Leaders In Profile Orval Faubus Came From Hill-Billy Farm

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28699, 24 September 1958, Page 11

Leaders In Profile Orval Faubus Came From Hill-Billy Farm

[By

SIMON KAVANAUGH]

Up Greasy Creek way, 48 years ago, the Arkansas hillbillies didn’t think much of the survival chances for the latest addition to “Uncle Sam” Faubus’s family. Prematurely born and weighing only four pounds, the new little Faubus was just another poor white who would, sooner or later, have had to scratch a subsistence living from the bitter soil of the Ozark woods. But “Uncle Sam” Faubus was an Arkansas hill farmer. He knew how to make things grow where they seemed to have no chance . . . even, it seemed, ailing infants. For little Orval survived, and “Uncle Sam” was able to recall proudly that the youngster “jest growed like a weed.” Forty-seven years had to pass before the United States and the rest of the world were to see just how like a weed Orval had “growed.” Early in life, Orval Faubus recognised the danger that lay before him. The danger of surrendering himself to the barebones existence of his family and their neighbours.

The problem bothered Orval, for as “Uncle Sam” Faubus . said, “Orval always hated to be looked down on.”

What Orval needed was a quick way up to where he could not be looked down on. But his schooling was exiguous and he seemed to have no particular flair for anvthing. Greater, though, than his shortcomings was his realisation of the danger of resigning himself to the Ozark woods and the life of a poor white. So he cut loose when the chance came to head north as a strawberry harvester. “Clawed His Way Up”

Away from the temptation to surrender to the hill-billy life, Orval began to claw his way up. He tried his hand at many things, itinerant farm labourer, lumberjack, country school teacher. But it was in politics that Orval found what he wanted. Here, if any way existed, was the way to the top. Here his humble origins could be turned to advantage: here his lack of education might be worth more than a stack of university degrees. For in the American South there is a strong tradition of the hill-billy demagogue in politics. Orval began his climb as a very small cog in the local Democratic political machine; a fetcher and carrier, who made sure that his enthusiasm and willingness did not go unnoticed by the men who mattered.

This paid off when he was supported in his election bid for local office (in fact, as a circuit clerk and recorder). Then he got to be postmaster, and, in the Madison County of Arkansas, anyway, he became quite a political “big shot”; big enough to be able to swing the vote behind one contender for the State governorship —successfully.

An attempt to reward him with an unpaid “prestige” post brought from Faubus the outright demand for a job with money attached. He got it—as an administrative assistant.

That job took him to Little Rock, the town which will always be linked with his name. It took him, in time, to the governorship—the result, say his critics, of a politicul fluke. This was it. This was where Orval had to be looked up to. One term in the governor’s mansion came and went happily. Then Orval was re-elected. But now a doubt began to gnaw at his heart. Sometimes he must have been near to panic. For Arkansas has a strong tradition of no third term for governors. What would happen to poor Orval? The trouble about climbing high is that there’s a long way to fall—maybe right back to Greasy Creek. Until then, Orval had been a “liberal” by local standards. But his liberal supporters were none too happy about some of his actions. Hadn’t he raised taxes and granted rate increases to railroads and public utilities?

In the classical traditions of demagoguery. Orval cast around for a mast where he might nail his banner. He found it in “segregation,” the movement against the United States Supreme Court’s ruling that Negro and white children must be educated together.

If Orval set himself up as a martyr in the sacred cause of white supremacy, going so far as to defy the White House itself, how could the voters resist him? And so, as the eve of integration drew near in Little Rock, Orval Faubus went into a State court and swore that integration in Little Rock would mean violence, and with that plea won an injunction against it.

Promptly the State court was overruled by a Federal judge. Now was the moment. crossed his personal Rubicon. He" called out the National Guard, ostensibly to stop violence by stopping -integration. This was flagrant defiance of the President of the United States. And President Eisenhower reacted dramatically by ordering paratroops into Little Rock to take over from the National Guard and make sure that integration went ahead. The cards could hardly have fallen better for Orval. The more so when one of the segregationist agitators had to be manhandled by the paratroops. Orval’s appeal. unvarnished, unsubtle, went straight to the spirit of the “Old South,” still alive nearly 100 years after the Civil War. As what he called “cold, naked, unsheathed knives" of the Federal troops glinted in the Arkansas sunshine, Orval passionately cried: “In the name of God, whom we all revere, in the name of liberty we hold so dear, which we all cherish, what is happening in America?” The rest of the world was asking the same question. And the enemies of America were providing them with the answer.

All over the world Little Rock became the synonym of intolerance and Faubus its champion. But the way ahead for Orval was clear. There seemed no way he could lose now. Integration went ahead, but behind a shield of Federal bayonets. Force had been used to impress the will of Washington on the people of Arkansas. Orval was the martyred champion of the Arkansans.

The rest of the world and much of the United States might look down on Orval. But in Arkansas they were still looking up to him.

Orval is still on top. His third term as governor is a certainty A legal wrangle about, at least, postponing integration snarls on. And the Arkansas State legislature has authorised Orval Faubus to close down schools where any attempt is’ made to enforce integration.

The damage to Arkansas, the embarrassment of the United States abroad, the tragic effect on racial harmony have yet to be fully assessed. But Orval still sits in the Governor’s mansion a long way from Greasy Creek, where he “jest growed like a weed.”