Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” - A.J. Liebling
My father Bob Wilson took this to heart, and bought one and started his own newspaper, the Prairie Post of Maroa, Illinois in 1958, and ran it until he died in 1972. It never had a circulation of more than 2500 or so, but every week, he would fire off editorials at everyone and everything from local events to the actions of the nations of the world.
He may have been a Quaker peace activist in a Republican district, but his love and support of the farming communities garnered him enough respect that he eventually ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1962, though he lost. (He might have tried again, had he not died of an accident while only 49.) Many of his views ring true today. And he might have been willing to change the ones that fell behind the times. Although raised in the casual racism of the 1920s and 1930s, at the age of 15 he took stock of what he was being taught and discarded much of it as being wrong, and lived his life with respect for all.
I decided to transcribe his old editorials (I may make a book for some of my relatives) and every once in a while I will repost one here, as a view of how the world has changed wildly, or remained stubbornly the same.
March 29, 1962
YOUR FREEDOM BREAK
Most of you who read this know that the Editor of this newspaper, BOB WILSON, will be on the ballot April 10 as the Democratic candidate for Representative in Congress for the 22nd District.
Several of our friends have remarked – and one of the most delightful and irreversible results of the campaign thus far has been our meeting a great many absolutely wonderful people – some of our friends, old and new, have expressed their surprise that we were conducting a political campaign without personal attacks on the opposition candidate.
There is nothing to prevent one's opponent from being a decent and honorable man, though he may not, perhaps, understand the needs of these times.
Quite a surprising number of people are candidates for public office on the primary ballot. You who are candidates, from precinct committeemen up, know the work involved in standing for public office. When you are elected, you will have problems enough without facing a public which has been convinced that all politicians are crooks and scoundrels.
When the contest is within the party, you often find yourself opposing in April, someone you must support in November.
In truth, you are not so much running against anything or anybody, as you are running FOR the principles and the program in which you believe; FOR the right to represent the people and serve them.
We hope that every registered voter will take one hour out of his work-day to go to his polling place and vote on Tuesday, April 10.
Only by using our free system can we preserve it. If you spent the time over a cup of java it would be a “coffee break”. Go to the polls instead, and call it a “Freedom Break”.
When you make your choices, be assured that most of the candidates offered on BOTH sides of the ticket are gentlemen and good Americans!
April 5, 1962
CARIBBEAN POWDERKEG
Some time ago, one of our kind readers had some questions why we should raise criticisms about the denials of human rights which take place under certain despotic states on “our side” of the world struggle, when as bad and worse can be observed under the Communists.
Our best answer is, that those are beyond our reach, while these we have the power to change. When we consider the crimes of our “friends”, we are alarmed for the future of American... and therefore for Freedom itself!
For some years our leaders proceeded as if they were blind and deaf to what people said in the marketplaces throughout the world, to what women wore, and to what children ate – or did not eat. Our emissaries visited the cool Presidential Palaces and listened only to oily words of flattery from a whole nest of stinking little Adolf Hitlers. We gave them money. We gave them guns. They deposited the money in Swiss banks in their own names, and used the guns to shoot down their own people when they rioted for bread.
We did not look far enough ahead, we did not do enough in time. We supported Batiste in Cuba, and his excesses brought on the Castro Revolution which quickly turned into something as bad or worse. We supported Menderes in Turkey, and Syngman Rhee in South Korea, and Bao Dai in Indo-China, until finally blood ran in the streets and the people rose up and threw them out.
Nowhere are we responsible for a worse offense against the conscience of decent people than in our support of Doctor Duvalier, Dictator of Haiti.
We are grateful to Illinois' great Senator Paul Douglas for having brought to the attention of the Senate the conditions existing in that unhappy land, as reflected in an authoritative article published in Commonweal Magazine, written by Alida L. Carey, and entitled, “Our choice in Haiti; Duvalier or The People.”
Haiti is the western half of the island of Hispaniola, the eastern half of which recently saw the overthrow of the Dominican despot Trujillo, another two-bit Mussolini whom we placed in power. Haiti is a Negro Republic, the only one in the Western Hemisphere. The inhabitants speak the French of the former colonial owners.
The impartial C.A.R.E. organization in a recent survey declared that the people of Haiti were the worst fed in the entire world, worse even than the Indians, worse than the Chinese. This in a protectorate under American control, where the main source of income is the $13 million dollars per year of American tax money we give Mr. Duvalier.
Once-fertile Haiti is an example of land reform run wild, in which some families attempt to feed themselves from “farms” containing less than one-fortieth of an acre. The forests have been stripped, and erosion saps the soil. The one crop, coffee, has fallen in volume to half what it was two hundred years ago. Three-and-one-half million people, most of them illiterate, are jammed together tighter than the teeming millions of India; they live on a per-capita income of $70 per person, and are prey to malaria, tuberculosis, and malnutrition.
Duvalier, whom our government originally supported in hopes that he would modernize the country, has built neither schools, roads, nor hospitals; projects to improve the economy and feed the people languish half-done, while Duvalier sits in his palace surrounded by the ornate uniforms of his palace guard. Hungry people frighten any ruler; they must be either fed or suppressed. Duvalier has chosen the course of despots; his secret police have closed most of the newspapers, driven the labor unions out of the country, persecuted churchmen, and murdered anyone offering criticism or political opposition to the Duvalier regime.
The elections of one year ago were a shocking spectacle. Army troops rounded up the peasantry at gunpoint and brought them in by truckloads, where, shivering with fear, they were instructed to mark a ballot on which only one party appeared! The only American reporter on hand to cover the occasion was expelled from the country without ceremony.
Is Mr. Duvalier and his sorry little madhouse of military or political value to us? None whatsoever. Is he at least a strong Anti-Communist? Not even that – he has lately been blackmailing us with threats to seek Soviet help if we do not send him more money!
The only argument for him is that, in his absence, Haiti “might get something worse.” What could be worse? To lose their freedom? Haitians do not know the meaning either of freedom or self-rule. Starving and in rags, they know they dare not murmur against the government, or they may be dragged out of their beds and shot by the secret police. We suggest that neither Castro, nor Krushchev, nor the Devil Himself could do a worse job of governing a nation!
This is a instance where only two courses remain; to cut off aid to the present government and leave revolution to throw the Haitian people into the hands of the three Administrators mentioned above; or to tell Duvalier bluntly what he must do an see that he does it. The latter is meddling, to be sure; but we are already responsible for much of the situation as it now exists.
The most important step of all is to see that free elections are held under the impartial oversight of a United Nations commission. To make changes in Cuba is, for the moment, beyond our reach; but in Haiti, we can see that things improve. If we are to avoid another revolution, these changes must be made soon.