Lily Blacks

. . . Went to de rock fo' ter hide his face But de rock cried out, "No hidin' place! No hidin' place down here!"

--Negro Spiritual.

Lacking Congressmen in the South, the Republican Party and especially its chief, the President, is deeply obliged to the Southern members of the Republican National Committee for advice in distributing Federal offices. The officeholders are, in turn, obliged to the National Committeemen for recommending them to the President.

All would run smoothly in this Southern Republican scheme of things but for the fact that whites and Negroes mix poorly in the South, even within the Republican Party. And it is only lately that any great number of white Southerners, except for trash, were Republicans. Northern Republicans have even been said to prefer that the Southern wing of their party should stay Negroid because it would then be easier to handle. Lately, however, white Republicans have thought they may yet break the Democrats' grip on the South. They realize that to do so they will have to "play down" the G. O. P.'s Negro connections. They are the "Lily whites." They are, say the Negro Republicans, almost as bad as the Democrats, who unblushingly stifle the Negro's vote.

A case of "Lily whites" v. Negroes was what lay at the bottom of Mississippi's

Republican scandals last week. Perry W. Howard, Negro national committeeman, was indicted at Biloxi and arrested, with four other men, charged with taking $1,500 between them for compassing the appointment of a deputy U. S. marshal. Mr. Howard was a special attorney for the U. S. Department of Justice. At another time, under other-auspices, he might have hoped that the case would be hushed up or dissipated by indulgent party men in the Department. But Mr. Howard had no luck. Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt, Assistant U. S. Attorney General, was following the case herself, in anticipation of the Senate's investigation of G. 0. Patronage all through the South (TIME, July 23). After his arrest, Mr. Howard was suspended from his Federal niche by Attorney General Sargent. He faced trial with few friends at court. He accused local "Lily-whites" of having "framed" the thing on him. He hurried to Washington to protest his innocence and try to get help. He wanted to know what investigation of G. O. Patronage there would be in States like Texas, Virginia and North Carolina, whose national committeemen are white.

Protested Mr. Howard:

"I have no fear of the outcome of a fair and impartial trial in Mississippi. No man in the nation has done more than I to prevent anything that even smacked of the purchase and sale of public offices."