"Why Such Cowards?"

The little basement room of the county courthouse in northern Florida was crowded as the Madison County commissioners convened for their routine monthly meeting. Target of all eyes as the session began was Dr. Deborah Coggins, 32, blonde and attractive, who was fired from her job as health officer of three counties for lunching privately with the Negro state midwifery supervisor (TiME, Oct. 8). The commissioners had given no official reason for her dismissal, had paid no heed to protests that ranged upward from her physician husband to Florida's Governor LeRoy Collins. Now she rose quietly in the tense room to request one. "I wish," she began, "you would now discuss this in my presence." When the commissioners were silent, Dr. Coggins put a second question: "Could it be that you think what you did was unjust, illegal, undemocratic or unchristian? Is that why you don't speak? Why are you such cowards?"

Next rose Robert Browning, the county's health information officer and himself still on the payroll. "I cannot and will not sacrifice my own integrity and self-respect on the altar of economic security," he said. "Dr. Coggins has been severely persecuted and tormented, and the health department has collapsed. Practice the kind of Christianity you profess and rescind your action now! If you persist in this action, God pity us."

"Is there anyone else," the chairman asked, "that wants to be heard?" One more did--Editor T. C. Merchant Jr. of the Madison Enterprise-Recorder. Said he, reading carefully from a slip of paper: "A physician greater than Deborah Coggins was once criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners. I am not attempting to make any irreverent comparisons, but I sincerely believe that if you fire this girl today for the reason you have in mind, you will be doing an evil and unjust act, the memory of which will follow you to your graves."

Still the county commissioners sat unmoving and unresponsive, whispering among themselves and to their attorneys. At last Dr. Coggins' cool patience gave way. "You're all fools, fools!" she cried as she got up and started toward the door. "I'm going to stay in Madison, and you are going to have to look at me for a long time."

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