CARL VINSON

CARL VINSON
The Legend of a Legacy

     A century ago tonight, a political legend was born.  None of our county's congressmen, not even the indomitable George M. Troup, nor the incomparable Alexander Hamilton Stephens, have surpassed the lifelong legacy of Congressman Carl Vinson of Milledgeville.  For fifty years and one month, Vinson represented the citizens of the 6th and 10th Congressional Districts of Georgia with unwavering tenacity, dutiful honor, and distinguished patriotism.  His contributions to the people of Laurens County and to the nation as a whole are no less than monumental.

     Carl Vinson, one of seven children of Edward S. Vinson and Annie Morris Vinson, was born on November 18, 1883 in Milledgeville, Georgia.  As a young man, Carl was a good student and a born story teller.   After completing his classes at Middle Georgia Military and Agricultural College during the day, he worked in Culver and Kidd's Drug Store and two other department stores in town.  He once supervised the distribution of an Atlanta Paper throughout the town, for which he earned a paltry $15.00 a week.

     At the turn of the 20th Century, young Carl became interested in studying the law.  He read law under the supervision of Baldwin County Court Judge Edward Hines.  He enrolled in law school at Mercer University in 1900 and graduated two years later.  After taking the oath of admission to the bar, Vinson accepted Judge Hines' invitation to form the partnership of Hines and Vinson. With the benefit of Judge Hines' influence, Carl Vinson became Solicitor of the County Court of Baldwin County in 1904. He was reappointed to that position in 1906.

     In 1909, Carl Vinson was first elected to public office as a State Representative from Baldwin County.  At the age of twenty-seven and during only his second term in office, Vinson was elected Speaker Pro Tempore of the House of Representatives, a prestigious honor to anyone of any age.  Rep. Vinson was denied a third term in the House following the reapportionment of Congressional districts following the 1910 Census.  Vinson supported the transfer of Baldwin County to the 6th District and into a district where the major population center was in Augusta.  Voters resented his actions and turned him out of office by a scant five votes.  It was the only election that he would ever lose, but it was one that may have turned his life around forever.  Vinson, not through with politics by any means, accepted an appointment as Judge of Baldwin County Court, in which he had previously served as solicitor.

     Following the death of Augustus O. Bacon, a United States Senator from Georgia, in 1914,  6th District Congressman Thomas Hardwick, of Sandersville, announced his candidacy for the vacant seat.  Vinson, unsatisfied with being a jurist in a inferior court, announced his intention to return to legislative service, this time at a national level.  Vinson easily won the election to fill Hardwick's remaining term and to a full second year term beginning in January 1915.  On November 3, 1914, Judge Vinson took the oath of office and became Congressman Carl Vinson, a position that he would hold for longer than anyone else in history until his retirement.  Cong. Vinson's only serious opposition came in 1918, when he was challenged by Populist leader Thomas E. Watson of McDuffie County.  Vinson won a close election over Watson, who was thought to be politically finished, but  soon won an election to the U.S. Senate. 

     During his second term in Congress, Vinson was appointed to the House Naval Affairs Committee.  The appointment was unusual in the fact that the congressman's district was no where near any large body of water and there were no naval installations within the district either.  During the early days of the country's involvement in World War I, Vinson made an electrifying speech before Congress espousing President Woodrow Wilson's declaration of war.  From the very beginning of his congressional career, Vinson became a proponent of building a bigger and better naval force. He maintained that he would like to see the fruits of his labor in Congress and bases and ships were visible evidence of his work.

     In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Congressman Vinson to the Morrow Board. The Board was formed following the court martial of Billy Mitchell, who criticized the Defense Department for their lackadaisical attitude for a strong air force program.  By 1923, all of the Democratic members of the Naval Affairs Committee were no longer in office, leaving Vinson as the senior Democratic member.  Acknowledging his expertise and aptitude for military matters, the committee chose Vinson to author many of the board's main recommendations, which included the establishment of an Air Corps and increased funding for building more planes and training more pilots and ground crews.

     The Congressional redistricting following the 1930 Census forced Vinson to return to the 6th Congressional District. When two incumbent Congressmen were placed within his district, one of them being Congressman William W. Larsen of Dublin, Vinson had to take action to avoid a highly contested election for the first time since 1918.  Congressman Larsen retired and the other fellow congressman died before the primary election in the summer of 1932.  

     But then, and apparently out of nowhere, a new candidate emerged. It would become the second most contested election campaign of Vinson's career.  It would also be an election which would have the most impact on Laurens County.  Judge R. Earl Camp of Dublin announced his candidacy to unseat the popular congressman from Milledgeville. In a letter published in Army-Navy Air Force Journal in February 1961, Judge Camp wrote to Cong. Vinson and said, " I am going to give you hell, I mean nothing but merry hell, and I don't mean maybe.  I am going to take the flesh, bone, marrow, hide, and hair off you."  Vinson refused Judge Camp's offers to debate the issues.   Camp was faced with overwhelming challenges. Vinson had become popular in national circles for his work on improving national defense.  He always made sure that members of his district were taken care of with their share of federal programs, a practice that would affect Laurens County in many ways in the decades to come.

     Vinson canvassed the entire district in the hot summer months leading up to the September  Democratic primary, speaking in every town in Laurens County.  Judge Camp struck back with faultfinding criticisms.  He belittled  the very core of Vinson's platform, a powerful U.S. Navy.  The strategy didn't work.   Vinson garnered nearly 65% of the vote in defeating Judge Camp, who managed to carry only four counties out of the district's eighteen, including the judge's home county of Laurens.

Before the 1932 election, Vinson was made chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee. He would serve in that office until 1947 when the committee merged with the Military Affairs Committee to form the House Armed Services Committee.  Under Vinson's leadership in the1930s, the United States naval force was essentially rebuilt.    Congressman Vinson was a workaholic when it came to being a congressman. He was in his office well before 8:00 a.m on most days and spent his nights reading nearly every scrap of newspapers, books and reports as they related to the work of his committee.  In 1938 and again in 1940, Cong. Vinson authored and ushered through Congress the Naval Expansion Acts which helped to prepare the country for the inevitable second World War.  His efforts went somewhat un-applauded until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

     At the beginning of World War II, Carl Vinson was one of the most powerful men in Georgia and in the nation.  He had served longer in Congress than any other Georgian and had been a member of the House Naval Affairs Committee longer than any other Congressman in the country's history. From his Washington office, Congressman Vinson led the civilian effort to win the war on  two oceans.  He constantly pushed for more ships and more personnel. In the end, Vinson's efforts to build the greatest navy in the world were finally and wholeheartedly endorsed by the Congress and the President.  As the war came to a close, Vinson made it clear that the country should not and must not scrap the country's naval force like it did following World War I.  He was somewhat successful though many ships which were no longer necessary were sold to private companies for conversion into civilian ships and for scrap.

     It was during the World War II years that Congressman Vinson's lasting legacy to Laurens County began.  When county farmers lost their work force to the war effort and county leaders were denied an application to establish a prisoner of war camp here, Congressman Vinson stepped in and approved the transfer of some of the German and Italian soldiers incarcerated at Camp Wheeler in Macon to a camp in Dublin in the summer of 1943.  For three summers the prisoners filled the void left by the hundreds of farm workers who were in military service.

     Right in the middle of the war Congressman Vinson wanted to make a lasting contribution to the citizens of the county who had stood behind him for many years. Vinson envisioned the establishment of a naval scarlet fever research hospital on the outskirts of Dublin. Still today some question the location of a naval facility more than 120 miles inland.  The answer is simple.  Dublin needed the economic shot in the arm that a hospital would generate.  As many as one thousand people and a greater number of jobs were generated by the establishment of the hospital here in January 1945.  The facility became part of the Veteran's Affairs Department in 1948.   The hospital was renamed the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center in honor of the man who was responsible for the location of the facility which has a profound impact on Laurens County.

     Ancillary to the location of the naval hospital was the location of an airport to facilitate the transportation of patients and personnel into the hospital. The airport was eventually turned over to the county and has been an important economic tool and recreational facility for more than sixty years.  Obviously important in the location of the two facilities were the vast number of support jobs that were necessary to serve the civilian and military personnel working at the hospital.  New homes were built by the hundreds to house families who were moving here from all parts of the country. Even local citizens built new homes with the security of their new found employment.

     In the post war years, the Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon began the transition to dissolve the union of the Army and Air Force into two separate branches.  Incumbent in that plan was the necessity to establish a separate military academy for the training of the finest officers and pilots in the country.  One of the finalist communities to house the new Air Force Academy was Laurens County.  Vinson, whose influence extended mainly to naval affairs, wanted to place the facility in Laurens County.  When the naval and military affairs committees merged and Vinson was not elected chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, his plan was averted.  Had he been chosen chairman, it begs the question, "what might have been?"  

     As the Cold War began to heat up, military planners began a massive base construction program to stem the tide of Communism throughout the world.  A plan was made to construct a base on the elevated plateaus of the Buckeye District of northeastern Laurens County and neighboring Johnson County.  Excitement was rampant through out the county.  The government planned to establish an Air Force base to house a pride of the fleet, the legendary long range bomber, the B-52.    The news of a  base electrified some because of the economic jolt it would bring to the local economy.  Others feared that it would bring the county on the fringes of a target in the sight of a Russian "A bomb."  The plans didn't turn out like Congressman Vinson had hoped.  The base was closed even before it was built.  

    In the 1950s,   President Dwight Eisenhower began to resurrect the idea of a national interstate highway system.  The network of roads was designed to allow motorists to travel at high speeds with little impediments along their way.  The roads were also designed to allow the military to move rapidly throughout the country.  Georgia was susceptible to an attack because of her large number of military installations.  Interstate Highway 16 was designed to run from Macon in the center of the state to Savannah at the coast, tying in the air base at Warner Robins with Ft. Stewart near Hinesville.  The original route of the highway was to have run north of Dublin nearer the Central of Georgia Railroad, which ran through McIntyre, Toombsboro, and Tennille.  A subsequent modification brought the highway closer to Dublin.  In 1962, Soperton's Jim Gillis, Chairman of the Georgia Highway Department, and Dudley's R.L. Hogan, businessman and President of the Bank of Dudley, enlisted the aid of Congressman Vinson to move the route even further south.  Gillis, Hogan, and Dale Thompson, county attorney for Laurens County, visited with Congressman Vinson in his office and asked him to move the new highway to benefit more of the citizens of his district.  Vinson took the proposal to President John F. Kennedy.  After a five minute presentation, Cong. Vinson emerged and announced, "Gentlemen, you have your road."  Just like that with a handshake, Interstate 16 became an integral part of our county's infrastructure for centuries to come.  

   When a bitter dispute arose over the issue of a new county courthouse in 1962, Congressman Vinson stepped in and saved the day.  Voters disagreed over whether or not to build a new courthouse on the courthouse square or at another site in town or simply to keep the old courthouse and renovate it.  When a bond issue failed to provide the funds to build a new courthouse, the county commissioners turned to Carl Vinson for help.  Vinson convinced his fellow law makers to appropriate funds from a newly created federal program designed to aid towns and cities with urban renewal projects.  In doing so, the program funding half the cost of the construction of the present Laurens County courthouse.  In the summer of 1964, Congressman Vinson appeared at the dedication of the new courthouse, the first federally funded county courthouse in the United States.

   Carl Vinson's final legacy to Laurens County came later that year. In one of his last beneficial acts in office, Carl Vinson was enlisted by Elizabeth Moore, his old friend and director of the Laurens County Library, to help the citizens of Laurens County to build a modern library to replace the antiquated Carnegie Library building.  Vinson came through again.  With the aid of the same federal program, Vinson was able to secure the necessary funds to complete the project.

     Carl Vinson died on June 1, 1981.  During his life time of service to our county, district and nation, he was a stalwart for a strong national defense and was a champion for the members of his district.  The next time you pass by the VA Hospital, drive down the interstate, or check out a book at the Laurens County Library, stop and, just for a moment, give thanks to the memory of Carl Vinson.

WILLIAM JOSHUA BUSH, GEORGIA'S LAST CONFEDERATE VETERAN

The End of the Long Gray Line

William Joshua Bush was the last of his kind, or perhaps one of the last of his kind.  As a teenager, he fought for his country, the Confederate States of America.  As a centenarian, Bush was celebrated as one of the last Confederate veterans of the Civil War, or the War Between the States, which ended in 1865.  When he died, Bush was the last Georgian to have worn the gray, or butternut, uniform of the Confederacy.  

William Joshua Bush was born in Wilkinson County, Georgia on July 10, 1845 or by some accounts in1846.   That is his recorded date of birth, but the 1850 Census indicated that he was one year old and therefore was born in 1848 and not in 1845.  His father Francis Marion Bush and his mother Elizabeth Pattisaul Bush lived in the western regions of the county, possibly near Gordon.   

In July of 1861, just before the war began in reality, William enlisted in the Ramah Guards, designated as Company B of the 14th Georgia infantry.  He lied about his age. He wasn't about to turn sixteen the next day.  He was about to celebrate his first full day in the Confederate Army as a thirteen-year-old.  The 14th Georgia saw action that month in the Battle of First Manassas, or Bull Run.  When the fighting ceased for the fall and winter months, William was discharged and sent home to Wilkinson County.   

A few months after his real 16th birthday, William enlisted in the Georgia Militia in October  1864.  Only a few enrolling officers asked questions about age in those days.  The Confederacy, and Georgia in particular, needed bodies who could fire a gun.  General Sherman was in Atlanta, ready and poised to begin his climatic "March to the Sea." 

Right in the line of his march was Wilkinson County.  William's company first saw action in the area of East Macon near Cross Key's.    He may have participated in the attack on the rear of  the Union line near Griswoldville, Georgia, an attack which resulted in a devastating defeat for the militia, composed primarily of older men, wounded regulars and boys.  According to Bush, he fought in the Battle of Atlanta.  After viewing Gone With The Wind, he pronounced the depiction of Atlanta to be accurate.  When he visited the Cyclorama in Atlanta, the circular painting brought back old memories of the climactic battle.  It is said that he even pointed out the tree he hid behind, though  the painting is merely an artist's conception.   There is even a story that when he saw Union General William T. Sherman depicted on horseback, Bush, vowing "let me at him,"  had to be restrained by his wife.

         Bush remained with his company until it surrendered at Stephen's Station on the Central of Georgia Railroad in 1865.    Like many veterans, Bush loved to tell stories about his experiences in the war.  He related the often told tale about the ransacking of the family home and how it was stopped when a Union officer discovered that the owner was a Mason.  Masons, their homes and personal possessions, were considered off limits to looters and souvenir hunters.  He told one interviewer, "when I got into the war we wore overalls, and when we surrendered in 1865, I didn't even have a pair of shoes."

  After the war, Joshua, as he was most well known, married Mary Adeline Steeley.  They had six children and were married until her death in 1915.  In 1922, at the age of 54 or so, Bush married Effie T. Sharpe, a widowed mother of two small children.  

For seventy-five years, Bush lived the normal life of an aging Confederate veteran.  Bush ran a store on the Levi Harrell place and moved from Rhine in Dodge County to Fitzgerald the early 1870s.  He received a pension check to help pay his bills.  He was a regular church goer, serving as a senior deacon in the Baptist Church.  He followed in his father's footsteps and became a member of a Masonic Lodge.   He worked as long he could, taking jobs with the railroad, turpentine companies and even a short stint as a butcher in a grocery store.  

It was in 1938 when Bush and the few surviving veterans of the war began to acquire celebrity status.  That year marked the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.  Those veterans who could, gathered in the Pennsylvania town for one final reunion to commemorate the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy."  As a souvenir of the event, Bush brought home a large rebel flag.

Joshua Bush spent his last years in Fitzgerald, which had been founded as a colony by former Union soldiers.  For many years, Bush and Henry Brunner, the last surviving Union veteran in town, would meet at the city cemetery and place flowers on the graves of their deceased comrades. When Brunner died, Bush sent a flower from "the last of the gray to the last of the blue."  As his status grew, the Judge of the Ordinary Court would personally deliver his pension check and bring the requisite amount of cash to cash the check and eliminate the need for Bush to go to the bank.    He was often given an escort home by police officers when he stayed out late.  He liked to stay out late.

Bush became somewhat of a celebrity.  Admirers addressed the one-blue eyed centenarian  (he lost an eye in a sawmill accident) as "General Bush."  The owners of 20th Century Fox presented the general with a new uniform befitting his newfound stature.  The aged rebel commented, "when I got into it we were in overalls.  In 1865, when the army surrendered, I didn't even have a pair of shoes."  In gratitude  Bush vowed to be buried in the only uniform he ever owned.    The uniform was donated to the Cyclorama Museum in Atlanta and later transferred to the Atlanta Historical Society.  The producers of I'll Climb the Highest Mountain invited him to attend the movie's premiere in Atlanta.  

As the decade of the 1950s came, the number of living veterans of the war began to dwindle rapidly.    For the first time in his life, Joshua Bush boarded an airplane for Norfolk, Virginia.   Bush joined John Sailing of Virginia and William Townsend of Louisiana for the 1951 Confederate Veteran's Reunion. (See below)   It would turn out to be the last reunion of the Long Gray Line.  By the spring of 1952,   the remaining Confederate veterans outnumbered their Union counterparts - a stark contrast to the superior Northern armies during the war. In 1952, the Sons of the Confederate Veterans held their annual meeting in Jackson, Mississippi, with only Joshua Bush and William Townsend of Louisiana in attendance.  The delegates sadly voted to end the reunions. 

On November 11, 1952, Joshua Bush, Georgia's last Confederate veteran died. His body was laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery in Fitzgerald with Masonic and military honors.  For the last time in history, Confederate flags were flown all over the state at half mast in his honor.  It was a time that brought a great sorrow to those who still remembered the tales of their fathers and grandfathers of days of long ago.    

JAMES VELMA KEEN

Paying it Forward

     Lawyers are supposed to serve their communities, at least that's what my Daddy taught me.  On this Law Day, let us take a glance back at one lawyer, who was a native of Dublin, but left his home here and left a lasting legacy to the State of Florida and northern Florida in particular.   Born with a God given talent, Keen paid it forward and lent his skills to promote the enforcement of the law, the improvement of education and the establishment of nuclear energy facilities.  

     James Velma Keen was born in Dublin, Georgia on August 23, 1899.  His parents, James Henry and Ida Keen  lived on a farm in Smith's District on the eastern side of the river.  Since his father was known as James, James Velma Keen was known by his friends as "Velma."  When Velma was an infant, the Keens moved to River Junction in Gadsden County, Florida.    James Henry Keen followed the course of his Holmes cousins and moved south to open a Coca Cola bottling plant in 1907.  Keen operated the plant until 1913, when it merged with another plant in Marianna.  After James Henry's death in 1942, his son Charlton took over as president and manager of the plant.  When Charlton died in 1957, Velma found himself in control of his father's business, the Purity Bottling Works.

     Velma Keen returned to Georgia where he entered Georgia Tech and later Oglethorpe University in Atlanta.  After a brief period of study at the University of Pittsburgh, Keen returned to North Florida and entered Law School at Florida State University.  After obtaining a law degree in 1922, Keen was admitted to the bar in 1923 and began the practice of law with the firm of Sawyer, Surrency, Carter and Keen.

     From his new home in Sarasota, Keen launched his public service career.  He served as the State's Attorney for the 27th Judicial District.  In 1930, Keen was chosen as the State Attorney for Sarasota County.  After failing in an attempt to become the mayor of Sarasota in 1927, Keen returned to politics and was elected to represent his county in the Florida legislature in 1931.  Following his two-years in the state house, Keen once again climbed the ladder to become the Assistant Attorney General of Florida in 1933.

     In 1936, Velma Keen returned to private practice in Tallahassee in a general civil practice with the firm of Keen, O'Kelly and Spitz.  Keen was often called upon to write articles for the Florida Law Journal and remained active in the State Bar Association, serving as a committee chairman and the organization's president.  In 1959, Keen was honored with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Florida State University for nearly four decades of outstanding legal services to the State of Florida.

     In 1947, Keen represented the estate of circus magnate John Ringling, who bequeathed his estimable art museum, luxurious mansion and its grand gardens to the people of Florida.    Velma Keen's passion was the furtherance and improvement of educational opportunities in his state.  He served as a trustee of Florida Southern College.  He was president of the Southern Scholarship and Research Foundation and chairman of the Continuing Education Council of Florida.

   Velma Keen and his wife helped to found the Southern Scholarship and Research Foundation.  The program continues today to provide free housing scholarships.  In the early 1960s, Keen was appointed to the State Advisory Committee on Libraries.  He was a member of the National Citizens Council for Better Schools, The Advisory Council on Education  and a member of the Education Committee of the United States Chamber of Commerce, from 1948 to 1963.

     Perhaps Velma Keen's most enduring legacies came in the field of nuclear energy. Just ten years after the detonation of the first nuclear bomb, Keen led his state in the establishment of the atom as a peaceful implement of man.  In 1955, Keen was elected to chair the Florida Nuclear Development Commission. The board of citizens was charged with the responsibility of implementation of policies and advisement of nuclear development in the state.  Keen and his fellow board members began to recruit math and science teachers who would encourage their students to excel in their studies and remain at home to further the interests of Florida.  Eventually the commission promoted the studies of nuclear energy at the Florida State and the University of Florida.  His personal goal was to make the state's top two universities among the best in the nation.   As a member of the Southeastern Regional Council on nuclear energy, Keen helped to develop policies for the establishment of nuclear power plants and the storage of radioactive waste products.

     In 1966, James Velma Keen was honored for his work in the development of nuclear energy. Florida State University named its new physics building the James Velma Keen Physics Research Building in honor of one of the founders of the Southern Interstate Nuclear Compact in 1959.  An excellent public speaker, Keen was frequently asked to speak to scientific, business and education groups.

     Keen was an astute businessman as well.  He was the founding president of the Leon Federal Savings and Loan Association in Tallahassee.  The Commonwealth Corporation, a large financial institution, was founded under his leadership.    Always asked to serve on many boards, Keen served three terms as President of the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce in the late 1940s and as a director of the Florida Chamber of Commerce in 1950s.   Velma Keen was also active in historical affairs.  He served as vice president of the Florida Historical Society in the mid 1950s.

   

     James Velma Keen died on March 4, 1963.  His life was one of untiring public service.   Keen represents the qualities of what an ideal attorney at law should be.   Those of us who are blessed with a talent to represent others in times of tribulations and triumphs  are obligated to share our blessings with others.   Of course, everyone else should aspire to those same goals of selflessness and service to others.

LAURENS COUNTY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS WHO WERE KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY

A List Too Long

It was on a warm Sunday afternoon, some 14 plus years ago, on May 21, 2000  when the members of Laurens Leadership dedicated their project to honor those Laurens County law enforcement and public service officers who gave their lives in the performance of their duty to serve and protect our citizens.  The group raised a generous $50,000.00 in donations.   

The Dublin-Laurens community came together, as it always does, to ensure that no one would ever forget their lives they gave for us.

The memorial, designed by local architect David Woodburn, featured four half pyramid, black marble markers surrounding a star in the middle.    With the recent improvements to the area of the Bicentennial Plaza, the marker was removed with the plans to place it in a more suitable place, complete with a flag pole and appropriate appurtenances. After much study, the decision was made to permanently place the enhanced memorial between the Bicentennial Clock and the Railroad Park.

Now comes the part of this story that no one wants to talk about and that subject is new names.  Thankfully, no one has lost their lives since the first unveiling of the monument.  

Through the efforts of the Laurens County Historical Society, more names can now be honored and added to the list of names of the fallen law enforcement and public safety officers of Laurens County.   

As you may remember, the original marker contained the names of Laurens County Deputy Sheriffs, Kyle Dinkheller, Kip Brown and Wesley Stubbs, the latter of whom was killed in a car crash.  Stubbs, as he left the city limits, surrendered his title as Police Chief of Dublin and by agreement became a Laurens County Deputy Sheriff.    Three city policemen, John J. Webb of Dudley, Joseph E. Fennell and John Faircloth, both of Cadwell,  were all killed in the line of duty.  Danny Badgett, an EMT, lost his life while traveling to the scene of a deadly tornado which struck just across the county line.  Constable W.F. Pierce, at the time, thought to have been the first Laurens County law enforcement officer to have lost his life in the performance of his duty in 1904.  County Policeman W.E. Hathaway was killed in a liquor raid in East Dublin on Christmas Eve, 1919.  State Trooper, John D. Morris, a Dublin native, was killed while traveling to the scene of an accident. County Work Camp Warden John Coleman, who was killed in an accident,  rounded out the original eleven  honorees. 

George Crawford was a law man.  He was a son of a lawman.  His daddy, a county sheriff, was slain while attempting to apprehend a prisoner.  Before this day, May 21, 1921,  was over, George too would take his last breath in the performance of his duty. 

Laurens County's commissioners hired their own policeman to enforce the state law against moonshining.  Sometimes these officers conducted raids in conjunction with state and federal officers.  This time, county policeman George Crawford and his deputy, E.M. Osborn, set off to look for a still, which they believed was operated by one Math Holsey or his daddy, ol' man Green Holsey, way down in the lower extremities of Burch's District. 

Ol' man Holsey burst into the breeze way brandishing a shotgun.  Crawford instinctively wrestled him to the ground and took his gun.  Osborn, out of the corner of his best eye, noticed the senior Holsey reaching behind  a crookedly hung picture frame and pull out an object. At first, he did know exactly what the old man had in his hand.  He was about to found out soon, frighteningly soon.

Crawford and Holsey fiercely fought for control of the weapon.  Deputy Osborn ran around to the other side of the scrum and beckoned to George, "What's he got George?"  Crawford screamed out, "He's got a gun!"

The officers and the occupants of the house continued to struggle.   A shot struck Crawford. "George was still breathing, but he never spoke and he died in two or three minutes," Deputy Osborn recalled.    

Crawford, described as a fearless officer,  had been a Laurens County policeman for two years.   This acclamation was attested to by the fact that during the entire clash with Green Holsey that he did not draw his gun, not once.  When the morticians were preparing his body for the funeral, they found Crawford's leather billy still secured in his pocket.

George Crawford was known to have been a policeman who fervently sought out makers of illegal moonshine.  It cost him his life and the eternal misery of his widow, his eight children and a host of friends.  But, no murder of a law enforcement officer would stop the fight to end crimes, whenever and wherever they occur.  The county commissioners recognized the magnitude of the moonshine problem.  So, they appointed not one, but two,  officers to carry on the battle.  Within two weeks of George Crawford's tragic death in the performance of his duty, Judson L. Jackson and J.K. Rowland stepped in and picked up the torch of justice to carry on the fight the rid the county of the evil demon rum.

The saddest day of the year 1888 came on a Monday, November 5.  On the Sabbath evening the night before, for some unknown reason, W.M. Scarborough, in a stuporous state took offense to his arrest by Dublin Town Marshal N.K. Watson.  As Marshal Watson pronounced that Scarborough was to submit to arrest for being drunk and disorderly, Scarborough plunged a dagger into Watson's neck, severing his jugular vein, spewing blood everywhere.  For five agonizing minutes, the city marshal lay dying.  It was the first time in the recorded history of our county that a public safety officer was killed in the line of duty. Nearly two years later, Scarborough was exonerated by a jury of his peers.

George Martin, a convict guard at the Laurens County Prisoner of Work Farm, died an accidental death while in the performance of his duties on March 14, 1922.  Martin was attempting to clean an old pistol to be used in his duty as a guard.  After attempting several times to make the gun work, Martin handed the bothersome pistol over to Dewey Bedingfield, brother of County Warden, George W. Bedingfield.  Bedingfield, while tinkering with the pistol, accidentally caused the gun to fire.  A sole mortal bullet struck Martin in the abdomen, severely damaging his intestines and his kidney.  Despite all efforts to save the guard, Martin died in a local hospital a few hours later. 

As we re-dedicate the Law Enforcement and Public Safety Officers' Memorial at the gateway to downtown Dublin, let us all hope and pray that never again shall any more names shall ever be added to the list, a list too long. 

MAX BYRD

A Wizard of Words

 The kids of the Dublin High School classes of 1960 and 1961 knew Max Byrd was smart. They all knew that he could write well and speak well.  But somehow they lost touch with their classmate when his father was transferred to a new job.  This is the story of a young man who left Dublin in 1959.  With the lessons he learned in halls of old Dublin High School ingrained in his brain, he graduated from one of the nation's top universities and taught at two more of the country's most well respected institutions of higher learning. Along the way, this affable man has written more than a dozen books on subjects ranging from literature to mysteries to historical novels and many more essays and articles.

     Max Byrd, son of Allan and Rubye Byrd, was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1942.  His father was an accountant for the Veteran's Administration.   The Byrd family transferred to Dublin in 1954 and lived in a home on the hospital grounds.  Max, like most of the kids of his day rode his bicycle to school, a fairly long ride to the old high school on North Calhoun Street.  While Max was in school at Dublin, he was a member of the Latin Club, and in his final year as a junior in Dublin, he represented
the school in the boy's declamation competition. He was a member of the debate team and garnered a medal at the state competition. Nearly fifty years later, he still retains vivid memories of "Board of Education," a large wooden paddle wielded by the very stern principal, D.R. Davis.   Max and most every one of his era remember the iconic, stern, but excellent,  math teacher, Woodrow Rumble.  "The class I remember best from Dublin High was Latin. "The study of Latin set me on the right track for learning to write English," Byrd said.  In his junior year, Max was president of the Latin Club.

   Just before the beginning of his senior year, Max and his family moved to Arlington, Virginia.  A scholarship from Harvard University was all Max needed to embark on an outstanding career in education and journalism.  Excelling in his studies at Harvard, Max was awarded a fellowship to continue his studies  at Cambridge University, Kings College in England.  Max returned to Harvard, where he obtained his Ph.D. in English.

     While he was at Harvard, Max developed a life long friendship with classmate and fellow writer, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, among many other best selling novels.  Byrd owes a lot to Crichton, whom he considers as a writer "who arranges facts into fiction better than just anybody else."  Chrichton, who began writing his novels at Harvard, encouraged Max to write.  He admired his friend's dedication, energy and willingness to take risks.    Gore Vidal
influenced Byrd in his historic fiction novels.  Max owes a personal debt to Oakley Hall, the founder of the Squaw Valley Writers Conference, an organization now headed by Max.  "I wish I could say that I was influenced by John Updike," Byrd said, "but he is so wonderful a writer of English prose that I can only look up and marvel."

     Dr. Byrd crossed the long-standing crevice between Harvard and the nation's third oldest university, Yale University, where he was offered a position as Associate Professor.  Max was awarded the Younger Humanist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities  and an award from the A. Whitney Griswold Fund for the academic year 1974-75.  His first book, Visits to Bedlam: Madness and Literature in the Eighteenth Century, won him many accolades.  In 1976, Byrd edited and published Daniel DeFoe, A Collection of Critical Essays.

     In 1976, after six years as an associate professor  at Yale, Max made the life altering decision to leave the hallowed halls of the Ivy League and seek his life's goals out west in California, the native home of his wife.  While serving as an associate professor at the University of California at Davis, Max began publishing books on English literature.   His second work, London Transformed: Images of the City in the Eighteenth Century,  a study of English writers he dedicated to Walter Jackson Bate, who inspired him as a beginning writer.  From 1977 to 1988, he served as editor of Eighteenth Century Studies.  In 1985, Dr. Byrd wrote and compiled Tristram Shandy, a scholarly analysis of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne.

     In 1981, Max Byrd was promoted to a full professorship at UC Davis.  He taught 18th-century British literature and occasionally freshman English.    Byrd struggled with the concept of teaching college students to write fiction.  He sees the greatest obstacle to teaching writing is that so many students don't read anything.  It was in that same year when Max began to publish a divergent genre of books than his usual scholarly, literary writings.   He began writing detective novels back at Yale in 1973.  His first published novel, California Thriller, was the first in a series of Mike Haller mysteries.  The Private Eye Writers of America awarded him their first ever Shamus award for the Best Paperback Original Novel.

     The success of his first novel led to the follow up Haller mystery Fly Away Jill in the fall of 1981.  A third novel, Finder Weepers debuted on book stands in 1983.  Target of Opportunity, a suspenseful novel set in World War II, was a "Book of the Month" selection in 1988.   His final mystery novel, Fuse Time, was published in 1991 and deals with a terrorist bomber in Los Angeles.

      At the suggestion of his publisher, Bantam Books, Max began to write historical novels.  His first novel dealt with Thomas Jefferson and the years he spent in France, years which changed Jefferson and the United States as well.  Max felt at ease writing about Jefferson and his second subject Andrew Jackson because of his undergraduate studies at Harvard in American History and Literature.  Byrd grew to admire Jackson, whom he sees as "routinely underestimated and misunderstood by historians."  His third historical work novelizes the life of Ulysses S. Grant, who Byrd believes to have been "a remarkable man, remarkably rich and a man who lived a dramatic life." His latest book, Shooting the Sun, (2004) traces the life of the eccentric 19th-century English genius Charles Babbage and the Santa Fe Trail.

     During his years of active writing, Max spent five or six mornings and evenings writing seeking to write a minimum of three to five pages.   Byrd sees writing as a lonely business and one which you have to be obsessed to succeed.

     In 2004, Max Byrd quit teaching. He told an interviewer with the Sacramento Bee that "retired" seemed so old and that he planned to keep on writing.  Max is a frequent reviewer of history books for the New York Times.  He also writes for American Heritage magazine and the Woodrow Wilson Quarterly.   He plans to be the Carnochan Lecturer in Humanities at Stanford University next spring.
   

     Max and his wife Brookes live in California. They have two children, Kate and  David.  His most vivid recollection of Dublin is the Carnegie library (Dublin-Laurens Museum), the Martin Theater and the beginning of Bellevue Avenue.  He enjoyed the football games on Friday nights as well. Max Byrd hasn't been back to Dublin since he left more than forty-seven years ago.

P.S. Max, if you read this, you are always welcome to come back.  The library and the theater are still there.  And yes, the football games are still as exciting as they were when you left.   I hope you gave me a good grade on this article.

JOHN J. MCDONOUGH

JOHN J. MCDONOUGH
A Citizen Wherever He Served

From time to time, exceptional people pass through our midst.  Some are only here for a short time, while others are here for all of our lives.  This is the story of a gridiron star of the Roaring Twenties, who climbed his way from the locker room of a powerful college football team to the board room of one of Georgia's largest corporations.  During his celebrated lifetime, this young man sojourned in Dublin for a brief while on the first rung of the ladder to the board chairmanship of Georgia Power Corporation.

John Joseph McDonough was born in Savannah, Georgia on January 26, 1901.  John, or "Jack" as his friends called him, entered the Georgia Institute of Technology after his graduation from high school in Savannah.  While pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Jack became the quarterback of the football team at Georgia Tech under Coach William Alexander.  One Atlanta sportswriter commented that he had the complexion of an Indian, albeit that his tan came from the sunshine of his native home.  His greatest season was his last season when he helped the Tech team to garner the co-championship of the Southern Conference in 1922.

Jack, known as "Gooch" to his teammates,  was compared to Brer Rabbit.  In the 1921 season, he led the Yellow Jackets to a defeat of a great Rutgers team.  "He always ran the right thing at the right time and helped to put drive into every play.  He was always there when we needed a yard or two for a first down.  That's the best thing about Jack, he can always slip through a hole for the necessary gain when it is needed," commented Tech end John Staton.   In one of his greatest games, his Yellow Jackets smashed the Crimson Tide of Alabama by the score of 33-7.  Forty decades later, McDonough was elected to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame.  Because of his prowess on the football field, he was offered a position as football coach and mathematics teacher at Savannah High School.  After four years in his hometown, McDonough was approached by Georgia Southern Power Corporation for a position with the company.

In a 1925 referendum, the voters of Dublin overwhelmingly voted in favor of selling the municipal power plant to Georgia Southern Power primarily in reliance upon the company's promise to make Dublin a distribution point for Middle Georgia.  Company officials sent McDonough to Dublin as an assistant manager in the Dublin office in his first regular assignment.  Then, after only thirteen months, Jack McDonough was promoted again, this time as district manager in Athens, home of his intra-state collegiate rivals.  After only four months in Athens, he was again transferred, this time to Brunswick where he served the remainder of 1928.  Jack McDonough returned to Dublin in January of 1929 where, as district manager, he supervised the Dublin, McRae and Vidalia districts.  McDonough continued his nomadic career by returning to Brunswick after only five months in Dublin.

Jack McDonough was working as the district manager of the Douglas office when the company became the Georgia Power Company in 1930.    He worked as division commercial and sales manager in Augusta in 1937, when he moved to Atlanta.  After another short stint, McDonough moved to Rome, Georgia, where finally he began a thirteen-year stable period of employment, first as division manager and then as division manager and vice-president of the company.

His superiors in the company felt that Jack's rightful place was in the main office in Atlanta.  For a half year, McDonough  served as the district manager of the Atlanta office.  In May 1951, the board of directors elected McDonough as executive vice president of Georgia Power, the number two position in the company.  For six years, McDonough served under President Harlee Branch, Jr.  providing invaluable services wherever the need arose.  In January 1957, McDonough became the sixth president of Georgia Power Company.  After another six years of outstanding service to the company, the stockholders and directors of the company elevated Jack McDonough to position of chairman of the board.

During his administration, McDonough oversaw tremendous growth in the company's service to the rapidly expanding post war city scapes and country sides of Georgia.  Through his efforts and thousands of outstanding employees, Georgia Power Company became the nation's tenth largest publicly owned utility company.   McDonough served until his retirement in 1966, when he took a seat as a director on Georgia Power's parent company, the Southern Company.

During his forty years at Georgia Power Company, Jack McDonough accumulated a remarkable array of accolades and honors.   He was the first native Georgian ever to be nominated as "Engineer of the Year."  A general plant on the Chattahoochee River near Atlanta was named his honor.  As a business man, John J. McDonough was much in demand as a corporate director.  He served on the boards of the Central of Georgia Railway, Pepperill Manufacturing Company, Mead Corporation, Edison Electric Institute, Southern Research Institute, Georgia Future Homemakers of America, Georgia Future Farmers of America, and Georgia International Life Insurance Company.

In summing up his philosophies of business and life, McDonough was said to have firmly believed that the company should get things done, serving as a citizen of the state whenever and wherever necessary, never in fear of the future nor scorning the past.  He encouraged his employees to take a look at everything and never making anything permanent, except progress.

Jack McDonough incorporated his business philosophy as a citizen servant into his personal civic and philanthropic service to the state.  He was vice chairman of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia from 1947 to 1957.  A supporter of the arts, McDonough served on boards which included the Atlanta Music Festival, Atlanta Arts Alliance and Atlanta Symphony Guild.  Children, youth and the unfortunate were of paramount importance to Jack.  He served on the Georgia Tech Foundation, the YMCA, Metropolitan Atlanta Community Services, the Georgia Society for Crippled Children and Adults, the Red Cross and Easter Seals, serving as state chairman of the latter from 1955 to 1957.   He served on countless boards and committees on Chamber of Commerce boards, the Atlanta Athletic Club, the Commerce Club, the Piedmont Driving Club, and the Peachtree Golf Club and numerous other organizations.

John J. McDonough was recognized as one of the most influential figures in the industrial and commercial life of Georgia.  He died on April 1, 1983 in Atlanta after a lengthy illness.  

DUDLEY M. HUGHES

A Beacon of Agriculture and Education

No other resident of a county surrounding Laurens County has had more of a lasting impact on the history of Laurens County than Congressman Dudley Mays Hughes of Danville, Twiggs County, Georgia.  Though his grandfather was a resident of Laurens, Dudley Hughes lived most of his life on his plantation in Danville, Georgia.  As a railroad baron, agriculturalist and congressman, Hughes led the citizens between Dublin and Macon out of the abyss of Reconstruction through the zenith of the cotton boom, which prematurely ended with the coming of the boll weevil and the resulting bank failures and worker migration to the North.

Dudley Mays Hughes was born on October 10, 1848 in Jeffersonville, Georgia.  His parents, Daniel G. Hughes and Mary Moore Hughes, were prominent residents of the county. His father  represented Twiggs County in the Georgia legislature.  His grandfather Hayden Hughes, of Laurens County,  was one of Central Georgia’s largest slave owners.  Hughes received most of his primary education at private schools, primarily at Oakland Academy.  Though he never formally completed his studies at the University of Georgia, Dudley was made an honorary graduate.  While in college, Dudley developed life time friendships with many of Georgia’s future leaders, including Henry W. Grady, Governor Nat Harris and University of Georgia Chancellor Walter B. Hill.

Dudley Hughes’ station in life was set in 1870 when he left college in the middle of his senior year to try his hand at agriculture.  Though very adept in his academic faculties, Dudley was also masterful the modern methods of agricultural principles.  After a trial run on his grandfather’s farm in Laurens County,  Hayden Hughes rewarded the young man with a bounty of a thousand dollars for his excellent work.  Hughes used his grant to purchase and establish his Danville farm into one of the section’s most profitable operations.

Hughes realized that in order for agricultural operations to prosper, that railroads were an absolute necessity.  The closest railroad to his home was the Central of Georgia Railroad in Wilkinson County.   Hughes  represented Twiggs County in the Georgia Senate from 1882-1883.  With his enhanced political power and support,  Hughes consulted with his father and his  contemporaries John M. Stubbs of Dublin, Ashley Vickers of Montrose  and Joshua Walker of Laurens Hill in the creation of a railroad from Macon to Savannah through Dublin temporarily  under the name of the Macon and Dublin Railroad then officially as  the Savannah, Dublin and Western Shortline Railroad, which eventually became the Macon, Dublin and Savannah Railroad.  In July 1891 near the end of his six-year term as the railroad’s first president, Hughes and a host of dignitaries rode the inaugural train from Macon to Dublin.  Hughes remained active in the railroad’s operation as its vice-president for several more years until northern investors took over its management from its local progenitors.

After subordinating his railroad interests to his passion for farming, Hughes concentrated on the development of his plantation and the promotion of agriculture and horticultural interests across the state.  Along with his close friend John M. Stubbs, Hughes was active in the establishment of orchards around Montrose and Dublin.  He served for four years as president of the Georgia State Agricultural Society and ten years  as a founding member and first president of the Georgia Fruit Grower’s Association.  As president of the Agricultural Society, Hughes pledged to do all in his power to work for the society as a beacon light for the farmers to look to for guidance and encouragement.  In 1977, Dudley Hughes was named to the National Agricultural Hall of Fame along with Eli Whitney as the sixth and seventh members of the most honored agriculturalists in American history, joining George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington Carver,  Cyrus McCormick and Justin Morrill.  Hughes maintained a large naval stores operation and a 90,000 tree orchard in Laurens County.  Hughes was one of the first farmers to use telephones to coordinate his diverse farming operations at various locations in Twiggs and Laurens County.   He took a personal and active interest in farming, riding a thoroughbred horse from farm to farm to make sure everything was going smoothly.

Hughes was a fervent conservationist, historian and Christian.  He was a Mason, Elk and member of the Georgia Historical Society.  Hughes was a leader in experimentation of agricultural theories and promoted the establishment of three hundred experiment stations around the state.  Despite his iconic stature, Hughes remained loyal to his local church, serving as a deacon and Sunday school superintendent.  His expertise and leadership were always in demand.  Gov. Joseph Terrell appointed Hughes as Commissioner General of Georgia for the St.  Louis World’s Fair.

Though he disdained politics in his early life, he answered the call of his colleagues for political office on a higher scale.  After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 1906, Hughes was elected to represent the 3rd Congressional District of Georgia in 1908.  He served two terms before transferring to the 12th Congressional District in 1912, easily winning reelection for two more terms.  He won coveted seats on the House Military, Agriculture and Education committees.  Always a  zealot of education, Hughes served as a trustee of the University of Georgia, the University of Georgia School of Agriculture, South Georgia Normal School and Georgia Normal and Industrial College, now Georgia College an State University.
 

One of Congressman Hughes’ most lasting contributions on a national basis came  in1914, when Democratic president Woodrow Wilson appointed him to a presidential commission to explore the viability of federal funding of vocational and agricultural education in public schools.  As the Democratic Chairman of the House Committee on Education, Hughes worked with fellow Georgian, Senator Hoke Smith, in developing a bill, which became known as the Smith-Hughes Act.  Adopted by Congress in 1917, the Smith-Hughes Act provided matching federal funding for vocational education.

Dudley Hughes married Mary Frances Dennard in 1873.  Their children were Hugh Lawson Dennard Hughes, Henrietta Louise Hughes and Daniel Greenwood Hughes. Dan G. Hughes followed in his father’s footsteps by serving as Georgia’s Commissioner of Agriculture.   Hugh, a successful Twiggs County businessman, served as a Trustee of the University of Georgia and Middle Georgia College.  Henrietta Louise, known affectionately as “Miss Hennilu” outlived her brothers and lived in her father’s Magnolia Plantation until her death  at the age of 102.  Magnolia Plantation was restored about two decades ago and stands a monument to the Hughes’ legacy of his contributions to the agricultural and education progress of Georgia.  Dudley Hughes died on January 20, 1927 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Perry.

Dudley Hughes was considered a man of high integrity, always sympathetic and interested in those with whom he conversed.  He was always erect in his in his carriage and looked everyone straight in the eye.  He was known to have loved children and animals, always grateful for their presence in the midst of his hurried world.   Though some people may disagree, the founders of the Town of Dudley named their town in his honor.  Many also think that Montrose was his middle name and therefore he was the name sake of that town as well.  “Colonel Hughes,” as he was known to most of his friends, was honored when the citizens of Montrose, Allentown and Danville attempted to form their own county named in his honor.  The city of Macon did name a vocational school for him and his hometown of Danville was named for his father, Daniel G. Hughes