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.
June 20, 1963
MEDGAR EVERS
May we join in expression of respectful sorrow for the death of Medgar W. Evers, a young Negro Idealist shot in the back by a coward with white skin who lay in ambush in the weeds of a vacant lot until Evers came home to his wife and children after another long, difficult day of trying to bring justice and equality to his people in the South.
Young Evers was a field representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Now we know that someone will ask why he was in Jackson, Mississippi and what business the NAACP had down there “stirring ups trouble.” There is a line of pretty vicious propaganda against the NAACP that comes up out of the deep south in pamphlets that go from hand to hand. These pamphlets accuse NAACP of being a Communist organization, etc., etc., and ask them to go away and the south will take care of its own problems, the Southern Whites love the Negroes and understand them, etc.
The South has had one hundred years to make even a little progress on their problem, and they have not. The Negro's “rights” in Alabama and Georgia and Mississippi consist of no vote, a janitor's job, low grade schools, get off the sidewalk, stay out of our eating places... and a bullet in the back if he protests!
Someone asked one day why there is no National Association for the Advancement of White People? The joke goes sour when you recognize that almost every branch of organized society in this country IS ALREADY an association for the advancement of white people!
Medgar Evers was a veteran; he wore the uniform and fought for his country, because he was told he was “defending freedom” and similar phrases. He helped to defeat Hitlerism abroad and came home to realize it was all around him in American, and the battle was only half won.
He was a symbol of the New Negro, who does not say “Yassuh” and paw at his cap, as the old Uncle Toms used to. He lifted his head and defied the prison-keepers of Mississippi, and what was worse, he spoke like an educated man; so they shot him in the back.
What was he doing in Mississippi? The people of Tennessee should know, if they can but remember their proud past. (Was it Tennessee that shot a white man in the back who walked along their highways carrying a sign that asked for racial equality?)
Your freedom is not whole if your brother is not free, and do not tell us you would not go where ever you were needed, to stand by his side and help him push back the barbed wire and the bars. The NAACP did no more. They take up contributions from the believers, and pay the expenses of workers to go to Mississippi. (They have Medgar's brother Charlie Evers now; will someone shoot him in the back, too?)
The people of Tennessee should remember; no prouder story is told of Frontier America than that of the Alamo. The Alamo is in Texas, but we are told that the majority of its defenders were from Tennessee.
A traveler of those times, the histories relate, met a buck-skin-clad frontiersman on the mountain trail westward out of Tennessee. He was one of the Tennessee “Longknives” and he carried his muzzleloader and a look of determination. “Where are you going?” he was asked, and he replied, “I'm going to Texas to fight for my rights!”
Do you ask what the NACCP is doing in Jackson, Mississippi?
July 3, 1963
BRUSHING UP
It is beyond doubt an American characteristic, and we Americans would regard it as a virtue. Australians and other pioneer peoples have it too, and it may grow out of the nation's experience; however we got it, it has contributed mightily to our success in subduing a continent and making it the greatest nation on earth.
This is the belief that almost anyone can do almost anything.
This is the land where the son of Irish immigrants can be president. We remember a one-legged watchmaker who lives out in La Plata, Missouri, who one day pitched his watchmaking tools, strapped on his leg and went out and bought a brand-new bulldozer on credit. Then he climbed on and learned how to run it. When the stump of his leg bled from stomping the heavy pedals, he padded the artificial limb more carefully, and kept driving. In three years, doing custom work and asking no quarter from anyone, he paid for his machine.
We read John F. Kennedy's book, PROFILES IN COURAGE, a few years ago, and we were fascinated by the account of Senator Thomas Hart Benson of Missouri. His courage was tested – and held firm – when he had to defy his own voters on the Clay Compromise of the 1850's, a measure which permitted some increase in slaveholding territory, but which he felt was the only way to prevent a war between the states.
Senator Benton was a stocky, black-haired man with firm convictions and the courage of a lion. Once on the floor of the Senate, he revealed one method by which he trained for the arduous life he led. When he bathed, he scrubbed himself with horse-brushes. “So stiff that you, Sir, would cry Murder, Sir, if they were to touch you!” he admonished a thin-skinned adversary in debate.
Since anyone can do anything, we laid down the book and went out and bought a brush. We went over amongst the saddles and bridles, and bought the biggest, roughest horse brush they had. It is a man-sized handful, and the nylon bristles are the next thing to a wire brush.
We have used it for several years now, and we can recommend the idea. After the initial shock, like a dive into icy water, one finds that a vigorous brushing stirs up the circulation and imparts a refreshing tingle.
What is more, the user develops rather a tough hide, which can be an advantage if you plan to go into either newspapering or politics.
Senator Benton had need of his thick skin, for in those days political assaults were for real. One could not mount a platform without earning epithets such as “Scoundrel”, “Traitor”, “Perjurer” and “Thief”.
But never, never, did anyone call Thomas Hart Benton a DIRTY scoundrel or a FILTHY rogue. He was too well-scrubbed, and he stood ready to challenge anyone who questioned it, to horse brushes at very close quarters indeed!