Statue unveiled in Nash Square
By CONSTANCE LAIBE
Staff Writer
A bronze statue of Josephus Daniels, the late founder and longtime editor of The News and Observer, was unveiled at an evening ceremony Tuesday beneath the stately oaks lining Nash Square in downtown Raleigh.
Frank A. Daniels, chairman of the board of The News and Observer Publishing Co. and son of Josephus Daniels, and sculptor Janos Farkas of Greensboro pulled a white cover to reveal the seven-foot-tall statue to a crowd of about 200.
The sculpture portrays Daniels with his right hand raised and his left hand holding a hat at one side. It stands on a pedestal of gray North Carolina granite.
The Rev. Arthur M. Calloway, a Raleigh city councilman and pastor of St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, delivered an invocation before the unveiling. “Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers who begot us,” Calloway said, quoting Ecclesiastes. “May this statue remind us of the greatness of human spirit within us,” he said, calling Josephus Daniels an example of “public concern and human enlightenment.”
The statue was commissioned by the Josephus Daniels Charitable Foundation. It was accepted for the city by Raleigh Mayor Avery C. Upchurch.
Upchurch called the statue “an enduring remembrance of a citizen whose legacy should be an example to us all.”
Frank Daniels Jr., president of The News and Observer Publishing Co. and grandson of Josephus Daniels, made a brief statement to the crowd.
Noting that the statue’s upraised hand gestures toward the newspaper office across the street, Daniels said his grandfather might seem to be saying, “Lord, what have I wrought?”
Also on the dais were Capt. William O. Stubbs, commanding officer of the U.S.S. Josephus Daniels, a Navy cruiser; and Spurgeon Fields, who was Josephus Daniels’ chauffeur for 17 years.
Others on hand for the unveiling included former U.S. Sen. Robert B. Morgan, former Gov. Dan K. Moore, University of North Carolina President William C. Friday, Chief Justice Joseph Branch, Labor Commissioner John Brooks and Wake County Sheriff John Baker.
The U.S. Navy’s Heritage Show played the Navy hymn, “Eternal Father,” as the ceremony ended.
Josephus Daniels was editor and owner of The News and Observer from 1894 until his death in 1948. He was secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1921 and U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 1933 to 1942.
Daniels bought The N&O at public auction. He was an avid Democrat, and as was the custom with editors of the day, he used the newspaper as an organ to advocate party positions. Under his editorship, the newspaper also was a strong voice for public education, free trade, honest government, economic progress and better conditions for working people.
He stated his philosophy toward publishing The News and Observer in his will, written in 1946, part of which is published daily on The N&O editorial page:
“I have never regarded the stock I owned in The News and Observer as property, but as certificates of trust to be administered for the common good of the people of North Carolina. … I advise and enjoin those who direct the paper in the tomorrows never to advocate any cause for personal profit or preferment. I would wish it always to be ‘the tocsin’ and devote itself to the policies of equality and justice to the under-privileged. If the paper should at any time be the voice of self-interest or become the spokesman of privilege or selfishness, it would be untrue to its history.”
Unveiled
A bronze statue of Josephus Daniels, the longtime editor of The News and Observer, is unveiled in Nash Square in downtown Raleigh. Later Tuesday, those honored in the past 35 years as the newspaper’s “Tar Heel of the Week” were honored at a banquet at the Raleigh Civic Center.