"Retreat from Reason"

Few newspapers in the Deep South have handled the hot desegregation story with the courage of South Carolina's Florence Morning News (circ. 14,219). Its outspoken editorials repeatedly appealed for moderation and good will in solving the South's toughest problem. But last week--by its editor's decision after two years of threats and pressure--the subject of desegregation was banned from the News editorial page.

Editor John Howard O'Dowd, 29, a home-grown Florentine and a graduate of The Citadel, set the News's moderate tone right after the Supreme Court decision. He set down his doubt that the court's intention could be thwarted, warned that "this cannot and will not be done with speeches that inflame groups and excite the passions of extremists."

Abuse. Editor O'Dowd, whose father John Michael O'Dowd is publisher and owner of the News, kept his news columns as open as his mind. Recent example: the arrest and release last month of Clarence Mitchell, Washington head of the N.A.A.C.P., for entering the white waiting room of the Florence railroad station.

The News (one of the first papers in the South to run pictures of Negroes) ran Mitchell's picture on the front page with a story that began: "Traditional race segregation in Florence lost its first court test yesterday."

For its views the News has drawn violent abuse. One night last spring a voice threatened O'Dowd on the telephone: "This is the Klan. We're going to get you." When the editor drove away from his office at 2 a.m., a car chased him, pulled alongside him three times to force him into the curb, until he shook it by turning into a side street and dousing his lights. City Editor Charles Moore went to cover an out-of-town Klan meeting, was punched and chased away. While covering a basketball game, Baptist Minister L. B. Ballard, who is the News's church editor and assistant sports editor, had the rear tires of his car slashed. On his way home, after getting them fixed, two cars pursued him in an attempt to run him off the road.

Along with violence and threats, the News was hit by reader complaints and cancellations. In February circulation showed a loss for the first time in years. Early in March the county Democratic convention passed a resolution denouncing the News as the "carpetbagger press." In electing delegates to the state convention, the group pointedly rejected Editor O'Dowd, who ran 45th in a field of 45.

Abdication. That was the last straw. Fortnight ago O'Dowd announced "a retreat from reason" in a long editorial. "It has become obvious," he wrote, "that to maintain effectiveness in other important areas of thought, this newspaper must abdicate its position in the segregation controversy. We have seen the situation as being insoluble in the hands of extremists, and have sought men of good will who can sift the elements of right from the chaff of unreason on both sides of the conflict. [But] 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 on the extreme fringes . . . Editorials that do not speak sedition, bigotry, white supremacy and incitation to legislative folly and physical violence are not accepted as 'honest' or 'courageous.' "

Last week sympathetic letters streamed into O'Dowd's office. "Your editorial," began a typical one, "made me feel guilty." Said O'Dowd: "I realized there was a considerable amount of support for the views of moderation, but I didn't realize how big it was. I'm not discouraged." He will continue to cover the segregation story "on its merits" in the news columns, hopes that the editorial "position we've been forced to take as a temporary setback to moderation in our area may be the catalyst to bring the moderates into action to override the extremists."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.