Page 4-B The Chapel Hill Weekly "If the matter is important and rare of your ground, never fear to be in the minority.” i ORVILLE CAMPBELL, PriUMter JAMES SHMAKKS, Gmeni Manager IPofeHshed every Sunday tad Wednesday fey the Chayel B| MMMUag Company, lae. IZC East Rosemary Street. Ctuvat HDI, N. C. P. O. Bex fU ~ Telephone $67-7041 Subscription rates (payable in advance and Including N. C. sales tax)—ln North Carolina: One year, $5.15; six months, $3.00; Area months, $2.06. Elsewhere in the United States: One year, $6.00; six months, $4.00; three months, SI.OO. Outside United States: One year, SIO.OO. Another Dab Os Mud On The Business Escutcheon Chapel Hill merchants have been mis cast in the role of villain so many times ior so long now that you might expect one more dab of mud on the business com munity’s likeness to be dismissed with a philosophical shrug. To those perennial charges based on the captive clientele myth and other gra tuitous slurs that seems to follow as reg ularly as season follows season, perhaps a shrug is the most sensible reaction. Reason, unfortunately, is seldom a satis factory rebuttal to unreason. In the case of the current civil rights trauma, however, the misrepresentation of Chapel Hill’s businessmen, as a group, should not be allowed to stand. There are, indeed, about half a dozen substantial Chapel Hill businesses and about half a dozen joints that still prac tice segregation. All other businesses in Chapel Hill, well over 150, do not have any discriminatory policies and do not practice discrimination. More than ninety per cent of our mer chants have renounced segregation for themselves. In addition, they deplore the segregation policies of the dozen die hards. Beyond that, no group, excepting our clergymen, has worked harder than Chapel Hill’s businessmen to eliminate public discrimination. Their methods, it is true, have not been as sensational as downtown marches and picket lines and civil disobedience. The One Or Two Random Thoughts On Rousing Rabble Americans, especially Southern Am ericans, have never cottoned to outside agitators, whatever the cause for which they agitated. Take Citizen Genet as a case in point. No sooner had the French helped do in the English at Yorktown and had a little revolt of their own than M. Genet, as the Revolutionary Government’s minister to the U. S., began drumming up support for French ambitions in Europe. His zeal earned him the distinction of being the first diplomat declared persona non grata by the United States. He solved it nicely by resigning his post and be coming a naturalized American citizen. Not qvery agitator is so flexible. The late judge Samuel Liebowitz mulehead edly insisted on a fair trial for nine Negro boys tried in Scottsboro, Alabama and took part of his fee in one of the most vicious and concerted personal villifications on record. He' became the prototype of the “Jew-Y£nkee-trouble maker lawyer” one finds in some other wise legitimate Southern fiction of the immediate past. We mention these two because they represent something of a lesson on the nature of agitation and the varied re sponse their actions elicit in America. Now & Then by Bill Prouty One night while televiewing a late movie I dozed off (is there anybody who hasn’t done this on occasion?) and the next thing I knew I was sitting straight up in my chair, startled into fitful con sciousness by a cacophony of bla tant noises and brilliant flashing Hgfcta. shown on the screen was a caricatured and animated line drawing representing a man who was obviously in excruciating pain. And for good reason, be cause at regular intervals a heavy mallet was crashing down upon his unprotected skull, ca denced to the strident exhorta tions of a shrill pitchman. As the pitchman continued his spiel at about twice the decibels of the regular program, extolling the “double-the-strength” virtues of the incomparable So-and-So, the pounding mallet slowly faded out of the picture and flowing dotted lines (obviously represent ing pain) began pouring from the head of the vastly relieved figure, whose now upturned mouth and sparkling eyes spoke eloquently of So-and-So's unique healing powers! 1 was so disgusted with the businessmen have worked quietly, some times privately and anonymously. They have worked in small groups and individ ually, in man-to-man confrontations with the doaen diehards. They have committed themselves to this work, regardless of the fact that they are no more responsible—morally, professionally or otherwise—for some one else’s business policies than are you and I. They are, in fact, deeply commit ted to the ideal of equal rights and are acting directly !n response to that com mitment. The businessmen’s aim is the same as that of the clergymen, the Human Rela tions Committee, the Mayor’s Committee on Integration, the Committee for Open Business, and all of the citizens of this community who want to see true equality. If their methods are somewhat less flam bouyant, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they will be any less effective. The businessmen’s efforts have frequ ently been met with open attacks, carping criticism and implications of guilt by as sociation (the only association being that they are merchants and so are the die hards). This, we submit, is totally un fair. Instead of recrimination, Chapel Hill’s businessmen deserve our gratitude and respect. If the rest of the community were as actively dedicated to equal rights, the present problem would probably van ish. The outside meddler, however innocuous or sinister his motives, is not and never has been in good odor. Much of the present race dilemma has been ascribed by White Citizens Coun cils to needlenosing outsiders coming in and making trouble. This, they would have us believe, is a purely local prob lem, to be worked out by local folk in a sane, sensible way free from pressure by rabblerousers who don’t understand the situation. There is something to this, as in any argument that implies the necessity for intimate and specific knowledge of diffi culty in its own context. It seemed that people here were hewing to this principle until Roy Harris of Georgia spoke to a White Supremacy rally in Durham this past weekend. There is little question but what Georgia and North Carolina have their points in common, and also that they are distinct and apart in a number of ways. Mr. Harris is unavoid ably an outsider, and since he spoke about a local problem, we are left to conclude either that his Durham audi ence abandoned principle in the name of expediency, or that there never was a principle that stood between local mat ters and extraneous meddling. pitch that i snapped oft the tele vision and picked up the evening paper and read a while before going to bed, all the time vowiag that I’d never, but never, ever use So-and-So headache medicine even if my head was beating like a bongo drum at a voodoo rally! Is, then, load and exaggerated advertising more effective than calm, truthful, and necessarily less obtrusive advertising? Is it true that the Big Exaggeration, if repeated often enough and loud enough, will be generally accept ed, even by people traditionally accustomed to freedom of choice? In other words, can calm, cool, essentially truthful appeal com pete successfully with gaudy fev ered, exhortation in television? I sincerely believe it can, there by bringing great relief to the serious televiewer and to the ad vertiser alike. Take one example of the soft candid approach, for instance: There’s a well-known foreign small automobile whose advertisers tell their televiewers that their product looks like a beetle, is definitely not pretty, never changes its lines, BUT that it is as durable and as eco nomically operated a p— — t*r Wednesday, July 31, 1963 automobile as can be found, and has the highest trade-in valuation of any car on the market. This is told the TV fan in a soft, unembellished manner, and. frankly, comes as a great relief on many programs. Does this sensible, though quite •nuanal, approach sell? When driving to work tomorrow morn ing, just look around you in traf fic and you’ll see that it does, or that it has, since you may well be driving one of the little “beetles" yourself! But even if we have to live with the clangor of the So-and- So pitch, and the cool candid ap proach is yet a far way off, the former is to me preferable to the ad-less state-supervised pro gramming dealt to captive audi ences in many countries about the world. Advertising (In whatever form) is absolutely essential to our en vied capitalistic society. And besides, a shoot-’em-up Western once In a while, even with rau cous ads, may be better than no ads at all and nothing but serious music, philosophy, poli tics and propaganda. What do you tUakt Letters To The Editor More On Sir Clarence, Civil Rights Dear Sir: There has come to my attention this morning what purports to be an editorial from your paper titl ed "The Tragic Spring of Clar ence Stone.” It would appear from that editorial that your pa er is emulating, or attempting to follow, the liberal, leadership of several of the big dailies in North Carolina in castigating Senate President Clarence Stone and other members of the North Carolina Legislature who voted for the bill passed by the recent Session of the General Assembly the apparent purpose ol which was to slow down the indoctrina tion of North Carolina youth in State Educational institutions with Communist propaganda. Evident ly, yoti and many of your brother newspapermen do not agree with that philosophy. If you do not agree, at least you could so an nounce to the State of North Ca rolina and the world at large with editorials propounding your philo sophy, if it be favorable to Com munism, Socialism, or whatever it be, without using your editorial page to try to undermine, destroy the character of, and stultify one of the outstanding citizens of North Carolina; a man who has spent a good part of his Kfe in the political arena of North Carolina fighting for legislation designed f: -- , Zdmm MM, SpEsKflH HKSSnRiPS JjgF : '' kHRIIIWw MI jSPSSrf J§*V ns*. * -mbh wBES • :■ ■ 1 81, T V. •: *' > ■ ~ -': ,W : ‘~ ' ' ,K •••'•• ' ' r jL JH M -LJikdßb^. .. yiS&i 'wm. j The Davie Poplar On The University Campus Has Success Spoiled Sir Clarence’s Gag Law? THE GREENSBORO DAILY NEWS If the views of Senate president Clar ence Stone of Stoneville are accurately reported in a recent interview in the Winston-Salem Journal, it may be that he has now had second thoughts about the ban on Communist speakers that the Senate helped write into law under his gavel. In the first place, Senator Stone ap parently dislikes being “blamed” for the passage of the bill. Some newspaper re ports from the scene indicated that while there were clear calls for a division by standing vote on the day the bill was hurriedly passed, Senator Stone con veniently failed to hear them. “If there was a call for division, I didn't hear it,” he nonetheless told Bill Connelly of the Winston-Salem Journal, "and I hear pret ty well.” It would be impudent to suggest that Senator Stone has bo quickly forgotten the detail*./# the bCl’s passage. Even so, his denials do not remove certain ques tions : Why was the bill introduced on a busy afternoon late in the session when a number of Senate opponents were in conference committee? Is it true, or not, that Senator Stone 51 to advance the best welfare of North Carolina and its citizens. Long after you and those like you have passed from the scene, the work of men like Clarence Stone will stand out in the history of this State as the foundation upon which North Carolina grew to be one of the leading states in the nation in every phase of good government. Contrary to your editorial view point. I say it was the love for the University Os North Carolina, the other educational institutions of the State, the citizens general ly, and our young people especial ly which prompted Clarence Stone and his friends to support the bill in. question. 1 supported the bill which you referred to in your editorial, and will continue to do so as long as I am a member of the General Assembly of North Carolina, and after that, will support the philo sophy as set out in that bill so long as I live. Prom the public forum response, and from the response of people verbally throughout the State, I think the majority of the people of North Carolina are with President Stone and the members of the General Assembly in this matter, and nothing you and the other editors of the papers in North Carolina can do or say will alter the fact. violated the impartiality of the chair by calling the bill “a good one”? Is it true, or not, that Senator Stone knew of the bill’s existence and knew’ when it would be introduced? Even more interesting however is Sen ator Stone’s statement that “If they (the opponents of the bill) want to repeal it, that's all right with me, but I don’t think they can.” Does this mean that the sen ator’s feeling in favor of the bill has be come lukewarm, or that he has had sec ond thoughts about its wisdom ? If its re peal means so little as it seems to Sen ator Stone, it would mean a great deal to the state college administrators who have been entangled in endless embar rassments by it. Repeal would be a welcome testimony, too, to North Carolina’s belief in freedom of speech. And it would certainly be a courtesy to college administrators, Uni versity of North Carolina trustees, and the Board of Higher Education. All these groups are most intimately involved In state-supported higher edu cation. It is their integrity and judgment that the ill-conceived law has impugned. If Senator Stone is as indifferent to its repeal as he seems, perhaps he will join in not opposing that repeal It has been my observation over the years that the poisoned pens of editors of newspapers and peri odicals do not affect the right thinking of the majority of the people in North Carolina. Your libelous editorial should be aired in the courts of North Carolina, but President Stone pro bably would not give your editori al the dignity that an action against you ami your paper might conVey. Yours truly. Garland S. Garriss Mr. Garris*, a rwidwS as Tray, is a State Senator from North Carolina’s Wh District. Dear Sir; Examine with me a few thoughts,. ideas, questions and facts regarding our race prob lems and the social revolution that is associated with themrfls> amine with logic and careful open-minded consideration. We, in this country during the past several years have became very minority conscious and have become very sensitive to the rights of all those that are discriminated against. I am not offering a criticism, I am simply Stating a fact. (We are afraid of offending our Jewish neighbors over school prayers and we find that the Supreme Court is brought in, changing old and formally accepted practices. Per haps this is good, perhaps it is bad but it is a fact to be dealt with. We are afraid of offending our Negro neighbors and we are about to enact rules to change this. We are entertaining the idea of adopting rules to govern shopkeepers in their selection of customers. The above are stated facts. Examine now the logic of these facts as related to their overall purpose and their ultimate ef fect. Also think about the jus tice involved to both sides of the question. Would you, in fairness, say that the ardent segregationists are a minority in this country today? They are in fact? Would you agree that the ardent segre gationist shopkeepers ere a mi nority in this country today. They are in fact just that. How is It then that we, the majority, are able to override their desires with desires of our own, just be cause we think ourselves to be right? Would this not be offend ing A minority group? If we override one minority group be cause we are sensitive to the desires of another minority group what have we, in effect, accom plished? (Where have we come? We have only exchanged minor ity groups. What is the logic in that? If we suppress the shopkeeper in order to avoid the suppression of thd Negro we have effected . no major social change at all. We only have one more stupid law on the books, end a little less freedom for everybody. Each and every single time a law is passed a certain measure of free dom is lost to us all. It seems to me that we are reinacting the great moral purge of the 1920's that led to prohibi tion with just one exception: Freedom cannot be bootlegged and once it is lost it will be gone forever. We have worked our way along this far and have evolved as a semi-socialist state already and we seem to be charting our course in that di rection with ever-increasing vig or. If we work hard enough in that direction we will find our selves waking; up one morning with all of our freedoms lost and we will find ourselves join ing the Union of Socialist Re public in the suppression of all human freedoms. All freedom or groups who favor this encroachment of our basic overall freedotn, in their own personal interests, are de siring freedom at the cost of freedom. Such is the stupid logic of lawmakers who favor laws for everything. These are moral, ethical and social questions, not legal ones, and the only solution will be found in a moral and social re awakening by us all. These are not questions to be answered by Democrats, Republicans, Jews, Negroes or Gentiles but by all BILLY ARTHUR Knowing not whereof we speak, oftimes we’ve made fun of the women. Today, however, we speak of men as authority on the subject and as one. We’ve inti mated in the past that women are unique individuals; today we’ll show you men are just as queer. Os course, some men are gentlemen; but a gentleman is a man you don’t know very well. Some are conceited and wrap ped in themselves; therefore they make sorry looking bundles. Some are like the railroad sta tion agent the colored farmer found, according to the late Judge W. C. Harris, when he went to make a shipment. The station was more often used as a flag stop than anything else, and the agent handed the farmer the pa pers and ordered, “Sit down over there and fill ’em out yourself. I’m busy.” The colored fellow, unable to read and write, summed up the situation with: “I was alius told the littler the station, the bigger a I ——a t» uic agent. He was the type which Inspired the Moravian Falls Fool Killer to observe: “Don’t be deceived by appearances. Some of the loudest crows you hear at 4 o clock in the morning come from scrub roosters.” There are other types. Take the man with his nose tc the grindstone. He doesn’t have it always in someone else’s busi ness. As James Robinson wrote in the July 10, 1897. Durham Sun: “When a man has learned his own faults and can see their enorm ity through the same glass by which he measures another’s hag battle eflife ia wsu,’’ - mankind working together in the -greater interest of mankind. V’illiam L. Simpson Dear Sir: Once more we have the spec tacle in Chapel Hill of communi ty leaders abdicating their po tential rote as mediators in the current racial crisis. After a temporary gesture of willingness to help erase injustice in this city, the business leaders stayed away en masse Sunday from a crucial meeting of the Mayor’s Committee on Human Relations. How can these men accuse civ il rights leaders of "irresponsible behavior" when they themselves are guilty of the height of irre sponsibility in avoiding the most important issue facing our com munity? Leaders are expected to lead; they are expected to seek solutions to public prob lems; and they are expected to keep their promises. Instead, our business leaders have tried to run away from community problems and have even failed to keep an important appointment with the Mayor’s Committee. By such standards, the behavior of the Committee for Open Business has been exemplary in recognizing a community ill and in trying forthrightly to combajt that ill. Obviously, the only dependable way to eradicate the evils of seg regation in Chapel Hill is for the Aldermen to pass an open public accommodations law. The Aider men, too have been slow to ex ercise leadership. But they have been elected by the public to solve our community problems. Certainly, they can see now that no one else—not even our busi ness leaders—can be looked to for the solution. Sincerely yours, M. Richard Cramer c Dear Sir; I should like to state, with enormous enthusiasm and pride in a fellow Chapel Hillian, that Patricia Hunter’s letter in your issue of last Sunday is without any doubt the most moving and eloquent plea for integration that I have been confronted with dur ing my twenty-two years as a Southerner. It teaches all of us an enormous lesson ... a les son which the leaders in the movement seem to have forgot ten. Not only is the letter elo quent, but its very lyricism makes it hold its own with any contemporary prose-poetry. Some way should be found to have it published and widely dis tributed, not only as a plea, but as a tract of our times. It should not die in a letters col umn. It should, somehow, be come part of • our literary heri tage. Is it not frightening that here in Chapel Hill, Miss Hunter felt compelled tc introduce her “fic tional” Mrs. Aileen Landis in this manner: Mrs. Landis <whose name has been changed ter her protection) . . .” Have we really come to this in our good town? Kai Jurgensen But no two men are alike, I've pointed out in a bit of doggerel: He aimlessly roams the streets And nothing is fit to eat; The ole boy looks let down— His wife is out of town! He’s flirty, gay 'n hearty, An’ ready for a party; Today he has no frown— His wife is out of town! “Talk about wimmen being quair,’’ The Fool Killer said in May 1913. “They are sorter, but the men are purty tolerable quair, too, when you come to think about it. “Now you take the man at his own home. If he had to climb up on a high stool in front of a table with no doth on It and eat his meals that way, wouldn’t he raise cain In a hurry? You bet! But the old fool will go to a cheap restaurant, crawl up on a greasy stool between two dirty tramps and gobble down a hunk of raw mule and a bowl of soup made out of dishrags and rainwater and swear he enjoys it all. “Let a man’s wife at home of fer him a piece of chicken which she or one of the children had taken a bite of, and he will hol ler his head off. But he will get out in a crowd and borrow a chaw tobacker from the first stranger he meets, and that’s all right. “At home he won’t drink milk from out of a glass from which one of the family has been drink ing, but just call him back into the stall of a livery stable and pull out a bottle and he will stick the neck of the bottle six inches down hit throat in order to get a swig. “Verily, mao is a quair duck. 1 *

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view