Born in Mangum on Feb. 6, 1888, Charles Walter Tillett Jr., was both a son, and a grandson, of Richmond County.
After growing up in Charlotte, young Tillett took his undergraduate degree at Carolina in 1909 before studying law there, and passing the bar in 1911. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
While his father was president of the North Carolina Bar Association during the time that Charles was completing his legal studies, the younger Tillett would follow him to the post for the 1934-35 term.
Following his marriage to Gladys Avery in 1917, Charles joined brothers Duncan, John and William into World War I military service. He served as a captain in the 50th Infantry Regiment.
Tillett's involvements in his community, and beyond, were extensive, including: four years service on the Charlotte school board; as Charlotte city attorney; and, as delegate to the Democratic national convention in 1944. With his wife, Gladys, the two formed an educated couple that seemed perpetually in search of ways to make their world a better place.
Before his graduation from Carolina, Charles produced a thesis, styled as a senior oration, entitled "The Meaning of History." The document lends an idea of who young Tillett was at age 21; and, arguably, provides a glimpse of where he appeared to be headed.
In his thesis, Tillett pointed to a theoretical pendulum that swings throughout civilization's history between the interests of individuals, and those of institutions. Institutions, generally, can be those of government, industry or religion.
For examples, Tillett highlights King Louis XIV of France, who asserted an all-powerful state that, over time, gave way to the demands of individuals through revolution (under another monarch). In America, he observes, Democratic government tends to favor individual rights; Republican government favors the good of industry. A religious institution — the Catholic Church — had grown very powerful, in Tillett's illustration, until Martin Luther stood up to proclaim the interests of individuals.
Humans, in Tillett's argument, are ever in search of perfection in both the individual, and in our institutions. After every swing of the pendulum, society improves as it seeks what Tillett describes as a "golden mean" between the interests of the two.
A 21st century reader may be tempted to dismiss Tillett's 1909 arguments as those of the proverbial "cockeyed optimist." At only 21, though, he had been shaped by socially involved, educated parents who raised him amid good financial means during the heyday of America's so-called Progressive Era.
Moreover, he was in his final semester at, perhaps, the country's preeminent public university. Indications are that young Tillett found a "golden mean," of sorts, during his university years. In a public forum in the late 1920s, Tillett noted that his collegiate time at Carolina permitted him to "search for the truth of science ... unrestrainedly;" yet, he professed to having become a Christian during that time.
Examinations of two episodes in Charles's life, beyond his family roles, provide insights into his passions and interests and, perhaps, as a measure of the man. The two occurred a quarter-century apart — as a young adult, and as he neared the end of his life.
Like many, Charles and Gladys were religious people. Charles, especially, hailed from a family with strong church and faith traditions. They each possessed college educations, and while that wasn't typical either of Tar Heel citizens, or even of most Americans, most people held education in high esteem, and aspired to better ones for their own children.
The 1920s brought conflicts between religion and education to America, and particularly to North Carolina. This manifested, in part, over the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools.
In a 1964 Mississippi Quarterly article, University of Georgia professor Willard Gatewood illustrates the lay of the land in the conflict between religion and education in North Carolina during the 1920s. Concerns about the writings of scientist Charles Darwin gained steam, chiefly among Christian fundamentalists, as Darwin's influence grew between the late 19th century and about 1920.
Fundamentalists, Gatewood points out, considered theories of evolution as "the encroachment of the natural upon the supernatural." They feared teachings that would substitute concepts of man as animal for those traditional ones of man as a creature in God's image.
In a 1963 North Carolina Historical Review article, Suzanne Linder observes that between 1921 and 1929, 37 anti-evolution bills were introduced in 20 state legislatures. Those efforts in North Carolina's legislature were led by Rep. D. Scott Poole, of Hoke County, who authored a 1925 bill to prohibit teaching evolution in the state's public schools. The hearing drew a large crowd of citizens on both sides of the bill. UNC President Harry W. Chase made an appeal on behalf of liberty and freedom of speech.
In a 1965 NCHR piece, Professor Willard Gatewood notes that one influential Charlotte Presbyterian minister repeatedly warned that the teaching of evolution would "lead to carnality, sensuality, communism, and the Red Flag."
In his 1964 MQ article, Gatewood described a group of traveling evangelists who moved about the Tar Heel state in the 1920s preaching against evolution, and referring to "modernism" as atheistic. Evangelist Mordecai Ham declared, "The day is not distant when ... your children will be taught free love by the damnable theory of evolution."
Despite the loss of Rep. Poole's bill in 1925, Gatewood writes, anti-evolutionists were finding allies among local school boards, continued activism in churches, and Gov. Cameron Morrison's banning of some textbooks. There was even a push among religious fundamentalists for an anti-evolution plank in the state's Democratic party platform.
With momentum building from 1925 into 1926, Rep. Poole would, again, introduce his bill in the legislature's 1927 session. 38-year-old Charles Tillett, Jr., would organize a group to step into the breech to face anti-evolutionists in a dramatic showdown — Tillett's hometown, no less.
Professor Gatewood writes that in April 1926, 32 ministers and laymen met in Charlotte to begin an organized push to win approval of Poole's bill. Eventually, Presbyterians from the central N.C. area would dominate this effort, forming a Committee of 100.
By this time, Gatewood reveals, proceedings moved to roomier Second Presbyterian Church of Charlotte (the church home of Tillett's mother).
At a key May 4 meeting, Tillett had persuaded various civic leaders from around the state to join his "friends of the university" at the meeting.
With the Committee of 100's resolutions panel meeting elsewhere in the church to form strategy, Tillett and his group asked to take the floor during an open discussion. Having properly secured the floor, members of the group, including Tillett, challenged the anti-evolutionists by questioning whether they intended to destroy free speech and free thought.
A long account on page one of the May 5, 1926 Charlotte Observer described a meeting where restraint and decorum were cast aside, voices raised to shouting, and a young minister from Lincoln County who was physically restrained from coming to blows with an opponent.
In his address to the Committee of 100, Tillett contended that a "strong Christian influence" was present at the university while he was a student, "[y]et, I was permitted to search for the truth of science ... unrestrainedly." Tillett also professed that he became a Christian while a student there.
Of local interest, the Rev. Dr. W.R. Coppedge of Rockingham was described as "one of the venerable figures" at the meeting. Coppedge suggested a phrase in the platform against "dangerous textbooks" and "dangerous teachers." Earlier, however, Coppedge had struck a slightly more moderating tone.
We are left to speculate just how much Charles Tillett and his group affected the momentum that was building to persuade the legislature to pass the Poole anti-evolution bill. Professor Gatewood's 1965 NCHR article indicates that, beyond the Charlotte meeting of the Committee of 100, the anti-evolutionists seemed to lose steam. In a June 2, 1926 editorial, the Charlotte Observer noted, "the state has had enough of the monkey business for quite a spell."
If anti-evolutionists enjoyed tailwinds in attaining their goals before May, 1926, they seemed to encounter headwinds afterwards.
Local readers will also be interested to learn from a Gatewood article that the evolution issue figured in 1926 legislative primaries here in Richmond County: "After a bitter fight in which evolution received a thorough airing ... the candidates who ran on the Anti-Poole Bill Platform were victorious."
Rep. Poole's 1927 anti-evolution bill went down to a convincing defeat in a legislative committee.
With the end of World War II approaching in late 1944, both Charles and Gladys Tillett developed a deep interest in the United States committing to lasting world peace through the development of the United Nations. Gladys Tillett had participated in the discussions at Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington, D.C., that formed the proposed UN Charter between late 1944 and early 1945.
From the book, THE REVEREND JOHN TILLETT FAMILY HISTORY, by Charles W. Allison (1955) via findagrave.com
Both Tilletts were actively committed to educating the public about the UN, both locally and nationwide, prior to the organization's opening sessions in San Francisco during April and May, 1945. Charles took time from his law practice to attend the UN's inauguration for a few weeks, acting as a special correspondent for The Charlotte News, and filing reports from San Francisco.
During the post-war era, Charles's expertise in the arena of international law grew beyond reproach. He served two terms as chair of the American Bar Association's section on International and Comparative Law. He was also a member of their Committee on Constitutional Structure of the UN, among similar other involvements.
His 1945 article, "What The United Nations Charter Means," penned for Ladies Home Journal, was published in the Congressional Record, with reprints distributed to college students nationwide.
If any couple was committed to the concept of world government, it was Charles and Gladys Tillett.
By the early 1950s, control of the U.S. Congress was nearly even between the major parties. But the public mood was shifting as citizens had grown weary of 20 consecutive years of Democratic control of the executive branch. President Harry Truman would not garner enough support to seek reelection. And, thanks to the likes of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, public fear and wariness of the Soviet Union, a UN power, was fevered.
Not only had the 22nd Amendment been ratified and added to the Constitution, limiting the president to two terms, but a move was underway to limit the executive's foreign policy-making abilities.
Between 1951 and 1954, GOP U.S. Sen. John Bricker of Ohio proposed a series of constitutional amendments that would limit our nation's ability to enter into, or ratify, treaties with other nations. It would have limited the president's powers in agreements with other countries. Language in the proposals sought to address fears of loss of American sovereignty to international law, and Bricker seemed to be attracting support on both sides of the political aisle.
As an advocate of international law over the bloody savagery of war for settling disputes between nations, however, Tillett may have been recalling the idealism of his 1909 senior thesis in sounding a warning against weakening America's treaty-making ability.
"Of what use is it for this country to adhere to ... the World Court and tie its own hands as far as participating in ... world law?" he reasoned.
"A sense of history ... would certainly indicate that in the world of the future our country must ... be capable of adapting itself to any ... opportunity to build the structure of enduring peace that arises," Tillett noted.
His parrying with members of the Senate's Judiciary Committee may have encountered skepticism in some quarters, but the efforts of Tillett, and other like-minded Bricker opponents, were just enough. The proposals came close, but failed ultimate passage in the U.S. Senate.
findagrave.com
In what was ruled a suicide, Charles W. Tillett Jr., stepped off the top floor of the Law Building on Charlotte's Trade Street and fell to his death at around 1p.m. on Dec. 23, 1952. He was 64.
Tillett had been reported in ill health in the weeks before his passing. In fact, he had only returned to his law practice eight days before following a stint at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. His son, Dr. C.W. Tillett III, was a resident physician there, at the time.
After funeral services at Myers Park Presbyterian Church, Charles Tillett was laid to rest in Elmwood Cemetery.
Next: Defying boundaries. A Southern woman with a big voice.
