The Pittsburgh Press (October 18, 1944)
GOP faction’s nipped by court
Atlanta, Georgia (UP) –
A black-and-tan Republican faction, backed by the national GOP but unrecognized in Georgia, lost another and possibly the final round yesterday in its battle for the right to represent the party on the Georgia ballot in November.
The State Supreme Court, without dissent, denied the faction’s plea for rehearing of a decision handed down last week which sustained Secretary of State John Wilson in his certification of a lily-white group of Republicans as the proper group to name GOP presidential electors.
Georgia’s ballots, listing electors of the faction, have long since been printed and thousands have been mailed to out-of-state servicemen. Election officials thus believed that any further attempts by the black-and-tans to force a change in the ballot would be impractical.
The decision climaxed an intraparty racial squabble that has split Georgia Republicans for years and which this year was taken to court at the instance of the national GOP, which at its Chicago convention seated the black-and-tans rather than the lily-whites.