Jackhammered

by Ed Bethune

  We started thinking seriously about leaving the FBI. I knew what it was like to practice law because of my experience in Pocahontas. I was confident that I could be a good lawyer and make a good living, especially since I had four years experience as an FBI agent. After much discussion, we decided that if I could find a good opportunity in Arkansas we ought to consider it. It was hard to talk about getting out of the FBI because I loved being an agent and I was good at it. Nevertheless, we decided to take the next step.

  15

  ARKANSAS LAWYER, ARKANSAS REPUBLICAN

  Home is where we love, home that our

  feet may leave, but not our hearts.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

  I typed letters to several of my law school friends to see if they knew of any openings for me in the legal profession. It made me a little nervous to drop the letters in the mail because I did not want the Bureau to find out that I was looking around. Nevertheless, I took the risk. Over the next two weeks, I received responses from every one of my friends. That made me feel good, but it felt even better to learn that there were several promising job opportunities for me to explore. I took a week off and flew back to Arkansas to begin my investigation of the job market. I stayed with Mother in Little Rock, borrowed her Plymouth Valiant, and headed to Harrison, Arkansas for my first interview. In the days that followed, I drove from one side of the state to the other and talked to several lawyers, mostly in small towns. I also interviewed in Jonesboro, Fayetteville, Pine Bluff, and Texarkana. I spent hours on the road, and that gave me what I needed most, time to think.

  We were in reasonably good financial shape, thanks to four years of frugality and two steady incomes. The FBI had a policy that allowed agents to pass up vacations and accumulate leave time. I had not taken much leave during my four years, thus I would receive over $4000 from the FBI for unused vacation if I resigned. Other than that, we had about $2000 in savings, and we had all our bills paid. When we were in law school, Lana and I used to dream of the day when we would “have all our bills paid and have a thousand dollars in the bank.” We used to laugh and say if we ever reached that goal, we would be rich. In our minds, we were “rich” as we considered taking a new step in our life. We put financial considerations aside and pledged to focus on professional opportunity, finding the perfect community to raise our kids, and being close to loved ones. We were convinced that the financial issue would take care of itself if we based our decision on the other factors.

  As I drove from one interview to the next, one thought kept running through my mind, and it dominated all others. I was thirty-two and, for the first time in my life, I honestly felt that I might eventually be a success. I had no particular definition of success, but I had started believing that I would eventually “be somebody.” I thought about my personal, material, and professional achievements and measured them against the doubts I had had about myself when I was an incorrigible, bedwetting child in the tenth grade. I had made slow but steady progress, and I was reaching new plateaus with regularity. There were bumps along the road, but overall I was pleased with myself, not overly proud, just pleased. Unfortunately, I gave undeserved credit to the Vermilye worldview. I concluded that my accomplishments—overcoming bedwetting, being a Marine, getting college degrees, marrying the right woman, having healthy children, and becoming a special agent of the FBI—were the product of my will. I had accomplished more than I ever thought I would when I was a young boy. I even had a nice house and a color TV. I could reach any goal and I did not have to take “No” for an answer. Why should I? I was proving the fundamental tenet of the Vermilye worldview: Where there is a will there is a way. As a side benefit, I had “them” on the run so that “they” could not take anything from me. I needed nothing more than what I had.

  In the end, Lana and I decided I should take the job offered to me by Odell Pollard, a true country lawyer in Searcy, Arkansas, a small town forty-five miles northeast of Little Rock. Odell, ten years my senior, had just built a new law office, and his general practice was well established. He was a solo practitioner at the time, but Jerry Cavaneau, a young lawyer, was going to rejoin the firm upon completing a hitch in the U. S. Navy. Lana and I knew several people in Searcy. E. D. Yancey, and Jack Gardner and his wife Anne were friends from our days at the University of Arkansas. The proximity to Little Rock made Searcy a perfect choice because in less than an hour we could visit my mother and sister, and Lana’s mother and father. We had other relatives living close by, but our biggest incentive was that Searcy had excellent public schools. Our children were ready to enter grammar school, and Lana could get a job teaching English. Little Rock, where we both spent our early years, would have been a good choice. The public schools in Pulaski County were still in turmoil following the 1957 school integration crisis, but that was not the reason we chose Searcy.

  We picked Searcy because we liked the town and the people. It reminded me of Pocahontas with flat land east of town and hills on the west side. It would take some time to settle in and create a backlog of shared memories with new friends, but eventually Searcy would be like Pocahontas. It would give us a sense of place and be a rock for us to stand on, one we could always come back to when we needed to get our bearings.

  I resigned from the FBI, and on May 4, 1968, we left New Jersey for Searcy, Arkansas. We moved into a little two-bedroom house that we rented from Jim Smith, and I went to work with Odell Pollard. My monthly guarantee of $400 was quite a comedown from my FBI salary, but I was convinced I would do better eventually. I did everything from reading abstracts of title to writing deeds to defending criminal cases. I was busy but I had much more time to spend with my family. Paige and Sam made many new friends, and most importantly, they stopped saying “youse guys,” and “bottle of pop.”

  Settling in Searcy was good for many reasons, but it still impresses us that the first question townspeople ask a newcomer is, “Where do you go to church?” We resolved that question by joining First Methodist Church of Searcy. Several of our old friends were members of First Methodist, and Lana had grown up at Pulaski Heights Methodist Church in Little Rock. I had attended Winfield Methodist Church in Little Rock. It was a no-brainer.

  I was not thinking about politics when Lana and I decided to move to Searcy, but Odell Pollard was chairman of the embryonic Republican Party of Arkansas. Because of that, I began to keep up with what he and his allies were trying to do.

  I had learned a little bit about Republicans when I was in Pocahontas and Barry Goldwater was running for president. An eighty-year-old doctor who had his office next to my law office, Doc Hamil, kept saying the country needed to get back to basics and get away from the likes of Lyndon Johnson. Doc was a Goldwater man and his constant refrain was, “We need to start new money.”

  I learned a lot more about the Republican party when I was in the FBI even though, as agents, we had orders to refrain from conspicuous political activity. That was easy for me because I had little interest in such matters. Nevertheless, I met many agents from the North who were life-long Republicans. When riding around in a FBI car, particularly during long surveillances, we talked about sports, girls, and politics. Invariably, they would ask, “What are you Bethune, a Republican or a Democrat?” I always told them I had been “rocked in the Democrat cradle,” and said without equivocation, “I’m a Democrat.”

  They would say, “You don’t sound like a Democrat—you sound like a Republican.” To that I would respond, “That’s impossible; we don’t have any of those in Arkansas.”

  I liked the conservative ideas I heard from my Republican friends in the FBI, and it got me to thinking about the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Even so, I did not change parties. Politics did not matter to me when I was in the FBI, but that was about to change.

  Odell Pollard, like me, had been raised a Democrat, but he became a Republican in the early 1960s. Odell switched because he despised what was happening in Arkansas. The Old Guard—a Democrat politi
cal machine led by Governor Orval Faubus—controlled state government. The regime prospered because it had no competition. Arkansas was a solid one-party state. Almost all officeholders—local, county, and state—were Democrats. Winning a Democrat primary was tantamount to election. Those affiliating with the GOP must have been out of their minds or they were looking for a federal job (mainly as postmasters), so said the Democrats. For that reason, the Democrats called all Republicans “Post Office Republicans.”

  Winthrop Rockefeller, one of the wealthy Rockefellers, took up residence in Arkansas after World War II. He was a lifelong Republican and the antics of Orval Faubus mortified him. As he got more involved in Arkansas affairs, Rockefeller decided to challenge the Old Guard by running against Faubus in 1964. He lost that race, but when he announced that he would run again in l966, Faubus saw what was coming. He stepped down, and the Old Guard machine nominated Justice Jim Johnson, a member of the Arkansas Supreme Court, to be their standard-bearer. Johnson—a colorful figure—used everything from segregation to suspicion in his effort to keep the Old Guard together. He called Rockefeller “Big Daddy Two-Boots” and labeled all who supported him as “Rockefellercrats.” It did not work.

  Arkansans were not quite ready to be Republicans, but they could see the need for competition in politics. Rockefeller put together a force that included fed-up Democrats and Independents who wanted to change Arkansas for the better. The coalition included a substantial majority of African Americans who had suffered oppression under the Old Guard. Rockefeller won, as did the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Maurice “Footsy” Britt, a Medal of Honor winner. Arkansans in the Third Congressional District also elected John Paul Hammerschmidt of Harrison to be the first Republican member of the U. S. House of Representatives from that district since Reconstruction.

  It was a new day in Arkansas. The Rockefeller administration was the antithesis of the Old Guard. Decision-making was transparent, an immoral prison system was reformed, illegal gambling and graft in Hot Springs were stopped and most importantly, government was, for the first time, opened up to women and blacks. It was a testament to the power of competition in politics and an important toehold for the Republican party, giving hope that one day there would be a viable two-party system in Arkansas.

  Within a few weeks of my arrival in Searcy in 1968, I decided I wanted to be a part of what Governor Rockefeller, Odell Pollard, and the Republican party were doing for the state of Arkansas. In those days, we had two-year terms of office for governor so Rockefeller was running for re-election. The Old Guard, eager to get back in power, handpicked a candidate, Marion Crank, to run against Rockefeller. The Democrats controlled virtually every other office in the state and they, for years, had used their county and district level positions to shamelessly steal votes and distort the election process. Rockefeller and his supporters had worked hard since 1964 to stop the foul practices, particularly the vote stealing, but the reform effort did not get traction until Tom Glaze, a law school classmate of mine, organized The Election Law Institute in 1970.

  The Rockefeller team welcomed me and put me to work enforcing election laws. The Democrats were doing everything they could to minimize the black vote, which was sure to go to Rockefeller. There were instances where the Democrats would arrange precincts so that large numbers of blacks would have to vote in one box. The voting in those days was by paper ballot, so by cutting down the number of election judges and clerks the process of voting slowed to a virtual standstill. Blacks desiring to vote had to stand for hours in long lines waiting their turn to get a ballot, and many would do just that. Some dropped out of line because they had to get back to work, while others just got discouraged and gave up.

  A few days before Election Day in 1968, the Republican party sent me to Crittenden County to file a mandamus action against Democrat election officials. The Democrats were up to their old tricks. They were refusing to appoint a proper number of election officials, and my job was to get the circuit judge to issue a writ requiring the Democrats to comply with the law so that people could vote without standing in long lines. When I got to the courthouse and filed my petition the clerk told me the judge, Todd Harrison, a Democrat, was out of town and that it would be hours before he could hear my argument. The lawyers for the Democrats told me they intended to fight my request and that it would be necessary to call witnesses. Their insistence to have an evidentiary hearing was an obvious attempt to stall. There was no need to call witnesses—the facts were undisputed. I said I would wait for the judge to get there because I was entitled to an immediate hearing on my petition. Eventually the judge showed up and the Democrats said they were ready to go to trial. I noticed there was no court reporter and told the judge I had no intention of proceeding without an official reporter. He said he did not realize I might want to report the proceedings so he had excused his reporter for the day. He said a reporter “would be a waste of time” because the election was only a day away and there would not be enough time for me to appeal an adverse ruling to the Arkansas Supreme Court. I cited cases showing that election law issues are never moot and that I wanted a reporter so that there would be an appealable record. With that, the Democrat officials, their lawyers, and the judge just laughed at me. I asked for a recess and advised the court it was my intention to bring a qualified court reporter from nearby Memphis to make a record of the proceedings. That irritated the judge, but he dared not block my insistent effort to make a record for fear of turning the case into a cause célèbre. He granted my request for a recess, and in a couple of hours the reporter I hired showed up and the trial started. The Democrats called several unnecessary witnesses who from the witness stand referred to me as a “Rockefellercrat.” They also made a number of absurd arguments to justify what they were doing. The judge, as expected, ruled in their favor. I explained to the large number of blacks who had come to the trial that I would turn the record of the proceedings over to Governor Rockefeller. With that, I left Crittenden County. I was glad to get away from the disgusting environment. It made me sick to see lawyers and judges use our system of justice to keep people from voting.

  Governor Rockefeller won re-election. We decided not to appeal Judge Harrison’s flawed ruling, but the episode remains a good example of why we must have competition in politics.

  A better example of the need for two parties occurred in Conway County. I played a key role in a political drama that was stranger than fiction, a fiasco that nearly cost me my life. A fellow attorney in Searcy, Cecil Tedder, who later became a circuit judge, laughingly said I should have received the “Order of the Purple Navel,” for what happened to me in Conway County.

  Marlin Hawkins became sheriff of Conway County, Arkansas in 1951, and before that he had held other county offices. He was a classic county-level politician. The people in his home county revered him, but elsewhere he received mixed reviews. Shortly before his death in 1995, he published an autobiography entitled, How I Stole Elections. My father and I are in his book: Daddy for the work he and Marlin did during the Great Depression to recruit young men for the Civilian Conservation Corps, and I for the fiasco.

  In the mid-1960s, Marlin Hawkins had a running feud with Gene Wirges, the publisher of a local newspaper in Conway County. That dustup produced a number of allegations, one of which was that Marlin Hawkins, as sheriff, was engaged in an unlawful scheme to skim money from traffic ticket collections. A number of taxpayers filed suit contending that the sheriff wrongfully converted to his own use substantial sums of money collected and received as fines and costs. After years of litigation a judge ruled in favor of the taxpayers and ordered the sheriff to pay a judgment of $10,082.

  Winthrop Rockefeller was governor of Arkansas at the time and that was an unfortunate development for Sheriff Hawkins.

  The governor’s lawyers, at the urging of Wirges, found a law saying that a sheriff was disqualified to hold office if he owed such a judgment to the people. In their opinion, the office of sheriff w
as, eo instante, vacant upon entry of the judgment. Having reached that conclusion, the lawyers opined that Governor Rockefeller had the duty to appoint a successor to fill the vacancy. Governor Rockefeller needed no coaxing. He and Marlin Hawkins had been at odds for years. The problem was to find someone with enough courage to take an appointment that would surely infuriate the citizens of Conway County.

  It took some searching, but eventually an eighty-three-year old gentleman, Mr. Ralph Childers, agreed to take the appointment. The paperwork was quickly prepared, and by the time Childers took the oath of office in Little Rock, news of his appointment had already reached Conway County. The governor received reports that Marlin’s supporters were gathering around the county courthouse in Morrilton. Some were armed, and they were saying to anyone who would listen that they were not going to let Ralph Childers serve as sheriff of Conway County. They intended to block any attempt by him to enter the courthouse office of Sheriff Hawkins. Mr. Childers was willing to go to Conway County, but everyone agreed he needed an escort to help him navigate his way through hostile crowds and make comments to the press explaining why he was sheriff and Marlin Hawkins was not.