Reformers to Radicals (24 page)

The disagreement over how to effect reform in the mountains was not the only source of friction between the CSM and the AVs in late 1965 and early 1966. Some Volunteer members thought that the operation's headquarters in Berea was too far from where the AVs did most of their work. In April 1966, the AV leadership proposed to the CSM Board of Directors that Volunteer headquarters move to a place more centrally located in the Appalachian region. Though associated with the mountains for over a century, Berea was on the fringe of the mountain region. A more fitting location, many volunteers felt, was the city of Bristol, Tennessee. Though a move would prove costly in both time and money—the Volunteers would need to move office equipment, recruit and train new office staff, and lease office space—the advantages, many believed, far outweighed these drawbacks.
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On the positive side of the relocation equation, the move would save considerable sums of money in terms of purchasing and distributing supplies to the workers in the field. In addition, the size of the AV operation, it was argued, “strain[ed] the facilities of Berea and the tolerance of its inhabitants.” The CSM board chairman Donald Fessler informed the other members of the Board of Directors: “[These] idealistic, highly dedicated men
and women . . . have had their problems and their brushes with the more staid thinking of the Berea College faculty.” More important, especially in light of those Dorton (Bell County) AV members who defected because of what they believed was a lack of support from the CSM, the Bristol region would permit the central staff “to provide much assistance to the limited field staff.” The move would also “demonstrate our willingness to live in and be part of the area we are committed to serving.” Most significantly, for both the Volunteers and the Council, this physical separation “would force [them] to work out relationships—both administratively and policy [
sic
]—between the AV program and the CSM central office.”
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The proposal to move the Appalachian Volunteers far from the Council's watchful eye should have come as no surprise to Ayer. Since its inception, the Council had entertained the possibility of a separate, independent AV program. One of the first alternatives discussed by the Council of the Southern Mountains concerning the formation of an antipoverty group was the establishment of an independent organization. Under that plan, the CSM would have provided only temporary professional leadership. Ultimately, the Council, of course, placed the Appalachian Volunteers and its staff under its direction. Nevertheless, the existence of an independent AV organization, even in 1966, remained a possibility. Evidence of this dates as early as August 1964, when a Council special advisory committee stated: “At the time when the Council of the Southern Mountains ceases to perform administrative services for the AVs, they should then become full fledged members of the Kentucky Development Committee.” The question before the CSM board now was whether the Council should grant the Appalachian Volunteers administrative independence.
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For his part, Ayer believed that the Appalachian Volunteers should remain in Berea and that the organization still needed the CSM's guidance and direction. Writing to Fessler that April, he claimed that in his “honest judgment such a move would not be in the interests of the Council or the AVs.” Ayer stated that the only reason he submitted the idea to the board was because he had promised Ogle that he would do so. Implying, however, that Ogle engaged in less than honest behavior, Ayer told Fessler that Ogle refused to recommend a course of action when the CSM director and the AV leader first discussed the proposed move. When the two met with the board, however, Ogle presented a strong recommendation for administrative
independence. Believing that this subject was only in the “discussion” stage, Ayer felt himself, he indicated, to be at a disadvantage when the board proceeded to weigh the matter.
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This apparent administrative end run was not Ayer's sole concern. As he wrote to Fessler: “[The] AV program . . . , as magnificent as it is . . . , is being implemented by a group of eager young enthusiasts whose standards and judgements are not always consistent with what the Council stands for.” Should the Volunteers relocate, Ayer contended, problems with the AV program “will get worse rather than better.” Arguing that, if the Council expected “a responsible, high degree of leadership . . . in terms of character standards and behavior,” as opposed to a “merely enthusiastic organization,” the board needed to keep the AV headquarters in Berea, where the young people “will be benefited by our leadership.”
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Despite Ayer's protests, the CSM board voted to approve the AVs' move to Bristol. According to Fessler, it determined that, if the Volunteers resettled, the question of complete independence, still a future possibility, could be easily settled without arousing “ill feelings or reflections on the soundness and integrity of either organization.” Moreover, there “was little evidence that relations between the A.V. leaders and the executive offices of the Council would improve under present conditions.” Therefore: “Moving the A.V. headquarters to [Bristol] at least offered the possibility that a better modus operandi could be worked out.”
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The exchange between Ayer and Fessler revealed more than the AVs' desire to move their offices. Ayer's concerns about character and the AVs' disregard for the Council's philosophy were not superficial, aired merely in an attempt to sway the vote toward his position. They were, in fact, well grounded in what he considered to be disturbing developments within the ranks of the Appalachian Volunteers. Through confrontations with the Volunteer staff, Ayer demonstrated his obsession with publicity and how that influenced Council funding. His opposition to the more freewheeling Volunteer program, therefore, centered on the AVs' personal behavior and how it affected publicity and funding.

Tension between the two organizations had, in fact, surfaced soon after the founding of the AVs. In a memorandum dated March 19, 1964, only five days after the AVs adopted their new bylaws, Ayer reprimanded Milton Ogle, the AV director, after reading a
Berea Citizen
article that announced
the first federal grant to the new reform effort. Ayer noted that the article ignored the Council's responsibility for the Appalachian Volunteers program. Referring to it as an “intolerable, senseless, and unjust situation,” he pointed out that the Area Redevelopment Administration awarded that first grant to the CSM, not the AVs, as the article suggested. In defending what he believed to be the Council's role in the reform program, Ayer told Ogle that he resented being “purposely and deliberately disregarded as one, if not the basic, factor in the success of what has happened to date.”
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Unfortunately for Ayer, his tirade had little effect. In yet another memo that same month, he reproached the AV staff member Phil Conn, a Berea College graduate, for not being a team player. Conn, the memo disclosed, neglected Council staff meetings and failed to inform Council leadership of his activities. Ayer had a similar problem with another CSM-AV staff member, Jim Blair. Blair, who worked out of an AV field office, had a “notice in his window saying ‘Appalachian Volunteers' only.” Again referring to this as “intolerable,” Ayer demanded: “If the Council is going to have an office . . . anywhere . . . , it needs to be a Council office.” Ayer was adamant, he wrote in a communiqué to Ogle, that anyone who worked for the Council “clearly publicizes the fact that they represent the Council, with specific assignment in AVs.” Ayer experienced a similar problem when he tried to call the CSM staff member Bill Wells. Wells's assignment at that time was in the AV program. The telephone company in Cincinnati, where Wells was located, had no listing for the Council of the Southern Mountains and, in fact, had never heard of the Council. When Ayer requested the operator look it up under Well's personal name, the response was: “‘Oh, yes, the AVs; we know them.'”
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Ayer failed in his attempts to force the AVs into line, and he soon became frustrated over yet another article about the Volunteers in the
Berea Citizen
. This piece said that Ayer “spoke about the Council of the Southern Mountains and its relationship to Appalachian Volunteers as if [he] had spoken about the University of Kentucky or the Leslie County School Board or the National Council of Churches and the relationship between any one of these and the [AVs].” Having checked with the
Citizen
and determined that the printed statement was not an “editorial misunderstanding,” Ayer blamed Ogle for the misrepresentation and took him to task: “I cannot tolerate repeated references to the Appalachian Volunteers as an agency which
has only a tolerant and friendly relationship to . . . the Council.” Expressing his special concern, he continued: “I have been subject to a ‘ground swell' of comment from within your own [organization], . . . indicating an attitude of impatience with the Council as if it were a cumbersome and unnecessary partner, tolerated by necessity. It would seem that for the overall philosophy of the Council itself the field staff could not care less.”
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Ayer probably did not realize just how accurate his statement was. On two fronts, personal morality and reform philosophy, the Appalachian Volunteers differed dramatically from Ayer's vision of the Council. Most disturbing to the CSM was that many AV workers openly expressed these attitudes. As young men and women from all over the country poured into Berea for AV training for the 1966 summer project, they challenged the moral sensibilities of the CSM. With the hopes of preparing the new recruits for their stay among the mountaineers, the Council issued a document entitled “You Are Responsible: Some Thoughts on the Appalachian Volunteer Summer Project.” Council leaders tried to impress on their new soldiers that it was the people in the local communities in which they would spend the summer that would “be left with the results—and consequences” of the summer project. While in the mountains, the CSM leaders informed the potential AV workers, they would be “neither a member of the community . . . nor an unwanted intruder.” Nevertheless, the directive went out: “Act like you were a guest of some pretty particular and somewhat conservative people you wanted to impress.” “If a Volunteer is to have maximum rapport with the community,” it was further stipulated, “he should try to live up to the expectations of the most particular residents, but not hold himself above associating with the least particular.”
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In order to give each volunteer the greatest opportunity for living up to mountaineers' expectations, “You Are Responsible” provided a sort of “code of conduct.” “You shouldn't dress ostentatiously,” it warned, “but try to be neat.” In addition, rural people “tend not to respond too quickly to fads in dress, hair, beads, makeup, etc.” Girls, moreover, should “do a little asking around before appearing in shorts.” The “training manual” also addressed drinking and dating. “In some cases,” it explained, “a drink or two with the boys may be a necessary step to establishing rapport . . . but
nobody
respects a drunk Volunteer.” Finally, because “new standards of dating behavior are not adopted so quickly in many rural communities,” and because the Volunteers
themselves “should realize that they will be glamorous people to their contemporaries in the community,” relationships between volunteers or between volunteers and local people should be “conducted in a manner respectful of community standards.”
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As helpful and appropriate as these suggestions were, it is intriguing that the leaders of the program believed it necessary to put them in print and distribute them to all potential volunteers. Ayer and the Council must have received complaints, in addition to those concerning the summer training, concerning the personal behavior of some of their volunteers from the people with whom they were working or suspected that certain undesirable situations had occurred. An examination of a series of memos between Ayer and the two top AV officials, Ogle and Fox, suggests that the latter explanation is accurate. In the spring of 1966, Ayer felt it necessary to question Ogle's and Fox's stance on the social conduct of the AVs. He told the two: “I have before me two written statements and I have, in addition, oral confirmation that we did badly on this score.” He then quoted what information he felt most fully illustrated his point:

“From the standpoint of the job that we committed ourselves to do . . . there is no excuse for drunken sex parties in Lexington or anywhere else. If we . . . truly seek to help the people of Appalachia, then we better give some serious thought . . . to what we mean by ‘help.' . . . [I]f we mean immorality, drunkenness, vulgarity . . . we are not here to help Appalachia, but will help destroy it.” “The Lexington weekends were the worst part of the AV [1965] summer project. There were drinking parties that the staff were involved in, not only in Lexington but here in Berea. . . . [S]ome of the AV staff brought in liquor so it was available to the kids who wanted it in one last big fling before they left for the mountains.” One VISTA bragged “about the amount of liquor consumed and said the place could have floated away with booze, and girls were available if desired.”
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This information had a profound impact on Ayer. Maintaining that this type of conduct was damaging to the Council of the Southern Mountains and its attempts at reform, he demanded of Ogle and Fox “a statement
in black and white” of their “commitment to an overall Council approach which will set a high standard of moral purpose.” In addition, he required, “of all people, officially sponsored and directed by us, leadership which neither by example, tacit permission, nor neglect allows moral disintegration to occur.” “I am so deeply concerned about this,” Ayer concluded, “that unless we can achieve some unanimous commitment on this issue and some practical plans to do better, I shall feel it necessary to discontinue sponsorship of the whole program.”
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