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The federal grand jury at Little Rock completed its investigation of the Al ford-Hays congressional election but re turned no indictment. A few days later a House subcommittee arrived to carry on its own investigation, started at Washington. While the grand jury indicted no one, it said nothing to affirm or deny the charges of irregularities in the election, made by John F. Wells of Little Rock, which were the basis of the investiga tion. These were that an Alford cam paign circular was used without a sig nature, a violation of law, and that in at least six polling places in Pulaski Coun ty, the election officials counted more votes than they had voters. WASHINGTON HEARING At almost the same time a House Elections Subcommittee headed by Rep. Robert T. Ashmore (D-SC) held two days of public hearings at Washington with Rep. Dale Alford (D-Ark), Brooks Hays, the man Alford defeated, and Wells as witnesses. Hays, though not contesting Alford’s election, insisted that the investigation involved an important principle, “the preservation of honest elections.” Representing Alford, Claude Carpenter Jr. cross-examined Hays—as it happened, on the day after Carpenter and others had testified about the un signed Alford circular before the Grand Jury—and at one point Carpenter asked, “Did you put that circular into circu lation, Mr. Hays?” The former congress man was indignant at the question. He described the picture on the circular as disgusting, sinister and shocking. The picture showed Hays, then president of the Southern Baptist Convention, seat ed between two Negro ministers at a Negro Baptist meeting at Chicago. Al ford denied having any knowledge of the unsigned circular and repeated that he did not want to serve in Congress unless he had been properly elected. BALLOTS SCANNED Four members of the subcommittee went to Little Rock June 21 to start checking the 60,222 ballots cast in the election, won by Alford, 30,739 to 29,483, after a nine-day write-in campaign in which Alford, supported by Gov. Fau bus, campaigned against the Supreme Court and its desegregation decisions and attacked Hays for his moderate po sition. A few days after the Little Rock School Board recall election in which Gov. Faubus campaigned for three board members who were recalled, Faubus gave his view of the outcome. He did not see it as a hands-off notice to him from Little Rock voters; he could not see any shift in sentiment to ward the basic desegregation issue; his position on forced integration was un changed and only time and events would tell whether the election was a political setback for him. COMMUNITY ACTION The Little Rock Private School Corp. announced that it would charge tuition of $15 a month at T. J. Raney High School next year. It did not charge any tuition this year. Raney High with 827 students is the largest of the private schools formed last fall after Gov. Faubus closed the four public high schools at Little Rock. It operated on donations, solicited with the help of Faubus, and about $78,000 in state aid. With Faubus as commencement speaker, it graduated 190 seniors at the end of June. The governor said they had played a historic role in the history of education and that the name of their school might become as significant to Americans as those of Valley Forge, Gettysburg and Omaha Beach. The Anthony School, a private kin dergarten elementary school which ex panded to high school classes this year, plans to continue on the high school level. The other private schools are waiting to see whether the public schools will be open. KKK ACTIVE There was considerable publicity about the Ku Klux Klan during June. Chronologically it went like this: R. E. Davis of Dallas, Tex., wrote the Texarkana Gazette that he was the na tional imperial dragon of the Knights of the Original Ku Klux Klan, U. S. A., and that the Klans at Little Rock, Pine Bluff and Texarkana (SSN, June 1959) were not real Klans but had been ex pelled by him from the KKK. The ban ished Klansmen, he said, formed the As sociation of Arkansas Klans and also the Arkansas Minutemen’s Association of Pine Bluff. He said the banished Klan at Texarkana was headed by a well-known attorney. Then George F. Edwardes, Texarkana attorney, wrote to the Texarkana Ga zette disclosing his connection with the Association of Arkansas Klans. He said the Arkansas Klan had not been expelled by Davis but had disavowed any connection with Davis “when we obtained all the information on that group.” Two weeks later A. C. Hightower, a Little Rock barber, filed a charter with the secretary of state for the U. S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a Geor gia corporation. The papers showed that Hightower had been appointed grand dragon for Arkansas by Eldon Lee Ed wards of Atlanta, imperial wizard and president of the corporation. Hightower said the groups represented by Davis and Edwardes at Texarkana were com posed of banished klansmen and were using KKK rituals without authority. Atty. Gen. Bruce Bennett in a speech at a union meeting said the KKK was not welcome in Arkansas. He clas sified it with the NAACP as “a foreign organization with unlawful designs on the peace and order of our state.” Gov. Faubus said he wanted nothing to do with the Klan. Little Rock peace officers said they would enforce a 1909 law on nightriding which was designed to curb the Klan of that day. APPROVE CHURCH REPORT At Fort Smith, the North Arkansas Methodist Conference adopted a report calling free public education indispensa ble to Methodism and Christianity, “In the critical situation which exists in Ar kansas at the present time, we call upon all Methodists to support the cause of free education and, if need be, to work actively for its continuance,” the report said. A similar report was adopted by the Little Rock Conference in a meet ing at Hot Springs. A Negro organization, Save The Ed ucation Program (STEP), formed dur ing the Little Rock School Board re call election, decided to continue as a permanent organization. Mrs. D. D. James was elected president. One of the eleven 1959 graduates of the Arkansas Law School, a private school at Little Rock, was a Negro busi nessman, the third of his race to grad uate since the school began accepting Negroes in 1953. It is easier to draw to an inside straight, according to the Arkansas State Press, than for a Negro to safely complete a journey by car below the Mason and Dixon line. Southern police pay little attention to the rights of Ne groes, the Press said. The paper, a Little Rock weekly, is owned by Mrs. L. C. Bates, state NAACP president, and her husband. The Press also undertook to explain to Gov. Faubus why Little Rock Ne groes voted with STOP in the school board recall election, even though STOP made a point of avoiding the integration issue. It was because STOP wanted to preserve the public schools and keep them open, the Press said to the gov ernor, whereas “Under your program, the Negro has no chance—not even in the courts.” Besides the warning to Negroes and the explanation to the governor, the Press continued to comment on the fact that many Negro leaders, principally the clergy, fail to take an active role in fighting for Negro rights. Why do Ne groes of means stay in their shells and let the “Uncle Toms” and the whites decide how they must live? the Press asked. Is it that they don’t care? Are they afraid of being hurt or killed? Do they just enjoy sacrificing for the white man? Or are they afraid of losing their economic standing and their big cars? All these reasons the Press rejects just as in several previous editorials it has never found a satisfactory answer.
Newspaper Details
Nashville Southern School News
Nashville, Tennessee, US
Wed, Jul 01, 1959
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Grant E.
USA 25 Jun 2026
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