Race, Corruption, and Southern Republicanism

While Republicans enjoyed unified control of the national government during the 1920s, scandals involving executive patronage and GOP state bosses in the South dogged the national party throughout the decade. The Republican Party in the South had been a set of rotten boroughs for decades, used by national politicians-especially presidents-for the sole purpose of controlling delegates at the Republican National Convention. This patronage-for-delegates arrangement was generally understood among political elites, but the murder-suicide involving a U.S. postmaster in Georgia in April 1928 brought the Southern GOP's patronage practices to national light. This forced Republican leaders in an election year to call for a Senate investigation. Chaired by Sen. Smith W. Brookhart (R-IA), the committee investigation lasted for eighteen months, covered portions of two Republican presidential administrations, and showed how state GOP leaders in Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas engaged in office selling. The fallout would be a thorn in the side of President Herbert Hoover, who tried to clean up the corrupt GOP organizations in the South-and build an electorally-viable Republican Party in the ex-Confederate states-but largely failed.

Automated summary

While Republicans had control of the national government in the 1920s, corruption scandals in the South tarnished the party's reputation. The murder-suicide case brought attention to the patronage-for-delegates arrangement used by the Southern GOP, leading to a Senate investigation that uncovered office selling by state GOP leaders. President Herbert Hoover's attempts to clean up the corrupt GOP organizations in the South failed.