The South's New Voice

"It appears, as this goes to press," said the Montgomery, Ala., Advertiser, "that Governor Wallace has dispatched state troopers to Mobile and Huntsville to usurp local power by force. If this becomes the fact, the Advertiser must sorrowfully conclude that, in this instance, its friend has gone wild." As the week wore on and the Advertiser's fears became fact, the paper reached its inevitable conclusion: "It is very hard, be certain, for the Advertiser to say it, but the fact is that Governor Wallace made a monkey of himself."

These were strong words from a paper that only last June looked upon Alabama's Wallace as a hero. But by last week, with the Advertiser's defection, it should have been painfully clear to George Wallace that he had few if any local press champions left.

From the more moderate Southern papers, many of which had objected to Wallace's tactics last June, the new wave of censure was predictably severe. "George Wallace," editorialized the Knoxville News-Sentinel, "continues to bring disgrace on his office and his state. One would think that Wallace had learned his lesson since his low-comedy performance of 'standing in the door.' "

Said the Miami Herald: "He seems up against a force even he can't lick--the people of Alabama." The Houston Press called him "the principal menace to peace and order in Alabama."

The Anniston, Ala. Star, which had bridled last year at the violence with which the city met the first Freedom Riders, convicted Wallace of "reckless asininity." But even normally sympathetic papers found the Governor more than they could stomach. "George Wallace is not 'saving Alabama,' " said the Birmingham News, a militantly segregationist daily. "He is in the process of destroying self-government and the educational system of this state."

Defending Alabama's Wallace, in fact, was something that only the Charleston News & Courier seemed anxious to do. The true villains, that paper said, were the Alabama officials who were "trying to integrate the public schools under court order despite the efforts of Governor George Wallace to close them rather than mix." For the News & Courier, which boasts an editorial policy based on the argument that Lincoln never really meant to emancipate the slaves, even that comment was remarkably restrained.

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