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Southern Congressmen And Welfare Policy In The 1960'S: A Case Study Of Redistributive Politics

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Southern Congressmen And Welfare Policy In The 1960'S: A Case Study Of Redistributive Politics

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Content 72-17,468
FOSTER III, Granville James, 1944-
SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND WELFARE POLICY IN THE
1960'S: A CASE STUDY OF REDISTRIBUTIVE
POLITICS.
University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1972
Political Science, general
University Microfilms, A X ER O X C om pany, Ann Arbor, Michigan
SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND WELFARE POLICY IN THE 1960'S
A CASE STUDY OF REDISTRIBUTIVE POLITICS
by
Granville James Foster III
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Political Science)
February 1972
UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFO RNIA
TH E GRADUATE SC H O O L
U N IV ER SITY PARK
LO S A N G ELE S, C A LIFO R N IA 3 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
......G x a n v i T l e ^ ........
under the direction of his.... Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Gradu
ate School, in partial fulfillment of require
ments of the degree of
D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y
Date...Js}?3333Z..l.VA
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF T A B L E S....................................... v
PART I. SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND WELFARE POLICY:
A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
Chapter
I. THE PROBLEM
The American State in Turmoil
Poverty in the South
Poverty as a Political Problem
Poverty Becomes a Public Issue
Poverty Programs of the 1960's
II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE...................... 41
Public Policy* Roll-Call Voting* and
the Southern Congressman
Selected Independent Variables and
Southern Voting Behavior
Research Design
III. A ROLL-CALL ANALYSIS.......................... 75
Guttman Scaling and Roll-Call Analysis
Methodology
Analysis
Selected Causal Variables and Southern
Congressional Welfare Support
Conclusion
xx
PART II. SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND WELFARE POLICY:
A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
Chapter
IV. SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND PUBLIC ASSISTANCE . .
! The Legislative Development of the
| Public Assistance Program
Public Assistance in the South during
the 1960's
Public Assistance and the
Southern Congressman
Conelusion
V. SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND FOOD STAMPS .........
The Legislative Development of the
Food Stamp Program
! Food Stamps in the South during
I the 1960's
i Food Stamps and the Southern Congressman
j Conclusion
I
VI. SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND FAMILY ASSISTANCE . .
The Legislative Development of the
Family Assistance Plan
Family Assistance and the South
Family Assistance and the
j Southern Congressman
■ Conclusion
j
j VII. SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND THE ANTIPOVERTY
PROGRAM UNDER PRESIDENT JOHNSON ...........
The Legislative Development of the
Antipoverty Program
Antipoverty in the South during the 1960's
Antipoverty under President Johnson and the
Southern Congressman
Conclusion
iii
Page
126
157
188
221
Chapter Page
VIII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 258
The Conservative Southern Congressman
The Liberal Southern Congressman
The Process-Policy Nexus: Southern
Congressmen and Welfare Policy in the
1970's
Policy Analysis and Future Research
Directions
APPENDIX 285
BIBLIOGRAPHY 290
iv
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. 1968 Poverty Thresholds ........................ 9
2. Selected Characteristics of the Poor and
Nonpoor, 1966 ................................. 10
3. Per Capita Personal Income by States and
Regions, 1948-67 12
4. "Hunger Counties" in the United States,
South and Nonsouth, 1968 15
5. Southern Congressional Support for Welfare
Policy, Preliminary Vote Universe ........... 82
6. Southern Congressional Liberal-Conservative
Welfare Vote Universe, 1962-70 86
7. Southern Congressmen: Liberalism-Conservatism
Welfare Scale, 1962-70 88
8. Southern Congressional Welfare Support
Patterns, 1962-70 ............................ 93
9. State Delegations Rank Ordered by Percentage
for Welfare Support: Categories "Moderate
Conservative" and "Strong Conservative" . . . 96
10. State Delegations Rank Ordered by Percentage
for Welfare Support: Category "Moderate" . . 98
v
Table Page
11. State Delegations Rank Ordered by Percentage
for Welfare Support: Categories "Moderate
Liberal" and "Strong Liberal" ............... 99
12. Correlation Coefficients for Selected
Independent Variables and Southern Welfare
Support Patterns, 1962-70 .................... 110
13. Two-Way Frequency Distribution of Districts by
Urbanization and Southern Welfare Support
Levels, 1962-70 .............................. 112
14. Two-Way Frequency Distribution of Districts by
Per Capita Income and Southern Welfare
Support Levels, 1962-70 ...................... 114
15. Two-Way Frequency Distribution of Districts by
Black Population and Southern Welfare
Support Levels, 1962-70 ...................... 117
16. Two-Way Frequency Distribution of Districts by
Party Identification and Southern Welfare
Support Levels, 1962-70 ...................... 119
17. AFDC Monthly Cost Standard for Basic Needs of
a Family Consisting of Four Recipients and
Amount of Aid to Such Families in South Paid
by State, Rank Ordered by Percentage of
Need Met, 1968 134
18. AFDC Families and Recipient Children in
South by Race, 1967 .......................... 136
19. State Expenditures for the Commodity
Distribution and Food Stamp Programs in
the South, 1968 .............................. 164
Table
j 20. Support Levels of Southern Congressmen for
| Food Stamp Legislation in the 1960's . . . .
21. Support Levels for Food Stamp Legislation,
House of Representativesj 1964-68 ...........
22. Funding under Family Assistance by Region . . .
2 3. Public Reaction Nationwide to the
Family Assistance Plan as of August, 1969 . .
! 24. Southern Congressional Support Levels for the
' Family Assistance Act, 1970..................
25. Location of Job Corps Conservation Centers
! in South, 1967 ..............................
! 3
| 26. Southern Congressional Support Levels for the
| War on Poverty, 1964-67 ......................
i
| 27. Support in the House of Representatives for
| Antipoverty Legislation, 1964-67.............
28. The Conservative Southern Congressmen .........
! 29. The Liberal Southern Congressmen .............
|
\ 30. AFL-CIO Support Scores for Southern
| Congressmen, 1970 ............................
Page
177
178
195
197
2 05
229
243
245
262
268
285
PART I
SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND WELFARE POLICY:
A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
1
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
Among the most pressing problems facing the South
and indeed the nation is Southern poverty. Efforts to deal
with it by the state and local governments have proved to be
of little effective value. Government and private commis
sion reports are replete with statistics that indicate pov
erty remains a critical problem in the region. Because of
the institutional positions they occupy, Southern congress
men are in a unique position to help remedy this problem.'*'
Yet in 1970 more than 90 percent of them voted against the
Family Assistance Plan proposed by President Nixon. This
program would have increased federal welfare spending by
1 4.5 to 5.5 billion dollars and added as many as 12 million
•^We are operationally defining the South as the fol
lowing states: Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana,
Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, South
Carolina, and Florida. All tables in this study will employ
this definition of the South.
2
3
persons to the welfare rolls . More important for the South,
over 50 percent of the families that would have come under
2
this program are in the South. This is but one instance of
the Southern opposition to welfare policy that has charac
terized the 1960's. In order to understand this political
paradox, one must first consider certain more basic ques
tions . In this chapter the writer will examine the social
and political context of this era. More specifically, an
attempt will be made to answer the following questions:
(1) What was the over-all condition of the American politi
cal system during the 1960's? (2) What is the actual extent
of poverty in the South? (3) Can poverty be seen as a
political problem? (4) How concerned was the American pub
lic about poverty during the 1960's? (5) What were the
various functioning programs developed during the 1960's to
deal with the problems of the poor?
The chapter will also include brief descriptions of
certain selected programs to be examined in depth later in
this study.
This chapter's discussions of fundamental issues will
^Congressional Quarterly Weekly Reports, XXVIII,
No. 10 (Washington, D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Service,
1970), 702.
4
serve as the basis of the subsequent analysis of Southern
congressmen's record with respect to welfare policy in the
1960's .
The American State in Turmoil
One of the chief energizing forces in the American
political system is conflict. Policy is often made in
response to an ongoing series of conflicts, and generally
reflects the values of those locked in the policy struggle.
The level of conflict in the United States is not constant.
The 1950's, for example, have been described as a period in
which the level of public conflict and ideological cleavage
3
was comparatively low. During this era the basic needs of
the American people appeared satisfied., conflicts were re
solved through compromise, and there were no serious chal
lenges to our political and social institutions.
I As the 1960's unfolded this "era of consensus" came
to an abrupt halt. One scholar has even gone so far as to
suggest that this period witnessed the end of American
4
"liberalism." To underscore this point, it will be useful
3Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (Glencoe, 111.:
Free Press, 1960), pp. 15-30.
^Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: Ideology,
Policy and the Crisis of Public Authority (New York: W. W.
5
to look briefly at three major areas of tension that char
acterized the 1960's. A major source of conflict during
this period was the Americanization of the war in Vietnam.
Student demonstrations, sometimes accompanied by violence,
were all too common in the post-1965 period. The military-
industrial complex and vast defense expenditures also in
curred heavy criticism as the war in Vietnam became more
intense. More basic was the suggestion by some that the
defense policy-making role of the President should be lim
ited in some way.
A second structural problem that created intense
public debate centered around the question of the distri
bution of public authority: this was the issue of federal-
I
state relations. The debate turned on two basic points of
tension: (1) the problem of the influence of special in
terests on national policy making, and (2) the considerable
i
jexpansion of the federal government's functions and related
i
5
bureaucracies. Civil rights legislation and the tax-
sharing and welfare proposals of the 1960's are examples of
Norton & Co., 1969), pp. ix-xii.
C
Morton Grodzxns, "Centralxzatxon and Decentraliza
tion in the American Federal System," in A Nation of States.
ed. by Robert A. Goldwin (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co.,
1966), pp. 1-23.
6
legislative issues that aggravated this perennial debate.
A third area of tension conspicuous throughout the
1960's hinged on two factors. During this period the public
became increasingly concerned about poverty and hunger on a
national scale; second, groups that until the 1960's had
been only peripherally political, e.g., students, minority
groups and the poor, demanded fuller access to the policy
process . During this time these groups were to become
"politicized." They demanded that public institutions
respond to their needs, and in some cases demanded an active
role in the formation of public policy. The inclusion of
these groups in political decision making occasioned a cri
sis in American political ideology as well as a crisis in
public policy. As citizens of a democracy, they were no
longer willing to accept the liberal premise that property
rights were somehow more important than human rights or the
I
right of equality. More specifically, they demanded equal
ity in the sense of a wide sharing of power and a broad
distribution of wealth. For these groups, political and
economic equality became a natural right— a right substan
tially more just and rational than the right of property.
This research will be directed toward one aspect of this
conflict.
I 7
Underlying these three major areas of tension in the
American political system in the 1960's was an even more
basic problem— a crisis of confidence in our political in
stitutions in general. As Theodore Lowi noted: "The crisis
of the 1960's is at bottom a political crisis, a crisis of
g
public authority." Demands for change were no longer com
pletely directed toward "in-system" modifications. New Left
and Black Power groups and others sought change that was
total in scope. These groups did not accept the basic val
ues of a liberal state; they sought to substitute new goals
and institutions for what they considered an unresponsive
7
and materialistic political and social system.
Poverty in the South
In the midst of this turmoil, several public issues
stood out. Among these was the problem of poverty. In the
United States poverty is not limited to one section of the
country. It is a problem that is national in scope. During
the period from 1959 to 1968 the relative incidence of
poverty in America was reduced from 22 percent to 13 percent
^End of Liberalism, p. xiii.
^Kenneth M. Dolbeare and Patricia Dolbeare, Ameri
can Ideologies: The Competing Political Beliefs of the
1970's (Chicago: Markham Publishing Co., 1971), pp. 107-384.
8
8
of the population. In absolute terms,, however, this still
9
left over 25 million people classified as poor.
Who are the poor? In Table 2 the major demographic
characteristics of the poor are indicated. While statisti
cal data of this sort can seem painfully irrelevant to human
problems, the table does indicate clearly that the poor are
a diverse group. In 1966, for example, 68.3 percent of the
poor were white, while 31.7 were classified as nonwhite;
62.7 percent of the poor live in urban areas, while 37.3
percent are located in rural parts of the country. The poor
are generally younger or much older than the non-poor.
The poor in the United States suffer from several
acute problems— most of which are closely related to their
poverty. They usually have inadequate diets; the medical
I
care they receive generally comes too late and is often of
^President's Commission on Income Maintenance Pro
grams, Poverty amid Plenty: The American Paradox (Washing
ton, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1969), p. 13.
^We are defining "poor" operationally with the pov
erty index developed by the Social Security Administration.
This index is based upon the Department of Agriculture's
measure of the cost of a temporary low-budget, nutritious
diet for households of various sizes. The poverty index is
simply this food budget multiplied by three to reflect the
fact that food typically represents one-third of the expen
ses of a low-income family. Table 1 indicates various pov-
srty thresholds using this index.
9
TABLE 1
1968 POVERTY THRESHOLDS
i
Family Size
Poverty Index
Nonfarm Farm
1 $1,748 $1,487
2 2,262 1, 904
3 2, 774 2, 352
4 3,553 3, 034
5 4,188 3,577
6 4, 706 4,021
7 or more 5,789 4, 916
I
j
Source: President's Commission on Income Maintenance |
Programs, Poverty amid Plenty: The American
Paradox (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1969), p. 14.
TABLE 2
SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POOR AND NONPOOR,
10
1966
Characteristic
Number
(Millions)
Percent
Distribution
Poor
Non-
poor
Poor
Non-
poor
Age
Total 30.0 163.9 100.0 100.0
Under 18 years 13.0 57 .4 43.5 35 .0
18-21 1.6 10.4 5.3 6 .4
22-54 7.4 68 .7 24.7 41.9
55-64 2 .5 14.7 8.5 9.0
65 and over 5 .4 12 .6 18.0 7.7
Race
Total 30.0 163 .9 100.0 100.0
White 20.4 150.2 68.3 91.6
Nonwhite 9.5 13 .7 31.7 8.4
Family status
Total 30.0 163.9 100.0 100.0
Unrelated individuals 5.1 7 .6 17.1 4.5
Family members 24.9 156 .3 82 .9 95 .4
Head 6.1 42 .8 20.3 26 .1
Spouse 4.1 38 .5 13.5 23.5
Other adult 2 .1 17 .7 7.2 10.8
Child under 18 12 .6 57 .3 42 .0 35 .0
Type of residence
Total 30.0 163.9 100.0 100.0
Farm 2 .5 8.5 8.2 5 .2
Nonfarm 27.5 155 .4 91.8 94.8
Rural 11.2 46 .7 37.3 28.5
Urban 18.8 117 .2 62 .7 71.5
Source: U.S., Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,
Office of Economic Opportunity.
11
low quality. They typically occupy housing that is sub
standard., and tend to live in social isolation from other
members of society.
Two additional facts about the American poor are of
particular importance for our analysis. First, over half of
all poor families in the United States live in the South.
Second, Southern poverty is not restricted to blacks. Ac
cording to the President's Commission on Income Maintenance
Programs:
The poor are somewhat concentrated geographically.
Twenty percent of Southern families were poor in 1966,
while only 9 percent of non-Southern families were
poor. Half of all poor families lived in the South.
Although nearly two-thirds of all poor nonwhite fami
lies lived in the South in 1966, Southern poverty was
by no means confined to the nonwhite. Close to 2
million white families— 42 percent of all poor white
families— were residents of Southern states.^
The South is indeed a region characterized by extensive
poverty. Table 3 clarifies one of the quantitative aspects
of this problem. As the figures indicate, the differences
in per capita income among certain states were quite strik
ing. In 1967, for example, per capita income ranged from
$1,895 in Mississippi to $3,865 in Connecticut.
Two other points should be underscored. First, the
•^Poverty amid Plenty, p. 29.
TABLE 3
PER CAPITA PERSONAL INCOME BY STATES AND REGIONS, 1948-67
State and Region 1948 1958 1967
Southeast 984 1,507 2,42 9
Virginia 1,130 1,684 2, 776
West Virginia 1,120 1,549 2,.341
Kentucky 990 1,496 2, 387
Tennessee 944 1,448 2, 369
North Carolina 973 1,436 2, 396
South Carolina 891 1,259 2,187
Georgia 968 1,519 2,513
Florida 1,180 1,827 2, 796
Alabama 866 1,404 2,166
Mississippi 789 1,128 1,895
Louisiana 1,032 1,613 2,445
Arkansas 875 1,279 2, 090
Southwest 1,187 1,836 2,674
Oklahoma 1,144 1, 762 2,62 3
Texas 1,199 1,851 2, 704
New Mexico 1,084 1,82 7 2,462
Arizona 1,274 1,663 2,681
Rocky Mountain 1,419 2, 001 2,859
Montana 1,616 2, 059 2, 759
Idaho 1, 316 1,800 2,608
Wyoming 1,595 2, 143 2,997
Colorado 1,433 2,115 3, 086
Utah 1,240 1,831 2,617
Far West 1, 715 2,433 3, 588
Washington 1,600 2,231 3,481 i
Oregon 1,621 2,082 3,055 !
Nevada 1,814 2,651 3,626 i
California 1, 752 2,511 3,680
13
TABLE 3— Continued j
i
State and Region 1948 1958 1967
New England 1,494 2,258 3,436
Maine 1,235 1, 742 2,62 0
New Hampshire 1,285 1, 957 3, 019
Vermont 1,134 1,650 2, 775
Massachusetts 1, 500 2,287 3,488
Rhode Island 1,493 2, 042 3,2 38
Connecticut 1, 713 2,642 3,885
Mideast 1,648 2, 387 3, 534
New York 1,797 2,518 3, 725
New Jersey 1,689 2, 516 3,624
Pennsylvania 1,431 2,180 3,149
Delaware 1, 721 2,610 3, 700
Maryland 1,467 2,2 05 3,434
District of Columbia 1,957 2,818 4,288
Great Lakes 1,803 2,283 3, 392
Michigan 1, 560 2,149 3, 398
Ohio 1,558 2,148 3,212
Indiana 1,451 1, 988 3,241
Illinois 1,815 2,468 3, 725
Wisconsin 1,419 2, 018 3,153
Plains 1,444 1,970 2, 935
Minnesota 1,432 1,970 2, 995
Iowa 1,589 1, 921 3, 093
Missouri 1, 389 2, 02 3 2, 993
North Dakota 1,402 1, 709 2,485
South Dakota 1,497 1,888 2, 550
Nebraska 1,509 1,963 2,988 j
Kansas 1, 334 2,078 3, 009
United States 1,430 2, 068 3, 137
Source: Niles M. Hansen, Rural Poverty and the Urban
Crisis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1970), p. 16.
14
the Southern states as a group had a much lower per capita
income than any other region throughout the period 1948-
1967. Southern poverty, then, is not a new problem. It has
been a regional condition for some time* for many, it is a
way of life. Second, in recent years the magnitude of this
problem has diminished. The improvement has been slight,
but it is still noteworthy. As one writer has reported:
Between 1948 and 1965 the largest gains in personal
income occurred in the western and southern parts of
the United States, while the smallest gains were found
in the northeastern and north central areas . From the
cyclical peak in 1948 to the first quarter of 1965 —
the last quarter not greatly affected by the Vietnam
buildup— personal income in the far West, Southeast,
and Southwest combined grew about 30 percent faster
than in the rest of the country.
A growing economy coupled with an increase in aggregate
demand does not, however, offer much hope to the bulk of the
Southern poor. Their condition will be altered only mar
ginally by small increases in state per capita income.
i
j A more realistic appraisal of the Southern poor's
problems can be gained if we look at one especially painful
aspect of Southern poverty, i.e., the problem of hunger. As
Table 4 shows, hunger in the United States is particularly
■^Niles M. Hansen, Rural Poverty and the Urban Cri
sis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970), pp. 15-
16 .
15
"HUNGER COUNTIES
SOUTH AND
TABLE 4
" IN THE UNITED
NONSOUTH, 1968
STATES,
State
Number of Percentage
Counties of Total3
South
Alabama 17 6
Arkansas 6 2
Florida 9 3
Georgia 50 18
Louisiana 11 4
Mississippi 38 13
North Carolina 28 10
South Carolina 18
Tennessee 11 4
Texas 35 12
Virginia
j
14 5
Total 2.37 8
Nonsouth
Arizona 1 1
Colorado 2 1
Illinois 2 1
Kentucky 13 4
Maryland 1
1
Missouri 2 1
Montana 1 1
New Mexico 7 2
North Dakota 1 1
Oklahoma 5 2
South Dakota 7 2
Wisconsin 1 1
Total 43 1
Percentages were rounded off to the nearest whole number.
Source: Citizens Board of Inquiry into Hunger and
Malnutrition in the United States, Hunger, U.S.A.
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), pp. 95-96.
16
acute in the South. A "hunger county" is operationally
defined in Hunger U. S. A ., the source of these data, as a
county that has at least three of the following four char
acteristics: (1) a postneonatal mortality rate of at least
15.0 per 1,000, twice as high as the national average; (2)
a poverty population (based on the Social Security Adminis
tration's Index) of at least 40 percent, twice the national
average; (3) a level of participation in welfare programs
lower than 25 percent of the county's poor; and (4) a level
of participation in the food stamp or commodity programs
12
lower than 25 percent of the poor and needy. A brief
glance at Table 4 reveals some startling facts . Of the 280
counties in the United States characterized as "hunger
counties," 2 37 are located in the South. Moreover, four
states— Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas —
account for over 50 percent of all "hunger counties" in
America.
People are not, however, quantitative data, and
human problems have dimensions that no table— no matter how
we11-construeted— can capture. "Turpentine camps" in the
i 2
Citizens Board of Inquiry into Hunger and Malnu
trition in the United States, Hunger, U . S . A . (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1968), p. 38.
17
rural South are a case in point:
Few Americans know much about some of the commu
nities existing in semi-feudal conditions in the rural
South today. At a "Turpentine Camp," visited by a
member of the Council's staff late in 1968, several
families live in a community of tarpaper shacks on a
pine-tree plantation. Their living conditions provide
few necessities and no amenities of life. A single
pump provides water for all residents. There are no
plumbing facilities.
The men tap the trees for the sap or gum which is
distilled into gum spirits of turpentine. They are
paid on a piecework basis— so many cents per bucket
or barrel of gum tapped. They average about $15.00
per week in wages. Since there is no compulsory
school attendance law in the State, some children
work on the trees.
As an inducement for moving in some of the workers
receive loans from the owner of the plantation. These
loans become debts. Since the owner runs a store and
extends credit to the residents, their purchases are
added to the loans. At existing wage rates, loans are
difficult to pay off. Because the residents are not
supposed to leave the camp until the loans are paid,
some move out in the middle of the night to escape
this form of economic bondage.13
Even more to the point:
Kwashiorkor [a syndrome produced by severe pro
tein deficiency] has also been reported in Beaufort
County, South Carolina, along with other diseases
resulting from inadequate diets long endemic to the
region— pellagra, scurvy, and rickets. Parasitic
infestation associated with hunger ravages the poor,
and substantial numbers of children have intestinal
worms, both wind-worms and whip-worms. The former
IT
^National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity,
Continuity and Change in Antipoverty Programs: Second An
nual Report (Washington, D. C-: U. S. Government Printing
Office, March, 1969), pp. 2-3.
18
may grow to a foot in length, and a child may have
from 100 to 200 in his digestive tract. At infesta
tion levels of this magnitude, the worms compete with
the child for the food he eats . For a child with a
low caloric intake, say 800 calories per day, there
are hardly enough calories to support the child and
"rarely enough to support the worms.
Poverty in the South does not exist in regional iso
lation. It has fundamental implications for the nation as
a whole. Poorly educated Southerners— both black and white
— have tended to migrate to the urban centers of the North
and West in increasing numbers. Generally lacking in mar
ketable skills, they often become part of the growing "wel
fare culture" of the metropolitan urban ghetto. As Kain and
Perky note:
To the extent that the metropolitan North is closely
intertwined with the rural South through the focus
of migration, these factors (characteristics of the
Southern rural poor) become pressing problems of that
region too. To the extent that the Southern migrant,
ill prepared for urban life, becomes a problem of the
metropolitan North, the improvement of the rural South
is in the North's self-interest. Moreover, if South
ern poverty leads to under-investment in human capital,
the consequences may well be felt to a greater extent
in the more industrialized North than in the rural
South.15
^ Ibid ., p . 5 .
-*-5john f . Kain and Joseph J. Perky, "The North's
Stake in Southern Rural Poverty," in Hansen, Rural Poverty
and the Urban Crisis, pp. 53-70.
19
It is evident, then, that the Western and Northern
areas— especially those with large urban centers— have an
economic interest in upgrading the Southern poor, apart from
any moral obligation which may be present.
The causes of Southern poverty are in large measure
to be found in the nature of the Southern economy. The
region's economic system is characterized by a heavy de
pendence on agriculture, personal services, textile manu
facturing, sawmills, and planning activities. The one ele
ment that these industries have in common is that they are
all "slow growth" industries. Hansen underscores this
point:
To summarize, between 1940 and 196 0 the industry mix
of the South was becoming more like the rest of the
nation. Nevertheless, in 1960 the South still had a
relatively high proportion of its total employment
in relatively slow-growing industries. Although the
South had high rates of employment growth in rapidly
growing industries, it also increased its share of
national employment in all relatively slow-growing
sectors, with the exception of agriculture and saw
mills . If its principal employment increases continue
to be concentrated in the labor-intensive, low wage
sectors, then the South's relative underrepresentation
in the more desirable occupations will continue and
possibly even increase in the sectors outside of agri
culture .16
Proposals to alter this "industrial mix" in the
l^Rural Poverty and the Urban Crisis, p. 39.
i 20
South have tended to emphasize the lack of investment in
human resources in the region. It is argued that an in
dustrial economy needs a reservoir of skilled people it can
draw on. In the South, a pool of trained labor that in
dustry can employ does not exist. Education in the South
has tended to emphasize subjects that are of marginal use
to the industry, such as languages and humanities. More
over, in a qualitative sense, Southern education is not
comparable to education outside the South. Blacks in the
South are particularly hurt by the backward educational
system in the area. They are not receiving the vocational
training that would benefit them and the region. One source
gives this description of the problem: "The lack of voca
tional training programs for Negroes is particularly glaring
in view of the growing industrialization and urbanization of
the South.
The long-term solution to the South's economic prob
lems and its poverty would appear to lie in a more substan
tial investment in human resources . Business education and
vocational training programs need to be vastly increased.
All the educational areas potentially useful to business
•^Ibid ., p . 44 .
21
are in need of expansion. Unfortunately, this solution does
not offer much immediate hope to those now suffering from
the ravages of poverty. It is now generally acknowledged
that the Southern poor, in order to deal with their poverty
in the present, need the assistance of the public sector.
As the President's Commission on Income Maintenance con
cluded: "Our investigation of poverty in America has con
vinced this Commission that the problem cannot be solved
18
without Government intervention .1 1
Poverty as a Political Problem
Although the American economy in the late sixties
began to slow down its relative rate of growth, there can
be no question that during the 1960's the nation experienced
unprecedented economic expansion and material prosperity.
Federal money became available for a costly war in Vietnam*
many domestic programs were launched with relatively little
fiscal concern. During this era money could have been
allocated to virtually wipe out poverty in the United States.
The nation could have directed its vast resources to deal
effectively with this social cancer. The problem then is
not basically economic— it is political. Resources to be
1 ft
^ Poverty amid Plenty, p. 45.
22
sure are still scarce, but our national abundance makes
eliminating poverty economically feasible.
The key to the problem in the 1960's was the orien
tation of the politically elite at all governmental levels.
Political leaders could have placed a higher priority on
controlling poverty. Unfortunately, political decisions are
not easily made. A decision to wipe out American poverty
would have resulted in fiscal limitations on other programs .
If fighting poverty had been considered as important as
fighting a war, sufficient public money would have been made
available to meet the problem. In addition, if all other
things were equal, almost everybody would choose to elimi
nate poverty, despite the ideological issues present. But
all other things are not equal. Society's resources are
limited, and the amount of time, money, and manpower which
would be needed to eliminate poverty is very large. The
problem is then basically a question of political priori
ties .
Because the American political system is essentially
a modified federal system, it is difficult to pinpoint ex
actly where decisions concerning poverty policy are made.
Major guidelines for dealing with poverty at the national
level are in general developed by Congress working with
23
several federal agencies. Programs at this level tend to be
general in nature and in many ways are more concerned with
funding procedures than substantive policy content. Most of
the costs of national welfare programs are paid by the fed
eral government. States do, of course, contribute to wel
fare programs, but the lion's share of the welfare tab is
picked up by the national government. Although the states
are not the major source of poverty revenues, they still
retain a strong voice in welfare policy making within the
state. As Steiner has noted:
Most of the bill is paid at the national level; much
of the policy is made at the state level. Federal
grants to the states for public assistance are estab
lished policy because state charity, like private
charity, has been found inadequate to meet modern
economic crisis. The states have neither the dispo
sition nor the ability of private welfare to turn to
nonfiscal therapy as a way of servicing their poorly
adjusted citizens. Still, states have continued to
pay just enough to the piper of public aid to have
an important role in calling the tunes.^
Poverty programs administered by the states, i.e.,
virtually all poverty programs, vary substantially from
state to state. For example, within the AFDC program in
January, 1969, average grants per recipient ranged from $10
19
Gilbert Y. Steiner, Social Insecurity: The Poli
tics of Welfare (Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1966), p.
24
20
per month in Mississippi to $65 m Massachusetts. Fur
thermore, states tend to exercise wide discretion regarding
eligibility, need and grant levels in several programs.
According to one source:
The determination of eligibility, need and grant
levels in Public Assistance on an individual case-
by-case basis gives a great deal of discretion to
officials at the lowest level. They have the power
to interpret regulations broadly or narrowly, to
give or withhold assistance
Perhaps of even greater significance is the fact that the
states are not required to participate in federal welfare
programs. If they choose to go it alone in public assist
ance, it is their option to do so.
The state that cannot or will not comply with the
federal act can go its own way and pay its own bills.
It is not of course refunded the federal revenue that
might otherwise be diverted into the state to support
the program, . . . Nevada is still without a program
of aid to the permanently and totally disabled (APTD),
while Alaska, Indiana, and Arizona held out until
1963. By the beginning of 1965, 18 of the states had
adopted ADCU programs; the remaining majority prefer
to meet that problem through state and locally financed
general assistance programs or to ignore it entirely.^2
On the national level during this era, leadership
20
Ibid., p. 6.
O I
President's Commission on Income Maintenance Pro
grams, Poverty amid Plenty, p. 50.
^Steiner, Social Insecurity, p. 80.
25
for increases in federal expenditures for public assistance
has shifted dramatically. Initially Congress provided the
impetus for increasing national welfare expenditures . A
leading scholar in 1966 agreed:
An initial generalization is that the spur for in
creases in federal expenditures for public assist
ance has come from Congress rather than from the
White House. Consistently since the war the lead
has been taken particularly by the Senate to increase
the relative share of federal costs in the public
assistance program.23
With the introduction of the Family Assistance Plan by
President Nixon in 1969* this proposition came in for ser
ious criticism. FAP is nothing less than a total alteration
in national welfare policy, a guaranteed annual income.
John F . Manley of the Brookings Institution characterizes
FAP in this way:
FAP does, by establishing a national floor under
income [$1,600 for a family of four], guarantee to
every qualified family in the United States some
income. The FAP payment is also guaranteed even
if the family has some income.24
The focus of leadership in national welfare policy has thus
^ Ibid ., p. 50.
7 A
The Family Assistance Plan: An Essay on Incre
mental and Nonincremental Policy-making" (paper presented at
the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting,
September 7-12, 1970, Los Angeles, California), p. 3.
26
dramatically shifted from Congress to the White House. No
longer is the President reluctant to increase federal spend
ing for public welfare- rather, he is in the front ranks of
the expansion effort. Congress' attitude as of 1969 does
not appear to have altered as radically as the Executive's.
There does seem to be some indication* however, that Con
gress, especially the House, is now less enthusiastic about
welfare cost increases.
Poverty Becomes a Public Issue
Poverty has clearly become a political issue. This
alone does not tell us much, however, about how it became a
subject of public concern. The following discussion will
only scratch the surface of this very complicated question.
Several factors seem to be of significance in the
rise of poverty as a major public issue. The most obvious
!
|is the affluence of American society. As people have become
materially better off, they have, to some extent, become
|more concerned about the less fortunate members of society.
Also, as the GNP moved toward a trillion dollars, it became
apparent that society had the funds and skilled manpower to
deal effectively with poverty. Had it not been for unprece
dented prosperity, it is doubtful that either the public or
27
the government could have been induced to pay much attention
to poverty. Greater amounts of leisure time and higher
levels of education have further enabled the American people
to see the problem of the poor in a more objective and
realistic manner.
A second factor in this process was the institu
tional machinery that dealt with the poor. Once the govern
ment decided to take on poverty as a public issue, the fact
that something had been done created a demand for further
action. The issue was given publicity and "respectability"
by governmental recognition; the public learned that some
thing was being done to alleviate the problem. Once several
official agencies had been established— especially on the
national level— to help the poor, they became focal points
for bringing the issue to the attention of the general pub
lic as well as other governmental sectors . The members of
these agencies developed a vested interest in informing the
public about the problem. Because they were moderately
successful in building public support, concern for the poor
became institutionalized.
A third factor which should be underscored is that,
in general, poverty was a rather attractive public issue
from a political standpoint. This is reflected in the fact
28
that of all the legislation President Johnson was able to
work through the 89th Congress * the one program he chose to
call his "own" was the antipoverty program. As a leading
scholar on the war on poverty would note:
When President Lyndon Johnson declared war on
poverty in his first State of the Union Message, he
was announcing the formulation of a new domestic pro
gram which he would call his own and which would bear
the LBJ brand. The new president, wishing to have
his own mark on history, and having inherited a back
log of unfinished business, wanted an approach and a
program which would be uniquely his .^5
The legislative energy that President Nixon devoted to FAP
in the second session of the 92nd Congress and again in the
93rd Congress indicates that poverty legislation has re
mained since the late sixties a marketable political item.
Some types of welfare programs were, of course, more accept
able to the political public than others. Food stamps, for
instance, tended to enjoy higher levels of public support
than some aspects of the antipoverty programs.
Still another reason for the growth in public con
cern about poverty was the massive publicity that the issue
received in the second half of the decade. The Poor Peo
ple's Campaign in the nation's capital in the spring and
2 5
John C. Donovan, The Politics of Poverty (New
York: Pegasus, 1967), p. 17.
29
summer of 1968 dramatically brought to the public's atten
tion some of the more desperate problems of the poor. Simi
lar ly, Hunger, U . S . A ., a nationwide study organized by the
Citizens Crusade against Poverty, indicated that hunger, in
many parts of the United States, was an entrenched phenom-
2 6
enon. Conducted over a nine-month period, this study was
highly critical of all government food aid programs. Among
other frightening facts, the report noted that over 300 of
the poorest counties in the United States had no food as
sistance of any kind, and that between 10 million and 14.5
million Americans were seriously underfed. Their Daily
Bread, a report issued in 1968 by the Committee on School
Lunch Participation, underlined the problems in our school
lunch programs. Some of its more significant findings were:
(1) Of 50 million public elementary and secondary school
children, only about 18 million participated in the National
School Lunch Program; (2) fewer than two million, under 4
percent, were able to get a free or reduced-price school
lunch, even though there were six million school-age chil
dren from families at the "rock-bottom of poverty"; (3)
whether or not a child was eligible for a free lunch was
°Conqress and the Nation, II (Washington, D. C.:
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1967), 587-594.
30
determined not by a universal formula, but by local deci
sions about administration and financing which may or may
not have had anything to do with the need of the individual
27
child. In this public opinion mix, the infamous "tube"
also played a crucial role. On May 21, CBS presented a
documentary, "Hunger in America," which dealt with some of
the same issues that the Hunger U . S . A . study had examined.
The program noted, for example, that 1,000 counties had no
food programs. It also suggested that the primary concern
of the Department of Agriculture was the farmer, not the
consumer, and especially not the "destitute" consumer. As
a result of these and other factors, poverty and hunger
became a subject of public concern.
Poverty Programs of the 1960's
Prior to the 1960's, the national government had
made very little effort to deal with the problems of the
jAmerican poor. Some attempts had been undertaken to meet
jselected needs associated with poverty, e.g., the Social
Security Act of 1935 and the Employment Act of 1946, but
these efforts were of limited utility compared to the mag
nitude of the problem. With the advent of the 1960's, the
^7Ibid., p. 591.
31
national government made increasing, although by no means
adequate, strides to deal with poverty.
Federal poverty programs can be classified into five
categories, according to their approach to the problem of
insufficient income. These categories are to some extent
arbitrary, but we have found them useful for purposes of
analysis. The first category is human resource development.
Most programs in this area are aimed at raising the educa
tional and skill levels of potential and actual members of
the labor force in an effort to make them more productive.
Examples of these programs are Adult Basic Education,
Neighborhood Youth Corps, and the Job Corps. A second and
much older group of federal programs provided various types
of social insurance. These programs are based upon a self-
help ethic: employed workers contribute to their own in
surance protection against loss of earning power. Insurance
payments are then made available as a right, regardless of
income level or need, to those who meet the tests of cover
age and loss of earnings . These programs specifically deal
with such contingencies as unemployment, disability, retire
ment and death. Cash income-transfer programs, our third
category, were created to assist the unemployable or persons
unable to qualify for any form of social insurance, as well
32
as those with special needs. Examples of this sort of pro
gram include public assistance and veterans' pensions. A
variation of cash-income-transfer are the income-in-kind
programs, which provide goods and services directly rather
than cash; they provide direct subsidies for such things as
food, housing and medical care. Certain income-in-kind
programs, for example the surplus commodity distribution
program and Medicaid, provide full subsidies; others, such
as public housing, the food stamp program, and Medicare,
offer partial subsidies. Our last category of legislation
dealing with poverty aims at the "total environment of the
poor." This approach, according to the National Advisory
Council on Economic Opportunity, stresses that separate,
uncoordinated strategies aimed at improvement in special
areas, whether nutrition, housing, education, employment,
income, or family stability, cannot succeed. An additional
and most significant aspect of this approach is its emphasis
on institutional change. As the latter group notes: "In
stitutional change [must] be constantly emphasized. The
needs of poor Americans cannot be met by passive and in-
28
different institutions."
^National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity,
Continuity and Change, p. vi.
r 33'
Because an examination in depth of all federal pov
erty programs would far exceed the scope of this study, the
writer has selected four major poverty programs for analy
sis: food stamps, Family Assistance Plan, AFDC, and seg
ments of the antipoverty program. These programs were
selected because they exhibited the following characteris
tics which were felt to be of significance for this analy
sis . Most important, these programs all have a fairly
direct impact on congressional districts in the South. They
should, all things being equal, offer potential political
capital to Southern congressmen. Second, each of these
programs has incurred heavy criticism by a large number of
Southern congressmen. Third, these programs are closely
interrelated with one another and often merge. Many of the
tasks performed by AFDC, for example, may be taken over by
the proposed Family Assistance Plan. Fourth, these programs
fall under the legislative aegis of three different standing
committees in the House of Representatives— Ways and Means,
Agriculture, and Education and Labor. We shall thus have
an opportunity to compare the behavior of Southern congress
men toward welfare policy across committee lines. Fifth,
with the exception of FAP, all these programs are compara
tively we11-developed, and thus we shall be dealing with
34
major welfare efforts by the federal government. Sixth.,
each of these programs has attracted national concern and
stirred the winds of public controversy. Criticism has not
been a purely Southern phenomenon but has crossed regional
boundaries. This will, again, provide avenues for cross -
group and cross-regional comparisons. Finally, the four
selected programs represent all but one of the five cate
gories of welfare policy. Thus it will be possible to com
pare Southern support patterns among various types of wel
fare programs. The remainder of the chapter will be devoted
to a brief profile of the four programs in order to acquaint
the reader with their basic thrust.
The food stamp program became a permanent federal
program in 1964. Administered at the national level by the
Department of Agriculture, it has enjoyed fairly high levels
of public support. Local governments administer the program
through their public assistance offices; the local areas
participate in this program at their option. Food stamps
are funded by the national government while the administra
tive costs are picked up by the localities. The food stamp
program allows a poor family to buy food stamps at a price
dependent upon family income and size. These stamps have a
face value in excess of the price charged for them. They
35
are then used at participating food stores as cash. Poor
families pay less for stamps and receive a higher percentage
discount on food. Several criticisms have been leveled
against the food stamp program. Two of the most salient
are: (1) it is often difficult for a poor family to accu
mulate the lump sum needed to buy stamps on the limited
occasions each month when they are sold; (2) households
without income cannot participate, since the program re
quires a minimum purchase.
The public assistance program has incurred far more
adverse criticism. This study will deal with a part of the
over-all public assistance program, i.e., Aid to Families
with Dependent Children. AFDC is by far the most contro
versial public assistance program and it accounts for more
than 5 0 percent of the cost of the entire public assistance
29
effort.
Aid to Families with Dependent Children is basically
a cash income support program aimed at families which are
composed of mothers with dependent children. In most AFDC
homes, the father is absent due to divorce, separation,
desertion, imprisonment, or other reasons. Although many
29
President's Commission on Income Maintenance Pro
gram, Poverty amid Plenty, p. 115.
36
of the families are large, almost two-thirds of the families
have three or fewer children. Because AFDC is a grant-in-
aid program, states have great latitude in shaping their own
programs; no state, moreover, is required to operate an AFDC
program. Technically the federal government can control the
main outlines of the various state programs by cutting off
funds, but in practice this has never been done. As one
study notes:
At any given time, many state programs are not in
compliance with one or another provision of the Fed
eral regulations, but the administering agency is
hesitant to cut off funds, since those hurt will be
the poor, not the state.3* - 1
Although the Supreme Court has recently outlawed residence
requirements and the "suitable home" provisions, the state
still exercises substantial discretion in establishing eli
gibility requirements.
The antipoverty program is the third substantive
program to be analyzed. Again this analysis will be con
cerned with selected elements within the over-all program,
the Job Corps and the community action program. These pro
grams deal with different "poverty problems" and enjoy
different levels of public support.
30I b i d .
37
The Job Corps has come under heavy congressional and
public attack. It attempts to provide remedial education,
training in job skills, and guidance and counseling to dis
advantaged young men and women. It is a residential program
and has been recruiting from among the most poorly educated
youth. As of 1968, 109 centers were operated at which
100,500 young men and women received a total of 38,100 man-
years of training. In more recent years, funding cuts have
required the closing of several centers. The Job Corps has
been faulted for many reasons . First, it is often argued
that the costs of Job Corps training are prohibitively high.
The charge is also made that the administration of the pro
gram has tended to be of a rather low quality. Finally, it
has been suggested that the Job Corps prepares young men for
jobs that, in fact, do not exist.
The Community Action Program addresses itself to the
entire life style and future of the poor. It is not merely
another administrative arrangement; rather, it is a method
of social action dedicated to institutional change. Com
munity Action Agencies established by this program have
attempted to act as the spokesman for the poor. The funds
for this program come directly from Washington, bypassing
the states. CAA's have attempted to involve the poor
r
38
themselves in local policy making, and to help them cut
through the bureaucratic indifference and lassitude that has
characterized local welfare administration. Opposition to
the Community Action Program has come from a number of sec
tors . Most vocal, however, have been the mayors. In par
ticular, they tend to oppose the "maximum feasible partici
pation" aspect of this program for reasons that are essen
tially political. As John C. Donovan, a leading authority
on the antipoverty program, notes:
Mayors resist "maximum feasible participation" for
reasons that are not exactly ideological. If new
representatives arise among the non-white urban poor,
they will surely undermine the power of the men now
entrenched in city hall, whose power, especially
since the nineteen-thirties, has depended in no small
measure on control of the "welfare industry" and the
millions of federal dollars that flow through city
hall en route to the poor.
The Community Action Program then attempts not only to
change the objective conditions of the poor, but to alter
the institutions with which they must deal. In short, the
Community Action Program is the most "political" of all the
antipoverty programs.
The proposed Family Assistance Plan is the most
recent and most comprehensive welfare reform proposal.
^ Politics of Poverty, pp. 44-45.
39
Proposed in August 1969, this plan would add an estimated
12 million persons to the welfare rolls and increase the
federal government's share of welfare expenditures by about
32
$4.5 billion to $5.5 billion. This plan combines an in
crease in benefits with a provision for the "working poor,"
in effect establishing a national guaranteed annual income.
A family of four with a yearly income less than $1,000 would
receive a federal minimum benefit of $1,6 00 per year or
$133.34 a month. The plan also contains a provision that a
working head of a household could earn $72 0 yearly without
loss of benefits, which would be reduced only in amounts
equivalent to 50 percent of income above that level. In
general, this proposal would help the poorer states much
more than states which have a higher level of per capita
income.
Critics of the plan charge that the $1,600 guaran-
!
teed annual income would be grossly inadequate to meet the
needs of the poor. It has also been observed that the
$1,600 ceiling would lower the amount of welfare received by
80 percent of the poor. Richer states such as New York
32
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, XXVIII, No.
10 (Washington, D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Service,
1970), 702.
complain that they would be footing most of the bill for the
poorer states, and thus in effect be penalized by the Nixon
plan.
In this chapter the writer has endeavored to set the
stage for the subsequent analysis. The reader now should
have several points in mind. First, the American political
system in the 1960's was in a state of flux. Second, the
South as a region is very poor and relatively unaffected by
the nation's general affluence. Third, it has been shown
that poverty may appropriately be conceptualized as a polit
ical problem. Fourth, in the nation as a whole, poverty in
the 1960's became a public issue, generating public debate
and controversy. Finally, the 1960's witnessed the devel
opment of programs dealing with this problem. The programs
to be examined in depth in later chapters have been de
scribed and their selection justified. The stage is now
set for the chief protagonist in this analysis of the poli
tics of poverty. Enter the Southern congressman.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
The present chapter is a review of the literature
dealing with Southern congressmen and their role in public
policy making. Two points are of concern. First, what
conclusions have b e e n reached? Second, what methodological
problems, if any, characterize the efforts that have been
undertaken so far?
Once these questions have been answered, the re
search design for analysis of Southern congressional welfare
support will be presented. Here the major questions and
propositions to be analyzed will be outlined and the methods
to be used to examine these propositions will be set forth.
Public Policy, Roll-Call Voting, and
t h e Southern Congressman
How similar are the voting patterns of Southern con
gressmen? Are Southern House members a fairly cohesive
group when they cast their vote for or against various
41
42
bills? If there is a lack of cohesion, is it a "cross -
policy" phenomenon, or does it depend on the particular
policy dimension involved? More specifically, how liberal
or conservative are Southern House members with regard to
welfare policy? In this section the various attempts that
have been made to answer these questions will be discussed.
The selected literature has dealt with these issues in sev-
eral ways and with differing degrees of methodological
sophistication. It should be apparent from the following
review that attempts to examine these problems have been
sketchy and too general in their focus. In addition, they
have tended to utilize indicators that, for certain techni
cal reasons, lack an adequate degree of validity. In short,
the internal validity of this literature has serious short
comings . The articles and books examined below were selec
ted for the following reasons: (1) they represent major
efforts by leading scholars to deal with this topic; (2)
differing methodological approaches are utilized by the
various studies; and (3) the conclusions reached by these
analysts (the observed relationships between their dependent
and independent variables) tend to be somewhat different.
Before examining the more quantitative efforts, it will be
useful to note the thoughts of a recent participant in the
43
policy process. This should provide the reader with a
"feel" for the human side of Southern political behavior.
Frank Smith, a liberal Southern congressman from
Mississippi, provides a fast-moving and highly readable
account of Southern politics in the United States House of
Representatives from 1950 to 1962.1 He suggests that there
are wide variations in the political values of Southern
congressmen but that in the area of civil rights legislation
the extremist elements within the Southern House bloc set
the standards for voting. According to Smith, "Since the
most moderate member has to vote like the most extreme mem
ber if he plans to seek re-election, there is no room for
voices of moderation among the Southerners in Congress, and
2
their votes would belie their voices if they spoke."
Smith's major concern is civil rights legislation and he
does not discuss welfare policy explicitly. Yet, he does
underscore the point that all Southern congressmen are not
of the same mind when it comes to questions of public pol
icy. This tendency presumably would be more obvious in
legislation that did not involve the issue of race. There
^Frank E . Smith, Congressman from Mississippi (New
York: Capricorn Books, 1967).
2Ibid., pp. 117-118.
r “ 44
are many methodological problems with the type of analysis
Smith provides. Most important, it is impressionistic and
subjective. The reader has only Smith's word for his con
clusions and when proof is offered it is usually in the form
of an example. Moreover, we are left to wonder just what
the parameters of Southern congressional policy attitudes
are. These points aside, Smith's effort is both incisive
and entertaining.
Key provides a somewhat more systematic and objec-
3
tive analysis of Southern congressional voting habits.
Generalizing from cohesion indexes and the examination of
specific roll call votes, he found that Southern congressmen
show greatest cohesion on matters which involve race or have
racial implications. According to Key, high levels of
Southern congressional solidarity were also observed on
policy questions concerning cotton and detention of aliens .
In a more recent work, Key touched on the differing policy
attitudes of representatives from the South on economic
issues:
On domestic economic policy the image of the South
that appears in the public prints is one of a soundly
conservative region ever ready to ally itself in
^V. 0. Key, Jr., Southern Politics (New York: Vin
tage Books, 1949).
45
Congress with Northern Republicans. That image it
self involves misrepresentation, for some Southern
senators and representatives are conservatives and
others are liberals on economic issues, at least as
those terms are popularly defined in these days
Key's thinking represents, then, an attempt to use both hard
and soft data to examine Southern congressmen and their
policy behavior. Key's works do not, however, deal exten
sively with the Southern representative, and his conclusions
are therefore somewhat tentative. Furthermore, most of
Key's data are presented in the form of a series of cohesion
indexes . This technique assumes a policy dimension, but
does not offer any evidence of its existence. Key is also
dealing with the voting behavior of Southern house members
prior to the 1950's. Thus, it is not safe to generalize his
observations from the time of his writings to the present
era. Most important for our analysis, Key does not deal
explicitly with the behavior of representatives from the
South and welfare policy. Both Smith and Key, however, per
ceive the Southern congressional delegation as a complex and
multidimensional group with differing policy perspectives .
David Truman in the Congressional Party, published
in 1959, examines the voting behavior of Southern
4
Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York:
Knopf Publishing Co., 1968), p. 103.
46
5
representatives in some depth. Using cohesion indexes and
cluster block analysis * Truman makes some interesting obser
vations . First* he notes that Southern Democrats on matters
of race tend to be very cohesive. Second, when sectional
issues were not present (civil rights legislation), signifi
cant numbers of Southerners tended to vote with their lib
eral fellow Democrats in the North. Truman observed:
It is thus evident that within the Southern wing of
the Democratic party in the House, more clearly even
than in the Senate, issues that were not peculiarly
regional in their reference but rather reflected the
common strains of society in the midtwentieth century
split the (Southern) representatives into opposing
groupings. One fairly sizeable segment strongly re
sisted change in both realms and effectively utilized
the device of the bipartisan coalition to further its
views. A generally smaller but significant number
were, so to speak, in the middle between the views of
their die-hard colleagues and the demands strongly
reflected in the votes of the northern wing.6
From a methodological perspective, there are several prob
lems with Truman's work. First, the research was done on
the 81st Congress, and therefore the legislation establish
ing large-scale federal welfare support was not examined.
Second, he is not focusing on a specific policy area, but is
rather concerned with domestic and foreign policy in
5
The Congressional Party (New York: Wiley, 1959) .
6Ibid ., p. 162.
47
general. Moreover, he examines only votes for a single
congress, the 81st. This raises the question of external
validity, i.e., how far can one generalize from the study of
a two-year period?
Boynton offers an additional perspective on the
Southern congressman. In his article, "Southern Conserva
tism: Constituency Opinion and Congressional Voting," he
attempts to explain why Southern Democrats tend to be more
7
conservatxve than Northern Democrats. He f xnds that
Southern conservatism is caused or related to three factors:
(1) a conservative public in the Souths (2) a low voting
rate of the more liberal blue-collar workers^ and (3) the
conservative attitudes of groups that communicate with the
Southern congressman. Although the conclusions he reaches
are thought-provoking, certain methodological flaws make
them highly suspect. In particular, Boynton offers us no
evidence of conservative or liberal Southern congressional
behavior. He does note that not all Southern representa
tives are conservative, but also fails to indicate specific
detail. For example, does Southern conservatism vary from
7
George Robert Boynton, "Southern Conservatxsm:
Constituency Opinion and Congressional Voting," Journal of
Politics. XVI (June, 1964), 203-214.
48
one policy area to another? Who are the conservative and
liberal Southern representatives? Boynton's analysis also
presents a logical problem. He relates his independent
variables to his dependent variable, Southern conservatism:
Southern congressmen are conservative because of a more
conservative Southern public, etc. He thus assumes a rela
tionship between his independent and dependent variables
rather than empirically establishing that a relationship
exists. In order to establish a linkage between variables,
it is necessary to develop sound empirical indicators for
given variables and to demonstrate a parametric or nonpara-
metric statistical relationship. Since Boynton does not
even attempt this, his work emerges as impressionistic and
highly questionable.
Flinn and Wolman, in "Constituency and Roll Call
Voting: The Case of the Southern Congressman," offer us a
j
more empirical attempt to explain Southern congressional
g
voting behavior. The purpose of their analysis is to
assess the impact of constituency and electoral character
istics on Southern roll-call voting. They conclude that in
g
Thomas A.Flinn and Harold Wolman, "Constituency and
Roll Call Voting: The Case of Southern Democratic Congress
men, " Midwest Journal of Political Science, X (January,
1966), 192-2 00.
49
their voting "Southern Democratic representatives reflect
the demographic and electoral characteristics of their con-
9
stituencies to an important degree." In their article they
employ interval data and thus can utilize correlations as
measures of variable association. While the analysis is
|
jscholarly, there are methodological problems with their
|
(dependent variable. In order to operationalize Southern
j
{voting behavior, they employ three interval measures:
j(l) party unity scores; (2) Kennedy support scores; and (3)
i
{Larger Federal Role Scores. These indicators are abstracted
i
[from the Congressional Quarterly Almanac, and are aggregate
in nature. Several policy areas are included in each mea-
!
jsure so that they are not policy specific. They assume a
certain logical equality among policy areas which may not
in fact be present. A second major problem with the article
is that it is based upon data from only one session of Con-
jgress, the 88th Congress, 1st session, a delimitation that
j
{affects external validity. An additional problem is that
i
i
the Alabama delegation (because at the time it was elected
at large) is not included in the analysis. Even with these
problems the study is a strong effort to move away from
9
Ibid.. p. 198.
50
speculation to solid empirical analysis, yet for those in
terested in a specific dimension of Southern voting behav
ior, the article is not of much help.
In Party Loyalty Among Congressmen Mayhew maps out
congressional voting behavior along several policy dimen
sions.^^ He finds that Southern representatives exhibited
differing degrees of cohesiveness depending upon the policy
area involved. In particular, city and labor issues divided
Southerners in the House into distinct groups. Mayhew oper
ationally defines city issues as those related to public
housing and rent control. His vote sample consisted of 51
roll calls . Concerning the differing policy perspectives
shown by Southern representatives on this issue, he de
clares: "There were, however, Southerners and Southerners.
For years Senator Sparkman and Congressman Albert Bains,
both of Alabama, led liberal forces in congressional cam
paigns for federal housing legislation."'*''*' Mayhew goes on
to note that labor legislation also created a lack of co
hesion among Southerners in the House. Based on the
l°David R . Mayhew, Party Loyalty Among Congressmen:
The Difference between Democrats and Republicans (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1966).
•^Ibid ., p. 81.
51
analysis of 56 postwar labor roll-calls, he observes that
substantial numbers of Southern representatives voted with
their Northern colleagues . Mayhew has made considerable
progress with this work. His policy emphasis is of special
significance. Certain problems with the study should, how
ever, be noted. In the first place, he does not provide an
adequate discussion of the criteria he employed to select
the various roll-calls he looked at. Second, by selecting
votes that deal nominally with "labor" or "city" issues, he
posits a specific policy dimension, although the actual
policy dimension may be quite different. Third, his analy
sis, although spanning several years, may not be applicable
to contemporary policy questions. Specifically, the decay
of the central city with all its political implications was
not a solid social reality by 1962. For the purpose of the
present study his analysis is of less use than it might have
been if he had dealt specifically with welfare policy.
Utilizing a form of Guttman scale analysis, Shannon
in Party Constituency and Congressional Voting makes sub
stantial progress toward an understanding of Southern repre-
12
sentatives and public policy. Drawing his data from the
i o
W. Wayne Shannon, Party Constituency and Congres
sional Voting (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
52
86th and 87th Congress, he shows that representatives from
the South exhibit different voting patterns depending on the
policy dimension present. Shannon finds, for example, that
with regard to domestic policy there is notable variation in
Southern voting. Legislation dealing with area redevelop
ment tended to produce a moderate voting pattern among
Southern congressmen. On the other hand, bills concerned
with labor, education, and a minimum wage resulted in dis
tinctly conservative action. The most liberal Southern
voting was, however, in the area of welfare legislation--
specifically, on the public welfare amendments of 1962 . As
Shannon notes, "Southern Democrats seem to have been rather
strongly in favor of these liberalizing amendments to fed
eral welfare programs, which, after all, must have been
13
popular with a great majority of their constituents."
There appear to be three major problems with Shannon's work.
First, his scales are constructed on the basis of very few
votes— usually less than five. This raises major questions
as to whether he is in fact isolating a policy dimension.
Second, he does not indicate why he has selected the roll-
P r e ss, 1968) .
l^Ibid., p. 89.
53
calls he is examining. Third, in analyzing only a four-year
period, he severely limits the external validity of his
analysis. With regard to his discussion of Southern voting
behavior and welfare policy, this is particularly true. As
will become apparent as this paper proceeds, the 1962 public
assistance amendments are very atypical of Southern welfare
support patterns. In general, however, Shannon's analysis
is well done and indicates many useful research directions,
especially underscoring the need for a policy-oriented
research approach linked with rigorous techniques of data
analysis.
Clausen and Cheney offer us our final and most re
cent attempt to deal with Southern House members and welfare
14
policy. Their analysis utilizes a modified form of Gutt-
man scale analysis and provides an empirically sound depend-
dent variable. Of particular interest for the present study
is their finding that Southern congressmen tend to be some
what more conservative during a Democratic administration.
They also note that party unity is higher for Southern
Democrats on economic than on welfare issues . With regard
14
Aage R. Clausen and R. B. Cheney, "A Comparative
Analysis of Senate-House Voting on Economic and Welfare
Policy: 1953-1964," American Political Science Review, LXIV
(January, 1970), 138-153.
54
to both the House and Senate as a whole over a twelve-year
period, the authors make the following observation: "The
evidence in the present case leads us to conclude that there
is a welfare policy and an economic policy dimension which
extends across the six Congresses and are the same in both
15
houses." This analysis, for present purposes, suffers
from two major drawbacks. First, the authors have opera
tionalized their dependent variable using six major elements
— public housing, urban renewal, labor legislation, educa
tion, employment opportunities and rewards. Thus their
policy dimension is fairly broad in scope. They have ne
glected, however, major components of welfare policy by
selecting these elements. They do not look, for example,
at public assistance legislation, legislation dealing with
food stamps, or the most controversial aspects of the anti-
poverty program. They have thus excluded a major segment
of welfare policy from their analysis. A closely related
I
problem is that of the time period selected for analysis.
Most programs dealing with welfare policy have, until re
cently, been relatively minor in scope. The major contro
versies over welfare policy are a post-1965 occurrence.
15Ibid., p. 150.
55
Because this analysis runs only up to 1963, the most sig-
nificent developments in welfare legislation are automati
cally excluded. The time period of the study and the defi
nition of its dependent variable thus lead to problems of
both external and internal validity.
Selected Independent Variables and
Southern Voting- Behavior
As we noted in the preceding section, attempts to
operationalize Southern congressional voting behavior have
been general and sketchy. The indicators employed in these
attempts are gross in scope and the time periods of most
studies are too short. For these and other reasons, any
attempt to relate certain causal or independent variables
to the dependent variable becomes extremely hazardous. The
validity of a relationship between variable 001 and variable
002 depends, in part, on the construction and validity of
these variables. If the indicators of variable 002 are
poorly selected, then the association (or lack of associa
tion) between 002 and 001 is immediately called into ques
tion. This is the problem that past attempts to explain
Southern voting in the House of Representatives have largely
overlooked.
Although this is the case, it will be useful to look
56
at the different independent variables that have been em
ployed in the preceding books and articles. This will pro
vide a pool of causal variables to draw from in subsequent
analysis. In this section we shall also examine closely not
only the independent variables that these studies have em
ployed but the nature of the variable relationships articu
lated in each.
Key provides an appropriate starting point. Based
upon an analysis of several roll calls. Key notes: "The
principal additional finding sifted out of the House analy
sis is that Representatives from urban districts tend to
diverge in their voting from the line fixed by their rural
colleagues, a fact potentially of great significance as
urbanization proceeds."^6 In addition, he sees possible
future coalitions in which Southern urban centers will pro
vide Northern Democrats with the most likely allies when a
l
majority of Southerners vote with the Republicans. Key
notes:
If metropolitan Representatives vote with nonsouthern
Democrats most frequently, it follows that, at least
on the type of roll call under examination. Republi
cans find their most reliable Southern allies among
16
Key, Southern Politics, p. 369.
57
17
Representatives from rural districts.
Boynton finds three factors of primary importance in
explaining the conservatism of Southern House members. Bas
ing his position on Key's earlier work, he argues that a low
voting turnout of the more liberal Southern blue-collar
workers enables the more conservative middle class to have
a disproportionately powerful voice in public affairs.
According to Boynton,
the active electorate of the South contains a larger
proportion of members of the middle class than does
the active electorate in the North. And, since mem
bers of the middle class are more conservative, the
attitudes of the active rather than the total elec-
1 o
torate are represented m Congress.
Furthermore, he indicates that public opinion in the South
is more conservative than in the nation as a whole. Basing
his conclusion on data from the 1956 presidential election,
he observes that "the conservatism of Democratic Congressmen
from the South is a reflection of representation of the con-
19
servatism of Democratic identifiers in the South." Fi
nally, Boynton argues that the groups and political
• * ~ 7Ibid ., p. 380.
^Boynton, "Southern Conservatism," p. 261.
•*~^Ibid ., p. 264.
58
activists that communicate with the Southern representatives
tend to be even more conservative than the Southern public.
Thus* "to the extent that the Congressman's perception of
constituency opinions rests on the transmission of this
opinion through political activists, the Southern Congress
man's perceptions of the opinions of his constituents will
20
be skewed in the conservative direction."
Flinn and Wolman in their work find two independent
variables of significance. First, they suggest that demo
graphic district characteristics (such as urban, black, and
working class population percentages) are of some importance
in explaining Southern congressional voting behavior. Sec
ond, they find that certain electoral characteristics of the
district constituencies (percentage of the total presiden
tial vote for Kennedy in 1960; percentage of the three-party
vote for the States' Rights Party, 1948) explain a large
percentage of the variance in Southern voting. Specifically
they conclude:
With regard to the urban members the demographic and
electoral variables together account for 38-57 per
cent of the variance in the roll-call voting of urban
Southern Democrats, a positive finding. With regard
to the rural members 29 to 48 per cent of the variance
20Ibid., p. 266.
59
is explained; again the multiple correlation coeffi
cients are fairly high.^
In The Congressional Party David Truman looks again
at certain demographic district characteristics in terms of
age, relative seniority, urbanization and race. His con
clusions are somewhat at odds with those of Flinn and Wol
man . Truman points out:
One could legitimately conclude that the more die
hard Southern Democrat in the House tended to be a
somewhat older man representing a more rural con
stituency with a fairly numerous non-white popula
tion . But one would not be saying very much because
he would not be accounting for the many deviations
from the asserted pattern. The sharp and persistent
cleavages within the Southern wing indicate that
there were signs of what might be called an old and
a new South in the Democratic party. An explanation
for these divergent tendencies is apparently not to
be found, however, in aggregate demographic or polit
ical data
An explanation of Southern voting, he feels, can be found in
a combination of the following three factors: (1) differ
ences in the power structure patterns within the various
constituencies; (2) differences in the policy values held
by the individuals; (3) differences in the impact of influ
ences within the House itself. Truman argues that of these
^"Constituency of Roll Call Voting," p. 197.
9 9
The Congressional Party, p. 166.
60
variables^ the third is the most significant as an explana
tory factor. In short, for Truman, demographic and elec
toral variables are less important than political, personal,
and institutional factors.
Turning to Mayhew's analysis, Party Loyalty among
Congressmen, one finds important relationships indicated
regarding demographic factors. Mayhew finds that housing
issues tended to split the Southern representatives. In
particular, men from urban districts tended to be more
faithful to the national Democratic party than their rural
colleagues. Even when the black population for each dis
trict was held constant, this relationship persisted. "The
tendency in these years was for Southern congressmen serving
cities to support party housing policies with about equal
fervor regardless of the racial composition of their dis-
23
tricts . " Race was a factor for representatives from rural
districts. Mayhew says, "Rural Democrats from heavily white
areas gave substantially more support to the party on city
24
issues than their rural colleagues from the Black Belt."
With reagrd to labor issues, race was clearly an important
factor. He points out that party loyalty tended to vary
9 " 5 24
Mayhew, Party Loyalty, p. 84. Ibid., p. 83.
61
inversely with the number of blacks in a Southern congres
sional district. "Party loyalty in Southern districts . . .
on labor issues tended to vary inversely with percentage
25
Negro population ..." Moreover, "at least it may be
said that districts with fewer than 2 0 percent Negroes were
more likely than those with over 2 0 percent to send party
2 6
regulars to Congress." Mayhew is careful to note that the
patterns differed among the various states to a marked de
gree. This tendency was very clear in Alabama, for example,
while in North Carolina no clear pattern emerged.
Generalizing from a four-year period, Shannon finds
that urban and black population percentages are related to
Southern voting in the House. Concerning urbanization, he
notes: "There is, it seems, some relationship between urban
population and party opposition for both sessions examined,
though that relationship is not as strong as might be ex-
27
pected." The relationship between black district popula
tion percentages and voting was less clear-cut. For the
1960 session there was a marked relationship between South
ern conservatism and nonwhite population percentage: "As
^^Ibid ., pp. 115-116. ^ Ibid., p. 116.
o 7
'Party, Constituency and Congressional Voting, p .
147 .
62
nonwhite population increases, the percentage of represen
tatives falling into the relatively less loyal category also
ship disappeared. During this session, black population
percentage by district was not related at all to Southern
voting. Confronted by this seeming contradiction. Shannon
offers the following comment: "There is very little than
can be said with certainty in the face of these mystifying
shifts in behavior save that their occurrence serves as a
needed reminder that generalizations about congressional
29
voting must be limited to specific time periods." Later
in his analysis Shannon does find, however, that specific
policy issues alter the relationship of his independent
variables.
Linkage between the constituency factors examined and
voting behavior on the scales seems to shift from
issue to issue. In policy matters involving housing,
the minimum wage, and foreign aid, rural and high
nonwhite population are both clearly linked with con
servatism. On the issue of welfare policy, only the
influence of rural population is apparent.-*0
Shannon's work would then lead us to suspect that urbaniza
tion is a crucial explanatory variable as far as Southern
increases without exception."
28
Yet in 1962 this relation-
28Ibid., p. 148 29Ibid., p. 149.
3QIbid., p. 151
63
welfare voting patterns are concerned.
Clausen and Cheney find in their work that for Demo
crats as a whole constituency factors are more important in
explaining welfare voting behavior than party identifica
tion. They do point out, however, that partisan turnover
in the White House tends in particular to affect the welfare
support patterns of Coastal Republicans and Southern Demo
crats . "With respect to Coastal Republicans and Southern
Democrats, there is also some indication of a higher level
of responsiveness to factors associated with a partisan
31
turnover in the White House."
Based upon this review of the literature, what can
we say about the factors affecting Southern welfare voting
patterns? First, no factor appears consistently related to
Southern voting in the House. Even district black popula
tion percentages do not appear uniformly important. Urban
ization appears to play a part, but again the literature's
findings are inconsistent and contradictory. Other factors,
both electoral and institutional, seem to be even less rele
vant .
31
Clausen and Cheney, "Senate-House Voting on Eco
nomic and Welfare Policy," p. 151.
64
Research Design
In order to clarify the Southern congressman's rela
tionship to national welfare policy, this analysis will be
focused on two major questions. First, how divergent among
themselves are Southern congressmen with respect to national
welfare policy? Second, how extensively will Southern con
gressmen support or oppose national welfare legislation
during the 1970's? These questions are, of course, very
j
broad, and to some extent rather nebulous. In an effort to
make our analysis more specific and concrete, a number of
related propositions have been developed from each question.
These propositions will provide solid links to empirical
data. The six propositions derived from the question "How
divergent among themselves are Southern congressmen?" are
listed below:
1. Southern congressmen have tended not to be
highly cohesive in their support for welfare
policy in the 1960's.
2. There are identifiable groups of Southern con
gressmen who are consistently more conservative
or liberal in their behavior toward welfare
policy.
3. The existence of high black population percent
ages in districts tends to promote a more con
servative welfare support pattern among Southern
congressmen.
65
4. A high per capita district income level tends to
promote lower welfare support scores among
Southern congressmen.
5. A high level of district urbanization tends to
promote high welfare support levels among
Southern congressmen.
6 . Republican party identification tends to promote
low welfare support levels among Southern con
gressmen.^
Propositions 1 and 2 are useful because they will
provide a clearly defined profile of the differences among
Southern congressmen in their roll-call voting behavior for
welfare policy. Using data from these two propositions as
the dependent variable, propositions 3, 4, and 5 will be
examined. These propositions are important since they will
indicate whether constituency variables have affected
Southern congressional welfare support patterns during the
■^For an extremely thorough and thought-provoking
attempt to use variants of these propositions and many
others linked to legislative roll-call voting, the reader is
referred to Cleo H. Cherryholmes and Michael J. Shapiro,
Representatives and Roll-Calls; A Computer Simulation of
Voting in the Eighty-Eighth Congress (New York: Bobbs-
Merrill Co., 1969) . Although the book does not deal with
Southern congressmen per se, it is a very imaginative at
tempt to build a computer model on the basis of empirical
research. Some 68 empirical propositions are examined by
the simulation. Specifically, for our purposes, their anal
ysis gives support to the following two propositions: (1)
The relationship between constituency and roll-call voting
tends to depend on the issue in question; (2) political and
demographic characteristics of legislative districts are
related to the roll-call behavior of legislators._________
66
1960's. After this, we shall turn to proposition 6 to see
if party identification among Southern congressmen has
affected their welfare support patterns during this period.
By examining the association between constituency
factors in a given voting pattern one is not, of course,
arguing that Southern congressmen are consciously motivated
by certain constituency characteristics to adopt specific
voting patterns. Rather, it is suggested that similar kinds
33
of environments are likely to engender similar attitudes.
These attitudes are likely to influence elected representa
tives in the following three ways: (1) organized groups
will form the basis of the shared attitudes toward public
policy; (2) since people in roughly similar kinds of en
vironments tend to share similar attitudes, certain special
ized "publics" will exist as groupings of people who share
certain political characteristics and who are likely to be
have in common politically and to differ with those who do
not share these characteristics; and (3) congressmen them
selves have information and perceptions about the social,
economic, and political structure of their constituencies
This point is discussed at some length m Lewis
Froman, Jr., Congressmen and Their Constituencies (Chicago:
Rand McNally and Co., 1963), pp. 12-15.
67
which lead them to expect the existence of certain prefer
ences and to anticipate certain reactions within their con
stituencies. That is, it is not merely direct pressure
brought to bear on congressmen through interest group activ
ity and overt public pressure to which they are likely to
jrespond, but also indirect pressure in the form of expecta-
! 34
jtions and anticipated consequences.
I
|
Question 2 ("How extensively will Southern congress
men support or oppose national welfare legislation during
the 1970's?") will be examined through the following three
case study propositions:
1. Southern congressional perception of welfare
policy has been a combination of a redistribu-
| tive and a distributive orientation, depending
upon the particular policy area involved.
2. Southern congressional support for welfare
legislation in the 1960's has varied according
to the particular welfare policy i n v o l v e d .35
i 34
I A classic statement of this point is found in
Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes, "Constituency Dif
ferences in Congress," in New Perspectives on the House of
jRepresentatives, ed. by R. L. Peabody and N. W. Polsby
(Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1969), pp. 31-55.
35
In the subsequent analysis, the "conservative
coalition" will be employed as our basic point of reference
concerning support-opposition patterns for Southern con
gressmen. The conservative coalition is composed of South
ern Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representa
tives who come together to either support or oppose major
legislation. In recent years labor legislation, civil
68
3. Bargaining among Southern congressmen and
Northern Democrats in the 1960's over welfare
legislation has tended to vary according to the
particular welfare policy in question.
Proposition 1 will be useful in that the presence
of bargaining in a particular policy area may indicate a
flexibility among Southern congressmen. That is, if South
ern congressmen were willing to bargain over a particular
welfare program during the 1960's, it is reasonable to
assume that they would be inclined to bargain over the same
program in the 1970's. Conversely, if Southern representa
tives were unwilling to bargain over a given piece of wel
fare legislation in the 1960's, this may indicate unwilling
ness on their part to bargain over or support a similar
program in the ,1970's. Proposition 2 is important because
a pattern of support for, say, food stamp legislation during
the 1960's may indicate that in the 1970's Southern con
gressmen would be again inclined to support this program.
On the other hand, if Southern congressmen strongly opposed
the war on poverty in the 1960's, we might expect to find a
similar pattern in the 1970's. Proposition 3 has a similar
rights legislation, and welfare legislation have produced
strong Southern Democratic-Republican coalitions. As our
case study analysis will indicate, this coalition structure
shows wide variations among four welfare policy areas.
69
rationale. If Southern congressmen during this decade
viewed welfare policy in distributive terms (as a policy
conferring benefits on one or more groups, or providing sub
stantial benefits to their district), we might expect that
during the 1970's they would see the program in about the
36
same way and therefore support it. Conversely, if South
ern representatives tended to view welfare policy in the
1960's in redistributive terms (as a policy that confers
benefits at other groups' expense), one might expect that
during the decade of the 1970's they would see the policy
in about the same way and therefore oppose it. That is, if
Southern representatives saw a particular welfare program
during the 1960's as a welfare "give away," and thus opposed
it, it is reasonable to assume that roughly the same pattern
would be present in the 1970's.
The reader has undoubtedly sensed that this analysis
is not an attempt at prediction in an absolute or precise
manner. Obviously there are other factors that will affect
Southern congressional welfare support patterns in the
1970's. The position of Northern Democrats, Republican
36This policy perception model is developed in
Robert H. Salisbury, "The Analysis of Public Policy," in
Political Science and Public Policy, ed. by Austin Ranney
(Chicago: Markham Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 151-179.
70
opposition, the state of the economy, group pressures and
other factors need to be considered as the 1970's unfold.
Our analysis, therefore, will be general and somewhat ten
tative on the issue of prediction. Because of the impor
tance of this problem for the South, however, this writer
feels some attempt to draw predictive conclusions is war
ranted .
In order to analyze these two major questions and
the nine corollary propositions, a mixed research design
will be used. The first six propositions will be tested by
quantitative analysis . Guttman scaling, product moment
correlations and two-way frequency distributions will be
used. The second three propositions will be examined in
four case studies . The case study approach will be useful
in that it facilitates inter-policy comparisons. For exam
ple, support patterns for food stamp legislation and the war
on poverty can be easily compared for purposes of analysis.
The data to be used in testing our quantitative
propositions come from several sources . Congressional roll-
calls were taken from the Congressional Quarterly Almanac.
Also used were the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Reports
as well as the Congressional Record. The demographic data
were obtained from the Congressional District Data Book and
71
the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Reports. The data em
ployed to examine our case study propositions come from con
gressional hearings, congressional floor debates and public
statements by Southern representatives. Floor debates and
37
hearings in particular provided the major data source.
In addition, newspapers, leading popular periodicals, and
pertinent books and articles were used. Data were also ex
tracted from various committee reports, departmental publi
cations and the Congressional Quarterly Almanac. Much of
the statistical information was drawn from the U . S . Sta
tistical Abstracts and from presidential commission reports.
The goal of this analysis is twofold— empirical and
theoretical. From the empirical standpoint, the writer
hopes to contribute something to the literature that has
dealt with the Southern congressman. Propositions 1 through
6 will be important in this regard. It is also hoped that
the study will shed some light on the substantive problem of
Southern poverty. As Chapter I pointed out, poverty is a
37
In the examination of the case study propositions,
floor debates were the major source of data. Debates were
selected because they dealt with major welfare legislation
during the period. All debates were carefully read and ana
lyzed . Where remarks are quoted from these debates in the
analysis, we have tried to make them as representative as
possible of the flow of Southern discussion.
72
serious problem in the South today. Southern congressmen,
because they are often in a position to strongly support or
kill welfare legislation, can alter legislatively the con
dition of Southern poor to a marked degree. Large numbers
I
of them, however, consistently oppose welfare legislation.
I
The present work will help to uncover some of the reasons
for this anomaly.
j
| The second goal of this analysis is to contribute to
the growing body of literature dealing with policy analysis.
Case study proposition 1 is particularly important in this
(regard. Salisbury, building on the work of Lowi, has
j
(attempted to classify public policy in terms of how it is
! 28
perceived by both the public and the political elite. He
argues that policy can be conceptualized as distributive,
i
redistributive, regulatory and self-regulating. Distribu
tive policies are perceived to confer direct benefits upon
(one or more groups. Redistributive policy confers benefits
j
jbut also is perceived to take benefits away from other
groups. Regulatory policies impose constraints on the sub
sequent behavior of particular groups and thus indirectly
preclude or confirm potentially beneficial options in the
38
Salisbury, "Analysis of Public Policy," p. 158.
73
future. Self-regulatory policies also impose constraints
upon a group, but are perceived only to increase, not de
crease, the group's beneficial options. With respect to
redistributive policy, Salisbury goes on to argue that with
introduction of side payments, redistributive policy is
often seen in terms of its distributive implications. He
notes:
. . . redistributive policies are rendered less re
distributive in the perceptions of those who contend
over them by the introduction of distributive features .
That is, if an initially redistributive game is per
ceived to have a positive sum result, its conflict
potentialities are reduced as the extra benefits are
distributed. Thus a poverty program taxes the rich
to give to the poor, but is perceived as providing
advantages to the nonpoor also in the form of reduced
unrest, expanded markets, and greater social equal
ity .39
Through our case study propositions, especially proposition
1, this analysis will be able to test whether the actual
perceptions of redistributive policy by a group of political
|
jleaders "fit" the model Salisbury is putting forth. That
I is, do political decision-makers (in this case Southern
congressmen) in fact see redistributive policy in both re
distributive and distributive terms? Do the perceptions of
Southern congressmen with regard to welfare policy reveal
39Ibid.. p. 169.
74
another policy perception category, in addition to those
suggested by Salisbury? An examination of the relationship
of Southern representatives to welfare policy will provide
an opportunity to deal with these theoretical issues.
One further point should be noted. This analysis is
essentially empirical and not normative. No attempt is made
to judge the behavior of Southern congressmen. On the con
trary, this work is directed toward empirical description
i
|and explanation, not evaluation. One cannot by examining
ithe process of public policy making determine the ultimately
correct policy choices. Values must be assumed for the
purposes of research to be relative and not absolute, es-
i
pecially when the issue is public in nature. In short, the
present study will not be concerned with whether the welfare
policy behavior of representatives from the South is good
or bad, just or unjust. This is not to say that these ques-
i
jtions are not important. Without doubt they are of great
!
jsignificance. From the researcher's point of view, however,
the answers to these questions require value choices which
cannot be made on the basis of scientific analysis or logic.
I
CHAPTER III
A ROLL-CALL ANALYSIS
j
Each year the Committee on Political Education
(COPE) of the AFL-CIO rates all congressmen in the House and
i
|senate in terms of the percentage of time each representa
tive votes in accordance with the COPE position on a selec-
I
|
ited group of roll-calls. Consistently, Southern congress-
I
imen show wide variations in these support rankings. Unfor-
jtunately, the index developed by COPE does not differentiate
j
|among policy areas. Thus, although one can be reasonably
'sure that Southern congressmen are not all liberal or con-
i
jservative from an over-all perspective, Southern roll-call
i
[behavior in a specific policy area remains uncertain.
i
In this chapter six quantitative propositions will
|be examined to determine how different Southern congressmen
jare with respect to welfare policy. In addition to a
•*"The AFL-CIO support scores for Southern congressmen
in 1970 are listed in the Appendix.
75
76
Guttman scale analysis, both correlations and cross-tabula-
i
tions will be employed to determine the impact of certain
(independent variables on Southern congressional welfare
support levels. This analysis will be followed by an in-
depth examination of four welfare policy areas .
| Guttman Scaling and Roll-Call Analysis
j
Much has been said above regarding the need, when
examining legislative roll-calls, to be sure that a given
I
jselection of roll-calls from a given policy area does in
i
jfact tap a single policy dimension. Scale analysis or Gutt-
iman scaling is a technique of data analysis that can accom-
i
jplish this end. Developed by Louis Guttman to determine
jWhether a series of questions on an interview schedule meas-
jured a common underlying attitude, it has been used in re-
i
jcent years by political scientists for a variety of pur
poses . One of the many uses of this procedure is the
. . . . .2
iexamination of legislative voting behavior. By using the
2
, In our analysis we have relied heavily on the pro
cedures and techniques of Guttman Scaling, outlined in Lee
P. Anderson, et al., Legislative Roll-Call Analysis (Evan
ston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1966), pp. 89-
1119. For a somewhat more sophisticated discussion of Gutt
man Scaling, the reader is referred to Duncan MacRae, Jr.,
Dimensions of Congressional Voting (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1958) .
77
Guttman scaling procedures, a researcher is able to test
empirically whether the voting behavior of legislators is
lindeed describable in terms of selected dimensions or var-
I
iables such as support for social welfare programs. This is
jrevealed by the pattern or configuration formed by the votes
Ion the roll-calls. Briefly, an attitudinal continuum is
jconstructed, and a legislator is placed, according to his
support patterns, on this continuum. Once his position is
known, one can predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy
i
jhis response to future legislation dealing with the selected
I
policy dimensions. Such prediction is, of course, more
i
(dependable in the short run. If, for example, the issue
jcuts the continuum to the right of a legislator's own posi
tion on the continuum, he will— other things being equal—
irespond negatively. On the other hand, if the issue cuts
the continuum to the left of his own position, the respond
ent will respond positively. Thus:
|
| any given individual will respond positively up to
the point at which the issues begin to intersect the
| continuum to the right of his own position, and he
will then respond negatively to the remainder. If
all the issues cut the continuum to the right of his
position, he will, of course, respond negatively to
' all of themj and if all the issues cut the continuum
78
to the left of his position, he will respond posi
tively to all of them.^
i
jGuttman Scales not only measure a common attitudinal dimen
sion but are cumulative, making predictions possible.
Some of the conceptual problems that emerge when one
attempts to use this technique to explain specific behavior
patterns in a set of political institutions must now be
underscored. The Guttman scale was constructed to measure
iattitudes of individuals, that is, the psychological aspects
jof behavior. Yet the behavior of political elites, in the
i
ipresent case Southern congressmen, may be the result of
factors other than the political attitudes of the leaders
I
i
themselves. Power relationships, pressure politics, bar
gaining and other factors may play a part. In effect, one
jean describe with a fair degree of precision the actual
iroll-call behavior of a given group of legislators, but
without additional analysis, one can only tentatively infer
|a causal relationship based on a set of political beliefs,
i
attitudes or other factors. The second half of this chapter
i
will probe this issue in more depth. At this point it must
simply be noted that the Guttman scale measures a behavior
j
^Anderson, et al., Legislative Roll-Call Analysis,
p . 92 .
79
pattern and not the factors that determine this pattern.
Methodology
Once major policy areas were selected for this re-
j
search (see Chapter I), it was necessary to decide upon a
time period for analysis. This decision was to some extent
automatic because of the particular welfare policies chosen:
the food stamp progam, the antipoverty program and the
Family Assistance Plan were developed after 1962. Other
[factors, however, influenced the writer's choice. First,
I
jthe rate of federal spending for welfare in the 1960's in
creased much faster than in previous eras . From a fiscal
f
i
standpoint, then, welfare expenditures became a major con
cern of the national government. Second, the public became
more aware of federal welfare programs during this period,
iand opinion concerning further welfare spending became more
i
sharply defined than in other periods.
Once the policy areas and the time period were de
cided upon, a group of congressional roll-calls was selected
[as the preliminary universe of the scale analysis . A series
|of 14 House roll-calls was obtained from the Congressiona 1
!
•Quarterly Almanac. These "key" roll-calls were selected
I
|
[after a careful reading of the House debates prior to the
votes plus an examination of the bills themselves. Of par
ticular interest were votes that produced a split in the
Southern House bloc. As an indication of the significance
of the votesj over half of the preliminary universe was
picked by the Congressional Quarterly to be included in its
Larger Federal Role Score scale. The selected roll-calls
concerned either an expansion or contraction of federal
welfare spending. Thus, Southern House members might be
expected to be under pressure from many sides when they
cast their ballots.
After assembling the preliminary group of votes, the
"yea" and "nay" votes were then converted into either posi
tive or negative responses. Here we examined each vote and
decided whether a yea or nay constituted a vote in support
of social welfare policy. This coding is, of course, to
some extent subjective. Three indicators were used, how
ever, to increase our objectivity in this process. If the
vote increased federal welfare expenditures or increased
federal involvement in local and state welfare administra
tion, or if the President's position was in favor of the
bill, then a yea vote was recorded as a positive response
and vice versa. In the few instances where these indicators
were in conflict, the extent of the fiscal authorization was
81
the determining factor .
1 After these 14 votes were coded for support or oppo
sition to social welfare policy, they were then ordered in
I
jterms of their marginal frequencies . Votes were arranged
|from the most positive to the least positive. The range of
I
jSouthern congressional support in the preliminary universe
i
is indicated in Table 5. As the reader will note, the range
|of support of welfare policy is wide. Specifically, it
I
jranges from a high of 97 percent to a low of 19 percent. At
| !
jthis point the present analysis has come about as far as !
imost of the research efforts thus far examined. That is, we
!
jare still not sure that a given support level in the roll- '
'calls in fact reveals support for welfare legislation per
i
se. Several policy dimensions may be involved and to gen-
l
jeralize from this universe would be premature.
I
In order to determine whether only one policy dimen
sion is involved, one must analyze the scalability of each
i . 4
|vote. Several methods are available to perform this job.
|The pairwise comparison of items technique will be employed
i
I
I ... - ■ _____
^The Scalogram board and the Cornell technique are
used by some researchers for this purpose. See Duncan
MacRae, Jr., "Intra-Party Division and Cabinet Coalitions in
the Fourth French Republic," Comparative Studies in Society
and History, V (January, 1963), 164-211.
TABLE 5
SOUTHERN CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT FOR WELFARE POLICY,
PRELIMINARY VOTE UNIVERSE
Roll-Call
Positive Percentage
Vote Code Positive
1 HR1606 Yes 97
2 HR10222 Yes 76
3 HR1318 Yes 71
4 HR18249 Yes 62
5 HR12 321 Yes 49
6 HR1511 No 48
7 S2888 Yes 45
8 HR8283 No 44
9 HR1511 No 44
10 HR8644 Yes 39
11 HR11377 No 37
12 HR12 321 No 35
13 HR18037 No 29
14 HR16311 Yes 19
Note:
With one exception, all votes in the universe are
final roll-calls. The rationale is that frequently bills
are "amended to death" in floor debate, and these amendments
votes may be a poor indicator of a representative's actual
feelings on a bill.
83
in this analysis because with the aid of the IBM 360 com-
iputer it is easily used and is a widely accepted method.
i
iThis technique involves the comparison of items (votes) in
i
iorder to isolate the votes that do not scale. The procedure
i
Icons ists of cross-tabulating the votes on one roll-call
|against the votes on another. The cross-tabulation for each
[pair of roll calls results in a fourfold table that indi
cates the frequency of the four possible combinations of
iresponses . This process, a lengthy effort either by hand
i
jor using the counter-sorter, introduces a human error fac
tor. The IBM 360 computer was therefore used to run the
cross-tabulations. Absences were dropped prior to the com-
I
jputer run. The computer cross-tabulated vote 1 with votes
*2-14, vote 2 with votes 3-14, etc., through vote 14. The
:printout contained 92 fourfold tables. Next the writer
I
indicated the number of cross-tabulated votes that fell into
the non-scale cell of each table. A non-scaling vote pair
'would appear if, for example, a legislator cast a negative
jvote on an "easy" vote, and subsequently a positive vote on
ia vote presumably "harder" to vote positively on. One would
I
I
jnot expect such a vote pattern if the two votes tapped a
common policy dimension. For example, if a survey respond-
jent did not wish his daughter to attend classes with blacks,
84
we would not expect him to be in favor of interracial mar-
i
! riage. Should his responses on a questionnaire indicate
ithat he opposed school integration for his children but
i
I
isupported interracial marriage for them, we would conclude
|
(that our questions were not tapping the same attitude, i.e.,
!
jracial prejudice. The same logic can be applied to a series
jof cross-tabulated roll-calls . If the votes included in a
■sample universe formed a perfect scale, we would expect to
;find no responses in our non-scale box (-,+). Perfect
jscalability is rare, and some error is usually permitted.
jOnce the number of non-scaling responses for each vote with
jail other descending votes had been determined, it was
Inecessary to establish what error level would be acceptable.
j 5
There are three major methods for making this evaluation.
|In the present analysis a percentage cut off point was em-
|
'ployed. If less than 10 percent of the voters (10 percent
of the N for each vote pair) fell into the non-scale cell
; (the -,+ cell), the two votes were considered scalable.^
I
| ^We are using a percent rule. A more complex method
developed by Duncan MacRae, Jr., is the exponential model.
Also, Yule's Q can be used for this purpose.
£
A figure of 10 percent is, of course, somewhat ar
bitrary, but the figure is often used and is generally con
sidered workable. See Anderson, et al., Legislative Roll-
Call Analysis, pp. 101-102.
85
If the ceiling was exceeded, if the non-scale cell contained
more than 10 percent of the voters, then the two votes were
considered nonscalar. In order to make the final determina
tion of which votes scaled and which did not, the 92 four
fold tables were examined and the number of votes in each
!
jpair in the non-scale cell was recorded. If the number was
|
jless than 10 percent of the N, then the vote was considered
scalable. If the votes in the non-scale cell exceeded 10
i
jpercent of the N, then the votes did not scale. An analysis
I
|of the computer printout revealed that votes 10 and 11 did
hot scale with the other votes in the preliminary universe .
i
!The percentage of N in the non-scalar cell in almost every
i
jcase substantially exceeded 10 percent. Votes 10 and 11
'were not tapping the same dimension as the other votes .
i
^Because this was the case, votes 10 and 11 were dropped from
the initial universe. It was then possible to conclude from
the foregoing analysis that the 12 remaining votes all
jtapped the same policy dimension, designated social welfare
jpolicy. Table 6 summarizes the final vote group.
I
One additional problem should be noted. Other votes
that tap the welfare policy dimension may not have been in
cluded in the preliminary universe. Other votes during
these years, especially those dealing with the antipoverty
86 !
!
i
I
TABLE 6 |
SOUTHERN CONGRESSIONAL LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE i
WELFARE VOTE UNIVERSE, 1962-70
Bill Content of Bill
Positive
Vote Code
Percentage
Positive
HR10606 Bill to stress
rehabilitation of
welfare recipients
Yes 97
HR10222 Food stamp program with
$400 million authorization
Yes 76
HR1318 Food stamp authorization
of $195 million for
fiscal 1968
Yes 71
HR18249 Amendment for open-ended
appropriations for food
stamp program for fiscal
1969-70
Yes 62
HR12321 OEO authorization and
extension of OEO for
two years
Yes 49
HR1511 Bill to parcel out OEO
programs to other federal
agencies
No 48
i
!
S2888 Antipoverty amendments of
1967
Yes 45
■
HR8283 Economic opportunity
amendments of 1965
No 44 '
HR1511 Economic opportunity
amendments of 1966
(strike enacting clause)
No 44
HR12 321 OEO authorization for
fiscal 1970
No
35
HR18037 Amendment to cut OEO
appropriations by
$100 million
No 29
HR16 311 Family Assistance Act No 19
87
program, may also tap this policy dimension. This is not a
major problem, however, because the 12 tabulated votes do
relate directly to a single policy dimension. Thus, al
though external validity may be somewhat lowered, internal
I
(validity remains high. Moreover, analysis of the softer
I
(data connected with the votes (hearings, floor debates,
etc.) indicates that the selected roll-calls were those of
i
major importance to the Southern congressmen.
i
| Once a set of votes that tapped a common policy
|
Idimension had been selected, the next step was to construct
i
|an actual scale from the scalable subset of votes. In order
ito do this, the scalable subset was examined to determine if
I *
\
|any of the votes could be combined to form a contrived item.
| a contrived item is simply a cutting point for the scale
jthat consists of two or more roll-calls. A contrived item
i
i
can be formed when two or more votes are identical, or
nearly so, in marginal frequencies. An examination of Table
:7 indicates that the scalable subset formed, on a liberal-
!conservative continuum, a six-point contrived item scale.
I
After the scale was constructed, legislators were
then assigned to the various scale types. Since this proc
ess was at some points quite intricate, the procedures fol
lowed will be outlined in some detail. Because the analysis
TABLE 7
SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN: LIBERALISM—CONSERVATXSM
WELFARE SCALE j 1962-70
Scale
Type
Item
Number
Identification
Marginal
Frequency
1 1 HR10606 97
2
2 HR10222 76
I
HR1318 71
3
3 HR18249 62
4 4 HR12 321 49
HR1511 48
S2888 45
HR8283 44
HR1511 44
5 5 HR12 321 35
HR18037 29
6 6 HR16311 19
89
spanned a period of several years, a number of absences
occurred. Instead of throwing out all members who had re
corded absences, it was decided to keep all those who had
voted on at least a majority of the contrived items. In
this way it was possible to keep the N relatively high while
I
jat the same time excluding members who were not involved in
the majority of contrived item welfare votes . In order to
determine a legislator's responses on the votes comprising
i
jeach contrived item (items 2, 4, 5), it was necessary to
|
I
|arrive at a positive or negative classification for each
1
Icontrived item. If a legislator cast all votes alike on a
given item, then he was given the score for the contrived
iitem that was the same as his response on each vote com-
jprising the item. When a contrived item was made up of two
!
Ivotes, the following rules were used: (1) If a legislator
’ had an absence and a vote, the score for the item was simply
liis score on the response he made; (2) where the two votes
’ were in conflict (+,-), then a score was assigned that would
jmove him closer to a scale type containing the median case.
This helped to keep the extreme scale types pure. In the
case of a contrived item composed of more than two votes, a
legislator was typed according to his most frequent re
sponse. if there was a tie (++— , etc.), then his score was
90
whatever value would move him closer to the median case.
! After each legislator had been assigned a scale
i
jscore for all contrived items, the next step was to assign
jeach a scale score or total score by combining the scores on
j
I
jthe contrived items. In this process several rules were
j
|followed. First, when a legislator failed to respond on
half or more of the contrived items, he was not assigned a
I
jscale position. He was thus given an "N.C." score indi
cating that he was not classified. In the case of other
j
‘absences, all possible scale positions were listed and the ;
j I
!average scale position was assigned. When the average fell
jhalfway between two scale types, the legislator was assigned
jthe one closest to the median of the scale. Non-scale re-
!
jsponses were classified in the following manner. Legisla-
s
jtors casting more than one non-scale vote were not classi-
I 7
fied. In other cases the legislators casting non-scale
jvotes were typed in the following ways: (1) error was
j
iassigned to the vote that would have resulted in a perfect
!scale type; (2) when the error could be corrected in one of
|two ways to produce a perfect scale type, the legislator was
jassigned the mean scale score between the two.
i
7 The total number of "N.C.'s" was five.
91
Using this method of data analysis, it was possible
to construct support clusters for welfare policy among
Southern congressmen. The results of this analysis will be
(reported in the next section. At this point it will be use-
|ful to note the statistical adequacy of the scale used. A
I
jscale is usually appraised in terms of its reproducibility.
i
|The coefficient of reproducibility measures the proportion
lof responses on scale items that could have been predicted
jcorrectly on the basis of subjects' scale scores or posi-
j
i
Itions. This coefficient is determined by dividing the num-
[
|ber of correct responses by the total number of responses.
I
(In this calculation all ambiguous-response scale responses
j^nd absences were eliminated. The coefficient of repro
ducibility obtained by means of the above technique was 9 .8 .
(Thus in approximately 98 percent of the cases the responses
I
i
of a given legislator would have been predictable on the
I
basis of his scale score. The floor of the "C of R" is
jusually 9.0. It may be concluded, therefore, that the scale
'constructed for this research is a reasonably sound measure
j
jof the voting behavior of Southern congressmen with regard
i
jto welfare policy.
92
Analys is
| How conservative are Southern congressmen with re-
i
!
igard to welfare policy? Are some Southern House members
consistently more liberal than others as they vote on wel
fare legislation? We are now ready to deal with these ques-
i
jtions . The Guttman scale analysis has revealed that, based
j
jon the votes analyzed, there are indeed very conservative
Southern congressmen, but there is also a group of Southern
(representatives who on the welfare issue come up consis-
i
Itently liberal. In Table 8 the Southern representatives are
i
(broken down into five categories. Several observations
I
(should be made with regard to these welfare support group-
!
ings . First, as one might expect, the largest group of
'Southern representatives falls into the Strong Conservative
(category. A full 33 percent of Southern representatives are
located in this group. The second support cluster, the
Moderate Con-: r vative group, contains 23 Southern congress
men. When th.ise two groups are combined, certain interest-
I
(ing patterns become evident. As Table 9 indicates, the most
(
conservative state delegation is not, as one might expect,
from the Deep South. Virginia emerges as clearly the most
conservative Southern state with regard to welfare legisla
tion. Mississippi and Alabama fill the second and third
93
TABLE 8
SOUTHERN CONGRESSIONAL WELFARE SUPPORT PATTERNS, 1962-70
Name State
Item
Score
1. Strong Conservatives
(N = 32)
Burleson Texas 1
Fisher Texas 1
Teague Texas 1
Lennon North Carolina 1
Jonas North Carolina 1
Broyhill North Carolina 1
Quillen Tennessee 1
Abernathy Mississippi 1
Ashmore South Carolina 1
Bennett Florida 1
Haley Florida 1
Cramer Florida 1
Gurney Florida 1
Burke Florida 1
Andrews Alabama 1
Buchanan Alabama 1
Dickenson Alabama 1
Edwards Alabama 1
Hebert Louisiana 1
Rarick Louisiana 1
Hammerschmidt Arkansas 1
Brinkley Georgia 1
O'Neal Georgia 1
Thompson
Georgia
Blackburn
Georgia 1
Abbitt Virginia 1
Tuck Virginia 1
Marsh Virginia 1
Satterfield Virginia 1
Broyhill Virginia 1
POff
Virginia 1
Scott Virginia 1
TABLE 8— Continued
Name State
Item
Score
2 . Moderate Conservatives
(N = 23)
Dawdy Texas 2
Cabell Texas 2
Bush Texas 2
Fountain North Carolina 2
Kornegay North Carolina 2
Jonas North Carolina 2
Brock Tennessee 2
Duncan Tennessee 2
Kuykendall Tennessee 2
Colmer Mississippi 2
Whitten Mississippi 2
Dorn South Carolina 2
Watson South Carolina 2
Herlong Florida 2
Rogers Florida 2
Seldon Alabama 2
Nichols Alabama 2
Herbert Louisiana 2
Passman Louisiana 2
Gathering Arkansas 2
Flynt Georgia 2
Downing Virginia 2
Hardy
3. Moderates
(N = 14)
Virginia 2
Poage Texas 3
Henderson North Carolina 3
Taylor North Carolina 3
Whitener North Carolina 3
Everett Tennessee 3
Blanton Tennessee 3
Gettys South Carolina 3
Sikes Florida 3
Fugua Florida 3
Bevill Alabama 3
95
TABLE 8— Cont inued
Name State
Item
Score
Long Louisiana 3
Davis, J. W. Georgia 3
Hagan Georgia 3
Stuckey Georgia 3
4. Moderate Liberals
(N = 11)
Purcell Texas 4
Roberts Texas 4
Pickle Texas 4
Kazen Texas 4
Galifiamak North Carolina 4
Jones Alabama 4
Willis Louisiana 4
Long Louisiana 4
Landrum Georgia 4
Stephens Georgia 4
Wampler Virginia 4
5. Strong Liberals
(N = 17)
Brooks Texas 5
Gonzalez Texas 6
Mahon Texas 5
Patman Texas 5
Wright Texas 5
Young Texas 5
De La Garza Texas 5
Eckhardt Texas 5
White Texas 5
Evins Tennessee 5
Fulton Tennessee 5
Anderson Tennessee 5
Gibbons Florida 5
Pepper Florida 5
Boggs Louisiana 6
Mills Arkansas 5
Pryor Arkansas 5
96
TABLE 9
STATE DELEGATIONS RANK ORDERED BY PERCENTAGE FOR WELFARE
SUPPORT: CATEGORIES "MODERATE CONSERVATIVE" AND
"STRONG CONSERVATIVE"
State
Number of
Representatives
Percentage
Virginia 9 90
,
Mississippi 3 75
Alabama 6 75
North Carolina 6 60
Florida 8 59
Louisiana 4 50
Georgia 5 50
Arkansas 2 50
Tennessee 4 44
South Carolina 2 40
Texas 6 28
Total
55
97
slots respectively. Another surprising finding is that
North Carolina, considered by many a relatively progressive
(Southern state, appears in the analysis as a relatively con-
t
I
jservative delegation. In addition, Florida, with 59 percent
of its representatives in the conservative groups, emerges
i
jas more opposed to welfare policy than might have been an-
i
I
jticipated.
i
The Southern congressmen classified as Moderates
labove comprise a very small percentage of the total N. As
|Table 10 indicates, this group makes up only 14 percent of
(the Southern congressional universe. Furthermore, no state
!
(is heavily represented by Moderates. From this finding one
i
(might tentatively conclude that there is no consistently
Moderate Southern congressional delegation. None of the 11
Southern states stands as a buffer between the Conservative
(Southern Democrats in Congress and the more liberal Demo
crats from the North and West.
With respect to the fourth and fifth welfare support
(categories some interesting facts emerge. As Table 11 in-
|
dicates, there is a rather large group of congressmen from
the South that are more or less liberal in their welfare
I
(voting behavior. Twenty-nine percent of the Southern con-
!
gressmen in our sample fall into this "liberal" (as the term
TABLE 10
98
STATE DELEGATIONS RANK
SUPPORT:
ORDERED BY PERCENTAGE
CATEGORY "MODERATE"
FOR WELFARE
State
Number of
Representatives
Percentage
North Carolina 3 30
Georgia 3 30
Tennessee 2 22
South Carolina 1 17
Florida 2 17
Alabama 1 13
Louisiana 1 13
Texas 1 5
Total 14
.
TABLE 11
STATE DELEGATIONS RANK ORDERED BY PERCENTAGE
SUPPORT: CATEGORIES "MODERATE LIBERAL
"STRONG LIBERAL"
99
FOR WELFARE
" AND
Number of
State
Representatives
Percentage
Texas 13 60
Arkansas 2 50
Louisiana 3 38
Tennessee 3 33
Georgia 2 20
Florida 2 17
Alabama 1 18
North Carolina 1 10
Virginia 1 10
Total 28
100
is used today) category. Texas is the most liberal Southern
(state in its recorded welfare voting behavior. Arkansas is
second, Louisiana third, and Tennessee fourth, with Georgia
following closely behind. Several points should be made
about this group. First, with the exception of Georgia,
I
jnone of the most Liberal delegations is from the Deep
I 8
|South. The causal explanation of this finding is probably
related to both demographic and political cultural vari-
i
jables . The "independent" causal variables will be dealt
!
(with in the final section of this chapter. Second, as far
I
|
(as future support for welfare legislation is concerned, one
!
might expect a relatively high level of roll-call support
tor welfare legislation from representatives from Texas,
Arkansas, and Louisiana. States from the Deep South, on the
(other hand, do not appear likely to support welfare legis
lation for some time to come.
The following analysis of the causal factors that
(have produced this support dispersion should be preceded by
I
;a warning. The above comparison of the degree of state
®The Deep South is conventionally defined as Ala
bama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
For a more complete discussion of this distinction see Don
ald R. Matthews and James W. Prothro, Negroes and the New
Southern Politics (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,
1966), pp. 169-173.
101
delegation "liberalism" has been based on the assumption
that states are comparable. Strictly speaking, this is not
the case. Arkansas with four congressmen is certainly not
ideally comparable to Texas with 23 representatives. Also,
there are congressmen and congressmen. The institutional
power position of a Southern representative, coupled with
other factors, may make him more important to the passage of
a piece of welfare legislation than his entire state dele
gation; chairmen of key legislative standing committees, for
example, frequently exercise a disproportionate amount of
power. In Part II the writer will examine various aspects
of this question.
In summary, what can one say about Southern con
gressional welfare voting behavior? If a single observation
can be distilled from the analysis so far it is that South
ern representatives, as far as their voting behavior on
welfare legislation is concerned, are not all conservative.
As noted in Chapter II, with two exceptions all the litera
ture dealing with representatives from the South has begun
from an opposite assumption. Previous studies, moreover,
have not been in-depth examinations of specific policy di
mensions, and thus their external validity has been severely
limited. By means of Guttman scaling a more refined and,
102
it is hoped, sounder method of policy analysis has been
demonstrated in the present study. The above examination
of Southern voting behavior along a specific policy dimen
sion enables us to ask the following major question: What
independent variables are associated with various welfare
support levels? Stated differently, what factors are posi
tively or negatively associated with a given level of wel
fare support?
Selected Causal Variables and Southern
Congressional Welfare Support
In Chapter II six propositions were suggested for
hard data analysis . The first two are as follows:
1. Southern congressmen were not highly cohesive in
their support patterns for welfare policy in the
1960's.
2. We can identify groups of members who are con
sistently more liberal or conservative in their
| support for welfare measures.
|The analysis has now provided solid empirical evidence to
Isupport both of these propositions. Southern congressmen
in their roll-call voting on welfare legislation are not a
highly cohesive block. Some representatives from the South
are conservative, to be sure; yet others are solidly liberal
in their welfare voting behavior. Moreover, the writer has
103
identified specific welfare support clusters that can be
conceptualized on a six-point welfare policy continuum.
Most significant of all, it has been empirically shown that
these support "ratings" for welfare policy are in fact tap—
1
ping one policy dimension— social welfare. The next step i n ]
I
the analysis is to measure the effect of certain independent !
i
i
i
variables on the various welfare support patterns. For ]
i
example, does the number of blacks in a Southern congres - j
sional district affect the welfare voting behavior of the j
Southern congressman from that district? Does the fact that. 1
j
a district has a high urban or rural population affect wel— ]
5
\
fare voting behavior? Are Southern Republicans, as a group^ i
i
more conservative in their welfare voting behavior? Fi- j
j
nally, does a high per capita district income tend to pro—
t
duce a low level of welfare support among Southern repre- J
sentatives? Before examining these propositions, it will j
I
useful to note the data sources and describe the methodo
logical steps and problems involved in their analysis.
The district data (black population, urbanization,
and per capita income) were taken from the Congress ional
9
District Data Book. In cases m which district boundaries
Q
U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census ^
Congressional District Data Book (Washington, D. C.: U. S -
104
had been altered, the supplements to the Congressional
District Data Book were employed. Since the data abstracted
were in interval form, it was possible to use Pearson corre
lations as well as cross-tabulations to process it.
Certain difficulties were encountered due to altera
tions of congressional district boundaries during the eight
years covered by the analysis . The constituency variables
of black population, urbanization, and per capita income
were affected at some points by these changes. Resultant
changes in the percentage of urbanization per district were
handled in this manner: If there was more than a 20 percent
change in the composition of a district, and the change
moved the district past the 55 percent level in either
direction, then the legislator and the district were
dropped. If there was a change but the change did not make
an urban district into a rural district or vice versa, then
Government Printing Office, 1963). In the following analy
sis we have used congressional district data based on the
1960 census because at the time of the analysis information
based on the 1970 census had not yet been made available.
Although this to some extent distorts our independent vari
ables, the introduction of 1970 data would not have materi
ally improved our analysis since most of our votes occurred
in the 1964-67 period. The use of 1970 data would only have
skewed the data in another direction without materially
improving the quality of our independent variables .
105
the legislator was included. The aim was to retain only
districts classifiable as urban or rural throughout the
eight-year period. All differences were then averaged for
these years. Five districts were dropped under this rule.
District black population was handled in about the
same way. The following rule was employed: If there was
more than a 10 percent alteration in the black population
percentage and the change moved the district past 55 percent
black or white, then the legislator and district were
dropped. As a result of this procedure, four legislators
were excluded from the universe. Again, the purpose was to
keep this variable more or less constant throughout the
period. As before, the differences were averaged.
It was decided that in cases in which, due to boun
dary change, the change in per capita income exceeded 2 0
percent, the affected district would be dropped. Fortu
nately, no legislators were excluded under this rule. The
differences were averaged for the period.
Alabama posed a particularly troublesome problem.
From 1962 to 1964 Alabama elected its congressmen at large.
Thus, any attempt to link district characteristics to voting
behavior in Alabama during this time was impossible. In
1964 the state legislature returned the state to the district
106
system with a total of eight congressional districts.It
was decided simply to ignore these "at large" years and
treat the present Alabama delegation districts as if they
had been in existence since 1962 . By this means it was
possible to solve an otherwise difficult problem. The
treatment does, of course, misrepresent the universe and
thus to some extent lower the internal validity of the
janalysis. The main justification for this decision is that
with one exception (the Social Security Amendment of 1962)
all the votes selected for examination occurred in the per
iod from 1964 to 1970. The special data treatment is thus
limited to one vote out of a total of 12. This margin of
risk was considered acceptable.
The rationale for these somewhat involved procedures
can be stated quite simply. Since an attempt will be made
to assess the relative impact of these three constituency
variables upon various welfare support patterns among
j
Jsouthern congressmen, each variable must be held constant
from 1962 to 1970. By the above means, the writer has built
in an element of constancy that these districts otherwise
■*"^See U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the
Census, Supplement to Congressional District Data Book. No.
6 (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office,
January, 1965), pp. 1-14.
107
would not have.
Turning our focus to substantive analysis, we shall
now look at the following constituency variable hypotheses:
1. That the existence of a high district black
population will tend to promote a more conserva
tive (lower) welfare support pattern.
2 . That a high per capita district income level
will produce a low level of welfare support
among Southern congressmen.
3. That a high level of district urbanization will
bring about a high level of welfare support.
In order to test these hypotheses empirically, bivariate
correlation analysis was employed. Pearson correlation is
the specific correlational technique used. This technique
of data analysis is most useful in that it provides a single
summary statistic describing the strength of association
between two variables. Although it provides a neat precise
measure of covariance, it has two major drawbacks. If a
I
jrelationship between two variables is strong but nonlinear,
then a correlation coefficient may be very misleading.
Second, strictly speaking, correlations can only be per
formed on data that are interval or ratio in form.^ This
fact poses a slight problem. The independent variables to
"^See Bernard S. Phillips, Social Research: Strat
egy and Tactics (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1966), pp.
299-300.
108
be tested (black population, urbanization, and per capita
income), all are interval in form. The dependent variable
is not. The various support categories are ordinal data.
That is, it is not certain that the intervals between sup
port points on the liberal-conservative continuum are equal.
From the perspective of the statistical purist, correlations
should not be performed on these data. The writer chose to
disregard this technical problem because although the de
pendent variable data intervals may not be exactly equal,
they appear reasonably close, and in interval form the data
may be subjected to more powerful mathematical techniques,
i.e., Pearson correlations. As the following comment by
Hayward R. Alker shows, the issue is not mathematically
clear-cut:
The problem of whether or not to reduce uncertain
interval measurements to more certain ordinal ones
is a complicated one. Depending on the relative
amount of distortion introduced and information lost,
one may sometimes be justified in maintaining inter
val scales and using more powerful mathematical tech
niques . Another approach is to transform ordinal data
or uncertain interval data into an interval scale less
likely seriously to distort one's results.^
Since the distortion in the present case is not extensive,
12 . . .
Hayward R. Alker, Jr., Mathematics and Politics
(New York: The Macmillan Co., 1965), p. 27.
109
the dependent variable has been kept in interval form.
In order to perform this somewhat complicated sta
tistical procedure the IBM 360 computer was again used.
Data were coded onto punch cards, one case for each Southern
congressman, and the SPSS subprogram Pearson Corr was uti-
13
lized. Table 12 indicates the results of the analysis.
Based on these statistical measures, what can we say with
regard to the relative impact of these causal variables on
I
Southern welfare support patterns? Urbanization with the
correlation of coefficient of .1125 does not appear to be
strongly related to the welfare support patterns of con
gressmen from the South. The relationship is slightly on
the positive side, but it cannot be considered significant.
Per capita district income also does not appear to be sig
nificantly related to Southern welfare support patterns.
Perhaps the most important finding to come out of this
jcorrelation analysis is that there is an inverse relation
ship between the black population percentage and Southern
13
For a dxscussion of the SPSS subprogram Pearson
Corr, the reader is referred to Norman Nie, et al.. Statis
tical Package for the Social Sciences (New York: McGraw-
Hill Book Co., 1970), pp. 143-157. For a more general dis
cussion of the use of computers to analyze political data,
see K. Janda, Data Processing (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern
University Press, 1969).
TABLE 12
CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS FOR SELECTED INDEPENDENT
VARIABLES AND SOUTHERN WELFARE SUPPORT PATTERNS,
1962-70
Independent Variable
Correlation
Coefficient
Level of
Significance
Urbanization .112 5 .148
Black population -.3171 .001
Per capita income -.0531 .311
Ill
welfare support patterns. Apparently, the more blacks in a
congressional district, the less inclined Southern congress
men are to support welfare measures. Since, however, the
degree of association is rather limited (-.3171), to con
clude too much from this analysis might be misleading.
As a partial check on the correlation matrix, and
to examine the effect of party, a nominal data variable, on
Southern welfare support patterns, it was decided to perform
a series of two-way frequency distributions on the indepen
dent and dependent variables. The IBM 360 and the SPSS sub-
14
program Crosstabs were employed. The data for the inde
pendent variables were recoded onto another set of punch
cards for processing in the form of two-way frequency dis
tributions. Since the printout of this program produced
separate tables for each independent variable and Southern
welfare support patterns, each relationship will be indi
vidually examined. Table 13 gives a two-way frequency dis
tribution for urbanization by Southern welfare support
levels . Several interesting points emerge from an examina
tion of Table 13. First, Strong Conservatives are scattered
in several categories of urbanization. They tend to cluster
-*-^For a discussion of the SPSS subprogram Crosstabs,
see Nie, et al., Statistical Package, pp. 115-126.
TABLE 13
TWO-WAY FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF DISTRICTS BY URBANIZATION AND
SOUTHERN WELFARE SUPPORT LEVELS, 1962-70
(N = 88)
Urbanization
(Percentage)
Welfare Support Levels
0-2 0 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91-100
Strong Conservative 7.1 21.4 10.7 17.9 21.4 10.7 10.7
Moderate Conservative 27.8 16 .7 16.7 11.1 5.6 22 .2
Moderate 7.7 61.5 7.7 7.7 7.7 7.7
Moderate Liberal 18.2 9.1 18.2 36.4 18.2
Strong Liberal 11.1 11.1 5.5 11.1 16.6 16 .6 22 .2
Figures in Table 13 are row percentages of raw data frequencies.
113
somewhat around the rural districts and districts which are
about half rural and half urban. Apparently, the degree of
urbanization is not a key factor in their level of welfare
support. Moderate Conservatives are more numerous in urban
areas, but again the relationship is not a clearly defined
one. Moderates are clustered at the rural end of our con
tinuum with a few in the median ranges. Moderate Liberals
are located in the median ranges with a few in the very
rural areas . Most important, Strong Liberals tend to be
from markedly urban Southern districts. Only four out of 17
came from districts which have less than 50 percent urban
population. The analysis thus offers additional evidence to
support Key's observation that urban Southern Democrats tend
to be somewhat more liberal than their rural colleagues .
The analysis also offers support for the positions of Shan
non and Mayhew.
j The effect of per capita income per district is in-
i
Jdicated in Table 14. According to the data, Strong Conser
vatives tend to some from districts where the median income
level is between $3,100 and $5,000 and from districts with
unusually high levels of per capita income. This finding
to some extent contradicts the previous observation based
upon Pearson correlations that there was no relationship
TABLE 14
TWO-WAY FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF DISTRICTS BY PER CAPITA INCOME AND
SOUTHERN WELFARE SUPPORT LEVELS, 1962-70
(N = 88)
Welfare Support Levels
Per Capita Income
($1,000)
2.1-3.0 3.1-4.0 4.1-5.0 5.1-6.0 6 .1-7.0 7.1-9.0
Strong Conservative 3.6 28 .6 46.4 17.9 3.6
Moderate Conservative 5.6 38 .9 33.3 16.7 5.6
Moderate 15.4 69.2 15.4
Moderate Liberal 63.6 36 .4
Strong Liberal 16.6 16.6 16.6 50.0
Figures in Table 14 are row percentages of raw data frequencies.
115
between per capita income and welfare support patterns among
representatives from the South. Moderate Conservatives are
somewhat more evenly dispersed in the per capita income
level categories. Even so, they are still clustered in the
lower income groups. Moderates are clearly grouped in the
lower income categories. Over 84 percent of this group
represents areas in the median income range of $2,000 to
$4,000. In some ways this is an unexpected finding, since
one might expect to see Moderates coming from areas close
to the median income level, inasmuch as districts with mod
erate income levels might be expected to be neutral regard
ing welfare support, having little to lose or gain from
welfare legislation. The Moderate Liberal group is also
clustered around the lower income levels, and does not ex
hibit the dispersion of the Strong Conservative or Moderate
Conservative groups. The Strong Liberal is the most inter
esting "political animal" in our analysis. To a noteworthy
degree, this group deviates from the pattern of the other
four categories. The Strong Liberal tends to come from
districts that have a fairly high per capita income level.
For example, over 76 percent of Southern congressmen in this
group are from districts that have a median income level of
$4,100 to $6,000. Perhaps more important, 50 percent come
116
from districts where the per capita income level ranges from
$5,100 to $6,000. From these data we can tentatively con
clude that, as far as Southern congressmen are concerned,
representatives who are strongly liberal in their welfare
support patterns tend to come from districts that have rela
tively high income levels while those that are strongly or
moderately conservative are generally from areas that have
relatively low median income levels. The relationships are
not, however, extremely pronounced.
In Table 15, we can see the degree of association
that exists between black population and the various welfare
support groupings. As the data make clear, for all welfare
support levels there is a marked dispersion in black popu
lation percentages. Strong Conservatives are clustered all
along the black population continuum. This may indicate
that race (operationalized as black population percentages)
is not for this group a powerful causal factor in their
welfare voting behavior. The Moderate Conservatives are
also not markedly clustered in any given black population
category, although they are somewhat concentrated in the
middle levels. The Moderates exhibit basically the same
pattern except that no Moderates are from districts that
have between 41 and 50 percent black population. Again the
TABLE 15
TWO-WAY FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF DISTRICTS BY
BLACK POPULATION AND SOUTHERN WELFARE SUPPORT LEVELS,
1962-70
(N = 88)
j Black Population
i , „ „ , . (Percentage)
Welfare Support Levels _______________________ ______
0-10 11-2 0 21-30 31-40 41-50
Strong Conservative 21.4 21.4 21.4 32 .1
Moderate Conservative 5.6 16 . 7 38.9 27.8
Moderate 23.1 15 .4 30.8 30.8
1 Moderate Liberal 36 .4 2 7.3 27.3 9.1
Strong Liberal 38.8 38 .8 22 .2 5.5
3.6
Figures in Table 15 are row percentages of raw data
frequencies.
118
most noteworthy finding concerns the "liberals" in the uni
verse. Once again they exhibit characteristics slightly
different from those of the other categories. Both Moderate
and Strong Liberals tend to represent districts with low
black population percentages. Moderate Liberals, for exam
ple, are clustered in the 0 to 20 percent range. Strong
Liberals exhibit this pattern to an even more marked degree.
Over 77 percent of this group comes from districts with
15
relatively small black populations. It may tentatively be
concluded that there is an inverse relationship between the
black population variable and the level of welfare support
among Southern representatives. Furthermore, this relation
ship is weakest among the most conservative Southern con
gressmen, and is strongest among the most liberal. The
findings would tend, then, to offer additional support for
the research of Flinn and Wolman, Mayhe.w, and Shannon.
The effect of party identification on Southern wel
fare support patterns is examined in Table 16 . Before
15
The impact of percent Mexican-American upon wel
fare support levels was not examined for the South, since,
except for Texas, they make up a very small percentage of
the total population. Even in Texas, according to the Con
gressional District Data Book, only five of Texas' 22 con
gressional districts have as of 1960 Spanish-surname popula
tions in excess of 15 percent.
119
TABLE 16
TWO-WAY FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF DISTRICTS BY
PARTY IDENTIFICATION AND SOUTHERN WELFARE SUPPORT LEVELS,
1962-70
(N = 88)
Welfare Support Levels
Party Identification
Democrat Republican
Strong Conservative 22 .5 70.6
Moderate Conservative 19.7 23.5
Moderate 18.3
Moderate Liberal 14.1 5.9
Strong Liberal 25.3
Figures in Table 16 are column percentages of raw data
frequencies.
X = .005
12 0
discussing these data, we wish to note again that because
our sample is quite small, 17, any conclusions we may draw
are statistically very tentative. The data presented show
that Republicans are clustered around the very conservative
end of our welfare support continuum. When controls are
applied, this relationship still remains constant. Appar
ently Southern Republicans are very conservative as far as
welfare policy is concerned, regardless of the demographic
j
makeup of their constituencies. Southern congressional
Republicans are more conservative, then, than one might have
assumed. What explanations can be offered for this phenom
enon? First, it may be that welfare legislation for South
ern Republicans is a purely ideological issue. Their oppo
sition to welfare legislation may be founded on the ideo
logical implications of the various welfare bills. Second,
Southern Republicans may overestimate the importance or
i
jstrength of the very conservative elements in their dis-
i
tricts . They may feel that these groups within their dis-
16
tricts are clearly opposed to social welfare legislation.
Whatever the reason, Southern Republicans are not simply
carbon copies of Southern Democrats.
•^See on this point Lewis A. Froman, Jr., Congress -
men and Their Constituencies (Chicago: Rand McNally and
Co., 1963), pp. 95-96. __________
121
Conclusion
By way of summing up, what generalizations or con
clusions can be drawn from the analysis to this point? In
this chapter six quantitative data propositions have been
examined. Through the use of Guttman scaling the writer was
able to test whether Southern congressmen were a highly
cohesive group in their support for welfare legislation in
the 1960's. It was found that there were wide variations in
their patterns of support for welfare policy.
The analysis identified groups of representatives
that were consistently conservative and others that were
liberal throughout these years. It was also revealed that
Virginia was consistently the most conservative Southern
delegation, while Texas was the most liberal. States from
the Deep South tended to be somewhat more conservative than
those in the peripheral South. Louisiana was somewhat more
i
! liberal than had been expected, while Florida appeared sur-
i
prisingly conservative. The central point to come out of
this section was simply that a good deal of variation exists
in the voting behavior of Southern congressmen with regard
to welfare policy. The findings should also underscore once
more the need for policy-oriented political research. Re
liance on gross indicators of legislative behavior only
122
serves to confuse and oversimplify a complex process. For
example, if one were to investigate other policy areas, it
would be quite reasonable to expect that one would find very
different support groupings.
Four "causal" propositions were analyzed by correla
tions and cross-tabulations. The first proposition received
moderate support. It was found that a high level of urbani
zation was associated with high levels of welfare support.
Low levels of urbanization were not, however, related to low
levels of welfare support among Southern congressmen. The
findings from this research support the previous work of
Shannon, Mayhew and Key, although we have sharpened their
focus somewhat.
In regard to the second proposition, it was not
found that a high level of district per capita income was
associated with low levels of welfare support among con
gressmen from the South. The analysis instead indicated
that the most liberal Southern representatives tended to
come from districts which had relatively high median income
levels. Most conservative Southerners, on the other hand,
came from lower income districts, but the association was
less well defined. Neither of these relationships, however,
was pronounced. District income is not a key factor, it
123
would appear, in particular Southern welfare support pat
terns .
Black population, the third causal variable, also
did not exhibit the type of association expected. Both the
coefficient of correlation and a two-way frequency distribu
tion indicate that low levels of welfare support among
Southern representatives are not associated with high dis
trict black populations. It was found, however, that black
population levels were inversely related to welfare support.
That is, the most liberal Southern representatives came from
districts that had relatively few blacks.
Our final proposition concerned the relationship of
party identification to given levels of welfare support.
It was concluded that Republican congressmen from the South
are almost all conservative in their voting behavior on
welfare legislation. It was also noted that this relation
ship held constant when we controlled for the effect of the
other independent variables . This finding may indicate that
Southern Republicans are in some way different from the
majority of their Southern Democratic colleagues. Clearly
this is the case with regard to their support of welfare
legislation in the 1960's.
In Part II of this analysis three case study
124
propositions will be examined in four separate welfare
policy areas. The welfare programs to be analyzed are the
following: (1) food stamps, (2) public assistance, (3)
family assistance, and (4) the antipoverty program. The
case study approach will make it possible to make several
inter-policy contrasts . This will be useful for two rea
sons : (1) it will indicate in more specific terms the dif
ferences among Southern congressmen and (2) it will provide
a basis for projecting the levels of support Southern con
gressmen will give to welfare policy in the 1970's.
PART II
SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND WELFARE POLICY:
A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
125
CHAPTER IV
SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND PUBLIC
ASSISTANCE
Public assistance is the major cash income support
program aimed specifically at the poor. In recent years the
number of public assistance recipients has vastly increased
in the South and in other regions of the country. Currently,
one in 10 people in Atlanta is on public assistance. Mem
phis, Tennessee follows closely behind with one person in 12
relying on welfare for subsistence. Dallas and Miami both
face a similar problem. In the nation as a whole as of
1971, over 13.5 million people were recipients of public
assistance. In New York a staggering 1,147,595 people com
prise the welfare rolls . The annual total cost of public
assistance nationwide in 1970 exceeded 15 billion dollars.
In this chapter one specific aspect of this problem
will be examined. Following a review of the legislative
development of public assistance and the impact of AFDC on
126
12 7
the South, we turn our attention to four case study propo
sitions dealing with Southern congressmen and public assist
ance. The analysis will be focused specifically on the
perceptions of public assistance by Southern representatives,
the level of support given to AFDC by Southerners in the
House, the various elements of public assistance supported
or opposed by representatives from the region, and the ex
tent of legislative bargaining in the House over AFDC by
Southern congressmen. Once this has been done3 the obser
vations and conclusions that have emerged can be consid
ered .
The Legislative Development of the
Public Assistance Program
Although public assistance is a four-pronged program
(Aid to Families with Dependent Children, aid to the blind,
aid to the physically disabled, and aid to the aged), the
major tensions associated with the program's growth have
centered on Aid to Families with Dependent Children. These
families without a full-time working parent currently number
about 9.1 million Americans. In the last four years this
group has grown at a much faster rate than the others. By
1970, they received over 5.4 billion dollars, or more than a
third of all welfare expenditures.
128
President Kennedy in 1961 proposed a seemingly minor
alteration in the Social Security Act of 1935. This piece
of legislation was to signal a fundamental shift in national
welfare policy. As passed, the Social Security Amendment of
1962 had two clearly defined goals: to reduce personal
hardships for the children of the unemployed and to pump
buying power into the economy. Unquestionably the major
importance of the 1961 Social Security Amendments lies in
the fact that, for the first time, those who were unemployed
with children received federal support. Once this door had
been opened, there was simply no easy way to shut it.
As of 1962, the federal government had accepted
public assistance as a more or less permanent program. This
was reflected in several different ways. On February 1,
1962, President Kennedy in a message to Congress on public
welfare programs suggested that poverty and unemployment are
caused by social rather than personal factors .
! The reasons [for poverty] are often more social than
j economic, more often subtle than simple. Some are in
need because they are untrained for work, some because
they cannot work, because they are too young or too
old, blind or crippled. Some are in need because they
are discriminated against for reasons they cannot help.
• ^ Presidential Message to Concrress on Public Welfare
Programs, transmitted February 1, 1962.
129
Moving from this premise, the Kennedy Administration drafted
legislation with two broad aims: (1) to enlarge state wel
fare aid to the truly needy; (2) to encourage the states to
place an increasingly heavy emphasis on rehabilitation
through vocational training, training for self-care and
preventive welfare services.
This legislation was of crucial importance with
regard to the expansion of AFDC. For our purposes, several
provisions are particularly noteworthy. First, through this
legislation the measures initiated in 1961 permitting AFDC
payments for a child whose father was at home and able-
bodied but unemployed were continued and enlarged. In addi
tion, AFDC support payments were permitted not only for
needy children and the parent caring for them in a family,
but also for a second parent at home if disabled or unem
ployed .
Reduced to its most basic elements, the Social
Security Amendment of 1962 institutionalized the major shift
in welfare policy initiated by the amendments of 1961. No
longer was welfare to be primarily directed toward the
physically incapacitated. Rather, public assistance was now
to focus on poverty caused by social factors. Individuals
who had been born into groups that had little opportunity
130
for education or job training, that might be subject to
racial discrimination in employment and the like, became the
focus of this "New Welfare."
When the measure again came before the House in
August, 1967, much had changed in the area of public assist
ance in the United States as well as in Congress itself. No
longer was Congress willing to support increases in public
assistance. For several reasons the mood of the lawmakers
had shifted from substantial support in 1961 to a firm
opposition to increases in welfare spending in 1967.
In addition to an across-the-board increase in
Social Security benefits of 13 percent, the Social Security
Amendments of 1967 established new restrictions on welfare
payments. By far the most significant and controversial
feature of this legislation was the provision, added by the
Ways and Means Committee, that established a mandatory work-
training program for all AFDC recipients, including mothers.
Under this bill, mothers with preschool children were re
quired to put their children in federally-subsidized day
care centers in order to take a job or job training. A
second restriction contained in this legislation involved a
freeze on the future proportion of children under 18 in each
state who could receive federal assistance under AFDC when
131
the parent was absent from the home. Under this provision*
the future percentage of children on AFDC rolls was limited
to the percentage of AFDC children on the rolls in January*
1968. This freeze was to have gone into effect as of
July 1* 1968* but was postponed initially by Congress
through a provision in the Revenue and Expenditure Control
Act of 1968. By June of 1969* amid increasing congressional
opposition to public assistance* it was repealed.
The repeal of the proposed 1967 freeze indicates two
major problems that have plagued public assistance during
the 1960's. Most obvious is the increasing cost of the
program. Second* and closely related to this* is the de
clining level of support for public assistance in Congress
and in the nation. By 1969* and especially in 1970* it
became increasingly evident that both the organizational
and fiscal problems of public assistance had reached the
jcritical stage. If one examines the House floor debates
dealing with the Family Assistance Plan, this fact becomes
painfully clear. Nowhere in these debates does the AFDC
program receive even token support from a single House mem
ber. Congressmen Boggs of Louisiana* a strong liberal in
our support model* sums up the level of House support for
AFDC as of 197 0 when he notes:
132
There is almost universal agreement among those con
cerned with our present welfare system that that sys
tem , particularly with respect to the program for the
needy families with children, has failed. This bill
[the Family Assistance Plan] is being proposed to
remedy this situation by an approach that recognizes
that we can no longer attempt to patch up what is
basically an unsound structure.3
Congressmen Bevill of Alabama, a moderate by our scheme,
puts the issue more succinctly: "I agree with the members
who have argued for reforms in our present welfare system.
3
Without question there must be a change."
Public assistance, a program enjoying wide congres
sional support in 1962, attracted almost no support in the
House five years later. The year 1962 witnesses the expan
sion and extension of public assistance. By 1967 support
had declined for the program and new restrictions or. Its
operations and expenditures appeared. Specifically, work-
training programs and a proposal freeze threatened its ex
istence. As the decade came to a close the program again
came under increasing criticism from all sides, and its
continuance became doubtful.
With these points in mind it is now appropriate to
^Congressional Record, CXVI (February 10, 1970),
H 3178.
3 I b id .
r —— 133"
ask how much AFDC has helped the poor in the South, and what
have been some of the more salient political reactions in
this region to public assistance. Within this context,
Southern congressional behavior toward public assistance
should become more understandable.
Public Assistance in the South
During the 1960's
Because of several factors, Southern states fund
public assistance programs at different levels. In Table 17
data are presented on the absolute funding level for a fam
ily of four in the South. In addition, Table 17 also indi
cates how much of the poverty need these funding levels are
meeting. As the data indicate, AFDC payments vary widely
from state to state in the South. On the one hand, North
Carolina and Virginia met about 100 percent of their cost
standard. On the other hand, Mississippi met only 27 per
cent of its cost standard. The most significant point to be
extracted from these data is the following: 9 of the 11
Southern states are not meeting the economic needs of their
poor. That is, even though the poor are receiving some aid
in these states, they are not being given sufficient money
to live at what the state has determined is a subsistence
leve1.
134
TABLE 17
AFDC MONTHLY COST STANDARD FOR BASIC NEEDS OF A FAMILY
CONSISTING OF FOUR RECIPIENTS AND AMOUNT OF AID TO
SUCH FAMILIES IN SOUTH PAID BY STATE, RANK ORDERED
BY PERCENTAGE OF NEED MET, 1968a
State
Cost
Standard
Amount
Paid
Percentage
of Need Met
North Carolina $144 $144 100
Virginia 195 191 98
Georgia 198 12 5 63
Tennessee 198 12 0 61
Louisiana 2 04 166 57
Arkansas 162 90 56
Texas 2 06 114 55
South Carolina 172 93 54
Alabama 177 89 50
Florida 189 85 45
Mississippi 2 01 55 27
aData are based on assumptions that the family:
(1) is living by itself; (2) needs an amount for rent that
is at least as large as the maximum amount allowed by the !
State for this item; (3) has no income other than
assistance.
S ource: Department o f H e a lth , E d u cation , and W elfare.
H“ ' ' 135
A second and for the South perhaps more important
characteristic of the Southern AFDC recipients is their
racial composition. These data are presented in Table 18.
Based upon these data it is reasonable to conclude that a
majority of AFDC recipients in the South are black. This
tendency is particularly pronounced in Mississippi, Louisi
ana and South Carolina, and weakest in Texas .
The increasing rate of growth of the AFDC population
in the South has produced many different reactions from
state and local politicians. Most of these responses have
been efforts to limit severely the program's utility for the
poor. The most potent weapon available to the state and
local governments in this region to accomplish this end is
the state power— almost unlimited— to determine eligibility
standards. The most celebrated instance of this tactic
4
occurred m Louisiana m the early 196 0's. Prodded by the
Governor, the Louisiana State Legislature passed a bill
aimed at stopping the flow of tax dollars to unwed mothers
who continued to bear illegitimate children. As a result of
this legislation over 20,000 children in Louisiana, most of
whom were Negro, were eliminated from AFDC rolls. Passage
4
New York Times, September 23, 1960, p. 30.
136
TABLE 18
AFDC FAMILIES AND RECIPIENT CHILDREN IN SOUTH BY RACE, 1967
State
Families
(Percentage)
Recipient Children
(Percentage)
White Black White Black
Virginia 37.9 62 .0 34.4 65.4
North Carolina 29.7 69.0 24.0 74.8
South Carolina 24.5 75 .3 19.1 80.7
Georgia 29.9 70.0 25.1 74.7
Florida 24.1 75 .7 20.2 79.5
Tennessee 46.9 53.1 40.8 59.2
Alabama 29.1 70.5 23.1 76.7
Mississippi 13.4 86.3 11.3 88.5
Arkansas 39.0 61.0 30.0 70.0
Louisiana 22 .4 77 .3 17.8 82 .1
Texas 58.7 41.0 53.3 44.4
Source: Department o f H ea lth , E d u ca tio n , and W e lfa r e .
r " 137
of this legislation redeemed a campaign pledge of Governor
Jimmie Davis to stop state subsidy of the indolent. In
effect Louisiana was saying that the "suitable home" cri
terion was a reasonable yardstick for determining eligi
bility. Although this practice was limited by subsequent
federal action,, it survived largely intact.
A second method that has been used extensively in
the South by the state and local power structures to harass,
badger and limit eligibility of AFDC recipients is the "man
in the house" rule. In many states during the 1960's
mothers were required to run "manless" households. Welfare
workers were charged with determining whether in fact an
AFDC recipient had a man living with her. This determina
tion was usually made on the basis of evidence gathered in
a welfare search. These searches were often carried out
late at night and required no prior warnings. In many
Southern states, especially in the Deep South, this tech
nique has been used extensively against blacks— especially
those who show signs of becoming politically active.
One result of this type of action by Southern polit
ical elites has been the development of welfare rights or
ganizations in the South and the nation as a whole. En
couraged by community action workers, AFDC mothers in
138
Southern communities have organized in an effort to stop the
indignities and harassment they suffer at the hands of the
local public welfare department. One authority speaking of
this movement on the national level writes:
The new welfare rights movement is a recent organ
izing attempt by public assistance recipients to pro
tect their civil rights and improve conditions in the
welfare system. Starting with isolated client groups
that are gradually coalescing, this movement is a
spontaneous combustion of the festering grievances and
indignities of welfare clients— the rock bottom of the
nation's poor.^
The reaction of Southern congressmen and the Southern public
to this type of organization has been generally negative.
Communities have shown strong antagonism to actions these
groups have undertaken, such as protest marches, sit-ins,
etc. Local politicians have treated demands from welfare
rights organizations as unrealistic and presumptuous.
Southern congressmen when confronted with representatives
from these groups have become equally hostile.
Although it cannot be said with methodological pre
cision that all reaction in the South to growing AFDC rolls
has been entirely negative, on an impressionistic level this
5
Joseph E. Pauli, "Recipients Aroused: The New
Welfare Rights Movement," Social Work, XII, No. 2 (April,
1967), 101.
I ' 139
seems to be at least partly true. Given the racial makeup
of AFDC rolls in this region and the tension over public
assistance on the local level, it might be expected that
Southern representatives would be strongly opposed to AFDC—
especially in the post-1965 period. In fact this, as the
following pages will show, is the case.
Public Assistance and the Southern
Congressman
The relationship of Southern representatives to
welfare policy is extremely complex and multifactored. In
order to deal systematically with this complex phenomenon,
this analysis will examine in turn three case study propo
sitions . These propositions have been selected primarily
because they will contribute to the following overriding
goals of this analysis: (1) to determine how divergent
among themselves Southern congressmen are concerning welfare
policy; (2) to attempt to project whether Southern repre
sentatives will support or oppose welfare policy in the
1970's. Obviously we shall not be able to predict with the
degree of accuracy demanded by the natural sciences, but
considering the importance of the problem the author feels
some impressionistic attempt in this direction is warranted.
Case study proposition 1 can be stated as a question
! 140
as follows: Was public assistance during the 1960's per
ceived by representatives from the South as distributive or
redistributive policy? A distributive policy orientation
is operationally defined as a policy perspective stressing
the "pork barrel" implications of a given policy. This
policy view emphasizes questions such as how much money will
flow into districts, how many jobs will be created by the
program, etc. On the other hand, a redistributive orienta
tion stresses the ideological nature of a policy. A re
distributive perspective has at least three elements.
First, the policy is seen as a kind of social welfare pro-
gram, government-based and a matter of right. Second, the
policy is closely associated with class lines and class
antagonisms. Third, the policy or issue is usually couched
in ideological rhetoric and is commonly related to the
spectre of socialism. For example, public assistance may
be seen as a wasteful dole or a "money for loafers" program,
irrespective of the fiscal or political implications for
the district.6 Southern congressmen, of course, cannot be
lumped together as completely of one perspective or another.
In the following discussion the writer is talking about the
^Salisbury, "The Analysis of Public Policy."
r 141
majority of the Southern representatives, and no claim is
made that his observations are true for all congressmen from
the region. With this limitation in mind, an initial answer
to this first question can be attempted.
From an analysis of the data, Southern representa
tives appear to have viewed public assistance as a distrib
utive policy. However, as the decade advanced this view
apparently shifted to a redistributive perspective. In 1961
most Southern representatives apparently viewed public
assistance legislation in terms of the economic benefits for
their districts and the nation. Typical of the Southern
congressional perspective on public assistance in 1961 is
the following remark by Congressman Tremble of Arkansas
during floor debate in the House:
Unemployment reached a level of 5.4 million in Janu
ary, the highest level since World War II. As part
of a broader program to combat the current recession
and to relieve resulting hardships, it would appear
that this step should be undertaken.^
Furthermore, the motion to recommit and the final passage of
H. R. 4884, the Social Security Amendment of 1961, were by
voice vote indicating a general lack of controversy over its
contents and articulated rationale. In the preceding floor
C o n g r e s s io n a l R ecord, CVII, 3757.
142
debates as well as in the hearings held by the House Ways
and Means Committee, no Southern congressman stated any
opposition to this legislation. Moreover, Southern con
gressional involvement with this bill was almost nonexist-
ent.8
In 1962 a certain blurring of Southern congressional
policy perception took place. At this point, representa
tives from the South began to view public assistance more
as a redistributive policy— the tendency was not, however,
clearly defined. This perceptual shift was apparent in a
number of areas . First, the floor debate over the 1962
amendments emphasized the "welfare" aspects of H. R. 10606.
Only one Southern representative commented on the legisla
tion in the debate and his response to the bill indicated
that he saw the issue as essentially a redistributive pol
icy and not as a distributive measure. Congressman Herlong
of Florida would observe: "Mr. Chairman, what we are trying
®An examination of the floor debates of 1962, 1967,
and 1969 revealed that until 1969 Southern representatives
took little part in the floor debates over public assist
ance. This lack of participation probably indicates both a
lack of interest in public assistance and in the 1962 period
reflects the generally high level of support accorded to the
program by Southerners in the House. Increased participa
tion in the 1969 period probably was caused by a growing
interest in public assistance coupled with a stiffening of
Southern opposition to the program.
I ‘ ' 143
to do in this bill is to take a long-range look at these
welfare programs and reduce, ultimately, their cost, by pro-
9
viding incentives to get people off the welfare rolls."
As we noted earlier in this chapter, the 1967 public
assistance legislation established a number of severe re
strictions on welfare payments. In particular, this legis
lation required all AFDC recipients, except the infirm and
children, to work or take work-training. This bill also
created a freeze on the amount of federal aid to states for
AFDC assistance. By the time this legislation came before
the House for consideration representatives from the South
had come to view public assistance in essentially redistrib
utive terms. This is evident in the support given by con
gressmen from the South to the restrictions on public as
sistance. Congressman Broyhill of Virginia underscores this
point when in the floor debate of 1967 he makes the follow
ing comment in support of the 1967 Public Assistance Amend
ments :
The committee bill attempts to alter this situation
[the poverty cycle and an inadequate public assist
ance program] in several ways . The states will be
required to develop a plan for each member of a family
receiving AFDC payments that is designed to place
^C o n g r e s sio n a l R ecord, C V III, 4 2 7 6 .
: 1 4 4 i
adult members in employment and to establish family
stability. Day care centers would be provided for
working mothers. Work and training programs will be
offered to enable these adults to acquire marketable
skills . Earning exemptions will permit these indi
viduals to retain earned wages without a correspond
ing reduction in the assistance payments, thus pro
viding an incentive for these individuals to seek
employment that may eventually result in their inde
pendence .
Congressman Mills put the issue in somewhat stronger terms
when he noted: "... we are not going to continue to put
funds into states for the benefit of parents when they re
fuse to get out of that house and try to earn something. " ^
It was not until 1969-70, however, that Southern
congressmen's redistributive perceptions of public assist
ance became solid and sharply defined. As the reader will
recall, in 1969-70 the Family Assistance Plan was proposed
by the Nixon Administration. This legislation sought to
abolish completely the AFDC state plans, and in their place
substitute a federally financed and administered welfare
program. Typical of the policy orientation of Southern
House members toward the public assistance program as of
1969-70 is the following comment made by Congressman Price,
a Texas Democrat, in these debates:
10Ibid., CXIII, 23076.
i:LIbid .. p. 23058.
r
i
Our present welfare system has made it more profit
able for some people to loaf than to work. In addi
tion to the individual and family problems this
directly createsj think for a minute what it does to
the incentives of an individual who works a full week
and earns for his labors only a few dollars more than
TO
does the man on relief. ^
Congressman Quillan of Virginia, in testimony before the
House Rules Committee on the Family Assistance Plan,
clearly indicates that he perceives the present public
assistance program as redistributive in nature: "I think
your idea to teach a man to work and to want to work, is
good. But a man who doesn't want to work, there are too
many excuses for him [in the public assistance program and
13
in the proposed Family Assistance Plan]." As of 1970,
therefore, public assistance as an operating program was
perceived by the majority of Southern congressmen not in
terms of its distributive implications, but as basically
a redistributive policy.
During the period from 1962 to 1970, did the over
all level of Southern congressional support of public
assistance decline? Based upon an examination of Southern
12Ibid., CXVI (April 16, 1970), H 3156.
S. Congress, House, Committee on Rules, The
Family Assistance Plan, Hearings, House of Representatives,
on H. R. 16311, 91st Cong., 2d sess., 1969, p. 139.
| " " ’ 146
roll-call voting, floor debates and hearings, it is clear
that a radical decline in Southern congressional support
expressed itself in many ways. For example, in 1962 more
than 95 percent of the representatives from this region
supported the expansion of public assistance as embodied in
the omnibus Public Welfare Amendments of 1962. Yet in 1967
over 90 percent of Southern representatives supported H. R.
12080 that, in addition to raising Social Security benefits,
created severe restrictions on the operation of public
assistance. A second indicator of this decline in Southern
support of public assistance is found in the statements of
Southern congressmen when the issue of public assistance was
brought before the House on these occasions. In 1967 and
again in 1969 evidence of growing Southern opposition to
public assistance is particularly strong. Of the five
Southern representatives who spoke on the public assistance
amendments of 1967, all were in support of the bill. The
following statement by Wilbur Mills is typical of Southern
congressional sentiment voiced in these floor debates.
Mills argues that because the states had failed to develop
solid public assistance programs, restrictions on AFDC as
of 1967 were necessary:
147
If there are any jobs available to them [recipients],
we want them to have them. This is what we wanted to
do in 1962. We left it up to the states, and they
did not do it. Five years later, today we are on the
floor with a bill which requires that to be d o n e . - * - 4
In the debates over public assistance and the Family Assist
ance Plan of 1970, Southern congressional opposition to AFDC
punctuated much of the action in debates. Of the 12 South
ern congressmen who entered debate on the Family Assistance
Plan, none supported AFDC and all argued that major changes
were necessary if this program was to continue. Represen
tative of these remarks is the following statement by Con
gressman Waggoner of Louisiana. Waggoner opposed both the
AFDC program and the attitudes he felt it had created among
the poor:
Third and fourth generation families are now appear
ing on the welfare rolls, demanding higher and higher
payments and less and less supervision of what they
use the money for and whether or not they even are
eligible for the payments. Welfare is, many now
claim, their "constitutional right," an attitude
which has been upheld more than once by various courts .
The traditional concept of welfare as temporary as
sistance for those who are in need because of reasons
beyond their control no longer exists.
Although opposed to the Family Assistance Plan, Congressman
14
Congressional Record, CXIII, 2 306 0.
15I b i d ., CXIII (A p r il 16, 1 9 7 0 ), H 3158.
! ' 148
Fagua, a Moderate from Florida, during the same debates also
indicated his opposition to the present system:
Mr. Chairman, the debate here today has contained much
comment that we are revising our present welfare pro
gram. Well there is no question that our present wel
fare program is in need of drastic revision, but this
[the Family Assistance Plan] is not the answer.^
Testifying before the House Rules Committee in 1969, Mills
again summarized the views of the House in general and
Southern representatives in particular concerning the pres
ent state of welfare policy in the second half of the
1960's.
All of us recognize, I assume, that there are problems
within this area [public assistance] . Everyone is
for doing something about what is commonly referred
to as the welfare mess. Everyone may not agree as to
just what the welfare mess is or what to do about it,
but I think all are agreed that something has to be
done.
The decline in Southern congressional support of
public assistance did not, of course, take place in a
vacuum. The House as a whole probably was even more opposed
to public assistance than the Southern representatives.
16Ibid.. H 3195.
■^U. S., Congress, House, Committee on Rules, The
Family Assistance Plan. Hearings, House of Representatives,
on H. R. 16311, 91st Cong., 2d sess ., 1969, p. 102.
I ' ' 149
This over-all decline in support for AFDC in the House is
particularly evident if one looks at the House voting pat
terns from 1962 to 1967 . In 1962 the House adopted a con
ference report on the 1962 Social Security Amendments by a
358-34 vote. This vote, as we noted in the first part of
this chapter, indicated strong over-a11 support in the House
for the liberalizing provisions of the 1962 legislation.
In 1967, however, the conference report on the Social
Security Amendments of 1967, legislation that created severe
restrictions on public assistance, was supported by 390 of
393 House members. Comments by House members on this legis
lation also underscore this point. Typical of House senti
ment on AFDC is the following remark by Speaker John
McCormick. Commenting on the 1967 work-training provision
for women and HEW's attitude toward public assistance in
general, he observed:
In HEW you can look at this bill and tell that in
their theory a female human being is a child, a wife,
a mother and a widow. In HEW women do not work.
Now I have checked carefully in American history
and, Mr. Chairman, not only does this generation not
live like that, but there has never been an American
generation that lived in the gingerbread world of
HEW.18
18C o n g r e s s io n a l R ecord , C X III, 2 3 0 8 0 .
150
Public opinion, and even the poor themselves (although for
very different reasons), also opposed the present welfare
system. Southern opposition to AFDC therefore did not
develop in a hostile institutional environment. On the con
trary, decay of Southern support for welfare policy in the
House dovetailed the over-all decline in AFDC support in
the House.
How much bargaining was involved in Southern con
gressional support of, or opposition to, public assistance
19
during the sixties? Bargaining is, of course, a broad
and somewhat amorphous concept— especially when it refers
to political action. Certain elements are common, however,
to most kinds of political bargaining. According to Robert
A. Dahl and Charles E. Lindblom, political bargaining takes
place only when certain conditions are present:
If leaders agreed on everything they would have no
need to bargain; if on nothing, they could not bar
gain. Leaders bargain because they disagree and
expect that further agreement is possible and will
^Because of the few bills involved, the almost com
plete shifts in support, and the lack of a strong supporting
group, it is difficult to document the amount of bargaining
present in the policy area of public assistance. Bargaining
in this area may be conceptualized as a kind of null case.
In short, if the reader finds the argument somewhat uncon
vincing at this point, he should reserve his final judgment
until this proposition is examined in all our policy areas .
I " 151 j
be profitable— and the profit sought may accrue not
merely to the individual self but to the group, an
alliance of groups, a region, a nation, unborn genera
tions .... Hence bargaining takes place because it
is necessary, possible and thought to be profitable.20
Bargaining takes many forms. It may be overt and obvious,
as in the case of vote swapping, or it may be more subtle
and take the form of a quiet political deal. Because of the
difficulty of tapping the latter bargaining style in an
analysis of this scope, we shall operationally define
Southern welfare bargaining as overt vote trading or "legis
lative logrolling." The most obvious problem with this kind
of operating definition is that by neglecting the subtler
forms of congressional bargaining we may be sidestepping
some very important data. However, this need not be an
insurmountable problem, if we are careful to limit the scope
of our conclusions.
As far as the extent of overt bargaining among
Southern congressmen over public assistance in the 1960's
is concerned, our analysis indicates it was limited. That
is, Southern congressmen did not bargain for changes in
public assistance legislation with other groups in the
^Robert A. Dahl and Charles E. Lindblom, Politics,
Economics, and Welfare (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1953),
p. 326. See also Thomas C. Shelling, The Strategy of Con
flict (London: Oxford University Press, 1963).
I 152
House. The reasons for this fact are fairly straightfor
ward. The single most important explanation lies in the
fact that during these years, especially in the second half
of the decade, there were no strong groups in the House who
were actively involved in the support of this legislation.
As a result, little vote swapping occurred. When we look
at the food stamp program in the next chapter, however, we
shall see precisely the opposite situation taking place.
Bargaining for votes was limited, therefore, not due to
Southern intransigence; but because there was simply no
solidly defined group within the House with enough political
resources to effect a bargain. In addition, even if the
opportunity to bargain had been present, it is highly un
likely that Southern representatives would have become in
volved in a quid pro quo arrangement. Most representatives
from this region saw public assistance legislation in the
post-1965 period as redistributive policy, and as subsequent
chapters will show, the redistributive outlook among South
ern congressmen is clearly associated with low levels of
roll-call support— regardless of the bargaining context.
Based upon the preceding analysis, what observations
can be made with regard to our case study propositions?
First, public assistance during the 1960's was perceived by
r ' 153
representatives from the South initially as distributive
policy. As the decade wore on, however, Southerners in the
House altered this perception radically. By 1967 and espe
cially in 1970 Southern congressmen saw AFDC as redistribu
tive in nature. Second, during the 1960's Southern House
support for AFDC substantially declined. This decline in
Southern support roughly paralleled the decline in support
for AFDC in the whole House. Southern congressional support
for public assistance moved from a high level in 1962 to
almost complete opposition in 1970. Third, even though
there was an over-a11 decline in this welfare support level,
some elements of AFDC continued to draw Southern support.
Elements receiving Southern support were, however, essen
tially restrictions on certain aspects of public assistance.
Fourth, bargaining for Southern support of welfare policy
was very limited in the 1960's. This tended to reflect the
over-all decline in support for AFDC in the House in gen
eral, coupled with the perception of public assistance
legislation by Southern congressmen.
Conclusion
By way of summing up, what major points have been
made in this chapter? First, this analysis has shown that
; 154
public assistance in the 1960's was not characterized by a
constant level of congressional support. It moved from a
program enjoying wide congressional favor to a policy com
manding almost no support in the House. Specifically, when
the program was created in 1961, it was viewed as an eco
nomic measure and received much congressional favor . In
1962 public assistance was seen more as welfare policy, and
was both extended and enlarged. Congressional support began
to decline after 1962, however, and by 1967 AFDC came under
increasing criticism in Congress. Restrictive provisions
such as work-training requirements and a freeze on the per
centage of children eligible for public assistance were
added by the Social Security Amendments of 1967. In 1969
and in 1970 criticism of AFDC became so intense that a new
program, the Family Assistance Plan, which would radically
change the current welfare structure, was proposed by the
Nixon Administration.
Public assistance money during the 1960's aided many
poor in the South, but there were wide variations in this
region concerning aspects of the program. In addition to
differences in state AFDC funding levels, substantial varia
tion existed in the percentage of AFDC need met in the
Southern states. A few states fully met their AFDC cost
P 155 i
standard while others paid public assistance recipients only
about a third of what they needed to survive on a subsist
ence level. It was also pointed out in this chapter that
racially the AFDC families in the South are very heavily
black. Finally, some of the responses of local governments
toward growing AFDC rolls in the South were noted.
Within this context four case study propositions
were discussed. It was found that public assistance was
perceived by representatives from the South first as dis
tributive policy and later (by 1967) as a redistributive
measure. Moreover, it was found that during the 1960's
Southern House support for AFDC radically declined. From
almost complete support of public assistance in 1961-1962,
Southern representatives moved to almost total opposition
to AFDC in 1969-1970. Certain elements in the over-all AFDC
program were, nevertheless, supported throughout the 1960's,
but in general these amounted to restrictions on the pro
gram's operation. Our analysis also indicated that bargain
ing, as operationally defined, was largely absent from the
politics of Southern congressional support or opposition
regarding public assistance. In short, the analysis indi
cates that Southern congressmen, in terms of their percep
tion of or behavior toward public assistance, were not a
great deal different from the House of Representatives as a
whole. We shall find that in many instances this was not
the case with regard to the food stamp program.
I
CHAPTER V
SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND FOOD STAMPS
On February 19, 1969 Senator Ernest F. Hollings
broke the bonds of the Southern political tradition. Speak
ing before the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and
Human Needs, Hollings described how the Southern white man
had always lied about poverty and always practiced the
politics of ignorance concerning the poor. Hollings spoke
of hunger he had seen with his own eyes:
Let me categorically state there is hunger in South
Carolina. I have seen it with my own eyes . Those
weakened and diseased from hunger are dying from the
disease caused by hunger. Weakened and diseased, they
become emotionally blind. Their burdens and ours com
pound and grow. The hunger and the burden of the poor
can no longer be ignored.
The food stamp program is one direct federal attempt
An in-depth description of Hollings' action can be
found in Nick Kotz, Let Them Eat Promises: The Politics of
Hunger in America (New York: Anchor Books, 1971), pp. 160-
165 .
157
; 158
to solve some of these problems . This chapter will look in
detail at how Southern congressmen have viewed the food
stamp program. In addition, their legislative support for
the program, and the elements within the food stamp program
they have supported or opposed, will be considered. Fi
nally, the extent of Southern congressional log-rolling will
be assessed. Some attempts will also be made to relate the
findings reached on food stamp legislation to the conclu
sions concerning public assistance legislation.
The Legislative Development of the
Food Stamp Program
Food stamp legislation came before the House on four
occasions during the 196 0's. In 1964 the program was estab
lished on a permanent basis . It was to operate as follows :
Needy families in participating communities could but for a
small amount stamps worth a larger amount when presented at
local food stores . The amount paid by a family for the
stamps would depend upon its size and economic status. The
federal government would make up the difference between what
the family paid and the face value of the stamps. Food
stamp programs would be established in communities only if
a state so requested. Certification of eligible families
and local administration would also be a state and local
responsibility. Wherever adopted, the food stamp plan would
replace an existing program for free distribution of fed
erally owned surplus foods.
By 1967 the food stamp program had gained increasing
political momentum. On September 19, 1967, Congress gave
final approval to a bill continuing the food stamp program
for two years and authorizing appropriations of $200 million
2
for fiscal 1968 and $225 million for fiscal 1969. Approxi
mately one year after passage of the 1967 food stamp legis
lation, the House passed another administration bill extend
ing the Food Stamp Act through 197 0 and authorizing appro
priations for the program. The most recent legislative
alteration in the food stamp program took place in 1969.
Each of these bills extended and enlarged the program.
Controversy was extensive over this legislation.
Three issues produced most of the legislative tug
ging and pulling. The first point of tension concerned the
question of food stamp eligibility. House liberals
strongly supported making students and strikers eligible for
food stamps . Conservatives argued that the federal govern
ment and taxpayers should not be involved in the collective
^Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington, D. C.:
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1967), XXII, 435.
I 160
bargaining process. In order to prohibit students and
strikers from availing themselves of food stamps, Congress
man Teague of California in 1968 introduced an amendment to
the food stamp bill providing that unless students and
strikers had been eligible for stamps prior to striking or
entering college, they would not be eligible for food stamps
as students or strikers . The House by a close vote passed
this amendment, but it was deleted from the final version of
the bill.
A second point of tension involved in food stamp
legislation during the 1960's centered around the length of
the program's authorization. Throughout this period lib
erals in the House supported an open-ended authorization.
Under this provision the Appropriations Committee would be
left with sole jurisdiction over food stamp funds. Conser
vatives argued that a one-year authorization would be pref
erable since it would enable the House to review the program
annually. By suggesting an open-ended authorization lib
erals hoped to take the program out of the Agriculture
Committee's jurisdiction. Since the Agriculture Committee
strongly opposed the food stamp program, House liberals
hoped to limit the Committee's control over the program.
The third major point of conflict over this program
161
developed around proposals to force the states to foot a
larger share of the program's cost. Under the Food Stamp
Act of 1964, the only state costs for the food stamp program
were for its administration. Conservatives in 1964 and 1967
introduced amendments requiring the states to pay a per
centage of the program's cost (50 percent and 2 0 percent
respectively). Opponents of the measure argued that if
adopted these amendments would result in the discontinuance
of the program in many states for fiscal reasons. Support
ers of the measure contended that no state was too poor to
pay 20 percent of the program's cost.
The support profile for the House of Representatives
regarding food stamp legislation appears very different from
this body's public assistance support pattern. As was noted
above, the vast majority of Southern congressmen first sup
ported and later opposed public assistance. Throughout the
1960's, on the other hand, a coalition of Republicans and
conservative Southern Democrats made passage of any food
stamp legislation uncertain. For example, on the 1967
amendment offered by the House Agriculture Committee that
required states to contribute 2 0 percent of the program's
cost, the House split as follows: Voting for the Committee
amendment were 47 Southern Democrats, two Northern Democrats
r ' 1 6 2
and 124 Republicans. Voting against it were 32 Southern
Democrats, 132 Northern Democrats and 2 7 Republicans. The
bill was rejected by a slim margin. In 1964 the same coali
tion structure was also present and the 1964 food stamp
legislation passed the House initially by a vote of 299 to
3
189— again a substantial cleavage is indicated. As of
1969, this coalition was still largely intact. If one looks
at voting on an amendment offered by Congresswoman Sullivan,
a strong advocate of food stamps, providing for an open-
ended appropriations authorization, it is clear that this
conservative coalition is again operating. By a vote of
227 to 172 the House accepted this amendment. Voting
against it were Republicans and the most conservative
Southern Democrats. This coalition structure is a slightly
modified version of the classic conservative coalition out
lined in Chapter II. It is a variant in that a substantial
number of Southern Democrats voted with the more liberal
Northern Democrats. Under this arrangement Southern con
gressmen held the balance of power, in that a major swing
by them in either direction spelled passage or failure for
food stamp legislation in the 1960's.
3Ibid .. XX, 112.
r 1 6 3
Tension then existed within the House over food
stamp legislation. This legislation's support pattern in
the House as a whole took the form of a coalition of Repub
licans and conservative Southern Democrats against Northern
Democrats and the more liberal Southern Democrats. The
following review of the actual impact of food stamp legisla
tion on Southern states should provide a basis for analyzing
these political configurations of support or opposition.
Food Stamps in the South during the 1960's
As with public assistance, the food stamp program in
the South is funded at different levels in each state.
These data are presented in Table 19. Several points are
important concerning these data. First, in the South the
food stamp program is clearly underdeveloped compared with
the commodity distribution program. The reason for this
disparity may be that, unlike the commodity distribution
program, the stamp program is relatively new. Also, the
food stamp program is substantially more costly to adminis
ter. The range of food stamp funding is also significant.
Mississippi spends approximately four times as much money on
food stamps as North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. In
Mississippi local pressure from the poor combined with out-
164
TABLE 19
STATE EXPENDITURES FOR THE COMMODITY DISTRIBUTION AND
FOOD STAMP PROGRAMS IN THE SOUTH, 1968
Funding Levels by Program
State -----------------------------------------
| Commodity Distribution Food Stamps
j ($1,000) ($1,000)
Virginia $13, 020 $ 2,041
South Carolina 6, 778 10,286
North Carolina 2 3, 383 4,879
| Georgia 26,602 4,846
i
Florida 25, 776
- - -
Tennessee 11, 72 7 10,274
Alabama 24,598 6, 081
Mississippi 19,928 17, 527
I Arkansas 6, 736 6, 997
Texas 35,083 3,469
Louisiana 16,200 9,053
Source: Department of Agriculture.
[ 165
side pressure may be responsible for this comparatively high
level of support. The low levels of support in Florida,
Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas are somewhat more diffi
cult to explain. Judging from comments made by congressmen
from Florida during House debates, the high administrative
cost of the food stamp program has caused Florida to rely
solely on the commodity distribution program. In Texas the
program's growth may have been in some way retarded by the
highly conservative influence of Congressman Poage, Chairman
of the House Agriculture Committee, in state and local
politics . In Georgia and North Carolina there is evidence
that until recently the need for a food stamp program was
not recognized among citizens. As recently as 1968 the
existence of hunger in these states was largely unrecog
nized. With the publishing of Hunger U. S . A . and several
television documentaries in 1968, hunger became visible to
many responsible citizens in the South. In Georgia and
North Carolina this tendency was particularly strong. In
these and other states responsible groups began to call for
initiation and extension of the food stamp program in coun
ties which were still operating commodity distribution pro
grams .
In 1969 this pattern was particularly well defined.
r
166 |
An examination of 14 Southern newspapers after the announce
ment by the Nixon Administration of certain cutbacks in food
programs yielded some interesting results. By this time the
4
problem of hunger had become a pressing issue m the South.
According to the Columbus Ledger:
Teachers report that some children throw up the
free cold milk they receive during homeroom period
because their stomachs are empty from not eating and
cannot hold it . . .
Some eat the peel of oranges served with lunch
because they are so hungry . . .
Some make the rounds after eating their own school
lunch to bum leftovers from classmates because they
know it will be the last decent food they will get
until the same time the next day.
These children live in Columbus and Muscogee
County, not in Biafra, Viet Nam or New York.
It is inhuman that this situation is permitted to
continue in a community with so much wealth.^
From the editorial page of the Daytona Beach Journal came a
strong condemnation of the Nixon move to tighten up spending
on problems associated with hunger:
The decision by the Nixon Administration to apply
tight fisted fiscal policies to the problem of hunger
and malnutrition is disturbing. And, in the long run,
terribly against the interest of a better America.
4
"Let's Feed the Children— They Are Helpless," The
Ledger (Columbus, Georgia), May 3, 1969, p. 1.
5
A complete list of newspapers employed m this
analysis is found in the Selected Bibliography.
167
It was learned Wednesday that President Nixon
wants to put off indefinitely plans for a comprehen
sive attack on hunger primarily to hold back govern
ment expenditures in the domestic realm in order to
fight inflation. Meanwhile, he has no compunctions
about demanding the expenditure of some 5 billion
for an anti-ballistic system that a great many experts
say will not work and is unneeded.®
In North Carolina the plight of the hungry also gained
needed attention and support by the local press. James K.
Batten and Dwayne Walls of the Charlotte Observer in the
following quote argue that scholars and politicians from
North Carolina have been critically lacking in concern for
the hungry in North Carolina:
Last week, while three American astronauts spun
spectacularly through space, thousands of poor North
Carolinians were quietly wondering not about the mys
teries of the moon, but about their next meal.
No one, not even in the academic citadels of
Raleigh and Chapel Hill, can say how many such people
there are. The state of North Carolina has never
bothered to find out.
Over the years, governors, legislators and sena
tors tended to pooh-pooh suggestions that a serious
problem might exist.
Last month, for example, Senator B. Everitt Jordan
reflected the traditional view when asked about the
possibility of serious malnutrition in North Carolina.
"I have no complaints ..." Jordan said. "I've
supported food stamps and relief and so forth. As
far as I know, that has met the need."
But despite the persisting skepticism, hunger and
malnutrition, now the focus of rising public concern
®"Not Fiscally Sound," Daytona Beach Journal, May 2,
1969, p. 17.
168
all over America, undeniably remain a stark fact of
life in this state today, as they have for genera
tions J
In an article in the somewhat liberal Atlanta Jour
nal, the Atlanta press gave its reaction to hunger in
Georgia and how Georgia politicians have attempted to deal
with it as of 1968:
The bankruptcy of Georgia's political leadership
has never been so well displayed as in the state's
response to recent revelations about its health con
ditions .
A national commission has set forth page after
page Hunger U . S . A . 1 of ugly truth about malnutri
tion, the starvation and death of children and the
permanent damaging of minds and bodies in Georgia and
other states .
It found more "hunger" counties in Georgia— 47 —
than in any other state. Overall it found damaging
dietary deficiency among millions of Americans, and
it found conditions growing worse instead of better.
So far the response has been almost total silence
from Georgia's senators and congressmen in Washington
and from those in the state capitol who could do some
thing about these conditions . William Burson, the
state welfare director, has worked hard in recent
months on one effort: the extension of the federal
food stamp and commodities programs to those counties
which had not yet accepted them. But except for that
work, which offers only a limited solution to a vast
problem, little has been done.®
7
"Hunger m Our Midst," Charlotte Observer, March 9,
1969, p. 3.
®"'Lazy' Children Are Dying— A Georgia Disaster:
Human and Political," Atlanta Journal, May 21, 1968, p. 2.
In a similar vein, and reacting to essentially the same
problem, William Greenburg of the Nashville Tennessean wrote
as follows in support of the food stamp program:
The food stamp program permits people to buy edi
bles . And while people can buy soft drinks or candy
with them, they are not permitted to purchase soap,
cleaning powder, tooth brushes, and other sundries
found in food markets.
The reaction from local residents and officialdom
ranged from denunciation of the hunger report [Hunger
U . S . A .] to ignorance of these conditions, to the
charge that the poor were able to get food but did
not know where to buy or how to prepare it, and that
many of them did not make an attempt to better them
selves .
It is true that these people buy more soft drinks
than they should.
However, these charges lose their punch when it
is realized that these poor people have no background
to help them get the most value out of their available
foodstuffs. Also when a man has gone to the fourth
grade and then worked in the coal mines from 15 to 30
years it is difficult to call him lazy after he has
felt the shock of losing his livelihood and he is not
qualified for anything else. As a result he loses
his will.^
By way of summing up, several points emerge regard
ing the development of the food stamp program and hunger in
the South. First, the food stamp program is severely under
developed in the South. Second, in recent years the South
has become increasingly aware of its problems of hunger and
^"Food Stamps Haven't Stamped Out Malnutritionj It's
the Children Who Suffer Most," Nashville Tennessean, June 9,
1968, p. 23.
I 170
poverty. Third, important groups within the South support
an expanded food supplement program. These points form the
basis of the following survey of Southern congressmen's
responses to increasing pressure for more food aid for the
needy.
Food Stamps and the Southern
Congressman
In Chapter IV it was noted that representatives from
the South had shifted their orientation toward public as
sistance from a distributive policy perspective in the early
1960's to a redistributive orientation in the last years of
the decade. The food stamp program, however, exhibits no
similar pattern. Instead, the policy perspective of South
ern representatives regarding food stamps has been rela
tively constant. More important, two distinct subgroups
existed among representatives from this region. The first
group consisted of Southern members of the House Agriculture
Committee and the more conservative Southern congressmen in
the House as a whole. A second and somewhat smaller group
contained the more liberal Southern congressmen. Judging
from the roll-call votes and support levels of these groups
(these votes and the support levels they indicate will be
discussed shortly), group 2 accounted for about 60 percent
r
171
of all Southern congressmen while group 2 comprised the
remaining 40 percent. This bifurcated policy orientation
was apparent both in the hearings held by House Agriculture
Committee and in the floor debates over the various food
stamp bills. Congressman O'Neal of Georgia, in hearings on
the 1967 food stamp legislation, clearly indicated a re
distributive perspective regarding food stamps when he made
the following comment:
My main concern, Mr. Secretary, is whether or not
these people [food stamp recipients] are actually
buying groceries or whether they buy tobacco and
alcohol, because almost invariably in every conver
sation that I get into with people back home they
immediately speak of the abuses of this program
with respect to beer and cigarettes.-*-0
Congresswomen Sullivan, the leading advocate of the food
stamp program, during the floor debates over the same legis
lation, described the redistributive or welfare persuasion
of the House Agriculture Committee in these graphic terms:
Whenever the Committee on Agriculture takes up
the food stamp bill, it seems to devote very little
deliberation to the value of the program in expanding
domestic utilization of food and instead argues over
welfare policies. That committee does not have
10U. S. Congress, House, Committee on Agriculture,
Legislation to Amend the Food Stamp Act of 1964, Hearings.
House of Representatives on H. R. 1268, 90th Cong., 1st
sess., 1967, p. 44.
172
jurisdiction over welfare legislation. I have been
urged for years to redraft the food stamp legislation
to place the program in the Department of WeIfare*
and I resisted that because I believe the people in
the Department of Agriculture know far more about
food utilization than the people in the Department
of Welfare. But if we keep running into this constant
snipping at this program by the Committee on Agricul
ture as being some sort of terrible welfare program,
then perhaps we should take this program and the school
lunch program and the school milk program, and the
feeding of the needy through direct distribution and
turn them all over to Ways and Means or Education and
Labor for administration by HEW.H
In debates over the 1964 food stamp legislation, Congressman
Jennings of Virginia, in a comment typical of the more lib
eral Southern representatives, indicated the distributive
policy perspective:
The food stamp program has been well received in
those areas I have mentioned [Dickenson, Lee, and
Wise counties in Virginia]. I have secured reports
from the local superintendents of welfare, from the
federal food stamp office, and have talked with resi
dents of these three political subdivisions . The
program is well on the road to being one of the most
successful operations undertaken. The few complaints
are relatively minor.^2
Turning to the 1968 food stamp legislation, we again find
these two perspectives in evidence. Texas Congressman
Fisher, a Strong Conservative according to this study's
^^Congressional Record, CXIII, 15142 .
12Ibid., CX, 7300.
173
roll-call analysis, in the following quote clearly indicated
that food stamps, in his opinion a poorly run welfare pro
gram, had helped to cause the growth of a "poverty cult."
Underscoring his redistributive perspective, Congressman
Fisher argued:
As this welfare program [food stamps] has rapidly
expanded, there are increasing signs of ingratitude
and an acceleration of demands. Many of these people
have come to treat welfare as a way of life. Their
spokesmen belittle the bountiful outlays for the poor
people. These people, who spend much of their time
plugging for welfare, have become known as the pov
erty cult. They seem to have made many converts.
Many of them are prone to look upon the right to be
paid for idleness as a civil right. This is the
philosophy which permeates the poverty cult.- * - 3
Congressman Rarick of Louisiana, a Strong Conservative, in
a somewhat stronger indictment of the food stamp program,
indicated his policy view when he condemned those welfare
recipients who march and demonstrate for increased welfare
and food stamp benefits. According to Rarick:
It is amazing that some of our boys returning home
from overseas, carrying lead in their bodies, work.
Yet there are people in this country who say they
are not able to work but they are able to march, and
blackmail the workers. We have had them march right
here in this city, organized welfare recipient unions.
13
U. S., Congress, House, Committee on Agriculture,
Legislation to Amend the Food Stamp Act of 1964, Hearings,
House of Representatives, on S. 3068, 90th Cong., 2d sess.,
1968, p. 3.
174
They say they are not qualified to work, yet they
are qualified to m a r c h .
The distributive policy perspective punctuated both
the hearings and floor debates of 1968. Testifying before
the House Agriculture Committee, Congressman Bevill of Ala
bama typified the distributive perspective:
Walker County, in my 7th Congressional District,
served as one of the pilot project counties for the
program. There are other older projects in West
Virginia and several other states . Walker County
came into the program May 6, 1963. It came volun
tarily— we did not have to take it. But we did try
it and we found it very helpful to a lot of people.
Not only were the people participating in the Food
Stamps Program able to buy more to eat, but studies
indicate a significant increase in purchases of high-
quality protein foods
Congressman Gathering of Arkansas, in comparing the food
stamp program with the commodity distribution program, saw
the implications of the program not in ideological terms
(the redistributive perspective), but as a question of
actual benefits for his district:
I know that in my district the counties that have
gone off the direct food distribution program have
gone into the food stamp program and they like it
better because they get a more balanced diet. It
is an improvement in every way.- * - 6
•^Ibid ., p. 12. ^ Ibid.. p. 50.
16Ibid.. p. 21.
175
In 1964 the same pattern is evident. Chairman Poage
by both his actions and rhetoric typified the redistributive
outlook. Throughout the hearings Poage complained that the
Administration was arbitrarily giving food stamps priority
over the problems of the farmer. In addition, Poage on
numerous occasions opposed the proposed establishment of
free food stamps. He repeatedly implied that the food stamp
program was simply a "give-away" and resisted all attempts
to establish an open-ended authorization. Concerning the
issue of eligibility, Poage balked at the suggestion that
recipients not be strictly regulated as far as their eli
gibility for free food stamps:
It was suggested that we simply take a recipient's
word for it that he is unable financially to buy
food stamps and there was the inference that it
would be demeaning to press him in regard to his
inability to work. That attitude might be consid
ered charitable by some people, but we who write
this law must be more realistic . We know that if
you let these two percent [those who are not actu
ally eligible] get food without working when they
are able to do so, then a great many more shiftless
individuals will decide that they also can get away
without working.^
During the same hearings, Brooks Hayes, a former
1 7
U . S., Congress, House, Committee on Agriculture,
Legislation to Amend the Food Stamp Act of 1964, Hearings,
House of Representatives, on H. R. Res. 934, 92nd Cong., 1st
sess., 1969, p. 62.
176
congressman from the South testifying for SCOPE (Southern
Committee on Political Ethics), summarized the view of pov
erty held by the more liberal Southern representatives:
The child of an improvident parent is just as hungry
when food is not available as the child of a person
who tries hard to support his family. So it is the
plight of children which is particularly appalling,
I think, in the area with which I am most familiar,
which is the rural South. . . . Now it seems that
the Congress should take a bold step forward to build
on the foundation that you have already laid to
greatly expand the reach of food assistance to all
who need it.
From 1964 to 1969 was the level of Southern con
gressional support for food stamps constant or did it radi
cally change as in the case of public assistance? If one
looks at the various roll-calls over these years, it is
clear that Southern support for food stamps declined after
1964, but only moderately. Table 20 shows the declining
support for the period under consideration. In 1964 more
than 75 percent of Southern congressmen voted for the per
manent establishment of the food stamp program, while in
1967 only 48 percent supported the food stamp bill. This
drop indicates a rather major decline in Southern voting
support from 1964 to 1967. By 1968, however, Southern
-* -® Ibid ., p . 85.
177
support had increased to over 55 percent, indicating that a
majority of representatives from this region supported the
food stamp program.
TABLE 2 0
SUPPORT LEVELS OF SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN FOR
FOOD STAMP LEGISLATION IN THE 1960'Sa
Percentage of Votes
1964 1967 1968
Support 76 48 5 7
Opposition 24 52 43
aAll votes are final votes; 1969 vote is not
included because it was by voice.
Source: Congressional Quarterly Almanac, XX (1964), XXIII
(1967), XXIV (1968).
The support-opposition pattern in the House as a
whole provides an interesting contrast to the Southern vot
ing pattern. These data are presented in Table 21. It can
be inferred from these data that support for food stamp
legislation in the House of Representatives has substan
tially increased from 1964 to 1968. In 1964, for instance,
55 percent of the House supported food stamp legislation,
178
while in 1968 72 percent of the House backed the food stamp
|bill. Southern support for food stamps, then, declined in
the 1960's, while in the House as a whole the food stamp
program enjoyed increasing support.
TABLE 21
SUPPORT LEVELS FOR FOOD STAMP LEGISLATION,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 1964-1968a
Percentage of Votes
1964 1967 1968
Support 55 65 72
Opposition 45 35 28
g
All votes are final votes
Source: Congressional Quarterly Almanac. XX (1964), XXIII
(1967), XXIV (1968).
j
j An indication of this moderate decline in support
j
within the Southern House bloc for food stamp legislation
can be seen in an examination of the hearings and floor de
bates on food stamp bills. In the floor debates over the
1964 bill to establish the program on a permanent basis, of
the seven Southern congressmen who spoke, six clearly fa
vored the measure. Typical of favorable statements was the
179
following comment by Congressman Matthews of Florida:
Mr. Chairman* I saw recipients go into a bank and get
their food stamps. I saw private industry at work*
if you please* through the food stamp plan. Those
of you who believe in private industry like to see
this food in the hands of the merchants* and out of
the Government warehouses. That helps private enter
prise . I saw these people get their stamps. I went
to the grocery stores and I saw a grocer who told me
10 per cent of his business was through the food
stamp program. He said that "before we had the plan
we had direct distribution and I was the same man who
had charge of the distribution then." He said* "This
food stamp plan is better . This plan helps private
industry* this plan better helps the recipients. This
plan will not be wasteful. The food will go into
hungry mouths."
Throughout the 1964 debates the only negative Southern sen
timent voiced on this issue was offered by an acknowledged
Southern conservative* Congressman Alger of Texas:
Mr. Chairman* now the planners have reached the ulti
mate program for a new economy: stamps. Just read
the bill and the report and you must reach the con
clusion that we can solve all our problems with stamps.
To stamp out poverty and take care of people by Gov
ernment subsidy* now can we even think of limiting a
stamp program to food? If there are food stamps*
orange or blue* or whatever* why should there not be
others? Is food the only essential? And why limit
Government aid to food?
He goes on:
. . . there should be the rent-i-care stamp plan* to
pay for a portion* if not all the rent for those who
19Conqressional Record, CX* 7147.
180
need help.
There should be electric-i-care, water-care, gas-
care, heat-i-care, cook-i-care stamp plans to aid in
utility c o s t s .20
In the floor debates of 1967, dealing mainly with
the question of the length of the food stamp program's
authorization and the level of authorization, less than five
Southerners bothered to voice their opinions on the legis
lation. Of the three who spoke, two clearly favored the
legislation, together with an open-ended authorization.
Speaking against this bill was Chairman Poage, who figured
very prominently in the debate. Judging by the vote on the
amendment and the final vote on the legislation, Poage spoke
for the many Southern representatives when he argued:
. . . there are two issues before us— one is the
question of review. I think it is quite clear that
this Committee should have the opportunity to review
this program.
The Committee amendment does give us an opportu
nity to review this program annually. Unless the Com
mittee amendment is adopted, we will have no such
opportunity.
The other question is the question of the amount
which you want to authorize for expenditure. When
you authorize expenditures, you place your appropria
tions committee in an embarrassing position if they
do not appropriate and you place the House in an em
barrassing position when we create an obligation that
is beyond the size which we intend to pay.
I would call your attention to the fact that the
20Ibid.. p. 7151.
I 181
amount in this substitute [bill] is 10 times the
amount that was actually spent just 5 years before.
That rate of increase seems to me unreasonable.21
If one looks at the hearings on the food stamp meas
ures in the 1960's, the cleavage that is associated with
Southern support for food stamps is again present. Con
gressman Wampler of Virginia was typical of those Southern
congressmen who supported food stamps. In one comment he
unfavorably compared the operation of the direct plan to
the food stamp program:
During the last 2 years, I have had the opportunity
to talk to literally hundreds of people in my district
who are participating in the food stamp program. I
might make the general observation that I personally
feel that the program has worked better than the
direct distribution program . . .^2
Bargaining or "legislative logrolling" has been the
hallmark of food stamp legislation in the 1960's. Beginning
in 1964 with the permanent establishment of the program,
Southern congressmen traded their votes on food stamp legis
lation for Northern Democratic support of farm legislation.
This is evident in the actions taken by the House
21Ibid., CXIII, 15147.
2 7
U. S., Congress, House, Committee on Agriculture,
Legislation to Amend the Food Stamp Act of 1964, Hearings,
House of Representatives, on S. 3068, 90th Cong., 2d sess.,
1968, p. 39.
182
Agriculture Committee as well as in the House of Represen
tatives as a whole. According to Charles 0. Jones, a noted
authority on the House Agriculture Committee, bargaining is
a principal action pattern within this committee. Describ
ing one such instance of bargaining in 1958, Jones notes:
In 1958 serious problems existed for cotton,
rice, wheat, dairy products and corn. These crises
involved four of the six commodity groups . . . leav
ing the tobacco and diversified groups with little
direct and positive interest in the legislation. The
Committee decided to employ the "omnibus" procedure
so as to get as much backing for the bill as possible.
Apparently the leadership on both sides agreed to
this, though some Republicans complained about such
obvious "logrolling."2 3
For our purposes, bargaining within the House Agriculture
Committee over food stamp legislation was particularly ob
vious in 1964. On February 4 of this year the House Agri
culture Committee tabled legislation establishing the food
stamp program. The vote was 19 to 14; all the committee's
14 Republicans and five Democrats voted against the bill.
24
Four out of five members were from the South. One month
later the Committee did an about-face and by a vote of 18
•^Charles 0. Jones, "Representatives in Congress:
The Case of the House Agriculture Committee," American
Political Science Review. LV (June, 1961), 363.
0 A
^ Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington, D.C.
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1964), XX, 112.
183
to 16 reported out the food stamp bill. According to one
source this turnabout was the result of bargaining among
Southern Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee and
Northern Democrats on the House Rules Committee:
Northern Democrats on the House Rules Committee made
it known that they were holding up a tobacco research
bill [H. R. Res. 915] pending favorable action on a
food stamp bill. Abbit [from Virginia] who had of
fered the tabling motion against the food stamp bill
was chairman of the tobacco subcommittee which handled
HJ Res 915. The tobacco bill was also important to
committee Chairman Harold D. Cooley [Dem., N. C.].
This pressure was apparently enough to persuade sev
eral Democrats to switch their votes in the Commit-
Bargaining was not confined to the committee stage of the
legislative process; it was also very much present during
the final vote on the food stamp bill. On April 8, 1964,
the food stamp bill and a cotton-wheat bill were brought to
the House floor together in an arrangement worked out by
the House leadership. Under this arrangement, Southern
Democrats would support the food stamp bill while Northern
Democrats would back the cotton-wheat bill. In this way
both bills were passed the same day. At several points in
the floor debates Republicans attempted to split this North-
South alliance by a variety of tactics . One of the most
^ Ibid ., p. 113.
184
blatant attempts by House Republicans was to introduce the
issue of race into the food stamp debates. Republican Con
gressman Gross, in an obvious attempt to erode Southern
support for the measure, asked the House:
On page 21 of the report I notice a nondiscrimination
provision. If a state is held to be in violation of
civil rights, can funds which are appropriated for
the purpose of carrying out this act be withheld from
such states?
He continued:
For the benefit of those who believe in States 1
rights, there is no question whatever, is there, that
a community or a state can be penalized if there is
a violation of the provisions against discrimination
by reason of race, creed, color or national origin.
There is . . . this provision in the bill, and there
is no question about that, is there?2^
Republican Congressman Hoven argued in the same vein: "I
do not think there is any question but what H. R. 10222 [the
food stamp bill], if it becomes law, the provisions of Title
VI of the civil rights bill will be enforced under the food
2 7
stamp plan." Legislative bargaining was clearly present,
then, when the food stamp program became a permanent federal
responsibility. This pattern of legislative logrolling
continued throughout the 1960's. In 1967 Southern
^ Congressional Record, CX, 7279.
27Ibid . , p. 7279.
I 185
congressmen supported the food stamp bill in exchange for
Northern Democratic support of a peanut acreage bill. In
1968 a bargain was struck between these two groups in essen
tially the same way. In return for Southern Democratic
support for food stamps, Northern Democrats agreed to back
an Administration bill that extended basic farm programs.
Our analysis indicates that bargaining between Northern and
Southern House Democrats over food stamp legislation in the
196 0's was a clear political reality. Without doubt, if
such bargaining had not taken place, the food stamp program
as now constructed would probably not exist.
Conelusion
In terms of the case study propositions, several
interesting points of contrast are evident between Southern
congressional responses to public assistance and to food
stamps. First, all Southern congressmen appear to have
perceived these two policy areas very differently. Public
assistance was initially seen as a distributive policy and
later as a redistributive policy. In contrast, food stamp
legislation was not seen by all Southern congressmen in the
same way. One group (the more conservative Southern con
gressmen) tended to see food stamps throughout the 1960's
_______ - . 1 8 6 ~
as essentially a redistributive measure. A second, somewhat
smaller and more liberal group of Southerners in the House
saw it not in terms of its ideological implications but as
a distributive measure. A second interesting point of con
trast between these two policy areas was the relative sup
port accorded to each by representatives from the South.
On the one hand, it was noted that during the 1960's
Southern House support for AFDC radically declined. From
almost complete support of public assistance in 1961-1962,
Southern representatives moved to almost total opposition
to AFDC in 1969-197 0. On the other hand, our analysis in
dicated that Southern congressional support for food stamp
legislation in the 1960's declined only moderately. A final
point of contrast, although perhaps less well defined, con
cerns the extent of legislative logrolling in these two
policy areas . Again the areas of public assistance and food
stamp legislation appear very different. Public assistance
legislation did not produce overt extensive legislative
bargaining among Southern House members. In sharp contrast,
it was observed that overt bargaining was very much a part
of the Southern support-opposition pattern regarding food
stamp legislation. In short, although public assistance
and the food stamp program are both "welfare policies,"
187
aggregate Southern congressional behavior toward the two
legislative areas was markedly different.
CHAPTER VI
SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND FAMILY ASSISTANCE
Without question the proposed Family Assistance Plan
is one of the most innovative pieces of domestic legislation
to come before Congress in the twentieth century. Not only
does it contain a provision for a guaranteed annual income,
but it also covers a segment of the population never before
recognized as in need of welfare— the working poor.
In this chapter we shall take a critical look at
this program and how it relates to the South and Southern
congressmen. First, the development of FAP and some of the
major elements within the proposed plan will be outlined.
Second, the analysis will assess the impact of family as
sistance on the South, and the reaction of the Southern
public will be noted. In the final portion of the chapter
the Southern representatives' perception of FAP will be
discussed. In addition, the dimensions of Southern con
gressional opposition will be outlined. Finally, the extent
188
189
of legislative bargaining involved in Southern support of,
or opposition to, the Family Assistance Plan will be ana
lyzed .
The Legislative Development of the
Family Assistance Plan
President Nixon, addressing a nationwide television
audience on August 8, 1969, proposed a plan to alter radi
cally the operation and structure of the current welfare
system. The proposed Family Assistance Plan contained
several new and highly controversial features. First, under
this program all families in the fifty states would be
guaranteed a basic minimum income. The rate would be $500
a year for each of the first two family members, plus $300
apiece for each additional child. Second, the Family As
sistance Plan would substantially raise welfare benefits in
the poorer states, e.g., the South. Third, FAP would also
remove administration of relief payments from the states and
assign it to the Social Security Administration. Fourth,
the plan would require each head of a household receiving
the new welfare benefits (except for mothers with pre-school
children) to take a job or enlist in a job training program,
provided a suitable job or training program was available.
The Family Assistance Plan has two major goals.
! 190
First, FAP would encourage fathers to stay with their fami
lies since they would be able to supplement low salaries
with welfare assistance. Under the existing program fathers
leave their families because welfare provides more money
than they could earn, and many states provide the money only
if no father is in the household. Second, the Family As
sistance Plan would eventually reduce the growing number of
people on the welfare rolls . Advocates of FAP argue that
although the new program would enlarge the welfare rolls
initially, by 1976 fewer families would be receiving aid
under FAP than are now drawing welfare under AFDC.
i
FAP as presented to Congress in 1969 was not a
product of executive-legislative bargaining. It had been
developed within the Administration itself. As the program
began to take shape, fierce controversy centered around it.
HEW Secretary Robert Finch and Urban Affairs Advisor Daniel
Pat Moynihan were the chief architects of FAP. Initially
they devised a plan that would establish a national minimum
level for relief payments and incorporate a device to induce
welfare recipients to take jobs. In most states, any money
a person earns is deducted from his welfare check, and the
poor are not tempted to start work when it will bring in no
extra income. Under the Finch-Moynihan plan, for every
r
191
dollar a person earned (within certain limits) only 50 cents
would be subtracted from his welfare check.
This proposal immediately provoked strong objections
from other key members of the Administration. The principal
opposition, however, came from Arthur Burns, presidential
counselor. Burns' objections were not new or surprising.
He simply argued that the federal government had no business
paying welfare to someone who could make his own way. The
incentive to induce paupers to take jobs, according to the
Burns perspective, was not more welfare money but less.
President Nixon seemed more inclined to see the matter
according to this viewpoint.
Enter Secretary of Labor George Shultz. In an
apparent effort to break this impasse, Shultz put together
a tightly reasoned defense of federal aid to the working
poor. Shultz's argument was succinctly summarized in News
week as follows:
He pointed out that when a man on welfare takes
a job he is immediately faced with new expenses— for
transportation, clothing and food. "You can't expect
him to reach into his pocket for these things . . .
if his outside earnings are going to be confiscated."
What's more, the present system induces poor people
to take jobs in which their income goes unreported.
"The rich do essentially the same thing . . ., by
hiring tax lawyers to figure out tax loopholes. Really
they aren't doing anything different from a welfare
mother picking up pin money." But . . . there is one
i ' 192
difference: A job that can be concealed— part-time
domestic work or farm laboring— rarely leads to any
thing better. By allowing a man to keep part of his
welfare while starting out at a low paying job . . .
the government can begin to help free the poor from
the relief treadmill.
Apparently impressed with these arguments, Nixon decided to
vigorously support the compromise welfare proposal.
Since the House Ways and Means Committee has juris
diction over matters related to the Social Security Act, the
Family Assistance Plan encountered its first legislative
opposition there. In the fall of 1969 Chairman Wilbur Mills
indicated that he was less than enthusiastic about the pro
posed welfare changes. Since his support was absolutely
necessary, this presented a severe road block for the bill.
Mills' apparent reason for this position was the feeling
that FAP would simply add to the already substantial federal
welfare expenditures . In February of 1970, however, Mills
reversed his position, and prodded the House Ways and Means
Committee into voting approval of FAP, with certain slight
modifications . Two factors may have been responsible for
this unexpected shift. Politics may have been a primary
motivating factor:
^■"Nixon's New Deal," Newsweek, August 18, 1969, p.
19 .
j 193
He is reported to believe that the plan [FAP] will
backfire on the Administration when the public be
comes aware of its high cost. Another 12 million
persons could be added to the welfare rolls and the
Federal cost for the program could increase by as
much as $4.5 billion or $5.5 billion.^
Second, and on the positive side, Mills' about-face may have
been prompted by the fact that the Ways and Means Committee
strengthened the work requirement to include the working
poor.
When the Family Assistance Plan came before the
House on April 15, 1970, action was lively. Because the
bill was brought up for debate under a closed rule, amend
ments from the floor were not permitted except from members
of the Ways and Means Committee. This fact alone produced
sharp criticism— especially from Republicans and Southern
Democrats. An indication of the cleavage on this procedural
point is the closeness of the vote on the closed rule reso
lution. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 204 to 183.
Republicans and Southern Democrats argued that FAP would
inaugurate a guaranteed annual income system which would
grow in cost over the years, adding millions of persons to
the welfare rolls by including the working poor, creating
2
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report (Washington,
D. C.: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1970), XXVIII, No.
10, 702.
; 194
an army of bureaucrats to administer the plan, and leaving
too many loopholes by which recipients could escape work or
training.
On April 16 the bill was passed by the House and
sent to the Senate. Passage of H. R. 16311 was by a rela
tively large margin— 243 to 155. Southern congressmen,
however, voted overwhelmingly against the measure; over 75
percent were opposed to FAP (the vote was 15 to 64) . The
second section of this chapter will attempt to show that
there were many good reasons, from the distributive per
spective, why Southern congressmen should have voted for
the measure. In the final section an attempt will be made
to determine why they did not.
Family Assistance and the South
FAP is designed to help the poor nationwide, but its
effects will be felt more in some regions than in others .
As Table 22 indicates, over half of the funds under this
plan would go to the South. The South, according to these
data, would receive more money than all other regions of the
United States combined. Not only would the South benefit
greatly under FAP, but poverty in this region would be
attacked for the first time in a comprehensive manner.
TABLE 22
195
FUNDING UNDER FAMILY ASSISTANCE BY REGION
Region
Percentage
of Funds
Northeast 16.2
North Central 21.8
West 11.9
South 50.1
Source: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
r ' 1 9 6
Commenting on the scope of aid to the South under FAP, the
Congressional Quarterly observed:
The South would benefit far more than any other
region from the President's plan. HEW Secretary
Finch said that 50 per cent of the families which
would come under Family Assistance would be in the
South. It is possible that . . . half of the popu
lation of Mississippi would be eligible for welfare
with the $3,920 cutoff figure in the Nixon plan.3
How does the general public nationwide and in the
South in particular feel about family assistance? In Table
23 a breakdown of public opinion for the nation as a whole
is presented. These data were collected from a representa
tive national sample of 1,532 people by the Gallup Poll on
August 15 and 18, 1969. The subjects were asked if they
had heard or read about President Nixon's new welfare pro
posals. All those who answered yes were then asked for
their opinions. This technique, of course, skews the re
sults since the educated and well-informed are likely to be
overrepresented. For our purpose, however, the data are
acceptable as a crude indication of public opinion on the
measure. What is most significant for our analysis is that
this breakdown is the same for the South. According to
George Gallup, "Little difference in opinion is found on the
3Ibid .. p. 703.
197
TABLE 2 3
PUBLIC REACTION NATIONWIDE TO THE FAMILY
AS OF AUGUST, 1969
ASSISTANCE PLAN
Reaction Percentage
Favorable 65
Unfavorable 20
No opinion 15
Source: Washington Post, August 31, 1969.
198
basis of the age of respondent, region of country, income
4
level or political affiliation." We can tentatively assume
then that a substantial number of people in the South are in
favor of the Nixon measure.
A second indication of Southern public opinion is
the Southern press. Again it is not without serious metho
dological shortcomings, but for our purposes it can be
taken, with reservations, as an indication of public opin
ion. An examination of Southern newspapers following
Nixon's announcement of family assistance revealed some
5
interesting facts. A majority of the papers examined sup
ported the President's welfare proposal. The Atlanta Con
stitution , a somewhat liberal Southern paper, took the fol
lowing view of the President's proposed welfare reform:
The president in putting forward his program
charged the planning of the past 30 years had pro
duced a "bureaucratic monstrosity, cumbersome, unre
sponsive and ineffective." Many will agree that a
hodge-podge pattern with numerous inequities has
4
George Gallup, "Sixty-Five Percent Back Nixon Plan
on Welfare," Washington Post. August 31, 1969, p. 12.
5
A series of 14 Southern newspapers were examined
after President Nixon announced the Family Assistance Plan
on August 18, 1969. The publications analyzed were selected
because they were major newspapers and were available at the
UCLA Research Library. Both daily and Sunday editions were
employed.
199
emerged through the decades, but some would remind
that the inaugural of vast Federal assistance to the
needy came at a dark economic hour to minister hope
to millions. Mr. Nixon, even today, sees the expanded
expenditures of his plan clearing new paths for the
poor .
The program will go to Congress, of course, and
there it will undoubtedly encounter controversy and
change. But what the President seeks is in large
measure surely worthy. There are inefficiencies and
deadends in the welfare system of today. The nation,
more affluent and calmer now than in other times,
should be willing to agree that welfare needs new
directions
The Miami News also offered support for family assistance:
Like the weather, welfare is one of those things that•
everyone has complained about but no one has been
able to reform. Finally we have been left with a
system which . . . burdens states and cities, breaks
up homes, penalizes work, robs recipients of dignity,
and grows and grows. Mr. Nixon has proposed revolu
tionary changes which, while they may not provide
instant health and happiness for all the millions of
needy, will at least put social assistance on a
reasonable basis .7
A somewhat stronger statement of support was given by the
St. Petersburg Times on August 10, 1969. "For Florida, the
President's program would be an opportunity to take the
longest leap in the State's history against poverty. Many
of the working poor would become eligible for assistance."
C
"Mr. Nixon’s Welfare Proposals," Atlanta Constitu
tion . August 11, 1969, p. 1.
7"A Reasonable Approach to Social Welfare," Miami
News, August 9, 1969, p. 2.
200
In the same vein the New Orleans Times Picayune wrote:
Mr. Nixon's plan for fixed basic incomes for the
poor, turning more federal revenues to the states and
localities, will not necessarily be recognizable in
what finally is enacted by Congress.
Whatever does emerge, the price tag will be costly
by the standards of past budgetary criteria. But in
terms of today's wasted manpower potential, erosion
of social values and a perpetuation of a feeling of
frustration and hopelessness, what could approach the
terrible cost of the present grossly malfunctioning
welfare system?®
Finally, the Memphis Commercial Appeal commented as follows
on family assistance:
There have been many critics of the welfare pro
gram over the last 35 years . Many of the criticisms
. . . have been justified. Certainly it has been
amply demonstrated that the old system doesn't do
what is needed for those who for whatever reason find
themselves without means.
If the new system is going to be costly, it must
be kept in mind that the existing systems are costly,
too, and their cost is bound to rise even into much
higher costs than the program the President has out
lined.®
Based on these two admittedly gross indicators, there would
appear to be at least moderate support in the South for
President Nixon's welfare reform package. One might expect
then that congressmen from this region, in view of the
^"Nation Needs Drastic Welfare Overhaul," New Or
leans Times Picayune, August 11, 1969, p. 10.
®"Revamping Welfare," Memphis Commercial Appeal,
August 10, 1969, p. 3. ____________________ ___
r 201
distributive impact of the measure (the money and benefits
that would flow into the South), would be somewhat inclined
to support family assistance. As we have noted, representa
tives from the South did not support family assistance.
Rather, they strongly opposed the measure. Why was this the
case? What factors might explain this low support pattern?
In other words, what are the various dimensions of Southern
opposition to family assistance?
Family Assistance and the’
Southern Congressman
In the above examination of public assistance it was
found that Southern representatives perceived it initially
in distributive terms and later as redistributive policy.
In the case of food stamps, it was noted that there were
two distinct patterns of perception among Southern congress
men. One group viewed food stamps as distributive policy
while a second somewhat larger group saw food stamps in
redistributive terms. An examination of Southern congres
sional behavior toward family assistance reveals a somewhat
different pattern. Before discussing this perceptual dif
ference, however, one point should be underscored. Because
family assistance is not yet public law and an operating
program, we cannot assess changes over time in Southern
202
congressional attitudes toward it. It has therefore been
necessary to take a snapshot approach to examining this
policy area. In short, the present analysis of family
assistance will be relatively confined.
Analysis of the hearings and floor debates held on
family assistance indicates that the vast majority of
Southern representatives perceive family assistance in re
distributive or ideological terms. Of the 15 Southern rep
resentatives who spoke in the floor debates on the family
assistance bill, only two (Mills and Boggs) emphasized the
distributive implications of the measure. All others
clearly exhibited the redistributive perspective. Judging
from the Southern opposition exercised in the roll-call vote
on FAP, these members spoke for the majority of Southern
representatives . Typical of this redistributive perspective
was the following remark by Congressman Rarick of Louisiana:
Today's bill places a ceiling of $1,600 a year
for coverage. Who will guarantee that next year the
ante will not be $10,000 or $20,000?
We have all witnessed socialism with its foot-in-
the-door advance. It survives only on growth and re
quires expansion to bring more and more people under
its nefarious umbrella.
If H. R. 16311 passes this body and becomes law,
we are participating in the creation of a new federal
system in the United States, in which case we are
attending the funeral of the American traditions of
our fathers— work, pride, thrift and individuality.
2 03
The class war will then have officially been
instituted•
I would never cast my people's one vote for such
an un-American m e a s u r e .
Congressman Taylor of North Carolina, also speaking before
the House, indicated a redistributive view when he argued
that family assistance must result in a guaranteed annual
income that will get larger and larger each year.
When we pass this law, we are going down the road of
no return by guaranteeing a minimum income to people
who are employed and people who are not employed.
With each session of Congress, the demands will be
for more and more. The tendency of welfare rolls is
to go up— never down. When we adopt this bill we
will more than double the number receiving welfare
checks from the government.
Congressman Landrum, testifying before the House Rules Com
mittee on family assistance, provided an additional example
of the redistributive perspective regarding FAP. In the
following statement he emphasized the fact that family as
sistance would result in a guaranteed annual income:
So we come to the evening last August when the
President of the United States disclosed his support
of a so-called new welfare program, a welfare reform
program, which was hailed as a revolutionary step
toward the solution of these problems. And when he
recited the provisions that now appear in this bill,
^ Congressional Record, CXVI (April 16, 1970), 3206.
-^Ibid ., p. 3165.
204
or the principles that now appear in this bill, it
was obvious to one who had studied the question care
fully during this aid to dependent children's scrap
a few years before, it wasn't a thing in the world
but a guaranteed income with a whole lot of reworking
by Mr. Moynihan.12
Indicating essentially the same perspective, Congressman
Burleson of Texas commented during these hearings:
I do not know how many of you may have read John
Theobald's book which I think came out in 1962 [The
Guaranteed Income; Next Step in Economic Evolution].
John Theobold is one of the foremost British Social
ists . . . of his country. His book was on the guar
anteed annual income. In his book, as I remember,
. . . and those of you who also read it may recall,
he says we will start out with the proposition of
just about what is before us today [FAP] and from
there we shall graduate to a full and complete guar
anteed annual income. I think that is the road we
are traveling when we adopt, if we adopt, this meas
ure as it is presented today. - * - 2
The redistributive perspective seems to be closely tied to
the notion of a guaranteed annual income. The idea of a
guaranteed income is in turn linked with the spectre of
socialism. Southern congressmen, at least the majority of
Southern congressmen, see the proposed Family Assistance
Plan as out-and-out socialism and are not concerned with the
• * - 2U. S., Congress, House, Committee on Rules, Family
Assistance Act of 1970, Hearings, House of Representatives,
on H. R. 16311, 91st Cong., 2d sess., 1970, p. 206.
13Ibid.. p. 223.
r 205
distributive implications of the measure for the South.
Moreover, they appear almost psychologically incapable of
seeing the program in any different light. Apparently FAP
strikes at the very heart of the Southern congressional
political ethos, an ethos that emphasizes capitalism and the
Protestant ethic.
The support pattern for FAP is closely linked to
the socialistic overtones of the program. As Table 24 in
dicates, support for the proposed Family Assistance Plan was
very low among Southern congressmen.
TABLE 24
SOUTHERN CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT LEVELS FOR THE
FAMILY ASSISTANCE ACT, 1970
Support Opposition
(Percent) (Percent)
Vote on closed rule 16 63
Vote on Family Assistance Act 15 64
Source: Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington, D . C .:
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1970), XXVI, 16H.
In the Deep South support for the measure was almost com
pletely absent. Congressmen from Alabama, Georgia,
! 206
Mississippi and South Carolina all opposed the bill. Scat
tered support for the measure came from Florida (2), Arkan
sas (2), Louisiana (1), North Carolina ( 2 ) , Tennessee (3),
Texas (5), and Virginia (4). One factor that contributed
to such low support levels was the high cost of the measure.
This, coupled with the redistributive implications of FAP,
severely limited Southern support. Some indication of the
importance of the cost factor is seen in the description of
Southern congressional opposition to FAP given by the South
ern press . For example, the Atlanta Constitution noted
concerning the opposition of Georgia's congressmen to family
assistance:
All 10 Georgia representatives voted against the bill
[FAP]. Democrats in the delegation apparently took
their cue from 9th District Representative Phil M.
Landrum who charged the bill will cost closer to 15
billion than 4.4 billion.^
Another indication that the cost of FAP figured prominently
in extensive Southern opposition to the reform measure is
evident in the statements made by Southern congressmen dur
ing the floor debates and hearings. Representative of this
"fiscal concern" is the following remark by Congressman
14
"House Passes Family Assistance Bill," Atlanta
Constitution, April 17, 1970, p. 1.
I ' 207
Burleson made before the House Rules Committee:
The cost of this program— here again Mr. Landrum dis
cussed this and I am sure Mr. Ullman did. I just do
not believe that anyone can really give an accurate
estimate as to the cost of this program ultimately
or even in the beginning. And when the experts begin
to disagree it gets me nervous and that is what they
did before the [Ways and Means] Committee.
Congressmen Young, a member of the House Rules Committee,
argued along the same lines:
. . . this [FAP] is another effort being made to do
something about this problem [poverty] which, of
course, the proponents say will be effective and
successful. That remains to be seen. But they have
had two failures so far and I would say the averages
are at least against them. Coupled with the fact
that . . . the additional cost of this program over
the present program for the next 5 years comes to
$9.9 billion, I would say it is a pretty expensive
experiment if it does not work.-^
Another factor in this lack of support was perceived
district opinion on family assistance. As was noted above,
survey data indicate that public opinion in the South was
moderately in favor of family assistance. Southern con
gressmen's public statements revealed that they perceived
15
U. S., Congress, House, Committee on Rules, Family
Assistance Act of 1970, Hearings, House of Representatives,
on H. R. 16311, 91st Cong., 2d sess ., 1970, p. 206.
16Ibid.. p. 230.
2 08
17
district public opinion as clearly opposed to FAP. Thus
Congressman Price of Texas commented before the House:
The opposition of the voters in the 18th Congres
sional District of Texas to the proposed Family
Assistance Act is overwhelming. The message has come
to me through attitudinal surveys, congressional cor
respondence, and numerous discussions I have had on
the issue with constituents. The message is loud
and clear— vote "no" on the proposed welfare reforms.
I agree with this message; in addition, as the Repre
sentative of the 18th District, I feel bound by the
elected expression of the voters' views on this
I issue.18
j
A final factor that may have contributed to low
levels of Southern support is the belief held by many South-
I
j
Sern congressmen that poverty is actually a result of lazi-
j
hess and indolence, and that to increase aid to the poor
i
would only encourage greater dependence on public aid.
Congressman Waggoner of Louisiana, speaking before the
House, exemplified this view:
j It is not at all unusual for congressmen to mis-
perceive district opinion on a public issue. They are in
clined to hear most often from those who agree with them,
and to interpret what they hear to support their own view
point. This point is discussed at some length in Lewis
Anthony Dexter, "The Representative and His District," in
New Perspectives on the House of Representatives, ed. by
Robert L. Peabody and Nelson W. Polsby (Chicago: Rand
McNally and Co., 1969), pp. 3-10.
18
Congressional Record, CXVI (April 16, 1970),
3155-3156.
2 09
As was to be expected, the minute this guaranteed
annual income feature was unveiled last year, the
bandwagon started to roll. The predictable gaggle
of liberals, leftists, and radicals were at first
astounded that a supposedly Conservative Republican
administration was proposing national welfarism in
a greater magnitude than even the most liberal Demo
crat in the history of the nation. They regained
their composure quickly, if not their intelligence,
and began an outpouring of statements, position papers,
and conferences calling for increases that stagger the
imagination and would empty the pocketbooks of the
working public. No sum, it seems, is too much to
take from the pockets of the taxpayers and dole out
to those unwilling to work. I used the word "unwill
ing" only after making a careful choice among many
words, because anyone willing to work, except the
lame, the halt and the blind, can find a job by sim
ply picking up a newspaper and reading the begging
help wanted ads.-*-^
Congressman Landrum, testifying before the House Rules Com
mittee, provides us with what is perhaps a classic state
ment of this position when he argues that increased welfare
will contribute only to more indolence among the poor:
There is a family [white] in the west side of
Cherokee County in rural Georgia. They have one son,
16 years old. He dropped out of school about 30 days
ago and refused to go back. His parents wouldn't
send him back. They went down to get him a work per
mit to work at the new sewing plant in town, a garment
factory. They get a work permit and work under age
and have to finish school. And when they went to get
it the welfare director said "Mrs. ____, " that is her
real name, "Mrs. ____, if you do this, this is going
to cut off welfare." Johnny went back to school, not
the next day but that afternoon. And you know what
19Ibid., p. 3158.
210 i
the mother wanted the next day— they brought this
information to me and I verified it. She went down
to the welfare director to get her help to buy a
house. She said, "I want to buy the one over there
that belongs to Mr. ____, he wants to sell it, he
doesn't want but $18,000 for it."
It is all right for them to aspire to that kind
of house. But I don't want to legislate a situation
that will cause more and more people by the millions
. . . to aspire to that situation, because they can
get the money out of the Public Treasury.^0
As we have noted, most features of the Nixon welfare
reform package were opposed by Southern representatives.
Representatives.from the South opposed the potentially high
cost of FAP. Also, they strongly opposed the guaranteed
annual income contained in the Family Assistance Plan. In
addition, Southerners in the House clearly opposed the con
cept of federal administration of welfare on the local
level, and disliked the idea of national standards of eli
gibility. Certain other aspects of the proposed welfare
reform caused heated opposition from Southern congressmen.
The controversy over the "suitable" employment requirement
is a case in point. When FAP first came before the House
it contained a provision stating that no welfare recipient
would be required to accept employment which was not
2 0
U. S., Congress, House, Committee on Rules, Family
Assistance Act of 1970, Hearings. House of Representatives,
on H. R. 16311, 91st Cong., 2d sess ., 1970, p. 213.
211
suitable for him. As noted earlier in the chapter, this
regulation was initially incorporated in the bill to prevent
welfare recipients from having to take demeaning employment.
The reaction of Southern representatives to this provision
was predictable. Throughout the hearings and floor debates
Southern opposition to the term "suitable" was intense. For
example, Congressman Quillen of Tennessee observed during
the hearings held by the House Rules Committee that none of
the poor would be able to find "satisfactory" work.
Mr. Chairman, just a brief question. I note time
is passing. But I am concerned, as Mr. Landrum is,
about the guaranteed wage provision. First of all,
I am against it. But secondly, the suitable work
provision in the measure, that if satisfactory work
is available, concerns me. To me nobody is going to
find satisfactory work. So therefore, it [FAP] will
take very few people off the welfare rolls
Concern over the term "suitable" was not, however, confined
to the Southern bloc. As the following comment by Congress
man Collier indicates, the House as a whole found the term
unacceptable:
Mr. Chairman, all throughout the debate and dis
cussion of this bill for the past 2 days it has be
come apparent that many members of this House would
firmly support the bill, believe in the fundamental
concept and principle it embraces, but understandably
21Ibid .. p. 219.
212
have some reservations about the use of the word
"suitable" in determining acceptance of employment
by the welfare applicant.
They indeed have some reservation— and again
understandably so— about the definition, which they
contend is ambiguous and perhaps might be a loophole
in terms of making the program work in accordance
with the intent of the [Ways and Means] Committee and
the legislation itself. 2
The term "suitable" because of this opposition was dropped
from the final version of the bill. Southern congressmen
also found the work-training provision of the family as
sistance bill unacceptable. Their opposition was apparently
based upon experience with the various work-training pro
grams under public assistance and the antipoverty program.
They did not, of course, oppose the principle of work-
training per se. Rather, the argued that due to problems
of implementation work-training efforts have failed to pro
duce the desired results. Congressman Burleson underscored
this point when he commented on work-training under FAP:
And I know it is a very attractive thing in theory
to say, "let us try to get qualified people off the
rolls onto the payrolls." And in theory the training
part of the section here that deals with that, does
have an attraction. We should try to graduate people
into self-sustaining jobs. But you know we have these
training programs on every corner . I do not know
really how many. I think we have 9,000. I have a
22C on q ression al Record, CXVI (A pril 15, 1970), 3181.
213
list of them here that the library reference service
furnished, a whole long string of them under manpower
retraining and various sorts and kinds of programs.
The theory here again is well and good that people
should have an opportunity to try to better themselves.
But this suggests to me that here is another program
that is going to be heaped on top of the other o n e . 2 ^
A final feature of family assistance that Southern congress
men did not find to their liking concerned the provision to
aid the working poor. According to Congressman Price of
Texas, by including the working poor in the new welfare
package, the nature of welfare itself would be drastically
altered:
. while public assistance certainly should be
given to the sick, the blind, and the disabled, and
the needy young, I do not think that public assistance
should be given to the working poor. By including
them and restructuring the welfare system along the
lines of a guaranteed income approach, welfare is made
more comfortable and respectable rather than less so.
It gives it the color of an "inalienable right" rather
than the true color of "temporary maintenance" as was
originally envisioned by the architects of welfare.24
In the view of this strong Southern congressional
opposition to FAP, how did most Southern representatives
feel the present welfare crisis should be solved? The
23
U. S., Congress, House, Committee on Rules, Family
Assistance Act of 1970, Hearings, House of Representatives,
on H. R. 16311, 91st Cong., 2d sess., 1970, p. 224.
24C on q ression al Record, CXVI (April 16, 1970), 3156.
: ~ 214
position most often voiced on this question by congressmen
from the South was quite simple: restructure the existing
public assistance program. Again to quote Congressman
Burleson: "So, the only choice that I have seen is to main
tain the present program which hopefully can be improved but
more hopefully that it would cause the Ways and Means Com
mittee to go back and try to do something about this present
25
welfare mess we have now."
In Chapter IV we suggested that there was little
evidence of legislative bargaining on public assistance
among Southern congressmen. On the other hand, legislative
logrolling did characterize Southern congressional voting
behavior on food stamp legislation. Judging from the low
level of Southern support for FAP we can conclude that
little vote swapping occurred over this legislation. There
are clear indications, however, that vigorous attempts were
made to persuade Southern House members to support family
assistance. These attempts were not successful, but the
fact that they were attempted is significant. Attempts to
persuade Southern representatives to support the welfare
25
U. S . , Congress, House, Committee on R u les, Family
A s sis ta n c e Act o f 1970, H earings, House o f R e p r e s e n ta tiv e s ,
on H. R. 16311, 9 1 st Cong., 2d s e s s . , 1970, p . 226.
r
215
reform bill focused on the elements within FAP that appeared
to produce the most intense opposition among Southerners.
First, the distributive impact of FAP was underscored.
Wilbur Mills argued that since most of the working poor are
in the South, the South would benefit substantially from the
proposed program. In addition, Mills pointed out that most
of the Southern poor families that would be affected by FAP
live in rural areas and are white. To quote Mills directly:
I want to talk to my Southern friends. I said this
in the Rules Committee. Who are the working poor?
Over 50 percent of the working poor families covered
under the bill live in the South; only 13 percent
live in the Northeast. A high proportion of such
families live in rural areas and on small farms.
Seventy percent of them are white; 3 0 percent are
nonwhite.26
Some attempts to develop Southern support during the floor
debates were coupled with appeals to Republican congressmen.
In particular, the remarks of Wilbur Mills concerning the
question of a guaranteed annual income were apparently
directed toward both groups. Speaking to Southern House
members and Republicans, Mills argued:
Those of you who say that you are never going to
vote for a guaranteed annual income, let me talk
to you a minute. I have said the same thing, and
^ C on g ressio n a l Record, CXVI (A pril 15, 1970), 3083.
216
I will say the same thing, and when I vote for this
bill I am not voting for a guaranteed annual income.
What I am voting for is an amount, call it whatever
you want to— a subsidy, relief, income, whatever you
want to call it— I am voting for a supplement to the
income of the individual who is working and not making
enough to supply his family with the ordinary needs of
life, but who is not now on welfare.
He further notes:
But, second, I will pay this supplement and get this
man to the employment office because I am convinced
that within that man's lifetime, if something is not
done, he will be one of the additional millions that
2 7
will be added to the AFDC program.
It is interesting to note that Mills' argument attempts to
move away from the ideological implications of a guaranteed
annual income and stresses the more concrete benefits of the
program. In this sense, his appeal is clearly directed
toward the distributive implications of the bill. Mills
also attempted to persuade House Republicans and Southern
House members that welfare recipients are not simply lazy
and indolent. According to Mills, a man remains on welfare
in most cases simply due to a lack of proper training.
Do not characterize these people [welfare recipients]
generally as being lazy or shiftless or without moti
vation or desire. Most of them are without training.
That is why they are where they are.^8
2 7Ibid . 28Ibid,
I ' ~~ 217
In this section we have attempted to sketch the
relationship of Southern congressmen to the proposed Family
Assistance Plan. First, we argued that Southern representa
tives perceived the proposed Family Assistance Plan as a
redistributive policy, that is, in essentially ideological
terms. Second, we observed that Southern congressmen over
whelmingly opposed the Family Assistance Plan. This pattern
of opposition was especially strong in the Deep South.
Finally it was suggested that although very little actual
legislative logrolling took place, there were vigorous at
tempts on the part of the House leadership— especially
Wilbur Mills, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee
— to persuade Southern congressmen to support the Presi
dent's welfare reform bill.
Conclusion
Based upon an examination of three welfare policy
areas, certain behavior patterns among Southern congressmen
are clearly evident in terms of the three case study propo
sitions . First, Southern representatives have perceived
three different welfare policies in three distinct ways .
Public assistance was initially seen as a distributive pol
icy and later as a redistributive policy. Food stamp
I - — ~21Q~
legislation was characterized by a split perceptual pattern.
Conservative Southern congressmen saw the food stamp program
as a redistributive measure, while liberal Southerners con
sidered it distributive. In contrast to these two percep
tual models, family assistance legislation was perceived by
representatives from the South in redistributive terms.
That is, family assistance was clearly equated with collec
tivism .
Second, the support-opposition pattern among South
ern congressmen toward family assistance also differed sub
stantially from their performance on public assistance and
food stamps. Specifically, Southern congressional opposi
tion to family assistance was overwhelming— over 75 percent
of Southern congressmen voted against the bill. Public
assistance and food stamp legislation exhibited no such
pattern of preponderant opposition. Public assistance en
joyed almost complete support in 1961-62, but met with
almost complete opposition among Southern congressmen in
1969-70. In addition, Southern congressional support for
food stamp legislation in the 1960's declined only moder
ately from a relatively high level.
A third point of contrast between these three policy
areas concerns the issue of legislative bargaining. On the
r 219
one hand it was found that overt bargaining was involved in
Southern support for food stamp legislation. On the other
hand, neither public assistance nor family assistance pro
duced a pattern of legislative logrolling among Southern
congressmen.
In short, the analysis thus far tends to support the
three case study propositions. First, the extent of bar
gaining among Southern Democrats and Northern Democrats has
varied according to the particular welfare policy area.
Second, Southern congressional support for welfare legisla
tion in the 1960‘s has varied according to the welfare pol
icy area involved. And third, Southern congressional per
ception of welfare policy has been a combination of re
distributive and distributive orientations.
In the next chapter the analysis will be focused on
the relationship of Southern congressmen to the antipoverty
program. The analysis will proceed essentially as it has
up till now, and we shall be dealing with the same three
case study propositions. There will be, however, one major
difference that should be noted. We shall now be looking at
a welfare policy that has as one of its goals a restructur
ing of the political decision-making process on the local
level. That is, the antipoverty program is perhaps the
I 220
most political of all the welfare programs examined in this
study. This fact will have important implications for the
analysis.
CHAPTER VII
SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN AND THE ANTIPOVERTY
PROGRAM UNDER PRESIDENT JOHNSON
i In Negroes and the New Southern Politics, Donald R.
-Matthews and James W. Prothro argue that in the South whites
and Negroes "live together as strangers." Based on survey
data they conclude:
!
! . . . regardless of the overwhelming preference of
i Negroes for integration and whites for strict segre-
| gation, neither group can correctly estimate the
! views of the other. Although both races are misin
formed, the estimates of the whites are much more
| inaccurate than those of the Negroes. Only 22 per-
j cent of the whites recognize that most Negroes favor
i integration, but 47 percent of the Negroes recognize
( that most whites favor segregation.^
!
jGiven the nature of the political and social system in the
i
|South this finding is not overly surprising. It is, how-
!
lever, very important.
Donald R. Matthews and James W. Prothro, Negroes
and the New Southern Politics (New York: Harcourt, Brace
and World, 1966), p. 351.
221
222
The antipoverty program— especially community
i
action— is one attempt to bridge this communications gap.
jThe federally funded war on poverty has provoked mixed reac-
i
jtions from both the Southern public and Southern congress
men. Some have seen it as a program vitally necessary for
Ithe South while others consider it nothing short of sub
versive. This chapter will attempt to describe and analyze
Southern congressmen's perceptions of the war on poverty
i
sunder the Johnson Administration.
[ j
| ;
| The Legislative Development of the
Antipoverty Program
j
I The Economic Opportunity Act, like the Family
Assistance Plan, was developed almost completely within the
i
i 2
'Executive. Four men devised the program's basic structure.
i
■Led by Sargent Shriver, Adam Yarmolinsky, Daniel P. Moynihan
jand James Sundquist proceeded to develop one of the most
innovative and controversial pieces of domestic legislation
i
!
iin the 1960's.
| As enacted, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
jauthorized 10 separate programs under the supervision of the
|
jDirector of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). In
2
See John C . Donovan, The Politics of Poverty
(New York: Pegasus, 1967), pp. 2 7-33.
223
this chapter, we will be concerned with only two of these
j
!programs— the Job Corps and the community action program.
!
'These two have been selected since they are by far the most
j
jcontroversial. This is important for two reasons. First,
I
i
[because they provoke controversy, there are more data
i
[readily available on them. Second, after an in-depth read-
I
!
jing of the floor debates and hearings it became apparent
that Southern congressmen tended to express themselves far
[more often on these programs than on others in the war on
poverty. Thus the analysis of their statements is likely to
be more valid if the examination is confined to these pro
gram areas.
I The Job Corps was devised as an attempt to aid
I
I
jyouths whose future looked particularly bleak, especially
[school dropouts. Under this program they would live in
presidential centers away from home, either in conservation
[camps on federal land where they would get work experience
I
[or in training centers where they would learn specific job
|skills. The rationale behind this program was that a youth
^vho is going nowhere can best be helped by providing him
i
^ith skills and teaching him the rhythm of work.
I
The community action program was quite different in
both structure and purpose from the Job Corps. The avowed
224
purpose of CAP was not to train a particular group but
jrather to "combat poverty." That is, CAPs were set up to
jhelp local organizations (both public and private) meet
j
itheir own needs and solve local problems related to poverty
but not specifically tackled in other programs. Emphasis
was placed on encouraging the poor to help themselves by
participating in the local-action programs, either in plan
ning or subsequent stages. More important for this analy
sis, community action had significant political implica
tions. As Donovan observed:
]
t
i Community action involved the use of federal funds
to exert pressure on local bureaucracies, to encour
age them to innovate and challenge them to create
| new institutions. Community action was a means
I whereby the poor themselves would participate in
j formulating and administering their local programs
! of social reform.^
i
i
| 0E0 was authorized to coordinate all programs in the
|
!Economic Opportunity Act and to administer certain key sec
tions: community action, the Job Corps and various volun-
i
jteer programs. This arrangement was instituted to promote
!
flexibility and facilitate adaptation of federal programs tc
local* needs .
3
I b id ., p. 41.
225
Throughout the period from 1964 to 1968, the war on
i
I
poverty underwent severe legislative opposition. Republi-
I
jeans in particular strongly opposed the program. Many
[Southern Democrats were also opposed to antipoverty legisla-
i
jtion. A major point of contention during this period cen-
i
tered around state governors' veto power over state anti
poverty programs. In the original Economic Opportunity Act
of 1964, governors were given absolute veto power over
[Title I (the Job Corps, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, and
j
iother work programs), Title II (all community action pro-
I
i
Igrams and all VISTA projects). Modifications in the veto
j
power were approved in the 1965 Economic Opportunity Amend-
j
iments. Under these modifications, a limited veto was per-
jmitted, with the director of the Office of Economic Oppor-
i
jtunity having the authority to override the veto in the case
of the Neighborhood Youth Corps or community action pro-
igrams. The governors' absolute veto power was retained in
Job Corps programs and VISTA projects.
An additional— and very political— point of contro
versy over the antipoverty program developed around com-
jmunity action. Without doubt the phrase "maximum feasible
!
participation" of persons from poverty areas in community
action programs caused intense criticisms from both the
226
poor themselves and politicians on the local level. Mayors
especially disliked this arrangement. They charged that
i
|
jmilitant action groups were trying to blackjack their way
jinto city antipoverty programs. Local officials also
I
Icharged that "the poor were adequately represented on com-
j
munity action planning boards through welfare agencies who
understood the needs of the poor and through city hall offi
cials supposedly elected by the poor* and that the poor
! themselves were too inarticulate and inexperienced in admin-
■ . 4
'istrative matters to be effective board members." At bot-
i
!tom, however, the reason mayors from cities all over the
i
|United States opposed the concept of community action was
j
jpolitical. To quote Donovan again:
i Mayors resist maximum feasible participation for
i reasons which are not exactly ideological. if new
I representatives arise among the non-white urban poor,
' they will surely undermine the power of the men now
entrenched in city hall, whose power, especially
since the nineteen-thirties, has depended in no small
i measure on control of the "welfare industry" and the
| millions of federal dollars that flow through city
| hall en route to the poor.^
i
| A final important point of tension surrounding the
antipoverty program concerned the operation of the various
4
Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington, D.C.:
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1965), XXI, 408.
5
Donovan, Politics of Poverty, pp. 44-45.
227
Job Corps centers. Republicans and some Southern Democrats
in the House bitterly opposed this program. These groups
charged that the cost of Job Corps training was excessively
high. Secondly, it was argued that the various private con
tractors who operated Job Corps centers were guilty of poor
administration. Third, congressional critics of the Job
Corps pointed to the difficulties of placing Job Corps
; "graduates" in jobs. Sloppy and politically motivated
recruiting and screening methods were also held responsible
i
|by House Republicans and Southern Democrats for a compara-
itively high Job Corps dropout rate. Local objections to the
|
(job Corps were also evident. There were riots among
ienrollees at several camps, and friction in some cases
i
j
between Job Corps members and townspeople of the communities
in which the centers were located.
: The following section concerns the implications of
i
the war on poverty for the South.
!
i
I
Antipoverty in the South during the 1960's
The Job Corps operates three types of centers.
First, it administers urban centers for men. These are con
tracted out to various private corporations who actually
operate the facilities. As of 1967, 10 of these centers
228
were in service. Urban centers for men were located in the
following states: California, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachu
setts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas and
Utah. The Job Corps center in San Marcos, Texas is the only
such center located in the South. A second type of Job
Corps center is also located in urban areas, and is attempt
ing to help disadvantaged young women. Of the 18 women's
urban centers only one (as of 1967) was located in the
South. This center was also in Texas. Thus, as of 1967, no
urban centers were located in the Deep South or for that
matter in any Southern state except Texas. A third and by
far the most common type of Job Corps training facility is
the conservation center. in 1967 a total of 90 conservation
6
centers were m operation around the United States.
Table 2 5 lists the various conservation centers in the South
and their location by state and county. As the data show,
inine conservation centers were operating in the South at
this time. Again it is interesting to observe that no Job
Corps conservation centers were located in the Deep South.
The apparent reason for this paradoxical situation (it is
6
Data are presented from 1967 because more Job Corps
centers were in operation during this year than at any other
time during the 1960's. Conservation centers in particular
were severely cut back after 1967.
229
TABLE 25
LOCATION OF JOB CORPS CONSERVATION CENTERS IN SOUTH, 1967
(N = 9)
State County Center Name
Activation
Date
Arkansas Franklin
Garland
Cass
Owachita
6/15/65
2/6/65
North Carolina Macon
Sevain
Transylvania
Arrowood
Ocanalufter
Schneck
2/1/65
10/15/65
5/18/65
Tennessee Blount
Sullivan
Tremont
Jacobs Creek
12/13/65
6/21/65
Texas Walker New Waverly 8/16/65
Virginia Wise Flatwoods 9/15/65
i
Source: Office of Economic Opportunity
2 30
paradoxical in that, as noted in Chapter I, the need for
such training in the Deep South is especially great) in the
issue of race. Throughout the hearings and floor debates,
Southern congressmen protested over the fact that the Job
Corps centers would be racially mixed. Congressman Smith
of Virginia, a strong conservative, speaking before the
House in 1964, voiced the concern of Southern representa
tives on this point:
j
I want to say to the members from the South who
are going to vote for this bill— and I know there are
a lot of them who are going to vote for it— that they
are voting to implement the civil rights bill that
they opposed and voted against. These are going to
be integrated camps in your area and your Governor
has no right or power to prohibit their coming into
his state.
They are not going to be very popular South of
the Potomac River. Just think about that before you
get around to voting on this bill. Someone said that
is the law of the land. Maybe it is, but still some
of us do not like it; and I think there are more now
who do not like it, who rather liked it when they
voted for it a month or so ago. I believe they are
beginning to find out what it is all about.^
By the fall of 1964, 32 Job Corps camps had been approved
and seven more were pending approval. None of these camps
would be located in the Deep South. Again the racial struc
ture of the Job Corps and local and congressional opposition
to it were the major reasons. According to the
7
Congressional Record. CX, 18198.
231
Congressional Quarterly, "No camps were proposed in Alabama,
i
Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, or South Carolina where
I
8
jstrong opposition to integrated camps was anticipated."
I
1
jOpposition to the Job Corps centers among Southern congress
men was not based primarily on the nature of the Job Corps
i
itself, but on the fact that Job Corps facilities would be
racially integrated.
An additional program in the war on poverty that
jcaused heated controversy among Southern congressmen and in
i
i
|the South was community action. Instead of outlining in
Idetail the number and location of the various CAPs in the
| J
i ;
|South during the Johnson years^ we shall follow a somewhat
I
!
different approach. In Durham, N.C. in 1965 the local power
structure was shaken by the actions of several Durham com
munity action groups. We shall describe this event to indi-
i
!cate some of the things Southerners have come to oppose
i
(about community action. It will not be argued that the
i
i
Durham phenomenon is representative of the actions of CAAs
j
!in the South generally (although the writer feels this is
|
jprobably the case) . Rather this case is presented to illus
trate what Southerners feel might happen all over the South
g
Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington, D.C.:
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1964), XX, 708.
2 32
if the war on poverty is not limited in some fairly substan
tial ways .
I
| Operation Breakthrough, Durham's community action
jprogram, was at first supported by both the local government
i 9
|and the poor. Though some local officals served on its
governing board, it was set up independently of the local
government. The goals of Operation Breakthrough were quite
i
basic. It encouraged the poor to wrest benefits from the
!"establishment," such as more jobs from businessmen, better
bousing from the landlords and the Public Housing Authority,
j
land more support for welfare assistance from the City Coun-
I |
icil and bureaucrats. Above all, it insisted that the poor
i
j
[organize and speak for themselves, largely through local
j
[neighborhood councils set up by Breakthrough.
I
i
| The first step in Operation Breakthrough was the
I
organization of neighborhood "councils." Howard Fuller, a
I
black man who had previously worked with the Urban League in
|chicago, and five students organized these councils in the
|
[Southeast section of Durham, a Negro area of shantytown slums.
9
The account presented here of the Durham incident
is based on an article by Richard Blumenthal, "The
Bureaucracy: Antipoverty and the Community Action Program,"
in American Political Institutions and Public Policy: Five
Contemporary Studies, ed. by Allan P. Sindler (Boston:
Little, Brown and Co., 1969), pp. 129-179.
233
Once these groups were organized, it was necessary
to outline a set of concrete goals and a plan of action to
|
jachieve them. For several reasons the councils decided to
I
jmake their first fight on housing. In one neighborhood
jafter another, slum-dwellers, by calling out the housing
I
inspector, began challenging slumlords to repair substandard
i
buildings. In addition, the councils pressed for pre-
j ;
ieviction hearings, changes in rules for women with illegiti
mate children, and an end to unannounced visits by janitors
^checking for male visitors in apartments belonging to women
jon welfare. I
I Because victories through established procedures
I
jwere few and brought about only marginal improvements in
I
I
Ihousing conditions, the councils moved the battle from the
i
jcourts and bureaucracies to the streets. Their most impres-
i
isive campaign involved the Public Housing Authority's plan
to build a new development in the Southwest district, where
jail but one of the public projects were already located.
The councils first directed their members to deluge the city
S
i
!government with letters and petitions, protesting the segre-
i
igation of Negroes in the worst section of town. When the
i
jcity government refused flatly to rezone, the councils orga
nized a series of marches on the city council.
i ___________________________________________Z____________________________
2 34
On several successive nights they met in
j St. Joseph's Church for rallies and then paraded, two and
jthree hundred strong, down Pettigrew Street, along the rail-
jroad tracks that divide the Negro and White sections, past
|
! Operation Breakthrough headquarters, past jeering white
I
youths and nervous policemen and a battalion of national
guardsmen, into City Hall. Filling the galleries, they told
ithe embarrassed councilmen that there would be "long, hot
jsummers" if their requests for better housing and more jobs
j were ignored.
The reaction of the local power structure was pre
dictable. City councilmen attacked Fuller, as well as other
i
j
Operation Breakthrough staff, for participation in the meet
ing and marches. Congressmen from North Caroline called for
i
|investigation into use of 0E0 funds to implement the marches
i
and preceding meetings. Officials of the local Public Hous-
i
ing Authority argued that Operation Breakthrough had gone
!
jtoo far. According to these officials, none of their ten-
jants were dissatisfied until the poverty program looked for
things to challenge.
For our purposes, the Durham incident illustrates
|
two elements in community action which created intense oppo
sition from most Southern congressmen, local political
235
i
Jelites in the South, and the Southern public in general.
jFirst, community action encourages and organizes the South-
|ern Negroes to challenge, sometimes violently, the white
jpower structure. Community action strikes at the heart of
i
i
!the Southern social system and many of its basic values—
i
| !
such as keeping the Negro "in his place." Community action
i
(threatens the "status quo" and no greater s m exists m this
region. Second, community action is seen as an overt
(attempt by the federal government to interfere with the
;operation of Southern state and local governments. It is
!
j
(seen by many in the South as an extreme case of "Yankee"
: i
I |
(intervention into Southern politics. Given the contempt in
i
jthe South for the federal government and the Negro, it is
jless than surprising that community action has not enjoyed
I
I
Iwide support among the Southern public. More important for
i
the present analysis, however, are Southern congressmens'
views of both the Job Corps and community action.
|
! Antipoverty under President Johnson and the
i Southern Congressman
i
Examination of Southern congressional perspectives
on welfare policy has revealed three different perceptual
j
patterns. The first pattern (Pattern A), concerning public
assistance, was characterized by a shift for the majority of
2 36
Southern congressmen from a distributive to a redistributive
j
jview of public assistance. Perceptions of food stamp legis
lation presented a somewhat different case (Pattern B).
jHere two different perceptual groups were identified within
i
; i
jthe Southern House bloc. Group 1, made up of the more con- |
i j
jservative Southerners, saw food stamps as essentially a j
redistributive issue, while group 2, the more liberal South-
1
jern congressmen, saw this policy area as distributive in
Inature. The analysis of family assistance revealed that
i
j
(representatives from the South almost uniformly viewed FAP
(as a redistributive policy (Pattern C). The data reveal
i
Istill another perceptual syndrome connected with the anti
poverty program under President Johnson; this fourth pattern
will be referred to as Pattern D.
| As in the case of food stamps and initially of pub-
I
lie assistance, there was a large group of Southern con
gressmen (56 percent) who supported the antipoverty program
land saw it in basically distributive terms. That is, this
igroup tended to see the antipoverty program in terms of the
benefits it offered their districts. They also were some
what liberal in their support of antipoverty legislation.
An early statement of this perspective was the following
237
jremark by Congressman Landrum, a liberal, in the floor
I
[debates of 1964:
!
| This bill [the Economic Opportunity Act] is
nothing more than an education and training bill
! designed to call forth our resources, as I said at
| the outset— the moral, intellectual, spiritual, and
I financial resources— to rid this nation of a condi
tion [poverty] that makes us somewhat like the
j Prometheus myth, where in a land of plenty we may
| be eating our own lives and congratulating ourselves
I on a good meal.-^
[Another statement of this perspective was provided by j
I I
! j
[Congressman Gibbons in these debates: "This legislation is j
i
designed to try to break that cycle of poverty, having been
born and raised in poverty, going out and creating a family,
creating another child of poverty, as the cycle goes on.
This legislation is designed to break that chain and to put
I 1;L
Ipeople back to work." At another point in the same
Idebates Congressman Pepper of Florida argued as follows:
!
i This antipoverty bill is not designed as a
i program for "handouts" as some of its opponents have
charged. Iy is a combination of programs to provide
opportunities whereby these people can be equipped to
command a decent living wage to maintain their fami
lies properly. There will always be those who will
not take advantage of the opportunity. But the
millions who have not heretofore had the opportunity
will benefit.^
10Conqressional Record, CX, 182 08.
^Ibid., p. 18310. ^Ibid., p. 18654.
2 38
The distributive perspective remained strongly in
jevidence among Southern congressmen from 1964 to 1968. In
1965 Congressman Fulton observed:
! Less than a year ago, there was no Economic
j Opportunity Act. Less than a year ago, there was no
i Office of Economic Opportunity. Yet in less than a j
| year, under passage of that act, the Office of
! Economic Opportunity has grown from a small over-
j worked and understaffed cadre of dedicated servants
j until today it is, in consideration of the Herculean
task it has undertaken, one of the most efficient I
* I
and least bureaucratically hampered office in our j
Federal Government.^ !
Congressman Mackey of Georgia spoke before the House along j
i !
jclearly distributive lines: !
I |
I have listened with interest to much of the j
j criticism of this program. I am very happy to say
I came from a metropolitan area in which our experi
ence has not been checkered with failures of admin-
I istration. On the contrary, there has been very
j strong citizen participation and response to this
program. We are getting results.
He goes on:
! I
| I believe the existence of this program in metro- j
politan Atlanta has meant the difference between |
j possible social chaos and the constructive situation
; which we s e e . - * - 4
!ln 1967 the distributive perspective again prevailed among
!
Southern congressmen. Typical was this remark by Hale Boggs:
13Ibid.. CXI, 17618.
14
Ibid., CXII, 2 3965.
2 39
I I live in a Southern State, and I am proud of it.
i In that city at least 150,000 people have been helped
j by this program [the war on poverty].
! This program has made the most significant con-
| tribution to my city that I know of since I have been
| serving in Congress. The idea that we can live in
I peace and harmony in the suburbs when there is misery
I in the center of a big city metropolitan area is one
! which has been rejected by every sensible student of
this problem who has made a study of it.15
i
Southern representatives did not exhibit a redistri-
i
jbutive policy orientation toward the war on poverty as they
■ I
i
jhad toward the three policy areas already examined. Those j
j I
jwho did not see it as a distributive policy tended to per- j
I i
! I
Iceive it in purely political terms, not as a question of !
[benefits for their district or of class antagonisms, but in
I |
terms of the political implications of antipoverty programs,
jespecially the community action programs. As the Durham
jcase indicated, the question of political or institutional
i
j
jchange is closely tied to the issue of race. More often
I
;than not, political change effected by community action in
i i
jthe South involved a gain for the Negro community. There
fore, we may tentatively assume that Southern opposition
concerning the political implications of the war on poverty
was motivated in part at least by the question of race. In
the following comment made by Congressman Fisher of Texas,
15Ibid., CXIII, 32 346.
240
it is apparent that opposition to the war on poverty's
political involvement was closely tied to racial issues:
j From Nashville the story of a "liberation
i school" which was subsidized by 0E0. It was run by
i an official of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee— SNCC. Operated by one Fred Brooks, a
black power advocate and chairman of Nashville's
SNCC, the school preached hatred for whites. One
j instructor was George W. Ware, who accompanied
i Stokely Carmichael to Cuba. He praised the Detroit
| riots.
Nashville officials cited a "flyer" advertising
the school which said it would train people in
"activist civil disobedience" and take action "by
■ j / • J
i any means necessary."xo
!
jAlthough the remarks of Southern congressmen dealing with
jthe political implications of community action are not all
i
jovertly tied to the issue of race, many clearly imply a
i
■direct connection. For instance, Congressman Gardner of
J
jNorth Carolina commented as follows on the antipoverty
iefforts in Durham in 1967:
[
i
i An antipoverty agency in Durham, through three
I of its employees, spent over three months copying
the registration books in the city of Durham. They
| went out in a nonpartisan election and carried
I people to the polling places to register. They then
1 carried them back on election day, and provided them
with marked ballots telling them exactly which can-
| didates to vote for. In this city election, this
j nonpartisan election of the city of Durham, N.C., in
I an election that the mayor won by a 2-1 majority,
those precincts in which the 0E0 workers were deeply
16Ibid., p. 32371.
241
involved carried for the opposition candidate by as
much as 10 to 1.1?
Critics of the political implications of community action
also argued that the war on poverty was simply a poorly
jdesigned patronage ploy. Congressman Albert Watson of South
! i
iCarolina commented: "Mr. Chairman, of all the frauds per- |
j |
petuated by the Great Society on the American people, the j
|
!poverty war has to be in the forefront. Armed with an elab-j
|orate political patronage system which has provided thou-
j
jsands of jobs for Democratic politicians, the Administra- j
j !
ition's war on poverty is in reality a war against the !
j 18 |
ipoor." Other statements evincing a political perspective !
ion the war on poverty stressed the "subversive" and "radi-
jcal" nature of community action personnel. Moreover, in
i
jmany instances the work of 0E0 and the community action pro-
I
jgrams was seen as threatening the very nature of our repub-
I !
|lie. An example of this variant of the political perspec- j
jtive was the following comment by Congressman Broyhill of
|
;Virginia, made on the House floor in 1967:
J As I pointed out last week, Mr. Chairman, the
! Office of Economic Opportunity is loaded with people
| of questionable background and association who have
! been placed in positions of responsibility, and who
are supposed to be training others to become useful
17 18
Ibid., p. 31965. Ibid., CXII, 24431.
242
and productive citizens. I stated at that time that
I I felt we are sowing the seeds of our own destruc
tion when we provide financing for large numbers of
radicals who use their working hours and the people
they are supposed to train, to plan ways of training
their trainees against our Government and our way of
life.19
A somewhat more extreme position was taken by Congressman
i
John Bill Williams of Mississippi in the floor debates of
1965:
I
I
In my district there is a small cluster of
I buildings which used to contain an educational
S institution called Mount Beulah. Recently, it has
| been leased by the National Council of Churches. It
| is the housing and staging area of persons engaged
I in civil disobedience. In addition, this small
j facility is the headquarters of an organization
| which recently received a Federal grant of $1,424,180
j under Operation Head Start.
I
|He continued:
|
! Miles Horton has recently been there. An avowed
| Socialist and Communist sympathizer, Horton ran what
; has been described as a Communist training school in
j Tennessee until the State closed it d o w n .2 0
I
j Southern representatives in their roll-call support
|of the war on poverty behaved much as they had over food
t
I
jstamp legislation. Again two groups of Southern representa
tives emerged. As Table 26 shows, this bifurcated support
19
Ibid.. CXIII, 32 346.
2°Ibid., CXI, 17632.
243
TABLE 26
SOUTHERN CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT LEVELS FOR THE
WAR ON POVERTY, 1964-673
Support
(Percentage)
Opposition
(Percentage)
Economic Opportunity
Act of 1964 60 40
Economic Opportunity
Amendment of 1965 49 51
Economic Opportunity
Amendment of 1966 38 62
Economic Opportunity
Amendment of 1967 48 52
All votes are final votes.
Source: Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington, D.C.
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1964-67),
Vols. XX-XXIII.
244
i
[pattern was relatively constant throughout the Johnson
i
years. Those conservative Southern congressmen who saw the
|
war on poverty in political terms increased in number during
|
this period. The opposition grew from 40 percent in 1964 to
I
I
i
majorities in 1965* 1966, and 1967. Thus support for the j
; i
j
[antipoverty program among the Southern bloc declined from
1964 to 1967. Those liberal Southern congressmen who tended
I
i I
to see the program in distributive terms decreased from j
[ I
[60 percent in 1964 to less than 50 percent by 1967. j
| i
j The roll-call support pattern for antipoverty legis-j
I I
I I
Jation m the House as a whole was also relatively constant.[
: i
I (
iThe overall trend in the House, however, was toward i
[increased support for this program. These data are pre-
!
jsented in Table 27. One can conclude then that as the House
i
was becoming somewhat more liberal in its orientation toward
i
the war on poverty, at least in its roll-call voting behav-
jior, Southern congressmen were becoming less inclined to
j
[support antipoverty legislation.
| Another indication of the support-opposition syn
drome of Southern representatives can be seen in their
i
I
remarks during the House debates over poverty legislation.
Typical of those Southern representatives who supported the
war on poverty was Congressman Pickle of Texas. In the
245
TABLE 2 7
SUPPORT IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ANTIPOVERTY LEGISLATION, 1964-67a
FOR
Support Opposition
Economic Opportunity
Act of 1964 226 185
Economic Opportunity
Amendments of 1965 245 158
Economic Opportunity
Amendments of 1966 210 156
Economic Opportunity
Amendments of 1967 283 129
aAll votes are final votes.
Source: Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington, D.C.
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1964-67),
Vols. XX-XXIII.
246
following comment he argued that the Job Corps (opposed by
many Southerners in the House) was an outstanding program.
I
^Congressman Pickle also suggested that racial tensions have
been minimal in the racially integrated San Marcos Job Corps
I
jfacility:
Mr. Chairman, I have been to this project [the
Job Corps center] at least 6 to 10 times myself, and
I have talked to hundreds of kids. We have a very
; successful project now going at San Marcos, Texas,
j And speaking of the races, Mr. Chairman, we have this
kind of biracial participation at that project.
! The Anglos are 52%, Negroes 36%, Latins approxi-
j mately 12%. I have looked in these boys' eyes and
| believe me they appreciate the fact they are given a
I second or even third chance to make good, to make
something out of themselves.21
jOf the Southerners who spoke during the floor debates of
j
|1964 on the war on poverty legislation, five supported the
bill, while three opposed it. By 1967, however, the situa
tion had altered substantially. in the floor debates over
i
|the 1967 Economic Opportunity Amendments, 12 Southern repre-
I
isentatives opposed the measure while only three supported
jit. Typical of statements opposing the antipoverty legisla-
j
jtion was this remark by Congressman Fisher of Texas during
the floor debates. He argued that the war on poverty would
probably result in a guaranteed annual income, if carried to
its logical conclusion:
21
Ibid., p. 17960.
247
Only two weeks ago, it was announced that
$620,000 in antipoverty money was set aside by OEO
for an experiment in government-guaranteed minimum
| income for those in low-income brackets whether they
| work or not. The idea is to lift the annual income
| of all American families to a $3,000 level. It is
! being tried out on 800 New Jersey families, with the
annual income of each to be supplemented by Govern-
| ment checks in amounts sufficient when added to what
any recipient earns, to total $3,000 a y e a r .22
An additional point of opposition to the war on poverty cen
tered around the Office of Economic Opportunity. Many j
Southerners strongly opposed this institutional mechanism,
I
land made strenuous efforts to effect its abolition. Con-
i
I
igressman Quillan, for example, stated, "I just want to make
i
sure that my position is clearly made known to everyone. I !
advocate the abolishment of the OEO, and I believe the good
programs should be put under responsible Federal
2 3
agencies." Somewhat earlier Congressman Albert Watson
I
argued along similar lines, "It would seem to me that the
|
major contribution of this act [Economic Opportunity Act]
pwould be in the establishment of an entirely new layer of
^Federal bureaucracy headed by a so-called 'poverty czar,1
with almost limitless powers. Under no circumstances can I
22
Ibid., CXIII, 32 369.
^ ^Ibid., p. 32683.
248
see where such a contribution would benefit anyone but those
of the bureaucracy itself."24
|
j Turning to the question of how much bargaining was
I
overtly involved in Southern congressional support of anti-
i
ipoverty legislation, we note a pattern of bargaining that is
jstrongly pronounced. Although it is not as clearly drawn as
Southern congressional bargaining over food stamps, there is
jlittle question that extensive bargaining was involved in
development and maintenance of Southern support for anti-
!
Ipoverty legislation. This bargaining pattern was strongest
I
:in 1964 and 1967. I
I
! j
j In addition to the fact that the Johnson Administra-
i
i t ion chose a Southerner, Phil M. Landrum of Georgia, to be
|
jthe chief sponsor of the Economic Opportunity Act, three
|other major bargains were struck to ensure that a majority
|of Southerners would support this bill. First, there was
[
|the matter of Adam Yarmolinsky. When it became known to
iSouthern congressmen that Adam Yarmolinsky was to be
I
involved in the antipoverty program, Southern opposition was
tremendous. Yarmolinsky, at one time a special assistant to
(Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, was considered by many
i
24
Ibid., CX, 182 00.
249
I
in Washington to be an authentic "whiz kid." More impor
tant, he was an Eastern liberal intellectual who had
j
offended Southern congressmen intensely in the area of race
relations. Yarmolinsky had been directly involved in the
j I
'1963 directive from the Defense Department aimed at offbase
i
discrimination against Negro servicemen in the South. The
'directive was a result of the "Gesell Report" submitted
June 21, 196 3 to the White House and forwarded to the
jPentagon. It outlined the problems encountered by Negro
i
i
jservicemen on military bases as well as in nearby communi-
ities. More important for our purposes, however, it was vig-j
i j
jorously attacked by Southern congressmen as an infamous I
j
jdocument. The result of this report, the 1963 Defense
Department Directive, was even more repugnant to Southern
i
irepresentatives. In effect, the 1963 Directive stated that
i
I if discrimination in communities near military bases did not
stop, the Department of Defense was prepared to make entire
I
! 25
|Commumties "off limits" to service personnel. Southern
j
House members denounced the Directive as an attempt to use
the military as a means of social change. In any case, the
i
Iprice for Southern support of the Economic Opportunity Act
25
Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington, D.C.:
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1963), XIX, 366-367.
250
i
was the ouster of Yarmolinsky from the poverty program.
iOnce this price was made clear, compliance was almost imme
diate. Speaking to his Southern colleagues, Phil Landrum
jcommented during the floor debates:
! I should like as a member of the Committee on
i Education and Labor and as one who has devoted a
i great deal of time and energy to this bill to state,
first, that so far as I am concerned this gentleman,
Mr. Yarmolinsky, will have absolutely nothing to do
with the program.
And second, I wish to state that I have been
I 9
I told on the highest authority that not only will he
j not be appointed but he will not be considered if he
| is recommended for a place in the agency.26
|
iThe Yarmolinsky case illustrates again that race played a
'major role in Southern congressional opposition to anti-
i
ipoverty legislation. Apparently the race issue plus
jYarmolinsky's image as a "radical" made him completely
junacceptable to Southerners. Whatever the issues, a bargain
i
iwas struck between the Administration and Southerners in
i
j
jcongress.
j A second political bargain was struck in 1964. This
i
I "deal" concerned an oath of allegiance for the Job Corps
|
i
members. Proposed by Congressman John Bell Williams of
Mississippi, it was accepted by the House in a teller vote
of 144 to 112. in effect this amendment required that Job
26
Congressional Record, CX, 18582.
251
jcorps members swear an oath of allegiance to the United
I
i
iStates and required other individual recipients of aid to
|
jsign an affidavit stating that they did not believe in or
I
[support any organization advocating the violent overthrow of
|the Government. Congressman Williams described the purpose
|
jof his amendment in this way: "The purpose of this amend
ment is obvious. It is designed to obviate insofar as pos-
j
jsible Communist and other subversive infiltration of these
I
[camps that we will set up if this legislation is j
; 27 i
japproved. " Acceptance of this amendment was necessary in
[order for the Administration to gain Southern support since
I
lit was strongly backed by the majority of Southern represen-
i i
i
itatives .
I
j The third and most important bargain struck over the
i
[Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 dealt with the governors'
i
i
[veto power. The fact that the Job Corps would be integrated
; i
was the major motivation for this amendment. Community
I
jaction at this time was of little concern to Southerners
because its full potential had not yet been realized, even
by its most ardent supporters. Because of Southern demands
for a "states' rights" provision, and because the
27
Ibid., p. 18588.
252
Administration felt it needed the support of the Southern
iHouse bloc, Phil Landrum asked the House to accept a new
Jversion of the bill which in effect gave governors a veto
I
jover proposed Job Corps centers, community action, work-
jtraining, Adult Basic Education and volunteer VISTA programs
iin their states. His version also tightened the loan pro-
[gram for impoverished farmers and deleted a ban on cuts in
unemployment compensation payments to persons aided by the
Ibill. According to the New York Times, this was the price
i
I
jthe Johnson Administration had to pay for Southern support:
1
To allay fears of the Southerners, the Adminis-
! tration agreed to sponsor a House amendment giving
j governors veto power over all antipoverty projects
j in their states. The Senate had adopted a more lim
ited veto provision, applying only to private proj-
j ects not to those conducted by cities or counties.
Governors will also be allowed to veto the
establishment of job-corps training camps or resi
dential schools in their states.28
i In 1967 Southern congressmen were again able to
jeffect a bargain with the Administration. They pushed
j
jthrough a major amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act
i
■that required all local community action funds to be chan
neled through and controlled by public officials. Termed
the Green Amendment, Southerners hoped that it would put
2 8
"House Passes Antipoverty Bill, " New York Times.
August 8, 1964, p. 42.
253
control of community action projects in the South in the
1
hands of local public officials. Northern Democratic
jliberals argued that this would kill the effectiveness of
i
jcommunity action in the South. The measure was also sup
ported by Democrats from big city machines.
I
i
The Administration was willing to make this bargain
for two reasons. First, it felt that Congress would cut
back sharply on the antipoverty authorization in light of
|the rising costs of the Viet Nam War and a widespread feel-
I
jing that the poverty program was wasteful and creating more
I
!
jproblems than it was solving. In addition, the Administra-
I
jtion feared that Republicans would be successful in their
!
avowed objective of dismembering or dismantling the Office
|
;of Economic Opportunity. In their alternative strategy for
the war on poverty, leading House Republicans proposed what
|they called the "Opportunity Crusade, 1 1 its chief feature
being the abolition of the OEO and the transfer of all OEO-
|
jrun programs to existing federal agencies.
)
| With the war on poverty facing these problems, the
Johnson Administration hoped that by making certain conces
sions to the Southerners in the House they could emerge with
the antipoverty program largely intact. The Administra
tion's tactics were successful: "With the inclusion of the
254
Green Amendment, S2 388 passed the House Nov. 15 without
major damage except for a cut in funds. None of the
jRepublican spin-off proposals were accepted, chiefly because
i
the Southern Democrats either refrained from voting at all
29
or voted with the Democrats." The New York Times com-
i
mented as follows on this curious bargain: "Administration
Democrats had agreed to the committee change in the com
munity action programs (the Green Amendment) in order to
attract Southern votes as well as to appeal to the big-city
Democratic machines. It appeared tonight that this could be
I
|the saving factor for the bill, which passed the Senate
i
| 30
parlier m the year."
|
i
j It is reasonable to infer from these data that bar
gaining was very much a part of the Southern congressional
^ntipoverty support pattern during the Johnson years. The
i
^xtent of bargaining may be ascribed to two circumstances.
First, antipoverty legislation was apparently not categori
cally unacceptable for most Southerners, since they were
i
willing to bargain over its development. Second, since
1 2 9
j Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington, D.C.:
Congressional Quarterly Service, 1967), XXIII, 1059.
30
"House Votes Local Rule in Poverty Bill,"
flew York Times. November 15, 1967, p. 30.
I 255
Republicans were almost completely against the war on
poverty and were legislatively strong enough to offer
Northern Democrats serious opposition. Southern House votes
became particularly crucial for passage of antipoverty
I
(legislation.
i
Conclusion
The overall purpose of this analysis has been to
-answer the following questions: (1) How divergent among
i
jthemselves are Southern congressmen with regard to welfare
[policy? (2) How extensively will Southern representatives
j
isupport or oppose welfare policy in the 1970's? In order to
i
I
deal with the second question, three case study propositions
jwere proposed for examination. Now that these case study
i
[propositions have been examined in four welfare policy
i
i
iareas, the findings can be summarized. In the following
I
[chapter these findings plus other data gathered in this
[analysis will by synthesized and evaluated.
| First, case study proposition 1 was generally sup-
!
|ported in the four welfare policy areas. Specifically,
I
[Southern congressmen have perceived welfare policy in both
i
redistributive and distributive terms, depending on the
policy area involved. Conservative Southerners perceived
256
public assistance and family assistance as redistributive*
but viewed the war on poverty not as redistributive but in
terms of its political implications and in a few cases as a
threat to the Republic itself. Liberal Southern congress
men* however* have consistently seen welfare policy from the
I
i
idistributive perspective. That is* Southern liberals* for
j
|the most part* have seen welfare policy as conferring sub
stantial benefits on their districts in the form of better
jconditions for the poor and expanded markets.
i
j
! Second* case study proposition 2 was supported in
jthe four welfare policy areas examined. Southern congres- j
jsional support for welfare legislation has varied substan-
i
I
jtially according to the particular welfare policy involved.
jFour distinct support-opposition patterns emerged. Public
i
|assistance legislation produced a pattern characterized by
Istrong initial support followed by strong opposition
|
i(Pattern A). Food stamp legislation was characterized by
!
|strong initial support followed by a slight decline in sup-
i
port (Pattern B). The family assistance legislation was
substantially different. It involved a pattern of almost
complete opposition (Pattern C). Finally* the antipoverty
I
I
program was characterized by strong initial support followed
by a moderate but continual decline in support (Pattern D).
257
Third, data presented in the four welfare policy
jareas has tended to support case study proposition 3. The
extent of bargaining among Southern Democrats has varied
according to the particular welfare policy in question. On
the one hand, little evidence was found to indicate that
I
bargaining was involved in public assistance legislation or
family assistance legislation. On the other hand, bargain
ing was clearly present in the areas of food stamps and the
antipoverty programs.
With these points in mind we can now return to the
I
Initial two questions of this entire analysis.
CHAPTER VIII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
j
Among the facts about the American poor that have
come to light during the 1960's, for our purposes two stand
i
lout as particularly important. First, over half of all poorj
families live in the Southern part of the United States.
i
Second, Southern poverty is not restricted to Blacks. More |
I
jthan 40 percent of all the poor in the South (2 0 percent of
|
jthe total population) are white. In addition, poverty in
the South does not exist in regional isolation. It has fun
damental implications for the nation as a whole. Poorly
educated Southerners have tended to migrate to the urban
i
i
Icenters of the North and West in increasing numbers. Gener-
j
'ally lacking in marketable skills, they often become part of
i
jthe growing "welfare culture" of the metropolitan ghetto.
Southern congressmen for several reasons are in a
unique position to help remedy the problem of poverty in the
South. Throughout the 1960's Republicans in the House have
258
259
strongly opposed welfare legislation. Repeatedly, Southern
[Democrats have combined with House Republicans and this con-
i
jservative coalition has been strong enough to impede, weaken
j
iand sometimes kill major welfare legislation. Also, South-
i
!ern congressmen have occupied key positions on House commit-
jtees with jurisdiction over various welfare programs. For
i
jexample, during this period Representative Poage of Texas
j !
pccupied the chairmanship of the House Agriculture Commit- j
jtee, Colmer of Mississippi was chairman of the House Rules
I
I
jCommittee, and Wilbur Mills of Arkansas was chairman of the
[House Ways and Means Committee. Given the tremendous power |
(of committee chairmen, these men were able to affect welfare!
i
|
[legislation considered by their committees in substantial
ways. It goes without saying that if Southern congressmen
were strongly inclined to support welfare legislation, they
icould vastly improve the conditions of the poor in the
South.
, In an effort to understand this problem and to con
tribute to the literature on the Southern congressman, the
writer has attempted to deal with two major aspects of this
issue. First, the extent of divergence among Southern con
gressmen has been indicated in some detail, in this regard,
the following six quantitative propositions were examined:
260
1. Southern congressmen have tended not to be
highly cohesive in their support for welfare
1 policy in the 1960's.
|
2. There are identifiable groups of Southern
congressmen who are consistently more conser
vative or liberal in their roll-call voting
behavior toward welfare policy.
3. The existence of high Black population
I percentages in districts tends to promote a
i more conservative welfare support pattern
| among Southern congressmen.
4. A high per capita district income level tends j
; to promote lower welfare support scores among
Southern congressmen.
i
|
: 5. A high level of district urbanization tends to {
! promote high welfare support levels among j
Southern congressmen.
!
| 6 . Republican party identification tends to
promote low welfare support levels among
Southern congressmen.
| a second major aspect of this issue concerned future support
I
jfor welfare policy among Southern congressmen in the 1970's.
j
jln order to examine this issue, the following three case
* i
!
jstudy propositions were analyzed:
i
i 1. Southern congressional perception of welfare
policy has been a combination of a redistri-
! butive and a distributive orientation,
depending upon the particular policy area
involved.
2. Southern congressional support for welfare
legislation in the 1960's has varied accord
ing to the particular welfare policies
involved.
261
3. Bargaining among Southern congressmen and
Northern Democrats in the 1960's over welfare
j legislation has tended to vary according to
I the particular welfare policy in question.
j&t this point the findings on the above nine propositions
jmust be summarized and related to our initial two major
|
Iquestions . We shall first look at the differences among
Southern congressmen.
! The Conservative Southern Congressman i
! As noted in Chapter II, most of the literature on
I
the Southern congressman has assumed that representatives
/
Ifrom the South are all strongly conservative. By employing J
I
ja Guttman scale analysis of Southern congressional welfare
voting behavior the present examination has shown this
jassumption to be incorrect. The data reveal that only
56 percent of Southern representatives in the House can be
reasonably classified as conservative as far as their roll-
i
I 1
'call voting behavior on welfare policy is concerned.
I
jTable 28 lists these congressmen.
i
I Conservative Southern congressmen have tended to
i
i
view the extent and causes of Southern poverty very
! ^Data presented in Tables 28 and 2 9 are based on
the roll-call analysis discussed at length above in
Chapter III.
262
TABLE 28
THE CONSERVATIVE SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN
i
Name State District
i I . - . . . . . . . . . .
Burleson Texas 17
Fisher Texas 21
Teague Texas 6
Dowdy Texas 2
Cabell Texas 5
Bush Texas 7
Lennon North Carolina 7
Jones North Carolina 1
Broyhill North Carolina 10
Fountain North Carolina 2
Kornegay North Carolina 6
Jonas North Carolina 9
Quillen Tennessee 1
Brock Tennessee 3
Duncan Tennessee 2
Kuykendall Tennessee 9
Abernathy Mississippi 1
Colmer Mississippi 5
Whitten Mississippi 2
Ashmore South Carolina 4
Dorn South Carolina 3
Watson South Carolina 3
Bennett Florida 3
Haley Florida 7
Cramer Florida 8
Gurney Florida 11
Burke Florida 10
Herlong Florida 5
Rogers Florida 6
Andrews Alabama 3
Buchanan Alabama 6
Dickenson Alabama 2
263
TABLE 28— Continued
Name State District
Edwards Alabama 1
Seldon Alabama 5
Nichols Alabama 4
Hebert Louisiana 1
Rarick Louisiana 6
Passman Louisiana 5
Hammerschmidt Arkansas 3
Gathering Arkansas 1
Brinkley Georgia 3
O'Neal Georgia 2
Thompson Georgia 5
Blackburn Georgia 4
Flynt Georgia 6
Abbitt Virginia 4
Tuck Virginia 5
Marsh Virginia 7
Satterfield Virginia 3
Broyhill Virginia 10
Poff Virginia 6
Scott Virginia 8
Downing Virginia 1
Hardy Virginia 2
!
264
jdifferently from their liberal colleagues. Conservative
|
ISoutherners view the region's poor as a very small percent-
!
i
jage of the population. Furthermore, when confronted with
i
i
ithe undeniable fact of poverty in their districts, they
i
Isimply refuse to deal with the problem. In addition, con-
i
i
iservative Southern congressmen see the causes of poverty as
i
i
jpersonal rather than social. They contend that the poor are
' i
poor simply because they do not wish to work. For the more
|conservative Southern representatives, laziness and
|indolence, not lack of opportunity and training, have caused
jthe Southern poor to be in their present condition.
i
I
! Certain district characteristics also appear to be
I I
:associated with the more conservative Southerners. First,
|most conservatives come from the more rural districts in the
I
|South. Second, our data indicate that most districts with
!
I very high per capita income levels are represented by con-
j
Iservative Southern congressmen. The latter relationship is
i
mot, however, strongly pronounced. There appears to be
i
little or no correlation between black population percent
ages and a conservative welfare voting record. In some ways
this is a particularly interesting finding. It was ini
tially suspected that conservative Southern congressmen
would come from districts with large black populations.
265
Apparently a large district black population is not a factor
(inclining Southern congressmen to oppose welfare legisla-
i
jtion. Finally our data indicated that over 90 percent of
jthe seventeen Southern Republican congressmen fell into the
i
(strongly conservative category. It may be inferred from
these data that as a group Southern House Republicans tend
to be somewhat more conservative than their Southern
(Democratic colleagues.
The analysis of four welfare policy areas revealed
i
I
I
jthat conservative Southern congressmen tended to perceive
!
welfare policy either as redistributive or political in
j
Inature. In opposing welfare legislation as redistributive j
i
(they perceive such legislation as an effort to provide bene-
!
jfits to one group (the poor) at the expense of a somewhat
jlarger group (the non-poor), as, in effect, an inducement to
i
[laziness and sloth. This perspective was particularly evi-
i
dent in the areas of food stamps, public assistance and fam-
j
iily assistance. An examination of the war on poverty legis-
i
jlation yielded a somewhat different picture of conservative
jsouthern perceptions. It was found that conservative repre
sentatives from the South saw the antipoverty program in
!
terms of its political implications. Instead of seeing this
policy as "money for the indolent, 1 1 this group viewed the
266
war on poverty— especially community action— as a threat to
jthe republic itself. Community action was seen as an
|attempt to disrupt and destroy the political institutions of
I
j
jthe United States, especially on the local level. The data
i
jconcerning the issue of race and the Southern conservative
[is somewhat contradictory. As just noted, no relationship
i
was found between the relative size of district black popu
lations and the conservative voting pattern among Southern
jcongressmen. In the policy areas of food stamps, public
[assistance and family assistance the data indicated that
i
race was not a major issue for the Southern conservative.
In the area of antipoverty legislation, however, racial con
siderations were extremely important for conservative repre-
j
jsentatives. Issues such as integrated Job Corps camps and
I
jmilitant black community action groups were of significance
I
jin this regard. Again and again the "politics of race"
I
[appeared to be the motivating factor behind Southern conser-
i
jvative opposition to the war on poverty. A tentative
i
[explanation for this apparent contradiction is that programs
which provide cash and food supplements (food stamps, public
assistance, and family assistance) are not viewed as a
threat to the white power structure in the South. On the
other hand, programs that are aimed at vast institutional
267
change are seen by conservatives from the South as clear
threats to the white political establishment. Therefore,
welfare programs directed toward institutional change have
jstrong racial overtones for conservative congressmen from
i
Ithe South.
The Liberal Southern Congressman
I
I
1
I The liberal Southern representatives are in many
ways very interesting political actors. As determined
through the Guttman scale analysis, Southern congressmen
with liberal records in the welfare policy area make up
2
about 2 9 percent of all representatives from this region.
Table 2 9 lists those Southern congressmen classified as
liberal in terms of their welfare voting behavior.
Liberal representatives from the South have taken a
view of poverty quite distinct from that of their conserva
tive colleagues. Specifically, they have generally viewed
i
jthe causes of poverty as social rather than personal. Lib
eral Southern representatives see lack of opportunity and
inadequate training, not indolence and lack of ambition, as
2
Because Southern moderates constitute only
|14 percent of our total universe, they will not be discussed
in this chapter. The reader is referred to Chapter III for a
discussion of this group.
268
TABLE 2 9
THE LIBERAL SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN
Name State District
Purcell Texas 13
Roberts Texas 4
Kazen Texas 23
Pickle Texas 10
Brooks Texas 9
Gonzalez Texas 20
Mahon Texas 19
Patman Texas 1
Wr ight Texas 12
Young Texas 14
De La Garza Texas 15
Eckhardt Texas 8
White Texas 16
Galifianakis North Carolina 4
Jones Alabama 8
Willis Louisiana 3
Long Louisiana 8
Boggs Louisiana 2
Landrum Georgia 9
Stephens Georgia 10
Wampler Virginia 9
Evins Tennessee 4
Fulton Tennessee 5
Anderson Tennessee 6
Gibbons Florida 6
Pepper Florida 11
Mills Arkansas 2
Pryor Arkansas 4
269
the causes of Southern poverty. Furthermore, this group is
more willing to recognize the extent of poverty in the
|
iSouth. Also, when confronted with the facts of Southern
i
poverty, Southern liberals appear more willing to provide
Ihelp for the region ' s poor .
| Certain district characteristics are related to the
more liberal Southern Democrats. First, our data indicate
j
that liberal Southern Democrats are likely to come from
lurban districts. This is particularly true for the strongly
liberal Southern representatives. Second, most liberal
-representatives come from districts with either high or low
!
i
per capita income levels. The strong liberals generally
|
Jcome from districts with comparatively high per capita
I
iincome levels, while the moderate liberals represent dis
tricts with comparatively low income levels. This pattern
|
|is not, however, a pronounced one. Third, liberal represen-
I
fcatives from the South generally come from districts with
Ismail black populations. Specifically, over 60 percent of
Southern House liberals represent districts in the South
with less than a 20 percent black population. One reason
for this situation may be that it is substantially easier
for a Southern congressman to support welfare legislation
when there are relatively few blacks in his district. That
270
is, the group pressure, especially from politically powerful
whites, to cut welfare costs may be substantially less.
i
! In stark contrast to Southern conservatives, liberal
|
jrepresentatives from the South have almost invariably per-
jceived welfare policy in terms of its distributive impact on
I
their states and districts. That is, Southern liberals have
most often seen welfare policy as conferring substantial
! i
benefits on their districts in the form of improved condi
tions for the poor, expanded markets and greater social
j
istability. Only in the case of public assistance in the
: late 1960's did liberal Southern House members articulate a
j
jredistributive perspective. Since even Northern Democratic
i
t
Jliberals at this time were arguing along redistributive
lines, this instance can be dismissed as simply the result
I
jof an extremely inefficient welfare program.
i
I
! Substantial differences also exist between conserva
tive and liberal Southern representatives in terms of the
i
jracial implications of welfare policy. Unlike conservative
i
representatives, liberal Southerners did not introduce the
[issue of race into either the floor debates or the hearings
over the four welfare policies examined in this study.
Apparently they did not see the various welfare programs in
terms of their implications for the white power structure.
271
Even in the area of community action, liberal Southern con
gressmen did not raise the issue of race.
By way of summing up, what tentative observations
can be made concerning the differences among Southern con-
I
jgressmen in the area of welfare policy? First, proposi
tions 1 and 2 were supported by our data. Southern con-
jgressmen have not tended to be highly cohesive in their sup-
jport for welfare policy in the 1960's; they fall into iden-
tifiably conservative or liberal groups in terms of their
voting behavior toward welfare policies. Second, proposi
tion 3 was not supported by the data. The existence of
!
jlarge district Black populations did not promote a more con-
1 I
I
jservative welfare support pattern. Proposition 4 also was
t
not substantiated. A high per capita' district income level
did not promote lower welfare support scores; in fact the
lopposite relationship was indicated. Proposition 5, on
I
ithe other hand, was confirmed by the data. A high level
I
Jof district urbanization was positively associated with
I
jhigher welfare support levels. Proposition 6 was also con-
firmed. Republican party identification was associated
with lower welfare support levels among Southern congress
men. Finally, case study proposition 1 was supported in
large measure by this analysis. Southern congressional
2 72
perceptions of welfare policy were a combination of
redistributive and distributive orientations, with one
major exception. Specifically, the war on poverty was not
iseen by conservatives as redistributive, but in terms of
its political implications. It would be quite reasonable
i
ito conclude from this analysis that differences among
I
jSouthern congressmen in terms of welfare policy are indeed
substantial.
!
i
The Process-Policy Nexus:
i Southern Congressmen and Welfare Policy
I in the 1970's
|
I ■
I Question 2, concerning Southern congressmen's
I
reactions to welfare policy in the 1970's, is a somewhat
jmore difficult question to answer. Before dealing with
i
I
!this question, a few words about the problem of prediction
|
i
jare in order. Compared with those of the physical sciences,
i
the predictions of social science are fundamentally uncer-
I
jtain and limited in accuracy. According to Bernard
Phillips, a noted social scientist, "if we think of predic
tion in terms of probability rather than certainty, it
jwould be correct to say that predictions in the social
sciences generally have lower probability of success than
273
3
those in the physical sciences." Social science has been
able to produce Only a limited number of "tendency predic
tions" and most of these have been at a relatively low level
of generalization. In the present analysis we are attempt
ing a limited tendency prediction. The following discussion
|
will also assume that within certain general limits most
i
jaspects of the American political and social system will
[remain constant during the 1970's. If major changes do take
iplace in either the political or social system during the
I
i
Jnext decade, they could alter radically the nature of public
!
[policy. American political history has not, however, been
|characterized by change that is extensive in scope. For
j
jpurpose of analysis, therefore, we shall assume that changes
|in the American political system will continue to be incre
mental in nature. In addition, it will be assumed that past
[political behavior is the best indicator of future behavior.
I
jwithout doubt this assumption has severe limitations, but as
i
ja general principle of social action it is reasonably sound.
]
[ Will Southern congressmen support welfare policy in
the 1970's? in order to answer this question, it will be
3
Bernard S. Phillips, Social Research: Strategy and
Tactics (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1966), p. 51.
2 74
necessary to review systematically the findings concerning
case study propositions 2 and 3 and combine these with the
other findings.
Case study proposition 2 was supported by this
analysis. That is, Southern congressional support for wel
fare legislation as measured by roll-call voting behavior
has varied substantially according to the particular welfare
policy involved. Four support-opposition patterns emerged.
Pattern A (associated with public assistance legislation)
^vas characterized by strong initial support followed by
strong opposition. Pattern B (associated with food stamp
legislation) involved strong initial support followed by a
i
islight decline in roll-call support. Pattern C (associated
I
j
With the Family Assitance Plan) was quite different. It
I
involved almost complete opposition to the program.
Finally, pattern D (the pattern associated with the war on
poverty) provided still another variant to this support-
opposition syndrome. In this case, strong initial support
j
was followed by a moderate but continual decline in support.
One may conclude from these data that as the decade of the
seventies unfolds food stamp legislation will probably
::eceive comparatively strong support from representatives
from the South, while public assistance legislation and the
275
Family Assistance Plan are unlikely to win Southern support.
Legislation dealing with the war on poverty will probably
divide Southern House members about evenly depending on the
directions taken by President Nixon to continue the program.
i
Our data on bargaining supports this prediction since (if
bargaining is equated with flexibility) Southern congressmen
have tended to be most flexible with regard to food stamp
i
;and antipoverty legislation.
I
Case study proposition 3 can be restated as follows:
Bargaining between Southern congressmen and Northern Demo
crats over welfare legislation has tended to vary according
to the particular welfare policy in question. Data pre
sented in this research effort clearly offers support for
this proposition. On the one hand, little evidence was
i
found to indicate that bargaining was involved in Southern
'congressional support of, or opposition to, either public
iassistance legislation or family assistance legislation. On
the other hand, bargaining was very much in evidence in the
areas of food stamp and antipoverty legislation. Specifi
cally, it was found that Southern congressmen exchanged
their support for food stamp bills for Northern Democratic
support of various farm bills. In the area of antipoverty
legislation, Southern representatives traded their support
2 76
for certain limitations on the program's operation, e.g.,
the governor's veto. Apparently representatives from the
|
(South in the 1960's were relatively flexible regarding food
i
(stamp and antipoverty legislation. If this pattern contin
ues to hold into the 1970's, food stamp and antipoverty
i
(legislation are likely to reflect the demands of Southern
i
I
(congressmen in the House and receive the support of many in
this group. Food stamps in particular, because of increas- i
i I
ling public concern over hunger in the South, are likely to
i
(be viewed more favorably by Southern congressmen.
The behavior of House Republicans is also of much
(significance in terms of Southern congressional support of
welfare legislation. Throughout the 1960's Republicans in
the House, almost to a man, have strongly opposed all wel-
i
(fare measures. Because of this fact, the votes of a
I 7
I
I
.majority of Southern congressmen were usually necessary to
(pass major welfare legislation. As a result, Southern
j
jrepresentatives were often in a relatively strong bargaining
(position. If this pattern of opposition continues among
House Republicans during the 1970's, Southern representa
tives will again be in a strong bargaining position and this
|
should result in substantial support for food stamp legisla
tion and moderate support for the antipoverty program. It
277
is doubtful that public assistance or family assistance will
i
i
receive support from Southern congressmen* regardless of the
bargaining content. If* on the other hand* Republican House
members do not oppose welfare legislation in the 1970's* the
impact of Southern congressmen on this policy area would
i
probably decline radically.
By way of summary* then* what can one expect in the
il970's in terms of overall Southern congressional support of
I
jwelfare legislation? Without displaying too much optimism*
|
ithis writer feels that* especially in the area of food stamp
j
^legislation* Southern congressional support of welfare
j
policy will undergo a moderate increase during the 1970's.
iSeveral trends both within the Southern political system and
i
i
!
jin the Southern political culture will contribute to this
increase in Southern welfare support. First* the 1970
census indicates the South is becoming increasingly urban in
inature. Since our analysis indicated that the more liberal
jsoutherners generally come from the more urban congressional
districts* it seems probable that Southern congressional
support of welfare policy will increase as a result.
Second* census data from the past three decades also indi
cates that the region's black population is on the decline.
Since congressmen from districts with comparatively few
2 78
blacks tended to be somewhat more liberal, this decline may
contribute to higher levels of Southern congressional wel
fare support. Third, as the South continues to industrial
ize, the existence of a large number of unskilled people in
the region will become a serious economic liability. A
I
j
ilarge pool of skilled labor will be necessary if major com-
Ipanies are to relocate in this region. Governors, senators
land congressmen are becoming more aware of this issue as
demands for industrial expansion mount in the South.
Fourth, as the result of growing national concern over
hunger, major groups within the South— particularly the
jSouthern press— are realizing the actual extent of poverty
i
!
in this region. As a result, much of the Southern public in
the 1970's will be compelled to recognize the extreme pov-
i
erty that exists in the South. Finally the issue of poverty
has been undergoing a process of redefinition. Poverty is
j
|no longer seen solely in terms of poor living conditions or
1
j
j inadequate job opportunities. Rather poverty i • ; being rede-
I
I
ifined as hunger and malnutrition. Although this tendency is
more pronounced on the national level, it is also observable
to some extent in the South, as our examination of Southern
j
papers indicated. As a result, Southern representatives may
279
find it considerably easier to support welfare legislation,
©specially legislation such as the food stamp program.
Policy Analysis and
Future Research Directions
In Chapter II it was argued that this analysis
offered an opportunity to test the policy model developed by
^Robert Salisbury.^ Salisbury proposed that public policy
|
jcould be conceptualized according to its perception by the
general public and the political elites. His model can be
summarized as follows: public policy in the American polit
ical system can be conceptualized as distributive or redis
tributive, regulatory or self-regulatory. A distributive
ipolicy is one perceived to confer direct benefits upon one
or more groups. A redistributive policy would be one con
ferring benefits at the expense of other groups. Regulatory
policy imposes constraints on subsequent behavior of partic-
i
ular groups and thus indirectly precludes or confirms poten
tially beneficial options in the future. Self-regulatory
policies also impose constraints upon a group, but are per
ceived only to increase, not decrease, the beneficial
4
Robert Salisbury, "The Analysis of Public Policy,"
in Political Science and Public Policy, ed. by Austin Ranney
(Chicago: Markham Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 151-179.
280
I
(options available to that group. Of particular importance
i
to our analysis, Salisbury goes on to argue that with the
jappearance of side payments (reduced unrest, expanded mar-
l
|kets, greater social stability, etc.), redistributive policy
j
I
[is often seen by political elites in terms of its distribu-
j
I
tive implications and therefore receives support. On the
basis of the above analysis of Southern congressmen and wel-
i
Ifare policy, certain comments may now be made regarding this
(model's utility for empirical research.
I
I
I First, does the typology developed by Salisbury fit
|
|the actual perceptions of welfare policy by Southern con-
I
gressmen as reflected in their public statements? in the
ipolicy areas of public assistance, family assistance and
jfood stamps Salisbury's model closely approximated the
(actual perceptions of Southern congressmen. In these three
i
policy areas both the redistributive and distributive policy
perspectives were clearly evident. In the policy area of
!
I
jantipoverty legislation, however, Salisbury's model encoun
tered some difficulty. Antipoverty legislation was per-
jceived by conservative Southern congressmen in terms of its
political implicationsj i.e., conservative Southern repre
sentatives tended to see the war on poverty— especially com
munity action— as a threat to the very existence of the
281
American political system. In some ways this perceptual
ipattern may be a logical extension of the redistributive
view in that if one continues to take from the "non-poor"
i
land give to the "poor" acute social tension will result. It
I
!may be argued, however, that the difference is not of degree
l
but of kind. That is, Southern conservatives perceived the
community action program as a direct rather than an indirect
threat to the state. Specifically, conservative representa-j
i
jtives saw community action as moving toward the direct
[destruction of local and state political institutions. For
I
^example, local welfare departments and city councils were !
| I
|seen as threatened by various community action groups. If j
I
pur analysis is sound, Salisbury's model suffers from a
major problem— it has assumed that public policy is viewed
ias relatively symbiotic to the entire decision-making pro-
i
cess. That is, his model does not recognize that public
policy can be perceived by political elites as truly revolu-
I
|
tionary in character.
Salisbury also argues that when redistributive pol
icy is seen in terms of its distributive impact, it is
Likely to receive higher levels of support. This proposi-
i
•;ion was strongly supported in our analysis. in the areas
pf public assistance, family assistance, food stamps and
282
antipoverty legislation, congressmen who saw these programs
in terms of their distributive impact were clearly more
inclined to support them. Conversely, Southern congressmen
who were not inclined to see welfare policy in terms of its
"positive side" generally opposed the several welfare pol-
i
jicies . In addition, Southern congressmen who'perceived wel-
!
Jfare policy in terms of its political implications strongly
opposed it. From an overall perspective, this analysis has
jfound Salisbury's model reasonably sound. Most important,
I
I
s
jthe categories suggested by this model appear to be both
I
|
'researchable and a fairly accurate representation of politi-
i
cal reality.
In terms of future research on the Southern con
gressmen, several avenues appear fruitful. First, the rela
tionship of Southern congressmen to other policy areas might
I
|be examined. For example, are Southern representatives
more or less cohesive in their support for distributive or
t
regulatory pplicy? Such inter-policy comparisons would be
very useful for a more complete understanding of how South-
i
ern congressmen act in regard to public policy. Second, it
would be interesting to see how Republican congressmen from
the South function in other policy areas. For instance, is
Republican party identification among Southern congressmen
283
as important a causal variable in other policy areas as it
iapparently is for redistributive policy? Finally, subse
quent policy-oriented research on Southern congressmen could
focus on their reactions to the shifts President Nixon has
made in the antipoverty program. For example, how have
Southern representatives reacted to the less political and
more innovative role of the Office of Economic Opportunity?
In any case, the behavior of Southern congressmen will
I
remain a fascinating topic for political research.
APPENDIX
I
i
284
285
AFL-CIO SUPPORT
TABLE 30
SCORES FOR SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN, 19703
State District Party Score
Alabama .
Andrews 3 D 43
Bevill 7 D 43
Flowers 5 D 17
Jones 8 D 57
Nichols 4 D 29
Buchanan 6 R 14
Dickinson 2 R 0
Edwards 1 R o
Arkansas
Alexander 1 D 20
Mills 2 D 29
Pryor 4 D 50
Hammer s chmidt 3 R 14
Florida
.
Bennett 3 D 43
Chappell 4 D 29
Fascell 12 D 86
Faqua 2 D 29
Gibbons 6 D 83
Haley 7 D 29
Pepper 11 D 83
Rogers 9 D 29
Sikes 1 D 29
Burke 10 R 14
Cramer 8 R 0
Frey 5 R 0
1
TABLE 30— Continued
286
State District Party Score
i
I Georqia
Brinkley 3 D 14
Davis 7 D 50
Flynt 6 D 29
Hagan 1 D 29
Landrum 9 D 29
O'Neal 2 D 29
Stephens 10 D 29
Stuckey 8 D 17
Blackburn 4 R 14
Louisiana
Boggs 2 D 86
Caffery 3 D 50
Edwards 7 D 50
Hebert 1 D 29
Long 8 D 29
Passman 5 D 40
Rarick 6 D 29
Waggonner 4 D 29
Mississippi
Abernethy 1 D 29
Colmer 5 D 14
Griffin 3 D 14
Montgomery 4 D 20
Whitten
2 D 29
North Carolina
Fountain
2 D 14
Galifianakis 4 D 43
Henderson 3 D 43
Jones 1 D 43
Lennon 7 D 33
Preyer 6 D 43
287
TABLE 30— Continued
State District Party Score
Taylor 11 D 57
Broyhill 10 R 74
Jonas 9 R 0
Mizell 5 R 0
Ruth 8 R 14
South Carolina
Dorn 3 D 43
Gettys 5 D 20
McMillan 6 D 20
Mann 4 D 0
Rivers 1 D 20
Watson 2 R 0
Tennessee
Anderson 6 D 50
Blanton 7 D 29
Evins 4 D 33
Fulton 5 D 71
Jones 8 D 29
Brock 3 R 0
Duncan 2 R 43
Kuykendall 9 R 14
Quillen 1 R 0
Texas
Brooks 9 D 86
Burleson 17 D 29
Cabell 5 D 33
Casey 22 D 43
De La Garza 15 D 83
Dowdy 2 D 14
Eckhardt 8 D 100
Fisher 21 D 14
Gonzalez 20 D 100
288
TABLE 30— Continued
1
1
j State' District Party Score
i
Kazen 23 D 71
Mahon 19 D 29
Patman 1 D 50
Pickle 10 D 43
Poage 11 D 29
Purcell 13 D 29
Roberts 4 D 43
Teague 6 D 0
White 16 D 50
Wright 12 D 71
Young 14 D 67
Bush 7 R 0
Collins 3 R 14
Rice 18 R 0
Virginia
Abbitt 4 D 14
Daniel 5 D 14
Downing 1 D 29
Marsh 7 D 0
Satterfield 3 D 29
Broyhill 10 R 0
Pof f 6 R 0
Scott 8 R 0
Wampler 9 R 0
Whitehurst 2 R 43
aScores are percentages of representatives' votes in
accordance with or paired in favor of the AFL-
position on seven selected votes of 1970.
CIO (COPE)
Source: Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report (Washington,
D.C.: Congressional Quarterly
XXIX, No. 16, 866-867.
Service, 1971),
i
I
! B I B L I O G R A P H Y
289
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i
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|
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Asset Metadata

Creator Foster, Granville James, Iii (author)

Core Title Southern Congressmen And Welfare Policy In The 1960'S: A Case Study Of Redistributive Politics

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Political Science

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,political science, general

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Lammers, William W. (committee chair), Krinsky, Fred (committee member), Miller, Jon P. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-573864

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