REVOLUTION IN THE SOUTH 



dishonesty that has become a virulent disease of the 

 American people and its dangerous symptoms are wide- 

 spread in every section. In the South, however, it does 

 have peculiar causes and effects. There it becomes an- 

 other of those glaring Southern paradoxes, an enigma 

 that plagues both friends and critics. 



To any Southerner, the very thought of a powerful, 

 centralized, paternal federal Government is instinc- 

 tively repugnant. In Virginia or Georgia or Texas, you 

 will hear more savage denunciation of the New Deal 

 and all its works than in Vermont or Pennsylvania or 

 Iowa. Nevertheless these same noisy critics continue 

 faithfully to support a political machine geared today 

 to override State rights. They vote for candidates who, 

 to state it conservatively, do not share Thomas Jeffer- 

 son's convictions of individual liberty or his abiding 

 faith in the common man. 



For reasons that appear to them good, Southerners 

 have not bolted the Democratic party. For reasons that 

 they know in their hearts are not good, they have fol- 

 lowed its programs and accepted its benefits. This is 

 not a happy, comfortable mental attitude. Its inner 

 stress and strain are painful to many Southern men and 

 women. 



We Americans are not self-analytical; Southerners no 

 more than the rest of us. Recently a British friend came 

 to me in great perplexity because of our lack of critical 

 expression. In this country for the first time on an im- 



7 



