Amateur Editor

Virginia Beach, Va. was once a quiet seaside town where the middling rich of Princess Anne County and nearby Norfolk went to bathe and sun. But 25 years back, the quiet town was invaded. Garish clubs sprang up along the beach, and gambling tables ran far into the night, presided over by burly, heavy-set men in sharp suits and loud ties. The town's old inhabitants protested, but the local Kellam political machine blandly looked the other way. Six years ago one scrappy, stubborn real-estate man named Joseph Willcox Dunn finally got so mad that he started his own weekly, called it the Princess Anne Free Press, set the slogan, "The Truth Shall Make You Free," in his masthead, and grimly set to work.

Nine Brothers. The amateur editor had picked a formidable foe. Tied to the state organization of Senator Harry Byrd, the Kellam machine was formed by nine brothers, headed by Sidney Kellam, longtime county treasurer, and Floyd Kellam, circuit judge in the area, with the power to appoint various commissions.

Week after week Editor Dunn rammed home his message: the Kellams were letting corruption fester in Princess Anne County. He ran a regular ''Clubs and the Law'' column that named racketeers and pinpointed the clubs they visited. When the machine-controlled Virginia Beach Sun-News reported a gathering of racketeers, politicians and their ladies as a social item, Dunn printed a guest list, helpfully followed each racketeer's name with his criminal record. Says Dunn: ''I put their hoodlum rats around the necks of the politicians and in their pockets.''

Blackjacks & Threats. His enemies fought back, sometimes cleverly, sometimes crudely. Four libel suits were filed against him for a total of $175,000; Dunn won two and the other two were dropped. Voices on the phone snapped, "Lay off the clubs or I'll kill you." In 1955 Dunn was blackjacked. A few days later, an ex-Marine boxer told him that he had been offered $500 by the chief of police to give him a beating. At the trial of the police chief (on a charge of soliciting a person to commit a felony), Brother Richard Kellam handled the defense. The Kellam-backed commonwealth's attorney did not allow Dunn to take the stand, and Kellam-supported Police Justice Eugene Gresham did not permit Dunn's lawyer to address the court. The chief was acquitted.

But Editor Dunn, 59. an ex-University of Virginia halfback and baseball captain, landed some blows of his own. When the machine's Sun-News called him a liar, Dunn sued for libel, won a verdict (still under appeal) of $65,000--largest in the state's history. And though the Kellams stayed in power, the gamblers gradually began to leave Virginia Beach.

This week resolute Editor Dunn got his reward: the 1958 Elijah P. Lovejoy* Award for Courage in Journalism from Southern Illinois University. Said the citation: Dunn "exemplifies the courage and devotion to the public welfare which is the crowning glory of the weekly newspaper editor in America."

-- Named for an ardent abolitionist editor in Alton, Ill. who was killed by a mob in 1837 when he defied demands to stop publication.

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