Long Ago Editorial Brings Fire from Officials

I was sitting at my typewriter when the door to the Guardian-Journal burst open and in came the president of the town's only bank, the state senator and the state representative from our area.  They were noticeably angry and demanded to "see Hightower  right now."  Mr. Hightower  was the owner and publisher of the newspaper,  Not only was I ignored but so was Mrs. Hightower, who was seated at her desk opposite me.

They came to complain about an editorial I had written and that was published in the most recent issue.  I had taken the state administration to task for failing to maintain the shoulders on US Highway 79 from Minden through Homer and Haynesville to the Arkansas state line.  We had just had another fatal accident, caused when the car hit a hole on the shoulder adjacent to the highway.  The car flipped over and several fatalities resulted.

Let me digress to give a little history of the construction of this federal highway.  An engineer who worked on the project said that Huey Long discovered that by making the pavement 18 feet wide instead of the standard of 20, more miles of highway could be built with the same amount of concrete.  That narrowing by two feet made driving hazardous.  Trucks with dual wheels would slip off the pavement and dig holes in the dirt shoulders. When a car veered off the pavement and hit a hole it could cause an accident, especially if the driver panicked and tried to immediately steer the car back on the pavement.  The highway could have been made much safer and saved lives by hardsurfacing the shoulders, not a very expensive project and one that cried out to be done.

Mr. Hightower stood firm in supporting me.  If they wanted an apology of some kind they didn't get it. If they wanted me fired they didn't get it.  They said several miles of roads in Claiborne parish had been blacktopped and we agreed it they would give us a list we would be happy to print it as a news story.

I wish I could say the state very soon thereafter hard surfaced the shoulders.  It did not, although I believe the officials did their best to get it done.  It was years later that the shoulders were surfaced and passing lanes were added.  If that situation arose today and I was again the editor, I would take pictures of the worst places and run them week after week, each time blasting the state administration for failure to act.  That was then and printing pictures was expensive and problematic for a weekly newspaper printed by letterpress.