Remembrances"I don't think I could sleep comfortably with myself at night if I forgot the admonition that it is the duty of a newspaper to become the attorney for the most defenseless among its subscribers."
— Col. Harry M. Ayers, President and Publisher, 1910-1964.
In this space every afternoon and Sunday morning, the character (or soul, if you will) of this newspaper is on display.
It is a place where the people who edit the paper express more than cold, dispassionate opinions about the cast of world events or local controversies. It is a place for passion, too, where the personality of the paper is expressed.
This is where you can see what makes us mad or irritated; you can join us in sorrow over the loss of a good citizen or in celebrating a place of good news for the community. Here you can also see us make mistakes, errors in fact or judgment — even in grammar — because that is part of being human, to. And, finally, this is where you can find out what we think is worth fighting for or against — in our own words and in our own way.
In short, this is where you can see us for what we are. But, except for family and a few close friends, few of our readers know how we got to be the way we are. Much of what a newspaper is comes from things which have happened to its staff along the way — education, experience at other jobs in other places, particular reading habits and the force of ever-changing current conditions.
But that is not all of it; it may not even be most of what goes into the character of a newspaper. Heritage, tradition, is a large, perhaps the largest part of what makes a newspaper what it is.
The heritage of this newspaper springs from a single man, the late Col. Harry M. Ayers. At this time of year 10 years ago he died, much mourned, just short of his 80th birthday. But his principles, and the way he honored them, continue to shape the character of the paper he founded, though the times and conditions have changed a great deal.
Because all human personalities are different, inheritance must be very personal to a large degree. A man will be remembered by his wife in one way, his daughter in another and by his son in quite a different way. This is the remembrance of a son.
Although the three of us tend to emphasize different parts of Dad's public career, there is one thing on which all of us agree. That is his global curiosity. He believed that even a smalltown newspaper should be aware of everything happening on this planet. He would put it this way: "He who fails to take heed of troubles far away will soon find trouble near at hand." How many times did we hear that during dinner-table discussions?
He not only talked about international affairs, he acted on his belief. After a trip to Western Europe in the mid-1930s he undertook a personal preparedness campaign. He made speeches to colleges and civic clubs from Montgomery to Chattanooga, wrote editorials and sent them to diplomats and senators. Each letter and editorial and lecture carried the warning that the fuse had been lit on World War II and we had better be ready for the explosion.
I think he did what he did in the belief that one man, one small newspaper could make a difference. And I believe his exertions did make a difference, that President Roosevelt was able to pull us gradually out of our seclusion because of the efforts of men like my father.
Any scholar looking through his papers could tell that Dad was a worldly man. But there were other qualities about my father which are more important to his son. They can only be discovered by personal observation and by talks with allies in old battles and with men who fought on the opposite side from Dad, yet, strangely, remained friends, too.
Dad loved a good fight and had his share. Whom he fought, the issues he thought worth fighting for and the way he fought are the qualities I most admire in my father.
He used power as lightly, as perfectly as any man I have ever known who possessed any degree of that fearfully intoxicating advantage. He fought hard but, even in defeat, he never became a hater. In his hands power was a weapon, not to crush an enemy, but was used much as a pubic defender might use his talents.
As an editor and as a member of the State School Board he led the fight to get equal pay for black teachers. He did so not because it was popular; in his time, it was not popular. He did so because it was right, because the law which decreed "separate but equal" education didn't mean just separate to him.
Believing that the rich and powerful could take care of themselves, he took up the cause of the working man and of the right of labor to organize. In all of these battles he never picked on anybody who wasn't his own size and never forgot that "a newspaper must become an attorney for the most defenseless among its subscribers."
Better than anything he said or wrote, that quote expresses the essence of his character as his son understands it. We have put that quote at the top of this column of opinion, not so much to tell our readers about the founder of the paper, but to remind us here at The Star who we are and what we stand for.
— H.B.A., Nov 10, 1974
