National Affairs: No More Matcksticfcs

In his first three years in office he won a reputation as an Arkansas-style progressive. He increased taxes, got more money for schools and highways, joined up with Winthrop Rockefeller to create a state industrial development commission. As a product of the hill country (where there are few Negroes), he had no background of race prejudice. In his successful campaign for re-election in 1956, against an avowed segregationist, he came out mildly against enforced integration, but won strong support from Negroes for his moderation. His friends thought he was just playing a vote-trading game last year when he backed anti-integration measures (including a commission to preserve the “sovereignty” of Arkansas). He needed the votes of segregationist, legislators for his sales-tax bill.

But Orval Faubus was changing. No longer a matchstick chewer. no longer in pants that ended north of his socks, he became a well-dressed fellow, took to dark suits with a white handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket. He still spouted cliches (“A stitch in time . . .”; “An ounce of prevention . . .”) and he still called the militia the me-lish-ee. but he talked big about running for a third term (which no Arkansas governor has had since 1905) and even acted as if he would like to move into bigger political hills. Said one observer of Orval Faubus’ disastrous grandstanding in Little Rock last week: “It seems to be a case of a little sophistication being a dangerous thing.”