Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—AUGUST I960—PAGE 5
jjj ARKANSAS
:: Faubus Is Swept To Unprecedented Fourth Term
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
G ov. Orvai, E. Faubus crushed
four opponents in the first
Democratic primary for governor
on July 27, becoming the first
man in the state’s history to ask
for or to win a fourth term.
His opponents had based their
campaigns principally on criticism
of his policy in the Little Rock
school crisis and subsequent
school desegregation matters.
(See “Political Activity.”)
The fifth explosion within 10
months awoke Little Rock at 2: 30
a.m. July 12 when it ripped the
side of a warehouse owned by the
Little Rock School District. Two
hours before that, the FBI an
nounced, agents had caught two
east Arkansas white men in the
act of lighting a home-made bomb
beneath the steps of a Negro
Methodist college at Little Rock.
A third white man was arrested
at his home in east Arkansas.
The authorities haven’t said whether
there was any connection between the
warehouse explosion and the arrests at
the college. The arrests are the first
under the 1960 Civil Rights Act. (See
“Community Action.”)
After a study of proposed Constitu
tional Amendment 52, the Arkansas
League of Women Voters came out
against it on the ground that if it were
adopted and a school district closed its
schools, it could not distribute to its
pupils enough money for them to get
an education in other schools. (See
“Community Action.”)
juUi'.
Gov. Orvai E. Faubus swept to a
fourth-term nomination as governor in
the Democratic Primary July 27,
crushing four opponents. With the re
turns nearly complete, Faubus appar
ently had carried 74 of the 75 coun-
ties. The unofficial totals with 2,245 of
the 2,353 boxes in the state reported
the Associated Press were:
edi 0rv al E. Faubus 228,352
Joe C. Hardin 63,219
Bruce Bennett 56,070
| H. E. Williams 29,115
Hal Millsap Jr 11,709
"■ In two other races based wholly or
ha 1 m P ar t on attitudes toward school de-
ea: se S r egation, U. S. Rep. Dale Alford was
>n nominated for a second term over State
>gi aen - Robert Hays Williams of Russell-
| v ille. With 80 per cent of the boxes
se: Runted, the Associated Press gave Al
ii otc * 24,200 in the six counties of the
district and Williams 19,717.
^ p ^ or state attorney general, J. Frank
Holt of Little Rock swamped Amis
® „ ut bndge of Little Rock, long-time
“ **ns Council leader. With all but
boxes counted, Holt had 216,363
r and Guthridge, 83,275, according to the
s Associated Press.
e attack FAUBUS
i be campaign itself developed into
l |\, c °o ce rted attack on Faubus, despite
we platform planks about taxes, in-
'i development, population loss,
t f e “ are payments, and car license
0 p^ s ' k was Faubus’s role in the Little
... , school crisis that received the
attack.
" fJri , that, his four opponents, all seg-
/alationists, were unanimous in claim-
Littl n 4 be had unfairly damaged
no( . e R°ck and Arkansas and still had
Ro .bcevented desegregation of Little
ham schools. One of them, Wil-
tuall obarged that Faubus had ac-
Rj , y Plotted the entire 1957 Central
aid m °b action at a meeting with 17
111 the governor’s office.
S p. .„ era lly the candidates were not so
a j m c with their criticism. It was
state n ?? st b’ at the atmosphere in the
ated ’ jich they said Faubus had cre-
e ncou and nur tured and which they said
exm • " ed anc l condoned mob actions,
Plosions and violence.
L ^T chance
e leet! larns u sed the approach that this
bansa° U W3S Ihe last chance for Ar-
opi n „ ^oters to get rid of the envel-
^aubus aU ' ius “dictatorship,” that if
b°pe f WOn a S a i n > there would be no
t° Cot ^ getting rid of him for years
as a C1 ? ” arc ' In spoke of his campaign
a cour Usade to get Arkansas back on
Pett J;v,° f , reason an d progress. Ben-
turnioj] 1 state had had enough
’ that the Faubus “trouble-
GOV. ORVAL FAUBUS
Wins Fourth Term
makers” had to go and occasionally
mentioned that as governor he “would
not put up with any integration.” Mill-
sap said Faubus didn’t have the cour
age to fight desegregation legally, that
instead he incited mobs to march on
the school children.
Bennett, the long-time battler with
the National Assn, for the Advance
ment of Colored People in the courts,
studiously avoided soliciting Negro
votes or shaking the hands of Negro
voters. Williams and Hardin solicited
them. Millsap seemed indifferent.
Faubus campaigned very much as he
had in 1958. He spent most of each
campaign speech detailing a long list
of accomplishments by his administra
tions, then finally he would get around
to his opponents. What would they
have done at Central High? he asked.
He was scornful of the other four,
taunting them to tell exactly what they
would have done or were going to do
about the school situation. He said his
real opponents were “the little inte-
grationist clique,” at Little Rock. The
choice before the voters, he said, was
Faubus or a puppet controlled by the
Little Rock “integrationists.”
Negro political leaders were quiet.
At Negro rallies the speakers gener
ally said, “I’m not going to tell you
one candidate to vote for—I’m just
going to tell you one candidate to vote
against.”
REMARKS RESENTED
During his campaign over the state
Gov. Faubus most of the time used a
set speech, which included a refer
ence to Mrs. David D. Terry of Little
Rock.
Faubus mentioned her the first time
on July 11 and thereafter in every
speech. He said she believed in forced
school integration and racial inter
marriage and that she was one of the
organizers of the Women’s Emergency
Committee for Public Schools.
“She’s the strongest integrationist
you ever saw,” Faubus said.
He justified bringing her name into
the campaign by saying that one of his
opponents, Joe C. Hardin, had held a
meeting in her home on the first day
of Hardin’s campaign.
Mrs. Terry, a native of Little Rock
and the wife of a former congressman,
has been a leader in school and civic
affairs for half a century. After the
governor’s remarks, the Vassar Alum
nae Club of Arkansas first came to
Mrs. Terry’s defense and the president
of Vassar sent a telegram stating,
“Vassar College thinks of Mrs. David
Terry as one of its most illustrious
alumnae.” Then 62 friends of Mrs.
Terry got together and issued indi
vidual statements defending and
praising her with terms such as “rare
and distinguished lady,” “noble,” “one
of our great women” and “a true
southern lady.”
Mrs. Terry also said she did not be
lieve in forced integration and had
never advocated intermarriage. The
Women’s Emergency Committee, which
was organized by Mrs. Terry and
others in September 1958 to try to
keep Faubus from closing the Little
Rock high schools, repeated that its
goal was neither segregation nor in
tegration but simply to keep the
schools open.
MAIN ISSUES
In the race between Rep. Dale Al
ford (D-Ark) and State Sen. Robert
Hays Williams of Russellville, for the
Fifth District congressional seat, the
main issues were party loyalty and
Alford’s voting record in Congress,
both put forward by Williams. Loyalty
was in it because Alford defeated the
Democratic nominee, Brooks Hays,
with a write-in campaign in 1958.
Williams said Alford had missed 42
per cent of the roll call votes in the
House.
In the state attorney general’s race,
Amis Guthridge, counsel for the Cap
ital Citizens Council of Little Rock,
said his opponent, Prosecuting Attor
ney J. Frank Holt of Little Rock, was
a captive of the Little Rock “integra
tionists” and had rigged a jury to con
vict A. E. Lauderdale Sr., Capital Cit
izens Council officer, of the 1959 Labor
Day dynamiting at Little Rock. Holt
said Guthridge was a “crackpot” and
didn’t have the legal knowledge or
training to handle the office of attor
ney general.
In Pulaski County (Little Rock),
state legislative candidates made a fet
ish this summer of being “for public
education.” This was brought on by
community attitudes toward some of
the bills in the 1958 special and 1959
regular General Assemblies, especially
the defeated bill by Rep. T. E. Tyler of
Little Rock to let Gov. Faubus appoint
three extra members to the Little Rock
School Board, in March 1959.
Henry M. Britt, Hot Springs attor
ney and Republican candidate for gov
ernor, announced his opposition to
proposed Amendment 52, which would
allow a school district to abolish its
schools. He said desegregation prob
lems should be solved by the local
people involved without interference
from the governor or other state offi
cials.
At 12:30 a.m. Tuesday July 12, FBI
agents arrested two white men at an
automobile parked in front of a class
room building at Philander Smith
College in Little Rock, just as one of
the men walked up to the car from the
building. Beneath the steps of the
building the FBI agents found a home
made black box containing “more than
30” sticks of dynamite with a fuse that
lay across the base of a 15-inch can
dle, which had just been lighted. At
about the same time other FBI agents
were arresting a third white man at
his home in east Arkansas.
Two hours later an explosion ripped
the side paneling from a warehouse
owned by the Little Rock School Dis
trict and located in a Negro residen
tial district 12 blocks from the college.
At 4 a.m. FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover announced the three arrests
from Washington. It was “a sinister
plot,” he said, and the arrests were the
first made under the 1960 Civil Rights
Act, which became effective May 6.
Also the arrests were made under the
“Little Rock section” of that law, which
was inspired by the 1959 Labor Day
dynamitings at Little Rock.
NOT EXPLAINED
Whether there was any connection
between the explosion at the school
warehouse and the attempted explo
sion at the college has not been ex
plained by the FBI or local police.
The suspects are Emmett E. Miller,
44, an accountant, of West Memphis;
Robert Lloyd Parks, 38, manager of an
auto junk yard, of West Memphis; and
Hugh Lynn Adams, 38, maintenance
supervisor at an Osceola finishing
plant, of Bassett, about 40 miles north
of West Memphis. West Memphis is 130
miles east of Little Rock.
They are charged with the inter
state transportation of an explosive
with the intention of using it to de
stroy property used for educational,
religious or charitable purposes. The
FBI statement said that FBI agents had
seen Miller and Adams drive from
West Memphis to Memphis, just across
the Mississippi River, on July 8, pick
up “a large quantity of explosives,” re
turn to West Memphis and deliver the
explosives to Parks. The Arkansas-
Tennessee line runs down the river
between the two cities.
LEGAL COMPLAINT
In the legal complaint filed with the
U.S. commissioner at Little Rock, the
FBI also said that its agents were
watching on July 11, when Miller and
Parks brought the explosives to Little
Rock. From this it was evident that
the FBI had had the three men under
surveillance for at least four straight
days. In that case how could these
three have planted the explosive at
the school district warehouse? The
FBI would not comment on that.
The “more than 30” sticks of dyna
mite—the FBI wouldn’t say exactly
how many were in the box—would
have obliterated the old four-story
brick college building, local construc
tion people said. The building, Bud-
long Hall, is a former dormitory now
used for classes and is not occupied at
night.
Philander Smith is a Methodist col
lege for Negroes. (Three days after
the arrests, the college president, Dr.
M. LaFayette Harris, 53, was elected a
bishop of the Central Jurisdictional
Conference [Negro] of the Methodist
Church.) Some Philander Smith stu
dents were arrested during April for
participating in the lunch counter sit-
in demonstrations at Little Rock.
‘NOT GUILTY’
Miller told a reporter: “I’m not
guilty under that federal charge. I
didn’t cross any state line.” He called
it “a trumped up charge.” Through his
attorney Adams said he had not trans
ported any explosives and was not in
volved in any way with the attempted
explosion at the college. He was at
home in bed when the FBI agents
came to arrest him. All three men are
free under $20,000 bonds. The U. S. at
torney said they would be tried at the
October term of federal court.
Miller was one of the organizers of
the White Citizens Council at West
Memphis three years ago. In 1958 he
was the local campaign manager for
Jim Johnson, a Citizens Council lead
er who was elected to the State Su
preme Court that summer. Johnson
confirmed this and angrily admitted
that he and his family had spent Sat
urday night at the Miller home, two
days before the arrests at Little Rock.
OPPOSES AMENDMENT
The League of Women Voters of
Arkansas has taken a stand against
proposed Constitutional Amendment
52, which will go before the voters in
November.
Sponsored through the 1959 General
Assembly by Gov. Faubus, the amend
ment among other things would abol
ish the constitutional provision guar
anteeing a system of free public schools
and would allow individual school dis
tricts to abandon their public schools.
If a school district did abolish its
schools under the amendment, it would
be required to meet certain of its ob
ligations—such as bond payments,
teacher contracts, insurance, building
maintenance—and then all the re
maining money would be distributed
equally among the pupils in the dis
trict.
The Voters League made a study of
how the amendment, if adopted, might
apply to Little Rock. If Little Rock
closed its schools, the League said, the
district would be able to give each stu
dent $32.31 a year, if the school-clos
ing took place after teacher contracts
for the year had been signed. If there
were no teacher contracts to be met,
the League said, the district could give
each student $193 a year.
By comparison, it said that T. J.
Raney High School, operated for one
year by the Little Rock Private School
Corporation, spent $40 a month or
$360 a year on its students. For pri
vate schools to educate the 22,900
Little Rock pupils at the level of Ra
ney High, the League said, they would
have to get as much as $7,500,000 a
year in public donations.
An honor student who was gradu
ated in May from Central High School
was fined $200 in Little Rock Munici
pal Court July 14 for having used foul
language toward two policemen who
had stopped him and charged him with
running a stop sign. Next day the boy’s
father, John R. Tate, blamed this in
stance of his son’s behavior on “the
disrespect for law as shown by mob
violence” at Central High School in
1957 and 1959.
His son took no part in those dis
turbances, he said, “but under pres
sure I think he reacted according to
the pattern he had seen at Central.”
Tate said he had seen similar changes
of attitude in one or two other Cen
tral High students.
FIFTH APPLICATION
A fifth person has applied to the
Little Rock Chamber of Commerce for
part of the $25,000 reward offered by
the Chamber in connection with the
1959 Labor Day dynamitings at Little
Rock.
She is Mrs. J. C. Crawley, operator
of a cafe, who testified at the trials of
two of the five defendants that she had
seen three of the five men together in
a car at her place at a crucial time.
Four other witnesses had applied pre
viously.
The Chamber has a committee to
investigate the applications.
EXPLOSIVES FOUND UNDER STEPS (LEFT) OF NEGRO COLLEGE
FBI Agents Arrest Two Whites at Philander Smith Campus
Although Arkansas lost about seven
per cent of its population from 1950 to
1960, the state school census continues
to show an increase, the State Educa
tion Department reported. The school
census is taken in the spring of even-
numbered years and includes all per
sons of school age, six through 17
years.
The 1960 state school census is 435,-
933, State Education Commissioner
Arch W. Ford reported, an increase of
3,766 over 1958. Most of the increase is
in Negro pupils.
School census figures for recent years
are:
Year White Negro Total
1956 320,113 106,656 426,769
1958 322,504 109,663 432,167
1960 323,058 112,875 435,933
The Little Rock school board com
pleted its hearings with students who
had asked for reassignment to other
schools for the 1960-61 school year and
said it would announce its decisions
about Aug. 1.
Seventy-four Negro students and 102
whites had asked for reassignment.
About half of each group failed to ap
pear for their scheduled hearings.
LEGAL ACTION
Both Herbert Odell Monts, 17, and
Maceo Antonio Binns Jr., 30, Little
Rock Negroes, received permission to
appeal to the State Supreme Court
from their convictions in Pulaski
County Circuit Court for dynamiting
the home of a Negro student last Feb
ruary.
In Circuit Court both were sen
tenced to five years and Binns also
was fined $500 after trials by all-white
juries.
Eight more Negro students from
Philander Smith College at Little Rock,
convicted in Circuit Court for their
part in the sit-in demonstrations dur
ing April, received permission to ap
peal to the State Supreme Court.
This makes 13 convicted and all 13
have filed notice of appeal. # # #