And Now There Are Two

It is no longer the one-party South.

At the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta last week, 23 Republican state representatives--21 of them newly elected--met to choose a chairman, floor leader and assistant floor leader. It was the first time in the state's 177-year history that there had been enough Republican members of the legislature even to justify a formal opposition.

A few blocks away at Atlanta's Dinkler Plaza Hotel, the state Democratic executive committee met to adopt 56 proposals aimed at creating the formal organizational structure that the Democratic Party has never had in Georgia.

Throughout the South, other Democrats also were running scared--and with good reason.

sb ALABAMA. Five of the state's eight U.S. Representatives are Republicans, all elected in 1964. In all, 105 Republicans now hold elective public offices in Alabama, not counting mayors or aldermen, who run mostly in nonpartisan municipal elections. So confident is the state's G.O.P. organization that it plans to field candidates next year not only for the U.S. Senate seat held since 1946 by Democrat John Sparkman, but also for every major state office as well.

sb MISSISSIPPI. In a state where Republican used to be a dirty word, the G.O.P. has elected a U.S. Representative, a state senator, two state representatives, four county attorneys, three mayors and six aldermen. Democratic Governor Paul Johnson glumly admits that the G.O.P. is likely to win even more offices next year.

sb ARKANSAS. Republicans are bullish about their prospects for unseating incumbent Democratic Governor Orval Faubus next year. Their hope: Millionaire Winthrop Rockefeller, who came within 82,928 votes of beating Faubus in 1964--and has not stopped running since. Thanks to Rockefeller largesse, the G.O.P. in Arkansas throbs with enthusiasm. It has a formal organization in every one of the state's 75 counties, boasts 40 women's clubs with a total membership of 1,076, and even publishes a sporadic tabloid, the Arkansas Outlook. Bragged one G.O.P. organizer: "We don't talk Republicanism--we preach it."

So far, one of the Republicans' biggest allies has been lackadaisical Democratic state leadership. In Georgia, when Democrat Carl Sanders became Governor in 1963, only 30 of the state's 159 counties had active Democratic county committees. The state organization did not even have an office or staff. Though Sanders quickly corrected both situations, Lyndon Johnson lost Georgia by 93,443 votes.

Gradually, Southern Democrats are recognizing their plight. "I'm begging for Democrats to register," said an Arkansas state senator. "I don't want just John Doe registered, I want Mrs. Doe and John Doe Jr., who just turned 21, on the voter list too, and as Democrats. We're going to wake up. I only hope it's not too late."

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