Great article! Read below. ----- Original Message ----- Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 10:50 AM Subject: Good Press coverage On big day of Gephardt's making, battle flag waves on Capitol steps By TONY MESSENGER Published Thursday, February 20, 2003 In Neil Block's world, the civil war isn't over. It's just beginning. Though he's a proud member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, or SCV, Block is not talking about the war between the North and the South. That battle's already been fought and won, er, lost, depending on one's perspective. "We're not into secession," he says. Block's perspective is, like that of many Missourians, a mixed one. He counts among his ancestors 31 Confederate soldiers and 12 who fought against them on the Union side. His civil war, the one he's waging this week, has a clear enemy: Dick Gephardt. For good measure, throw in Gov. Bob Holden and the minions who work for him. Yesterday, as the Democratic congressman from St. Louis announced his intention to seek the presidency, Block and his Huntsville neighbor, Dan Ballew, were marching in circles around the state Capitol. Each of them was carrying a Confederate battle flag, the "soldiers' flag" to aficionados, with the red background and blue St. Andrew's cross flapping in the light breeze. Block and Ballew chose this day to show their disgust with Gephardt and his fellow Missouri Democrats for turning their backs on more than a century of local history. Last month while on a pre-campaign swing in South Carolina, Gephardt tried to dodge the divisive issue on the boycott of the state by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People over that state's flying of the Confederate flag. The flag used to fly over the Capitol dome; now it's on the grounds near the building. When pressed on the issue after trying to avoid it, Gephardt told a South Carolina reporter that the Confederate flag "no longer has a place flying anytime, anywhere." Associated Press reporter Scott Charton knew that in Gephardt's own state, two such flags flew, one over a Confederate cemetery and the other at a Civil War battle site. Gephardt was unaware. Charton wrote a story. The next day, Holden's chief bulldog, spokeswoman Mary Still, made a call or two, and the flags came down. There was no debate and no discussion, and no questions were asked. And that's why Block, a Southern Democrat to the core, was marching in Jefferson City yesterday, making it clear that as Gephardt seeks national votes, he's already lost quite a few in his home state. "He kinda started all this," Block says of the two-time presidential candidate. "They won't even debate the pros and cons. . It's disheartening. If that's what America's political system has disintegrated to, that's bad." Block believes that for political expediency, Gephardt and his followers have applied the unique circumstances of South Carolina's debate to Missouri without any consideration of the state's own history. The flag at the Confederate cemetery at Higginsville, for instance, flew for decades without complaint, many of those years on private land, before the cemetery became part of the state park system. More than 600 Confederate veterans and some of their wives are buried there. It's a place that represents history, Block says, and it's a place where folks only see the flag if they're specifically going there to soak in that part of our nation's history. Members of the SCV proposed to Holden that a separate, shorter pole be constructed for the Confederate flag as a compromise. The U.S. and state flags would fly on the existing pole in a place of prominence. Further back into the cemetery, the "soldiers' flag" would still stand. But state officials haven't even gotten back to the SCV, Block says. He just thinks they want to keep their favorite presidential candidate clean. It puts Block in a difficult position. He's a Democrat - always has been - and he doesn't want to hurt the party. He's even a union man, representing Gephardt's largest and most important block of support. But he won't be in Gephardt's corner. "Oh no," Block says, making it clear he's representing his views and not necessarily those of the SCV. "I'll do everything I can to see him not elected." On this day, that means the burly Randolph County man is walking back and forth on the south side of the Capitol, taking extra time to pause in front of the statue of Thomas Jefferson, one of his party's true heroes. Another of the party's heroes, especially in Missouri, was Harry S Truman, who himself had to deal with the Confederate flag controversy a time or two. In one of those cases, according to documentation from the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Truman was asked to help mediate a dispute in the hamlet of Town Line, just outside Buffalo, N.Y. The little town had formally seceded from the Union in 1861 and in 1945 had never officially rejoined the Union. The town was deeply divided over how to deal with its legal dilemma. Truman's response to the man who was elected to seek his counsel was concise: "There are few controversies that are not susceptible of a peaceful resolution if examined in an atmosphere of tranquility and calm rather than strife and turmoil," the president wrote. "Why don't you run down the fattest calf in Erie County, barbecue it and serve it with fixin's in the old blacksmith shop where the ruckus started? Who can tell? The dissidents might decide to resume citizenship." Truman was right. In 1946 the good people of Town Line voted to rejoin the United States of America. Would such dinner-table diplomacy work in this case? Probably, if you ask Block. He knows the flag he loves has been denigrated and misrepresented by racists and rednecks. He knows groups like his are going to have to compromise if they want their ancestors properly honored. But he also knows Missouri history, and that's why on the day Dick Gephardt said he wants to be the next president, Block made sure the Confederate flag was flying high and proud in front of the Missouri Capitol. "Anytime, anywhere" was today. Right now. The sun was shining; the breeze was almost balmy. It was a good day for a barbecue. Tony Messenger is the city editor at the Tribune. His column appears on Sundays and Thursdays. He can be reached at 815-1728 or by e-mail at [email protected] Copyright © 2003 The Columbia Daily Tribune. All Rights Reserved