Although South Carolina and progressivism are not two things that people commonly think of together, especially not contemporary progressivism, South Carolina did embrace the New Deal, and one of the New Deal’s foremost supporters in the state’s politics was Olin DeWitt Talmadge Johnston (1896-1965).
Born to a working class family, as a boy Johnston found himself working in a textile mill as did many working class people in the state at the time. Through his experience, he came to champion addressing the issues that befell mill workers. Johnston was an intelligent man, so he was able to work his way through college. However, before he could move into a political career, he responded to the call of service to his country and enlisted to fight in World War I in 1917. He served honorably and received a citation for bravery.
In 1922, while attending law school, Johnston won a seat in South Carolina’s House of Representatives but only served a term as he wanted to focus on practicing law. However, the call of politics came not long after and in 1926, he was again elected to the state House. Johnston championed the interests of mill workers, many who were supportive of progressive politics. Indeed, he did good work by them, most notably sponsoring and getting into law a measure that required mill owners to install sewers in their mill villages in which their workers lived. Such efforts made the young man a viable candidate for governor. In 1930, Johnston tried his hand at it and although he got the most votes on the first ballot, it wasn’t a majority, and he narrowly lost the runoff to Ibra Charles Blackwood. Governor Blackwood’s term would be troubled by a mill strike, which he responded to by calling out the National Guard. Johnston ran again in 1934, but he was up against an old hand at politics and his old hero in Coleman Blease. Blease was known for his racist demagoguery and his heavy courting of mill workers, indeed they had been central to his being elected governor and to the Senate. However, he was past his prime, and the youthful Johnston, who was with the New Deal spirit of the age, prevailed. He also had an able partner in politics in his wife, Gladys Atkinson, who would be his closet counsel.
Governor Johnston
Many South Carolinians supported both FDR and Johnston, the latter who was lauded as “South Carolina’s Roosevelt”. He strongly supported unions, and continued to help out mill workers. Under Johnston’s administration, worker’s compensation was increased, the South Carolina Public Welfare Act was passed, the South Carolina Rural Electrification Authority was created, and employment of children under 16 in industrial work was banned (National Governors Association). However, there was a controversial incident in his administration. Johnston came to believe that the State Highway Department was acting contrary to public interests and engaging in corruption, thus he ordered the National Guard to occupy the department, but no wrong-doing was found (National Governors Association). This incident would result in opponents calling him “Machine Gun Olin”, such as Senator Ellison DuRant “Cotton Ed” Smith.
FDR in 1938: I’m Helping! I’m Helping!
Although “Cotton Ed” Smith had initially supported the New Deal, he was becoming increasingly critical. His opposition to the “Death Sentence” clause of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act in 1935 and to FDR’s “court packing plan” stung Roosevelt, who wanted someone more like him. Olin Johnston was the man for the job, and Roosevelt made it very clear that he was supporting him over Smith. Roosevelt hoped to exercise more control over the party, and his efforts at a “purge” of recalcitrant Democrats in the 1938 election would be a good demonstration. However, Smith was able to effectively capitalize on numerous voters opposing FDR’s intervening in state primaries (it was a different time back then, wasn’t it?) and furthermore sit-down strikes were not engendering sympathy with organized labor, and Smith prevailed. Cotton Ed Smith was never a particularly popular senator and was despised by his colleague, Jimmy Byrnes, who nonetheless backed him in the hope that his preferred man, Burnet Maybank, could succeed Smith in 1944. It is entirely possible that if Roosevelt had just stayed out, he could have gotten his man in the Senate. Johnston was also temporarily out of office because of this run, with Maybank succeeding him as governor.
The 1941 Senate Race
In 1941, Senator Byrnes stepped down to accept a nomination to the Supreme Court, and Johnston ran to succeed him. However, Byrnes’ ideal man, Governor Maybank, won the Democratic primary. This loss and the 1938 loss for the Senate resulted in some doubt about whether Johnston was still a viable candidate. Thus, the next election was do or die for his career: the 1942 gubernatorial election.
Going for Governor Again
In running for governor, he faced state legislator Wyndham Manning, who was a real threat to win the primary and had twice before tried for governor. However, Johnston prevailed with nearly 52% of the vote, thus putting an end to Manning’s political career. The major issue that occupied this term was the subject of the white primary. On April 3, 1944, the Supreme Court announced the decision of Smith v. Allwright, which ruled the white primary unconstitutional. In response, Johnston proceeded to hold an emergency session of the state legislature in which all references to “white primary” were scrubbed, and within days 147 bills were passed that eliminated any legal connections between state government and primaries, and a constitutional amendment was proposed and adopted by the voters that the General assembly would not regulate state primaries (Moore). However, this private approach would too be ruled unconstitutional in the federal court decision Elmore v. Rice (1947), and the Supreme Court refused to take the case. Thus, the white primary was ended for good. This push gave him the springboard he needed for his third try at the Senate. During this time, Johnston also denied clemency for a 14-year-old black boy, George Stinney, who was sentenced to death for allegedly murdering two white girls. The conclusion of an investigation many decades later was that Stinney was innocent.
1944: Cotton Ed Runs Out of Steam
By 1944, Smith is 80 years old and is clearly on the decline. Furthermore, his record is now much more conservative than it was when FDR sought to purge him. Johnston was also able to more loudly and effectively capitalize on the issue of race, focusing his ire on Smith v. Allwright. By contrast, during one campaign speech, Smith spoke for a few minutes and then simply played on a record of a 1938 speech. He was just tired out and given that FDR was not “helping” Johnston this time, Smith lost, dying only three months later.
Senator Johnston
Interestingly, Johnston as a senator was not quite as liberal as he was earlier in his career. Although he got a 100% from Americans for Democratic Action in 1947, which meant he was one of the few Southern senators to oppose the Taft-Hartley Act that gave states the option to become “right to work”, he also was one of the strongest opponents of foreign aid on the Democratic side and even voted against the Marshall Plan in 1948. Johnston’s overall record by liberal standards was moderate, as he sided with Americans for Democratic Action 44% of the time. However, by conservative standards, Johnston was a moderate liberal, siding with Americans for Constitutional Action 30% of the time. His DW-Nominate score was a -0.166, making him one of the more liberal postwar Southern senators. In 1959, Johnston sponsored with Senator Styles Bridges (R-N.H.) an amendment that prohibited foreign aid to nations that expropriated US property without proper compensation. Although he opposed efforts to curb labor unions, supported strong minimum wage increases, supported public housing, supported public generation of power rather than private, and twice voted for Medicare, he also voted against federal aid for education, voted against two Area Redevelopment bills, supported domestic anti-communist measures, often voted for anti-communist amendments to foreign aid bills, and of course was against civil rights legislation. Johnston was also one of the most noted advocates for federal employees and butted heads with Senator Joseph McCarthy. Johnston was clearly interested in continuing to support meat and potatoes New Deal issues but was not friendly on some more recent liberal issues.
1950: A Serious Challenge
The year 1950 was a decidedly conservative year in American politics; many candidates Senator Joseph McCarthy endorsed won their races, and on the Democratic side of the aisle in the South some liberal officeholders fell to more conservative ones, most notably Senator Claude Pepper’s defeat by Congressman George Smathers in Florida and Senator Frank Porter Graham’s defeat by Willis Smith in North Carolina. Johnston risked meeting the same fate when up against Governor Strom Thurmond. By running against Johnston, Thurmond was breaking a promise not to run against him if he supported his campaign for governor in 1946, which he had. Johnston got his base of support in South Carolina’s northern, working class communities, while Thurmond got his support from the wealthier southern counties. The campaign was ugly, with accusations flying from both candidates, and both men tried to outdo each other in racist campaigning, including Thurmond claiming that Johnston was passive against President Truman’s civil rights pushes and Johnston condemning Thurmond for appointing a black doctor to the state’s medical board. Johnston won by single digits.
1962 Election and Decline
In 1962, Governor Fritz Hollings challenged Johnston for renomination, asserting that he was too liberal, but Johnston defeated him for renomination by a nearly 2 to 1 ratio. Interestingly, his bid for reelection proved more difficult, contrary to past years. He faced Republican journalist William D. Workman Jr., who campaigned against him as supporting socialist proposals, particularly on healthcare through his support of Medicare, but Johnston prevailed by nearly 15 points. By contrast, Johnston’s 1956 Republican opponent had pulled just under 18% of the vote. South Carolina wasn’t quite ready to elect a Republican senator. However, not all was well for him. After his reelection, he was diagnosed with cancer and by 1965 he was in serious decline. On April 17, 1965, his doctors announced that Johnston was suffering from viral pneumonia, was not responding to treatment, and had slipped into a coma. Johnston died the next day at the age of 68.
Columnist Ralph McGill (1965) praised Johnston as having had “a lot more intellectual courage than many of those whose names are better known. He not only had this courage, he showed it” and noted, “One of the tragedies of the Southern senators and congressmen, especially the more able, is that in the past they have had to join with, encourage and expand racial prejudice to win primaries in states where there was no Republican opposition and where Negro voters were so few as to be meaningless” (37). Johnston was also praised by his successor, Donald Russell. Russell held that “I have never known a warmer, more patient and steadfast friend than he. He was equally warm and gracious to all, the lowly and the mighty” (Hill). Johnston’s legacy would continue through his daughter, Liz Patterson, who served in Congress as a Democrat from 1987 to 1993.
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
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Gov. Olin DeWitt Talmadge Johnston. National Governors Association.
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Hill, R. The Friend of the Workers: Olin D. Johnston of South Carolina. The Knoxville Focus.
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Johnston, Olin DeWitt Talmadge. Voteview.
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McGill, R. (1965, April 28). Olin Johnston had courage. The Peninsula Times Tribune, 37.
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/839749772/
Moore, W.V. (2016, August 1). South Carolina Plan. South Carolina Encyclopedia.
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https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/south-carolina-plan/
Simon, B. (2016, June 8). Johnston, Olin DeWitt Talmadge. South Carolina Encyclopedia.
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Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 