“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” - A.J. Liebling
My father Bob Wilson took this to heart, and bought one and started his own newspaper, the Prairie Post of Maroa, Illinois in 1958, and ran it until he died in 1972. It never had a circulation of more than 2500 or so, but every week, he would fire off editorials at everyone and everything from local events to the actions of the nations of the world.
He may have been a Quaker peace activist in a Republican district, but his love and support of the farming communities garnered him enough respect that he eventually ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1962, though he lost. (He might have tried again, had he not died of an accident while only 49.) Many of his views ring true today. And he might have been willing to change the ones that fell behind the times. Although raised in the casual racism of the 1920s and 1930s, at the age of 15 he took stock of what he was being taught and discarded much of it as being wrong, and lived his life with respect for all.
I decided to transcribe his old editorials (I may make a book for some of my relatives) and every once in a while I will repost one here, as a view of how the world has changed wildly, or remained stubbornly the same.
January 5, 1961
THE HARVARD CABINET
It is our understanding that, even before his inauguration, President-Elect John F. Kennedy has begun to gather a degree of quiet approbation from responsible elements in the business world for the judgement he has shown in choosing the members of his cabinet. Politics quite aside, most of them appear to have been chosen because they are the most qualified people for those particular jobs.
A number of them are also graduates or former faculty members of Harvard University at Cambridge, Massachusetts, a truly great institution of learning and, by some accident, Kennedy's own alma mater.
Most of us cannot possibly object to this, because of the high quality of the men chosen. In a country such as this, however, which can boast TWO universities, there may be some outcry from the partisans of the other one.
It is known as Yale, and is located at New Haven, Connecticut.
January 18, 1961
Reports out of Red China indicate a crop failure “without parallel in the past century.”
Half China's tillable land, according to Radio Peking, has been affected to some degree. In certain areas a total drought lasting up to a full year meant absolute crop failure.
We are amazed at the response in the American press. The tenor of their comments has been that the famine “must have been invented for political purposes.” American “experts” quote Japanese weather reports to th effect that there has been “little unusual weather in China over the last year.”
Why are we amazed? To begin with, what are America's sources of information about THE LARGEST AND MOST POPULOUS NATION IN THE WORLD? Are they such that we must speculate on second-hand weather reports as to whether or not the Chinese peasants are starving, and why?
What chance do we stand of waging war – or peace – against a potential enemy about which we know so little?
Isn't it time we opened China to the inquiring eyes of our reporters?
The other reason we are amazed is that we have not yet read of any comment on the Chinese famine which had in it a suggestion of Christian compassion. Observers seem to be convinced every word that comes out of China is a politically-inspired falsehood. It is suggested there is really no drought, but the Red Chinese leaders have sold their people's food to buy weapons.
They are without question capable of doing so. The question, however, is whether they HAVE done so. We seriously question whether even such accomplished liars could convince the world a crop-failure of such extent existed when it really did not.
What is more, Chinese pride in their Communist system is such that they would never admit a failure in their communalized agriculture unless it had gone beyond concealment.
So the question remains open as to just why starvation is sweeping China; but our country seems interested only in making political capital of the situation.
When children are dying of hunger, a Christian shares his food; he does not ask whether their fathers have sinned!
Has it occurred to no-one that we have, piled up in our storage bins, the most powerful ammunition for peace and brotherhood that has yet been invented?
Eleven years ago, this writer attended the World Conference of Quakers at Oxford, England, as a representative of Illinois Quakers. Just before taking ship in Montreal, we saw in a store the famous Canadian canned butter, and on an impulse bought a case of it and took it on board. A small gesture, but we knew someone would be hungry over there.
In Germany we attended a religious conference also attended by an old man of great spiritual depth and power, but a man whose personal world lay in ruins.
This man was Professor Emil Fuchs, whose son had turned Communist and became the infamous British atom spy, Klaus Fuchs. The Professor was still teaching at a university in the East Zone, under the very nose of the Russians.
At that time East Germany was all frayed cuffs and empty bellies. We asked the Professor if he would carry that case of butter back across the border and give it so someone who needed it. He thanked us warmly and said he would.
On the following morning, we asked him where he wished to pick it up. Whether he had thought it over during the night, or whether a figure stepped out of the shadows and warned the old man, we will never know. “Give it to someone in West Germany”, he said in a quick, mechanical way, “They are the ones who are hungry. In East Germany we have all we want to eat!”
A schoolteacher took it across for us, and we later had a letter of thanks from an orphanage in East Germany, where they definitely did NOT have enough to eat!
The blow to Red prestige would be crushing if they were to accept food from us; but isn't it time we MADE THE OFFER to feed our hungry enemies? Not in hypocrisy, simply for the propaganda effect (which would be tremendous) BUT BECAUSE WE ARE THE KIND OF PEOPLE WHO FEED THE HUNGRY...
This is the blessed power of the religious way of life; that we cannot escape from our internal imperatives; no matter how cruel an enemy, he CANNOT MAKE US OVER IN HIS IMAGE.
One cannot demand gratitude for such a gift. We should insist on one thing only; that every package bore the message, IN CHINESE, that this food was the gift of the American people.
We have heard from eye-witnesses that food packages sent to China from America have in the past been locally stamped with Chinese characters which explained to the Chinese that the food came from Russia!
We would have to have observers present to make sure this did not happen again. As for the gratitude, a simple act of charity works its slow magic over generations. Much of America's reputation for kindness has come from the feeding operations we conducted in Europe after World War I under the direction of Herbert Hoover.
One cannot demand friendship, but we feel it would ensue. An offensive of food now, from our overflowing storage bins, might guarantee that we will never have to launch an offensive with flame throwers and atom bombs.
The risks are few, and the possible rewards great. We hope that Director George McGovern of the New Food for Peace agency will make such a recommendation soon to the new Kennedy administration.