The Daily Record

The WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
By Drew Pearson

CHICAGO.--Despite all the talk pro and con about southern loyalty at the Democratic whoopfest, there were two big issues in the background which may completely revamp the Democratic party below the Mason-Dixon line. These were not discussed much publicly here, but to thinking party leaders they are all-important.

One of them will hurt the Democratic party at the next election. The other will help. Here they are:

WHAT WILL HURT THE DEMOCRATS--
The Republicans are making real hay toward re-organizing a two-party system below the Mason-Dixon line. Alert, live new leaders, many of them ex-Democrats, are throwing out encrusted Republican carpetbaggers and, for the first time since before the Civil War, are beginning to make the Republican party respectable in the south.

WHAT WILL HELP THE DEMOCRATS--President Eisenhower plans to go "states' rights" with a vengeance--especially when it comes to putting each state on its own in regard to social security, old-age pensions, public roads, power dams and other projects which syphoned more money to the south under 20 years of Democratic rule than at any other time during history.

IKE'S CONFIDENTIAL TIP
Ike unfurled this plan confidentially to a group of Republican governors at the recent Seattle governors conference. Though he didn't let Democratic governors in on his secret, naturally they heard about it and some of them are not happy.

However, many Republican governors are. They claim that what happened in the last 20 years is that the federal government has taken money out of the wealthy states of New York, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois and Ohio, for the most part Republican and spent a greater portion than justified on the lower-income states of the South. GOP governors also point to the power of Congressional appropriations committees, for 20 years headed by Southern Democrats, which have leaned toward rivers and harbors, dams and farm payments on southern products.

President Eisenhower, it should be noted, hasn't looked at it as a matter of North vs. South. He has no ax to grind against the South. But in private talk after talk he has emphasized the importance of getting the states to bear their proportionate share of taxation. He wants to pass the tax burden back to the states out of the hands of the federal government.

This means of course that poorer southern States will be considerably worse off economically than during the 20 years of Democratic rule. And this the northern Democratic leaders believe is going to swing the once solid South back into line. Some already point to the fact that Gov. Allan Shivers of Texas, who emphasized during the tidelands oil fight that Texas wanted no support from Washington, promptly reversed himself during the Waco hurricane and the Texas drought to ask aid from Washington; and that Gov. John S. Battle of Virginia, another vigorous states' righter, now would appreciate federal help as a result of Virginia's recent drought.

All this, predict the Democratic brain trusters, should help the Democrats to recapture all Southern States at the next election.

GOP ORGANIZES SOUTH
On the other hand there is no question but that Republicans are doing a shrewd and helpful job in trying to build up a two-party system in the South. Despite all the fumbles of the past they may succeed.

They have gone such a good job that men like Sen. Harry Byrd, who helped throw Virginia to Eisenhower last year, is worried. For the first time in half a century the republicans have put a candidate in the race for governor who may have a chance--if the anti-Byrd, pro-Stevenson Democrats take revenge on Byrd and vote Republican. In other words, Byrd, by throwing his weight to Eisenhower last year, helped to undermine his own once airtight control of the state.

The same is true in Texas, where Governor Shivers, also an Ike man, has frowned on Republican efforts to organize the state. What worries Shivers is that if enough conservative Democrats turn Republican then the liberal wing of the Democratic party, led by Sam Rayburn and with the help of such influential ralliers of the Spanish and Negro vote as Maury Maverick, could take Democratic control away from the governor.

LOUISIANA HOUSECLEANING
Similar situations are developing in other Southern states. In Louisiana the Republicans have put outdated John Jackson, long-time GOP national committeeman, on the sidelines and are working through smart progressive John Minor Wisdom, a lawyer who has the respect of everyone even though he is a Republican. It is important to remember that in the past few Republicans were respected in Louisiana.

Likewise, in Georgia, Republican patronage is being handled by Albert Tuttle, general counsel of the U. S. Treasury, and as a result of his organization work Republicans will put up local candidates for the Georgia legislature in about 20 counties for the first time since reconstruction days. They will also run some candidates for Congress in districts where prospects look worth while.

In South Carolina a live-wire Myrtle Beach lawyer, William A. Kimbal, is cleaning out the rusted GOP leadership of the past. Kimbal, Ben Boatright, Gus Dosher and George Warren are working at something Republicans never worked at before--organizing their party in the state where Fort Sumter was fired on.

How successful their efforts will be remains to be seen. But GOP plans call for a lot of money to be spent in the South the next three years, and Democratic leaders figure that some of their southern colleagues who scorned the Chicago meeting will be all too happy to come back to the fold a little later.