HARDING ADVISED TO IGNORE LEADERS OF THE SOLID SOUTH
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On January 16, 1921, President-elect Warren G. Harding was advised to ignore Republican leaders of the "solid south"* who were said to want to "dictate Federal patronage" after his inauguration.
In addition, Mr. Harding was warned that "not a single negro should be appointed to any office in the South (which) would be irritating to...the people there."
The "advisers" remained unnamed in a New York Tribune front page story by Carter Field. He wrote...
"The almost universal contempt in which these men are held in their own states by the respectable element...is one of the big reasons why it has been so hard for the Republican party to make any real headway in that section."**
*Solid South was the Democratic electoral voting block of 14 Southern states from Reconstruction to the early 1960s. The Solid South splintered when the Kennedy-Johnson administrations supported civil rights legislation. The South then became a Republican stronghold.
**Three states of the Solid South were carried by the Republican ticket in the 1920 presidential election: Oklahoma, Tennessee & West Virginia. The other eleven were carried by the Democratic ticket.
SOURCES
"Harding Told South Needs New Leaders," by Carter Field, The New York Tribune, January 17, 1921, Chronicling America, Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/
"Solid South," www.encyclopedia.com/
