COLLABORATORS, EGGHEADS,
DO-GOODERS, AND APPEASERS
As for the local liberal--there are not too
many among us. Either they are idealistic, good
hearted people who have been led astray; or they
are exhibitionists with the warped idea that to
be “progressive” is to destroy all experience
and teaching the centuries have given us.--“The
Bookworm” in the _News and Courier_
Only a small proportion of South Carolina’s white population, it would
appear, has accepted the Supreme Court’s desegregation decision in
good faith. In any event few whites have been willing to face “the
venom of extremism and give expression to right and reality.” At most
“some ministers, fewer newspapers, an occasional public figure, and
some proper public organizations” have spoken out affirmatively with
respect to the Court ruling.[514] The effectiveness of their efforts
has been even more limited than their number. Two of the most important
individuals who advocated compliance with the decision, Dean Chester
C. Travelstead of the University of South Carolina School of Education
and _Morning News_ Editor Jack H. O’Dowd, were both forced out of their
positions. Similarly, those clergymen who have accepted and have been
vocally articulate regarding the Court ruling have been subjected in
some instances to strong pressures. Several have been obliged to give
up their pastorates.
Extreme segregationists recognize that those Southerners who urge
acceptance of the decision are a greater potential threat than “outside
agitators.” Consequently they direct some of their sharpest attacks
against these Southern moderates. (The term moderate is used here to
designate those South Carolinians who accept the Court decision as
the law of the land and urge its implementation with varying degrees
of speed. They range from those who would begin the process of
integration at once to those who simply accept the decision but would
delay implementation.) James F. Byrnes, the state’s “elder statesman,”
disparaged the moderates as “‘appeasers’ comparable to the ‘scalawags’
of Reconstruction.” He fumed against those white Southerners who were
“so anxious for unity of a political party” that they would surrender
in the fight for continued segregation.[515]
The _News and Courier_, the principal newspaper critic of the
moderates, believed too many Southerners were inclined to “swallow
unwholesome and impractical poisons” dispensed by Northern liberals.
Editor Thomas R. Waring castigated those elements of the Southern
press which were lending “solace to the do-gooders.” Such “scalarags”
(_sic_), according to Waring, did “not represent the sentiments of the
vast majority of the Southern people” and their editors might “live
to regret their betrayal.” The _News and Courier_, indeed, did not
contend that “all editors should think” as it thought; nevertheless,
it said, there came “a time to be counted.” “Timid newspapers, showing
signs of brainwashing by do-gooders and eggheads,” were causing the
North to misjudge the temper of the South on the segregation question,
thus doing a disservice to the South as well as the North. In a none
too oblique attack on the moderates, the _News and Courier_ pointed
out that “in certain European countries during World War II, some
natives ‘collaborated’ with the enemy. They got better food rations.
Others resisted. Some of these were imprisoned. Some were tortured or
shot.”[516]
The sentiments of the _News and Courier_ were repeated throughout the
state. Dorothy Moore Guess of White Hall, a biology, history and Sunday
school teacher, had this advice for the moderates:
To all those who do not like American free enterprise and
dependence on the individual, I say go back to socialistic
England, Sweden, or to lands dominated by Russian
communism. To all those who do not like life in South
Carolina as native South Carolinians have shaped it, I
say, leave immediately for New York, Michigan, California,
Oregon or any other state that you believe to be an
improvement on South Carolina.
The Garden of Eden was a wonderful place as long as Adam
and Eve accepted it as it was. South Carolinians, and
Americans in general, should think well before they destroy
forever their own gardens of freedom.[517]
According to the _News and Courier_ the appeal of the moderates stemmed
from a misunderstanding and faulty definition of the term “moderate”
and the consequent gulf which existed between Northern and Southern
moderates. It recognized the existence of a “group of Southerners who
call themselves moderates.” This group believed that the decision was
the law of the land and that integration was inevitable and hence ought
to be accepted in good grace. Such persons were “mere echoes of the
Northern moderates” and represented only a small minority of “white
Southern opinion.” According to the Charleston paper’s understanding
of the term, a Southern moderate was one who believed that there was
no “valid law requiring states to mix the races in their schools” and
who thought the Supreme Court had exceeded its authority in declaring
segregation unconstitutional. The Southern moderate maintained that
integration wasn’t legal and that the South wouldn’t attempt it. “So
why don’t you meddlesome Yankees be reasonable men of good will and
let us alone,” he would ask. The _News and Courier_ included in the
category of Southern moderates not only itself but also “Southern
Legislatures which have passed interposition resolutions, ... senators
and representatives who recently signed the historic [anti-integration]
manifesto in Washington” and most members of the Citizens Councils. To
surrender to the integrationists was not moderation; it was “acceptance
of racial suicide” for the Southern white people.[518]
The organization in the state which concerns itself most prominently
with interracial understanding is the South Carolina Council on Human
Relations. It was affiliated with the Southern Regional Council, an
association dedicated to “equal opportunity for all peoples of the
South,” and has been financed in part by the Fund for the Republic.
The South Carolina Council has no specific solution to the segregation
issue but has expressed the conviction that the answer would “demand
the best thought and action from responsible leaders of both races.”
It maintains, however, that “the state must move in the direction
of compliance with the Supreme Court decision.” Sparkplug of the
organization is Mrs. Alice N. Spearman of Columbia, formerly executive
director of the South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs. The Rev.
J. Claude Evans, editor of the South Carolina Methodist _Christian
Advocate_, was the Council’s president until 1957 when he was succeeded
by Courtney Siceloff of Frogmore. The Council has fewer than a half
dozen local chapters throughout the state. The most active is at
Sumter. The Rock Hill chapter has been “stimulated” by a strongly
anti-segregationist Catholic priest, the Very Rev. Maurice Shean.
In Rock Hill the Council enjoyed a degree of official recognition
since former Mayor Emmette Jerome, now a member of the state House
of Representatives, was a member of the state board and appointed a
Mayor’s Committee on Human Relations.[519]
South Carolina had a few other similar but short-lived organizations.
In Anderson a Christian Council of Human Relations was established
in July, 1954. An interracial association, it adopted a declaration
of principles which asserted that the Supreme Court decision was
“in keeping with the highest traditions of American justice and
freedom.... [and was] consistent with the spirit and teaching of Jesus
of Nazareth.” The practical question confronting the state, according
to the Council, was “not whether the Court was socially wise or legally
correct in their judgment.” Rather the problem was how best to adjust
to the decision in such a way “that the majesty and force of the law
may be upheld and good will among men may be advanced.” Good faith
in implementing the decision would “relieve the conscience of many
white Christians who have long been uneasy and troubled by conflict
between the teaching of Jesus and the inequalities of our racial
situation.”[520]
Another such group is the South Carolina chapter of United Church
Women. This organization, which, in truth, has little influence, is
composed of women from most Protestant denominations. Mrs. James M.
Dabbs of Maysville is state president. In a letter to Governor Byrnes
shortly after the original desegregation decision, Mrs. Dabbs declared
that “enforced segregation had no place in Christian activity and
constituted a very real threat to our Democracy.”[521]
The position which these organizations have held in the state has not
been particularly enviable. Commented the Rev. J. Claude Evans: “I
think the solution is a long term process of human relations down the
moderate road. At the moment, the moderates are not very popular and
walk a razor’s edge.” The moderates, he observed, would have “to bide
their time” until “the legal aspects” of segregation were clarified and
“the social attitudes of the people jell.”[522]
The plight of those who urge moderation was further illustrated in the
summer of 1957 when five Protestant ministers from the Pee Dee section
of the state organized themselves into a group called “Concerned South
Carolinians.”[523] They were the Reverends John Lyles, Presbyterian of
Marion; John Morris, Episcopalian of Dillon; Joseph Horn, Episcopalian
of Florence; Larry Jackson, Methodist of Florence; and Ralph Cousins,
Episcopalian of Marion. The Concerned South Carolinians issued a
prospectus of their aims and objectives. They urged publication of
a booklet of articles written by prominent Carolinians pleading for
moderation in the race controversy--“a course between the excesses of
certain Citizens Councils, on the one hand, and extreme actions of the
NAACP [_sic_] on the other hand.”
We feel [declared the prospectus] that extreme positions
have dominated the picture in our state. Organized groups
are feeding the flames of racial hate. We believe, however,
that a large group of South Carolinians disagree with these
positions on the racial problem. We desperately need the
leadership of men and women who will debate the issues
rationally, who will counter the voices of extremism with
words of moderation, and who will have the humility and
courage to see a goal in the future toward which we in
South Carolina must be working gradually.
... It is imperative that persons in South Carolina who are
honored and respected in their several communities speak
words of calmness and moderation. This is the conviction
which has drawn us together as ministers of Christ and as
concerned citizens of South Carolina. We also believe that
you are such a leader as is now needed and that you may
share some of this concern.
The ministers continued by stating their basic beliefs and assumptions:
1. That God created all men in His own image and therefore
all races are equal in His sight.
2. That although there is no “superior” race certain
differences are to be recognized because of environment,
but these differences are not due to an inherent
inferiority.
3. That the public school system must be maintained for all
the people.
4. That any solution to the present dilemma must be sought
within the framework of Supreme Court decisions, which are
legally binding and morally valid.
5. That, nevertheless, cultural patterns cannot be changed
quickly and the reality of this cannot wisely be ignored in
seeking solutions.
6. That neither of the extreme pressures of the NAACP nor
the Citizens Councils offers the best direction for the
South.
7. That personal freedom of choice and association in
social relations must be maintained within the bounds of
a democratic society, even if desegregation becomes the
accepted procedure for tax supported institutions.
8. That all Southerners should explore the situation
thoughtfully in the light of Christian love and our
democratic heritage, believing that we can go forward
together even though slowly.
Sentiments such as these, of course, had little chance of winning
friends and influencing segregationists in South Carolina. Among those
receiving the prospectus was Governor Timmerman. Although specifically
asked not to make the contents of the prospectus public, the Governor
handed his copy to the press. He explained his action in the following
manner: “In the belief that it is of interest generally to the public,
I am making it [the prospectus] available for publication. All South
Carolinians, not just these self-appointed few, are ‘Concerned’ South
Carolinians.”
The Florence Citizens Council wasted little time in replying to the
“Concerned South Carolinians.” In a press release, it accused the
clergymen of organizing “under a cloak of secrecy” and boasted by way
of comparison that it was an “open” association. The Florence Council
maintained that the ministers misrepresented the facts in classifying
it as an “extremist” organization along with the NAACP. It challenged
the “Concerned South Carolinians” or any other group “to prove when
and where the Citizens Councils have acted contrary to law or in
extreme.”[524]
When the publication of the “Concerned South Carolinians” finally
came out in October, it had a brisk sale.[525] The very fact that it
appeared on newsstands throughout the state was in itself a victory for
its sponsors. Former Congressman James P. Richards praised publication
of the booklet as a “real contribution to freedom of expression.”[526]
Few South Carolina whites, however, saw fit to endorse the pamphlet and
from public officials, aside from Richards, there was a wall of dead
silence.
The booklet contained a dozen essays or statements ranging from the old
fashioned segregationist arguments of Columbia attorney, R. Beverley
Herbert, to the hard hitting integrationist editorials of Arthur Locke
King, another attorney, from Georgetown, and Andrew McDowd Secrest,
the outspoken editor and publisher of the weekly _Cheraw Chronicle_.
Anthony Harrigan, reviewing the booklet for the _News and Courier_,
found little of value in the collection of opinions save in the
case of Mr. Herbert’s essay. The other authors, he maintained, did
not represent the views of South Carolinians as were expressed at
elections.[527]
Among the contributors to the little volume was Mrs. Claudia Thomas
Sanders, wife of a Gaffney physician. Mrs. Sanders suggested that
desegregation could be accomplished in the public schools of the
state by starting with the first grades. “Children are not born with
prejudice,” wrote Mrs. Sanders. “If adults could only learn from
children their ability to judge character and worth without regard
for externals,” she continued, the desegregation process “would be
immeasurably lighter.”[528]
No one could accuse Mrs. Sanders of being one of those Northerners who
could never understand the “Southern way of life.” Born in Charleston,
the state’s “Holy City,” she can trace her ancestry back to the early
colonial period. Moreover, she is a leading Episcopal churchwoman and
is engaged in such eminently socially acceptable activities as the
American Association of University Women, the Home and Garden Club,
the Gaffney Hospital Auxiliary and the Cherokee County Public Library
Board.[529]
But Mrs. Sanders had not counted on possible retaliatory action on
the part of white supremacy bedsheet brigadiers who haunt the upper
part of the state. On the night of November 19th an explosion rocked
the Sanders house tearing a gaping hole near the chimney, breaking
six windows, and cracking a wall in the living room. Dr. and Mrs.
Sanders and their house guests, Mr. and Mrs. Carl B. McLaughlin of
Louisville, Kentucky, were in another part of the house at the time of
the explosion and escaped injury.[530]
Police officials investigating the explosion discovered that this was
the third attempt to dynamite the Sanders home, two other efforts
having failed because of the bungling of the perpetrators. Moreover,
within three weeks the State Law Enforcement Division had arrested
five men in connection with the bombing. With all due respect to the
extremely efficient SLED, it required neither a Sherlock Holmes nor a
Dick Tracy to track down the culprits, for the trail led directly to a
Ku Klux Klan group operating in the area. The five men arrested were
factory workers and mill hands. Their ages ranged from twenty-four to
thirty-five.[531]
“Respectable” South Carolinians were appropriately shocked by the
Gaffney episode and newspaper editorials uniformly called for the
arrest of the culprits and later expressed satisfaction when they were
apprehended. Yet few if any of the public officials in the state, who
were so vocal on the Little Rock “oppression,” saw fit to comment on
the bombing, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the Reverend John
B. Morris of Dillon, one of the clergymen who helped prepare the
“Concerned South Carolinians” booklet. In a letter to papers throughout
the state the Reverend Morris, who opposes immediate integration in the
public schools of the deep South, wrote: “When big men in public office
have hitherto talked loosely on the race issue, very little men have
been incited to plan acts of violence. The big men deplore the violence
and realize it only hurts their cause, but until they use their
influence before the violence occurs, they bear some responsibility
for it. When the emotions of simple folk are stirred by emotional talk
from public figures, they come to feel that they must take the law
into their own hands. Let segregationist politicians realize they can
maintain their position calmly and with reason. Otherwise incendiary
talk will prompt incendiary action.”[532]
The arrest of the five men in no sense chastened them or made them
realize the enormity of their act. Nor did the Klan seek to cover its
tracks in the affair. On the contrary, the local Klansmen held a rally
at Blacksburg to collect funds to defray the cost of the legal defense
of the accused, two of whom, Luther E. Boyette and Robert P. Martin,
openly boasted of their affiliation with the nightshirt brigade.
Present at the rally, attended by 20 robed Klansmen and approximately
250 onlookers, was the grand dragon of the South Carolina Independent
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. “We do not wish Mrs. James H. Sanders any
harm,” he told the crowd. “If we could, we would send her back [sic] to
Africa so she would be with her Negro friends.” The Independent Klan
would back the accused “all the way,” he asserted. “They have already
proved their innocence so far as I am concerned, and of course the
first consideration was in proving it to the Klan.”[533]
James McBride Dabbs, whose wife is president of the state United Church
Women, has also been prominent in the activities of interracial groups.
He is president of the Southern Regional Council. Immediately after the
original decision, Dabbs, a one time college professor, urged South
Carolinians to “proceed now to implement this ruling with whatever
skill and wisdom we have.” He considered segregation “nonsense” and
believed that under desegregation “Negroes would still associate almost
entirely with Negroes, white people with white people.” The row over
desegregation, he maintained, was a tempest in a teapot. It is time
“for the white man to realize that he is just a human being; he’s been
playing God so long,” declared this modern Old Testament prophet. “The
majority of white South Carolinians today are waging a fight which they
will lose as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, and about which,
when they have lost it, they will wonder why they fought so hard to
stave off so small a change.”[534]
The Rev. G. Jackson Stafford, who was pastor of the First Baptist
Church of Batesburg until his resignation was forced, typifies in a
very real sense those clergymen who opposed segregation. He believed
that the Court decision was “in keeping with the constitutional
guarantee of equal freedom to all citizens, and ... in harmony with
the Christian principles of equal justice and love for all men.” But
he also realized that “the people of the South need time to become
adjusted to the changing social and political climate with regard to
race relations.” Racial tensions, he believed, would be greatly reduced
if the politicians would cease their efforts to make a political
football out of the problems involved in improving race relations.[535]
Occasionally other South Carolinians publicly expressed support for
integration. John Bolt Culbertson, a Greenville attorney who had
“been interested in liberal causes and in the labor movement” since
his student days at the University of South Carolina, was a strong
supporter of the NAACP. He considered the denial of “the fundamentals
of democratic government” to Negroes a “mockery” of democracy. In
a similar vein D. M. Harrelson of Gresham protested “as a Southern
white man” against the “Nazi-Ku Klux Klan climate” fostered in
the South by “demagogic politicians, citizens committees, [and]
a Metropolitan press.” This agitation, he felt, appealed “to the
ignorant, unthinking, whose minds are filled with native prejudice.”
E. M. Martin of Charleston, too, was critical of segregation. “Any
institution supported by public funds ought to be for all citizens
excluding none,” he thought. Segregated school systems were “contrary
to the Constitution of the United States.” Another Charlestonian, W.
Ernest Douglas, believed that “most white people have such a terrific
mental block concerning segregation that, in this matter at least, they
forfeit their right to be called rational animals. They become simple
animals moving in whatever direction their herders prod them.”[536]
The influence of the segregation issue on freedom of thought in South
Carolina was illustrated by the nationally publicized Travelstead
affair.[537] Dr. Chester C. Travelstead, a native of Kentucky, was
appointed Dean of the School of Education of the University of South
Carolina in 1953. According to Dr. Travelstead, he made known to
University President Donald S. Russell his views on segregation before
his appointment. With the developing resistance to integration in
the period following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Travelstead became
“distressed to observe that only one side of this whole issue was being
presented to the public.” He believed that segregation deprived the
Negro of his “right to first class citizenship.” Even more important,
he felt that South Carolina was “fast developing an autocratic police
state.” In the late spring of 1955, he decided to speak his piece.
In April Governor George Bell Timmerman Jr. had addressed the South
Carolina Education Association and strongly condemned attempts at
integration. Shortly thereafter Travelstead wrote a long and, on the
face of it, imprudent letter to the Governor:
You said in your speech, Governor, that “the opinion
of the Supreme Court of the United States in the
school-segregation cases upholds for the first time
in judicial history that equality of treatment is
discriminatory.” It is my considered opinion, Governor,
that it was not the intent of the Court to say that
“equality of treament is discriminatory.” Rather did
it say in effect that segregation is in and of itself
discriminatory....
You have said, Governor, that the recommendation [to
the General Assembly of South Carolina] to abolish the
[state’s] Compulsory Attendance Law “has not weakened
ourselves in this respect.” Apparently, Governor, it is
the firm belief of most educators and leaders in state
and national government that compulsory school attendance
at public or private schools has been the backbone of our
democracy.
You have attacked, Governor, the integrationist and have
said that he is “seeking to abolish parental rights in
education....” It is without evidence to say that those who
in 1955, for moral, civic, and legal reasons believed that
segregation is outmoded and should therefore be abolished
are men of “little character” attempting, as you say, “to
lynch the character of a fourth of our nation.” It is my
opinion, Governor, that many men of great stature are
sincerely convinced that the Supreme Court’s ruling was
both timely and sound....
You have said: “No precedent, no parallel, can be found
for compulsory integration. It is new. It is novel. It is
contrary to the divine order of things. Only an evil mind
can conceive it. Only a foolish mind can accept it.”
It seems to me that there are many parallels and
precedents....
... Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia do have
school systems in which the races are integrated. The other
17 states, now practicing segregation of the races in their
schools, still practice compulsory integration within each
race by requiring that boys and girls of widely different
socio-economic and cultural backgrounds go to the same
schools in spite of these differences.
It is my opinion, therefore, that the phrases, “evil mind”
and “foolish mind,” quoted above, have been ill used and
are without foundation.
On May 31 President Russell, while not advising Travelstead to desist
from writing such letters, cautioned him that “such controversial
matters make politicians mad.” Despite the argumentative letter to the
Governor, Travelstead was notified on July 28 of his reappointment as
education dean for the 1955-56 school year with a substantial salary
increase.
On August 2 Travelstead again attacked segregation. In a speech before
the student body of the summer school, he declared:
As I study the Judaic-Christian concept prevalent
in Western Civilization; as I examine the bases of
our own government--the Bill of Rights and all other
pronouncements of our forefathers--I find nothing
which requires, justifies, or even allows a notion
of second class citizenship for any group. I find
no conclusive evidence that one group of men is
foreordained to be superior or inferior to other
groups of men. I find that this notion of race and
national superiority came to ruinous end in Nazi
Germany. For races or nations of men to think and act
upon the assumption that all other groups are inferior
is to invite disaster and downfall.... The fact that
we have practiced segregation on the assumption that
it was right and just, does not _make_ it right and
just.
Three days later President Russell told Travelstead that he had
received complaints concerning the speech. (It is generally presumed
that these came from the Governor’s office). Two weeks later, August
19, Travelstead received notification of his dismissal as Dean. “The
executive committee of the board of trustees,” it said, “is of the
opinion that it is not in the best interest of the university to renew
your appointment as Dean of the School of Education.” At a hearing
before the executive committee which Travelstead requested, the
committee allegedly told him that persons employed by the university
should not engage in discussion of controversial issues. In response to
Travelstead’s request that the committee issue a statement with respect
to its policy concerning academic freedom and free discussion by
university employes, the committee refused. According to Travelstead,
the committee replied that “a person should have enough common
sense to know what he should and should not discuss--without any
clear-cut policy about such matters.” Following his dismissal as Dean,
Travelstead received an appointment as Education Dean at the University
of New Mexico.
Reaction of the student body of the university to Travelstead’s
dismissal was varied.[538] The _Gamecock_, the student newspaper,
and most of its columnists strongly condemned the action. So did a
majority of those students who expressed their opinion in letters to
the _Gamecock_ editor. However at least one columnist and a number
of the letters to the editor supported the dismissal. Editor Carolyn
McClung considered the dismissal “a hard and definite blow to the
University.” If University officials took upon themselves to squelch
persons with unpopular ideas, it was “no place for students with
intellectual curiosity.” Similarly, columnist Herbert Bryant believed
that “the University’s escutcheon” bore a deep scar as a result of the
trustees’ apparent “ban on freedom of academic thought and expression
at the University.” Jack Bass, another columnist, considered the action
“rash and shortsighted.” He believed that “at least 90 percent” of
the University faculty agreed with the sentiments expressed by Dr.
Travelstead; hence, the Dean was fired not for having an opinion but
for expressing it openly.
On the other hand, columnist Billy Mellette supported the removal
of Travelstead: “People who work for any university or college know
they must be careful, or they should know it. You say the policy is
not written, and how then are you expected to know what to say?--You
use your damned head, that’s how you know. The school doesn’t go
around sneaking up on people and trying to find people to fire.... If
he [Travelstead] did not know to be quiet--as head of the education
department of all positions--then he has now learned.... The University
did not invade the castle of free thought. It was challenged and forced
to commit itself.”
In a similar vein Fred LeClerq respected Travelstead’s “right as an
individual to believe in integration,” but he did not think that he
should “occupy a position through which he could mold the opinions
of prospective teachers of a state where race purity and segregation
are essential to the well-being of its citizens.” LeClerq believed
“integration to be as diametrically opposed to the welfare of this
state as communism is to the welfare of the nation.” For this reason he
thought the ouster both “justifiable and commendable.”
Supporters of segregation generally upheld the board of trustees. The
_News and Courier_ pointed out that the issue of academic freedom had
two sides--“the freedom of a professor to speak his mind” and “the
freedom of a university to choose the lines of education it wishes
to follow.” Since Travelstead was out of line with both university
policy and the desires of the people of South Carolina, his usefulness
as a teacher was over. “He easily can exercise his academic freedom
elsewhere,” concluded the Charleston paper.[539]
On the other hand, the _Morning News_ was critical. Editor O’Dowd
stated that if the university were “to teach conformity in all
schools of thought” it would no longer be a university. It would
then be “a machine for making mimeographed mentalities.... If the
University of South Carolina rejects a valuable educator because he
has one unpopular idea, then our university is not a place for hungry
minds.”[540]
A second notable example of this urge to conformity was the case of
Jack H. O’Dowd himself. The nephew of _Morning News_ publisher John
M. O’Dowd, he almost alone amongst South Carolina news editors had
attempted to steer a middle course in the segregation controversy. His
difficulties were testimony to the fate of an honest and courageous
dissenter. A native of Florence and a graduate of the Citadel, O’Dowd
termed himself not a pro-integrationist but an anti-pro-segregationist.
Under O’Dowd’s editorship the _Morning News_, as already has been
noted, opposed all attempts to destroy the “social necessity” of
segregation by court order. If segregation were to be eliminated,
it had to be done “by the consent of the people and as a result of
an evolutionary process.” Segregation was incorrectly defended on
the grounds of states rights and constitutionalism. Such arguments
indicated to the rest of the world that American democracy meant that
“all men are equal but some are less equal than others.”
The Florence editor accepted the decision as the law of the land and
urged his readers to do likewise. Since segregation was illegal, it was
only a matter of time before it would be a thing of the past. Public
schools would have to be desegregated. Those who were thinking in
terms of continued segregation under a system of voluntary separation
were engaging in “self-delusion and false hope.” “Within too short
a period of time,” segregation would be “a legal memory” in the
South. Desegregation was not a problem to be considered “in some hazy
tomorrow”; it had to be confronted immediately. A policy of adopting
expedients, which could at best provide only temporary segregation,
would not change the final picture but it would make it more painful
and expensive. There had to be a maximum price beyond which the South
would be unwilling to go to preserve segregation temporarily.
During the period of adjustment to changes wrought by the Court
decision, the greatest danger confronting South Carolina, warned
O’Dowd, was “the growth of a new era of demagoguery.” Such would
allow “the great racial issue to get out of perspective and past
the point of sane solution.” Too many segregationists were already
“advocating something akin to secession.” O’Dowd insisted that there
was a difference between “honest opposition to the Court’s decree and
demagogic reaction that borders on sedition and violates the respect
and honor implicit in the theories of our national government.”[541]
In early 1956 O’Dowd made what were to be his last clarion calls to
common sense and level-headed thinking on the segregation issue.
On February 26 he appealed for a policy of “militant moderation” to
counter the extremists. The latter were carrying the day. Extremists,
crying “traitor,” “coward” or “brainwashed,” discredited all
attempts at moderation. Casting a plague on the houses of both white
supremacists and the NAACP, O’Dowd believed that most South Carolinians
must know “that truth and proper action lies between the sentiments”
of these groups. The only true solution was for the moderates to step
forth and lead the way.[542]
O’Dowd’s plea went unheeded. Instead, the _Morning News_ became more
and more the object of extremist wrath. The young editor received a
threatening telephone call from a man who identified himself as “the
Klan.” Attempts were made to force off the road both his car and that
of assistant sports editor L. B. Ballard. The latter, who was also a
Baptist minister, had the rear tires of his car slashed. City editor
Charles Moore was “punched” and chased from a Klan meeting which he was
covering for the paper. In February 1956 the _Morning News_, for the
first time in several years, experienced a drop in circulation. Reader
complaints mounted. The Florence County Democratic convention denounced
the _Morning News_ as a “carpetbagger press.” O’Dowd, nominated as a
candidate for delegate to the state Democratic convention, ran 45th in
a field of 45.[543]
On March 11 in a lengthy editorial, O’Dowd announced his “retreat from
reason.” Because of pressure from white supremacists and silence from
the moderates, the _Morning News_ would no longer discuss segregation
in its editorial columns:
In order for a newspaper to maintain its proper position
of influence for good, its editorial policy must meet with
good will and its position must be accepted as expressions
of good faith.
Such has not been the case with this newspaper’s
expressions of opinion in the field of segregation. It
is now possible that the lack of support gained for this
position could lessen the paper’s effectiveness in other
fields of thought and action.
To avoid this possibility, the _Morning News_ must make a
retreat from reason. It has become obvious that to maintain
effectiveness in other important areas of thought, this
newspaper must abdicate its position in the segregation
controversy....
Our editorials have never advocated integration. Our
editorials have opposed NAACP extremism as militantly as
they have opposed absolutism on the other side of the
equation....
Men seeking the fair solution have not, in two years, come
forward. They do not exist or they have been unwilling to
face the scorn and abuse of those in the extreme fringes of
both groups.
Only the few extremists have spoken; and their voice has
been accepted as that of the majority. Moderation has been
intimidated by hatred, and men of calm, good will have
decided that the fight is not their concern.... Today’s
South is becoming dominated by those unable or unwilling to
accept the good sense or even good faith of a conflicting
or modifying idea.
... By and large, our appeal to reason has brought
expressions of hatred, bigotry, unreason and filth.
Our plea for moderation has been greeted with threats,
lies, rumor and lack of good will. Our honest efforts to
present the news--as it happens--have met with charges of
distortion and collusion and with words of malice. Those
who know better have not seen fit to consider this fight
their concern....
Most of those who would be heard in this matter are
evidently unwilling to hear thoughts of hope and peace.
Editorials that do not speak sedition, bigotry, white
supremacy and incitation to legislative folly and physical
violence are not accepted as “honest” or “courageous.”[544]
Reaction varied to O’Dowd’s “retreat,” or more accurately his admission
of defeat. A number of letters to the editor expressed sympathy with
his moderation policy; others were highly critical. _Time_ magazine,
in an article favorable to O’Dowd, brought to national attention the
plight of the _Morning News_ and its editor. Praise by a magazine
such as _Time_, of course, merely increased the condemnation of white
supremacists. Joe B. Powell of Florence, for example, said he “sure
would hate to be on the side of TIME or any other lousy YANKEE magazine
or newspaper” while living in the South among his “southern white
friends.” Florentines, he said, were “sick and fed up” with O’Dowd’s
ideas on segregation. In line with the advice of Dorothy Moore Guess to
unhappy Southerners, he suggested that O’Dowd “move to the North” where
he would feel at home.[545] The _News and Courier_ considered the whole
affair “a grandstand play” to enable O’Dowd to reap “publicity as an
integrationist advocate.”[546]
O’Dowd remained as editor of the _Morning News_ until August 3 when
he accepted a position on the news and editorial staff of the Chicago
_Sun-Times_. The announcement of his resignation contained no mention
of the segregation controversy. In the summer of 1957 he was appointed
Dean of Students of the University of Chicago’s university college.
In incidents such as these white South Carolina demonstrated its
opposition to those few white dissenters who would accept integration
or who would admit that there is an element of right on the side of
those who oppose the racial _status quo_.