The Charlotte News
Wednesday, March 14, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Manchester, N.H., the first primary of the 1956 campaign had given a clear-cut victory to Senator Estes Kefauver the previous day, placing new power in his drive for the Democratic nomination. The Senator received all 12 Democratic delegates from the state and its eight convention delegate votes, crushing a slate which had favored Adlai Stevenson, who had not personally campaigned in the primary and was not on the ballot. Senator Kefauver had received 18,604 votes in 260 of 297 precincts reporting, while Mr. Stevenson had received a write-in vote of 3,419. But the election's real surprise had been Vice-President Nixon, who had received a write-in vote of 18,367 in a vice-presidential preference poll, surprising because his name was not on the ballot, he had done no campaigning in the state, and there had been no organized effort made on his behalf. It appeared to be the result of a spontaneous eruption of public sentiment for the Vice-President. As anticipated, the 14 Republican delegates backing President Eisenhower were elected, with the President receiving 46,467 votes in the 260 precincts thus far reporting. He had been unopposed on the Republican side. The voting had been light in the primary, with the anticipated total appearing not to exceed 75,000, compared to 136,000 in 1952. The following week, there would be a primary in Minnesota which would be a more decisive test of Democratic strength, as both Mr. Stevenson and Senator Kefauver would be on the ballot.
In London, a storm of resentment gathered against the U.S. as the House of Commons assembled for debate on the crisis regarding Cyprus. Almost all British newspapers wrote angrily of U.S. Ambassador Cavendish Cannon who had stated to the Greek Government "the sympathetic concern of the U.S. Government over recent developments in Cyprus." Most newspapers considered the Ambassador's remarks to constitute outright U.S. meddling in the dispute over Britain's island colony in the eastern Mediterranean, which Greece wanted to annex. A conciliatory statement from Washington had come too late the previous night for immediate British comment. The State Department denied that the U.S. was taking sides in the dispute over Cyprus and offered to help find a "fair and just solution". Labor Party members seeking to censure Prime Minister Anthony Eden's Government for collapse of the talks with Cyprus and the deportation of Archbishop Makarios of the Greek Orthodox Church, found fresh fuel in the remarks of Ambassador Cannon. The Laborite Daily Herald said that the Ambassador's statement was fully justified. If the Labor Party motion of censure proved successful in Commons, it would force the Eden Government to resign. The Conservatives, however, possessed voting strength to defeat the motion, but the statement by Ambassador Cannon had done nothing to help the Government in the debate. The impact of the Ambassador's remarks was heightened by the Greek Foreign Minister having commented that Greece had "noted with deep satisfaction the … recognition of the Cypriots' just claims." The Conservative Daily Mail described the Ambassador's statement as "a kick in the teeth".
The U.S. prodded both Greeks and Britons this date to put aside violence and force in their dispute over Cyprus and return to the negotiating table. At the same time, the Department sought to impress on Britain that the U.S. was not taking sides in the controversy and that it sought only a fair and just solution, agreeable to Britain, Greece, Turkey and the people of Cyprus. Turkey, like Greece, Britain and the U.S., a member of NATO, had been concerned over the Cyprus situation, in part because a sizable minority of the island's people were Turkish.
Senate leaders were reported this date to have decided on a course which would bypass committee action on an election reform bill sponsored by 85 Senators, with the intent being to speed passage of the legislation. The Senate Rules Committee, to which the measure had been referred, had called a closed meeting for consideration of that and other matters. The customary procedure would be for the Rules Committee to refer the measure to its Elections subcommittee, but Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, chairman of that subcommittee, said that he understood that the latest plan of Senate leaders was to have the Rules Committee take no action on the bill, that instead it would be offered as amendments to another election reform bill sponsored by Senator Thomas Hennings of Missouri and approved the previous year by a divided vote of the Rules Committee. The Hennings bill had been awaiting Senate action since the previous June, but had run into opposition because it applied to primaries as well as general elections. The latest measure to revise the election laws had been introduced on February 28 by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson for himself and his Republican counterpart, Senator William Knowland of California, with Senator Johnson indicating that 85 Senators now had joined as sponsors. Senator Gore told the press in advance of the Rules Committee meeting that he had been informed that the plan now was to call up the Hennings bill for early action in the Senate and to offer provisions of the Johnson bill as amendments to it, requiring no action by the Rules Committee, and Senator Gore said that he would raise no objection to that procedure. Both measures were similar in many aspects and would require full reporting of campaign contributions and expenditures, but the Johnson bill would not apply to primary elections, as did the Hennings bill, with the argument being that in many states, mainly in the South, primaries were decisive in electing the eventual general election winner. Senator Gore said that he favored making the law applicable to primaries, but Southern opponents contended that primaries were a state matter and should not be subject to Federal control.
The Senate was completing its version of an election year farm bill this date, presently containing a new wheat price support plan opposed by the Administration. A combination of Democrats and wheat-state Republicans had written into the bill the previous night, by a 54 to 39 vote, a "domestic parity" program for wheat, designed to assure that wheat used for human consumption in the country would bring growers a return equal to 100 percent of parity, fair return in relation to their costs. Other wheat being exported or used for livestock feed and similar uses would be sold for what the market would bring. Although something of a setback for the Administration, its first on the farm bill, the practical effect was considerably lessened. The new wheat program would not take effect before the 1957 crop and then only if two-thirds of the wheat farmers voted for it in a referendum and if Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson agreed to try it. Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois called the wheat price support plan, sponsored primarily by fellow Republican Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, "so beautifully complicated that not even a Solomon could administer it." Senator Richard Russell of Georgia had helped put the wheat amendment through and then sought to follow it up with a similar program for cotton, but had lost by a vote of 57 to 33, as some of the wheat-state Senators refused to go along and cotton-state Senators had split their votes. Senator Johnson had won agreement to tighten limits on debate, pointing to the slow progress made under a two-hour limit on amendments in effect since the prior Thursday. The Senate agreed to limit debate on each proposed amendment to one hour and hold long sessions on Thursday and Friday in an effort to speed final action.
In Montgomery, Ala., prosecutors said that a middle-aged waitress had admitted slaying her mother, three small daughters and two of her five husbands by means of arsenic poisoning. The defendant had admitted in a signed statement that she had fed ant poison to her present husband, who had once been her stepson. He had survived but was paralyzed. His illness from arsenic poisoning for the previous nine months had led to the murder investigations. A preliminary hearing was set for this date on the only formal charge yet brought against the woman, the killing of her fourth husband, who had died in 1951. The defendant's signed statement came after three days of questioning. She had been vague about a motive for the admitted poisoning of seven people, but, according to the solicitor, had told of having insurance on all six victims who had died. She had recalled receiving between $3,000 and $4,000 from the death of one of the victims. The solicitor said that she had also described poisoning her second husband in 1939, and her mother in 1944. She had denied killing two other children. Had it not been for the earlier poisonings, her defense counsel might have posited an insanity defense on her having seen "Arsenic and Old Lace" in 1944, but...
In New York, six members of a family had died early this date when overcome by gas while they slept in their basement apartment in Brooklyn, with police saying that three children and three adults had been found dead in the home. Police said that a defective gas water heater had been the cause of the deaths. A seventh member of the family, a child, had survived and was taken to a hospital.
In Statesville, N.C., local police this date awaited extensive laboratory findings from the State Bureau of Investigation for their investigation of a murder of a woman on the previous Monday night. Meanwhile, Statesville police were tracking down numerous clues in the mysterious murder of the 59-year old woman, found dead in her ransacked home by her husband Monday night, with a length of cord knotted around her neck, an autopsy having shown that she had died by strangulation. Bloodhounds had twice led officers to the Mitchell College campus and both times had trailed to the door of the school's kitchen, but the Safety director said that no evidence had been discovered at that location. Police had also found the words "A Neg..." at the bottom of a letter which the deceased woman had been writing to her sister, though the fragment appeared unrelated to the rest of the letter.
In Columbia, S.C., three segregation bills and a pageboy who was fired for criticizing the State Senate's segregation activities had featured the state legislative scene this date. One bill would fire from state, county or local employment any members of the NAACP and would ban any future employment of NAACP members on South Carolina government payrolls. Two of the bills had been presented to Governor George Bell Timmerman, Jr., for his signature or veto, one of which would allow police officers to transfer a black child enrolled by court order at a white school back to a black school to avoid "civil commotion", while the other would create a legislative and Governor's committee to investigate the effect of activities of the NAACP at the State College for Negroes. The Senate page, 23, had been discharged for an article which had appeared in the Gamecock, the student weekly newspaper at the University of South Carolina, where he was a student, with the page stating that it had been an experiment to test campus reaction, but that he had not explained that ahead of time and so probably got what he deserved. The article had said that the State Senate was "intent on circumventing" integration, adding that he was ashamed to be called a Southerner and that he was a Southerner only by "the biological accident" of birth. He said that he had prepared an article for this week's student paper explaining that the original article had just been an experiment.
In Charlotte, in the third and final day of the HUAC subcommittee hearings, an article reports that Charlotte area people had apparently been interested in the hearings, as the previous day, the small courtroom where they were taking place had been packed and a dozen or so people had stood in the back of the courtroom, while many listened to the radio accounts and others watched brief television films or read newspaper accounts of the hearings. Representative Francis Walter, chairman of the subcommittee, said that he had received "many" letters and calls from people in the area, most of whom hailed the work of the subcommittee. Others told of people they suspected of being Communist. Mr. Walter said that no one really knew whether there was more Communist activity in the Carolinas than in other parts of the country, but that experts suggested there was only about average influence compared to the rest of the nation. Charlotte had yet to be mentioned in any pertinent testimony during the hearings and none of the witnesses before the subcommittee was from that part of the state. It was unlikely that any of the witnesses would face any criminal proceedings, but one had been fired from his job, one had resigned, and one was facing inquiry from his employer. The adjournment of the hearing occurred a half day early, with only a morning session this date.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that a curtain of secrecy had fallen over the hearings this date and the possibility was strong that the subcommittee had a mystery witness standing in the wings, with the subcommittee not revealing the name or names of witnesses called during the morning session. Some believed it might be Odis Reavis of Winston-Salem, who had been referred to on Monday in the testimony of Charles Childs, the former FBI undercover agent who had testified as a Government witness, indicating that Mr. Reavis had been introduced to him as a Communist from Detroit and High Point. It was also being speculated that Mr. Reavis might be a friendly witness. He was presently employed at Western Electric in Winston-Salem. Mr. Walter had said that they had possessed at the start of the hearings every belief that some of the persons called to testify would cooperate regarding their former activities for the Communist Party, but that it was clear from his viewpoint that help for the 11 witnesses had been sent from Communist Party headquarters in New York. He had warned several witnesses the previous day of potential contempt citations for refusing to testify.
On the editorial page, "Pleading the Privilege: A Moral Issue" tells of the two and a half days of hearings before the HUAC subcommittee taking place in Charlotte during the week having dissolved into a monotonous refrain of refusals to answer on the basis of the First and Fifth Amendments by all of the witnesses called, with the exception of Charles Childs, the former FBI undercover agent who had provided a lot of the information to the subcommittee which had led to the calling of the other witnesses accused of having been Communists, and that of the Charlotte attorney, who had also been an undercover agent and who had testified the prior April in the criminal trial of Junius Scales, alleged to be the leader of the North Carolina Communists.
It finds that the assertion of the Fifth Amendment on the ground that truthful replies would tend to incriminate the witness asserting it, had managed to reopen old wounds in the liberal conscience, with the same old arguments being heard in the corridors during recesses regarding the rights and wrongs of the Fifth Amendment, as well as regarding the assertion of the protections of the First Amendment.
It finds it surprising that a person who pleaded the Fifth Amendment could still provoke "impotent anger in the breasts of Congressmen and others", but finds it to have occurred. Legally, it was settled that by pleading the privilege, witnesses were availing themselves of an indisputable legal right, which would have to be tested within the courts. But it finds that there was another side to the problem receiving less attention, that the major issue was a moral rather than legal one, what could be morally inferred from the legally justified use of the privilege.
It finds that only enlightened common sense and ethical values could serve as guides in that respect. It is certain that the Communist Party was a "conspiratorial, subversive organization working in the interest of a foreign power" and that the citizenry had a right to expect reasonable protection from such an organization. Those who defended assertion of the privilege maintained that it was unfair for their jobs and professional futures to be placed in jeopardy merely because of their exercise of a constitutional right, when they might be guilty of no crime and were not even necessarily Communists.
One witness before the subcommittee, John Myers, formerly a faculty member of Campbell College, had already lost his job recently, when the Board of Trustees had questioned him about his religious views and his associations, which he refused to answer.
It agrees with Sidney Hook, when he had suggested that if an individual who was a school bus driver was asked whether he had attempted to peddle dope to schoolchildren and he refused to answer on the ground of self-incrimination, most people would say that there was ground to ask him to seek a job elsewhere.
It finds that the word "guilt" was ambiguous, that an unfavorable inference based on a witness's refusal to answer questions on the ground that a truthful answer would tend to incriminate the witness might establish guilt, not legal guilt but guilt in the sense that a witness might be morally blameworthy and irresponsible.
It suggests that the problem was to determine when such an inference was justified in situations where an individual refused to answer the questions of a Congressional committee.
Mr. Hook had also stated that there were those who automatically assumed that any refusal to answer was ground for an unfavorable judgment, while others assumed that every refusal constituted a defense of civil liberties, making heroes of Communist conspirators who would be the first to destroy civil freedoms, finding both reactions justified and indicating that before evaluating the moral and social significance of a refusal, it was necessary to note the nature of the question, whether it was relevant to the duties and responsibilities which the individual was expected to perform in society, as well as the grounds on which the individual refused to answer.
The piece concludes that it was a matter for the community and not a court of law to decide.
It omits the other aspect of assertion of the privilege in this context, regarding whether the particular questioning fell within the proper legislative scope of inquiry of a committee, based on its original legislative purpose when formed.
"The Middle East: A Worn-Out Policy" finds that the "No Arms Race" policy of the U.S. had been a natural after Russia had bartered with Egypt to provide tanks and technicians the previous summer in exchange for money and Egyptian cotton, as the policy had pledged the U.S. to do what it was prepared to do, which was nothing. The Russians had turned Arab favor and trade toward themselves by offering the arms with which to threaten or fight Israel. The U.S. could not send arms to either side without offending the other, or to both sides without increasing the risk of war. Thus, there was a certain propaganda advantage in doing nothing, that by withholding arms and counseling peace, the U.S. was able to place the spotlight on Russia as an instigator of violence and to appear as a friend to both the Arabs and Israelis.
It opines that the policy had afforded the U.S. a lot of cheap mileage but had worn out. Instead of quiet security, the Communist arms had brought arrogance to the Arabs, the most powerful blocs among them having moved into a new unity, urging unity with other Arab states, such that Israel was now threatened as it never had been previously. In the past, its isolation was made more comfortable by the facts of Arab disunity and military weakness, but both of those factors were now being rapidly eradicated and, though there was still talk of peace on both sides, the fact remained that the Arabs did not believe that Israel could be allowed to continue to exist, while the Israelis were prepared to fight to the last man to assure their continued existence.
An arms race had been avoided, but there might be a war which could involve U.S. fighting forces. The President had said at his press conference the previous week that the U.N. should take urgent and early action on the matter. But the piece questions what that action could be in the face of the Soviet veto on the Security Council, and should the Council be bypassed and a request made before the General Assembly to construct a U.N. force, U.S. and British troops would inevitably man it.
The Tripartite Declaration of 1950 pledged the U.S., Britain and France to immediate action to prevent any violation of frontiers, either within or outside the U.N. It poses the question, however, of what that action would be and whether it would be taken before or after the beginning of a war.
It finds that none of its questions had been answered publicly and if Middle Eastern "incidents" proceeded as they had since the previous summer, it might soon be too late to answer them, except with troops and guns. It advises that the West had to make a show of determination to keep the peace, to escape the necessity of fighting to restore it.
"The Word, Gentlemen, Is 'Jump'" finds that the State Department's explanations for why more immigrants were not being admitted to the country under the Refugee Relief Act had reminded of a contemporary collegiate rouser, in which a doddering professor, plainly on the brink of retirement, held a frog in one hand and commanded it to jump, whereupon it leaped into his other hand, at which point he removed the frog's legs and then shouted, "Jump!" at which point the frog did not move, with the professor concluding to his class that they should note that when he removed the legs of the frog, it became quite deaf.
It finds that the Refugee Act, as with the frog, had been purposely crippled, hampered by so many restrictions that critics had justifiably labeled it an "exclusion" rather than a "relief" measure. The statistics spoke for themselves. The legislation had been passed in 1953 and would expire at the end of the current year. It had been promoted as a bill to admit 209,000 non-quota immigrants, chiefly refugees, displaced persons and other victims of Communist and Nazi oppression. But with less than ten months remaining until the bill's sunset, only 86,331 refugees had been granted visas under it, according to a State Department announcement the previous week, less than 35 percent of the authorized total, and of that number, only about 68,000 had actually been admitted by the prior February 1.
It finds that after the dismissal of Edward Corsi the previous year had focused attention on the shortcomings of the emergency refugee program, the President had recommended that the program be liberalized, but an amended Senate version of the Administration's bill became lost in committee shuffle.
It concludes that unlike the professor's frog, the refugee program could be amended and that it ought be so at present, with a redefinition of the term "refugee" and loosening of unnecessarily strict requirements, with provision made for the transfer to another category of an unused quota in any refugee category, such as orphans, escapees and relatives of U.S. citizens, as well as "refugees".
"The word, gentlemen, is 'Jump.'"
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Historical Item", indicates that the department store ads were not to be read only in search of bargains, but yielded information on manners and mode, sometimes even on history, including ancient history. It provides examples:
"Davy Crockett T-shirts, were $1, now three for $1.
"Davy Crockett caps, were $1-1.25, now 39¢.
"Davy Crockett gun sets, were $3.98, now $1.49.
"Remember way back when…?"
Drew Pearson tells of the men around the President having decided on a major shakeup of the Cabinet, planning to jettison four members, with the first, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay, having already been announced. In addition, Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks, who had been referred to in inner circles as the man who had stayed too long, after having said he would stay one year, while having stayed all three, would go, as the insiders at the White House did not like him. His Undersecretary, Walter Williams of Washington State, had long expected to succeed Secretary Weeks, who had the big business label attached to him so firmly that it had been decided he had to go.
Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, who was not liked by the Henry Ford forces in Michigan or in Congress, was also slated to leave. As formerly the largest Chevrolet dealer in the country, he had played ball with General Motors in Michigan when it had been embattled with the Eisenhower wing of the Republican Party, and so was not considered to be as loyal politically as he might be. RNC chairman Leonard Hall might become his successor, desiring the job.
Finally, Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, former head of G.M., about whom there were mixed views within the Eisenhower inner circle, and who was strong within the Cabinet but not strong politically, having put his foot in his mouth too many times with such statements as what was good for General Motors was good for the country, and also being too closely aligned with big business, would also probably go, though by his own volition for his stated health reasons.
The strategy for the resignation of Secretary McKay had been worked out by White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey and Mr. Hall, the powers behind the President and the general staff which ran the Administration. At a meeting of the four men, it had been decided that Mr. McKay would leave the Cabinet, though on polite and cordial terms. Messrs. Adams and Hall had approached Mr. McKay, not forcing him to resign, but doing a "Lyndon Johnson on him", sweet talking him about the need for a strong man to run against Senator Wayne Morse in Oregon and indicating that the President had set an example by running himself and that therefore it was Mr. McKay's duty to defeat Senator Morse, who had turned against the President. Mr. Pearson offers that as a pattern used for all of the planned resignations, with the exception of Secretary Wilson.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop regard the issue of the vice-presidential running mate for the President, normally an afterthought, but one which had come now to dominate the political discussion because of the President's September 24 heart attack and reflective of his immense popularity in the country, with most observers believing he would be a shoo-in for re-election, making the choice of his running mate the more important for the country.
The President liked and trusted Vice-President Nixon and preferred him as his running mate, but did not want to commit himself at the present time, wanting to maintain a free hand until the convention should it appear that Mr. Nixon would be a serious handicap to the ticket.
They suggest that it might be true that he had offered to the Vice-President the position of Secretary of the Interior, being vacated by Douglas McKay, or perhaps Secretary of Defense, which might later be vacated by Charles E. Wilson, but that if he had done so, he had made the suggestion in a way which invited rejection, putting himself in a position where he could assert to anti-Nixon Republicans that he had done everything about the problem he honestly could and would not do anything further.
Mr. Nixon was clearly ahead of all other contenders at present for the second spot. He had been wounded by the President's failure to provide a final endorsement, reportedly reasoning that he was being penalized for bearing the brunt of the political battle at the request of the President and on his behalf during the Administration. He was reportedly considering an announcement that he also believed the choice should be left open until the convention.
Yet, Mr. Nixon remained the preferred choice of about three-fourths of the Republican organizations in the states and of RNC chairman Leonard Hall, who did not speak without clearance from White House chief of staff, Sherman Adams.
They suggest, therefore, that there were only two ways he could be beaten for the nomination, through a solid Eastern wing of the party, in which the anti-Nixon sentiment was most prevalent, though blocked at present, as New York was controlled by former Governor Thomas Dewey who favored Mr. Nixon. The other way was for Mr. Nixon to beat himself, mishandling things in such a way that the President decided against him or causing the polls to show that he would be a handicap. But as long as he handled himself well, as in the previous several months, the bet remained on him for repeating as the vice-presidential nominee.
Doris Fleeson finds that the President's veto the previous month of the natural gas deregulation bill and the lobbying effort for it which the bill controversially had brought into focus, precipitating establishment of a special committee to investigate the influence exerted by the lobby, demonstrated that Congress was ruled in domestic matters by a conservative coalition, largely independent of the nominal majority, whether Democrat or Republican. Its Democratic members were from the South and Southwest, with the Republican right cooperating with them, including most of the Republican ranking membership. The late Senator Robert Taft had put together that coalition around 1938 and the quid pro quo for it had long been obvious, that being that the Republicans had not pushed for the civil rights legislation which they could have done with liberal Democratic support, pleasing to the Southern conservatives among Democrats. Those Democrats had reciprocated by cooperating on fiscal issues, to which Republicans attached major importance.
A large part of the President's smooth sailing during the previous three years had been the result of the fact that he had placed himself in a moderate position, isolating the Republican right and the Democratic liberals.
Thus, the Congress, becoming Democratic in both houses after the 1954 midterm elections, had scarcely made a dent in the stature of the President, with the Democrats saying that it proved them more responsible than the Republican 80th Congress under President Truman between 1947 and 1949. President Eisenhower suited that coalition very well while the challenging President Truman had not. The 80th Congress had furnished President Truman with issues for his campaign in 1948, which surprisingly had proven successful, after all of the polling had predicted a victory for the challenger, Governor Dewey. Ms. Fleeson indicates that it could very well be that Democratic failure under its present leadership to draw clear lines against the White House was the single most important political fact of the approaching campaign in 1956. The Democratic candidate for president would have to create his own issues for the most part and exploit them as well as he could.
The veto of the gas deregulation bill had placed a heavy strain on the President's relation with that coalition, placing it on the defensive regarding the gas bill, which the coalition had forced to passage over the protests of liberals in both parties. He had then compounded the alienation by calling attention in his veto message to the Congressional campaign contributions which had been made by the gas lobby, calling it "arrogant" and citing it as the major reason for his veto. The coalition had believed that the President would sign the bill, as he had favored the objective and had invited, in his veto message, Congress to return to the issue the following year. The Democratic members of the coalition were shocked and angry, with each member generally believing that they should save themselves as they could.
The equally divided committee investigating the lobbying efforts had been agreed upon by the leaders of both parties. That committee had been all but torpedoed the previous week when liberal Senate Democrats had expressed their lack of faith in its effectiveness, providing another blow to Majority Leader Johnson, whose fortunes had already been deeply involved in the gas bill, which he had personally pushed. He had planned to retrieve his position with the liberals by enabling the farm legislation which would have re-established fixed parity price supports at 90 percent, which the Democrats could have used in their campaigns. But the Democrats had not only lost on that bill to the President and supposedly unpopular Secretary of Agriculture Benson, both favoring continuation of the flexible price supports, they had lost in a major way.
DNC headquarters would welcome a break with the President by the Democratic Senate and House leadership, with that break, from the DNC perspective, overdue.
James T. Taylor, a professor of psychology at the North Carolina College in Durham, now N.C. Central University, in a piece reprinted from the Chapel Hill News Leader, seeks to answer what course young black Americans ought follow under present circumstances. He advises that one had to use restraint, obey the law, show good will and genuine courtesy toward others, demonstrating to other Americans that the person was deserving and ought be accorded all the privileges and rights which other Americans enjoyed.
The person had to help make the schools presently attended the sort of institutions which any American would be proud to attend. He asserts that Brown v. Board of Education did not mean that all black students should leave their present schools, but rather that the schools in the state belonged to all of the children and that attendance should be based on geography rather than race.
He finds that the person had to look at the present situation realistically, recognizing that deep-seated prejudices and long-established customs, however wrong and undemocratic, would not change overnight, which was why the Supreme Court in its May, 1955 implementing decision in Brown had used the phrase "with all deliberate speed" as the time-frame within which desegregation should take place in the public schools.
He thus urges young black people to join with those of both races, who in good faith and sincerity of purpose, sought a solution to the problem, as indicated by the Supreme Court, that to expect or insist upon more than that would brand black people as "lacking in insight and in historical and sociological perspective. To accept less would portray us before our countrymen and the world as a race unworthy of membership in a democratic society."
He advises young black people to use their talents, intelligence and energy to encourage an increasing acceptance of every aspect of the democratic way of life, thus meriting and receiving the blessing of posterity and the respect and gratitude of mankind. By the same token, the future had a place and posterity a name for those who would use their talents and energies to negate the democratic process, that place being oblivion and the name being infamous.
He also urges that a widespread and intelligent use of the ballot was a fundamental necessity in a democracy, and that it was the responsibility and obligation of each individual to take an active part in the political life of their community, that politics touched every phase of American life, schools, employment opportunities, agriculture, manufacturing, business and commerce, transportation, labor problems, housing, and recreation, all being affected by the caliber of elected officials. People who did not vote had no ground for complaint or boast about subsequent occurrences and events at the municipal, state or national legislative levels. He thus advises, "vote up or shut up".
He also says that history taught that a wayfarer, though a fool, might read and understand that might did not make right, that the paths to glory, both for the individual and the nation, led but to the grave, and that the nations which put their trust in "iron shod and called not upon Thee to guard" sowed the seeds of their own destruction. He urges that the younger generation could perform a great service to the country and to mankind by continually calling attention to that fact in history, and that such a generation could become the architects of the new world order, based on justice and cooperation rather than on fear and armed might.
He urges those who believed his report to think on the things he had pointed out and that in dealing with others each day, acquit themselves "like civilized and socially mature human beings."
That sounds, you know, projecting forward a few years down the road, like awfully square, daddy-o. They may wish to hear from someone a little more hip
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