| Show THE SOLID SOUTH A great deal has been seen in the newspapers since the election about we the breaking of the solid south so th as something new in politics which h jus ju tidies the assertion that the solid south has been broken before on at least two or three occasions indeed as one well known newspaper man puts it the solid south has only been kept solid by shrinking its boundaries tho the older voters of the country will remember the time before the days of free silver when the solid south was much larger than it has been recently in the earlier days it consisted not only of the states of north and south carolina florida georgia alabama mississippi louisiana arkansas virginia and texas but included maryland kentucky tennessee and missouri as well the first break came in fice silver times and maryland kentucky and missouri were the first to fall away one at a time since the first plunge they have been going republican with moie more or less frequency in 1920 tennessee deserted the solid combination it went democratic once more in 1924 but was carried by the republicans ga gain this year after 1920 the solid south had shrunk to ten states from the original fourteen there it re mainell until this month that another change took place for more states left the combination north carolina florida virginia and texas it will not do to say of course that they have left it for good or that the majority of their voters have abandoned the democratic party such may not be the case but it is indeed interesting to note that up to this time no state which has left the solid south has ever gone back to remain unconditionally tio nally two principal reasons are arc given by the experts as to why four southern states failed to support governor smith the first is prohibition as tho the south is traditionally dry the second is religious feeling and it is known knonk n that I 1 mr hoover profited by the religious reh gibus feeling in the south just as governor smith profited by it in new england but a third re reason ason has been brought forward for the hover support in the s south a reason which if not as potent as the other two is at least worth thinking about this reason is that the campaign of 1928 was the first campaign in which the radio was generally used with great effect this year republican speeches were vere flashed through the air ail by radio to the points in tho the south and voters listened to republican arguments who up to this year had never known that there were any arguments in the world which could be brought to the support of tho the republican party heretofore the republican cause in the south has been so hopeless that the G 0 P national committee has sent no speakers and no great amount of literature into that part of the country but the radio has carried the argument thele this year good roads have been knitting all parts of the country together now the radio is coming to the assistance si stance of tho highways in this respect the national spirit is growing year by ye year |
