Roy Lee Harmon — In Danger?

I only read that one column by Roy Lee Harmon, the one on The Beatles, written about here and here. But now I might have to go back and check out a few of his other columns, however many there were.

Just glancing around a bit at newspaperarchive.com, I came across an article on the editorial page of the Post-Herald of Beckley, West Virginia (May 22, 1962, p. 4), that says some things about our Roy Lee Harmon. And it doesn't look good, but obviously these were things that were public knowledge at the time.

Maybe I'm starting to see some psychological insights here that give this anti-Beatles article a whole new slant. In an article headlined, "Roy Lee Harmon Is In Uproar At Wayne," by Emile J. Hodel, Roy is called a "character," with "eccentricities." Hodel says, "There was a time when he had difficulty controlling his appetite for booze and it led him pretty far astray at times. He certainly was not a very dependable person in that period. We understand that he has mastered himself in that respect and does not drink at all now — hasn't for some years. But Roy Lee has always tended toward martyrdom — perhaps a martyr complex if there is such." Hold that in mind a moment.

Hodel continues, "Roy Lee Harmon has always been so absolutely convinced that he is right that it irks some people. And Roy always has difficulty in not injecting something of himself into anything he writes..." Which brings me to this Beatles article. Roy is a martyr, seen in the things he said about culture and American tastes, all that. And he is "so absolutely convinced that he is right," which is also seen in his very drastic slams against the Fab Four, calling them "stupid," "psychotic," and "idiotic looking." Their music he labeled "noise." Remember, this guy was a poet laureate for 41 years! (LOL! He had a cob so far up his behind he was spittin' corn! But, of course, we all have problems. Perhaps even I have some psychological difficulties. Who you lookin' at? OK, don't do it again.)

But Hodel's article doesn't just center on Roy's personality, per se, but on difficulties he was having at that moment with enemies. He had irked someone, it seems, by his writing, and was now "going around armed ... And he apparently believes that someone is trying to kill him. There can be little doubt that Roy is being harassed." So that's serious!

Hodel quotes Roy Lee, something Roy Lee wrote in the Wayne County News: "From now on I intend to protect myself and my property. It is a hell of a note when appeals to the prosecuting attorney and local detachment of state police avail nothing. My life was threatened — by telephone — again last week. On two nights we had to work very late at our plant. And two nights there were tough looking characters skulking about outside ... When we got ready to leave ... at midnight, a car, with dim lights on and the engine running, was parked in front of the place ... And this is Wayne County, in the land of the 'free and the home of the brave' — in 1962. It seems a little more like Chicago in the days of Al Capone ..." It goes on for a bit more, but I'm going to glance down and try to summarize what was at issue.

He called the issue, what he was facing, "intimidation ... cloak and dagger business," and guesses, "Maybe it all came about because I have written and published the truth." He and his paper, the Wayne County News, was apparently printing some articles about government business. He says the paper will "print the truth so long as I live," and that crime and "sorry government" flourish when newspapers are gutless.

Getting toward the end, and this is interesting, "The people are with and for the News — and many are afraid to say much or do anything .... Some are pantywaists who would rather take what they are getting than act like citizens."

Hodel concludes this article on Roy Lee Harmon with this (dismissive) teaser: "There is a lot more, but it will have to wait. Roy Lee always could eat up space in a newspaper." It looks like Hodel was applying that "martyr complex" stuff to these issues Roy Lee had, or imagined he had.