Posted on 08/22/2002 12:18:01 PM PDT by PJeffQ
SCANA officials are clarifying their position on the Confederate flag, even as Maurice Bessinger fires another volley against the company's policies.
A press released issued by SCANA Wednesday says the company has never banned the Confederate flag, or issued a ruling telling employees not to eat at certain restaurants.
CEO Bill Timmerman says the company's Code of Conduct tries to prevent divisive symbols which may harass other employees. Timmerman says as long as it's meant as heritage it would be okay for an employee to display a Confederate emblem while at work.
He also says employees can eat at Maurice Bessinger restaurants--just not in a company vehicle. He says it's in response to Bessinger's pro-slavery views.
In response, Bessinger released a press release Wednesday saying all SCE&G employees, the energy company that's a subsidiary of SCANA, could eat for free at his stores if they showed up in a company vehicle. If they bring their company identification, they can eat at half price.
Slavery as an institution was still legal under Lincoln and the gov't in Washington, D.C. for two more years in the United States (Northern States) than in the Confederacy.
Or if you maintain that slavery was legal under Confederate law then you must acknowledge the legitimacy of the Confederacy ! Can't have it both ways.
SCANA reverses flag policy
By JOHN MONK
Staff Writer
SCANA reversed itself Tuesday and said workers can display Confederate flag bumper stickers on personal cars in company parking lots.
Announcement of the policy change came after a week of statewide controversy that began last week when a SCANA spokesperson told The State newspaper SCANA workers could no longer display Confederate flag bumper stickers on personal cars in its parking lots.
SCANA, a Fortune 500 company with 5,480 employees, also banned company vehicles from parking lots of Maurice Bessinger's barbecue restaurants.
That brought an angry response from Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston.
And two pro-flag state senators - Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, and Arthur Ravenel, R-Charleston - told the Public Service Commission they would protest SCANA's flag ban at a November rate hike hearing. SCANA subsidiary SCE&G is seeking an 8.7 percent rate increase.
Across the state, hundreds of citizens protested to SCANA and media outlets.
In its statement released late Tuesday, SCANA made clear that bumper stickers on private vehicles, "heritage symbols such as the Confederate flag ‘.‘.‘. are not contrary to our Code of Conduct."
But SCANA said it reserved the right to deal with Confederate flag displays "on a case-by-case" basis if there is an "intent to harass, intimidate or provoke other individuals in the workplace."
The controversy began last week after The State newspaper received complaints from workers and Southern heritage proponents about the company's Confederate flag policy. The State queried SCANA.
In response, SCANA spokeswoman Cathy Love said in an Aug. 14 e-mail to The State, "Both the Confederate flag and Maurice Bessinger's restaurants are divisive issues that have dominated news over the past several years."
She wrote that SCANA's code of conduct prohibits "flags, symbols and statements that are divisive, disruptive and inflammatory from having an influence on the productivity in our workplace."
As such, she said, SCANA was banning Confederate flag bumper stickers on personal cars parked in company parking lots.
The resulting State story triggered a statewide outcry from Southern heritage groups and applause from blacks.
Tuesday, SCANA spokesperson Robin Montgomery said the company could have "done a better job" communicating its policy.
He said SCANA employees had so many questions about company policy that officials felt more clarification was needed - inside and outside the company.
"It became obvious to us that maybe we weren't being as clear as we could," Montgomery said.
On Tuesday, SCANA also made clear its vehicles no longer could go to Bessinger restaurants unless the utility was responding to a service call:
"Our position does not target the Confederate flag, but instead is in response to Mr. Bessinger's views - which he has made very public - concerning slavery."
Bessinger, who flies large Confederate flags at his Columbia-area restaurants, is known for distributing literature that says God wanted blacks to be slaves, and that blacks were glad to be slaves.
In a letter last week to SCANA chief executive officer Bill Timmerman, Sen. McConnell told Timmerman he was outraged at SCANA's bumper sticker ban and its ban on company vehicles at Bessinger's for lunch.
McConnell did not mention the slavery issue. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Timmerman, who could not be reached Tuesday, wrote McConnell a three-page letter about SCANA's policies, saying, "I hope this letter has helped clarify the issues at hand."
In his letter, dated Monday, Timmerman blamed The State newspaper for creating the controversy. State executive editor Mark Lett said there was nothing in Timmerman's letter that changed the facts in The State's stories.
After Timmerman's letter became public, persons on both sides of the issue criticized it for not being clear enough.
Don Gordon, commander of the 250-member Columbia-area post of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, called Timmerman's letter "double talk" because it wasn't clear on the bumper sticker issue. Gordon could not be reached late Tuesday for comment.
Carl Solomon, a Columbia lawyer who represents 13 black workers suing SCANA for an alleged racially hostile work environment, applauded the utility's strong position on Bessinger.
But Solomon said while many who display Confederate flag bumper stickers do so for heritage reasons, others use it as a form of "covert racism" to harass black people.
The flag has a long history of being used by people who denied blacks their civil rights, and - since it is impossible to know the minds of those who display the flag - it is better to keep it out of the workplace, Solomon said.
"If you can't determine the use of a Confederate flag, why should you let it come into your place of work?" Solomon asked.
SCANA denies allegations it has a racially hostile environment.
Yeah , I also heard that Gore's people tried to mooch some free Springstein concert tickets for the whole staff. Prince Albert got turned down !
Got a phone call from someone in downtown Columbia today that the downtown restaurant was packed with people lined up out the door to the street. People were having to park two blocks away and walk to the restaurant. There are five locations around Columbia that had similar activity.
If SCANA has the gonads to fire several hundred employees at once, then more power to them. Even they aren't too stupid to figure out they would shut themselves down by doing so.
Oh yea, and several hundred fired employees would equal several hundred plaintiffs.
Go one better, put the cross on a real live brown bear and let it loose on Berkeley campus. Have some pinkos for lunch.
Lincoln believed (with good reason) that his Consitutional authority to emancipate slaves was limited to areas under rebel control.
All of the above are the words of Abraham Lincoln...
The public letter to Horace Greeley that you quoted stated Lincoln's position as of the date it was written (July 1862). At that time a large majority of Americans did not want to see the war transformed into a crusade for abolition, but note that Lincoln was still indicating in that letter that he was contemplating some sort of emancipation order.
In order to hold the Union together in 1862, Lincoln needed the support of conservative Republicans and War Democrats as well as Radical Republicans. Lincoln eventually moved very close to the position of the Radical Republicans on abolition and negro suffrage, and in fact it was the speech Lincoln gave in April of 1865 -- wherein he became the first President to advocate negro suffrage -- that so enraged John Wilkes Booth that he assassinated Lincoln.
I travel to Charleston several times a year from Tennessee, and I ALWAYS make a point to stop at Maurice's on the way down AND on the way back for their delicious chicken fingers...best on the planet! (Several bottles of his B-B-Q sauce in the cupboard, as we "speak".)
Is he half-hearted? What about a free lunch?
That is very poor reasoning and ignores facts too numerous to mention. As I noted above, the EP was so limited because Lincoln felt that his Constitutional authority was so limited. The Confederates were not advocating "states' rights", they were advocating slavery. They protested the exercise of state power by Northern states to limit the ill effects of the Fugitive Slave Law, they seceded with declarations which made it very clear that their position was "thoroughly identitfied with the institution of slavery", and they adopted a Confederate Constitution which forbade any Confederate state from abolishing slavery.
Slavery as an institution was still legal under Lincoln and the gov't in Washington, D.C. for two more years in the United States (Northern States) than in the Confederacy.
Slavery was legal during the entire existence of the Confederacy, while in the U.S. it was abolished as soon as the Republicans could overcome the Democrats. The 13th Amendment was passed by Congress as soon as the Republicans gained firm control (i.e. the necessary 2/3) of Congress during the 1864 election, and the only thing holding up ratification by 3/4 of the states was reconstruction of enough Southern states to do so.
Or if you maintain that slavery was legal under Confederate law then you must acknowledge the legitimacy of the Confederacy !
The Confederates had de facto control of the "Confederate States", so they enforced their laws and preserved slavery as long as they maintained control of those areas -- regardless of their "legitimacy".
"I think Maurice Bessinger is a cruel man. It is not fair for blacks to be in slavery and whites not."
Public schools.
In other words, he is just another hypocritical media hype-artist out for a buck. Sort of a cross between PT Barnum & a Grand Wizard.
The Slave Market, by Gustave Boulanger [b.1824 - d.1888]
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