Page Eight

SCARLET AND BLACK_

Friday, April 12, I958

 

And on the Populist—Welfurisi Tickel‘ . . .
HE—

AN HOUR Willi GEGRGE WALLACE I.

By Wm. F. BUCKLEY, Jr.

A month or so before George
Wallace Confirmed that he
would run for President on a
third party ticket, the right
wing weekly iournal, Human
Events, published the results of
a poll of “two hundred promi-
nent conservatives." The poll
unearthed a surprising hostility
towards George Wallace.” Why?
.i asked him a few weeks ago.

S Well, Mr. Buck-
ley said that two-hun-
dred prominent conser-
vatives — that‘s typical
of those who write in
mugazines — who
are these prominent
conservatives?

Moderator: Mr. Buck-
ley, did the magazine
list the conservatives?

B: No, it didn’t. But
suppose Governor Wal-
lace names one prom-
inent conservative out-
side the South who’s in
favor of him?

6W: Mr. Buckley, 1
run my politics like i do
in Alabama. l never
went to the County
Court Houses to see [he
the county governing
bodies. l just went to
the people. i go out to
the masses of the peo-
ple with the message
that l have, and i don’t
know any prominent
conservatives.

i tried to suggest that the
reason why prominent con-
servatives do not. endorse
George Wallace is because they
do not believe that his activities
are in the conservative tradi-
tinn, Sophisticated conservatives
believe that Wallace's passion
for states rights derives mm
the knowledge that this is the
only way to administer a segre-
gated state.

Mr. Wallace replied that an
enormous number or Negroes
voted for his wile. Governor
Lurleen Wallace, at the last
election, that he is no longer a
member of the ofllcial Demo-
eratic establishment, that he
broke with John Kennedy alter
his election, and did not vote
for Johnson in 1964. And any»
way, what could a conservative
find to criticize in his program
for Alabama?:

GW: Name one thing
in Alabama that l have
supported on the govern<
mental level that you
are against.

H: You want (the
state) to take care of
hospitalization, y o u
want to take care of
old people, you want
to take care of the
poor . . .

cw: Are you against
caring [or the poor and
the old?

(i thought perhaps
that Mr. Wallace would
Ibandon the technique
if 1 ridiculed it, so I

answered mock-
solemniy, “I hate the
poor." it didn’t wor

GW: 1 am for look-
ing aiter destitute elder-
ly people. I’m not as
gainst that at all. So
if conservatlsm is
against looking alter
the elderly who are des-
titute, i might say that
no conservative in this
country who comes out
against looking after
destitute elderly peo—
ple, ought to be elected
to anything.

Moderator: Let‘s get
it deiinitely from Gover-
nor Wallace, whether he
is a conservative, or
pretends to be a con-
servative.

B: He calls himself
a populist.

cw: If you mean (by)
a populist a man of the
people, yes, I’m a pop-
ulist, if that’s what you
mean by it. . .Let’s get
back to the old age pen-
sions. Let's see, you’re
against Alabama’s look-
ing after the elderly,
destitute citizens ol the
state?

I had observed that Mr. Wal-
lace, like most. liberals, favors
tederal welfare programs — but
then resents Washington’s in-
terference. He replied that Al-
abama was only getting back
in wellare What. Alabama put
out in tederal taxes. Partly
true, I agreed, but in tact Al-
abama got more back irom the
government than Alabama gave
to the government, by a long
sight . . . He is extremely de-
iensive on this point:

GW: Where are your tig-
ures? You‘ve made ii
chnrge ngainsi Alabama,
give us the ligures . . .

b: My guess is that you
take in at least five times
Is much iroin the Federal
Government as you send
out in taxes.

6W: . . . that’s totally
untrue.

n. l happen to know the
figures ior Mississippi eit-
actly, ten to one: that’s why
I sort of cut that in hair.

ow: It’s not ten to one
in Mississippi in the iirst
place. 1’" say Ihat’s wrong

(The current tigures on Mis-
sissippi and Alabama are: Mis~
sissippi puts up ascents tor
every dollar she brings in
from the Federal Government.
Alabama puts in sl-cents, Still,
it is a good economic bargain.)

So it went. Mr. Wallace
seemed to be arguing that state
weltarism is altogether ,desir»
able, provided the relevant ad-
ministrative 'unit is the state,
not the Federal Government.

He seemed tovbe saying that

something suddenly happened
half way through John Kenna
dy's reign that justified his sud-
den disillusion with the nation-
al Democratic Party. But that
whatever it was that happened,
it had nothing to do with the
race question, and that the
vote oi so many Negroes
for Lurleen Wallace shrlves

him of any suspicion that his
program is based on race.

We have seen that George
Wallace stoutly insists that he
is not to be thought or as a rac-
lst candidate, even though he
has never explained satisiac-
torily why he was an enthusias-
tic national Democrat, in the

SuJiTEE

tradition or Roosevelt, Kennedy,
and Johnson, up until the mo-
ment when the Federal Gov-
ernment began to interiere with
the will of Alabama on the
matter of segregation,

It is not as though, when
Governor Wallace stood at the
threshhold of the University of
Alabama and defied the federal
marshal to carry out the court
order integrating the univers-
ity, he there and then repented
of his former activities, per.
ceiving the implications of state
welfarism.

"suppeors to be periecily
satisfied for Washington to col-

lect taxes and remit Ihe pro-
ceeds to the states — provided
there are no accompanying in-
structions on how that money is
to he used. He is quite prepared
to accept, for Alabama, twice
as much money as Alabama
contributes to the federal trea-
sury. What he is not prepared
to do is acquiesce in Washing-
Ion’s instructions on how Ala-

bania should run its school sys-
tem, or indeed anything else
that Alabama rims, thiit hem
(m the question of race segrega-
lion.

What will prove especially
interesting about George Wal-
lace in the months to come is
less his Views (he has adopted
the full paraphernalia of tha
conervative, even though he is
a \veltarist-populist, catalyzed
by his passion for racial segre-
gation) than his techniques.

Here, as I discovered, are a
few of them.

1. EXAGGERATING THE
SOUTH’S FLIGHT.

6W: . . . we had five
generations of people who
didn’t. go to school-because
there were no schools it)!

black or white. All they
could do is eke something
out of the ground to eat . . .

(There were public schools in
Alabama, and ior that matter
private schools, during the livl
generations in question.)

2. 50’s YOUR OLD MAN.

Buckley: . . . Certiiln poi.
iticians grew up in th- -

South and lusted tor partici-
pation in a type of govern-
ment which is (listinclively
anti-conservative, the type
oi government of which Mr.
Roosevelt and Mr. Kennedy
and Mr. Johnson are (rep«
resentative). Then all of a
s u d d e n, something hap—
pened. The consequences of
that lederalization als is
meant that they couldn’t
continue in their segregated
ways, and that‘s when Gov-
emor Wallace was bom—

GW: Of course, I was not
even voting in the days that
you’re talking about, i
didn’t even vote In those
elections, but when you say
that, because of the people
of the South voted for Mr.
Roosevelt that made them
anti-conservative, Well New
York voted for Mr. Roose-
velt all four times . . .

s . . It doesn’t make any
difference to me whether
some prominent conserva~
tlve is not for me. 70% of
the people last night on a
poll on the television station
in St. Louis said they would
support me. The iact is that
i won the television poll on
WIIC in Pittsburgh Ihe oth-
er day and defeated John<
son, Kennedy, and Reagan
by almost three to one.

B: And they might have
given more votes to Peron
than they did to you, right?

6W: That‘s a real smart
mower.

a: We know that he got
many more votes in Ar-
gentina) than you got in Al—
abama.

aw: i got more in Ala-
bama than you got in New
York.

3. NOBODY-EVER~
LETS-ME-TALK.

GW: Why don’t you let
me talk? After all . . . I
thought you invited me to
get my opinion . . . Really,
i thought i was supposed to
—- you wanted my opinion.
But when you get on Ihis
show, the man that puts on
the show wants to do all
the talking. (At that point
in the program, by exact
count from a transcription,
the moderator had spoken
in words, I had spoken 169,
and Wallace 845.)

I. THERE-AlN’T—NOBODY-
LOVES-THE-NIGRAsLlKE-
ME-AN’-LURLEEN.

GW: In fact, we don't havl
segregation in Alabama . . .
i've always made speeches in
my state in which i said any»
body’s entitled to vote regard.
less of thalr race or color . . o
and we had Negro citizens by
the thousands who Voted in
1958, when I first ran ior gover-
nor, and I might say, In the
run-off for governor, that they
voted for me,

E: is that because they didn’t
have the education you‘re lal -
ing about?

6W: You reflect on the No.
gio voters of Alabama if yo
want toybut >1 won't; ' ‘_ 2-