Varieties of Violence

For lanky, red-haired Gene Wirges, 34, running the weekly Democrat (circ. 3,600) in Morrilton. Ark., has been a basic course in the varieties of violence.

His home has been stoned; on occasion, friends have felt it necessary to stand all-night guard, shotguns at the ready. Wirges has been shot at, beaten, and threatened so persistently by anonymous telephone callers that he once sent his wife and four children to live for a while in the com parative safety of Little Rock, 35 miles to the southeast. But the campaign of terror, far from scaring the Democrat's spunky editor and proprietor, has only strengthened his resolve. Said Gene Wirges last week, blooded but unbowed: "I think they're on the run."

"They" are the city and county political machine, an entrenched and well-oiled apparatus whose power Wirges first realized four years ago after arriving in Morrilton to take over the paper he had just bought. Wirges paid a visit to the Conway County Courthouse, where an aged citizen introduced him to one of the ineluctable facts of local political life. "Son," said Wirges' informant, "we don't have elections in this here county. We have selections. If you don't get selected, you don't get elected."

Counting the Votes. Nosing about, Editor Wirges found that the same Democratic administration had been in power for more than ten years, and its officers--who generally ran unopposed--had grown so secure that the county's appointive ranks were filled with their henchmen.

Wirges also discovered who ran the county machine: Marlin Hawkins, 47, a paunchy, cigar-chomping native son, who is a per sonal friend of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus and has been Conway County sheriff since 1950. Another Wirges discovery: after every county election, special election deputies, appointed by Hawkins, carried the ballot boxes to the courthouse (a common practice in Arkansas).

Wirges and the Democrat carefully cased the situation before declaring war on the city-county machine--a fight for which Morrilton's other weekly, the Headlight (circ. 1,600), had no stomach at all. When Democrat editorials began hammering at Hawkins and his gang, Headlight Editor Earle Haynes maintained the courteous silence of a man who has been "selected" three times: once as city recorder, once as alderman, most recently as Morrilton mayor (to replace the incumbent, who resigned because of ill health).

Once war was declared, Wirges waged it with unabating belligerence. After an election last June, in which a Conway County township, Catholic Point, voted 93-2 in favor of a machine candidate, Wirges took a census of township voters: the first 14 voters he talked to swore that they had voted against the machine. The Democrat's story went a long way toward proving hanky-panky at the polls--although the county government has yet to take any action. When Morrilton's city aldermen, ignoring two defeats on a new sewer tax referendum, enacted a special ordinance permitting them to spend the money anyway, the Democrat gleefully printed this example of unrepresentative government.

Assault on Moose Street. Machine fury touched fever pitch after the Democrat pushed a campaign to replace Morrilton's aldermanic government with a city-manager system. For a $120 tax delinquency, the sheriff's office hung a "Notice of Sale" on the Democrat. But it came down after Wirges was able to prove he had previously been granted an extension on the due date. County Tax Assessor W. O. ("Bus") Hice, 45, who weighs 220 Ibs. to Wirges' 155, beat up the outspoken editor on Morrilton's Moose Street, was let off with a $32.85 fine for assault and battery, although Wirges suffered a brain concussion.

The city-manager referendum lost, 1,336 to 810. But there are increasing signs that Wirges' fearless leadership has pierced the public apathy that has helped keep the county machine in power. For the first time in its history Morrilton now has a Good Government Committee, composed of citizens who got together with the avowed purpose of watchdogging local government. Heartened by this, and undeterred by the referendum's defeat, Editor Wirges stepped up his editorial attack on the machine: "There are a lot of things Morrilton doesn't need. Political bossism undoubtedly heads this list." Thanks to the crusading country editor, the days when selection means election in Conway County may be numbered.

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