Except for the UnionistOzark counties of Newton and Searcy where Republicans controlled local government, Arkansas since the end of Reconstruction had been a classic one-party Democratic “Solid South” state.[1]Disfranchisement during the 1890s of effectively all black people and most poor white people had meant that outside those two aberrant counties, the Republican Party was completely moribund and Democratic primaries the only competitive elections. Although the northwest of the state was to develop a strong Socialist Party movement that served as a swing vote in county elections,[2] political repression[3] and internal party divisions[4] diminished that party's strength substantially.
The Democratic Party, under the influence of future federal Senate Minority and Majority LeaderJoseph Taylor Robinson and demagogic Governor and SenatorJeff Davis, was to make many familiar progressive changes in railroad regulation and child labor,[5] but under the administration of George W. Donaghey – who saw his administration and Democratic primary candidacy as a fight against the “Davis Machine”[6] – more rapid development occurred, especially in abolishing convict leasing and improving bank regulation.[7]
^See Urwin, Cathy Kunzinger. Agenda for Reform: Winthrop Rockefeller as Governor of Arkansas, 1967-71. p. 32. ISBN1557282005.
^Reed, Roy. Faubus: the Life and Times of American Prodigal. p. 32. ISBN1610751485.
^Green, James R. Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895-1943. pp. 316–318. ISBN0807107735.
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