Saving Hatteras Light

. . . Mr. Byram and his handful of youths went along this ridge and when they came to a dead bush they cut it. Lacking a vehicle that would negotiate the sand, they dragged it to the Lighthouse and before nightfall they had built a hedgerow thirty inches high for a distance of sixty feet, set well back out of reach of the tide. . . Daylight next morning found Mr. Byram and his boys out to see what had happened in the night. Nothing except the tops of their hedgerow of dead brush was visible.—from Ben Dixon MacNeill’s The Hatterasman.

Edward Jefferson Byram was the leader of the advanced detachment of the Civilian Conservation Corps contingent assigned to the land and lighthouse on Cape Hatteras in August 1935. Deeded to the state of North Carolina for a state park, the state transferred the land to the National Park Service in December 1936.

Governor Hunt holding aerial photograph of Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
Governor Jim Hunt holding an aerial photograph made by Hugh Morton of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Morton made the photograph on August 6, 1981—one month prior to the kickoff of the Save the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse fundraising campaign. Morton made this portrait after Hunt spoke at an unidentified meeting of the Travel Council of North Carolina.

Today, September 8, 2021 marks the fortieth anniversary of another attempt to thwart the ravages of wind and sea against the lighthouse: the Save the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse fundraising campaign kickoff at the Mission Valley Inn at Raleigh. In 2009, Jack Hilliard wrote an extensive blog post about Hugh Morton’s role in saving the lighthouse. Jack’s story includes that event, but what happened the prior year that led to Morton’s involvement?

From time-to-time, Morton’s executive planners provide answers or clues. There are only a few entries on the topic in his 1981 planner:

  • April 30—“TV 7-8AM WCTI-TV New Bern at Mission Valley re Lighthouse Jerry Dean”
  • August 6—“Fly Hatteras Robert Baker”
  • September 8—“noon—Gov. Hunt—Sen Helms Raleigh”
  • October 8— 8:00 a.m. “Lighthouse meeting” with an additional entry: “Gov. Hunt – Nags Head – Hatteras”

Morton’s photograph held by Governor Hunt is from a 120 format negative (roll 1-101-3-3, frame 5). Several prints from that roll of film are in the Morton collection with a typed caption:

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in August 1981, with ocean shown less than 100 feet from its base. These photographs are a featured part of information being provided to the 100 County Chairmen in the lighthouse drive for funds in regional meetings in Asheville, Salisbury, Clinton and Rocky Mount Wednesday and Thursday April 7 and 8.

Hugh Morton’s name first appears in the press in association with saving the lighthouse on 26 July 1981. The previous day, during a news conference in Wilmington Secretary of the Interior Department James Watt and United States Senator Jesse Helms announced that Morton would head a general subscription to raise funds, harkening Morton’s campaign to bring the U.S.S. North Carolina to Wilmington in the early 1960s. Morton’s planner, however, has him in Linville and Grandfather Mountain.  As listed above, his planner does suggest earlier involvement in April. (There is no planner extant for 1980.)

As for the lighthouse itself, public awareness of the lighthouse’s imminent danger surfaced in an Associated Press Reports article published by The Charlotte Observer on October 14, 1980. The report noted that local residents feared the lighthouse “might not make it through the winter” because tides were “gnawing away at its foundation” and its steward, the National Park Service, did not have a plan to save it. Ray Couch, president of the Outer Banks Preservation Society, said that its members were writing letters to their congressional representatives to draw their attention to “the seriousness of the situation.” William Harris, superintendent of Hatteras National Seashore, stated that only sixty to ninety feet of sand remained between the ocean and the lighthouse and acknowledged that the beach erosion at the site was “very acute.” He also stated that an architect and engineering firm was assessing the situation.  He closed by saying, “The cheapest option is to move the lighthouse,” but “we have no money.”

Ten days later, a fierce storm struck the North Carolina coast and work crews “began a desperate battle against the sea,” wrote Charlotte Observer writer and photographer Jim Dumbell. Workers continued their prevention effort into Saturday as the storm produced twelve-foot waves that pounded the shore. The Associated Press picked up the story on October 27, which reads like a shorter version of Dumbell’s feature. The following day, news reports announced that the National Park Service agreed to construct a jetty as a $60,000 stopgap measure. An Associated Press article described the jetty as an “underground metal wall.”

An article the following year by National Geographic writer John L. Eliot revealed that the then recent round of erosion actually arose in early March 1980 after a strong nor’easter socked the eastern United States as far south as Florida, where the temperature plummeted to thirty degrees Fahrenheit in West Palm Beach. The North Carolina coast was hit with thirty inches of snow and sixty mile-per-hour winds. More importantly at the lighthouse, ten-foot waves battered the shore when high tides were the highest since the Ash Wednesday storm of 1962. After the October storm described above, another struck in December requiring more emergency buttressing along the shore near the foundation.

Addenda (September 9, 2021): Governor Hunt gave a prepared speech on 10 November 1981 during the three-day meeting of the travel council, making that date a candidate for the date Morton made the above portrait. The meeting took place at the Holiday Inn–Woodlawn in Charlotte. Also, The State published one of Morton’s color transparencies made during the same flight on the cover of its January 1982 issue.

New name added to Morton’s presidential list

Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a confirmation hearing held by the European Affairs Subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The editor cropped this detail from a negative by Hugh Morton.

During his seventy years with a camera, we believe Hugh Morton photographed eleven United States presidents—from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. Then, on January 20, 2021, we added a twelfth name to the list.

It was Wednesday, March 4, 1987: Hugh Morton and Smith Barrier, Greensboro News & Record Sports Editor, drove to Washington, D.C. Likely, Barrier was going to cover the 1987 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament, to be played at Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, and Morton had arranged interviews and photo sessions with United States Senator Jesse Helms and Tar Heel newsman David Brinkley for his forthcoming book Making a Difference in North Carolina (published in 1988) with co-author Ed Rankin Jr. The initial link above will carry you to the first of a three-part series describing their trip.

Morton wrote in his 1996 book, Sixty Years with a Camera, Ed Rankin and Jesse Helms were roommates when they got out of school and worked for newspapers in Raleigh. So when Ed and I authored the book, Making a Difference in North Carolina, the senator spread the red carpet for us in Washington.” Morton photographed Helms in different settings, including a hearing by the European Affairs subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on March 5, 1987. On that day the subcommittee debated Ronald Reagan’s appointment of Jack F. Matlock Jr. to be ambassador to the Soviet Union. Matlock was a native of Greensboro and a Duke University graduate. (The Senate confirmed Matlock’s appointment later that month.)

Morton also photographed other senators during the subcommittee hearing, one of whom was Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. Biden began his first term in the Senate in January 1973, just thirty years old after being elected at the age of twenty-nine.  Two years later, Biden’s fellow senators elected him to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Clairborne Pell was the committee’s chairman when Morton visited, having succeeded Indiana’s Richard Lugar (1985–1987).  Two decades later, Biden and Helms would combine to chair that committee for ten of the next fourteen years, interrupted only by a second Lugar chairmanship.

  • Jesse Helms: 1995–2001
  • Joseph R. Biden Jr.: 2001–2003
  • Richard G. Lugar: 2003–2007
  • Joseph R. Biden Jr.: 2007–2009

Morton also photographed Lugar that day. A photograph of Biden, Helms, and Lugar by Morton appears on page 290 of Making a Difference in North Carolina. That negative is in the collection but has not been digitized, so here is a similar scene from the hearing:

https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/morton_highlights/id/1137
Left to right: United States Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr., Jesse Helms, and Richard Lugar.

Nearly thirty-four years after Morton made these photographs, on January 20, 2021, the United States inaugurated Biden as its forty-sixth president—thus bringing Morton’s list of presidential photographs to twelve. Here’s Morton’s presidential list, with links to online images:

In full disclosure, here is the full view of Morton’s negative used at the beginning of this post, without cropping.

Joseph R. Biden and Jesse Helms photograph without crop
Morton’s photograph of Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Jesse Helms, without the cropping above that only shows Biden.

“Save Old Main”

As is often the case with Hugh Morton photographs, a single image that seems straightforward enough turns out to have a more involved story.  Such is the case with today’s post. Looking for any photographs made during the month of January led me to two sets of images: six color slides and six 120 format black-and-white negatives—and a larger story.

In 1921, the North Carolina legislature appropriated $75,000 for the construction of a new building for the Cherokee Indian Normal School of Robeson County.  Completed in 1923, the building housed twelve classrooms, two offices, four toilets, a large auditorium that seated several hundred, and a “picture booth” on the upper floor.  Though funded by a state appropriation, the building took on a symbolic link to the Lumbee community’s efforts to sustain the school from its origin as the Croatan Normal School that opened in 1887. Over the course of time, the building became known as “Old Main.” Local newspaper accounts in which the name starts to appear suggest around 1952, but perhaps even sooner after the addition of two new buildings, Sampson Hall and Locklear Hall, in 1949 and 1950.

Old Main, Pembroke State University
Old Main, Pembroke State University (now University of North Carolina at Pembroke), January 1972.

Reflecting the Lumbee’s complex history, the school experienced many name changes during the 20th Century: first, in 1911, the Indian Normal School of Robeson County, and then in 1913, the Cherokee Indian Normal School of Robeson County, which it retained until 1941 when it became Pembroke State College for Indians.  In 1949 the name was shortened to Pembroke State College, and then Pembroke State University in 1971. In October of that year, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation that enlarged the statewide university system to include all four-year state-supported institutions of higher education.  Thus Pembroke State University became part of the University of North Carolina system effective July 1972.

In July 1970, Old Main stood in disrepair. The university included in its capital improvement requests to the Advisory Budget Committee, as a priority, a replacement auditorium to cost $1.6 million. Approved in January 1971, Old Main became earmarked for demolition. A petition drive led by Daniel Dial to spare the building, however, gathered 1,000 Lumbee signatures by mid December 1971. Dial told a news reporter for The Robesonian, “People sign it weeping.  People want to sign it, beg to sign it.”  The petition’s wording was:

Let us preserve our heritage and our legacy. OLD MAIN on the Campus of Pembroke State University is the last monument to our humble yet very historic beginning,  Historic buildings are preserved all over this land and we should show this much concern for ours. We are a proud people and OLD MAIN has helped keep us so. Please sign this sheet to show your loyalty.”

Dial anticipated the collection of 10,000 signatures.  The effort drew national attention.

Save Old Main demonstrators
Photograph of the Save Old Main demonstrators at Pembroke State University, January 12, 1972. Photograph by Dolores Briggs, The Robesonian, January 13, 1972, page 1.

On Wednesday, January 12, 1972, about two dozen people carried protest signs in front of the building, chanting “Save—Old—Main.” Inside, Hugh Morton gave a noontime campaign speech at the invitation of the Student Governance Association.  Morton had officially entered the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial primary race six weeks earlier on December 1.

News article Hugh Morton campaigning at Pembroke
Detail of an article on Hugh Morton’s January 12, 1972 campaign speech at Pembroke State University (in The Robesonian, January 13, 1972, page 2).

On that Wednesday evening, Danford Dial met with the Pembroke Jaycees “to discuss what constructive plans can be made for the preservation of Old Main building on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. By that time, The Robesonian reported, Dial had obtained signatures from “some 7,000” supporters who favored keeping the building in lieu of the proposed demolition. Dial noted that demonstrations would continue and would be “on a much larger scale.” The Robesonian‘s coverage from this period suggests January 12 may have been the first day of demonstrations.  The newspaper caption for the group photograph above states, “Some 100 members of the Eastern Carolina Indian Association are expected to join in a second demonstration at 3 p. m. today.” In less than two weeks, the topic became part of the statewide political fray. Come May, Shirley Chisholm would visit the campus as part of her presidential campaign and speak from the steps of Old Main.

I’m not a politician. I’m trying to be one, but I’m not one yet.

Morton stated during his campaign speech that he was not yet a politician, but that he was trying to be one.  He certainly was a photographer, and as you would expect Morton made several exposures outside Old Main.  Surviving in the collection are six black-and-white 120 format negatives and six 35mm color slides. If my extrapolation from the photographic caption text published in the January 13th issue of The Robesonian is correct—that is, the second demonstration would be happening “today,” thus making the previous day’s demonstration on the 12th the first demonstration—then Hugh Morton captured scenes of the first day of the Save Old Main demonstrations on film, both in color and in black-and-white.

Four of the color images are already in the online collection of Morton photographs. The two that are not online are variant views of Old Main; the black-and-white images, however, have not been viewable online before this blog post.

Save Old Main demonstrators at Pembroke color slide
“Save Old Main” demonstrators, including Danford Dial (front left) at Pembroke State University, 12 December 1972.
Save Old Main demonstrators black-and-white
One of two of Hugh Morton’s black-and-white negatives made of the Save Old Main demonstrators, January 12, 1972. Please leave a comment below if you can identify others in the photograph.
Dr. English E. Jones, Pembroke State University.
Dr. English E. Jones, president and then chancellor of Pembroke State University from 1962 to 1979.

In addition to the two black-and-white negatives shown above (but not shown here), Morton photographed himself with Dr. English E. Jones, president and then chancellor of the university from 1962 to 1979.  He also photographed Jones alone twice, as he did in color (one of which is in the online collection). The sixth black-and-white is a variant of the above group of demonstrators.

Morton with Save Old Main leaders February 10 1972
Photograph of Hugh Morton meeting with members of the Save Old Main movement on February 10, 1972, published in following day’s issue of The Robesonian.

On January 27, The Robesonian published a statement issued to the newspaper by Morton:

I feel the same about the Old Main building as I do about the governor’s mansion. If it is practical and feasible to save it and make it useful, I would certainly like to see it preserved. I don’t personally know enough about its current condition to know the answer.

Morton also stated that he had not been invited to speak again to students at Pembroke, but would be glad to do so if asked. He also noted that he planned to visit Lumberton two or three more times. Two weeks later on February 10, 1972 Morton met with a group of Save Old Main leaders at the Old Foundry Restaurant. The Robesonian news story on February 11 about his visit quoted a Morton statement, which reads as an enhancement and refinement of his earlier statement:

Old Main is very much in the same category as the governor’s mansion. It is a beautiful and beloved building which should be preserved if it is at all possible. I hope that an alternative site can be obtained for the proposed new building in order that further architectural investigation can be made into the feasibility of saving and utilizing Old Main.

A week later, Morton withdrew from the political race. The preservation race to save Old Main, however, continued.  In July the university’s board of trustees approved relocation of the new auditorium to a parcel of land previously condemned. On March 18, 1973, an arsonist set Old Maid ablaze—a potential major setback that actually turned the tide in the building’s favor. Governor James Holshouser went to the campus that evening and pledged his support to restore Old Main. A year later a restoration plan was in hand. In 1976, the building gained acceptance onto the National Register of Historic Places. Old Main, completely rebuilt, reopened in 1979. Currently it is home to several occupants, including the Museum of the Southeast American Indian, the Department of American Indian Studies, and the student newspaper, The Pine Needle.

". . . flashing him in every pose but on his head."

Alton Lennon photographs published in Charlotte News
Front page article from The Charlotte News, July 13, 1953, featuring photographs by Hugh Morton. The headshot portraits are among nine negatives made during that sitting that are part of the Hugh Morton collection, as is the negative for the family portrait.

STARK NAKED — Almost everybody around Raleigh and elsewhere was caught with his pants down late last Friday afternoon when Gov. William B. Umstead, as calmly as a man reaching for a glass of water, announced that Al Lennon of Wilmington was his at-long-last choice to succeed Smith as junior U. S. Senator from North Carolina.
To be perfectly frank about it, most of us were not only caught with our pants down.  We found ourselves stark naked.

So began Kidd Brewer’s “Raleigh Round-Up” column for the Thursday, July 16, 1953 issue of the Nashville Graphic (in Nash County, N. C.).  We need to go back a handful of days to that previous Friday, July 10—actually back to June 26—for the start of this story.  For that is the day that North Carolina’s junior senator in the United States Senate, Willis Smith, died while in office from a coronary thrombosis.
Smith’s term was set to end at the close of 1954.  He was completing a term begun by J. Melville Broughton on January 3, 1949 that ended abruptly nine weeks later when Broughton died in office on March 6.  Newly elected governor W. Kerr Scott appointed Frank Porter Graham to replace Broughton, but Graham lost his bid to retain the seat to Smith in a contentious run-off primary election on June 24, 1950.  Smith then handily won the general election on November 7, 1950, earning him the right to complete the remaining four years of Broughton’s term.
Governor Umstead needed to replace Smith, and he kept his selection process very closed-lipped.  The state’s then senior senator was Clyde R. Hoey from the western part of the state, so Umstead looked eastward for his appointee.  The vacant seat had proved to be like the removable chair in the children’s game Musical Chairs, so Umstead sought an appointee who he believed could begin campaigning almost immediately for the primary that would take place in May 1954—just ten months away—win the primary, and then continue on for a full six-year term.
When Umstead announced that the relatively unknown Wilmington attorney and former state senator Alton Asa Lennon as his appointment—late on a Friday afternoon—there were few photographs of Lennon for the press to print in newspapers.  Brewer noted that “there were only one or two photos of the new senator wandering around the State.”
Where on earth was the world going to get photographs of a relatively unknown Wilmingtonian who was destined for the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol?  Fellow Wilmington native Hugh Morton, of course!  How do we know this to be the case?  Later in Brewer’s story we encounter a passage that launched me into a deeper dig to differentiate the numerous negatives made by Morton between Umstead’s announcement and Lennon’s send-off to Washington, D. C. that are extant in the Hugh Morton collection.  Brewer wrote,

Hugh Morton, Wilmington photographer and tourist expert who had himself only two hours earlier been reappointed to the State Board of Conservation and Development, rushed to Lennon’s house and began flashing him in every pose but on his head.  And the state editors and wire boys were already performing that act.  The AP snapped up Morton’s pictures, got its wirephoto services on the ready, and in most late night editions of Saturday morning’s papers, there was old Al smiling out at you from a three-column photo.

Does Brewer’s description of the media blitz match the historical record?  Is it an accurate account of how Morton’s negatives came into being?  Upon searching the Morton collection finding aid, I found three listings for forty black-and-white negatives surrounding this event, with three broadly defined sets in the Morton collection finding aid:

  • Lennon, Alton: Wilmington sendoff celebration to U.S. Senate, 14 July 1953
  • Lennon, Alton: Various portraits, with family, etc., circa 1953
  • Lennon, Alton: With Governor William Umstead, circa 1953

The first two listings are a jumble of images that span from as early as the evening of July 10 through the “send-off” on July 14, officially proclaimed by the governor as “Alston Lennon Day.”  It’s important to note here that many categories of images in the Morton collection are “a jumble.”  When processing the collection after its arrival, the quantity of material in the collection and its lack of internal structure did not permit our archivist, Elizabeth Hull, to refine uncounted rough groupings and descriptions for tens of thousands of items.  Even today, I am hard pressed to find the time to dig too deep.  In this case I needed to sort through the negatives to see what they depicted for the Morton collection preservation digitization project.  A fair amount of work went into it, and I needed to write down what I learned to make sense of it all.  I felt I could turn that information into a useful and informative post, and so what follows is what I’ve gathered thus far.
Let’s start with the easiest listing first: the negatives depicting Umstead and Lennon together.

Amsted and Lennon
Governor William B. Umstead during his meeting with Alton Lennon, the governor’s newly announced appointment to the United States Senate, July 13, 1953.

News accounts stated that the governor made a surprise visit to Wilmington to meet with Lennon on Monday, July 13 during an “open house” in the offices of Star News Newspapers, the publisher of Wilmington’s two major newspapers.  The only update needed for the finding aid for that group of six negatives was a change of “circa” to the exact date.
There are six negatives of Umstead interacting with Lennon, including the following image published as an Associated Press Wirephoto:
Lennon and Umstead in AP Wirephoto
Hugh Morton photograph (uncredited) published as an Associated Press Wirephoto. The clipping shown here is from the front page of the July 14 issue of The Asheville Citizen.

The two remaining listings in the finding aid, however, is where confusion reigned.  Looking at some newspapers (Wilmington’s Morning Star and The Wilmington News, and their jointly issued Sunday Star News, plus The Charlotte News (to which Morton frequently submitted work) proved to be useful.  So, too, did an eye for fashion and a bit of knowledge about photographic film manufacturing.  Let’s tackle the film manufacturing process first.
Film manufacturers use notches on one corner of the film so that photographers can quickly and easily determine the emulsion side of the film.  Photographers need to know the emulsion is facing the outside of the film holder (i.e., toward the lens) when they insert a sheet of film into a film holder while doing so in complete darkness.  As illustrated below (but always done in the dark), if you hold the film in your hand so you can feel the notch(es) with your index finger, then the emulsion is facing upwards. (Of course there wouldn’t be an image on the film when loading new film!)  The notch is also is an indication of the specific film.  For this information we turn to The Acetate Negative Survey by David Horvath in 1987.  According to Horvath’s survey, a single V-shaped notch on safety film made by Kodak indicates that Morton photographed using Super Pan Press, Type B.
film notch code
Most photographic archivists are familiar with notch codes.  But also note the number to the left of the code.  Not as many know what that represents, and sheet film negatives do not always have a number there.  I’ve seen that number referred to both as a batch code and as a machine code: the former meaning that the manufacturer would be able to identify the emulsion batch, and the latter indicating what machine cut the film into sheets.  For archivists, we can use that number to help (it’s not definitive) determine if a photographer made a group of images during the same general time period. How so?  Most photographers purchased sheet film in boxes of 25 or 100, so each sheet in a box or boxes purchased at the same time will likely have the same batch/machine code.  In this case all but four of the forty negatives have a single notch with the code number 97.  For now, hold that thought.
The images made closest to July 10 that I found in the newspapers appeared on Sunday, July 12, meaning that photographers took them on either on the evening of the July 10 or some time on July 11.  Here’s one, a “Staff Photo by Ludwig” from The Sunday Star News on July 12:
Lennon Family in Sunday Star News
Morton took a similar group portrait of the family around the same table, but without Lennon’s parents. (You might not be able to tell from the scan from microfilm, but it’s clear in Morton’s negative that while there are rolls on the center platter, everyone’s plates and bowls are empty.)  The caption identifies the location of the family portrait as Lennon’s summer cottage in Wrightsville Beach.  As seen at the top of this post, The Charlotte News published a portrait of the family seated near a fireplace, wearing the same clothes, on the same page as it ran four portraits across a four-column-wide article.  That setting (law office versus home) doesn’t seem to mesh with Kidd Brewer’s description.  One of those single portraits may have been published in a Saturday morning newspaper that I’ve not had time to explore.  If so, then Brewer’s account could be accurate.
All totaled there are nine of the similarly posed Alton Lennon portrait negatives extant in the Morton collection, and at least one other pose made it to print.  Lest we forget about Hugh Morton’s other favorite go-to publication, The State, here’s another of the portraits . . .
Lennon portrait by Morton, cover, The State, 25 July 1953 issue
United States Senator-Designate Alton Lennon, portrait by Hugh Morton on the cover of the 25 July 1953 issue of The State.

Below is a photograph published in The Wilmington News on July 13, taken by Morton but uncredited, showing a smiling Lennon with “fellow attorneys” posed in what, after consulting various other negatives in the collection, appears to be his law office in the Odd Fellows Building at 229 Princess Street.  Many attorneys had their offices there because it was only a short walk to the city hall and county courthouse.  The steps of Thalian Hall were just across the street on North 3rd Street.
Alton Lennon with fellow attorneys
As captioned in the July 13, 1953 edition of The Wilmington News: “SENATOR LENNON CONGRATULATED — Fellow attorneys gather around Alton A. Lennon to extend congratulations on his appointment to the U. S. Senate. Shown with the new senator are Cicero Yow, H. Winfield Smith, John J. Burney Jr., Marsden Bellamy, Addison Hewlett Jr., Solomon B. Sternberger and Elbert Brown.” The photograph by Hugh Morton is uncredited.

There are several negatives made in that room, where the same composite photograph of the 1947 North Carolina Senate members is visible. Lennon was an elected member of the 1947 North Carolina Senate.  In some of the negatives, Lennon’s diploma from Wake Forest College can be seen hanging on the perpendicular wall to the left.
Your eye for fashion now comes into play.  You cannot tell from the picture above (as reproduced here from microfilm) but what can clearly be seen in the negative is that Lennon is wearing a double-breasted suit jacket.  It may be the same as seen in this detail of a negative made by Morton on the steps of Thalian Hall below:
Alton Lennon at Thalian Hall
Detail from a negative made by Morton of Alton Lennon standing on the stairs of Wilmington’s Thalian Hall. Notice the double breasted suit jacket.

It could very well be, then, that Morton photographed Lennon on that Friday evening after the announcement when he would have been in his office with his fellow attorneys, and also on the steps of Thalian Hall.
Alton Lennon standing in convertible
Newly-appointed Senator Alton Lennon standing and waving from the back of a convertible as part of his official send-off celebration.

At this point in his life, Hugh Morton was the vice president of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce.  The chamber organized a special “send off” committee and named Morton as its chairman. Festivities on July 14 began with a parade through the streets to the train station.  Lennon’s car stopped for him to pose for photographers:
 
Now what about those four negatives with a different batch/machine code number?  Here they are:
Alton Lennon campaigning
The machine code for these is 419 (not 97).  Note, too, a portion of a campaign poster on the side of the car (lower right image).  And that eye for fashion?  Note Lennon is not wearing a bow tie, which he wears in all of the negatives made during the appointment days except during his meeting with Umstead, when he wears a light-colored suit and not a darker shade.  There is enough evidence to conclude that Morton did not make these four negatives during events surrounding the Lennon announcement and send off.  Lennon began campaigning soon after his appointment so we can date them from 1953 or 1954, but we cannot presume Morton made these four negatives in Wilmington.  The top left negative is part of the online collection, and the metadata for that has been updated to reflect the distinction.  The finding aid groupings will also be revised to reflect the new findings.
Alton Lennon campaigning
Alton Lennon campaigning for the 1954 Democratic Party primary election, circa 1953-1954.

Epilog
Alton Lennon or his surrogates used at least two of Morton’s photographs during the 1954 primary.  Below is a page from the April 24, 1954 issue of The State:
Alton Lennon political advertisement published in The State
Alton Lennon political advertisement published in April 24, 1954 issue of THE STATE.

The image above is cropped from one of the many negatives Hugh Morton exposed in Lennon’s law office, one of two with that “Keep America Strong” illustration in the background.  It’s the upper portion of a calendar, which explains the last letters of the word “COMPANY” next to his left arm.
Morton’s family portrait of the Lennons seated in front of their fireplace reappears in a political advertisement paid for by Rocky Mount Friends of U. S. Senator Alton Lennon in that city’s newspaper, The Evening Telegram, on May 24:
Lennon political advertisement in The Evening Telegram
Lennon political advertisement in The Evening Telegram, May 24, 1954, featuring Hugh Morton’s family portrait made in July 1953.

Lennon lost his bid for the full term.  He and six other candidates fell to W. Kerr Scott on the Saturday, May 29 election day, with Scott securing 25,323 more votes than second place Lennon.

Fiery "America First" Dakotan takes on Tar Heels

The controversy between isolationists and interventionists became an unusually rugged affair with no holds barred on either side. . . . The name-calling, mud-slinging, and smearing on both sides made the foreign policy debate a poor place for the sensitive or fainthearted.  Each side welcomed almost any chance to discredit the opposition.

—Wayne S. Cole in Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations

It was Armistice Day—Tuesday, 11 November 1941— and United States Senator Gerald P. Nye’s speech at the University of North Carolina, announced to the student body that day—was still a week away.  Despite the frivolity of Sadie Hawkins Day events during the weekend, peace was not on the horizon.  In the opening sentence of his front-page article of The Daily Tar Heel, writer Paul Komisaruk predicted the nature of the upcoming event:

National politics and policies erupt from the Memorial hall rostrum next Tuesday night as North Dakota’s Old Guard isolationist, Senator Gerald P. Nye, attacks New Deal measures before a Chapel Hill audience under the auspices of the CPU [Carolina Political Union].

On that same November 11th evening, Vichy France‘s ambassador to the United States, Gaston Henry-Haye, was the International Relations Club (IRC) speaker at Memorial Hall.  Appointed by Chief of State Philippe Pétain in 1940, it was to be Henry-Haye’s “first public proclamation” since his appointment.  The tone on campus had been and continued to be antagonistic.  The DTH editorial column, titled “Carolina’s Free Speech Continues,” asked that

. . . students who are antagonistic to the ambassador and what he stands for, refrain from showing him anything but the strictest courtesy throughout his address and the open forum.  Carolina’s tradition of freedom of expression is too old now to be violated by one night’s rudeness.

Gaston Henry-Haye
Gaston Henry-Haye, Vichy France’s ambassador to the United States (left) during his appearance at UNC Chapel Hill’s Memorial Hall on Armistice Day, 11 November, 1941. This scene is a severely cropped detail from a previously unidentified negative made by Hugh Morton. The student yearbook, The Yackety Yack, published this photograph cropped even tighter in its 1942 edition. The student at the podium may be Roger Mann, president of the International Relations Club; seated on right may be Kedar Bryan, treasurer.

Two thousand people attended the speech. There were signs of apprehension during the day, but Henry-Haye’s primary talking point was publicizing the need for aid for the French people, a topic he discussed the previous day with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull.  When asked a confrontational question by a “loquacious” student—”everyone knows the glory of France, but how do you explain Pétain’s alliance with Hitler?”—during an open forum in Graham Memorial after his speech, the audience was “immediately aroused to loud comments and mixed approval and disapproval.” To end the “disorder,” the ambassador took to the microphone and declared, “The answer is too easy.  Your comments are not true.”
The United Press account of Henry-Haye’s speech noted his call for a release of French funds frozen by the United States in order to purchase food and clothing for the French living in regions occupied by Germany who were “threatened to perish from starvation,” and for 1.5 million French prisoners.  Roosevelt, for his part on that Armistice Day, spoke at Arlington Cemetery, alluding to the current war in Europe while reminding his audience of the reasons America entered into the European War in 1917.  Roosevelt quoted the highly decorated World War I soldier Alvin “Sergeant” York: “The thing [people questioning America’s involvement in Word War I] forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them.”
Gerald P. Nye speaking at Memorial Hall
United States Senator Gerald P. Nye speaking at Memorial Hall on 18 November 1941. This is another previously unidentified negative by Hugh Morton. The student on the far left appears to be Helen Miram, member of the Carolina Political Union; the woman to her left remains unidentified.

During the fall semester of 1941, the University of North Carolina’s student-run Carolina Political Union (CPU) had thrice tried to bring Nye to campus, each thwarted by his senatorial duties negating their plans.  Nye’s outspoken isolationist views aroused “constant bitter attacks by both opposing forces” in Washington D. C., leading “observers on the campus to doubt the wisdom of promoting additional ‘hatred spreading material.'”
On November 13, five days before Nye’s visit, a DTH headline noted that “Verbal Onslaughts” had been prepared for Nye by campus organizations, and that opposition to Nye was anticipated to “manifest itself vigorously.”  Several professors and students were unwilling to have the campus serve as a platform for “bigotry and hatred.”  Nye was seen as the “backbone of Congressional opposition to New Deal measures” and as unwilling to “disassociate himself with the ‘fascist elements of the America First committee.'”  On that same day, Congress passed legislation that amended the Neutrality Act, permitting U. S. merchant ships to enter war zones.
Nye had been to UNC once before on March 17, 1937, also as a guest of the CPU.  His talk was titled, “Preparedness for Peace.”  The Daily Tar Heel characterized Nye as a “progressive Republican.”  He was an advocate for American neutrality in the burgeoning European War, “to guide us and to make it less easy to be drawn into other people’s wars as has been the case in the past.”  Among his points, Nye referred to an amendment then under consideration that “says that when the question of participation in a foreign war arises in this country, the question shall be decided by the people in a duly qualified referendum.”  Nye was referring to an amendment to the Neutrality Act of 1935, which evolved during hearings of the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry” which he chaired and became known as the “Nye Committee.”  President Roosevelt led an effort to amend the act, passing The Neutrality Act of 1939 in November that repealed the previous law.  Roosevelt and others continued to chip away at the act for the next two years.
United States Senator Gerald P. Nye
Detail from another previously unidentified negative by Hugh Morton depicting United States Senator Gerald P. Nye speaking in Memorial Hall at UNC Chapel Hill.

Nye’s November 1941 trip to Chapel Hill was one of many he undertook throughout the country sponsored by the America First Committee, a movement to counter the efforts to repeal the Neutrality Act.  The America First Committee formed during September 1940, growing out of a student group formed at Yale University.  It formally announced its existence on September 4, comprised mostly of midwestern business and political leaders, with headquarters in Chicago.  Its financial support came mostly from the conservative wing of noninterventionists.  America First Committee’s tenets were:

  • keep America out of foreign wars;
  • preserve and extend democracy at home;
  • keep American naval convoys and merchant ships on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean;
  • build a defense for American shores; and
  • give humanitarian aid to people in occupied countries.

Nye’s involvement The America First Committee took the form of speeches, ramping up his activity during the summer and autumn of 1941.  Nye and the committee’s efforts, however, could not hold sway.  On October 9, Roosevelt once again urged Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act.  On October 29th, Nye delivered a major address on the Senate floor against the president’s call. Two days later the Germans torpedoed the American destroyer USS Reuben James.  It was the first loss of an American military ship.  As a result, on November 13 the United States House of Representatives narrowly approved, by a 212-194 vote, a revision to the Neutrality Act of 1939.  That same day, The Daily Tar Heel wrote again about Nye’s upcoming visit to campus.  An article in The Statesville Daily Record on November 14 also announced Nye’s appearance in Memorial Hall, in which the head of the Carolina Political Union, Ridley Whitaker, said the CPU invited Nye “because regardless of how we may feel about his views, we must recognize the fact that he definitely represents a viewpoint.”
American political milestones and European military events continued to unfold.  Roosevelt signed the repeal legislation on November 17, the day before Nye’s speech in Chapel Hill.  Nonetheless, as The Daily Tar Heel headline had predicted, Nye faced a jam-packed auditorium with an audience that listened to “the fiery Dakotan on tenterhooks.” After Nye concluded, attendees released “alternating waves of boos, cheers, and hisses.”  The following morning, The Daily Tar Heel headlines read, “Stormy Verbal Onslaught” and “Spontaneous Outbursts Threaten Real Disorder.”  During his speech, the senator “vigorously maintained that ‘propaganda of the most criminal order has been practiced and lack of frankness by American leaders and downright deception have brought the United States to the brink of war.”  After his uninterrupted speech, audience members “flung questions at the rostrum in quick, violent succession.”
Just three weeks later, all the contentious debate became moot.  The America First Committee held its last meeting in Pittsburgh on 7 December 1941—as Japan simultaneously bombed Pearl Harbor.
For more on Senator Gerald P. Nye, see Wayne S. Cole’s Senator Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1962.

Robert F. Kennedy attends Terry Sanford's gubernatorial inauguration

On June 6, 1968—fifty years ago today—Robert Francis Kennedy died nearly twenty-six hours after being fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.  Seven years earlier—on January 5, 1961—Hugh Morton photographed Kennedy during a visit to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Robert F. Kennedy and wife Ethel
Robert F. Kennedy seated with his wife Ethel during the inauguration of North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford in Raleigh’s Memorial Auditorium, 5 January 1961. (Note: this photograph links to the record for this image in the online Morton collection, where for many years it is has been incorrectly displayed, laterally reversed.)

On that day, Kennedy sat on the platform in Raleigh’s Memorial Auditorium watching the inauguration of North Carolina’s sixty-fifth governor, Terry Sanford.  Fifteen days later, Kennedy’s brother John would be sworn in as the country’s thirty-fifth president.
Hugh Morton also attended Sanford’s swearing-in ceremony.  Morton had served as Publicity Director for the election campaign of outgoing governor Luther H. Hodges in 1956.  During Hodges’ administration, Morton served as the chair of the State Advertising Committee and as a member of the State Board of Conservation and Development.  His credentials provided Morton access to a likely restricted area for the event.
During the inauguration ceremony and Sanford’s ensuing address, Morton photographed with a 120 format roll film camera.  He worked predominately from a distance, positioned high up on stage left. He mostly photographed the audience and other officials taking their oaths of office, and Sanford from behind while centered amid the crowd.  There are ten negatives extent from the event.  In Morton’s negatives, you can see another photographer on the dais in front of the podium during their oaths.  Unbeknownst to Morton, his focus for those negatives was off badly.  On the very last frame of that roll of film (frame 12), he captured the above close up of Robert F. Kennedy with his wife Ethel.  They were seated on right side of the stage, suggesting Morton made the cross-stage trip specifically to make that photograph.
Outside, Morton switched to 35mm film.  There are forty-seven surviving 35mm negatives from that day.  Two depict Robert Kennedy, likely after the swearing-in ceremony but before Hodges and Sanford made their way into an awaiting convertible.  One of the two those two negatives is shown below.  Morton also made a 120 format color negative of the two governors seated inside the convertible (not scanned, but published in the book Making A Difference in North Carolina) that is also extant.
Robert F. Kennedy with Luther Hodges and Terry Sanford
Robert F. Kennedy (center) with Luther H. Hodges on his right and Terry Sanford on his left amid a crowd during Sanford’s inauguration.

Why was Robert Kennedy attending the inauguration of a North Carolina governor?  A four-part story in A View to Hugh from 2011 titled “A Spark of Greatness” recounts John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in North Carolina during the 1960 election, drawn mostly from John Drescher’s book Triumph of Good Will: How Terry Sanford Beat a Champion of Segregation and Reshaped the South.  A Spark of Greatness—Part 3 sets the stage for RFK’s return to NC for Sanford’s inauguration.  That account, however, is really only part of the story.  In terms of the presidential election, Robert Kennedy stated that “North Carolina was the most pleasant state to win for me.”  But he played a minor controversial role in Sanford’s election, too.
Sanford met with Robert Kennedy during his gubernatorial primary campaign—reluctantly, but he did so as a favor to Louis Harris, his pollster and a fellow UNC alumnus. (Sanford received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1941, Harris received his BA in 1942, and Hugh Morton was a member of the class of 1943.)  Sanford had begun building a relationship with the Kennedys during the election season, but had not yet decided if he would endorse John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson.  Their meeting was to be private.  It took place during the first part of June in Raleigh at the College Inn.  Sanford was impressed with Robert Kennedy’s organizational skills.  Sanford left the meeting without making a commitment, but he was now convinced John Kennedy would defeat Johnson.
During a press conference on June 13, a UPI reporter asked Sanford if he had met with Kennedy.  Sanford said he had not.  Sanford thought the reporter asked about John Kennedy but realized he had meant to say Robert.  Within a week newspapers carried stories about the meeting between Sanford and Robert Kennedy.  Sanford later regretted that he did not give a more forthright answer, one that acknowledged that he had not met with JFK but had met with RFK.  The political news was soon filled with stories that questioned, among various other scenarios, if Sanford had something to hide—particularly a promise to endorse Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention.
In his book Terry Sanford: Politics, Progress, and Outrageous Ambitions, Howard Covington recounts how Sanford made his way into the White House prior to the funeral service for John F. Kennedy.  Sanford attempted to gain access to the White House, but police physically thwarted his attempt despite his being a governor.  He finally convinced the police to escort him inside as if he was under arrest.  Once inside, Sanford spoke briefly to Robert Kennedy, then left.
Three months before the JFK assassination, Robert Kennedy had written a letter to Sanford, according to Covington, “to commend him on his management of difficult times.”  Kennedy wrote, “You have always shown leadership in this effort, which could well be followed by many chief executives in the north as well as in your part of the nation.”  Kennedy had written a post script at the bottom of his letter: “I hope I am not causing you too much trouble down there.  Just deny you ever met me.  That is the only advice I can think to give you.  Bob.”  In a note back to Robert Kennedy, Terry Sanford wrote: “I haven’t denied you yet.”

Who am I? with a Cherry on the side

R. Gregg Cherry with unidentified group.
Seated on the sofa is North Carolina Governor R. Gregg Cherry, who was governor from 1945–1949. The date of this photograph is unknown.

I am working with some Hugh Morton negatives today, and I just came across one that seems to be misidentified or misfiled.  Morton filed this unidentified negative amidst those of other negatives he pulled together when compiling images for the book Making a Difference in North Carolina—a book we have referred to many times here at A View to Hugh.  One slight problem: Morton filed this negative among those for Governor J. Melville Broughton and he’s not depicted.  Instead we see a different North Carolina governor, R. Gregg Cherry, seated on a sofa surrounded by eleven other people.  Who are they . . . and where and why are they gathered?
Here are a couple guesses to get started:

  • The person seated in the middle of the scene looking down and away from the camera looks like John W. Harden.  In Making a Difference in North Carolina, his chapter is titled, “John W. Harden: PR Pioneer, Noted Communicator.” A caption under one of the photographs in the book notes that Harden served on the State Board of Conservation and Development—a board on which Hugh Morton also served.
  • The man on the far left looks like Bill Sharpe, one-time editor of The State.
  • Is that photographer John Hemmer in the righthand corner wearing a striped tie?

Please add a comment if you think you might recognize some of those faces.

A drive to Washington D.C. with Barrier: part 1

It’s often useful when researching Hugh Morton images to check his executive planners.  I’ve used examples of this practice before, and for today’s post this tactic provided some insight into one particular journey in March 1987.

Executive planner page, 5–7 March 1987
The page for March 5 through 8, 1987 in Hugh Morton’s executive planner.

Wednesday, March 4: Drive Wash DC with Barrier
One of Morton’s two entries for March 4th reads, “Drive Wash DC with Barrier.”  Henri Smith Barrier Jr. was a member of the UNC class of 1937—just six years ahead of Hugh Morton’s class of 1943—but he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism in 1940 when Morton was a UNC student.  Barrier was sports editor of the Concord Tribune, his hometown newspaper, for two years before he joined the Greensboro Daily News in 1941.  Just six years before this road trip, in 1981, Barrier wrote and edited the book The ACC Basketball Tournament Classic that featured Morton’s photography.  Barrier passed away a little more than two years after this DC journey on 2 June 1989.

Thursday, March 5: “Jesse Helms”
That’s Morton’s plain and simple entry, but why did Morton schedule a photography session with Jesse Helms?  I suspect it was a self-assignment for his collaborative book with Ed Rankin titled Making a Difference in North Carolina. Rankin and Helms were roommates in 1941 when they were newsmen at The News and Observer and The Raleigh Times, respectively.  In 1987 Helms was serving his third term as North Carolina’s senior United States Senator.  The state’s junior senator was Terry Sanford, elected just a few months earlier in November 1986.

Terry Sanford and Jesse Helms
North Carolina’s United States Senators Terry Sanford (Democrat) and Jesse Helms (Republican) on March 5, 1987 in the hallway outside of Helms’ office. (Photograph cropped by the author.)

The Morton collection finding aid states there are seventy-six black-and-white 35mm negatives in Subseries 2.1, which is devoted to the negatives Morton pulled together during the making of Making a Difference in North Carolina. There are thirteen 35mm color slides from this same date in Subseries 2.6: “People, Identified.” Currently there are twelve of these images related to Morton’s coverage Helms available in the online collection.

A caption in Making a Difference in North Carolina notes that one event Morton photographed that day was a confirmation hearing for Jack F. Matlock Jr. held by the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.  Matlock was a native of Greensboro and a Duke University alumnus.  From the extant negatives and slides, it appears Morton did not photograph Matlock.  On another note of interest, Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Senator Edward Zorinsky, Democrat from Nebraska, died the next day, March 6th, at the 1987 Omaha Press Club Ball.  In the photograph below, is that Senator Zorinsky on the right?  It may be hard to tell for certain because there is not a full resolution scan online to zoom in and look more closely, so below is a cropped detail.

Senator Jess Helms
Senator Jess Helms (left) during a meeting of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Possibly Edward Zorinsky
A cropped detail from the photograph above that might be Nebraska Senator Edward Zorinsky talking with Virginia Senator John Warner. If not, does anyone recognize who he and others may be?

Another similar photograph for a different angle . . .

Senator Jesse Helms
Senator Jesse Helms (left) during a meeting of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

One photograph from the day serves as an excellent example of why photographic archives desire to obtain negative collections, not just photographic prints.  Below is a photograph of Helms with Senator John Warner of Virginia as published in Making a Deference in North Carolina . . .
Jesse Helms and John Warner, from book Making a Difference in North Carolina
. . . and here’s a scan of the entire negative . . .
United States Senators John McCain, Jesse Helm, and John Warner.
For the book, Morton decided to crop out Arizona’s senator John McCain.
Here’s another photograph from the day that’s not in the online collection:

United States Senators
United States Senators

I recognize Helms (left) and Dan Quayle (center).  Want to try your hand on the others?

Tune in tomorrow for part two: Friday, March 6: “ACC Landover.”

ADDITION made on 8 March 2018: negatives depicting West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd appears in some of the negatives made on this day, but I did not use one for this blog post.  I noticed afterward, however, that there is a separate listing for three 35mm negatives in the Morton collection finding aid for Robert C. Byrd made on March 5, 1987 (the date in the finding aid is March 6th) in Envelope 2.1.48-5-1.

The birth of Gorges State Park

North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt signing the "Gorges Bill" on July 8, 1997. The second (fully visible) person from the left is R. Michael Leonard, recognized from another Morton image in the online collection and confirmed by a quote in the Asheville Times. At the time Leonard was an attorney with the firm Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge, and Rice. The others in the photograph are unidentified.
North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt signing the “Gorges Bill” on July 8, 1997. The second (fully visible) person from the left is R. Michael Leonard, recognized from another Morton image in the online collection and confirmed by a quote in the Asheville Citizen-Times. At the time Leonard was an attorney with the firm Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge, and Rice. The others in the photograph are unidentified.

This past Saturday, July 8th, marked the twentieth anniversary of North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt signing “An Act to Authorize the Addition to the State Parks System of Certain Lands Located in Transylvania County Adjacent to Jocassee Lake”—or, as Hugh Morton labeled his negatives, the “Gorges Bill.”  The act had been Senate Bill 537, then became Chapter 276 in Session Laws and Resolutions Passed by the 1997 General Assembly . . . [shortened title].  The legislators behind the bill were State Senator Tommy Jenkins, Democrat (possibly the person on the far right in the photograph above) and Representative William Ives, Republican from Transylvania County.
July 8, 1997 was a busy day for Governor Hunt.  Earlier in the day, he attended the memorial service for Charles Kuralt.  Morton’s negatives for both events are on the same roll of film.  Hunt wears the same tie in all of the photographs, and that was the tip off that both events occurred on the same day.  According to Session Laws and Resolutions it became law “upon approval of the Governor at 4:50 p.m. on the 8th day of July, 1997.”
Curiosity and thoroughness sent me back to the collection finding aid to see what else Hugh Morton may have photographed related to the Gorges.  I found another roll of film dated April 1997 with Gov. Hunt, Bill Grigg, and Gorges Park among the names written on the envelope.  Grigg was Chairman of Duke Power Company, which owned the land.  Inside the envelope are nineteen negatives and six prints including the two images below.
Chairman of Duke Power Company, Bill Grigg, and Governor Jim Hunt during a flyover to view the land that would become Gorges State Park, April 1997. (Hugh Morton photograph, cropped by the author.)
Chairman of Duke Power Company, Bill Grigg, and Governor Jim Hunt during a flyover to view the land that would become Gorges State Park, April 1997. (Hugh Morton photograph, cropped by the author.)

An Asheville Citizens-Times news article titled, “Hunt signs deal allowing Jocassee purchase” published on July 9, 1997 that reported the news story included a quote from Hunt saying, “I have flown over it.  This is wonderful property and the state ought to have it.”  The article mentioned that the bill contained no appropriation to acquire the land.  It simply permitted the state parks system to “pursue the purchase.”  The article also stated that “Hunt gave a pep talk to area lawmakers, including Sen. Robert Carpenter, R-Macon, state agency officials and environmentalists assembled for a photo op.”  Hunt “strongly suggested” that the state would “raise the money through a combination of publicly held grants, private sources and maybe a legislative appropriation.”  The article concluded with a statement that R. Michael Leonard of the law firm Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge and Rice (seen in the group portrait above) had received a commitment of $1.25 million from two anonymous private donors.  The state purchased the land and officially dedicated Gorges State Park in 1999.
Hugh Morton's bird's-eye-view of the many waterfalls on the Toxaway River.
Hugh Morton’s bird’s-eye-view of the many waterfalls on the Toxaway River.

 

He came to Chapel Hill to argue with someone

Leon Henderson (right), head of the Office of Price Administration established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States Government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. Henderson was the speaker for the Carolina Political Union's sixth anniversary on 15 April 1942 in Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This photograph appears in the May 1942 ALUMNI REVIEW with caption headline "Have a Cigar!" and caption, "Evidently Price-Administrator Leon Henderson is not having to worry about cigar rationing. Here he is conferring with student leaders Ridley Whitaker, chairman of the Carolina Political Union, who hails from Goldsboro; Hobart McKeever of Greensboro, who was one of the candidates for presidency of the University Student Body; and Lou Harris of New Haven Conn., vice-president of the CPU. Mr. Henderson was one of the series of speakers brought to campus this year by student organizations." A slightly different Morton photograph of this group appeared in the 10 May issue of THE DAILY TAR HEEL.
Leon Henderson (right), head of the Office of Price Administration established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States Government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. Henderson was the speaker for the Carolina Political Union’s sixth anniversary on 15 April 1942 in Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This photograph appears in the May 1942 ALUMNI REVIEW with caption headline “Have a Cigar!” and caption, “Evidently Price-Administrator Leon Henderson is not having to worry about cigar rationing. Here he is conferring with student leaders Ridley Whitaker, chairman of the Carolina Political Union, who hails from Goldsboro; Hobart McKeever of Greensboro, who was one of the candidates for presidency of the University Student Body; and Lou Harris of New Haven Conn., vice-president of the CPU. Mr. Henderson was one of the series of speakers brought to campus this year by student organizations.” A slightly different Morton photograph of this group appeared in the 10 May issue of THE DAILY TAR HEEL.

Yesteryear is filled with those whose names today mean nothing to most, but in their day were lightning rods.  Leon Henderson is one of those people.
Henderson became a member of Franklin Roosevelt’s inner circle, perhaps the result of his 1937 memorandum “Boom and Bust” written when he was Director of Research and Planning with the National Recovery Administration.  Roosevelt appointed him to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1939, and in 1941 to head the Office of Price Administration.  John Kenneth Galbraith, a historically important economist, public official, and diplomat, begins Chapter 8, “Washington, 1940,” of his autobiography A Life in Our Times: Memoirs (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981):

Leon Henderson was slightly under average height, of rather more than average width, and he seemed always to be adjusting his pants, pulling a little on his belt as though this would reduce his waistline.  Perhaps because they had to be so large at his stomach, his trousers were always very loose below.  They flopped when he walked or the wind blew.  The rest of Leon’s attire was somewhat more disorderly.  He shaved regularly but without precision.  His face altered between an expression of unconvincing belligerence and one of shocked, unbelieving innocence, and sometimes he affected both at the same time.  Mostly, however, he favored the belligerent expression, and this he sought to reinforce with a sharply jutting cigar that he rolled in his mouth but rarely smoked.  He was highly intelligent, with a strong retentive mind.  After a few minutes’ study of a paper on any subject, however complex, he not only had absorbed it for all needed use but could give convincingly the impression that he had written it himself.

It was during 1940 that Galbraith would become Henderson’s deputy when he served on Roosevelt’s National Defense Advisory Commission.  Among those serving on the commission with Henderson was Harriet Elliot, Dean of Women at the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina (now UNC Greensboro).
Galbraith devotes many pages of his first-hand accounts surrounding Henderson and his role in determining American economic policies during the critically important years from the mid 1930s into the first year of the United States’ direct involvement in the second World War.  Galbraith attributes Henderson as the person “who first voiced the thought that having a little inflation was like being a little pregnant” during “the almost paranoiac concern of 1940 and 1941 over inflation.”
Word that Leon Henderson would visit the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill first appeared in The Daily Tar Heel on April 5, 1942.  Ridley Whitaker, chair of the Carolina Political Union, a non-partisan and non-political student group formed in 1936, announced that three important men had been sign to speak during the week of April 23:

Whitaker noted that past invited speakers had been “reluctant to talk,” but that these men would. “We’re having those men down to talk.  They were signed with that purpose.  Henderson has already wired that he’s coming here because he wants someone to argue with him.”  Harriet Elliot would introduce Henderson.
The Daily Tar Heel reporter Paul Komisaruk, who covered the Henderson story during the next two weeks, describe Henderson as “More colorful than Davis” and “clearly one of ‘America’s New Bosses,’ who with his control of prices profoundly influences the cost of living in every home in America.”  Komisaruk was not exaggerating, and he attributes Henderson’s “Boom or Bust” [sic] memorandum to Henderson’s rise to Roosevelt’s “inner-brain trust.”
Within a week, Komisaruk reported that Henderson’s visit would be moved up to April 15, a date which also marked the sixth anniversary of the Carolina Political Union.  Henderson’s “pressing duties in Washington” necessitated the change.  Komisaruk wrote, “Holding down the most difficult and delicate job in Washington, the quick-tempered Henderson will explain to students and visiting dignitaries, the Congressional battles over price-fixing that rocked the halls of Congress, and still, to develop into the biggest domestic issue of the war.”  He also reported that Whitaker had developed the evening’s program to include a banquet and a reception, and that attendees would include Governor J. Melville Broughton and Josephus Daniels, who had been the United States Ambassador to Mexico from April 1933 until November 1941 and who was at that time the editor of his family-controlled newspaper The News and Observer in Raleigh.
On the day prior to Henderson’s visit, The Daily Tar Heel editorial staff column included a segment titled “A Man Who Knows . . .” in which the editors wrote, “This is the man who can tell you why Lenoir Hall prices are going up and when they will stop.  He doesn’t speak with an accent and he can’t sing the praises of the fighting soldiers, but he can tell you the effect of the war effort on the consumer.”
On the day of Henderson’s trip to Chapel Hill, Kamisaruk noted that Henderson was departing Washington “in the midst of a growing storm over issues pertaining to setting a ceiling on labor’s wages.”  He expected Henderson “to explain the stand he took last week before the War Labor Board, when he warned that a ceiling must be set or the country will be faced with ‘devastating inflation,’ that may cause the US to lose the war.”  Kamisaruk also noted that “political observers” say that “Henderson’s warnings about inflation and frozen wages are not to be taken lightly despite the violent recriminations they have brought from labor leaders throughout the country. They point to the depression of 1937 that Henderson anticipated and warned about, and was ridiculed for until the ‘Henderson depression’ came right along as he said it would.”  Kamisaruk concluded with an unattributed quotation: “his idealism springs out of the soil of harsh facts.  And the harshest of these facts are prices, prices, prices.”
An example of opposition to Henderson can be seen in Ray Tucker’s syndicated column “National Whirligig” for April 15.  In a section he titled “Sleuths” Tucker noted that since February 17, 1941 when the “first move to regulate the main factors underlying our artificial war economy,” Henderson had “issued one hundred and six permanent rulings and fifteen temporary decrees.” Tucker took exception to these, noting that “the rapidity with which prohibitions have had to be extended into the retail field is what reflects graphically the failure of the present philosophy.”  According to Tucker, between March 1941 to March 1942, wholesale costs had risen nineteen percent and living costs twelve percent.  Tucker feared the installation of a “more drastic regime will flood the country with a locustlike army of regulators and sleuths,” concluding “But this condition appears to be a necessary touch of totalitarianism.”
Komisaruk’s coverage of Henderson’s evening on campus noted that he delivered only “perfunctory remarks, and promptly announced that the floor was open to discussion.” Henderson had indeed come to Chapel Hill to argue. “Spectators fired a barrage of questions,” one of which concerned the forty-hour work week. The Associated Press picked up this nugget, as printed in The Burlington Times.  The AP noted that Henderson believed suspension of the 40-hour week would decrease production because, “I don’t believe human beings will respond a 10 per cent cut.”  He also said the nation might be forced to adopt a general sales tax, which he did not favor, unless wages were stabilized.

"Unaccustomed as I am . . . " is the quotation printed on the "Discussion Groups" opening section page in the 1942 YACKETY YACK. On the facing page is this Hugh Morton photograph, cropped here as it is in the yearbook. The photograph is not captioned. It depicts Leon Henderson (left) and Ridley Whitaker, Chairman of the student group Carolina Political Union. Whitaker was identified from other photographs in the collection and within the YACKETY YACK, but the identity of Henderson was unknown until researching this blog post.
“Unaccustomed as I am . . . ” is the quotation printed on the “Discussion Groups” opening section page in the 1942 YACKETY YACK. On the facing page is this Hugh Morton photograph, cropped here as it is in the yearbook. The photograph is not captioned. It depicts Leon Henderson (left) and Ridley Whitaker, Chairman of the student group Carolina Political Union. Whitaker was identified from other photographs in the collection and within the YACKETY YACK, but the identity of Henderson was unknown until researching this blog post.

Morton's negative without cropping.
Morton’s negative without cropping.

The Daily Tar Heel also reported that a Henderson answer to one questioner “drew roars of laughter” when asked for “a few words about that ‘great American patriot Martin Dies.'” (Martin Dies Jr. was a co-creator and chairman of the House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities.)  Henderson replied, “. . . it always happens once an evening—a question the speaker can not answer glibly.  I can only repeat what I have said on other occasions. ‘I will eat on the steps of the Treasury building at high noon any organizations I have belonged to that Martin Dies proves is subversive.” He added with a smile, “Of course there are some high school groups I belong to that his flat-feet haven’t gotten around to inspecting yet.”
Detail from the only other negative found thus far from Leon Henderson's speech in Memorial Hall. The woman in the background of each image is presumably Harriot Wiseman Elliot, Dean of Women at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.
Detail from the only other negative found thus far from Leon Henderson’s speech in Memorial Hall. The woman in the background of each image is presumably Harriot Wiseman Elliot, Dean of Women at the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.

A few days after Henderson’s evening in Chapel Hill, The Daily Tar Heel opinion column noted that “Memorial hall overflowed . . . for the CPU’s first speech of the spring quarter.  There were many who expressed disappointment at Mr. Henderson’s speech and then there were those who felt it to be the first speech of the year during which you had to think to be able to understand what was being said.  Regardless of what opinions are being batted around campus, Leon Henderson’s address goes down as one of the meatiest of the year.”
Henderson’s story looms larger than A View to Hugh can tackle.  In short, the midterm elections of 1942 saw Democrats lose nine seats in the United States Senate and forty-three in the House of Representatives.  Democrats still maintained a significant majority, but it was the smallest since Roosevelt’s first election a decade earlier. In V was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II, author John Morton Blum cites a survey taken of “Democratic Senatorial and Congressional candidates, whether they were victorious or not” by Edwin W. Pawley, then Secretary of the Democratic National Committee.  Blum describes the polling as “probably the shrewdest and most self-interested postelection [sic] analysis that Roosevelt received.”  Pawley reviewed the replies and compiled a list of five factors that contributed to the Democratic Party losses.  Number three on the list was “Resentment of O.P.A. Particularly of Mr. Henderson.  This was the most universal and serious complaint of all . . . It appears from the letters that the complaint is directed rather at Mr. Henderson and his attitude and methods than at the abstract question of . . . rationing and price control . . . .”  Pawley suggested the complaints against Henderson were “correctable” and Blum states that “Roosevelt got the message.”
In December 1942 Henderson called Galbraith and others to his office where they learned of Henderson’s intention to resign.  He stated that his health, and particularly his eyesight, would not permit him to continue.  Henderson didn’t expect anyone to believe that, so he kept repeating it “with increasing emphasis and indignation. In fact he was persuaded that there would be ever more severe attacks on our front and that he could blunt them by removing himself from the scene.”
Looking back, Galbraith believed Henderson was “never completely happy again” and that “the debt owed to Henderson for preparing the civilian economy for World War II has never been even partially recognized.  Had it not been for his bold, intelligent actions and those he authorized, civilians would have suffered.  And so assuredly would those who did the fighting.”
CORRECTION: This post was edited on 17 April 2017.  In the opening quote from Galbraith, the word tentative was changed to retentive.