Free People, Free Markets. George Melloan
time. The hat didn’t look much different after the abuse. Grimes’ battered, gray fedora was one of his trademarks, marking him as a member of that ancient tribe of newspaper veterans contemptuous of personal decorum.
Royster, newly returned from war duty in the Pacific, became part of the Grimes editorial writing team in 1946. “Roy,” as his friends called him, had joined the Journal in 1936 and had been assigned to Kilgore’s Washington news bureau. But the navy upgraded him from reserve status to active duty in early 1941 and assigned him to an aged destroyer based in Panama for what he thought would be a short cruise. Pearl Harbor extended the cruise for five years, during which he prowled both the Atlantic and Pacific, finally with his own command of a destroyer escort. Kilgore was happy to have him back, perhaps sensing, correctly as it happened, that Roy would be at his best as a writer of opinion, rather than news, and had the potential to succeed Grimes as editor, which also proved to be correct.
Roy grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the son of a lawyer who had also taught Greek and Latin at the University of North Carolina (UNC). His father was teaching Roy to decline Latin verbs before he was in first grade, and he was further schooled in the Latin and Greek classics at the austere little Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. He later reflected that at UNC the classics were snap courses that helped him keep up his grade average.
That early training must have been partly responsible for the smooth flow of Roy’s writing. Like Kilgore, he gave readers the impression he was sitting them down for a little chat, presenting his views in a modest, sometimes self-deprecating and frequently witty way. His range of subjects was broader than those that had been addressed by Kilgore, who usually stuck to political economics and finance. Royster sometimes ventured into more philosophical areas of the type that Woodlock, whom he admired, had explored. On any given subject, he might quote Euripides or Aristotle or bring the conversation down to the earthy wisdom of Huckleberry Finn.
He also had the grit to stand up to Grimes on matters of editorial policy. When in April 1951 Truman fired the world-famous five-star general Douglas MacArthur, who had led America’s victory over Japan and was at that time conducting the Korean War effort, Grimes, like a lot of other Americans on the right, was shocked. But Roy stood up for Truman on grounds that the general had flouted civilian authority when he publicly threatened to attack China. Grimes gave in and told Roy to write the editorial. Roy graciously noted the arguments of Grimes and many others against the Truman shocker, but presented his own case that the president is commander in chief, and uniformed troops, even generals, risk chaos or worse when they disobey orders. Irate letters poured in from Journal readers loyal to MacArthur, and Grimes assigned Royster to respond to them, perhaps in retaliation for having to cede the argument to his junior editor.
Royster also was responsible for the Journal’s May 20, 1954, editorial after, in a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial segregation in public schools (Brown v. Board of Education) on grounds that segregation violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. Grimes had doubts based on his concern that the South would not accept the decision, but Royster, himself a southerner, argued otherwise and had little difficulty this time in persuading Grimes. In a May 20 editorial titled “Society and Law,” Royster wrote that the decision was inevitable. “The justices have not so much made history as followed it.”
He continued: “The philosophy of racial distinctions under the law could not have forever survived, in any event, because it does not comport with the majority view of the equity of government.” But in deference to the concerns of Grimes and others, he wrote that it was wise of the court to defer implementation of its decision because it “does not comport either with the equity of government to require the people of a large region to tear down overnight the whole social structure which, though we are apt to forget it today, is rooted in ancient social necessity.”
He wrote that for many southerners the concern over ending school segregation was not a matter of racial prejudice but rather “an honest conviction that their children will be injured in many areas by submergence in a culture that has not had time fully to mature . . . Laws and court decisions can give impetus to change when the pattern of society is changing, as it is now in the South and elsewhere. But laws and court decisions can avail little until the majority of people who must live under them are able to accept them.” That went partway toward explaining what Royster meant by “ancient necessity,” but only partway. The most likely explanation might be that Roy was being deliberately vague in an effort to cut his fellow southerners some slack.
The Royster editorial pleased almost nobody, and he was again assigned to handle the heavy flow of mail, most of it critical. But it was perceptive and prophetic. Many in the South did refuse to accept the ruling, and the federal government had to use force in some cases to gain access to formerly all-white schools for blacks. Freedom riders from the North were killed. Martin Luther King was martyred. But ultimately the rule of law prevailed, and many Americans today, North and South, regard Brown as the greatest victory for equal protection and civil rights in the history of America.
Royster had written earlier affirming his belief in the democratic process. On March 17, 1950, he had attacked the idea that American politics lacks an adherence to principles. “The Civil War could have been avoided by a compromise which retained slavery in half this country (which is what Lincoln favored) and the upheavals of the late nineteenth century over free silver could have been prevented by a compromise with inflation. A clash on principle brewed one revolt and almost a second one. But would we have been a better, greater nation for such compromises? And is it true the people refused to face an issue of principle when it was set before them?
“Perhaps politics and principles don’t mix. But the men who believe so don’t seem to have much faith in the democracy they are busily defending.”
Yet another event in 1954 would be of little moment for the country, but of enormous importance for the Journal. Henry Gemmill, in charge of the Journal’s news side as managing editor, was a large, personable young man born in Toledo, Ohio, with the talent and desire to fulfill Barney’s goal of making the Journal a more readable and interesting newspaper. He was as irreverent toward big business sacred cows as Grimes was of government pretensions.
What could be more interesting than the auto industry in a postwar era in which young families were buying houses and cars? The news from Detroit was that the auto companies were planning major redesigns of their 1955 models as GM, Ford and Chrysler competed for the dollars of an increasingly affluent public; disposable income had burgeoned by 70% in a decade. The American love affair with cars was resurgent after having gone unrequited during the war.
Gemmill and Page One editor Jack Bridge assigned Detroit bureau manager John Williams to do a story about what the new models would look like, supplying pictures if possible. This was in May, four months before the auto makers would unveil the 1955 models with their usual show business hoopla.
Gemmill, Bridge and Williams knew that the Detroit press, at the behest of the companies, had long observed a code of omertà about new models. It may sound strange to modern ears, but auto companies had significant influence with newspaper and magazine publishers back then because of their large ad budgets. Their self-serving argument was that if important model changes were heavily publicized, consumers would postpone their buying until the new models arrived. Dealer sales out of existing inventory would suffer. So new model information, pictures especially, were guarded like a military secret.
It was a dubious argument in that it assumed customers were so stupid that they weren’t aware of the “planned obsolescence” game the auto companies had been playing for years. Dealers had for years been discounting current models as the advent of new models approached. Gemmill and his colleagues decided that the Journal would not be a part of this Detroit keep-them-in-the-dark game.
Johnny Williams was faced with a tough assignment, but he knew that auto companies always have spies checking out the future designs of their competitors, and he found what he wanted from one of the smaller companies, probably Studebaker, which operated out of South Bend, Indiana, not Detroit. No one will ever be sure of the source because Johnny held steadfastly to his pledge not to reveal it, even to his wife, Jerri.
On May 28, the Journal