Voices: Arnold got out the vote

May 14, 2008 08:29 pm

— Reports of the recent death of Eddie Arnold, the Nashville-based singer, brought back memories of a concert by the almost legendary “Tennessee Plowboy” in downtown Joplin a little more than a half-century ago.
I often wondered whether an afternoon concert by Arnold in the Paramount Theater on the eve of the 1956 general election helped elect the first (and only, to date) Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Missouri 7th District.
Charles Brown, the Democrat congressional nominee from Springfield who had just turned 36 years of age and who had his own radio and television production company, invited Arnold, then 38 and at the top of his music game, to come to Joplin and entertain 7th District Democrat women at the Paramount. Brown introduced Arnold, who sang for about an hour, and Brown closed with some brief remarks about his campaign to unseat Dewey Short, the 58-year-old Republican 11-term incumbent.
Arnold’s solo singing performance, which I covered as newsman for KBTN at Neosho, was designed as a pep rally for the several hundred women to get out the vote.
I still wonder if the concert, mostly of familiar recording hits, had any influence on Brown being elected over Short by 1,060 votes, or a majority of about 50.06 percent!
Democrat enthusiasm ran high the next spring at Jackson Day festivities in Springfield with a hometown freshman congressman on hand to hear Sen. John Kennedy give the keynote speech at the Shrine Mosque. “Charlie” Brown was re-elected in 1958, but was defeated in 1960 when Sen. Kennedy, a Democrat, was elected president.
Harlan Snow
Joplin