The Charlotte News
Saturday, February 11, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had arranged to go to the Army's Walter Reed Hospital in Washington this date to begin a battery of physical examinations, the outcome of which could determine his decision whether or not to run for re-election, with White House press secretary James Hagerty indicating that the President would remain in the hospital for between two and two and a half hours for preliminary medical tests, with the entire examination set to be completed by sometime the following Tuesday and results to be made public at that time or by Wednesday morning. The President had said at his press conference the prior Wednesday that his decision would be made more on how he felt, than the report he would get from his physicians. Four of his attending doctors would conduct the tests, coming 4 1/2 months after his September 24 heart attack.
In Cincinnati, a stay of execution had been granted by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding its order to require immediate desegregation of pupils of the elementary schools of Hillsboro, O. The attorneys for the school board had sought the delay, having 30 days to take their case to the Supreme Court. A U.S. District Court judge had declined to issue an injunction against the board which had refused to permit about 20 black children to attend a particular school, basing that decision on the Brown v. Board of Education implementing decision of 1955, leaving it to the District Court judges to determine the time limit for desegregation. The judge said that after his ruling had been reversed, he would join the Hillsboro school board in the appeal to the Supreme Court, after the school board had said it would end all segregation in city schools by the following September, when additional school rooms, presently being built, would become available. The school board said that black children were attending the school in question and that it was not a matter of segregation but rather lack of room which had caused additional black students to be turned away, with private instruction provided for the black children who had been denied admission to that school during the current year.
In Montgomery, Ala., Senator James Eastland of Mississippi challenged a rebel-yelling crowd to fight racial integration with massive resistance, but without lawlessness, as the pro-segregation crowd at the rally the previous night, estimated at 15,000, had been urged by an Alabama State Senator to "go home peacefully and orderly." Senator Eastland had outlined a three-point program for resistance to desegregation, that white people in the South should organize a "grassroots" campaign to preserve their separate school systems, that the South needed a tax-supported regional commission to "answer the vast attack and cope with the tremendous sums that are being used to misrepresent us," that they should organize every county, city and community into a grassroots organization, and that each Southern state should adopt a firm segregation policy, enabling white Southerners to stall integration for a long time. He also endorsed the policy of nullification, recently adopted by the Alabama Legislature, which had declared that the Supreme Court's ban on school segregation was "null and void". The rally had been organized by the Central Alabama Citizens Council.
Before the special Senate committee investigating the case of Senator Francis Case of South Dakota regarding the offer of a campaign contribution of $2,500 to the Senator from an attorney of Lexington, Neb., to determine what, if any, intent there had been to try to bribe the Senator in his vote on the gas deregulation bill, a witness had appeared who was an aide to Senator Case, saying that the man who had made the offer of the campaign contribution had visited the Senator's office in Washington the prior month and had made some reference to the natural gas bill, but she could not recall exactly what he said. She testified that she had referred the man to Senator Case's legislative clerk and had been present while the man spoke to the clerk, but that she had not heard what was said. Senator Case had been inclined to support the measure initially, but had finally voted against it the prior Monday, after informing the Senate of the campaign contribution. The man who made the contribution had denied any intention to influence Senator Case's vote. Senator Styles Bridges of the four-Senator committee, two Republicans and two Democrats, one from each party having supported the bill and the other from each party having been opposed to it, said that if other contributions were mentioned, the committee might have to seek broader authority to look into other cases, but that thus far, that had not occurred.
In London, it was reported that Europe's mercy airlift had gathered speed this date as helicopters and cargo planes brought food and fuel to thousands of snowbound villages across a score of European countries blanketed by deep snow, leaving 253 dead, with France still being the hardest hit, recording 66 deaths, Italy, 42, Britain, 40, Greece, 26, Germany, 18, Turkey, 16, Denmark, 14, The Netherlands, 10, and several others across other countries. Two Royal Air Force helicopters had fought through a blizzard to rescue the ten-man crew of a Brazilian freighter which had hit a sandbank. Aircraft from Sweden and Denmark had joined in directing icebreakers to free more than 100 ships caught in the Kattegat between those two nations. Mediterranean Marseille in France had recorded its lowest temperature in 50 years at 20 degrees, while 70 mph gales sent ships scuttling for port.
In Denver, a 24-year old man who was accused of killing his mother and 43 others by dynamiting an airliner to obtain insurance money, had failed the previous night in an attempt to choke himself to death while in jail. A jail guard had restored him to consciousness after he had reportedly been "out cold" for five minutes, and a jail physician said that he was in good condition and would suffer no ill effects. He was not taken to a hospital. He had fashioned the noose by knotting together a pair of lightweight socks he had been wearing. A jury trial to determine his sanity was scheduled to begin on March 5. One of his three court-appointed attorneys said that the suicide attempt indicated that he "may have gone stark, raving insane." Four psychiatrists, including two appointed for the defense, had previously concluded that he was sane. Federal agents had said that he had admitted placing a time-bomb constructed of 23 sticks of dynamite in his mother's luggage which was then placed aboard a United Air Lines plane which had blown up the prior November 1, shortly after takeoff from the Denver airport. He had since recanted his admissions regarding planting of the bomb and had pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. Improvements of the security in his cell were being undertaken by the jail. As a result of the crash, the Senate the previous day had passed and sent to the House a measure allowing the death penalty in cases of fatal airplane sabotage, with the previous Federal penalty for peacetime sabotage of aircraft having been ten years in prison. For that reason, the case had been turned over to Colorado prosecutors, enabling them to seek the state's death penalty if the defendant was convicted of first-degree murder, with which he was charged in the death of his mother and the other passengers.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that two Air Force officers had been killed when their T33 Air Force jet trainer had missed a second instrument approach to the fog-enshrouded Douglas Municipal Airport in Charlotte this date and had crashed and burned, missing a house when it came to rest, with no others injured. The officers were attached to the Air Force Academy at Lowery Air Force Base in Colorado and were on a routine training flight from Glenview Naval Air Station in Illinois to Charlotte when the accident occurred. Wreckage had been scattered over an area of about 200 yards and both men had died instantly, one being thrown from the plane and the other being removed a few hours later. The plane had hit a power line and disrupted electrical and telephone service for several hours.
Charles Kuralt of The News reports that three additional Charlotte businesses had been hit by vandalism the previous night, with Police Chief Frank Littlejohn saying this date that he was certain that the culprits were the same ones who had entered Harding High School the prior Wednesday night and Harris Supermarket on Thursday, committing similar acts of vandalism. Every available Youth Bureau officer had been assigned to the job to try to stop the wave of vandalism. The previous night's break-ins had followed the same pattern as the other recent cases, which had hit recreation centers, schools and churches in the city. The chief said, "The kids must be nuts, insane to do what they're doing." He called on the public to assist by calling the police whenever they observed youngsters acting suspiciously. In the break-ins the previous night, windows had been knocked out at all three establishments, and pies and beer cans thrown against the walls and a can of beer opened and apparently drunk by the intruder at one of the locations, a grill. A small amount of change was taken from the cash register of another establishment, a restaurant, along with costume jewelry and a few cigarette lighters. At the third establishment, a laundry, paper was stripped from laundry bundles and dry cleaning, but nothing was apparently stolen. A hammer, stolen from the vandalized restaurant, had been used to break into the laundry. Theft appeared to be only a secondary motive in all of the cases reported during the week, with total damage exceeding a thousand dollars.
Look, look, look.... They are just
all agitated in their adolescent genes at the arrival in town of that
boy, Elvis, down at the Carolina again this date. Don't miss him, as
he will be moving on down the road to another Carolina in Winston,
after tonight. Don't wait for 'at, 'cause you'll have to get down theya on that old cu'vy road, 85 mile to get theya. You can still get in heya for 85 cent, 50 cent if you are a
child. He may never come back. You better hurry. Four shows a day,
eight in all. You could attend all of them, if you're a child, for
only four dolla. You might not have any candy money left for the
week, but that's okay. Save your teeth. Go watch Elvis. He gonna be
big...
In St. Louis, a judge granted a divorce to a woman from her husband, ending six years of marriage, the wife not asking for alimony and charging general indignities, which included nonsupport, use of obscene language and that her husband became jealous without cause. She was 81, and her husband was 37. He had filed no answer to the divorce suit.
In Arlington, Ky., a man sought to hold up a bank with a gun, but two of his female hostages, one of whom carried the bank's estimated $55,000 in cash, had run away from him and left him holding the gun which would not shoot, confronted by a mob of 20 citizens. His getaway car proved useless, having been towed away because the motor would not start. The holdup man was a vacuum cleaner salesman who had entered the bank in mid-afternoon, carrying a box and a pistol. But experts said that the pistol had been loaded with the wrong size cartridges and never would have fired. After persons outside had noted strange occurrences within the bank, a posse was quickly formed and was waiting for the would-be robber when he departed the bank, leaving four persons lying on the floor, discovering his predicament when he reached the back door, then forcing the assistant cashier to carry his money-filled box while he covered the posse with his pistol, only to have a person waiting outside the door slug him with his fist. He forgot to take the clock.
In Jacksonville, Fla., a youth, 17,
according to police, had been charged with disorderly conduct in
connection with several threatening letters to a teenage girl, which
had identified the writer as an invisible creature "from a
planet in outer space; far out in space—900 trillion miles out
in space." One of the love letters ended with an apology for the
pencil scrawl, saying, "I don't know why I can't write good when
I'm on earth." Well, he was just pretty far out, about 10 or 12
years ahead of his time, writing love letters in the sands of space
On the editorial page, "The Glow of Pride Is Local, Too" tells of Community magazine's report on 1955 achievements of federated fund-raising across the nation to be matched only by Charlotte's United Appeal fever chart. That magazine was the official organ of Community Chest and Councils of America, Inc., and had announced that united community campaigns had raised more for 1956 services than ever before, a total of 340 million dollars, 38 million more than the previous year.
The United Fund movement had begun six years earlier and already had accounted for approximately 59 percent of total funds raised. The response nationwide had been quite good, as it was in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.
United Community Services of Charlotte had provided figures this date which substantiated that fact, showing that the 1955 campaign had collected more than $950,000, the most in the community's history, $4.42 per capita, some $21,000 more than their goal for the year. In 1951, the last year of the Community Chest, the goal had been $386,500 and the final total, more than $404,000, $1.89 per capita. There had been progress in each of the five previous years.
As the community had grown, so had the need for social services, and the United Appeal had expanded its fund collections for 32 agencies, compared with 20 under the old Community Chest. It concludes that no cause was more deserving of the support of residents than the United Appeal campaign.
"Liberalism: Who Knows & Who Cares?" indicates that the Americans for Democratic Action and extreme right-wing elements of the Republican Party had one thing in common, that both were outraged by what they called "Eisenhower liberals".
Senator Herbert Lehman of New York had expressed the ADA point of view the previous week, when he had called the President and his advisers "phony liberals", while Republican conservatives had countered with an anguished cry against the President's "liberalism", of which they wanted no part. One right-wing journal had suggested that American conservatives might "sit on their hands" in November if the "White House liberals" maintained their grip on the Republican Party.
Senator Lehman said that what appeared to be Eisenhower "liberalism" was really the product of the "stodgy, stifling atmosphere of caution and restraint—a spirit of search—not for solutions, but for slogans, an emphasis not on pioneering, but on merchandising."
The New York Herald Tribune, which cherished its liberalism as much as its Republicanism, had once asked its readers what a liberal was, the piece providing sample opinions from its survey. It suggests that, classically, liberalism was a philosophy which stood for an attitude favorable to the freest and fullest development of the individual, standing midway between conservation and radicalism, holding that men were sufficiently reasonable to be able to modify an older order in favor of more progressive institutions without resorting to violence.
But it finds that the contemporary view of liberalism took a different view of society, not following the true liberal tradition and not deserving sainthood any more than it deserved to be a whipping boy for all of the nation's political ills.
It asserts that no American political party had a monopoly on liberalism, that the two major parties were flexible enough to accommodate people with many different philosophical views, that each was a composite body, containing a cross-section of the whole American population, which it believes was as it should be.
It suggests that the President's supposed "liberalism" was sheer nonsense, that the label was unimportant, that the substance was what mattered, that the present social engineers would find neither Edmund Burke nor John Stuart Mill infallible guides, that the time had come to get old labels out of their heads and buckle down to the business of getting things done.
"Yoicks! The Royces Are Running" tells of fox hunting being on its last leg in England as hunt clubs were now permitting riding to the hounds in Rolls-Royces, to afford additional revenue for expensive stabling of their own horses and packs. It reports that there were, however, complications, that when a fox started across the road, motorized spectators were given to honking, beeping, and shouting, "View, hallo!" and "Yoicks!" from their car windows, meant to encourage the dogs, but usually had turned the fox, and the motorists sometimes ran over the hounds, eager to pursue the fox.
It suggests instead the method of the unhorsed Southern farmer who loosed his dogs and then sat down and stopped to listen to the chase, which was good listening and cheap as dirt.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled, "Influencing Old Fido", tells of a news story with a humorous twist, reporting that meter readers in Dothan, Ala., were tired of being nipped at by dogs and so were learning the names of the dogs and noting them in their meter books, so that they could call the dogs by name and hopefully avoid being bitten.
It questions whether the practice would do any good as those who had conversed earnestly with dogs had been told that nothing so provoked a dog as manifestations of belligerency and evidences of fear, that to shout or strike at a dog aroused the dog's instincts of self-defense, and that to run from one aroused its instincts of chase, that to stand still and speak quietly and amiably and then move slowly either toward or away from it, offering no hand or foot to bite but only a sniff, was the way to make friends with a dog.
We favor the approach we learned as a little tyke, reaching under a porch for mama dog's pups, to pet the cute little creatures, in the presence of mama dog—for which we got, for our pains, our only bite thus far as a human, thus learning an instructive lesson. That incident, as we recall, came sometime after we had petted the copperhead snake on the front porch of our dwelling, the latter incident having occurred in a relative's territory. We also learned from the earlier incident not to pet snakes, thinking that they were toys. In any event, we still remember the bite which inflicted small damage to a portion of our face. Never try to pet the pups of a strange dog in the presence of mama dog.
Drew Pearson indicates that to appreciate the "savage intensity" with which the "usually suave, usually genial" Senator Lyndon Johnson had cracked down on any expansion of the case of the probe into the gas lobby, one had to appreciate behind-the-scenes factors of which the public was unaware regarding the debate on the bill to deregulate natural gas—which had already passed both houses and was with the President for decision on whether to veto it, as had his predecessor the previous attempt to deregulate. During the debate, former Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson had been active in lobbying for Columbia Gas, seeking to change votes.
Senator Frederick Payne of Maine, a Republican, had received heavy contributions from the oil and gas industry when he had defeated Senator Owen Brewster in the primary, and Senator Payne had voted for the bill despite the fact that New England was in need of cheap gas and power.
Senator Johnson had outsmarted Senate liberals by calling for a vote at 11:00 a.m. on whether to confine the investigation to the single alleged case of Senator Francis Case and the attempt to bribe him. The time was for the vote was an hour before the Senate usually met and caught Senate liberals off guard, despite plenty of notice. Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon, Paul Douglas of Illinois, Richard Neuberger of Oregon and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota had all been absent and so had not demanded a broadened investigation, enabling the Senate Majority Leader to pass the resolution narrowly, calling for a special committee to investigate the offer of $2,500 to Senator Case
Meanwhile, Senator Thomas Hennings of Missouri, then presiding over a meeting of his regular Elections Committee, decided to proceed with the probe of the entire gas lobby and its contributions to members of Congress, phoning Senator Case and asking him to appear that afternoon at 2:00. Word of that action got back to Senator Johnson and he quickly appointed his own special committee, consisting of Democrats Senator Walter George of Georgia and Carl Hayden of Arizona, both of whom were approaching 80 and not accustomed to moving fast in their Senate deliberations. But Senator Johnson had forced them to do so and they met immediately in Vice-President Nixon's office, who then made an unusual ruling that the special committee had complete jurisdiction over any gas lobbying probe. It was unusual as the Vice-President was supposed to make rulings in the Senate only as presiding officer from the rostrum, but he and Senator William Knowland of California, the Minority Leader, who disagreed with the Vice-President on most things, were in complete agreement on prevention of the expansion of the investigation. Senator Johnson's office then sent for Senator Hennings, who was ready for a conference immediately, but was informed that Senator Johnson was not yet free, as he was conferring with Senator George and the Vice-President in an effort to push ahead the special limited probe. Finally, at 1:40 p.m., 20 minutes before Senator Hennings was supposed to begin presiding over his Elections Committee, the latter was called to meet with Senator Johnson, who told him that by holding a hearing in the afternoon on an expanded investigation, he would be in contempt of the Senate, to which Senator Hennings responded that it was not, based on what Senator Johnson had said on the Senate floor the previous day, pointing out that both he and Senator Knowland had stated that the Hennings Committee had complete jurisdiction to investigate the entire question of gas lobbying. Senator Johnson then said that Senator Hennings was up for re-election during the current year and that under Senate rules he should not be investigating matters of that kind. Senator Hennings then inquired as to why, therefore, he had appointed Senators George and Hayden to the special committee, both of whom were up for re-election. Senator Johnson argued that Senator Hennings did not understand the problem of natural gas, which was an extremely important matter in Texas, which he compared to the beer business in Missouri. Senator Hennings responded that the beer business did not influence his vote in Missouri and went back to his Committee, before which Senator Case had turned up with a letter from Senator George informing that he could not meet with the Elections Committee, hiding in a phone booth with his arm over his face so that photographers could not take a picture of him.
Mr. Pearson concludes that thus continued the backstage wire-pulling to prevent any investigation of the most powerful lobby which had influenced Washington in years.
A letter writer notes, "with some amusement but with much dismay", the comments of a previous letter writer on February 7 regarding the young white girl who was attending a high school in Asheville which previously had only been attended by black students, the previous writer having stated that he was "certain that the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the state are amazed and shocked" at the news item and also by the fact that First Lady Mamie Eisenhower had provided a letter to the girl commending her for making the way easier for integration of the schools. This writer doubts that many North Carolinians were in any way amazed and shocked that a white student was attending that school, that he had heard no one mention it and that people usually were vocal when shocked and amazed. He says that the previous writer had brought no credit upon himself and had shed no light by his attempt to brand the young white girl as "emotionally unstable" and a tool of evil forces. "Southern white gentlemen and gentlemen of any color anywhere do not attack 14 year old girls; nor should anyone, with his wits about him, dare to assume so much as did the writer of that letter—he drew conclusions not from facts but from what he wanted to believe." He says that the previous writer had never explained why it was such a "deplorable situation" for the girl to be attending the formerly all-black school, and had failed to mention that one of the President's grandchildren attended a non-segregated kindergarten. He references another letter from February 8, "from an even more rabid segregationist who lovingly plays with the idea that Negroes never should have become citizens of this country and that perhaps they never would have, had it not been for men such as A. Lincoln and his ilk." He says that the founding fathers did not use the words "slave" or "slavery" in the Constitution because they could not "besmirch that fair document with words of such rank ignominy," while debating the subject of slavery. The Constitution had resulted from numerous compromises, with hardly anything included in it having been completely supported by every delegate to the Constitutional convention. "The South—really showing itself, as usual—" would not have joined the proposed union of states, had the Constitution contained any words or clauses which might prohibit the practice of slavery. So that the union could be formed, the South had its way, until the matter could be settled later. The Civil War had settled the issue and nothing could change the fact that there were 15 million black people in the country, all of whom were American citizens by birth and having the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"—though the letter writer does not point out that the latter phrase actually comes from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, which speaks, in its due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, of "life, liberty or property" which the Federal Government cannot take from an individual without due process of law, made applicable to the states by the 14th Amendment due process clause. He affirms that the 14th and 15th Amendments would not be abolished, that they would be enforced and that it was seldom mentioned, but that a great many white Southerners who were relatively free from prejudice, understood the "tyranny, injustice and other evils inherent in segregation." He thinks that it was a fallacy to reason that only Northerners would strive to put an end to segregation, and saw increasing evidence that many Southerners were giving segregation less support, that the die-hard bigots had to realize that they were losing their audiences and were no longer considered respectable. He says that the South had brought shame and disrepute on itself by its adherence to slavery and that further outrage had been perpetrated in the South by giving lip-service to the "separate but equal" doctrine, which had always been a theory rather than a practice, serving only as a means of discrimination. "Our leaders in the South do great wrong if they remain small and mean, if they do not now set a straight course for the southern states to put them back in the U.S.A."
A letter writer from Bakersville finds that the students of the University of Alabama had given "the top exhibition of juvenile savagery" in their mob action against the admission of the first black undergraduate student to that University, Autherine Lucy. He says that the mob action had been a great shock to the nation and was reminiscent of a "lynching bee", causing him to wonder where the nation was in race relations. In December, the students at Georgia Tech in Atlanta had given a rousing demonstration for racial tolerance by burning in effigy Governor Marvin Griffin, after he had proposed that the University system ban any member college or university from participating in post-season football bowl games when an opponent had a black member of its team, aimed at Georgia Tech, who was slated to play, and did play, the University of Pittsburgh in the Sugar Bowl, an invitation to exclusion which the University system declined to implement. He finds, with the violence at Tuscaloosa, a racial crisis shaping up in the nation and that it should look to its higher educational institutions for constructive help, as any aspiring and qualified American youth ought be able to enter any university. He finds it a "lame alibi", though perhaps with some truth in it, that much of the mob in Tuscaloosa had been "outsiders" and "drunks", according to press reports. He questions whether a university ran itself or whether someone else ran it.
A letter writer responds to a letter, apparently the same of February 8 to which the other writer had referred, saying it was true that some Spanish and Portuguese ships had brought in black slaves, but that the great majority had been brought by American ships, chiefly trading ships from the port of Boston, referencing Boston's public library for the source of the information. He says that when Patrick Henry had made his famous declaration regarding liberty prior to the Revolution, there had been no blacks in the country, that when Lewis and Clark made their expedition, they had seen many Indians, but not a "few million", as suggested by the previous writer. The Indian division of the Interior Department had reported in 1955 that there were presently over half a million Indians in the country, the largest number ever recorded in the country's history, of whom only about half were full-blooded. He finds the "darkest blot upon the escutcheon of the United States" to have been the treatment of its Indians, that when the white man had come to the continent, he had taken what he wanted, either paying in baubles or by force, introducing fire water and venereal diseases among the tribes who had formerly only warred against each other on occasion. Treaties had been made with the various tribes, but had been broken at will, finally placing the Indians on reservations, the writer finding one of the most pitiful stories to have been President Andrew Jackson's treatment of the Cherokees and Seminoles. He regards it as shameful that Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney, and Presidents James Madison, James Monroe and Jackson had done nothing to help the poor Indians when they were being stripped of their hunting lands, except to penalize them when they were being pushed back to the poorer barren areas. He says that when England decided to return its slaves, the reason had been overcrowded conditions, resulting in insufficient food to feed the population. He says that he had lived in England for nearly four years and had read in the libraries of the early black problem there, assures that the British were not built of any finer moral fiber than Americans.
A letter writer from Fort Amador in the Canal Zone finds that the politicians of the South were seeking to thwart Brown v. Board of Education for only one reason, to obtain votes from the ignorant and unknowing of the rural South, who had never had a real opportunity "to analyze intelligently the problem for themselves." Their one predominant argument, he finds, was "amalgamation", trying to present themselves as men of principle "devoted to a greater, more productive America, under God and the laws of the land." They had aroused the people of the South based on one theory, the prospect of intermarriage coming with integration. They sought to maintain, "even as the worst of world bigots, Adolf Hitler, would, 'the pure white blood strain.'" He regards it as political bunk, that black people were not interested, for the most part, in interracial marriage, that they only wanted, and had to demand, economic and political freedom. He would not deny any person, regardless of race or station in life, the right to choose friends and associates, but would also not deny any person the opportunity to get the job for which that person was qualified, the right to a decent home in a clean neighborhood, and the right to a fair and impartial court system. Many Southerners feared that in attaining economic equality, blacks would seek to enter the social structure of the family, but that was not true, as shown by all of the nonsegregated portions of the nation. He says that those in the South were afraid that blacks would assume a voice in government, which they rightfully should have, that black citizens had been denied the ballot for so long that the attempt was being made to make it into permanent political disenfranchisement, which he insists would not work. He had read of the condemnation of the NAACP in The News and in speeches made by Southern politicians, and finds that neither the newspaper nor the politicians understood the basic problem of the NAACP, that its trouble was that it had been dormant for too long, standing still, compromising instead of demanding, backing down rather than fighting, and now that during the previous ten years, with "men of vision and ability" having taken control of the organization, it had been aroused from its lethargic state, with many people then labeling it communistic, a charge far from the truth. He finds that the question was whether the people would obey the laws of the land, and asserts that men and women of all races possessed of love of nation and Christian spirit would undoubtedly work toward implementation of the law. He says that he had attended mixed schools since the first grade through four years of college and had contact in that process with thousands of students of all races and was aware of not a single case of interracial marriage, despite having classes together, participation in athletics and extracurricular activities, including dances, together, and that some of his finest friendships had been built during those times with students of both races, that such experience invalidated the theory of amalgamation. He also finds that the armed forces had conclusively proven that integration could and would work, as men of all races worked together therein, working, playing and serving together without trouble or incident. He says that the NAACP would become a "dynamic organization, uniting the people, the intelligent American public, into a great force demanding equal rights for all citizens regardless of their race, creed, or station in life." He concludes that they would meet any and all problems as they arose within the law and urges black people to stand up for their rights and fight for that in which they believed. "Let us approach the problem with an intelligent and prayerful attitude, but let us also accept the challenge with fervent desire and dedicated determination."
A letter writer from Lancaster, S.C., responds to a letter published February 8 from a doctor of Hickory—the same to which the writer above had responded in part—, who said that the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights had not referred to slavery. He had reread the Constitution and especially, Article I, Section 2, clause 3, which apportioned Representatives and direct taxes among the several states included within the Union, "according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and including Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons." He also quotes from Article I, Section 9, clause 1, that the "migration or importation of such persons as many of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress" prior to 1808.
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