William D. Workman Interview

Interview number A-0281 in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

Subject: William D. Workman, Jr.

Interviewer: Jack Bass

February 5, 1974

Topics: Journalist and 1962 Republican candidate for U.S. Senate William D. Workman, Jr. [1914-1990] reflects on the rise of the Republican Party and his attempt to unseat incumbent U.S. Senator Olin Johnston. Workman's statewide campaign is considered by many to have created the organizational skeleton upon which the Party built in later years.

Transcriber: Larry Grubbs, Modern Political Collections, The South Caroliniana Library, The University ofSouth Carolina, February 1999

This interview is held by The University of at Chapel Hill. A copy of the tape was provided to the Modern Political Collections Division of the University of 's South Caroliniana Library for transcription. Unintelligible words and phrases are represented by " " within the transcription. Jack Bass Interview of William Workman, 5 February 1974, p. 2

Bass: Looking back to 1948 in South Carolina, that's really when this whole era really begins, it sort of begins with the Dixiecrat movement, and that's Strom Thurmond, and that goes back to the'48 Democratic convention. What did Strom do at that convention, and then subsequently, and at what point did you think he was really going to run for president? Beyond that, to what extent do you think he had, at least in the back of his mind, setting up a race for the Senate in 1950?

Workman: The Truman civil rights message is what triggered the South Carolina reaction. It was first manifested in the General Assembly with speeches from members of the House. I remember some of the Charleston delegation were complaining bitterly about it. Some of them were calling for concerted action throughout the South. Then there was a continuing buildup of resentment against the civil rights message byTruman, plus the beginning of a program in Congress which was to implement this. In 1948, when the political mechanism started developing in South Carolina, quite a number of county conventions, and then leading up to the state convention, took a very critical stand towards Truman, even though they knew that he was logically coming up as the Democratic nominee to succeed himself as president at that time. At that stage of the game, Governor Thurmond, I don't think, had in mind any particular role of leadership other than that of being effective in South Carolina. I was in on all the movements, back and forth, at that time. I recall distinctly when Thurmond was invited to come out to Jackson, , prior to the Democratic national convention. I think I've got my sequenceof events here right. There was a meeting in Jackson before the Democratic convention, it was a South-wide meeting of irate Democrats. The feeling was there that this ad hoc meeting would be adjourned, and then reconvened after the Democratic convention, to see what was going to happen at that time. At thatpoint, Thurmond was one among a number. Fielding Wright of Mississippi, George Wallace wasn't prominent on the scene then, I think he was a circuit judge at the time. Turner was governor of Oklahoma. I recall when Alfalfa Bill Murray, who was the father of Johnson Murray, got on thestage at Jackson and described Turner, he said that we've got the best governor that money could buy.

[Tape stops then restarts]

Workman: ...and that's when Hubert Humphrey first hit thenational limelight, Andrew B. Miller, both of these being from Minnesota. There was an effort, which succeeded, in having the convention adopta strong civil rights platform which would in effect ram it down the throats of the South. Which occasioned the Mississippi delegation, in toto, and half of the Alabama delegation, to walk out. It was a considerable sentiment within the South Carolina delegation, led by the late state senator, Bob Kennedy of Camden, for South Carolina to walk out. They didn't walk out. Edgar [Brown] and theothers prevailed to stay and fight for the southern position on the floor. The leadership was pretty well fragmented, with Edgar Brown's group, and Strom Thurmond, of course it had to split over the Barnwell Ring [the alleged reigning political faction headed by state senator Edgar Brown and House Speaker Sol Blatt]. Strom was beginning to pick up strength, being governor and being more outspoken in the anti-Truman and anti-civil rights action. After the convention wound up as it did, the States' Rights Democrats, not by that name Jack Bass Interview of William Workman, 5 February 1974, p. 3

at that time, called another convention at Birmingham. The interesting thing is, going into that convention would mean a conflict of a commitment Governor Thurmond had made to go to visit the South Carolina National Guard at Camp Stewart, . It was determined, as he began planning, that he would go to Birmingham, but only after going to Camp Stewart. Flying there, and then flying out to Birmingham. I was on the plane that made the trip. At the time we were going out, Strom was still working on his speech for the Birmingham meeting, and it was a speech which in no ways indicated any awareness that he was going to come out in a position of leadership, on whatever course the South was going to take. I know thatto be a fact from reading, of course, several of the press were on the plane, and read what he was writing. When he got there, he was immediately closeted with Fielding Wright, with the others, this group of strong States' Righters, those who rallied around the ticket. Alabama, Mississippi, . The upshot was, there was a determination then, that they would put forth a Southern States' Rights Democratic ticket, with Thurmond as the presidential nominee, and Fielding Wright, who was then Governor of Mississippi, as the vice-presidential. These would be the two. There was some speculation as to which would be number one, and which would be number two. As a round about way of answering your question, I think Strom's injection into the nominee, it wasn't actually a nominee, it was a recommendation that they made, that the States Rights Democrats support Strom Thurmond and Fielding Wright, I think this developed as the situation developed, and not as a part of any plan that Strom had prior to that, or even during it. It was a thing that came on. He was then, as now, anxious for national attention, and was responsive to anything which would give him a national platform. I don't know if there was ever any hesitancy on his part about accepting this, I don't know about that, but I'm convinced in my own mind that when he went to the Birmingham meeting, it was not with the idea or any indication that he was going to come out of it as he did.

Bass: How about in '54?

[Tape stops and then restarts]

Bass: This is the '50 Senate race.

Workman: This was Strom's last year as Governor. He ran against Olin in the Democratic primary, and it was a horse race right down to the last part of the race. Now at that time,despite the fact that Strom had been the States' Rights candidate in 1948, and that Olin had been a loyalist, Olin was still regarded as a staunch segregationist. It was during his term as governor that they called a special session and divorced the South Carolina Democratic Party from the statutorystructure and set it off as an independent party. Olin was right abusive of the black South Carolinians at that time. The race came down to the wire, and Strom, in my judgement, made the mistake of trying to outdo Olin on segregation, and to make a stronger pitch than was necessary. In doing so, I think he alienated a fair number of relatively moderate South Carolinians who were prepared to go with Strom despite the States' Right business, in preference to Olin, because of his somewhat inflammatory actions while he was governor. So that wound up with Olin taking the Democratic primary, whichmeant re-election in 1950. In 1954, if I anticipate your next , the sequence of events ... Jack Bass Interview of William Workman, 5 February 1974, p. 4

[Tape stops and restarts]

Workman: ... but instead, it was perfectly legal to select the replacement forthat nominee. They did so by selecting Edgar Brown [to run in the general election for U.S. Senate, to take the place of incumbent Burnett Maybank, who had died suddenly, leaving Democratic Party officials scrambling to determine how best toselect a candidate].

Bass: This was after Maybank had died on September first, they had ...

Workman: They had until the first Tuesday in November to have a primary. They could have had a primary anywhere inthat time.

[Tape stops and restarts]

Workman: There were candidates who would move into an open primary if Maybank had not been there, back in the June primary at that time. The indignation grew and grew on thatthing. Almost all the newspapers were indignant about it. The public was indignant. The net result was that the vote by which Strom went in on a write-in vote in November of '54, reflected popular indignation against a set of circumstances, and against the Democratic Executive Committee, fully as much, if not more, than against Edgar. It is my conviction, that if the roles had been reversed, and if the Democratic Committee had, by any chance, selected Strom as their hand- picked nominee, and Edgar had run as a write-in candidate, that Edgar would have been elected. This was more a matter of principle in the outcome of an election in South Carolina, than I've seen in an awful long time, if ever. The personalities were submerged by the issues, of the Committee's refusal to conduct the primary.

Bass: Is it true, to your knowledge, that Governor Byrnes had tried to getthe nomination, and was blocked within the Executive Committee, by Democratic loyalists who were offended by his having invited [Republican President] Eisenhower to speak at the State House, and that Byrnes subsequently tried to get Donald Russell to run as a write-in?

Workman: I never had anything to substantiate the report that Byrnes was negotiating for the nomination. I'm inclined to doubt it. There were those within the committee who wanted Byrnes to have it, but I never found anything that Byrnes himself was activein it. There was a common feeling that Byrnes did want Donald Russell to move in as a write-in candidate in the circumstances, again I'm speaking now without positive knowledge on it, but that Donald backed off from it, and wouldn't do it. It was thereafter that Strom responded to overtures that he get in the race. He got in and started running all over the state.

Bass: Do you know whether or not Byrnes was one of those ...?

Workman: To Thurmond? I don't know. It was accepted among those of us who were Jack Bass Interview of William Workman, 5 February 1974, p. 5

covering it that Russell had been urged, either directly or by emissaries, by Byrnes to run and didn't. There again, this is, as you well know, what you pick upby way of reports that you don't get from the principles. It was pretty well accepted that he would have been a choice of Byrnes, perhaps the first choice, to run as a write-in candidate, and was not persuaded to do so.

Bass: Getting back to the early development of the modern day Republican Party in South Carolina, did that basically begin during the Eisenhower administration, when he went to David Dows and tried to get him to organize a party in South Carolina?

Workman: I think it grew a little more gradually than that. David Dows represented something of a change from what had been the course prior to that. They maintained a facade of a Republican state organization, which for the most part was not interested in building up a genuine constituency with any numbers at all, but to represent the state at the quadrennial convention, to have whatever input it could have on appointments in case the Republicans won the national administration. When David Dows and some others came in the picture, there began to be an increase that developed through membership, which began to flourish a little bit under the Eisenhower administration. Of course, there was a Republican administration in Washington for the first time in quite a while. There began locally around the state to be more and more interest in that. The first thing that gave it a nudge up was the election of Charlie Boineau to the state House of Representatives [in 1962]. This proved in that special election, that it could be done. From there, plus the organizational efforts beginning in 1960, with Mr. Nixon, in my judgement, got the party moving. If we flash back to 1952, remember thatin '48, there had been a solid break away from the tradition of voting the national Democratic ticket. In 1952, there was the first of the three way splits, in which Stevenson was a candidate on the Democratic side, and a considerable number of South Carolinians who were not ready to go Republican, organized themselves as South Carolinians for Eisenhower. There was a smaller group, who, coming along slowly, went for Eisenhower as Republicans. The combined vote of the South Carolinians for Eisenhower and of the Republicans for Eisenhower would have come about ten thousand votes short of prevailing, had they been able to combined. Technically, they couldn't be because they had different sets of electors. Even had they combined, they would not have carried the state, except for the fact, that the confusion which existed, and this is something that the old-line Republicans contend today, that had the South Carolinians for Eisenhower come out uniformly and voted the Republican ticket, that they may have carried the state in 1952. It was not meaningful in thenational election at all, but there was that feeling. In 1956, because of a growing disenchantment with the Eisenhower administration, those who had been in large measure, South Carolinians for Eisenhower, declared themselves to be South Carolina Independents. They put, as you recall, Harry Byrd up as their nominee. In that year, the combined vote for Byrd, who got something in the magnitude of eighty-thousand votes, without running, and Eisenhower, who got seventy-five thousand, or there about, on the Republican ticket, the combination exceeded what Stevenson got on the Democratic ticket. Stevenson carried the state witha minority vote, that is, there were more non-Democratic votes than there were Democratic votes, but because they were split, Stevenson carried the state again in 1956. It was during this period, I forgetthe exact year,that Charlie Boineau went in, but it began about that time. What happened thereafter, after '56, Farley Smith and those who had been active in first the South Carolinians for Eisenhower, and then the South Carolina Independents, not to be confused with Maurice Bessinger, they had determined that they were Jack Bass Interview of William Workman, 5 February 1974, p. 6

spinning up their wheels in putting up a third nominee. They reached the reasoned conclusion that come 1960, that group would not be involved in any third party movement. You pay your money and you take your choice, you come down Democratic or you come down Republican. In the 1960 race, there began to be considerable organization, which was built about the Nixon effort, in contrast with the Kennedy effort. The presidential race triggered right much of a formative organization in South Carolina under the name of the South Carolina Republican Party. Stemming from that was the beginning of putting Boineau in the House, and subsequent guys who went on in.

Bass: Now your [1962] race for the Senate also got a lot of people active in the Republican Party who had never been active before. Didn't that bring DrakeEdens in?

Workman: Yeah. I think Drake was fairly active in 1960. I had no connection at all with any political affiliation in 1960, or any time up until late 1961, when Drake Edens, Howard Love, and others, Bill Castle, , who persuaded me that I ought to be the nominee in Octoberof 1961. When I agreed to that, I withdrew my newspaper connections, except for the syndicated column. Looking toward competition in the state convention, which developed with Bob Chapman, who was then state chairman, and then looking beyond that into the general election. Drake Edens and many of those who worked with him in 1962 in my campaign, and Floyd Spenceand others, had really gotten their start in 1960, butgot considerable acceleration in 1962, with the first genuine statewide effort, which required them to organize as many counties and as many precincts as they possibly could in just the one year, because it was starting almost from absolute scratch. There was some organization for Nixon, butnot to the extent that was necessary on the precinct by precinct basis, going through the process of getting card indexes for everybody on the block, doing the real pick and shovel work, which they did in considerable measure in 1962. Because it was a statewide race, it brought a lot of people into the Republican Party, or for that matter, into politics for the first time.

Bass: Since then it has sort of gone on from there, right? I think I'm more or less familiar with it after that point. The Goldwater thing of course brought a lot more people, with the first statewide Republican victory, brought Strom Thurmond in, and Albert Watson.

Workman: In Thurmond's case, it was a plus and a minus. Thurmond, during the '60 and '62 campaigns, the '60 presidential and '62 senatorial race, Thurmond had been a Democrat and Albert Watsonwas Democratic, as against Floyd Spence in the congressional race. In 1964, and I don't want to impute motives to either Watson or Thurmond, but I think the showing which had been made in 1962 was a factor in their decision. A vote of this proportion gave them some expectation of being able to have that vote, and thereby return to office, rather than just making a meaningless gesture, and going down with thecolors flying because they couldn'tget re-elected. What had happened in 1962, the closeness of the race, would indicate that there was a latent base for Republican support, which in 1964 was proved out.

Bass: Both in your race and in Floyd Spence's race?

Workman: Yeah. In '64, it was proved out when the state went for Goldwater. Then when Thurmond subsequently ran, and when Watson made his switch, and ran stronger as a Republican than he had as a Democratic, again was proof of the fact that they correctly assessed Jack Bass Interview of William Workman, 5 February 1974, p. 7

the situation, that they could pull a winning election as Republicans as well as Democrats.

Bass: The Republicans hit their peak, up to this point, up to right now, in the legislature in the 1966 elections, winning something like twenty-five seats. How do you see the state going in the future?

Workman: Let me make a comment, Jack, on that '68 thing which, I think might be meaningful to your study. In 1968, one of the most interesting developments, to me, was the George Wallace factor. There was so much resentment against Thurmond's role of not supporting Wallace. The Wallace people would have been expected to vote non-Democratic, if they had followed George Wallace's denunciations of the trends in the national Democratic Party at that time. The Wallaceites in South Carolina, ordinarily, presidential considerations aside, would have been expected to vote against Democratic, and perhaps for Republican candidates at the local level. They were infuriated because Thurmond did not support Wallace in 1968, and therefore, they scratched virtually every Republican on the list for the General Assembly. This is when what the Republican strength had been built up, in the House and Senate, was decimated almost completely that year, in my judgement, because of the Wallace reaction against Republicanism as reflected by Strom. Now, your question as to how I see things moving from now on out. It's difficult topredict. I think that basically, the attitude of South Carolinians, as measured against the platforms of the national parties, would be more Republican than Democrat, if you take platforms dating say, from the sixties onup to the present. The general philosophy of the average South Carolinian, irrespective of how hedenominates himself politically, would be more inclined to subscribe to the Republican platforms, the general frame of politics, than to the Democratic. It would not be overwhelming, because there is a strong support for the Democratic platform, with greater liberality of social programs, more spending, more government intermixture and control of business, as opposed to the opposite view of the Republicans. The difficulty is frequently in relating these differentials on the national scene to the local scene. The same issues aren't present. It's hard to say in many areas of South Carolina government, where is the Republican position, vis a vis the Democratic position, on a purely state issue, which may or may not have anything to do with the philosophy of considerable spending. Fiscal conservatism would tend to say, well that's the Republican point of view, as against fiscal liberalism. Trying to distinguish between ...

[Tape stops and restarts]

Workman: ... I think one of the major factors to be considered, and this is somewhat unpredictable now, the course of South Carolina politics is going to be influenced considerably by the course of the black vote, as to whether or not that becomes less monolithic in terms of Democratic support. If the Republicans can make inroads into the black vote, then my conviction is the Republicans will begin to prevail more and more. Statements I made a moment ago, that the inclination of the average South Carolinian