RESIGNATION REMEMBERED: AREA RESIDENTS RECALL NATION'S PRESIDENTIAL RESIGNATION

The Southeast Missourian ublished a four-page extra on Aug. 9, 1974, after President Nixon announced he would resign.

Graphic:

In 1974, the year President Nixon resigned:

Inflation was 12.3 percent.

Unemployment was 5.6 percent

to song was "Killing Me Softly," sung by Roberta Flack.

Oakland Athletics beat Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1 in the World Series.

Gasoline passed the 50-cent mark to reach 58 cents a gallon. A loaf of bread was 39 cents.

Best picture was "The Sting."

Books published included "All the President's Men" by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, "A Bridge Too Far" by Cornelius Ryan and the paperback "First Love" b6 Samuel Beckett.

Richard M. Nixon resigned as the nation's president 25 years ago today.

In the nation's history, no other president has resigned from office.

To many Americans, Nixon's legacy remains one of disgrace, fueled by the Watergate break-in of the Democratic Party's national headquarters in Washington and the scandal that followed.

John Blue, managing editor of the Southeast Missourian at the time, called it "a tragic time" that "really upset" the American people.

Back then, the Missourian was an evening paper, but when Nixon announced on Thursday night he would resign the next day, the paper's staff went into action, publishing a four-page extra edition on Aug. 9, 1974, that screamed "Nixon Resigns" in large type.

"It was on everybody's lips," Blue said, in justifying the "Second Coming" headline.

In the beginning, the paper supported Nixon, but "gradually, it turned," he said.

On May 12, 1974, Blue editorialized it would be best for the nation if Nixon resigned, and on Aug. 7, the newspaper directly called on the president to resign.

"We are drifting in a moral morass in high places the likes of which this nation has not known in its 198 years," Blue wrote. Nixon resigned two days later.

Cape Girardeau County Auditor H. Weldon Macke was auditor in 1974 too.

"I'm glad it's over," he was quoted in the newspaper's extra edition.

Today, he views the Nixon scandal as "ancient history" and thinks Americans seem less concerned about honesty in government.

"We are much more lenient," he said. "We are much more liberal. We do a lot of talking about honesty in government, but many times it is just talk."

J. Christopher Schnell, a Southeast Missouri State University history professor, remembers the day Nixon resigned.

"I remember one of my colleagues coming out of the old Kroger food store waving a bottle of whiskey on the day Nixon resigned, saying our long national nightmare is over," said Schnell.

Schnell, political science professor Russell Renka and speech professor Tom Harte teach a course on the presidency. All three Southeast faculty members say the Watergate scandal and Nixon's demise weakened the office of president.

"It reduced public trust in that office and that reduced trust is still with us today," said Renka.

Nixon died on April 22, 1994, at age 81. His dark legacy remains a part of the political landscape.

"He brought himself down," said Renka. "He was his own worst enemy."

Renka called Nixon a combative person who viewed life as warfare. He assumed the Democrats and Kennedy family would do anything, legal or illegal, to defeat him in 1972.

"He had a very suspicious and dark nature," Renka said. "He never got along with the press. He really viewed them as out to get him personally."

Nixon resigned, said Renka, because he knew Congress would impeach him if he didn't.

Watergate provided a front-page civics lesson for Americans.

"We are older and wiser, more alert to the abuses of power than we were in 1974," said Renka.

As Schnell sees it, Nixon remains a tragic figure in American history.

"I think a lot of people felt sorry for him because he was kind of like `every man.'"

Schnell said Nixon's personality helped lead to his demise.

"Nixon had such a rigid, inflexible, masochistic, self-destructive personality," Schnell said. "His whole life was built at getting back at people."

Nixon didn't easily speak with people. "He was always a wooden man," said Schnell.

Most historians call Nixon as a failure as president, Schnell said.

Harte remembers watching Nixon's resignation speech on television.

"I guess the whole thing is tragic," said Harte. "I think he really could have been a great president." Nixon lived in a "me against them world."

"Here was a guy who was accepted into Harvard, but couldn't afford to go," Harte said.

Nixon knew how to use rhetoric as was displayed in his "silent majority" speech, but in the end, rhetoric couldn't save him, Harte said.

Harte can't overlook Nixon's abuse of power in the Watergate scandal.

"I believe he did some things that were really fundamentally bad," Harte said. "The Watergate blemish will always be there."