Category: Just A Bite

Found in Gastonia: A journalist’s angry voice

“It was in the textile mills of North Carolina [in 1934 that Martha Gellhorn, a 25-year-old investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration] found the writing voice she had been looking for. It was clear and simple, a careful selection of scenes and quotes…. What made it her own was the tone, the barely contained fury and indignation…..

“Returning from a mill town where those fortunate enough to still have jobs were forced to pay half again as much for their food at the company store, she added: ‘It is probable — and to be hoped — that one day the owners of this place will get shot and lynched.’

“In Gastonia, among those who had lost everything, she at last had her subject. For the next 60 years, in wars, in slums, in refugee camps, she used this voice again and again…. It became her hallmark.”

— From “Gellhorn: A 20th Century Life” by Caroline Moorehead (2003)

Martha Gellhorn’s celebrated career as a foreign correspondent stretched from the Spanish Civil War to the invasion of Panama, although she is perhaps more widely remembered as Ernest Hemingway’s third wife — a distinction she abhorred.

No charity needed for ‘Carnegie Hallbillies’

“[In 1961 Patsy Cline] was invited to appear on the Grand Ole Opry at Carnegie Hall, the first full-fledged country production at that cultural bastion….

“Dorothy Kilgallen, who wrote the syndicated ‘Voice of Broadway’ column for the Journal-American and was featured on CBS’s ‘What’s My Line?’,  took cheap shots almost daily at the coming of the ‘Carnegie Hallbillies.’

“On stage in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Patsy had a few words for Kilgallen:  ‘We’re gonna be in high cotton next week — Carnegie Hall. That ole Dorothy Kilgallen wrote, “Everybody should get out of town because the hillbillies are coming!” At least we ain’t standing on New York street corners with itty-bitty cans in our hands collecting coins to keep up the opera and symphonies.’ ”

— From “Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline” (1993) by Ellis Nassour

Why Satchel Paige didn’t pitch for Greensboro

“In 1955 an offer came [to Satchel Paige, at age 49] to pitch for the Greensboro Patriots of the Carolina League. The team’s first black player, he was scheduled to pitch at home against Reidsville, a Phillies farm team. But the Phillies’ farm director protested the Paige appearance as ‘a travesty of the game’ and ‘a farce.’

“The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues ruled that Greensboro could use Paige only in exhibition games, [not in the already sold-out game against Reidsville]. When Hurricane Diane deluged the Carolinas, washing away the game, the Patriots decided not to press the case and released him before he had thrown a pitch….

“In 1966 Paige pitched one game, without protest, for the Carolina League’s Peninsula Pilots of Hampton, Va.  — against the same Greensboro Patriots who had been forced to release him in 1955. Attracting over 3,000 fans to Hampton’s War Memorial Stadium, he gave up two runs in the first inning, threw a scoreless second and then left organized baseball, never to return as a player.”

— From “Don’t Look Back: Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball” by Mark Ribowsky (1994)

In 1971 Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige became the first Negro League player inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in 1982.

‘Athletically it is notable because….’

“The University of North Carolina is noted for being one of the two oldest State universities in the U. S., for having on its faculty George Bernard Shaw’s biographer Archibald Henderson, for the leisurely atmosphere of its green old campus at Chapel Hill.

“Athletically it is notable because the members of its teams, instead of naming themselves after wild animals, are quite content to be called ‘tar heels’; and because its tennis team in the last four years has won 62 consecutive matches.”

— From Time magazine, May 22, 1933

Weaverville’s ideas had consequences

“Ever since Richard M. Weaver wrote his bracing conservative manifesto in 1948, ‘Ideas Have Consequences,’ the title phrase has been a guiding maxim for the movement.”

— From The New York Times, April 27, 2010

“Weaver found himself, far from his beloved Weaverville, North Carolina, in cruel, heartless, philistine Chicago [teaching at the University of Chicago], where he would do his part to stem what he believed was the descent of America into barbarism….

“Weaver purchased a home in Weaverville for his widowed mother and spent all his summers there, drawing upon the sources of what he believed to be the real and permanent things away from the rarefied atmosphere and urban artificiality…  about which he wrote in ‘Ideas Have Consequences.’

“Disdaining the possibility of getting to Weaverville in a few hours by plane, he always went by train. Before he arrived, his mother would have his garden plowed and ready for him to plant. He would have reminded her to have this done by a horse or mule instead of a tractor.

” ‘There are numberless ways in which  the South disappoints me, [he wrote] but there is something in its sultry languor and in the stubborn humanism of its people… which tells me that for better or worse this is my native land.’ ”

— From “Richard M. Weaver, 1910-1963: A Life of the Mind” by Fred Douglas Young (1995)

Wilmington church displayed racial schism

“The ownership of church property provoked bitter controversy [during Reconstruction]. A case in point: the Front Street Methodist Church in Wilmington, North Carolina,  whose congregation before the war numbered about 1,400, two-thirds of them black.

“When Union soldiers occupied the city early in 1865, the black members informed Rev. L. S. Burkhead ‘that they did not require his services any longer… he being a rebel,’ and proceeded to elect a black minister in his place. Gen. John M. Schofield, emulating Solomon, ordered that the spiritual day be divided equally between the races, each with a minister of its own choosing. The conflict continued into 1866, with Rev. Burkhead preaching in the old manner (although a few blacks, he complained, ostentatiously attempted to sit downstairs during his sermons).

“Eventually, the white minority regained control, and most of the blacks left to form an independent congregation.”

— From “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877” by Eric Foner (1988)

History book wars: The more things change….

“North Carolina last week was upset because its fifth-grade pupils were learning State history out of a book (“North Carolina Yesterday & Today” by Jule B. Warren) which declared that:

” ‘ — Congress elected George Washington… President.’ (The electors, not Congress, did so.)

” — Joseph Martin had fought in the Mexican War in 1848…  and died in 1786.)

”  — Charles McDowell was a hero of the Battle of King’s Mountain in 1780… and was buried in 1775.)

“These were among more than 200 errors of fact turned up by a white-haired, peppery schoolteacher named Nell Battle Lewis, who writes a column in the Raleigh News and Observer.

“In North Carolina [textbooks] are picked by the State Board of Education, which consists of the Governor and State officers.

“Four months ago Clyde R. Hoey and fellow board members adopted the Warren book, rejecting a more scholarly work by Professors A. R. Newsome and Hugh T. Lefler, of the University of North Carolina, and recommended by the State Textbook Commission (educators).

“Nell Lewis had raised such a furor that Governor J. Melville Broughton (who succeeded Hoey Jan. 1) hurried home from a vacation in Mexico City and ordered that the Warren books be recalled for corrections. He also asked Revenue Commissioner A. J. Maxwell to analyze the rejected Newsome-Lefler book. Maxwell, a Hoeyite, explained everything:

” ‘The Newsome-Lefler history continues to harp on the conservatives of the Democratic Party… and intimates that both Governor Ehringhaus and Governor Hoey owed their election to fraud. Such an implication… is entirely out of place in a proposed history for the fifth grade.’ ”

“Last week Authors Newsome & Lefler said in a letter to the Governor: ‘No one can deny the accuracy of the statement that… “many citizens demanded laws to make clean and honest elections more certain.” ‘ ”

–– From Time magazine, April 28, 1941

North Carolina last week was upset because its fifth-grade pupils were learning State history out of a book (North Carolina Yesterday & Today by Jule B. Warren) which declared that:

> “Congress elected George Washington . . . President.” (The electors, not Congress, did so.)

> Tarheel Joseph Martin had fought in the Mexican War in 1848 and trained Confederate troops in the Civil War. (The book also states he died in 1786.)

> Tarheel Charles McDowell was a hero of the Battle of King’s Mountain in 1780. (On page 306, the book says he was buried in 1775.) These were among more than 200 errors of fact turned up by a white-haired, peppery schoolteacher named Nell Battle Lewis, who writes a column in the Raleigh News and Observer. Miss Lewis described the whole thing as A POLITICAL STINK.

Most U.S. schoolbooks are chosen by the schools that use them, but eleven States have boards which adopt books for the elementary schools of the whole State, a system well liked by politicians. In North Carolina they are picked by the State Board of Education, which consists of the Governor and State officers.

Four months ago Clyde R. Hoey, then Governor, and fellow board members adopted the Warren book, rejecting a more scholarly work written by Professors A. R. Newsome and Hugh T. Lefler, of the University of North Carolina, and recommended by the State Textbook Commi sion (educators).

Nell Lewis’ campaign had raised such a furor that Governor J. Melville Broughton (who succeeded Hoey Jan. 1) hurried home from a vacation in Mexico City and ordered that the Warren books, already in use by 90,000 fifth-graders, be recalled at the end of the school term for corrections. He also asked Revenue Commissioner A. J. Maxwell to analyze the rejected Newsome-Lefler book. Maxwell, a Hoeyite, explained everything:

“The Newsome-Lefler history continues to harp on the conservatives of the Democratic Party down to and including the administration of Governor Hoey and plainly intimates that both Governor Ehringhaus and Governor Hoey owed their election to election frauds. Such an implication . . . is entirely out of place in a proposed history for the fifth grade. . . .”

Last week Authors Newsome & Lefler said in a letter to the Governor: “No one can deny the accuracy of the statement that . . . ‘many citizens demanded laws to make clean and honest elections more certain.’ ”

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Plymouth native achieves ‘climax of sensation!’

“As we walked home one night, in need of a culminating incident in [his 1867 play ‘Under the Gaslight’], my brother said, ‘I have got the sensation we want — a man fastened to a railroad track and rescued just as the train reaches the spot!’

“On the first night the audience was breathless….It became the town talk. The houses were thronged. An old theatre-goer who stood up in rear of the crowded seats turned to those about him after a long-drawn breath and said, ‘It is the climax of sensation!’ So it was, and so has remained.”

–– From “The Life of Augustin Daly” (1917)  by Joseph Francis Daly. John Augustin Daly, born in Plymouth in  1838, had a long and fruitful career writing and producing plays — the tied-to-the-tracks device was only the most visceral of his creations. Taking a troupe on a Southern tour in 1878, Daly wrote his brother

“To-night we are in Raleigh — a city without a paved street, & yet  an extensive and important-looking place. At any rate its citizens have turned out to-night en masse, headed by the Governor (not that Governor of North Carolina who made the historical remark to the Governor of South Carolina) but Governor Vance, to whom I was introduced & whom I escorted to a box amid the enthusiastic approbation  of the entire audience. Everybody seems to know I’m a native & they welcome me as a brother….”

Outhouse mailbox: $1 worth of beautification?

“Not the most beautiful portions of the U. S. are the Carolinas. Apart from the sea islands to the east and the mountains to the west, the bulk of both States is flat, sandy, scrubby, down-at-heel. Yet local pride burns high. The Carolina Motor Club of Charlotte decided that the ugliest excrescences on their land’s flat face were the rural rows of raffish, rusty mail boxes propped on old wagon wheels and rotting fence posts. Prize money was assembled, and the  Rural Mail Box Improvement Campaign was launched.

“The North Carolina prize committee, chairmanned by Author Struthers Burt (“The Diary of a Dude Wrangler,” “Festival”), [awarded] $5 to B. B. Britt of Garner. Mr. Britt’s mailbox [had been] propped on a fence rail between tin signs advertising Coca-Cola and a tonic known as DR. PEPPER (“Good for Life”). Beautifier Britt took down these signs, cleared away assorted lengths of rusting barbed wire, old tomato cans, broken peach baskets, bits of kindling, corn stalks. Then he bowered his mailbox in flowering vines, shrubs, sun flowers, and a border of sweet alyssum.

“There were also $1 prizes for Lula Williams at Autryville, who moved her mailbox to an oak tree and planted petunias around it, and for Mrs. Z. I. McBane of Graham,  who put her mailbox into what looked like an outhouse on stilts.”

— From Time magazine, Jan. 21, 1935

For FDR, ‘the greatest tribute — utter silence’

“Franklin Roosevelt, honorably discharged from all his wars, rode slowly through Charlotte’s sorrowing thousands last night….

“Stretching the length of the railway station and packing the streets that opened out upon the tracks, the people… paid him the greatest tribute they knew — utter silence.

“As the crowd awaited the arrival of the train, they stood quietly and talked in low tones. And as it came slowly through, the only noise was that of the soldiers as they brought their rifles smartly to the salute.

“When the train had passed, and only a glimpse could be caught of the great American flag that covered the copper casket in which lay the body of the fallen chief, the crowd, still without a discordant word, turned and went away.

“As some 40 singers from the various churches… began singing ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ and ‘My Faith Looks Up to Thee,’ hats went off all up and down the tracks.

“Farther down the tracks at the other end of the station, a Negro group sang spirituals. For Negroes were there, too, hundreds of them, paying their tribute to the man whom hey looked upon as the best friend they ever had in the White House.”

— From “Sorrowing Charlotte Thousands Pay Final Homage to Roosevelt” by LeGette Blythe, Charlotte Observer, April 14, 1945

Blythe, a prolific newspaperman and historian, was the grandfather of Will Blythe, author of “To Hate Like This Is to be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry” (2006).