Outlook: Disoturaging

CHAPTER XXIV

OUTLOOK: DISCOURAGING

DON'T MAKE ANY BETS— no matter what the odds— that Phenix City will remain clean.

Certain safeguards have been taken to make it more difficult for the home-grown crooks to return to power. These provisions, unfortunately, do not guarantee that right is might and wrong, once beaten, shall not rise again. The late Albert Patterson had a saying which his son, John, now has posted in his office in the Judiciary Building at Montgomery where he has offices as Alabama's Attorney General,

The only thing needed for the triumph of evil, goes the saying, is that good men do nothing.

In Phenix City the good men will be watching. They have learned their lesson the hard way. They do not want it to happen again.

But in a sense the good men will be on the defensive. They do not know when the trouble shall arise, nor where, nor in what form. It may be so innocuous they do not even recognize it at first. Or, it may come from a quarter in which they have no authority.

Of this, there can be no doubt:

The fight to clean up Phenix City and keep it clean is not ended.

Among the chief sources to watch in anticipation of trouble is an ornate room on the first floor of the State Capitol Building where James E. Folsom now reigns as Governor. Before he was in office a week he had indicated that the way was being paved to give the forces of evil a chance at a comeback.

He denounced "Blue Ribbon" Juries. And he followed by refusing to re-appoint members of the jury commission, which alone has the power to see that juries are not stacked by the underworld.

Alabama is afflicted with a large segment of its population who have "Folsomania" who believe that "Big Jim" can do no wrong. There also is a strong anti-Folsom element, but chief among the Governor's admirers is himself.

He is a likable, vague, shrewd, unlearned, smart demagogue who pretends to do much for the people— and sometimes does— but often pays no attention to their demands. As proven in his first administration, he can go for months without conceding to public opinion or pressure. Because of the manner in which he was elected, he can and will go his own rash way.

Folsom is less sensitive to newspaper pressure than most public officials, delighting in pushing off his own shortcomings and much of the troubles of the masses on "them lying newspapers."

Most people, even Folsom 's enemies, concede that this towering giant from northwest Alabama has an unprecedented chance for good or evil in the administration that is just beginning. His admirers and well-wishers say that Big Jim is a changed man and will make an outstanding chief executive. This is in line with the Governor's campaign promises.

But all actions to date indicate that, while he has some good men with him, he is surrounding himself also with several of the same sly, selfish groups that made his first administration a gigantic bungle.

As to what Folsom is likely to do about Phenix City, it is not unfair to point out that he was one of the chief beneficiaries from a state-wide vote fraud in 1954, the focal point of which was Phenix City. A week before election day, Folsom campaign workers were beating the bushes all over the state with the theme that * 'if we can change just five votes in each box in the state, Big Jim will go in without a runoff."

The manner of "changing five votes" was not clearly defined in most instances. But the authors know of persons who were approached and offered jobs in the administration if they would undertake to insure the switching of votes in their own voting precincts, They were admonished to go out and tell their friends it meant a lot to them, personally, for Folsom to be elected without a runoff.

A week before election day, the Folsom forces apparently felt they had the election in the bag. Some of those closest to Big Jim began taking bets that their campaign would sweep the field on May 4.

Not only did they win their bets on Folsom, but the king-sized Governor managed in the month between runoff primaries to take with him to Montgomery enough legislators to insure a majority for almost anything he decides to do, at least in the early months of his administration. If he decides to repay a political debt by making Phenix City again the good time town for Fort Benning, he can go far in carrying out that plan.

One of the most discouraging developments is that National Guardsmen no longer feel free to discuss Phenix City publicly. The subject is not a popular one at Guard headquarters in Montgomery.

The joints that have been closed for the last few months are still there and could be made ready for business in short order. The word is out among the gambling fraternity in Birmingham and Montgomery that they will be able to get action in Phenix City before the end of 1955. Sheriff Lamar Murphy and Solicitor James Caldwell won't be shoved around, though, and will make it tough for anyone who tries.

It may be significant that no action has yet been taken on a recommendation of the Russell County cleanup Grand Jury that an ordinance be passed prohibiting the sale of liquor or beer within two thousand feet of the former hot spots which cluster around the two bridges.

By the end of 1955, nearly all of the racket figures who were sent to Kilby Prison will be back in Phenix City. Most of them know nothing but gambling and haven't earned an honest dollar in their lives. They will be unhappy in enforced idleness, and since most of them are home-grown products, they may hesitate to leave the area where they once had everything their own way.

Such men as Gamblers Jimmy Matthews and Hoyt Shepherd and ex-Public Official Arch Ferrell are not the types who will sit back and take the wrecking of an empire calmly. They are tough-skinned schemers who are as used to a rose bush full of thorns as they are to having a cortege of human puppets who dance when they pull the strings.

Of particular concern should be the haste with which officials wanted the "off limits" ban lifted from their community so Fort Benning could enter the area. Any man in public office would desire the same as would most citizens.

In Phenix, the situation is quite different.

Raising the off limits restriction cannot, at this time, do the city much good. It has nothing to offer a soldier that the GI cannot obtain quicker in Columbus, Georgia. Phenix City has no stores, no markets, no businesses to compete with those in Columbus.

All it could offer the dogface in the past were women, sin, and corruption. For the moment it has little of that, but when a thousand soldiers seek, some shall find because it is human nature for a dollar-hungry civilian to provide for the easy-come easy-go GI.

A few new buildings are being erected in the area and a new industry or two has indicated it will settle in Phenix. With lifting of the off limits ban, a new future could unfold in the town on the river banks. The officials have asked it. The Governor has requested it. The military has granted it.

That puts the responsibility right where it should be: on the men who wanted the restriction removed.

Among the cleanup squad is a man named James Caldwell, newly elected as solicitor in place of Ferrell. Of all the officials, Caldwell is the one with the best reputation for honesty, integrity, determination, and intelligence. He is "straight as an arrow."

It will be his job to prosecute law violators, once they are arrested by county and city police. The lawmen must not ignore even a slight violation. Their task will not be easy, but only by constantly pulling in the men and women who break the law can they hope to discourage the evildoers.

Even this will not be enough if Circuit Judge John B. Hicks runs his court sloppily. A machine member himself, the judge already has predicted that Phenix will return to its transgressions of old, hardly a statement calculated to uphold justice when the judge admits apathy and a tendency to backslide. He also has recently decreed that men who served on the cleanup juries cannot have their names entered again in the current jury box.

The new sheriff, Lamar Murphy, has proved himself as a lawman, An ex-prize fighter, he is a man of physical courage and has a violent dislike for the mobsters. He was the man who found the two main witnesses to the Patterson murder. Murphy might be just what the town needs to hold the line against the pressures that are sure to come. Gambling and prostitution cannot be conducted on an organized scale without the knowledge of law enforcement officers.

The new police chief, Pat Mihelic, is a former member of the Alabama Highway Patrol. He worked the Phenix City area for several years prior to the cleanup, and his knowledge of the crooks and their operations could be highly valuable if he makes an all-out effort to enforce the law. Chief Mihelic is considered a middle-of-the-roader, having wide acquaintances on both sides of the fence. He is yet to be really tested.

As State Attorney General, John Patterson will be in an excellent position to keep his hometown from drifting back into the sins of the past. He wants a staff of his own investigators to help with the job. This could be blocked by an unfriendly administration in Montgomery, since Patterson must depend for funds on a Folsom-dominated legislature.

It is always easier to slip back into old habits than to form new ones. There are hundreds of former "bug" writers not working now, who would like nothing better than to resume their interrupted careers. The bug tried to crawl back even under the watchful eyes of National Guardsmen. What will happen with this force gone?

The present Board of County Commissioners is the same one that existed before the cleanup. Since they were elected under the rigged system, they cannot be regarded as divorced from the old machine. The Board of Registrars will be appointed by Folsom, and two other state office holders, and will hold the key to keeping voters' lists clean. A stacked voters' list could mean a crooked election, and one election is all the old crowd needs to be back in business at the same old stand.

A jury commission, which Folsom appointed, will have nearly unlimited discretion in saying who shall serve as jurors in the courts of Russell County. A corrupt jury box could make a farce of justice just as it did in the days when Shepherd was selecting Grand Juries by telephone.

The circuit court clerk, the probate judge and the sheriff compile the list of poll workers for elections. If they get the wrong crowd in charge of election machinery again, the fate of Phenix City is sealed.

Teen-agers are growing into adults and within a few years they will be in the saddle. These are the same children who, in a poll at the schools, decided they saw nothing wrong with their town as it existed prior to the cleanup.

In Montgomery, the night before Folsom was inaugurated, France Knighton, operator of The Golden Rule, and Homer D. Cobb, Jr., son of a former Phenix City mayor, paid their respects to State Senator Broughton Lamberth, president pro tem of the State Senate and Folsom's Senate floor leader. Cobb was in Montgomery in his capacity as a member of the State Democratic Executive Committee which was to meet the following day. The reason for Knighton's visit may have been nothing more than social, but he had, he said, free access to Lamberth's room and came and went a half dozen times.

These two Phenix City figures visited Lamberth in the latter's hotel room where other friends and acquaintances had gathered. If should be a cause for worry that these two men would appear to be on such familiar and friendly terms with a high administration leader.

All you've got to do in Phenix City is change the entire way of life of a complete community, All the gamblers and crooks want is office, power, influence, authority, control. The scales don't look too well balanced. The future of Phenix City is very much in doubt.