Race, Corruption, and Southern Republicanism

The Patronage Scandal of the 1920s

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2135705
AutoresBoris Heersink (0000-0002-6022-276X, Fordham University), J A Jenkins (0000-0001-7426-3370, University of Southern California, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen21
Número1
Páginas50-76
Fecha de publicación2024-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaDu Bois Review Social Science Research on Race (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1742-058X • E-ISSN: 1742-0598
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1742058x23000176
OpenAlexW4388976992
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas15

While Republicans enjoyed unified control of the national government during the 1920s, scandals involving executive patronage and GOP state bosses in the South dogged the national party throughout the decade. The Republican Party in the South had been a set of "rotten boroughs" for decades, used by national politicians-especially presidents-for the sole purpose of controlling delegates at the Republican National Convention. This patronage-for-delegates arrangement was generally understood among political elites, but the murder-suicide involving a U.S. postmaster in Georgia in April 1928 brought the Southern GOP's patronage practices to national light. This forced Republican leaders in an election year to call for a Senate investigation. Chaired by Sen. Smith W. Brookhart (R-IA), the committee investigation lasted for eighteen months, covered portions of two Republican presidential administrations, and showed how state GOP leaders in Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas engaged in office selling. The fallout would be a thorn in the side of President Herbert Hoover, who tried to clean up the corrupt GOP organizations in the South-and build an electorally-viable Republican Party in the ex-Confederate states-but largely failed

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