Dewey W. Grantham Jr. – författare

The seeds of the new political developments in the South, where for so many years the Democratic party found solid support, were sewn way back. Although most of the former Confederate states have consistently declared their devotion to “states rights” and home rule, traditionally represented there by the Democratic party, Southern society and point-of-view has been rapidly changing during the last century. Professor Grantham interprets the economic and social revolution now under way in the South as the phenomenal climax of deep-rooted and historic developments in the region and the nation as a whole. Not denying the fundamental conservatism of the South, he has discovered that Southern politics is far more than one of sectionalism and segregation, that the politics of individual states vary enormously, and that the progressive movement in the South may reflect far more than we generally realize the attitudes and aspirations of Americans as a whole. He skillfully delineates the forces that have encouraged the South’s attachment to the Democratic party and indicates how increasingly differentiated economic and social pattern will shape the future.

Cutting across the Bourbon Era, the Populist Revolt, and the Progressive Movement, Hoke Smith's career gave expression to the Southern politics of his generation. In Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South, Dewey Grantham examines in detail the central role of this leader as a key to the better understanding of the political mind of the New South.A vital force in Georgia politics for almost forty years, Hoke Smith was a powerful politician, a brilliant lawyer, a successful newspaper publisher, and a leading educational reformer. He was a member of President Cleveland's second cabinet, was twice governor of Georgia, and served for ten years in the United States Senate. His career touched virtually all of the important developments in the South during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.From the cross-currents of national and sectional events emerges Hoke Smith the individual. For the first time, in this full-length biography, Smith is seen in the perspective of the times in which he so emphatically participated. In its careful examination of his acts and motivations, the book captures at once the essence of a man and a political type, as well as of an important period.