Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 August 1955 — Page 10

The Indianapolis Recorder, Aug. 13,1955 EAlLS vAAfiD d'C^/WIVIENTS The Indianapolis Recorder, Aug. 13,1955

Life Is Cheap It has been estima/ted that the matter composing the average human body is worth roughly $1.50. And, it appears to us, the Indianapolis Police Department places just about that much value on life itself—where Negroes, are concerned. Tihne after time there are killings of Negroes by Negroes which po absolutely unpunished. Just last week The Recorder carried a> front-page story on the releasing of four persons held for murder and a fifth charged with manslaughter. Similar stories are carried following almost every session of the Marion County Grand Jury. It is not in a spirit of bloodthirsty revenge that we express concern over the apparent low value placed on Negro life. We would be the last to deny that circumstances sometimes lead to justifiable homicide. But when a killing shocks by its brutality and seeming lack of real reason, we are forced to wonder why the killer is released. And the killer IS released in more cases than seem to us compatible with any idea of justice. These releases continue at an alarming rate. A major part of the responsibility, we feel, belongs to the Police Department, where the initial investigation would indicate aspects of any killing which would help determine the degree of criminality involved. Thus, Inspector Noel Jones and Chief of Police John Ambuhl would seem in a large measure responsible for the current cheap value placed on the lives of the city’s citizens of color. For one thing they could see to it that Negro homicide teams be assigned to make real investigations of all killings involving Negroes. This is not recommending more jim crow, but a simple recognition of the fact that a white investigator in many instances will not worry too much about “one more colored man dead.” The past record of the Indianapolis Police Department does not hint that there are too many white officers much concerned about “civil rights” and "fair play.” Past records also indicate there are capable Negro officers who could make an effective homicide team. Carefully trained and with a full sense of responsibility, they could do much to bring the truth to light in the frequent killings where facts are deliberately suppressed. The Recorder has repeatedly urged editorially the appointments of Negroes to homicide teams. We firmly believe they could do the job, and well. At least such appointments would take away from the minds of the doubtful the thought that it is the Police Department’s sheer lack of interest which makes Negro life so cheap in Indianapolis.

Georgia’s Last Try— Real or Imaginary? So the State of Georgia is demanding that her public school teachers not be members of the NAACP and that they be openly against integration? So state officials are on one hand attempting to take away a constritiftional right, while on the other demanding that the leaders of the state’s children pledge to defy a Supreme Court decision? This is so ludicrous that, try as we might, we cannot get riled up over it. In fact, we wonder if some really clever fair-minded soul has not steered the whole thing. Certainly nothing could be more naive than for a state to* think it could pull such a trick unchallenged. * .. ... And; in face of the fact that'* it WAS the NAAGP itself which was largely responsible for the Supreme Court decisions of May 17, 1954 and May 31, 1955, it seems wishful thinking, to put it mildly, to dream that the powerful organization would calmly accept such an absurdity. It seems to us that no sane man or borad of education would ignore Thurgood Marshall, whose sheer genius has already contributed so much to the cause of integration. And Atty. Marshall has very recently, in addressing the American Teachers Association, declared that the NAACP is “prepared to protect the Negro teacher in the desegregation program in Southern schools.” • Could the Georgians be so simple as to believe the NAACP attorney meant merely that the organization would 'provide bodily protection for the individual teachers? Can they really misunderstand? Are they actually so blind they think that, satisfied by primary success, the NAACP would now give up? Inclined as most Northerners are to regard Southerners as stupid racists only, we sometimes accept at face value the attitudes and poses which receive the widest publicity. We fall too easily for the line that Southerners will do anything to perpetuate segregation. It may be that they are not all that dumb. It may be that some right-thinking individuals outwardly join the ranks of the bigots in order to destroy from within. It may even be that some brains realize that, by being flagrantly wrong, they force correction from outside. If a Machiavellian brain is thus behind Georgia’s latest move, w*e laud it. Nothing could so defeat the stated purpose as this sheer nonsense!

Among Atom Advisors The federal Department of State has announced publicly that Dr. J. Ernest Wilkins Jr., is among the 185 technical advisors accompanying the U. S. delegation at the International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy at Geneva, Switzerland, August 8-20. Son of Assistant Secretary of Labor Wilkins of Chicago, Dr. Wilkins worked with the late Dr. Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and is presently affiliated with Nuclear development Associates, Inc. News of Negroes receiving such recognition continues noteworthy, although the day is clearly in sight when such recognition will be commonplace. Dr. Wilkins was obviously included in the group because he was qualified. The Department of State has merely recognized his qualifications in placing him among the group of technical advisors drawn from more than 50 different laboratories, educational institutions, industrial organizations and research groups in addition to several government agencies who will “make contributions to every segment of the comprehensive agenda prepared for the conference.” The Negro is getting along faster than many of us realize, especially in those areas where ability counts most. Nowadays there are not many really qualified people, particularly in the technological fields, who are not finding positions commensurate with their skills. It is, we feel, because the Negro of the ’50s knows that he MUST qualify, he MUST be better than good. Segregation is a hard nut to crack, and a good hammer must be used. No, the day is not far off when the presence of Negroes in all major undertakings will be accepted as a matter of course.

VOICE FROM THE GALLERY

By Andwer W. Ramsey

Georgia Decree Strikes At Root Of Civil Liberties

A. W. Ramsey

DIXIECRAT DEFIANCE OF INTEGRATION"

MISCELLANEOUS MUSINGS

By T. C. Johnson

Theory versus Practice

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T. C. Johnson

One of the most brazen and reprehensible humbugs I ever heard of was a young colored man who practiced medicine with exceptional success for three years in New York City without haveing had any formal -medic a 1 training. He picked up what he knew i n c i dentally after consultation with

patients.

He started out to serve colored people only but his magnificent Park Avenue office soon came to be filled almost cons-

tantly with wealthy white persons—mostly women. Thus encouraged, he quickly decided to charge such fees as only the very wealthy could

pay.

Prominently displayed on his office walls were diplomas showing that he got his liberal arts education at England’s renowned Oxford University and his medical schooling at America’s equally celebrated Harvard University. HE MAY HAVE been in-

VERSES On Giving Up By WILLIAM HENRY HUFF For ANP To give up is no part of me I don’t know what it means. The last ditch is my destiny Through smooth or rocky scenes. Give up is what the cowards do, They are a sickly lot. When one gives up, then he is through I can’t get on that spot.

fluenced by P. T. Barnum’s opinion of American gullibility and the rather general human ineptitude. The great American showman said that a sucker is born in this country every minute and that the American poeple enjoy being hoodwinked. Whatever the compelling* •reason for his acts may have been, his fraudulent scheme was operated smoothly and effectively until he made the blunder that seems to be the fate of all criminals. That slip will be revealed later herein. The fake doctor would * question patients minutely about whatever aches and, making a tentative diagnosis/' he would hand the caller a harmles pill, telling him when ta return. Next, as soon as he could get away from the office, he would hurry to a medical library and study everything he could find about the ailments of which patients had complained. Thus rapidly he acquired”' considerable capacity to treat diseases. HE STUDIED surgery and did not hesitate to perform many minor operations in his office, having acquired quite a number of costly surgical instruments. The man so seeking to enter the medical profession by stealth apparently in time came to think himself so securely established that he need have no fear of being exposed. But he was mistaken. The old saying about pride going before a fall was true in his case. His undoing resulted from his attempt to arrange to perform a major operation in a large and well-known hospital. The institution demanded

credentials showing him to be a bona fide physician and surgeon. He of course could not produce the evidence required. AN INVEST IGATION showed that he not only never had studied at Oxford but never even had been to England. Harvard never had heard of him. The Oxford and Harvard diplomas he had made himself. Somehow, somewhere he had managed to see Oxford and Harvard diplomas. The impostor was arrested and sent to Bellevue Hospital to be examined to see if he suffered from some kind of a mental aberration. But . Bellpvup . doctors described him as being not only normal but as having a mentality approaching that of a genius. They felt that he should be given a good medical education so that society could benefit from his superior ability, whose devotion to ignoble purposes they deplored greatly. In court many former patients testified that he was a remarkable doctor. The judge, nevertheless, thought they were about as much deserving of blame as the young man himself was, arguing that he could not have posed as a doctor for three years if no patients had sought his services and if people knew enough to avoid pretenders. The judge withheld his decision in order to study the case. I never learned what disposition the judge made of the case. THE YOUTH could have sought to be a doctor as he did from hearing how formerly some doctors and lawyers got both theory and practice by the appro nticeship method.

5The trampling of civil liberties of Negroes is an old story in Georgia, but usually in the past the state has been contented to allow the rule of lynch law to take care of the usurping of the rights of the Negro m i n o r i t y while the state government has made farcical attempt to “track down the perpetra-

tors”

But last week Negro hating Attorn e y General Eugene Cox had the Georgia State

Board of Education to issue a decree to the effect that Negro teachers in the Cracker state are forbidden to belong to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or to support, encourage, condone, or agree to

teach a mixed class.

Georgia teachers affected by the decree are given until September 15 to resign from the NAACP and to take an oath

to that effect.

Not only is this decree a direct defiance of the May 31, 1955 decision of the U. S. Supreme court, it is also a frontal attack upon the civil rights of teachers as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the

Constitution.

It puts in jeopardy the rights not only of Negro teachers but every American wage

earner.

FOR U* such an order is allowed to stand, the state could with equal logic and ease bar from employment any person for no other reason than that he belonged to a certain church, club, fraternal order or labor organization working in conformity with our constitutional system. Even if the National Association for the Arvancement of Colored People were not a loyal American organization, forcing of employees to sign statements or to swear that they do not belong to it would be an infringement upon the individual’s right under the Fifth Am:endment which protects h i m against testifying

against himself. In a case involving alleged subversive organizations in Massachusetts last week, the State Supreme Court ruled a proposed act which would make it mandatory for any college, university or school public or private, to discharge any professor, instructor or teacher who had refused to answer “at a duly constituted trial, or at certain hearings or inquiries certain questions pertinent to his membership in the Communist party.” IN HOLDING THAT the proposed act would be unconstitutional the Massachusetts Supreme Court used the following language: “. . . It must be clear that if the General Court should pass a purported statute to the effect that no teacher should avail himself of his right not to testify or furnish evidence against himself, such purported statute would be in direct contradiction of the constitutional provisions and would be void. “So also owuld a purported statute that shoud seek to penalize as by fine or imprisonment a person who should exercise his constitutional right. “It is true that the proposed statute does not quite do any of the things just suggested But it does something of comparable effect. “IT MAKES an indirect but hardly less serious attack upon the constitutional right. It attempts to say to any teacher in a college* or school, whether public or provate, that if he exercises his right he shall be deprived of his employment and means of livelihood. It would bar him from any future employment as a school teacher, since if he should obtain such employment, the statute would operate again to compel his discharge. “. . . It would seem that the proposed statute would practically destroy, the constitutional right of certain persons to engage in the occupation of teaching for no reason than that they had exercised another constitutional right—the right not to incriminate themselves.

. . IF IT IS constitutional to prohibit a teacher from private employment on the ground that he has availed himself of the right not to incriminate himself, it would seem that it would be equally constitutional to prohibit on the same ground a lawyer from practicing his profession, or a reporter or editor from being employed by a newspaptr or magazine, or perhaps even a clergyman from entering into an engagement with a church. Perhaps these and many other occupations have almost, if not quite, as great an opportunity to influence public opinion as have teachers. “The Supreme Court of the United States in a somewhat different connection said, ‘if the state may compel the surrender of one constitutional right as a condition of its favor, it may, in like manner, compel a surrender of all. “It is conceivable that guarantees embedded in the Constrtuation of the United States may thus be manipulated out of existence.’ ” THE RULING of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, while covering a slightly different type of case, does, however point to the danger of allowing the Georgia decree to pass unchallenged and its quote from a ruling of the U. S. Supreme Court gives an indication of how that body would rule should the case have to go so far. Attorney General Eugene Cook and the Nazi-minded Georgia State Board of Education art perhaps thickheaded enough to think that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which has spent over two hundred thousand dollars preparing the school segregation cases for the Supreme Court, would sit idly by while they make mockery of the basic law of the land. THEY CAN REST assured that they will be challenged. They will have to learn that no such human termites as they shall be allowed to destroy the foundations of American democracy.

BETWEEN THE LINES

By Dean Gordon Hancock (ANP) A Prophet-Stoning Bad Business

When Jerusalem decided to stone the prophets instead of hearkening to their words of wisdom and warning, she was hastening her own impending doom. Telling people of their sins has its dangers ijn ancient t i m es; and it has its dangers now. It is true that today we have a multip 1 icity of p reachers seeking to be “popular” with the masses; but in the last analysis these p o p u 1 arityc o u r a t ing HancocK preachers dare not tell Israel

The Son Of John Henry By HARRY LEVETTE For ANP What became of the son of the great John Henry. Who said, “Boss, I’m jes’ a natchell man, “But before I’ll be beat by a new steam drill, “I’ll die with this hammer in my han\ my han’ “Yes this ten-pound hammer in my han’?” “Before he died John Henry kissed* his boy good-bye, “And said: “son be a steel drivtn’ man; “Cause our powerful workers have laid steel rails “Ever since railroads began, began, “Yes, ever since an engine ran.” “But young John Henry grew up and learned “That muscle and brawn can’t keep “The pace the mechanical world has set; “So for Patton, he drove a jeep, big jeep, “Then a tank, his dad’s name to keep.” “Now he flies a jet fighter plane for General Davis; “Guns rattling like a hammer’s beat; “And the enemy planed come crashing down, “When young Henry spews that Masting heat, white heat, And old Henry’s wishes are complete.”

MOSESH, King of Basutoland irpo -\&ro

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f/mCR HIS RULE THE BASUTOS BECAME RICH-AND REPELLED BRITISH INVADERS FOR SEVEN YEARS 1 LATER/FORESEEING THE UNION OF THE BRITISH ftTHE BOERS AGAINST HIM—IN VIOLATION OF THEIR TREATY—M0SHE8H. STRUCK FIRST I WITH 20P00 EXPERT HORSEMENS FOOT-SOLDIERS...WITH SPEARS AND HOME-MADE GUN POWDER! AFTER 20 YEARS OF RESISTANCE, HE SAVED HIS PEOPLE FROM BONDAGE!

of his sins. In all ages the prophets have been stoned; and if Jesus Christ would come in person to some of our large cities, he would hardly be found at some of our most popular churches, but perhaps in some secluded sections where some humble preacher is seeking not to be “popular” but to tell the story of the wrath that sin brings upon the people. We see reenacted her in the Old South the tragedy of old which is the tragedy of prophet - stoning. The Old South dieth hard indeed. Instead of searching itself and turning from the ways that will in the end spell its doom, the Old South is quite content to stone the Supreme Court and the NAACP which are the best friends the Old South has ever had. IT IS DIFFICULT for the Old South to imagine that the time will soon come when the shame of race prejudice and discrimination will be like unto the shame of human slavery, and in such time there will be thanks to God for the Supreme court atnd the NAACP. These in retrospect, will appear as prophets of a new world order, offering the South a chance for glory and greatness. For if the Old South can be converted unflo brotherhood and democracy and Christianity, it is quite conceivable that it may become the moral garden spot of the world. Its great travail will be its great means of ripening upon glory and greatness. One of the highest tributes that could be paid to the NAACP is being paid indirectly by certain sectors of the Old South which are out to penalize Negroes for membership in the organization. THIS COLUMN feared months ago that an irate Old South would seek retaliation. It has appeared in the current attempt to penalize the Negro teachers for membership in the only organization promising liberation from second-dass citizenship. To deny Negroes the privilege of joining an organization to do collectively what they could never do individually, is to refuse a life line to a drowning man. Under the

tutelage of the NAACP the Negro in America has come a long way. Through its fight, Negroes have been emboldened to look up not down, ahead not back! And now come reports that the arch exponents of the mores of the Old Souah are out to crush without mercy Negro teachers who hold membership in the local NAACP. Of course Negroes are not going to be foiled into renouncing allegiance to the organization that has cracked the door of full-fledged citizenship in this country. NEGROES MUST find a way to circumvent the machinations of these modern Pharaohs who are determined that they will not let the people go. If a sector of the Old South can find a way to circumvent the mandates of the United States Supreme Court, it should be easy for a Negro teacher to circumvent the design to prevent his membership in a body that is foursquare in the world. If the Old South can defeat the law the Negro teacher must surely find a way to retain allebiance to the NAACP^ which is strictly within, the law. If there have been any doubts in the minds of Negroes as to whether or not to support the NAACP, those doubts should be resolved in view of the stubborn opposition now being raised against the NAACP. It must be great and powerful if an effort, puny though it is, is made to stamp out the NAACP root and branch. IT MUST BE GREAT when men like Talmadge and his Georgia cohorts resolve to drive it out of Georgia by penalizing membership therein. If there is a Negro teacher in Georgia who does not know how to handle the matter of supporting the NAACP and at the same time retaining her place as a teacher, then she does not know enough to teach anybody’s school. Stick with the prophets the Talmadges are stoning. Why does Talmadge have to know what goes on “under the table?”