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]