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Summer Session Kansan
Friday, July 31, 1964
Is It 'The Fire Next Time'?
Sen. Goldwater's wildly applauded convention remarks about hoodlumism in the streets of America's big cities were hardly out of his mouth when hoodlumism exploded in New York City and Rochester, N. Y.
It's perhaps inadvisable to call it "hoodlumism," because author James Baldwin had warned us of the possible civil rights explosion, which he called "an apocalyptic flood," in "The Fire Next Time." Yet hoodlumism it is. These civil rights extremists, whoever they are, have lent considerable ammunition to the conservative position on the racial question. They have shocked liberals, who had thought passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act might hold down violence this summer. They have damaged our reputation abroad.
Even the Congress of Racial Equality doesn't go far enough for the racial extremists of 1964. And the NAACP, which was in there fighting for Negro rights, has become old-fashioned, almost "Uacle Tom," to the new young militants.
OUR REPUTATION abroad, of course, has been damaged by many events in the past year, so one needn't dwell on that. One can ask, however, why we need to justify rioting in the streets, looting of stores, all, it would seem, in the name of civil rights.
Would it be reactionary to suggest that the extremists, and this doesn't refer to that unholy trio (Ku Klux Klan, John Birch Society, and
Communists) who were mentioned so often at the recent Republican convention, have reached a point where they are endangering their own causes? An example this summer was the unsuccessful effort to block highway traffic to the New York World's Fair—in the name of civil rights. Another was the booing of President Johnson—in the name of civil rights. In another area there are the activities of Malalyn Murray, whose hatred of religion is so intense that she might be creating a kind of "backlash" (to use a word beloved of interpretative writers today).
THE RACIAL DISTURBANCES in New York and Rochester, in all likelihood, are not directed by the militant forces who have made positive contributions in the direction of racial amity in America. Maybe the Communists, maybe the Black Muslim movement have had a hand in these. It's possible that we are seeing the fire of Baldwin's "Fire Next Time."
Perhaps it is a racial explosion, a bursting-out of the ghettos. Perhaps it is the beginning of civil war between the races, as Baldwin suggested last weekend. Whatever it is it cannot be condoned merely because the long-oppressed Negro is raging through the streets. A few fuzzy-heads will so condone it; they are as mistaker, as are Gov. Wallace and former Gov. Barnett when they condone the white supremacists of Jackson and Birmingham.
Harlem Violence Blamed Partly on City Attitudes
NEW YORK—The outbreak of violence in Harlem on Saturday July 18, and in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn two days later, has been strongly condemned, but a share of the blame is attributed to the apathetic attitude of city officials toward the needs and problems of Negro citizens.
The Rev, Richard A. Hildebrand, president of the New York branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, made this charge in a statement to the press.
The disorders which erupted in the two communities, Mr. Hildebrand said, did not originate with the "senseless slaving" of 15-year-old James Powell by a white offduty police officer. That incident, Mr. Hildebarnd asserted, "merely triggered long smouldering and justified resentments stemming from gross neglect of the needs of the people imprisoned in these ghettoes."
THE POWELL BOY was shot to death Thursday, July 16, by Police Lt. Thomas Gilligan. According to Gilligan, who has received several citations for bravery, the Negro lad moved toward him with a knife and refused to drop it when commanded to do so. Witnesses, however, gave sworn statements to the NAACP that the slightly built youngster did not have a knife during the confrontation with the 200-pound, 6-foot policeman.
Hildebrand, who pastors Bethel
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AME Church in Harlem, lashed out at both the rioters and the police who tried to contain them.
"No responsible community leadership condones the rioting, the reckless provocation of police officers, the destruction of property, and the looting," said Hildebrand, addressing the rioters. "We condemn such actions and we sternly warn those guilty of such acts that they are betraying their own people and the cause of racial justice everywhere."
THEN, HITTING at the indiscriminate clubbing of innocent people who were not involved in the mayhem by the predominantly white police contingent, Hildebrand said there is an "urgent need to curb the reckless and panicy violence which characterized so much of the police activity during the disorders.
"Bluntly stated," he declared, "there has been a loss of confidence in the police department from the commissioner down to the officer on the beat."
Hildebrand also struck out at Mayor Robert Wagner's continued support of Police Commissioner Michael Murphy and a nine-point program which the mayor says he will institute to head off further racial incidents.
It will take more than police action or the Mayor's "pious promises." Hildebrand asserted, "to quell the resentments fostered by contemptuous disregard of basic human needs."
"The city has neglected to move consistently and promptly to improve relations between the community and the police department, to provide decent housing at rents the people can afford to pay, to upgrade the educational system including school integration, to inspire hope for a better life among Negro youth, and to eliminate discrimination in employment," declared Hildebrand.
"The roots of this deterioration." Hildebrand continued, "lie in the failure of the city to comprehend fully the desperate phight of the Negro in New York City.
THE MAYOR SHOULD "recognize this fact and move swiftly to prevent further deterioration in police-community relations," said the NAACP official.
"The NAACP has time and time again brought these needs to the attention of city officials but conditions remain basically unchanged. There have been promises but scant action. Action can no longer be delayed."
Shrinking Coast Playgrounds Are U.S. Worry
NEW YORK—(UPI)—Millions of Americans have never swum, surfed or fished in the waters surrounding the continental United States. Those who plan to may have to hurry.
For while more vacationists flock to the seashores each year for fun and sport, the coastline where they can enjoy themselves is shrinking.
It is not natural erosion. The factors involved in the shrinkage of public coastal recreational areas are expanding population concentrations close to the shore regions; purchase of land for residential and commercial developments; increasing restriction against "out-siders" by local communities; and pollution—the bane of swimmers and fishermen.
ALONG THE 3,700 miles of general Atlantic and Gulf coast lines, for instance, the National Park Service of the Department of Interior reported that only 240 miles or 6.5 per cent remain in public hands—that is, owned by the federal or state governments. Less than 20 per cent or 258 miles is still available to the general public on the Pacific Coast.
And, according to the service's survey, the few remaining accessible and undeveloped beach areas are widely scattered along the coasts.
CONCERN OVER the decreasing facilities was expressed recently by Thomas T. Lenk, president of The Garcia Corp., manufacturers of fishing tackle. He said fishing, particularly saltwater angling, is probably the country's fastest growing pastime.
And surfing, skiing, and other water sports also are gaining steadily in popularity, according to industry sources.
Lenk cited estimates that the need for new fishing opportunities should go up 150 per cent by the year 2000. While the population of the United States may have doubled by then, participation in outdoor recreation is expected to triple as automation and other technological advances provide more leisure time for Americans.
"FISHERMEN ARE going to turn increasingly to the oceans," the Garcia official said.
His prediction was supported by a report of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, which said that while the number of freshwater fishermen will about double by the turn of the century—from 19 million to 34 million—the saltwater angling population is expected to jump $ _{4/2} $ times, from 6.3 million to 29.3 million.
VERDICT ON SCHWEITZER, by Gerald McKnight (John Day, $4.95).
BOOK REVIEWS
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the jungle saint of Lambarene, is almost universally acknowledged to be one of the world's great figures. He distinguished himself as a theologian and musician before age 30, when he started the study of medicine so he could tend the sick in the African jungle.
His hospital which he built in the jungle at Lambarene in what is now the new nation of Gabon, has become world renowned and Dr. Schweitzer at 90 is admired as a foremost humanitarian as well as a genius of many parts. But there are discrepancies and contradictions in the great doctor's career, and McKnight has sifted the evidence gained during a personal visit to Lambarene where he observed and interviewed Schweitzer, his disciples (mostly women) and his patients.
While not detracting from Schweitzer's accomplishments, McKnight finds that the myth has outgrown the man. His observations and reflections on the man and the myth make fascinating reading.-UPI
When Britain surrendered India, what Disraeli had called "the brightest jewel in the British Crown," in 1947, it was completing a process begun many decades before, when the first agitation began for Indian independence. Edwardes chronicles the background of Indian independence and gives the reader a closeup of the maneuvering among British officials at home and in New Delhi and the rival Indian Nationalist leaders.
He gives a clear understanding of how the subcontinent came to be divided into Pakistan and India and why there was nevertheless violence and killing between the Hindu and Moslem communities. Edward tries to be fair to all concerned—Nehru, G a n d h i, Jinnah, Mountbatten, Attlee, Churchill —but he is given to blanket criticisms of many decisions despite his own admission that the situation was complex, not one that could be solved by simple, sweeping actions.—UPI
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION,
by Ken Kesey (Viking, $7.50).
A powerful novel about the effects of a logging strike in a Pacific Northwest community and on the family of Hank Stamper, a proud and ornamental descendant of a pioneer family that had been defying its neighbors for generations. Within the broader study there is the conflict among Stamper's circle of relatives—his intellectual half-brother, his attractive and unfulfilled wife, his peppery father.
This is no romance of the old days of lumbering. Kesey's loggers use power chain saws, and go to work with transistor radios slung around their necks. They drink and fight like the lumbermen of old, but they also organize into unions and collect unemployment checks.
CH
The story traces Hank Stamper's two conflicts and describes how the selfishness of Hank and his half-brother, Leland Stanford Stamper, nearly lead to their mutual ruin. Kesey's dialogue is pungent and his tavern and working scenes skillfully drawn. His descriptions of the Oregon woods and rivers are among the best parts of this long (628 page) book.-UPI
O. HENRY'S NEW YORK, selected by J. Donald Adams (Premier, 60 cents).
And often fun. This is a selection of O. Henry's stories that attempts to convey New York as it looked to O. Henry 60 years ago. There are bright vignettes and revealing pictures of the people and things of the horsescar era.
Who is older hat today than O. Henry? English professors scorn him, and even Hollywood seems to have dropped him. Old-fashioned, corny, artificial, melodramatic.
There are 25 stories here altogether. Some of the better-known are "The Gift of the Magi" (what's better-known than that sentimental bit of nonsense?), "The Trimmed Lamp" and "The Last Leaf." It's a nostalgic book for people completely unattended to the fiction of the New Yorker.
The documents are eyewitness reports. These are some of the people reporting to us in these pages: the late Thomas L. Stokes, newspaper columnist; Nicholas Roosevelt; Frances Perkins; Harold L. Ikes; Drew Pearson; Raymond Clapper; Robert E. Sherwood; Roosevelt's secretary Grace Tully, wife of the genius of the atom; Ernie Pyle; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Omar N. Bradley; Brendan Gill and John Lardner of the New Yorker; Harry Truman; John Hersey; Arthur Vandenberg; Marguerite Higgins, the reporter Robert J. Donovan; New York Times and Time magazine reporters, and Merriman Smith (his story of the assassination of Kennedy).
THE UNEASY WORLD, edited by Paul M. Angell (Premier, 60 cents)
Here is another volume in the series selected from The American Reader. The time has become contemporary, and we are treated to writings from the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt to that of John F. Kennedy.
"Off We Go, Into The Wild Blue Yonder——"