The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 74, July 1970 - April, 1971 Page: 432

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

bly favored gubernatorial candidates in the primaries more in line
with national Democratic party policies than their conservative op-
ponents. The Wallaces, Davises, and Barnetts by and large, rarely
received the support of the publishers and editors who were Barks-
dale's representatives of the Establishment in these states. Thus he is
able to suggest that the "closed society" is not quite as monolithic as
James Silver viewed it, that John Dollard's view that poorer whites
exhibited less than the "predicted resentment" of Negroes while mid-
dle-class whites exhibited much more is not as true today as when
Caste and Class in a Southern Town was published in 1957, that W. F.
Cash's point about conservative political hierarchies being dominated
by "the new industrial and commercial magnates" is not valid, that
V. O. Key's statement about poorer whites supporting more moderate
racial policies does not accord with his findings. While Barksdale ac-
cepts the premise that the Deep South is different in many ways from
the rest of the nation, his reasearch reveals one important way in
which it is similar: in elections, the power structure, as its views are
expressed by publishers and editors, usually supports more moderate
candidates than does the average voter.
While George Norris Green's essay, "Some Aspects of the Far Right
Wing in Texas Politics," is less analytical than Barksdale's, it is infused
with psychological and historical insights which he carefully uses to
explain right-wing mentality. The story he presents of the activities
of the radical right in local politics is frightening. Aspects of it, par-
ticularly the efforts to dominate education on the local level, are
undoubtedly first-hand knowledge to many readers of this journal.
Like Barksdale, he sees a viable two-party system as one way of slowly
starting to achieve a more balanced politics, though Green concludes
his essay with a clarion call for more moderate Texans to speak out
against right-wing extremists.
When T. Harry Williams delivered his paper on "Huey Long and
the Politics of Realism" he presented his audience with a succinct
preview of his splendid biography, Huey Long. Today the essay pro-
vides an excellent summary of that prize-winning volume. Many of
the points he develops more fully in the book are presented here,
though the focus of the essay is more general and geared more toward
the national scene, while the biography, necessarily, delves more deeply
into the complicated maze of Louisiana politics. Although Williams
is impressed with Long's great abilities as an organizer and as a mass

432