A “Revel” in South Building

One hundred and sixty years ago today, eight UNC students were having a rough Saturday morning. The night before, the young men participated in a “revel” in South Building, which was then a residence hall. The party was thrown by friends of … Continue reading

Minutes of the faculty, 27 January 1855. From the General Faculty and Faculty Council Records (#401406), University Archives.

Minutes of the faculty, 27 January 1855. From the General Faculty and Faculty Council Records (#401406), University Archives.

One hundred and sixty years ago today, eight UNC students were having a rough Saturday morning. The night before, the young men participated in a “revel” in South Building, which was then a residence hall. The party was thrown by friends of candidates for the coveted positions of commencement Chief Marshal and ball manager. According to Kemp Plummer Battle’s History of the University of North Carolina, candidates for these positions sometimes sought to curry the votes of their classmates with alcohol. The party was broken up by members of the faculty charged with maintaining order on campus overnight, and the students were ordered to appear before the faculty at 10 AM to answer to charges of intoxication.

At that time, it was illegal to operate a bar within two miles of the University or to sell alcohol to students within two miles of the University without the permission of the faculty. Drinking on campus was strictly prohibited. As President David Lowry Swain explained in an 1853 letter to parents:

Any student who may be seen publicly intoxicated, or in whose room ardent spirits may be found, shall be forthwith suspended or dismissed, as the circumstances of the case may seem to require. This ordinance has been and will be faithfully carried into execution in every instance of its violation.

Letter from UNC President David Lowry Swain to parents, Feburary 1855. From the University of North Carolina Papers (#40005), University Archives.

Letter from UNC President David Lowry Swain to parents, Feburary 1855. From the University of North Carolina Papers (#40005), University Archives.

The morning after the party, the guilty students gathered before the faculty to testify. The Faculty minutes explain that three students were “found to have participated in the drinking of spirits but were not convicted of intoxication,” and letters were sent to their parents. Four others, including President Swain’s son Richard Caswell Swain, were “according to their own statements and the testimony of the profs who saw them [found] guilty of intoxication and suspended three weeks.” Another student from the party had been called before the faculty but was “found by Prof. C. Phillips to be too much intoxicated this morning to come and answer the charge of being intoxicated last night.”

A few weeks later, perhaps in response to incidents like this one, President Swain issued a notice to parents asking for their support of a new regulation. Its aims were twofold–to further limit students’ ability to purchase alcohol and to curb student debt. Under the new rule, students would not be able to accrue debts in their parents or guardians’ names without their written permission, or, in the case of purchases made within two miles of the University, the permission of a faculty member. The revised statue was approved by the following spring.

 

Early photos of Chapel Hill and UNC

There is only one known existing image of the iconic Old Well that dates back past the pillars and marble to when a wooden structure was simply known as ‘the well.’ Taken for former University of North Carolina President Kemp Plummer Battle, and wedged between the pages of a 120-year-old photo album, the faded photo […]

Old Well in Battle Album

The Old Well as it appears in the Battle photo album

Image of gym from the Battle album. Phillips Hall currently sits at the site.

Image of gym from the Battle photo album. Phillips Hall currently sits at the site.

There is only one known existing image of the iconic Old Well that dates back past the pillars and marble to when a wooden structure was simply known as ‘the well.’

Taken for former University of North Carolina President Kemp Plummer Battle, and wedged between the pages of a 120-year-old photo album, the faded photo is among a collection of images showcasing 19th century life in Chapel Hill.

‘This is the most comprehensive set of images from a set period of time,’ said Stephen Fletcher, photo archivist for the North Carolina Collection.’This would be the earliest set of town scenes.’

Photograph archivists at the Wilson Library’s North Carolina Collection recently reorganized and relaunched the photo album online to give viewers a full experience of the 19th century artifact. All 74 images of the book have been scanned and formatted into a virtual album, which allows researchers the ability to flip through the book like intended when it was created in 1894.

‘We made a conscious effort to be able to show the album as an album,’ Fletcher said. ‘We didn’t just photograph the individual images. We wanted people to see what the album looks like and be able to recreate the experience of turning the pages and seeing the images.’

-From
“Century-old photo album shows Chapel Hill’s history”
by Brandon Bieltz for “Spotlight” section of UNC-Chapel Hill website. Library staff have experimented with restoring details and color to some of the images in the Battle album. One example is below:

Restored image of Old Well. Image is from the Battle photo album.

Restored image of Old Well. Image is from the Battle photo album.

Ambassador William C. Bullitt visits UNC, 1941

At this time of danger each American must ask himself each day not what he can get from his country but what he can give to his country, and must ask himself each night: “Have I given enough?” —William C. … Continue reading

William C. Bullitt, speaking at Memorial Hall, Univeristy of North Carolina, Chael Hill, January 7, 1941. Photograph by Hugh Morton; cropped detail by blog editor.

William C. Bullitt, speaking at Memorial Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, January 7, 1941. UNC President Frank Porter Graham listening on stage in the background. Photograph by Hugh Morton; crop by blog editor.

At this time of danger each American must ask himself each day not what he can get from his country but what he can give to his country, and must ask himself each night: “Have I given enough?”

—William C. Bullitt, 7 January 1941

Eleven months to the day before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor—William C. Bullitt took to the UNC Memorial Hall rostrum.  The audience filled the auditorium to capacity.  Fronted by an NBC banner and flanked by two NBC microphones, National Broadcasting Company aired his speech across the nation.  Soon thereafter, it traversed the world by shortwave.

William Christian Bullit Jr. isn’t a household name in households today, but it was during his time.  Some readers may recognize the surname from the Brinkhous-Bullitt Building on the UNC medical campus, built in 1973 and named in 1983, in part, for James B. Bullitt, who became chair of pathology in 1913.  William C. and James B. were cousins, and during his visit the former stayed at the latter’s home in Chapel Hill.

William Bullitt’s biography is much too long and complex for this blog, so please see the bibliography at the end if you want to learn more.  Bullitt is the subject of three biographies held by Davis Library.  Biographer Michael Cassella-Blackburn called him, “perhaps the most charming, thoughtful, and devious person in the interwar and early postwar years of Soviet–American relations.”

A member of Yale’s class of 1912, Bullit’s classmates voted him their “most brilliant.” He also won two of the student’s most valued social awards—a Phi Beta Kappa key and a membership on the Yale Daily News editorial board.  He was also “tapped” for a membership in the secret society Scroll and Key.  He was a member of the Mince Pie Club, a forum for wit and satire, along with his close college friend Cole Porter.  (Some sources say they co-founded the club, but there was a Hasting Eating and Mince Pie Club in the 1890s, so others can resolve that distinction.)  As a student Bullitt also overextended himself so widely that he suffered from exhaustion and had to delay his senior year to recuperate before graduating in 1913.

Bored and tormented while studying law at Harvard in 1914, Bullitt sailed to Europe in June with his mother after the passing of his father in March. They chose to visit Russia and were in Moscow when Serbian Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive of the Austria–Hungary, and Ferdinand’s wife in Sarajevo.  As the events leading to the Great War unfolded, the Bullitts left Moscow and Europe—but not until September, witnessing the early rumblings and preparations of World War I in Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, and London.  Those weeks in Europe significantly set the tone for the remainder of his life.

Returning to his hometown of Philadelphia, Bullitt soon obtained a newspaper job at The Public Ledger as a police beat reporter.  Bullitt also submitted articles on the war, and their high quality gave rise to a stellar journalistic career—so much so that President Woodrow Wilson solicited his advice on several occasions.  In December 1917 Bullitt became assistant secretary of state.  In 1919 he was a member of Wilson’s peace conference delegation and the president sent Bullitt to Russia as a special emissary to develop a peace plan with Vladimir Lenin.

In December 1923 Bullitt married Louise Bryant.  It was his second marriage, her third.  If you have seen the movie Reds (1981) then you may have recognized her name, for her second husband had been journalist John Reed—the couple portrayed by Diane Keaton and Warren Beatty—who wrote on the Russian Revolution as an insider and died in Russia in 1920.  During Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency Bullitt became the first United States ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1933, and ambassador to France in 1936.

In late July 1940 FDR asked Bullitt to deliver a foreign policy speech in Philadelphia on August 18th, knowing Bullitt would speak on the growing threat of the European war to the United States.  This would afford FDR a chance to asses the national mood.

The Bullitt quote from his call-to-action speech in Chapel Hill that begins this blog post sounds like a harbinger of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech twenty years later.  In fact, it’s a refinement from Bullit’s Philadelphia address:

When are we going to say to them [the U. S. government] that we don’t want to hear any longer about what we can get from our country, but we do want to hear what we can give to our country?

FDR and Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles vetted Bulliitt’s Philadelphia address, and had two million copies printed for distribution.  Essentially he said, “America is in danger.”  The isolationist United States Senate pillared Bullitt. The New York Times applauded.  The movement to war soon escalated.

Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940—just one week after UNC freshman Hugh Morton and fellow students walked onto campus to begin their school year, and only eight days before Roosevelt defeated Wendell Willkie in the presidential election that kept him in the White House for his third term. After the election, Bullitt wrote his version of the customary pro forma, post-election letter of resignation on November 7th, to which Roosevelt replied, “Resignation not accepted.”

Sometime during the fall semester, the UNC students’ International Relations Club, led by president Manfred Rogers, invited Bullitt to speak in Chapel Hill at Memorial Hall.  Originally scheduled for December 10th, the December 3rd issue of The Daily Tar Heel announced that Bullitt needed to postpone until January 7th because “of pressing duties in Washington and a physician’s order that he remain inactive for three weeks.”

Behind the scenes, however, other events offer a truer picture. Roosevelt either deliberately or accidentally placed Bullitt in a situation where he decided he had no choice but to announce his resignation as ambassador on November 13th.  As Bullitt biographers Brownwel and Billings deduced, “Roosevelt chose to be devious.”  Bullitt had come to learn indirectly that FDR was going to appoint Admiral William D. Leahy to the post.  Bullitt called the president on November 9th: “I thought you said this afternoon that I was to remain as ambassador to France and go off on holiday until December 15.  It’s [the Leahy situation] all over town now and puts me in a fine spot.” FDR replied, “Bill, believe it or not, I forgot all about it.  It’s entirely my fault.”  On December 28th Bullitt sent a note to Roosevelt asking that his resignation be accepted. On January 7, the day Bulitt spoke at UNC, FDR wrote, “Your letter of resignation as ambassador to France is before me.  It is with great reluctance that I accept it.”

As biographer’s Brownell and Billings wrote, “Once Bullitt was cut loose from the government, he spoke out loudly and often, starting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.”

Members of the head table during the International Relations Club dinner held before William C. Bullitt's speech. Left to right are Josephus Daniels, Bullitt, IRC president Manfred Rogers, Frank Porter Graham, and two unidentified women. This cropping is almost the same as the photograph was reproduced in the Yackety Yack, with just a touch more taken off the bottom.

Members of the head table during the International Relations Club dinner held before William C. Bullitt’s speech. Left to right are Josephus Daniels, Bullitt, IRC president Manfred Rogers, Frank Porter Graham, and two unidentified women. This cropping is almost the same as the photograph was reproduced in the Yackety Yack, with just a touch more taken off the bottom.

On Saturday, January 4th, 1941 in the DTH‘s first issue following winter break, one of three top-of-the-page headlines announced, “IRC Makes Extensive Plans For Bullitt Address Tuesday.”  In the accompanying article, the IRC disclosed that many prominent North Carolinians would attend, including North Carolina Governor Clyde Hoey; Ambassador to Mexico Josephus Daniels; Henri Haye, French Ambassador to the United States; Jonathan Daniels, editor of The News and Observer, Governor-elect J. M. Broughton; Julian Price, president of Jefferson Standard Life Insurance; [UNC Professor] Archibald Henderson, head of the William Allen White Committee for the Southeast [i.e., southeast chapter of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies]; and South Carolina Governor Burnet R. Maybank.  Rogers reported that “a majority of 750 invitations mailed to city mayors and chamber of commerce officials over the state had been accepted.”  Rogers anticipated a capacity crowd and urged students to arrive early to get good seats, and he expressed their good fortune because Bullitt had selected UNC from among 250 requests from other schools and organizations.  A $1.25-a-plate banquet at the Carolina Inn at 7:00 p.m. would precede Bullit’s speech with faculty and a select group of students receiving special invitations.  Other students who wanted to attend could contact Rogers.  The women’s dormitories house mothers even granted a curfew extension until 11:00 “so that coeds could hear the speech” scheduled to begin at 9:30 (pushed to 10:00 two days later).  Rogers said Bullitt’s speech would be so important that photographers from magazines Life and Time and the Associated Press, “together with state photographers, had made plans to take pictures.”  (I reviewed issues of Life and Time published shortly after the speech and uncovered no coverage, written or photographic.)

Sunday’s DTH also had a front-page article on the upcoming speech.  Rogers stated “that recent reports from Washington” indicated that Bullitt’s talk would compliment FDR’s now-famous “Arsenal of Democracy” fireside chat on national security of December 29th.  On the morning of Bullitt’s visit, however, DTH readers learned the topic of the speech would be “America and the War.”  Bullitt was “expected to sound out specific administrative aims instead of delivering a Roosevelt-supplementary address” because the night before the president delivered his “Annual Message” to the United States Congress—known today as FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech.  The IRC moved the starting time to 10:00 so that NBC “could air the entire speech,” and dignitaries would now begin their remarks at 9:30. Ironically, state radio stations would not carry the address, but Raleigh’s WPTF would broadcast a transcription later in the evening.

Daily Tar Heel Staff Photographer Jack Mitchell got the news assignment, which took him to the airport to capture Bullitt’s arrival with the UNC welcoming committee—and two front-page photographs for the next day’s DTH.  Morton, it seems, covered Bullitt’s visit as Photography Editor for Yackety Yack, the UNC student yearbook.  Four surviving Morton negatives document the dinner and the speech, one of each event appear in the IRC yearbook section. The DTH reported that Bullitt met with students in the Institute of Government building at 5:30, but no surviving photographs of that event have surfaced in the Morton collection.

Full view of another negative shot at the IRC dinner.

Full view of another negative shot at the IRC dinner.

What effect did Bullitt’s speech have on UNC students?  Here are two perspectives you might want to pursue if this question interests you.  The first can be found in the DTH on the Sunday previous to Bullit’s speech.  The DTH editorial board, writing under the initials “S. R.” (likely Simons Roof) espoused non-intervention in an editorial titled, “The Shift Toward War”:

As the new year and new quarter begins at Carolina, war threatens to disrupt our scholastic life.  Around us begins the great chorus of parrot-tongues — the men who derive their catch-words from such people as William Allen White. . . . But there is another campaign we might make.  We might deny that a group of pro-war politicians have the democratic right to say you and I must torture and murder—and be tortured and murdered—in a war where we run the risk of losing everything America has gained. . . You and I are being subjected to the most dangerous war propaganda ever conceived. . . .

The second viewpoint is that of DTH Associate Editor Bill Snider, writing two days after Bullitt’s speech, under the “Light on the Hill” column:

In less than half an hour and in exciting, poetic words Mr. Bullitt began where any ordinary citizen must begin and traced the situation through to its logical conclusion.  There was nothing to obstruct, nothing to confuse.  Everywhere the statement was cryptic, dynamic, thought-provoking. . . . There had been nothing very startling in all the vibrant words. . . With clarity and imagination they helped explain the rapidly consolidating vanguard of American public opinion.  Most importantly, however, though these words advanced the procession little, they bluntly told America where she stands now, and at this moment this is certainly what America wants to know more than anything else.  For these qualities, then, William C. Bullitt’s address in Chapel Hill at the dawn of 1941 should be remembered.

This is a view of the full negatives shot but Morton that appears in the 1841 Yackety Yack, which was cropped similar to the above version, though as a square.

This is a view of the full negatives shot but Morton that appears in the 1841 Yackety Yack, which was cropped similar to the above version, though as a square. Bullitt is looking at the podium so we do not see his eyes as we do in the exposure above. On stage in the shadows are Josephus Daniels, left, Frank Porter Graham below the NBC banner, who appears to be looking straight at Morton. To Graham’s left may be R. B. House, Dean of Administration.

Bibliography

Billings, Richard N. and Will Brownell.  So Close to Greatness: the First Biography of William C. Bullitt.  New York : Macmillan; London: Collier Macmillan, 1987.

Bullitt, Orville H., editor. For the President, Personal and Secret: Correspondence Between Franklin D. Roosevelt and William C. Bullitt.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972.

Bullitt Admits America Does Not Want War,Chicago Daily Tribune, 8 January 1941, page 7, column 3.

Bullitt, William C. America and the War : an address delivered in Chapel Hill on the Occasion of the Third Anniversary of the International Relations Club at the University of North Carolina, an NBC Broadcast.  Chapel Hill: Y. M. C. A., [1941].

Cassella-Blackburn, Michael.  The Donkey, The Carrot, and the Club: William C. Bullitt and Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1942.  Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004.  According to Cassella-Blackburn, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum has a copy of Bullitt’s entire speech at UNC in the John C. Wiley Papers (Box 6, General Correspondence, Bullitt, William C.).

Farnsworth, Beatrice. William C. Bullitt and the Soviet Union.  Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press [1967].

William C. Bullitt papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.

Over a ten-year period, he and his friend Sigmund Freud wrote Woodrow Wilson: a Psychological Study (1966).

Digitized Photo Album Shows Chapel Hill in 19th Century

The Library recently shared online the 1894 photo album belonging to former UNC President Kemp Plummer Battle. Continue reading

Battle_well_banner_400Battle_well_banner_400The Library recently shared online the 1894 photo album belonging to former UNC President Kemp Plummer Battle. Continue reading

From the wing to the T . . . (shirt, that is)

Happy New Year from “A View to Hugh.”  On the Heels of last week’s post that included mention of SMU standout running back Doak Waker, Jack Hilliard recounts some additional Justice–Walker memories from 1950.  For some perspective, I added the … Continue reading

Happy New Year from “A View to Hugh.”  On the Heels of last week’s post that included mention of SMU standout running back Doak Waker, Jack Hilliard recounts some additional Justice–Walker memories from 1950.  For some perspective, I added the excerpts from The State, and some tidbits found while looking for any use of the photographs.

UNC All America football player Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice (L) and SMU All America Doak Walker posing together, each wearing t-shirts celebrating the other's All America honors.

UNC All America football player Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice (L) and SMU All America Doak Walker posing together, each wearing t-shirts celebrating the other’s All America honors. Photograph by Hugh Morton, cropped by blog editor. The time and place of this photograph and the one below is unknown, but the most likely candidate would be early April 1950 during the Azalea Festival weekend. Walker arrive in Wilmington in the late afternoon of March 31st. Walker and Justice were together in Jacksonville, Florida as opponents in the first ever Senior Bowl on January 7, 1950, but there is no evidence that Morton attended the game. Another possibility could have been sometime around the 1950 Cotton Bowl in Dallas in late December 1949 or early January 1950, prior to announcing their business arrangement.

When UNC played Wake Forest on October 15, 1949 my dad and I were there. We arrived in Chapel Hill about 10 o’clock on that Saturday morning and visited on Franklin Street as we always liked to do. We stopped by The Varsity Shop at 149 East Franklin.  In those days as I recall, they offered three different UNC T-shirts: one with the University logo, one that said UNC Class of 19??, and one with a Charlie Justice image that included Art Weiner, Walt Pupa, and Hosea Rodgers.  The shirts were white with Carolina blue lettering, a major contrast to the hundreds of designs today at Johnny T-shirt, Chapel Hill Sportswear, or the Shrunken Head, among others on today’s Franklin Street.  As I stood looking at the Justice shirt, my dad said “I’ll talk to Santa about one of those.”  He must have, because on Christmas morning I got one.

As the 1949 season came to a close, Justice with his brother Jack along with his good friend SMU All America Doak Walker, partnered with former Greensboro businessman George Edwards, who was president of Quality Textiles in Greenville, South Carolina, to take that T-shirt idea across North Carolina and Texas.  Both Justice and Walker were triple-threat tailbacks—Justice in Coach Carl Snavely’s single wing, and Walker in Coach Matty Bell’s double wing.  The white T-shirts came in three designs: running, passing, and kicking, with Carolina blue lettering for Charlie and SMU red lettering for Doak.

P081_NTBS3_003338Hugh Morton was hired to take publicity pictures.  Morton and Justice had been friends for a long time, and Justice and Walker had become friends while on several All America teams in ’48 and ’49.  Morton always included one of the T-shirt shots in his slide shows.

Following the ’49 bowl season, the two Saturday heroes started a series of personal appearance autograph parties. They were very careful not to enter into any kind of business venture until they had finished their college playing careers and were no longer under NCAA regulations.

Justice made his first stop at Meyer’s Department Store in downtown Greensboro on Monday January 9, 1950, one week after leading UNC in the 1950 Cotton Bowl in Dallas, and two days after leading the South team to victory over Walker’s North team in the first annual Senior Bowl played in Jacksonville, Florida.  Charlie and Sarah arrived at the store about 2:15 for the 2:30 signing party.  There was already a line.  As Charlie began to sign the shirts, the line grew longer and by 3:30 with the school kids out of class, the line stretched out the door and down the sidewalk.  By 4:30, the sidewalk was filled as far as one could see and overflowed into Elm Street.  At 5:00 o’clock an estimated crowd between 2,500 and 3,000 people that were either in line or had been through the line since 2:15. Justice had worn out 6 pens signing his name. It was at this point that the Greensboro Police Department had to be called in.  I didn’t even get close to Charlie that day, but I did get a shirt which I still have.  Finally, at 5:30, they cleared the store and locked the doors.  The store created a mail order form and advertised it in the Greensboro Daily News. (No web sites in those days). The shirts sold for one dollar each and the postage was fifteen cents.

A headline in the Greensboro Daily News the next morning read, “Choo Choo Mobbed by Adoring Fans.” A front page, four-column story by Daily News staff writer Larry Hirsch was accompanied by two pictures, one of which was titled “The Meyer’s Bowl.” There is also a picture of the Greensboro signing party in the 1958 Bob Quincy–Julian Scheer book Choo Choo: The Charlie Justice Story.  In a 1984 interview Justice recalled, “I had hoped to sign a few autographs and help Ken Blair, manager over at Meyer’s sell a few T-shirts.”

Charlie "Choo-Choo" Justice autographing a T-shirt at J. C. Penny's department store, Burlington, N. C. , on 11 January 1950.  Photograph by Edward J. McCauley, cropped by blog editor.

Charlie “Choo-Choo” Justice autographing a T-shirt at J. C. Penny’s department store, Burlington, N. C. , on 11 January 1950. Photograph by Edward J. McCauley, cropped by blog editor.

Two days later, on January 11, Justice was at the J. C. Penney Company in Burlington for another autograph party—a party that was documented by Morton photographic contemporary Edward J. McCauley and his images from that day are also in the North Carolina Collection at UNC.  Woody Durham, the “Voice of the Tar Heels,” likes to tell about being at that party in Burlington.

Crowd of children waiting for Charlie Justice for an autograph.  Photograph by Edward J. McCauley.

Crowd of children waiting to see Charlie Justice for an autograph. Photograph by Edward J. McCauley, cropped by blog editor.

In the 14 January 1950 issue of The State, the magazine’s editorial staff asked readers for nominations for their “North Carolina’s Man of the Year” award for 1949.  They wrote,

Pick out some man and then weigh him in the balance.  Compare the good things he has done with others that might not be so good.  Decide whether he has been an influence for those things which tend to promote the welfare of North Carolina and its people.  It is on that basis that the selection should be made.

Two weeks later, the January 28th issue of the The State hit magazine racks and mail boxes across North Carolina.  On the cover: the Charlie Justice family, photographed by Hugh Morton.

TheState_19500128_coverInside the magazine, editors noted that Justice and Governor W. Kerr Scott received the most mention from readers.  The editors expounded on their selection of Justice (which you can read in its entirety by clicking on the magazine cover above):

. . . there are two major classes of people in North Carolina—the young and the old.  Both are important.  Perhaps the young are more important because they still have the major portion of their lives ahead of them.  Charlie Justice has been an inspiration to many thousands of boys and girls in North Carolina.  You’d be surprised to know how many of them keep scrap-books about him.  They actually swap pictures, just as we used to swap cigarette pictures fifty years or so ago.

Summarizing they listed their reasons for their selection:

  1. He has been the finest kind of an inspiration and example to the youth of North Carolina.
  2. He has provided many hours of pleasurable entertainment to hundreds of thousands of people.
  3. He has given North Carolina national publicity of a most favorable nature.
  4. He has been unselfish in his willingness to be of service in may worthy causes.
  5. He has never been to busy to be nice to kids.

A few days after the Man-of-the-Year issue of The State, on February 3rd, Justice attended another autograph party, this one at Belk-Tyler’s in Rocky Mount.

A bit later in 1950, Doak Walker was having similar successful autograph parties in the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas.  On April 14, 1950, he appeared on the evening news on KBTV, Channel 8 in Dallas promoting his autograph party at Titche-Goettinger the following day. The store also set up a mail order and phone-in ad in the Dallas Morning News. A. Harris & Company set up a mail-order blank for the shirts in the “News” as well.  The Robert I. Cohen department store place an advertisement in the April 15th edition of the Galveston Daily News that read, “Hey Fellas, (gals, too) Be the first in your gang to wear a DOAK WALKER TEE SHIRT $1.” The advertisement gave a description of the three pictures styles, included a drawing of a lad wearing the running shirt and a note that “Phone and Mail Orders Accepted”—plus an announcement they would be giving away ten autographed footballs when “The Doaker will be here personally for an autograph party Saturday, April 19th.  Don’t miss him.”  Another advertisement with a drawing of a kid wearing the passing T-shirt ran in the 23rd issue of the newspaper.  Several weeks later, a May 27th Cohen advertisement for a one-day, end-of-the-month clearance sale priced the T-shirts at 88¢.

It not clear how widely Morton’s photographs were used for publicity.  I have pasted in one of my Charlie Justice scrapbooks, a newspaper picture of the Morton image that shows both wearing the shirt with both player pictures and the caption reads:

Two pals certain to succeed when their classes graduate in June are Charlie Justice left the Carolina All America, and Doak Walker right SMU’s All America. They’ve already gone into business for themselves as witness the shirts. They plan a personal appearance tour together after graduation.

I can’t tell which newspaper or the date of the clipping. Likely it would have been The Greensboro Daily News, sometime after January 2nd and before June of 1950.  I don’t believe the joint tour took place because it was scheduled to begin after Carolina’s final regular season game with Virginia on November 26th, but since they got the ’50 Cotton Bowl bid, the joint tour was canceled. I don’t believe it was ever rescheduled. Surveying various Texas and North Carolina newspapers for 1950 that are available online did not yield an answer.

The Justice jerseys were available into the following football season, too.  Quality Textiles placed advertisements in game-day programs that listed stores in North Carolina and Virginia that sold the shirts.  Rather than using the Justice/Walker photographs, the ad used photograph of a young boy and girl holding hands while wearing Justice jerseys.  The photograph shows that the manufacturer also made a long sleeve polo shirt, which may explain why they choose to make different image.

Thirty-four years after the T-shirt’s debut, in August of 1984, I was assigned to direct a Charlie Justice documentary produced by Winston-Salem TV producer David Solomon.  (Many may remember Solomon as having worked with Hugh Morton on the 1994 PBS documentary The Search for Clean Air.) As part of the promotion campaign for the Justice program, the 1949 Choo Choo T-shirt was replicated and given to the media to promote the program, “All the Way Choo Choo.”  This time I got Charlie to autograph my shirt.