Orval Faubus - The 1954 Campaign

The 1954 Campaign

In the 1954 campaign, Faubus was compelled to defend his attendance at the defunct northwest Arkansas Commonwealth College in Mena, as well as his early political upbringing. Commonwealth College had been formed by leftist academic and social activists, some of whom later were revealed to have had close ties with the Communist Party of the United States of America. Most of those who attended and taught there were idealistic young people who sought an education or, in the case of the faculty, a job which came with room and board. During the runoff, Cherry and his surrogates accused Faubus of having attended a "communist" school and implied that his sympathies remained leftist. Faubus at first denied attending, and then admitted enrolling "for only a few weeks". Later, it was shown that he had remained at the school for more than a year, earned good grades, and was elected student body president. Faubus led a group of students who testified on behalf of the college's accreditation before the state legislature. Nevertheless, efforts to paint the candidate as a communist sympathizer backfired in a climate of growing resentment against such allegations. Faubus hence narrowly defeated Cherry to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Relations were cool between the two men for years, but when Cherry died in 1965, Faubus put politics aside and was magnanimous in praising his predecessor.

In the 1954 general election campaign against Little Rock Mayor Pratt C. Remmel, Faubus secured the endorsement of the previous 1950 and 1952 Republican gubernatorial nominee, Jefferson W. Speck, a planter from Mississippi County in eastern Arkansas. Faubus defeated Remmel by a 63% to 37% percent margin. Remmel, a businessman and scion of a prominent Republican family, polled the strongest vote at the time for a GOP candidate since Reconstruction.

The 1954 election made Faubus sensitive to attacks from the political right. It has been suggested that this sensitivity contributed to his later stance against integration when he was challenged by segregationist elements within his own party. Faubus was known as a particularly effective one-on-one campaigner and was said to have never turned away anyone who sought to shake his hand, no matter how much time it took.