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]