Principles over popularity: the political career of Congressman Brooks Hays: Brooks Hays was a Baptist. He was not just any Baptist, but a Southern Baptist and thus a member of the largest, most prosperous, and evangelically aggressive wing of that denominational tradition.

From his earliest childhood in the tiny Arkansas community of London to Russellville, Little Rock, and Washington, D. C., Hays consistently remained true to his faith. Critics sometimes found fault with his politics, his attitude toward race relations, even his unceasing loyalty to the South, but his religious sincerity was never questioned. (1)

Hays was a Democrat. He was not just any Democrat, but the "yellow dog" kind that put party loyalty second only to religious beliefs. From the time he attended his first Democratic National Convention at age nine until he ended his career more than sixty years later, he was hooked on politics. (2) Fresh out of George Washington University Law School, in 1922, Hays helped his father, Steele Hays, campaign unsuccessfully for the congressional seat in Arkansas' Fifth District. Failure did not discourage young Hays, and three years later he accepted his first political job. At age twenty-seven, he became an assistant to J. Carrol Cone, the newly elected State Auditor. (3) At age thirty, Hays began the first of three unsuccessful campaigns for governor; and in 1933, he lost what was perhaps his most disappointing political race to David D. Terry to represent that same Fifth District, the same district race lost by his father. The election has become legendary in Arkansas political history, and the margin of victory hinged on Terry's winning 1,850 votes from Yell County's 1,632 registered voters. (4)

Unemployed at age thirty-five, at a time when the Great Depression was entering its most acute phase, Hays became a federal bureaucrat, taking a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He was assigned the task of monitoring food relief efforts in Arkansas. This assignment brought him into close contact with the sharecroppers and tenant farmers, and he became particularly sympathetic to their needs. Hays was most concerned about the plight of black farmers. From an early age, he had shown interest in issues related to race. Born in 1898 as the full force of the state's Jim Crow laws began to take effect, Hays watched as society became increasingly segregated. (5) As a pre-teen growing up in Russellville, he frequently explored the "lower end of town" where most of the black citizens lived; he questioned the social conditions he observed there. As a youth he rode the train from Russellville to Little Rock and later expressed shocked at seeing a large group of African American riders forced to stand, crowded together, in a small section while vacant seats were available throughout the white section. (6)

By the time Hays had enrolled in college at the University of Arkansas, he was a determined opponent of race discrimination. While living in Fayetteville, he taught a class on race relations at his fraternity. Later, as a young attorney in Little Rock, he taught Sunday School in the city's Second Baptist Church and helped organize the city's Urban League chapter. While an employee with the USDA, he became a member of the national Commission on Interracial Cooperation, an organization dedicated to helping African Americans improve their social and economic status. He also worked actively, but without success, to get Arkansas' poll tax law repealed. (7)

By the time the United States entered World War II, Hays had a well-established reputation as a Southern Baptist Democrat with a deep sympathy for problems unique to black communities. This identity allowed him to succeed in both religion and politics, but this same identity also became the basis for a career that often ran counter to the mainstream in each profession. This article examines the question of whether Hays the Democrat was defeated by Hays the Baptist.

Hays's Early Political Career

The often-defeated candidate finally got on track in 1942. That year, Hays learned that his old nemesis, David D. Terry, was giving up his Fifth District congressional seat to run for the U.S. Senate. Hays wasted little time in pulling together a campaign organization and announcing that he would again be a candidate for the vacant seat. He ran unopposed and later remembered that the only hint of opposition he heard in the campaign was a concern that, if elected, he would use his position "to alter the status of Negroes in society." (8)

Hays's work for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation preceded him to the U.S. Congress. By the time he took his first oath of office in January 1943, some of his southern colleagues were referring to him as a "star-gazer and visionary" because of his social views. Rather than being offended by such remarks, the new congressman took those words as a compliment and made no secret that he wanted to become a spokesman for the "moderate South." (9) He said that he believed the region was ready to "adapt to changing times" and would do so with proper leadership. Over the next decade, he sought to provide some of that leadership. His opportunity came soon after World War II was over when President Harry Truman issued an executive order to integrate the armed forces and followed that up with a strong federal civil rights bill. The predictably strong, negative reaction in the South moved Hays to action. Assisted by U.S. Senator J. William Fullbright and Arkansas Gazette newspaper editor Harry Ashmore, Hays drafted a plan for improving race relations. (10) Calling it the "Arkansas Plan" for racial progress, he proposed that his southern colleagues support federal legislation against lynching and the poll tax in exchange for maintaining segregation. In the temper of the times, the plan was a moderate proposal, designed to bring opposing points of view together. But as Hays was to learn repeatedly, moderation was enough when it came to matters of race in the South, and his plan was not accepted. (11)

Undeterred by yet another defeat, Hays persevered, and by 1954, his credentials as a "moderate" on race relations had been established. Early in that year, he appeared before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce and testified that it was "wise for Congress to make clear the fact that ... interstate travel must be governed by a policy of non-segregation." (12) Having personally concluded that Plessy v. Ferguson was wrong in the field of transportation, he reluctantly agreed that the U. S. Supreme Court was right when it reached a similar conclusion with respect to education in its Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. The Brown case was a more difficult issue because it did not involve interstate commerce. In Hays's view, however, school integration still must come, albeit on a more gradual basis. (13) The court apparently agreed because it issued the less publicized Brown II decision in May 1955, urging school districts to proceed with integration "with all deliberate speed." (14)

The Supreme Court's decision on school desegregation focused more attention on Hays's personal crusade for moderation on race relations. His position became increasing noticed by constituents in Arkansas's Fifth District. As Hays prepared for his seventh campaign in 1956, he had to acknowledge that voter attitudes on school desegregation had hardened since the 1954 decision. (15) Moreover, his re-election bid was not helped when officials in the Eisenhower administration decided to broaden the emerging debate on race relations by sponsoring a new Civil Rights Bill. Drafted by Attorney General Herbert Brownell, the bill established a civil rights division in the Justice Department and charged that new office with monitoring voter registration in predominately black communities. (16)

Federal intrusion in the two areas where proponents of state rights felt most secure, education and voter registration, caused even the moderate Hays to raise a caution flag. As debate on the Civil Rights Bill dragged into summer, he reluctantly decided to join with eighty-three of his colleagues to formally oppose the measure. As he remembered:

   While I [was] convinced that the exalted language and lofty
   sentiments of the proponents of this civil rights bill were genuine
   and sincere, they did not disguise the fact that this was force
   legislation. It provided the dangerous precedent of projecting the
   federal government, as a protagonist, into the area of community
   relationships. We could not expect a community to bow to federal
   dictation unless the conditions necessary for general acceptance
   were present. (17)

That opposition notwithstanding, Congress passed the bill later in the summer.

"The Southern Manifesto"

Debate on the Civil Rights Bill also influenced Hays to sign the "Southern Manifesto." When that measure was originally proposed in February 1956 to "use all lawful means to bring about a reversal" of the Brown decision, Hays refused to support it. (18) But over the next several weeks, peer pressure mounted, and he became increasingly isolated from his southern colleagues. When Governor Orval Faubus persuaded Congressman James W. Trimble to sign the document, leaving Hays the only member of the Arkansas delegation who had not signed, the moderate crusader gave in and signed too. He regretted that decision almost at once, but his signing the document did neutralize the segregationist sentiment in his district, and he was re-elected without opposition. (19)

To make amends with his moderate constituents for signing the "Southern Manifesto," and in part because he had the opportunity, Hays used his office to arrange the highly publicized meeting between Faubus and President Eisenhower in September 1957 at Newport, Rhode Island. (20) While strongly supported by Hays's friends, Faubus resented being pilloried into the meeting and blamed Hays for intruding. The two had never been allies, but Hays's arrangement of this meeting, the Newport Conference, drove a wedge between them. The subsequent events in the school year 1957-1958 at Little Rock's Central High School added to the tension between the two men. Yet, Hays's stature in the rapidly shrinking moderate group in the Fifth District remained strong. Faubus, however, after "washing his hands" of the school crisis, saw his standing among the conservatives and segregationists soar. (21)

Hays's Defeat in 1958

Despite being increasingly isolated on the race issue, Hays prepared to defend his congressional seat for the eighth time. Since his initial election in 1942, Hays had faced only one challenge in the party primary. Even the Republicans conceded his seat and chose to oppose him only four times in the general election with the last time coming in 1952. (22) Given that context, Hays had reason for optimism. In the three elections following the Brown decision, he only drew one opponent. (23) That came in 1958, when Amis Guthridge, a Little Rock attorney and leading spokesman for the city's White Citizen's Council, tried to rally the segregationists' vote. Hays won that race by a three-to-two margin; and while it was his poorest showing since entering Congress, he was not overly concerned. (24) He had every reason to expect a return to Washington for an eighth term.

Eight days before the general elections in 1958, Dale Alford, a Little Rock school board member, filed as a "write in" candidate for the Fifth District. Alford was a staunch opponent to the Brown decision and gained considerable local attention with his strong support for Faubus's action in dosing the city's public high schools, an action subsequently ratified by more than 70 percent of Little Rock's voters. Alford defeated Hays by 1,256 votes out of some 60,000 cast. (25)

How did it happen? How could a veteran of fourteen years in the U. S. Congress be defeated by an eight-day campaign and by an opponent still in his first term as a school board member who was in his only elected office up to that time? Conventional wisdom has suggested three major reasons for Hays's defeat. One analysis held that the Democratic Party primary election in July should have been a sign of trouble and that Hays should have taken the size of Guthridge's vote more seriously. Marlin Hawkins, sheriff of Conway and one of Hays's staunchest supporters, held this view. Commenting on the primary results, Hawkins said:

   I made a special trip to Brooks' father's home at Russellville. He
   was visiting there a few days recovering from the election. I said,
   "Congressman let's talk. I think you know I am the best friend that
   you have in this political district. You didn't win an integration
   battle.... Do me a favor, you and Mrs. Hays take a long vacation
   and don't give any statements to the press. We don't want them to
   run an independent or write-in candidate against you in the general
   election. (26)

Hays took the sheriffs advice to leave town, but he failed to avoid the press. As Hawkins noted, "Three days after our visit he was in Chicago to attend the annual Southern Baptist Convention. A national network reporter took a picture of him with his arms around two black men. This picture made headlines all over and there were many repercussions." (27)

Others suggested that Hays erred in taking too high a profile as a moderate. Public opinion on school integration had dearly shifted considerably to the right between 1954 and 1958. Hays should have been more cautious. Faubus subscribed to this reason for Hays's defeat, pointing out that it was widely known that Hays favored keeping the schools open and complying with the Supreme Court order. The governor also noted that Hays's son, Steele, had joined with sixty other attorneys in Little Rock in signing a public statement opposed to leasing public school buildings to a private school corporation and that both father and son made no secret of their opposition to the school closing election. (28)

These factors, plus a speech Hays delivered to a joint meeting of the Little Rock and North Little Rock civic clubs, a speech in which he again appealed to the advantages of moderation, were the decisive factors in his defeat. Both Hawkins and Faubus credited the speech as a turning point in the segregationists' decision to oppose Hays. As the sheriff remembered, "Some time after Brooks' ... speech Gov. Faubus called Loid Sadler (a state representative from Conway) and asked him to set up a meeting with me. Orval planned to get me to abandon Brooks and vote for Dale Alford." (29) Faubus denied that he encouraged Alford to enter the race, stating that "the congressman's standing was ... damaged by his own remarks. (30)

To argue that Hays should have taken his opposition more seriously and been less public about his moderation is to miss the congressman's most fundamental values--his religion. Hays took his faith seriously. That commitment allowed him to rise to the highest positions of leadership in both the state and national organizations. He served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in 1957-1959. Indeed, he was at the peak of his power in the denomination during the two-year Little Rock School Crisis. (31)

While no leader in race relations, the SBC did adopt a resolution supporting the Brown decision and encouraged state conventions to do likewise. The Baptist meeting in Chicago that Sheriff Hawkins remembered Hays attending, following the 1958 Democratic Primary, was not the SBC, but the National Baptist Convention (NBC), a denominational organization whose membership was almost exclusively made up of African Americans. (32) In the southern tradition of "separate but equal," the SBC and the NBC adhered to many of the same doctrinal statements, but selected features of their polity and worship varied. Hays attended the NBC annual meeting as part of his official functions as SBC president, and he posed for a picture with the newly elected president and vice president of the NBC. That picture, so widely circulated during the Alford campaign, failed to identify the individuals or the occasion. (33)

Hays's speech before the joint meeting of Little Rock and North Little Rock Civic clubs reflected policies adopted by the Arkansas Baptist State Convention (ABSC). Beginning in 1938, the ABSC adopted a resolution calling for "greater cooperation with our Negro brethren" and also included budget support for training and benevolent causes among black churches. (34) Hays's home church, Second Baptist Church of Little Rock, also had a progressive record on race relations. During the city's school crisis, the congregation became even more actively involved. Led by Pastor Dale Cowling, the church expressed opposition to Faubus's decision to use National Guard troops to block the nine African American students from attending Central High School. The church offered a limited instructional program for students closed out of school by the 1958 school elections. Two other large Southern Baptist churches in the city, Immanuel Baptist Church, located within the shadow of the state capital, and Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, located in the upscale section of West Little Rock, also publicly opposed the governor's actions. Indeed, only one Southern Baptist church openly supported Faubus during the school crisis. That congregation voted to disassociate with the ABSC after the local Pulaski Baptist Association, representing more than fifty churches in the county, adopted a resolution opposing the Little Rock school closings. (35)

The congressman's motive for seeking the moderate route during the Little Rock school crisis is further revealed in his correspondence with constituents. As letter upon letter flowed into his Washington office, criticizing him for not standing up for the Fifth District, he responded:

   I am trying to be a Christian. I am a Jefferson Democrat. I do not
   favor federal force to impose upon a community a pattern of school
   action which is contrary to the thinking and ideals of that
   community. Neither do I believe that people of a community should
   content themselves with mere opposition to federal action while
   remaining indifferent to any discrimination that may exist. (36)

Even in defeat, one of only two incumbent Democrats who did not win re-election in 1958, Hays continued to be the voice of reason. When friends gathered in Little Rock to give him a testimonial dinner, they heard how his fellow congressmen regarded him. Oklahoma Senator Mike Maroney told the group:

   We are here because we know Brooks Hays for what he is--a man who
   will not leave the path which conscience sets. His loyalty to those
   ultimate virtues of love and courage has set a high mark in our
   political life ... Brooks Hays has lost nothing. It is his nation
   and colleagues in Congress who are the losers--for he has brought
   into our lives the example of a courageous Christian leader. (37)

The loss of the 1958 election made Hays a national figure. He had unintentionally become a symbol for moderates, and individuals of that persuasion frequently sought his advice. The former Congressman responded by saying:

   Is there a stand to which the just and prudent may repair? There
   is. First, is an appreciation of what the rule of law means in
   sustaining our liberties and our properties. Unpopular as well as
   popular laws must be respected. While I honor the office of
   representative, I am convinced that under the circumstances the
   loss of my seat in Congress is not too to big a price to pay. (38)

The price Hays paid for holding to a moderate position was political death. He gave up his political life for a matter of principle. He lost not because he failed to read the shift in voter attitudes, nor because he was too high prone during a delicate political season. Rather, he lost while doing his duty as SBC president. Having made a decision on the school integration issue, he stood firm in his beliefs, even though it cost him his day job.

(1.) Brooks Hays, Politics Is My Parish (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 1ff.

(2.) Ibid.

(3.) Ibid.

(4.) "Terry-Hays Congressional Race of 1933," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 3 (Autumn 1945): 231-32.

(5.) Carl H. Moneyhon, Arkansas and the New South, 1874-1929 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997), 115ff.

(6.) Brooks Hays, A Southern Moderate Speaks (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 6-8.

(7.) Brooks Hays, "The Campus Years," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 30 (Autumn 1976): 203-07; "Hays Blames KKK for Blocking Run-Off Primary," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 3 (Autumn 1945), 226.

(8.) "Brooks Hays Wins 5th District Congressional Race," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 1 (Winter 1942), 286-90.

(9.) Hays, A Southern Moderate Speaks, 25.

(10.) Nathan Coulter, A Political Martyr for Racial Progress in the South: Brooks Hays and the Electoral Consequences of the Little Rock School Crisis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press, 1982), 13-14.

(11.) Ibid.

(12.) Ibid.

(13.) Hays, A Southern Moderate Speaks, 82.

(14.) Brown v. Board of Education, et, al. 347 US 483 (1954), 349 US 294 (1955).

(15.) Warren I. Cikins, In Search of Middle Ground: Memoirs of a Washington Insider (New York: Devora Publicshing, 2005), 80-83.

(16.) Dwight D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday Press, 1965), 55-56

(17.) Hays, A Southern Moderate Speaks, 98.

(18.) Coulter, A Political Martyr, 63.

(19.) Ibid. See also Orval E. Faubus, Down from the Hills, vol. 2 (Little Rock: The Pioneer Press, 1980), 113-15.

(20.) Relman Morin, "Rep. Hays Fills Interpreter's Role in Parley of Faubus, Ike," Arkansas Democrat (September 13, 1957).

(21.) Roy Reed, Faubus: The Life and Times of an American Prodigal (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997), 217-22.

(22.) Janice Wegner, ed. Historical Report of the Secretary of State, vol. 3 (Little Rock: Office of the Secretary of State, 1978), 136-38.

(23.) Ibid.

(24.) Ibid.

(25.) Hays, A Southern Moderate Speaks, 161-71; Janice Wegner, ed. Historical Report of the Secretary of State, vol. 3 (Little Rock: Office of the Secretary of State, 1978), 138; Faubus, Down From the Hills, 473-85; Dale Alford and L'Moore Alford, The Case of the Sleeping People (Little Rock: The Pioneer Press, 1959), 120; and Neil R. McMillen, "White Citizens' Council and Resistance to School Desegregation in Arkansas," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 24 (Summer, 1971): 95-ff.

(26.) Marlin Hawkins, How I Stole Elections (privately printed, 1991), 196-98.

(27.) Ibid., 200.

(28.) Faubus, Down From the Hills, 440.

(29.) Hawkins, How I Stole Elections, 198, and Faubus, Down From the Hills, 476.

(30.) Faubus, Down From the Hills, 441.

(31.) Hays, Politics Is My Paris, 1ff.

(32.) Wilson Falling, Jr. "History of the National Baptist Convention, USA. Inc.," http://www.natinoalbaptist.com/Index (accessed May 30, 2006).

(33.) Hawkins, How I Stole Elections, 201; and Faubus, Down From the Hills, 473-74.

(34.) C. Fred Williams, S. Ray Granade, and Kenneth M. Startup, A System & Plan: The Arkansas Baptist State Convention, 1848-1998 (Franklin, TN: Providence House Press, 1998), 224ff.

(35.) Mark Newman, "The Arkansas Baptist State Convention and Desegregation, 1954-1968," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 41 (Autumn 1997): 294-313.

(36.) Coulter, A Political Martyr, 69.

(37.) Brooks Hays, A Hotbed of Tranquility: My Life in Five Worlds (New York: Macmillan Co., 1988), ix.

(38.) Ibid., xi.

C. Fred Williams is professor of history at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Arkansas.