MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1993
LITTLE ROCK — Shocked friends of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster grappled Wednesday for reasons why the 48-year-old father of three — friend of the President, confidant to the first lady and “the smartest lawyer in town” — killed himself in a park overlooking the Potomac River. A somber President Clinton Wednesday said Foster’s suicide was beyond his understanding.
50 years ago — 1968
The perennial cries for lowering the voting age to 18 are being made with particular loudness this year, probably because an election is near and because the nation’s youth seem so “alienated.” The cries often carry honest conviction but they also bring along the usual collection of bad logic used on this subject. If someone is old enough to fight for his country, goes the familiar and appealing argument, he is old enough to vote, but this overlooks the fact that the qualifications of a good soldier are not those of a responsible voter. Soldiers need to be young, strong, with good endurance and the ability to take orders. Malleability is not what we need in our electorate. Democracy, a difficult undertaking at best, is something best controlled by responsible adults. A minimum voting age of 21 is a wise limitation on our imperfect democracy.
75 years ago — 1943
Swift & Company now has 15,000 employees in the armed forces of whom 82 formerly were employed in Memphis, C.W. Conway, manager of the local plant, said yesterday. The company now has one man in uniform for every five employees in the organization.
100 years ago — 1918
WASHINGTON — A billion dollars stands between Congress and national prohibition for the period of the war. At least that much can be raised from taxes on whisky, wine and beer, to help offset the enormous cost of the war. Many members of Congress who favor prohibition say frankly they don’t know where the billion would come from if these taxes are not gathered.
125 years ago — 1893
Attorney James H. Malone of Memphis addressed the Tennessee Bar Association yesterday at Lookout Mountain. He appealed for a revision of the Tennessee code of laws and for changes in the state constitution. Due to faulty fee laws many court clerks collect more than $15,000 a year, while the salary for the governor of Tennessee is only $4,000.