Thanks to Ralph Luker and Henry Farrell for the getting out the word about my column this week. It now occurs to me that blogging is a good way to follow a tangent on something that did not really seem to belong in the article itself.

In an unfinished manuscript left at his death, Laud Humphreys described meeting with a prominent Dixiecrat politician and his wife in 1948. When the politician left the room, his spouse began undoing Humphreys's tie so that they could all have a little party -- as, she explained, was their wont.

The biography of Humphreys explains that"this archconservative longtime segregationist served as U.S. Senator from South Carolina from 1954 until shortly before his death in 2003." But the at least the authors don't actually, you know, name him.

Scott McLemee - 9/12/2007

He says he passed on the offer.

Nonpartisan - 9/12/2007

Did Humphreys record his response to this unconventional invitation?