The Charlotte News

Thursday, September 15, 1955

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that HUAC's right to compel the testimony of former Communists already known to the Committee had been challenged in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this date, as attorneys for John Watkins of Illinois, a regional organizer of the UAW, contended that the Committee had no authority to engage in "exposure for exposure's sake". Mr. Watkins had been convicted in U.S. District Court in Washington the prior May of contempt of Congress, receiving a one-year suspended sentence and a fine of $500. He had been summoned to appear before the Committee on April 29, 1954, and without claiming the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, refused to answer questions about persons whom he believed might have been Communists in the past. He said that those persons had removed themselves from the Communist movement long since and that he had never, himself, been a card-carrying Communist, but had cooperated with them in the labor movement years earlier. The briefs filed by his attorneys, in appealing his contempt conviction, stated that when the sole or primary purpose of a Congressional committee was exposure of individuals to public scorn, the Committee was engaging in a legislative trial in violation of the doctrine of separation of powers. The brief said that the Committee had in its files full information about Mr. Watkins and the 30 persons about whom he was asked, and that therefore the Committee's only purpose in forcing him to testify had been publicly to expose him and those 30 individuals, not as a bona fide effort to obtain information through his testimony in aid of a legislative purpose. It contended that the Committee had therefore violated Mr. Watkins's First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, assembly and to petition Congress. After the original three-judge panel of the Court would the following year reverse the decision, with one judge in dissent, the full en banc Court would affirm. The Supreme Court would then grant certiorari and, in 1957, reverse the conviction, 6 to 1, fully agreeing with the position of Mr. Watkins. Justice Tom Clark was the lone dissenter while Justice Harold Burton and newly appointed Justice Charles Whittaker took no part in the decision. The case would be cited as principal reliance for reversal by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1962 of the conviction of folk singer Pete Seeger for a similar contempt citation based on his refusal, not asserting the Fifth Amendment, to confirm names of organizations before whom he had sung certain controversial songs at certain concerts and of the organizers of such concerts, and whether they were affiliated with the Communist Party, when he had testified before HUAC in August, 1955. (As a purely procedural point regarding venue, Mr. Seeger was originally indicted in New York, rather than in Washington, and so was under the jurisdiction of the Federal courts of the Second Circuit rather than the D.C. Circuit, because HUAC had heard the testimony in New York through an itinerant subcommittee, as part of its traveling dumb-show.)

In Raleigh, acting UNC president J. Harris Purks and the Chapel Hill campus chancellor Robert B. House made an announcement that the Greater University would admit the three black applicants to the undergraduate program, after having been ordered to do so by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court, based on Brown v. Board of Education, which the Court held was as equally applicable to undergraduate programs of public universities and colleges as to grades one through twelve of local public schools. The University had already been ordered and had complied with the order to admit qualified black applicants to its professional and graduate programs in 1951, that case having been based on the Supreme Court case of Sweatt v. Painter, decided in 1950, determining in McKissick, et al. v. Carmichael, decided under the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine subsequently overruled in Brown, that the State had not provided a substantially equal law school for black students as that afforded for whites. State Attorney General W. B. Rodman had been notified by the Court that a stay of execution of the order would not be granted, leading to the announcement by the UNC officials. Chancellor House said that the lawyers for the three applicants had informed him that they would commute from their hometown of Durham to Chapel Hill and would not be interested in living on campus. Mr. Rodman said that the denial of a stay of the order would not affect the intention of the State to appeal the decision, after the Board of Trustees of the University had decided on Monday that they would go forward with an appeal to the Supreme Court. Gut luck...

Also in Raleigh, Governor Luther Hodges said this date in a written statement read at a press conference that he believed "for the present, at least, North Carolinians of both races have overwhelmingly accepted" his proposal for voluntary continuation of separate schools in the state. He expressed appreciation to the citizenry "for their exemplary conduct" during the opening of schools, indicating that "almost without exception", the schools had opened without incident, with only one or two occurrences which indicated that "in some areas there might have been a tendency to forget some of the fundamental concepts upon which our government of freedom within the law is based." He said that "some extremists" had condemned his proposal for voluntary separate schools and that "in one instance a group of Negro school teachers formally refused to support the program." He said that the actual test of acceptance, however, was in what was done and not what was said. He stated that the group of teachers consisted of about 80 persons and that their action might not be truly representative of the feelings of the 8,000 black teachers throughout the state. The teachers in question had attended a leadership conference in Raleigh several weeks earlier and the Governor had spoken to the group, urging support for his voluntary plan, the teachers, the following day, however, having adopted a resolution indicating their lack of support. In response to a reporter's question, the Governor said that the necessity to raise the state's per capita income was "the one basic problem" most urgent at the present time, along with the problem of dealing with segregation in the schools. He said that if the public school system were abandoned, it would adversely impact the income average, causing it to go even lower, presently ranked 47th among the 48 states. He also said that he agreed with the decision of the University trustees to appeal the Federal District Court decision admitting qualified black applicants to the undergraduate programs of the University. He said that the State had not only the right but the duty to appeal the decision to accord the will of the majority of the Board.

In Southern Pines, N.C., there had apparently been no takers this date of the offer made by a black couple to sell their home for $20,000, recently bought in an all-white neighborhood for $12,000, after they had made the offer, saying that if there were takers, they would leave, but otherwise intended to remain. A statement from white residents of the subdivision, issued following a meeting called after learning of the couple's offer, had said that the couple had been "trying to extract an exorbitant price from the innocent property owners." The black couple, the Whites, had in the meantime moved their furniture into their new home, but had not indicated when they planned actually to occupy it. What is the neighborhood coming to? Next, you will have a white family of Blacks moving in. See what all this integratin' does? Outside agitatas...

In New York, the Atlantic Coast waterfront returned to normalcy this date, as formerly striking longshoremen of the independent International Longshoremen's Association had returned to work after the union worked out a compromise with the New York and New Jersey Waterfront Commission, against whom the strike had been called in protest of their practices, which the union claimed were discriminatory in regulation of their employment practices. The compromise allowed for presentation before a citizens committee of the union's grievances. Previously, the union had been rebuffed by official sources in its efforts to air the alleged grievances against the Commission. Both political parties in New Jersey had distanced themselves from the citizens committee, which had been suggested by State Senator James Murray of New Jersey, the other legislators and officials believing it to be a political kiss of death, with Governor Robert Meyner of New Jersey having resigned from the unofficial five-man committee, joining leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature in criticizing the committee. Mr. Murray was not a member of the committee. The committee presently consisted of a New York shipper, a member of the Fordham Law School faculty and a minister of Philadelphia who would vote only in the case of a tie. New York Governor Averell Harriman had repeatedly brushed aside ILA efforts to gain an official forum in New York, and on the prior Sunday night, State Assemblyman John Strander, Republican chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Industrial and Labor Conditions, had squelched a plan for his group to hear the ILA complaints. Industry sources had labeled the ILA's acceptance of the citizens committee compromise as merely a face-saving device adopted after union locals in some cities had refused to heed their call for a strike. The New York Shipping Association had estimated that the eight-day strike had cost employers a million dollars per day. Regardless of the settlement of the strike, a contempt citation against the union issued by a New York judge was scheduled to be heard on September 22. The court had issued a temporary restraining order against the strike and union officials had ignored it on the basis that they had not been served with it, had continued with the strike anyway until the settlement had been reached the previous day. The Shipping Association had also decided to sue the union, its leaders and membership for its damages, estimated at ten million dollars, for alleged violation of a no-strike pledge in its contract.

Howard Whitman, in the fourth in a series of articles on the lost art of parenting, indicates that family agency personnel were recommending holding court at home to reduce delinquency. He tells of a boy, 17, named Bud, who had related to him his story as Mr. Whitman was entering the Hotel Roosevelt in New Orleans when the boy had asked for money to buy something to eat after having been on the bum for three weeks, sleeping in flop houses, washing dishes or panhandling for money to purchase food. He had quit high school in Chicago and set out for Miami in hopes of "striking it rich", and when that effort had failed, had started bumming and hitchhiking with nothing other than the clothes on his back, washing his clothes at night, until his single pair of socks would not hold up any longer and he had to throw them away the previous day. Mr. Whitman had taken him to a local family agency to get him back on track, but before that, Bud had told him that his mother had died three years earlier, the only person who had ever cared about him, that his father had divorced her three years earlier and had married another woman, leaving Bud a kind of orphan, staying with grandparents and hating life and the raw deal he perceived it had given him, running away every now and then to obtain revenge. He was bitter when he talked about his father, suggesting that the agency should not have allowed him to walk out, that he was in it just for himself, looking for his own good times, and what happened to his son did not matter, that he never sent any money or even wrote to find out whether Bud was alive. Mr. Whitman asks the reader whether, if Bud turned up on their front page as a delinquent, who would be to blame. He indicates that the next day in Baton Rouge, he had visited the Juvenile Detention Home and met a 15-year old boy and his brother, 16, the 15-year old having run away from Kansas City to join the merchant marine, before being picked up as a vagrant. He also relates of that boy's story.

In Miami, the Weather Bureau indicated that frightened residents of Puerto Rico and the Virgin and Leeward Islands had been able to relax this date as Hurricane Ione began curving gradually to the north with its 80 mph winds, toward an open expanse of the Atlantic. The Bureau said that the hurricane might turn back, however, toward a westerly course. It was presently 330 miles north-northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and moving north-northwest at 16 mph, with its highest winds estimated at between 70 and 80 mph. Hurricane Hilda, meanwhile, after weakening when passing over the mountains of eastern Cuba, had regained its hurricane strength and had continued to move westward across the Caribbean, presently aiming for the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico this night. It was presently 340 miles south-southwest of Havana.

In Charlotte, Methodist Bishop Costen J. Harrell of the Charlotte area would retire in July, 1956, saying that he had no definite plans following his retirement. Another Methodist Bishop, Clare Purcell of the Birmingham area, would also retire, having been the bishop of the Charlotte area between 1938 and 1948. Both men would be replaced by the Southeastern Jurisdictional meeting of the Methodist Church in July, 1956. Bishop Harrell had been the author of the plan of local church organization being used throughout the world by Methodists. He was the author of several books, including his latest works, The Local Church in Methodism and Stewardship and the Tithe.

Emery Wister of The News continues the report on Vicki, the small elephant which had escaped from the Airport Park Zoo on Sunday, and which had obviously captured the imagination of the community since. Despite continuing efforts for most of the previous four days to hunt and trap the elephant, it remained at large. A crowd of between 150 and 200 persons had gone to the area where the elephant had been holed up, in the woods behind a trucking company terminal on Wilkinson Boulevard, to observe this date's hunt for the elephant, including at least a score of photographers, newspaper and magazine reporters, radio newsmen, television cameramen, state and county policemen, National Guardsmen and scores of ordinary citizens curious about the situation. Trained elephant handlers from the King Bros. Circus had gone into the woods in search of the elephant during the morning, and about 40 minutes later, photographers and newsmen, who had followed the searchers, had observed the elephant suddenly coming toward them, at which point the followers beat a hasty retreat back through the woods into the clearing, with one photographer reportedly having thrown his camera away in his headlong career to reach safety. The entire group had taken refuge behind trees, and a few seconds later, Vicki had made a brief appearance, but then turned and ran back down the hill into a dense thicket. A few moments later, one of the expert handlers said that Vicki was approaching again, and all of the observers again hid behind trees. On that occasion, however, Vicki only came within 50 to 100 feet of the crowd before turning back. At City Hall, the secretary of the Park & Recreation office had been excited at word from a neighbor that Vicki was in her backyard, after the neighbor telephoned that the elephant had just dashed through her rear yard, knocking down the fence and almost colliding with a panel truck parked there, the secretary having said that the elephant had been observed the previous night in the vicinity of her home.

Whatever you do, do it pretty damned quick, as we are getting sick and tired of this stupid story appearing on the front page. Tomorrow, we have it on good account, it will rate a major headline, getting stupider by the day. Hire a veterinarian and a dart gun handler, along with a crane operator, and get the damned thing back in the zoo. But, perhaps that is too complicated, with all the excitement it was stirring in the sleepy hamlet, which obviously had no other pressing problems to confront. Get your pith helmets and join the safari Veni, vidi...

Starting the following day, Charlotte barbers would increase their prices to $1.25 from the current dollar, according to the president of the local chapter of the Master Barbers Association, who said that most shops in the city would comply with the increase. Other services in barbershops, presumably including conversation, would remain unchanged in price. It was the first increase in haircut prices in five years, and the president of the local union said that it was the result of a recent convention in Greensboro, where it was noted that the average weekly pay was less than $50 for a great many barbers, and new men, as a result, were not entering the occupation. Some other North Carolina cities had already increased their prices and still others were expected to go along with the rate increase in the near future. What is Floyd charging down in Mayberry?

On the editorial page, "Transit Troubles: Attitudes into Action" indicates that the city's transit troubles were cumbrous but curable, that the previous day's conference between the City Council and City Coach Line officials had produced real hopes that kinks in the transit company's operations would be smoothed out to the satisfaction of most riders.

That is all good to know, and if you wish to know more about it, you can read the rest of the piece. It concludes that if worst came to worst and no one was happy, there was always the State Utilities Commission to which to turn for resort, but it doubts that would be necessary in the present case, as CCL deserved a reasonable cash return for its business operations and the Council members and the officials of the company, working together cooperatively, ought be able to reach agreements on the transit needs of the city and how they should be met.

"Tar Heel Talent: Give It a Chance" indicates that in the all-important field of higher education, the state was floundering on the lower rungs of the national ladder and that unless it shook off some of its old-fashioned ideas and approached the problem boldly, the situation would only get worse. Earlier in the year, the Commission on Higher Education had shocked some North Carolinians with the news that the state ranked 47th in the nation in the proportion of its population attending college. A new survey made by the State Department of Public Instruction had revealed that only a third of North Carolina's white high school graduates and a fourth of its black high school graduates attended college. According to an analysis of the survey in North Carolina Facts, too many of the state's best qualified high school students were missing out on higher education, with only two-thirds of the 1954 graduates who had finished first or second in their respective high school classes having gone on to attend college. (It would be fair to point out, however, that perhaps at least a third of those schools likely only had 50 or fewer students, though we only guess at that statistic.)

Location of a college was found to be a factor in college attendance, with the counties enrolling ten percent or more of their white high school graduates in junior colleges where those institutions were located within their borders or in the immediate vicinity. The evidence had not been so convincing with four-year colleges, but it was well known that some of the smaller regional colleges had given hundreds of North Carolinians educational opportunities which they would not have enjoyed had they been forced to travel great distances to attend. (They didn't have no car and hain't never heard of no bus nor train nor horse nor mule, else could have gotten themselves a real well education.) Factors contributing to the low participation in higher education by high school graduates in the state were complicated and therefore did not present themselves as easily remedied. There was clearly evidenced a need for a statewide system of community colleges, however, particularly at the junior college level, and also a need for vigorous efforts on the part of individual communities to see that financial aid was made available to high school graduates.

It concludes that the state could not afford to waste any of its native talent and that North Carolina youth deserved every educational opportunity available.

"Air Force Takes a Second Thought" comments on the Air Force having looked again at its anti-brainwashing school operating at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada, finds it encouraging that they were considering the alteration of the interrogation program, designed to humiliate and break down the airmen to acclimate them to the possible conditions of capture by Communists in a future war, that instead of the usual volunteers to the program, it might use its own trained instructors from the program.

It thinks that the suggestion would meet with public approval and that a longer look at the program might convince the Air Force that it had reached a point of poor return by subjecting men to insult and nightmarish pressures to try to teach them to withstand actual brainwashing.

The assurance by the Air Force that the training did no damage to the volunteer trainees did not jibe with common sense, as the mind was a complex instrument and would not necessarily forget incidents which caused the trainees to blow up violently and attack their instructors, even if the volunteers wanted to forget the episodes. It posits that the extreme methods employed at the school were too close to actual brainwashing and that unless the Air Force could offer the public some convincing medical and psychiatric proof that its program was safe, they should ease up.

"Elephant Catchers, Front and Center!" indicates that a man may have been right when he said that Vicki might have to be killed if she did not call off her insurrection, as angry elephants could not be allowed to have free circulation in the community. It finds the thought of doing away with Vicki to take the fun out of a delightful situation, as Vicki had only been acting like an elephant and such excitement did not happen every day in Charlotte. So, it recommends that Vicki's pursuers should first think of the service the elephant had performed for youngsters who had tired of the Davy Crockett craze, and for the reputation of elephants in general, not to mention the newspapers and radio stations—and how

It suggests that what was needed at present was a hero to match Vicki's stubbornness and trickery, a Frank Buck type, to bring her back to the zoo. It says that it used to do some animal trapping, but had not the time of late to stay in practice, wonders whether there was a volunteer.

It seems that if there were anyone in the community with half a brain left after the invasion of television to the collective living rooms, they might take their heads for a moment out of the safaris of Africa and consider calling in a veterinarian and an expert with a dart gun, who might shoot a sedative into the hide of Vicki, enabling the service of a crane and cradle of straps then to haul Vicki onto a flatbed trailer and take it back to the zoo from whence it escaped. But perhaps that would be too simple, in light of the publicity being generated in service of the newspapers and radio stations. One is not supposed to butt in with sensible advice under such circumstances, interrupting the flow of commercial art at work, lest one become an exile from creeping Hollywood and all of its manifold mogul influences on the broader cultural mind, to the point that it was quickly becoming out of it. Where was Alvin Toffler when they needed his advice?

A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Poor Mr. Randall Smith", indicates that every few mornings it heard a radio commercial for a hair tonic, in which an executive asked his secretary who was next, to which she had replied Mr. Randall Smith, whereupon the executive would ask her to send instead the next a man to him, as he liked his appearance, at which point Mr. Smith inquired as to the problem, why he did not rate an interview, to which the secretary had replied that she was sorry but he had "draggle-top". After that exchange came a song assuring Mr. Smith and others that they could land that job if only they would obtain the hair tonic being advertised.

It indicates that if the author were an employer, Mr. Smith would have been granted an interview, as some of the most important men of the time had "draggle-top", including Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Wendell Willkie, Carl Sandburg, John L. Lewis, Thomas Edison, and Albert Schweitzer. Julius Caesar, it posits, would have given anything to have had a case of "draggle-top", as sported by Beethoven. It concludes that Mr. Smith should therefore cheer up, as he was in good company.

Drew Pearson, who returns from his month-long vacation to write directly from Havana, describes the city as being comprised of "old Spanish fortresses with dungeons as deep as Cuban politics; of electric signs against the skyline touting Canada Dry and Cadillacs; of palatial penthouses and outdoor cafés with little tables on the sidewalks where orchestras have given way to television; where the opera house features a child-welfare center; and where the growling sea dashes over the wall of the Malaccan as the political opposition growls at any president in power." He goes on with his description, indicating that it was a city where Ernest Hemingway challenged Ted Scott of the Havana Post to a duel because Mrs. Hemingway did not like Mr. Scott's negative appetite for lion steaks—a reference to Mr. Hemingway's African safaris. It was a city of limousines and push carts, one renowned for sin, "yet whose sin pales beside the juvenile jungles of Harlem; a city where sugar is king; where, when sugar falls or America cuts the quota, unemployment, unrest and the threat of Communism stalks the streets of Havana; but when sugar is up, gaiety runs riot through the stately palms, the fantastic trimmed laurel hedges, the hibiscus that line the streets of Havana." It was a city where radio commentator and political leader Eddie Chibas had shot himself in front of a microphone in protest against the graft of the previous administration. It was a city both modern and medieval, whose main passion was politics, all ruled by an ex-Army sergeant, Fulgencio Batista, who had once thrown out Cuba's most hated dictator and was now accused by his enemies of being a dictator, himself.

Mr. Pearson indicates that he came to Havana partly to get away from the "incessant drum-beat of American politics", getting into "the more romantic bongo drum-beat of Cuban politics", and to compare what the French were doing in Morocco with what the U.S. had done in Cuba. He finds that whereas the French had hung on to wealthy, turbulent North Africa until it was afire under their own feet, the U.S. had taken down its flag in wealthy, turbulent Cuba in 1902, three years after the Spanish-American war, and had the Cuban Republic flag hoisted in its stead, later scrapping, in 1933, the Platt Amendment, which had given the U.S. the right to intervene for the purpose of keeping peace and order in that republic. He asks whether that was a wise move or whether the French should have long earlier followed the U.S. example, in North Africa and Indo-China, and whether the Dutch should have done likewise in Indonesia, as well the British in Hong Kong, and whether the U.S. had been wise in granting independence to the Philippines, whether the Communistic scourge in the Far East might have been avoided had the French, British and Dutch long earlier given up their colonies as the U.S. had in Cuba and the Philippines.

He posits that most Americans would answer in the affirmative, while some pointed out that after Cuba's "butcher" President Machado had been thrown out of office with the blessing of the Roosevelt Administration, it had nine different presidents in quick succession, in whose administrations graft had run rampant, that the recent Prio Administration had announced that it was burning several million pesos to be replaced by new currency, but that those bills later had turned up in the pockets of certain persons within that Administration. Those critics also pointed out that one minister of education under President Grau had carted so many suitcases of cash off to Florida that he owned the Miami Sports Palace and several hotels, and even had the temerity, when asked by U.S. Customs what was in his baggage, to answer that it was cash. They also pointed out that the sergeant, Sr. Batista, who had kicked out President Machado, was now back in the presidential palace without the benefit of elections.

Joseph Alsop tells of the failure of the Administration to appoint Benjamin Cohen, formerly of the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations, to the U.N. delegation, despite initial approval of the appointment by the President, after Secretary of State Dulles had expressed the desire to have Mr. Cohen as a member of the delegation, based on Mr. Dulles, as a member of the delegation during the Truman Administration, having worked closely with him in those earlier years. Both House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had also approved of the appointment, as had Senator Walter George of Georgia, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. The appointment was also approved by former President Truman and Adlai Stevenson. The appointment was designed to obtain a Democrat in the Administration to provide at least the semblance of bipartisanship on foreign policy.

But while the President and Secretary of State were in Geneva in July for the Big Four summit conference, right-wing Republicans raised objection to the appointment with White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, and Mr. Adams, saying he wanted to avoid a squabble over the appointment at the end of the Congressional session when more important matters were still pending, then communicated with Mr. Cohen, asking him to agree to withdraw his appointment, which, after some thought, he agreed to do.

After the return of the President and Secretary Dulles, Mr. Adams informed them of the problem and Mr. Dulles told Mr. Cohen that the problem had been with acting majority leader Senator Earle Clements of Kentucky, when, in fact, that was not the case at all and Secretary Dulles had been misinformed by the Republican extremists.

Mr. Alsop concludes that the episode demonstrated the continuing "blackmail power" of the Republican extremists. Their primary objection to Mr. Cohen's appointment had been his views on the Formosa issue, but his views were virtually identical to those of the President and Secretary Dulles.

Herb Brown, writing in Changing Times, tells of lawn sprinkling having taken on the role in American culture that tiger hunting via elephants had in India for the hunters, giving one a feeling of accomplishment by properly aiming the hose at the lawn or flowerbeds, as one sat in a rocker or lay in a hammock. But now, he comments, the automatic sprinkler was replacing even that sense of accomplishment. He indicates that there might be a silver lining to the cloud in that once "millions of sprinklers are relieved of their burdens, they will have time for other things, such as reading good magazines", but that it was probably just a dream, "an editor's midsummer pipe dream".

A letter writer indicates that the Republicans had corralled the state Republican chairmen and some "feller" from South Carolina, and become "so overcome what with pep talks by Lennert Hall, national chairman, and dog stories by Nixon, and salaams in great obeisance to Ike, that they up and said right off that the Republicans could count on Nawth and South Calina being in the Ike Camp." He thinks, however, that it was about as likely as predicting snow in July.

A letter writer from Marion, N.C., says that "the familiar but nauseating cry of communism which (presumably) brought on the Supreme Court [Brown v. Board of Education] decision in the first place, seems to be with us again," as she had read with puzzled interest the letter published in the column recently from the Hamlet Athletic Club president, but had been unable to follow the writer's reasoning, not able to understand "what integration or non-integration has to do with the success or failure of communism." She believes it a joke to think that the present situation in the South was hurting the Communist cause. She believes that a person could not rise above his economic level and that blacks were not the only persons whose economic level needed to be raised. She thinks that education was not entirely the answer for raising the economic levels or there would not be so much juvenile delinquency, which she regards as "another shop-worn term", that it was from the "teeming tenements of the big cities and the poverty-stricken areas fringing" the not so big cities where much of the juvenile delinquency originated, while Communists appeared to come from a variety of areas, that persons attending school from those tenements found the good principles and fine ideals which they were taught in school to be deceitful when they returned home to a "dirty, shabby and overcrowded room in the tenement or a shack in some other area." Thus, that student fought it out with everyone in the neighborhood, finding it his natural instinct to hit back at circumstances beyond his control. For each of the few who became assets to a community, there were too many who turned to dangerous ways. She finds it definitely not the picture of the Southern blacks, who, admittedly, had their economic problems, along with some whites. She thinks that all of the effort and action being expended for and against segregation could be converted into more and better equipment for the present public schools and for provision of schools to teach labor skills, to create new community playgrounds for all and new and better housing projects in both the North and the South, that since they had the money and knew where it was needed, it should be put to the best uses "to keep peace and harmony among our people and to preserve our public school system". She regards the answer to be "as simple as that."

Well, good for you. You should run for president in 1956, as you have all the answers. One minor factor, however, which you seem to be neglecting, is the United States Constitution, which the Supreme Court and all of the other courts of the land, and the Federal Government, as well as the state and local governments, must abide, as it is the supreme law of the land, as declared by our Founders. But if you were raised as a neo-Confederate, perhaps that was lacking in your education. So, we recommend getting out a copy of the document and reading its supremacy clause and then study what the Fourteenth Amendment means, in detail, and perhaps you will be on your way then to affording yourself a much better education than the one you obviously received in school, or the one, perhaps, you unfortunately slept or daydreamed through, while conjuring up images in your mind of the Old South, where all was lovely and lazy and copacetic, where everything and everyone had a place and stuck to it, was as happy as happy could be.

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