Arkansas Blog

Like it or not it's still Arkansas History.
We remember events of all kinds every year, yet I dont hear you pissing and moaning about the Little Rock Nine every year.

This is much ado about nothing, though somehow a sorespot with you. Get over it.

ARK. BLOG: Does the D-G do a 1B story every year on the day the Nine entered LRCHS under troop escort? Don't think so.

how about those brave frightened kids going into central that first day. they were the same age as dodd.

max you are not from the south, are you?

ARK. BLOG: Not unless you count Louisiana as the South. In fact, I'm cracker through and through. My grade school friends still talk about how I bored everybody at show and tell with stories about my great-great-grandfathers who fought in the Confederacy at Vicksburg and elsewhere. My family goes back to territorial days in Louisiana in some lines, including at least one that, yes, lkely owned slaves.

Amazing as it might seem, it's possible to be a Southerner and oppose slavery, the dissolution of the Union, etc.

i am terribly glad the south lost. it would have been a major problem. the biggest mistake was lots of people thought the states had the right to secede. a west point textbook said the states had that right. i really don't know but i have seen the tax records for the county where both my families in arkansas came from and thank god they did not pay taxes on slaves.
my mother raised me to respect the history and i still do. she even taught me as a little kid to stand for dixie as we used to do in the south. i must say la is definetly south and just means that you have a better palate than most.

Brantley, you are about as far-Southern as you can get without venturing into Nueva Cuba, until recently presided over by The Transplanted Texan, or Brownsville, also recently presided over by The Transplanted Texan's dumber brother Duh Buhyah.

Your claim to Southern roots is about as strong as anybody can get.

Those who think Southerners automatically endorse neo-fascist observances of The Lost Cause make me ill.

>>Those who think Southerners automatically endorse neo-fascist observances of The Lost Cause make me ill.<<

Brings to mind Orval who was first given to socialism before he became a state's right advocate. In politics tigers do change stripes.

"In politics tigers do change stripes."

Yes, and they become liars, too. His transformation really started when he denied in an early campaign his being the student president at Commonwealth College.

"Once a man holds public office he is absolutely no good for honest work."
--Will Rogers

To sum up...I love my history as it's found laying on the ground. I don't want any of it gussied up, nor watered down. I sure don't want revisionist to work it over. It was what it was.

And while a lot of it applies to modern life, some of it doesn't at all....at all. They were people and events of a different time and should be judged with that in mind....if you must judge at all.

While not a big fan of Faubus, he did in 1957 what the majority of Arkansas citizens wanted him to do. Isn't it strange that at this late date Orval is singled out as the only racist in Arkansas?

In 1860 only 6% of the people of Arkansas were slave owners. Can't nobody tell me the other 94% went to war to protect slavery. I think mostly we fought because wasn't no damn Yankee going to come push us around on our own soil. A sentiment a whole lot of our troops in Iraq are encountering today.

I have to imagine the only one who would support slavery on this blog is the late Mr. Quimby. I find it very easy to be proud of my southern roots without feeling like I'm endorsing any part or glorifying anything to do with slavery.

And since slavery was introduced to America in the 1600s, the first slaves being Native Americans who had the misfortune of being captured by their enemies, the practice of slavery was well over 200 years old by the time the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter.

"In 1784, five years before he became president of the United States, George Washington, 52, was nearly toothless. So he hired a dentist to transplant nine teeth into his jaw--having extracted them from the mouths of his slaves."

Twelve of the signers of the Declaration of Independence owned large plantations teeming with slaves. Washington, Jefferson, James Madison, John Dickinson, Ceasar Rodney, William Livingston, George Wythe, John Randolph, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Baldwin, John Blair, William Blount, Jacob Broom, Pierce Butler, William Few, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney , John Rutledge, and many others considered to have been in on the founding of this country were slave owners, breeders, and traders.

I list these men, not in support of the institution of slavery, but to show it is unfair to single out the south as the home and inventor of slavery. If we are to point a gun at the guilty, we'd have to aim at every compass point. Our country at one time didn't know better, now we do. YAY!

Deathbyinches is right that few Southerners actually owned slaves. While that may mean that most of those who fought didn't do so in order to protect slavery, that doesn't mean that slavery wasn't the primary cause of the War, only that the political and economic elites of the South were successful in convincing non-slaveowning whites that the war was about honor, glory, states' rights, etc., rather than slavery.

I think we're all familiar with the ability of political elites to foment wars based on lies and deceptions, aren't we?

None of which has much of anything to do with why the DOG feels the need each year to play up the hanging of a traitor and a spy almost 150 years ago. Isn't the annual hagiography of Lee enough?

Cato, the first Republican judge in Ark since Reconstruction who took office in mid 60's assured me Oval knew quite well that by forcing the issue he would speed up desegregation a few decades. The judge told me Orval knew full well the laws of cause and effect.

I have yet to encounter a politician in my lifetime who did not decieve or lie.
_

"In 1860 only 6% of the people of Arkansas were slave owners. Can't nobody tell me the other 94% went to war to protect slavery. I think mostly we fought because wasn't no damn Yankee going to come push us around on our own soil."

Well, DBI, although they didn't own slaves they did go to war to fight and to defend this "peculair institution."

The small segment of the southern population who did own slaves did a great "selling job" with the poor masses in the Old South. Their arguments were good enough that the non-slave holding whites were willing to fight and die for the slave owner cause. One fourth of southern white males between the ages of 18-45 were slain in this war.

Only one in twenty owned slaves and those slave owners controlled southern society. They controlled politics, the pulpit, the press, the debates and education. Since they did not support public schools, the masses of the South were ignorant, illiterate and poor white farmers. Intellectual stagnation was the underpinning of the Old South.

Southern veteran John Mosby (The Gray Ghost) wrote in 1907, "We went to war on account of the thing we quarrelled with the North about. I never heard of any other cause of the guarrel than slavery."

The Mississippi Dec. of Secession stated plainly, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery....and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."

Historian Bell Irving Wiley spelled it out plainly why southern men were willing to die for slavery with the support of their women folk at home:

1). Although they didn't own slaves, there was always the possibility that some day they might become slave owners.

2). As long as slavery existed, there was always someone below them, someone who had to step off the sidewalks when approached and remove their hats.

3). With the abolition of slavery, they would have to compete with freed blacks for jobs, etc., and equality would then become a major issue to deal with. The social status would definitely change.

4). Defense of the Homeland.

5). Southern rights, honor.

One only has to read the inauguration statement by CSA vice president Stephens in 1861 to fully understand what the war was all about:

After stating the "Old" Union "rested upon the assumption of the equality of races," Stephens explained, "Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundation is laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."

Lincoln repudiated all of this and what the CSA was fighting for at Gettysburg a two years later.

ARK. BLOG: Good post. It occurs to me that slavery was the estate tax of its day. Hardly anybody pays the estate tax today, but the country is packed with people who want to end it. They'd all like to be in the tiny number advantaged by huge inheritances and to maximmize their take. Many would have liked to own slaves, if only they could have afforded them.

"The judge told me Orval knew full well the laws of cause and effect."

Lwood, the only cause and effect Orval knew about was re-election. He was elected 6 (?) times. He was a poor man when he went into office and came affluent, owing a million dollar home in NW Arkansas and owing around 6 newspapers. His atty general Bruce Bennett, was convicted of graft and corruption in a Savings and Loan case in Fort Smith and escaped prison only because of health (?) issues.

The racial thing had already been facing violence in Alabama with the bombing of churches, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Bull Conner, and elsewhere in the land. I doubt anything Oval did sped up the end result. It only brought a black eye to a state which had already made great strides in ending segregation in the public schools and elsewhere.
Mpst of it without any fanfare or noise.

We must remember that slaves = property in 1861, and the idea of the federal government relieving southerners of their property without reimbursement was a major issue in the South. Property rights continue to be a really big issue in the South, hence the lack of zoning, historic districts, and restrictive covenants.

As for the original question, I'm all for annual recognition of the WEC, or the STOP campaign, or just about any historical event that is not connected with David O. Dodd.

'We must remember that slaves = property in 1861..."
Yes, and that was the foundation for the arguments of slavery expansion into the territories.....if people could take wagons, mules, furniture and other property into the territories so could citizens take slaves into the same US possessions.

"...and the idea of the federal government relieving southerners of their property without reimbursement was a major issue in the South..

But not the main factor. Southern slave owners rejected Lincoln's plan for compensation at Hampton Roads a few weeks before the war ended. They also would not place independence above slavery, rejecting General Patrick Cleburne's proposal that slaves be given their freedom if they fought for the independence of the CSA. This was Cleburne's plan to replace the destruction of the CSA Army as the war dragged on with no replacements in sight. They not only rejected his plea but hid him in oblivion and chastized him for making such a suggestion.

The racial issue of white supremacy, the issue of master race, the issue of subservance to the master race over powered all other decisions. Much like Nazi Germany, where racial doctrines overrode all decisions, the few trains still running in the last days of WW II were not carrying ammo and resources to the German Army but carrying inferior people to their death. The racial issue had top priority in Nazi Germany and it had top priority in Confederate America, even to the point it determined strategy and tactics in waging war to the death.

Sorry if it seems I can't let go of the WMart thing. Ask yourself, if WM existed during the Civil War, would it have owned slaves, or would it have paid a living wage?
And by the way, Cato, nobody will ever convince me that there were actual COMMIES in Polk County. Nobody, nohow, no way. Nope.

Good God - the thought of WalMart being able to own slaves is too horrible to even contemplate.

'Fraid it's so, Louie. The Wikipedia article is short enough to post almost all of it:
----

Commonwealth College [moved to Mena, Arkansas, in 1924] aimed to recruit and train people to take the lead in socio-economic reform and prepare them for unconventional roles in a new and different society. Students, staff, and faculty all worked together in the operation of the institution, from growing and preparing food to the construction and maintenance of buildings. There was a lot of curiosity nationally in Commonwealth. As an example, Roger Nash Baldwin, long-time director of the American Civil Liberties Union, was an active member of the advisory board.

The focus of Commonwealth's founders was initially on self-support to insure independence from outside influence and a mission to educate idealistic leaders for the labor movement. Zeuch served as director until 1931, when after a student led revolt, he accepted a Guggenheim Fellowship to study in Europe for a year and did not return.

For the next six years, leadership of Commonwealth passed to Lucian Koch and an increasing emphasis was placed in activism for farm and labor causes.

Claude Williams then served as director from 1937 until 1940. Several people identified with Commonwealth were actively involved during this period with internal politics of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union. Critics in the state also argued that the institution was under Communist influence. Weakened ties with traditional supporters and shaky finances led to proposals for merger with the Highlander Folk School or the operation of a drama center affiliated with the New Theatre League of New York City. Ultimately the property was sold at a Polk County auction to satisfy fines levied against the institution.

Commonwealth's legacy continued through the works of students that included: Agnes Cunningham & Lee Hays who were founders later with Pete Seeger of the Almanac Singers and The Weavers in New York City. Agnes later founded and helped edit Broadside Magazine. Kenneth Patchen, a student in 1930, was a well known poet and artist. Orval E. Faubus was a student and later served six terms as governor of Arkansas.

Other labor schools of the time: Denver Labor College, Work People's College, Brookwood Labor College (NY), Seattle Labor College and Highlander Folk School (TN). Commonwealth differed by offering a college-level curriculum.
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Sounds pert' near communist to me.

David O Dodd was a spy in civilian clothes in war time, and 16 years old at a time when sadly, that was a soldier, not a boy, in both armies. He was hung, summarily. Both armies hung spies.

By the DEMGAZ coverage, it seems he was hung spring, and again summer, winter, fall, rather than once a year. The story runs continuously.

Germany in 1945 had attitude and denial re: the Holocaust, and the UA Army- the army that hung Dodd, forced the population to line up and view the ovens, and watch film of the truth.The Holocaust lasted sevaral years. Slavery brutalized and killed for 300 years, and was institutionalized in the Constitution.
DemGaz readers would be better served by the truth of the Civil War.

"Max, you are not from the South" - Zonker: sounds like a Yankee talking, who has some narrow stereotype of the genuine South.

you left out the part about local rednecks burning it to the ground.

For whatever cultural significance there is to it, the Northwest edition of the Demozette did not carry the Dodd story today. Maybe they figured it doesn't resonate much up here, or used a NW Ark story in its place in our edition. I did read it online and agreed with Max that if it seemed "lame" that would only be because the reporter was faced with writing a story that remains unchanged from year to year.

Louie, there's an old saying that desperate times produce desperate people. Commonwealth's leadership turned to the far left when L. Koch took over and was determined to make it a factor among the labor movement, especially for bringing relief to the very poor agricultural workers in south and eastern Arkansas. This naturally raised the gall of the wealthy land owners in eastern Arkansas that anyone would want them to pay a decent wage and through their efforts the Arkansas General Assembly conducted hearings (Faubus was one of the student leaders in LR for the hearings) and although the charges were untrue the tiny rural school was shut down by 1940.

As wiji points out, many, many people who became prominent later were greatly influenced while they were on the campus at CC. Lee Hays, from Little Rock and the son of a preacher, became famous for his folk songs he learned at CC and his teaming with Pete Seeger seemed to be destined by fate.

This whole discussion is both embarrassing and boring: Historical trivia that sends the enlightened and unenlightened alike into the attic to dust off provocative arcana.

In the midwest or New England this kind of obsession is quaint, here it is vulgar.

Move on.

I am ashamed to admit this, but my heritage is filled with people who owned slaves. One of my children did a lot of research for her doctorate on the very subject, and much to my relief it appears that none were horribly abused and all stayed with the family after the war.
Still, it saddens me.
Thankfully, my family is now composed of people of all races and religions.

How about a yearly commemoration of the lynching of John Carter? http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2289

We could drag a black manaquein to 9th and Broadway and cut it to pieces and set it on fire. That should get the D-G's editorship all teary-eyed for the old times.

We had one of those lynchings in February 1901, when a crazy Negro (Nigger Pete) kicked a white girl. He was broken out of jail, shot, strangled and hanged by 8 masked men. The local paper and businessmen were outraged and offered a reward but the guilty were never brought to trial. It was more than likely some offering the reward were part of this sordid episode.

My folks was Christians, salt of the earth.
They was too po' to own slaves. But they sure did hate 'um!
Long as them Repugs got 'em a southern strategy we'll have no blacks or women running things. They'll take the blame tho'; bless them folks at the DOG.

The Ghost of Justice Rehnquist