Article on Atlanta and the "new South ", 1974

In the Old South, for instance, I cannot believe that the state legislatures would have responded to the Watergate crisis by enacting the amazing group of strict campaign disclosure laws, and statutes requiring public officials and candidates to make full disclosure of their finances, which have been placed on the books in the last two years.

Traditionally, the South was a very lax area in controlling or publicizing the flow of money and favors between politicians and the private sector. Only Florida and Kentucky, before Watergate, had campaign disclosure laws worth mentioning and Kentucky's was more honored in the breach than in the observance. But now the Kentucky law has been tightened, Florida's has been made even more thorough going with tough personal finance disclosure requirements for candidates and officials, and impressive new campaign spending laws have gone on the books in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. The only major hold-outs appear to be Louisina, Arkansas, and South Carolina.

The Texas law, which includes both stiff campaign spending reporting and personal finances disclosure, is especially interesting because it followed that state's own "little Watergate" the Sharpstown State Bank Scandal of figures were implicated. Perhaps in the next edition of my 1972 book, The Megastates of America, I will find reason to revise the section in which I wrote that Texas life is directed by a single monied establishment. In no other state has the control been so direct, so unambiguous, so commonly accepted. The establishment has its roots in the banks and law firms of Dallas and Houston... Its untold billions of weath are in eil, insurance, high finance, construction, broadcasting, real estate, and electronics.... Lyndon Johnson was very much part of this establishment; John connally is the epitome of it.

⁽¹⁷⁾

Texas' monied establishement [I added], has its Achilles heel--ethics. There is not even in theory a line between private interest and public responsibility, as the establishment sees it.

I would not want my remarks today, however, to be interpreted as an endorsement of all the new "clean election" laws. In some cases they [illegible] invade legitimate privacy of officeholders or very small contributors, and anyone would have to entertain doubts about the ^new Alabama ethics law which requires such encyclopedic disclosures of officeholders' personal finances that may have already resigned rather than make the required disclosures.

What I do invite you to [illegible] recognize is that the Common Cause-type groups, however weak they may have been in the past, are gaining a role in the South with ethics and [illegible] campaign disclosure laws, and that the S0uthern legislatures have begun to respond. All of this would have been simply incomprehensible a few years ago.

The[illegible]

And I would suggest you to watch carefully the newlegislativeba[illegible] departures the Southern legislatures may ^soon be making. in a number of areas in the next years.

Consider industrial inducements, for instance. Since Mississippi adopted its famed "Balance Agricul-

(18)

ture With Industry" program back in the 1930s, the Southern legislatures have enthusiastically supported programs of tax abatement, free land, and sometimes even free buildings to draw in industry. I would not suggest that all those laws are going to disappear from the books in the near future, but I would predict that they will receive much more careful scrutiny than they have in the past.

The day is fast passing, I would suggest, in which any low-wage cut-'n sew operation from New York or polluting paper mill will be welcomed anywhere in the South. Southerners still want and need growth, but there is a growing movement to control and channel that growth to make sure it is of the kind the South region itself wants.

In this connection, I would commend to your attention, in the event you are not already familiar with it, the work of the Southern Growth Policies Board

⁽¹⁹⁾

in which most of the state governments of the South are ^{have been} participating [illegible] ^{for the last} [illegible] three years. [illegible] The first Statement of Regional Objectives for the Southern states is now under preparation, and will be released next month. Based on a ^preliminary conference held by several governors in Georgia in August, the broad statements of principle and recommendations to the states are likely to include such points as these--

--Coordinated planning mechanisms by the states directed toward more sensible land use that conserves natural resources, preserves human amenities and guides growth to underdeveloped areas.

--Statewide policies that recognize the imminent environmental threat to the coastal zone and preserve adequate scenic and recreation resources for the future.

--Coordinated systems for gathering and analyzing information on a Southwide basis on land carrying capacity, housing, natural resources inventories and uses, energy extraction, and environmental protection.

--The rethinking [illegible] and restructuring of the entire array of the South's human resources programs, ranging from health, housing, and income maintenance ^/ to education and manpower [illegible] policies.

Now I recognize there is a big gap between such broad principles and actual legislative enactments in the states. But I would predict that the S0uthern states, in the increasing number in the near future, are going to be shifting their policies from growth for growth's sake and a laissez-faire attitude toward new industry and development^/ to a much more [illegible] supervised and guided process.

And while the Southern Growth Policies Board is unlikely to touch on any area as controversial as unionization and the South's broad array of right-to-work and other labor-restrictive laws, sound corporate planning should consider a major reorientation of Southern policy on unions in the next years.

⁽²⁰⁾

Actually, an increase in unionization over the very low levels that now prevail across [illegible] the South is likely whether state law is changed or not. You probably have heard of what appears to be the historic breakthrough of the Textile Workers Union of America of in organizing seven [illegible] plants of J.P. Stevens and Company at Roanoke Rapids, N.C., this year. No Stevens plant had ever before been unionized -- the same picture that prevails [illegible] in all but a handful of Dixie's textile mills. The textile companies have fought unionization by means fair and foul; the fair being raising wages to match those in unionized plants, the foul being a number of unfair labor practices for which firms like Stevens have been repeatedly cited by the NLRB. But it is widely felt that if the [illegible] ^unions can organize textiles, [illegible] ^they can organize furniture plants and many other industries in the South. The cumulative effect would surely be to raise labor costs in this region where wages are still well below national averages. The outcome may be uncertain for several years, and other big organizing campaigns in the South have failed. But this time there may be a new ingredient--black workers. Blacks were long excluded from the textile plants, for instance, but that situation has been changing rapidly^. [illegible] I found it significant that 40 percent of the workers in the Roanoke Rapids plants, which voted for unionization by a margin of only 237 votes out of more than 3,100 cast, were black. The same communal and cultural restraints which have led Southern [illegible] ^whites to resist unionization /are simply not present among blacks,/ the perennially [illegible] dispossessed people of this region.

The unionization of the South, if it comes, will be yet another→ evidence of the Americanization of this region of the country. It does not mean that the South will be a bad place to do business -- unless one is looking for a cheap labor pool in perpetuity. The South's other intrinsic attractions for new industry -- ample space and natural resources, a large, trainable, and willing worker pool, and essentially friendly state government -- [illegible] are almost sure to remain. Environmental and land use [illegible] laws in the South are unlikely, except in