National Reports
RICHARDS", "COURTNEY SHELDON, MURRAY FRIEDMAN, FOUST
National Reports The Balance Sheet Ousted McGinnis By Courtney Sheldon Boston No one who has studied the money-making career of Patrick B. McGinnis considers that public ire was the principal...
...in Louisiana, a legislator is preparing a resolution to this effect, and in Virginia and South Carolina resolutions have already been introduced in the state legislatures...
...Fred Preaus, a "country boy" backed by the shrewd and heretofore formidable Governor Kennon...
...At the same time he was hit by flood losses and a major train wreck...
...The B&M, although more prosperous in recent years, has never been regarded as a plum, and those who have fought McGinnis the longest are apparently neither inclined nor equipped to push him out of the B&M...
...He fought his way up the ladder...
...McGinnis was ousted with enough surface cheer to cause speculation that he might continue to dictate New Haven policy...
...Though he frequently appeared on radio, he scorned television and stubbornly refused to allow his opponents to draw him into a face-to-face debate...
...His fate is uncertain...
...Louisiana's grappling with the segregation problem will probably not be surrounded with the hysteria and demagoguery noticeable in Virginia, Georgia and South Carolina...
...Even the Governor of "liberal" North Carolina has expressed interest in the doctrine, although he has not gone so far as to endorse it...
...In Mississippi, it has been sponsored by two state legislators, a judge and a former Governor...
...From the national viewpoint, the election is likely to have these effects: Louisiana's delegates to the Democratic national convention will support Adlai Stevenson for the nomination...
...The B&M is his fourth...
...All they heard was the blare of Christmas carols over the station's loudspeaker system...
...It is quite possible, in the minds of some, that McGinnis did, in time, intend to improve overall train service...
...Another element of confusion was McGinnis's immediate acceptance of the presidency of New England's other major railroad, the Boston & Maine...
...Long's opponents enjoyed, moreover, the support of all the major newspapers, including the powerful New Orleans Times Picayune...
...Russell is assured of another six years in the Senate when he runs again and Congressman George S. Long represents a safe district in Long territory...
...His opponents are apparently dependent on McGinnis's own policies to defeat McGinnis...
...Most observers here agree that Long got the bulk of the 150,000 registered Negro votes cast in the state...
...De Lesseps S. Morrison, who appeared almost nightly on television...
...He had made grandiose promises of a new era of rail travel, and then cut maintenance costs-only to find that the New Haven's ancient equipment needed more rather than less care...
...That body in the United States is the Supreme Court, the keystone of the arch of constitutional government...
...Louisiana voters will go along with the convention choice, whoever he is...
...In his day, he called it nullification and the doctrine was used to do battle with an onerous tariff rather than a hated Supreme Court decision...
...During that time, they installed rigid civil service and established a number of "non-political" boards which swept from office the entrenched second layer of Long strength...
...Anti-Long forces, generaled by outgoing Governor Robert F. Kennon, have held sway for four years...
...He lasted 21 months on the New Haven, where he initially had to fight a bitter battle for control...
...Governor Kennon, who put a candidate in the race in the hope of electing a man who could help him run against Senator Russell Long in 1958, will probably abandon this ambition...
...The press of the region turned almost unanimously against him...
...Kennon's influence, which he exerted in favor of conservative policies and Republican candidates, is at an end...
...McGinnis, in reply, pointed out that he had made the road profitable...
...Francis S. Grevemberg, the former state police superintendent, who plugged hard on moral issues...
...The Mayor suffered a humiliating defeat when his highly touted city machine produced, instead of the expected 100,000 plurality, a bare 2,000...
...Long's election represents to some extent a repudiation of the stands these candidates took on local issues...
...But the majority of New Englanders would prefer that McGinnis find somebody else's railroads to experiment with...
...There still is a residue of support for him on the New Haven board...
...Earl Long's triumph, which is almost unprecedented, will certainly mean a reversal of the latter trend and very likely a considerable change in the former...
...Conversely, rumblings of opposition are beginning to be heard...
...It revolved around personalities, and Long unquestionably was the most outstanding of these...
...He had not raised fares and he was admittedly struggling with old equipment...
...McGinnis inherited an interest in railroads from his railroad foreman father, but no money to capitalize on it...
...Since its formulation, "interposition" has received strong backing of White Citizens' Councils in many Southern states as well as important politicos...
...to use the words of Kilpatrick's draft, a state is "not bound to abide thereby...
...And the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot has said that whatever validity "interposition" might have had in the past, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution ended it...
...Whether or not it can be dismissed so cavalierly remains to be seen...
...Whether because of McGinnis or in spite of him, the New Haven's financial position clearly has deteriorated...
...Some believe- the resignation from the New Haven and leap to the B&M were simply new tactics in the old merger maneuver...
...And way up there, Calhoun must be smiling...
...Leading political figures in five states are now giving thought to having their states formally endorse "interposition...
...Until this is done, and here's where Calhoun's smile would become a chuckle, the decision of the Supreme Court would be considered null and void...
...During the pre-Christmas cold snap, New Haven equipment was not equal to the freeze...
...Earl Long is not an integrationist, but his election night victory statement went out of its way to thank the "fine colored citizens" who supported him...
...The theory was brought forward in a series of editorials and reprints of historical documents by the brilliant, contentious editor of the Richmond News Leader, James J. Kilpatrick, as a way out for white Southerners who don't want their children to go to school with Negro boys and girls...
...Not all New Englanders criticize McGinnis as a self-seeking, brash interloper...
...Across the city at North Station...
...Hoarse, and homespun, he heaped ridicule on the pretensions of his opponents and confidently predicted that he would be elected...
...Camille Gravel, now Democratic National Committeeman and the party power in the state, is Earl Long's close adviser...
...This is only to reiterate what the aged James Madison said many years ago about nullification-for this preposterous and anarchical pretension there is not a shadow of countenance in the Constitution...
...With the election of Earl, the powerful Long family finds itself with three of its members firmly ensconced in office...
...in view of his miserable showing, it is doubtful that he would risk running again...
...If a state or group of states can pick and choose the Federal laws and Court decisions they wish to obey, they can reduce the process of orderly government to chaos...
...Instead, he relied on the method he knew best: stump speeches in all the little towns around the state...
...A hard-driving executive, he apparently feels he has earned himself the extravagance of special personal trains...
...They are well aware that New England interests, if they so chose, could have kept control of the New Haven and the B&M...
...Arrayed against him were New Orleans's "boy wonder" Mayor...
...While at the Norfolk Southern, he was severely chastised by the ICC for "inordinate, extravagant, and in many instances wasteful" handling of the funds of the railroad and its subsidiaries...
...Briefly, the idea is for the legislatures of Virginia and other states to go on record as being opposed to the Court decision and to call on the Congress to submit a Constitutional amendment to the states declaring that they may not maintain segregated public school systems...
...Before the New Haven, he and bis associates had control of the Central of Georgia and the Norfolk Southern...
...he would be around a long time...
...National Reports The Balance Sheet Ousted McGinnis By Courtney Sheldon Boston No one who has studied the money-making career of Patrick B. McGinnis considers that public ire was the principal cause of his hasty exit from the presidency of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad...
...What is "interposition...
...New Haven patrons can be excused if they balk at such regalness, remembering one widely publicized occasion when a McGinnis personal train preceded, and slowed down, a regularly scheduled Boston-to-New York train...
...Assets are down and liabilities are up...
...It would not be accurate to say, however, that the Long victory represents a response to a national trend...
...The new city charter may forbid another term for the Mayor...
...The doctrine of "interposition" is just beginning to be closely examined in the South...
...It was reasoned that McGinnis had outlived his usefulness on the New Haven...
...So you spend a few thousand dollars...
...A Virginia legislator, Armistead Boothe, drew a laugh from an audience at the John Marshall High School in Richmond not long ago when he passed over it as having been effectively dealt with 150 years earlier by the man the school had been named after...
...and James S. McLemore, an Alexandria cattleman who ran solely on his anti-integration views...
...This era has also been marked by an attempt on the part of Kennon to turn this Democratic stronghold into a bastion for Eisenhower...
...At the height of his unpopularity during the pre-Christmas freeze, he bluntly told New Englanders that they had better get used to him...
...They also feel that New England's inclination to be self-satisfied needs an occasional jolt...
...Thousands of commuters stood shoulder-to-shoulder in cavernous South Station, Boston, waiting for their trains to be called or for some explanation of the delay...
...For the most part, the campaign was devoid of issues...
...Murray Friedman has contributed numerous articles to The New Leader...
...B&M trains, which had not vet been given McGinnis's personal attention, kept to schedules...
...as yet, it has not gained full acceptance as the best means of getting around the Supreme Court decision...
...Before such an amendment could go into effect, it would have to be approved by three-quarters of the states...
...He represents the Anti-Defamation League (B'nai Brith) in Virginia...
...South Revives Calhoun's Doctrines By Murray Friedman Richmond John C. Calhoun, South Carolina's grim-faced 19th-century philosopher-statesman of states' rights, must be smiling as he looks down on the current discussion over "interposition" in the South...
...Although apparently well financed these days, he has had lean periods...
...They think you robbed a bank," he says acidly...
...Understandably, the amusement of B&M riders turned to alarm with the announcement that McGinnis was taking active command of the B&M...
...It is certain, however, that Southerners, who get their interest in the past by inheritance, are having more history and constitutional theory tossed at them than they have heard in many a moon...
...After 21 months in office, the glib financier was outtalked by the railroad's balance sheet...
...Ever since McGinnis backers had taken over the B&M last April, they had sought to obtain ICC approval to give McGinnis his second New England railroad presidency and thus take a step toward merger of the New Haven and the B&M...
...If we are to have a government of law and not of arbitrary will,' the Charlotte News has observed, "there must be a body to declare the law...
...He is too resourceful and aggressive to be derailed without a mighty struggle...
...His successor, George Alpert, had arrived on the New Haven scene with McGinnis...
...Chief casualty of the Long sweep, besides Kennon, is the nationally known Mayor Morrison...
...Earl Long Comes Back in Louisiana's Primary By Foust Richards New Orleans Former Governor Earl K. Long's overwhelming and unexpected first primary victory in his bid for the Louisiana Governorship will compel a major shuffle of the state's political power...
...Few think the New Haven ouster will dampen McGinnis for any appreciable period...
...When an investigation made this unmistakably apparent to controlling interests on the New Haven board of directors, they dropped him with a dispatch that was beyond the wildest dreams of McGinnis's detractors...
Vol. 39 • February 1956 • No. 6
