied his disdain for Truman. “Defeating the liberals and radicals in our party can not be a task we abdicate to the Republicans. If they take credit for reversing the excesses of the New Deal they’ll not only take the presidency next year, they’ll win another half-dozen seats off our weakened damnyankees.”
The reactionaries in the caucus, men like Bilbo of Mississippi, had been straining, turning red, about to explode in anger. Now Russell was making them sit back in their chairs and listen.
The power of these men assembled to protect the Southern way of life, to prevent the intermingling of the races, would no more be protected by the GOP Old Guard than it would be by the irresponsible liberals of either party, explained Russell to an increasingly receptive audience. Yes, there had been much common ground between the sane factions of both parties these last few years. Roosevelt’s court packing scheme had cemented this alliance.
But make no mistake; not only were the Republicans culturally alien to the Southland, they could win national mandates in both congress and the executive without taking a single vote in the eleven states represented by the men around the table.
That reckless man Roosevelt might come back from the dead and run in next year’s election, but if he didn’t carry these states as a Democrat he wouldn’t even become Washington dogcatcher! (This last observation got some belly laughs.)
Yes, they had the filibuster to prevent any anti-lynching laws or such that a President Dewey or Taft might put forward. They’d done it before under Democrats, they’d do it again. But senate power was a dying resource if it could only be exercised to obstruct--it was pivotal that a Democratic president be elected in 1948, or that it was at least impossible for a Republican to be re-elected in ’52. Otherwise their chances of regaining the senate look dire. And no senate committees dominated by Southern leaders meant the Caucus, our glorious band of brothers dedicated to the Lost Cause, must eventually weaken. And die.
“Therefore I have made contact with senators Lucas, Magnusson and Pepper, and have given them my assurance that if they can organise a filibuster of this bill as soon as it comes to the floor of the chamber, then they need not worry about the men of the South voting to impose cloture.” The other party would not be given any such advantage. A derailed Taft-Hartley omnibus bill meant the GOP could not exploit the unpopularity of a Democratic-aligned union movement for their own electoral gain.
“Nobody present wants me to go back to these fellows and modify my offer?”
The youngest man in the room seized the moment.
“Senator Russell,” said Lyndon Johnson, “the great people of Texas only sent me to this place a scarce eighteen months ago, but in even the furthest, hottest corners of the Lone Star State, Dick Russell’s judgement is considered inviolate. I move that this meeting endorse that judgement.”
All were in agreement. For the Southern caucus of 1947, as one historian would later write, was, “for all the world like a large and highly individualistic family, whose members are nevertheless bound by one blood.”
eek smily from most of us who thought we knew these knuckledraggers. Now try and imagine Richard Shelby voting in support of the recent Detroit bailout...