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Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Vicksburg Post
THE VICKSBURG POST
EDITORIAL
Founded by John G. Cashman in 1883 Louis P. Cashman III, Editor & Publisher • Issued by Vicksburg Printing & Publishing Inc., Louis P. Cashman III, President Karen Gamble, managing editor | E-mail: kgamble@vicksburgpost.com | Tel: 601.636.4545 ext 123 | Letters to the editor: letters@vicksburgpost.com or The Vicksburg Post, P.O. Box 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182
JACK VIX SAYS: Sixteen shopping days left until Christmas.
OLD POST FILES 120 YEARS AGO: 1891 A freight train nearly crashes into a hack owned by Louis Hornthal. • John Richardson dies at Epps Plantation. • George Coffing marries Mamie McKenna.
110 YEARS AGO: 1901 Hon. W.J. Vollor is in Port Gibson. • Mrs. F.J. McGraw of Vicksburg is visiting in Port Gibson.
100 YEARS AGO: 1911 Mrs. S.B. Wilson and children leave for Greenville. • Otto Maganos is here from the Delta. • Alex Fitz-Hugh and Harry Floweree are enjoying a hunt in the Delta.
90 YEARS AGO: 1921 Dr. Percy Shelton and family are from Brunswick to do their holiday shopping. • Mary Kemper has arrived in New York after spending a year in Bulgaria. • W.A. Stanton delivers a lecture for the Boy Scouts. • The Exchange Club has a jolly celebration for its first birthday here.
80 YEARS AGO: 1931 Philomena Smartt is tendered a surprise party by her friends. • Joseph Ring attends a meeting of county assessors of the state in Jackson. • Mrs. E.B. Cotton is elected president of the Progressive Club. • Will Rogers in “Ambassador Bill” is the attraction at the Saenger Theatre.
70 YEARS AGO: 1941 Maurice Seay is elected president of the Vicksburg Optimist Club.
60 YEARS AGO: 1951 Mrs. H.C. McCabe, former resident, is visiting here for the holidays from Washington, D.C. • Judge Ben Guider is a speaker on the program at the Mississippi Sheriffs Association meeting in Jackson.
OUR OPINION
50 YEARS AGO: 1961
Defense
Gil Martin is elected president of the Mississippi Association of Teen Centers. • Mr. and Mrs. John Peyton of Utica announce the birth of a son, John Griffin. • George Evans and John Hennessey are home from Notre Dame for the holidays.
40 YEARS AGO: 1971
Pentagon not planning for cuts You don’t think of the nuclear warheads on top of Minuteman-3 intercontinental ballistic missiles as going bad. But in fact, the weapons, located in hardened silos throughout the American West, do have an expiration date: 2091. In a 2006 report to Congress, an independent scientific advisory group estimated that’s about when the plutonium in the core, or “pit,” of hydrogen bombs will degrade enough to cause problems. Most of us won’t be alive by then, but that doesn’t mean some people aren’t worried about it. Worrier-in-chief is Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler, who heads the U.S. Strategic Command. In an interview with The Washington Times last week, Kehler said he was concerned that forthcoming Pentagon budget cuts would threaten ongoing weapons modernization efforts. “Getting full funding is definitely critical,” the general said. Every flag officer worth his or her stars is making the same claim. The military-industrialcongressional complex is at DEFCON 1 over the possibility
that, as a result of the congressional supercommittee’s failure to reach a deficit-cutting deal, defense spending will be reduced by more than $500 billion over the next 10 years. That’s on top of $500 billion in defense cuts agreed to last summer in negotiations between the White House and congressional leaders. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that a trillion dollars in cuts would leave the United States with “the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915 and the smallest Air Force in history.” Such cuts might, however, solve the problem of those aging Minuteman-3 nukes. Panetta said the United States might have to eliminate its ground-based nuclear arsenal altogether. There would be enough nukes aboard submarines, surface ships and aircraft to destroy the world several times over, but the silos would be emptied and closed. Faced with another half-trillion in budget cuts, are Pentagon planners furiously drawing up contingency plans to minimize the damage? No. The New
Police raid a pot party and arrest 17 young people for possession of marijuana. • Services are held for Roosevelt Charleston, former resident of Edwards, who died in Chicago.
York Times reports that Pentagon officials worry that contingency plans would leak, making it appear that the cuts, however painful, were manageable. Instead, defense officials and contractors are counting on relationships with key members of Congress to find a way around the mandated cuts. It’s a practice that has worked in the past. But this time around, the defense hawks might lose out to deficit hawks. Said Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, “The House will forge ahead with the commitments we have made to reducing government spending.” But when members hear from constituents worried about military base closings or job losses at defense plants, they may change their minds. This debate will play out next year as the presidential and congressional races heat up. Choices will be stark: the deficit, defense or deeper cuts in entitlements and non-defense discretionary spending. Even if Republicans give in to tax and revenue increases, it’s clear that America can no longer have it all.
30 YEARS AGO: 1981 Mr. and Mrs. James S. Womack III of Bovina are the parents of a daughter, Amanda Leigh, born Dec. 11. • Mike Pitts of Vicksburg is a member of Delta State University’s vocal and instrumental group that has released an album. • Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Maxey announce the birth of a daughter, Tiffany Trinell, on Dec. 11.
20 YEARS AGO: 1991 A three-vehicle wreck on Interstate 20 and a gas leak force the evacuation of 25 families on U.S. 80. • Maud James Chaney dies. • Amy Michelle Harrigill celebrates her fourth birthday.
10 YEARS AGO: 2001 Living Water Christian Fellowship participates in a “homeless night out.” • St. Aloysius track and field coach Jimmy Salmon is honored by the Mississippi Association of Coaches. • Alaric L. Vaughn Jr. celebrates his first birthday.
VOICE YOUR OPINION Letters to the editor are published under the following guidelines: Expressions from readers on topics of current or general interest are welcomed. • Letters must be original, not copies or letters sent to others, and must include the name, address and signature of the writer. • Letters must avoid defamatory or abusive statements. • Preference will be given to typed letters of 300 or fewer words. • The Vicksburg Post does not print anonymous letters and reserves the right to edit all letters submitted. • Letters in the column do not represent the views of The Vicksburg Post.
MODERATELY CONFUSED by Jeff Stahler
Waller’s legacy is that of bringing Mississippi forward on race STARKVILLE — Some Mississippi governors are remembered for their style and others for their substance. Former Gov. Bill Waller Sr. is one ex-governor of this state who rightly should be remembered for both. With the seersucker suits and the outsized political persona, Waller was every inch a populist who rose to power by indicting the “Capitol Street Gang” in Jackson — his euphemism for the wealthy, powerful and well-connected businessmen and lawyers whom Waller said had too much influence in this state. Waller was one of the last purveyors of the old-style political stump speech in Mississippi politics. Even during his last appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in 2005 when he was aged and well past his rhetorical prime, Waller could still rattle the tin on top of the Founder’s Square Pavilion and the crowds loved him there. When Waller died last week at 85 after a long and remarkably pro-
Sid
SalTer
While the political dichotomy of Fordice and Winter was always interesting, the diamond in the rough ... was the few minutes all of us enjoyed talking politics and public policy with Bill Waller Sr.
ductive live — one in which he was relevant and contributing right up to the end of his life — I could not help but think of the last long conversation I had with him and the remarkable venue in which that conversation occurred. Back in mid-April of 2001, I was invited to moderate a panel discussion between the state’s living former governors at a convention of the Mississippi Association of Planning and Development Districts on the Gulf Coast. The group invited all the former governors who were living at that time — including
Waller and former Govs. Kirk Fordice, William Winter, Bill Allain, and Ray Mabus. Waller, Fordice and Winter accepted the invitation. Allain and Mabus did not. I shared a chartered plane flight from Jackson to the Gulf Coast with former Govs. Fordice, Waller and Winter. During the lively conversation on the trip, each made it clear that he had not retired from relevance in Mississippi politics and that each still had the fire in the belly that brought him to power at critical junctures in the state’s
history. To be sure, the former governors put on quite a show in Biloxi at the MAPDD convention. But the real show was on the plane ride down and back. Conservative Kirk Fordice and liberal William Winter were miles apart on the political spectrum and remained so until Fordice’s death. But on that day in 2001, their private exchanges in that small airplane were gentlemanly and animated. While the political dichotomy of Fordice and Winter was always interesting, the diamond in the rough of that plane ride was the few minutes all of us enjoyed talking politics and public policy with Bill Waller Sr. Underrated and underappreciated as governor, Waller’s legacy lies on two fronts — he provided significant leadership to bring Mississippi into the modern era on race relations and he made the first significant appointments of black bureaucrats into state government. His
two failed prosecutions of Byron De La Beckwith for the assassination of Medgar Evers was nothing short of heroic. After leaving office, Waller spent the rest of his life as a hard-working attorney, erstwhile fisherman, doting grandfather and still had one of the keenest political minds in Mississippi. He would live to see his son elevated to the post of chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court. Waller risked his political future to prosecute Byron De La Beckwith in the 1960s. Waller would later kill the state Sovereignty Commission — the state’s old spy agency — and those transitions greatly helped this state move forward. Gov. Waller should be remembered most of all as a man of principle and courage. •
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at 601-507-8004 or sidsalter@sidsalter.com