Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1964 GEORGIA BULLETIN PAGE 5
GEORGIA PINES
Frank Wilson
BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN
Though he followed a rigorous schedule which
might have left another man physically exhausted,
he never was too busy to find time for his friends.
This was Frank Wilson, the late superintendent of
Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital.
I first met Frank Wilson one night when I hap
pened upon an auto accident. After he would finish
a busy day at the hospital, Mr. Wilson would ride
late into the night in either a police car or one of
the Grady ambulances. He familiarized himself
with every facet of his job and there were no
problems he did not have a first hand knowledge
about.
Ambulance drivers, police
men, firemen, aide, nurse, in
tern, resident or surgeon—all
felt that when they had a prob
lem they could get a direct
answer from the "boss” him
self. Right they were, for it
mattered not to Frank Wilson
whether the person in his of
fice was a member of the Hos
pital Authority or one of the janitors on the morn
ing shift, all received honest, forward answers to
their questions.
Frank had a remarkable memory. Years after
a resident would leave the hospital, he could re
turn for a visit and Frank would not only call the
man by his first name but also ask about his wife,
children and home town.
Mr, Wilson never forgot a friend. I have been
stationed in four towns outside the metropolitan
area and regularly he would stop by the rectory
on his way to visit some doctor who had interned
at Grady. 1 thought Frank Wilson knew the late
Monsignor Maloney only casually, but it was cas
ual enough that he took time out of his busy
schedule to attend the Monsignor’s funeral.
Nor was Frank one to mince words. One time
1 received a call to the Isolation ward at Grady.
Under orders of “no visitors” the young nurse
stopped me from entering. I tried, in vain, to ex
plain that this was no ordinary visit but that I
mad come to administer the Last Rites. Still she
refused to allow me to enter. Finally I asked if
she minded my going to Mr. Wilson. “No,” she
said, “go see anyone you want, but orders are or
ders”. Again I tried to explain (knowing full well
how Frank would react to the situation) all that
was involved. Well to make a long story short,
when I returned I really got a warm welcome and
the little nurse smiled and said, “I guess I
really asked for it, Father”.
.’Not much escaped his notice either. Before
Archbishop Hallinan came to Georgia, I recall
writing an editorial about the “glories of At
lanta” and what the Archbishop would find when
he arrived here. I guess I mentioned about
everything—except Grady Memorial Hospital.
The ink was hardly dry on the paper when I re
ceived a note from Mr. Wilson asking me why
Grady had not been mentioned. (Incidentally, he
was a regular subscriber to the Georgia Bulle
tin!).
I’ve played golf with him and regularly he
would come by the rectory here in Gainesville.
His last visit here was just before Christmas and
we recalled that when I was operated on at St.
Joseph’s last year the first visitor that I had af
ter coming down from surgery was none other
tha n Mr. Grady Hospital himself, Frank Wilson.
He was a driving force behind the new hospital
building which is both a civic boast and a medical
jem. No one will ever know the hours of planning,
supervision and interest Frank Wilson put in to
insure the success of that great project.
After attending his funeral, driving out of At
lanta, I passed by the hospital. I noticed the lights
burning all over the hospital. I neard the shrill of
the ambulance sirens on their missions of mercy.
I saw the student nurses hurrying to their appoint
ed posts. Yes, business as usual but it will be
many a year before the figure of Frank Wilson is
forgotten down “at the Gradys”.
QUESTION BOX
Residential Freedom?
BY. MONSIGNOR I. 0. CONWAY
Q. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE AN ARTICLE
ON *“WHAT OUR OBLIGATIONS ARE IN RE
GARD TO LIVING BESIDE AND SELLING HOMES
TO COLORED PEOPLE.” WE CATHOLICS
SHOULD NOT DISCRIMINATE: YET WE ARE
LOOKED DOWN ON AND CALLED NAMES IF
WE SELL TO THEM. SHOULD WE TRY TO
PLEASE ONE FAMILY BY SELLING TO THEM OR
A WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD BY REFUSING
TO SELL?
A. Freedom of residence is the most decep
tive, the most easily rationalized, the lease
eradicable, and one of the most basic and per
vasive problems of race relations.
It is deceptive. Father Joseph T, Leonard,
S. S. J., in his recent book ’Theology and Race
Relations” (Bruce), compares it to an iceberg.
You see only the tiny top stick
ing out of the water. The great
destructive mass remains hid
den below.
The tiny top represents the
facile arguments used by the
white person; I have a right to
choose my place of residence
and my neighbors; and I have a
right to do with my property
aa I wish. 1 may sell or re
fuse to sell as I choose; and no one else's right
is violated by choice. Besides. 1 have a duty
to my white neighbors. If I sell to a Negro they
are made unhappy, their property values decline,
and they may have to move in self defense.
The destructive mass can be known only by
careful exploration and study. Because property
owners in white neighborhoods generally refuse
to sell to Negroes, we have in nearly all of
our cities strictly segregated Negro areas, walled
in by prejudice as high and as hard as die wall
of Berlin. And from this segregation many evils
result:
1. The area, usually deteriorated to begin
with, rapidly becomes a slum. This is due to
many factors: the hopelessness and lack of pride
of people penned in, inferior muncipal services:
lighting, care of streets, garbage removal, etc.,
absentee landlordism, overcrowding, vandalism,
and lack of incentive.
2. Segregated areas naturally breed discri
mination: segregated and inferior schools, re
creational facilities and local shopping areas.
Since Negroes live apart they can never become
an integrated part of the general community.
3. It limits the amount and the quality of
housing available to Negroes. Since they are
not able to choose housing freely, the laws of
supply and demand cease to work. Demand in
creases but supply is artifically limited; so the
Negro must pay more for his home, whether he
buys or rents, and he gets less value for his
money, in effort to reduce his housing costs
he must often rent out a room or maybe share
his home with another family. Overcrowding re
sults.
4. The evils of overcrowding are multiple;
tension,^ friction, lack of privacy, disease, dan
ger to morals, and especially the tendency to
spend much time outside the home, may easily
lead to various forms of delinquency.
5. Even when the house itself is adequate its
neighborhood may prevent it from becoming a
true home for happy personality development..
6. Segregation permits the white man to see the
Negro only as a group, offering little oppor
tunity to know him as a person. Harmful gene
ralizations result as to the Negro’s abilities, am
bitions, delinquencies, etc.
7. The fact of segregation makes people judge
that it is right to segregate. The old spirit of
the status quol What is rightl
8. Higher housing costs often force mothers
to work outside the home, leaving children un
attended, or in care of neighbors.
I could go on, but these are some of the more
evident evils caused by the hidden mass of our
iceberg: segregated housing. I urge thatyoumake
your moral judgments in face of these facts.
Segregated housing is rationalized, and it is also
institutionalized. Deep down, with many of us, the
pocket-book comes first; and property rights tend
to push personal rights into the background. Jus
tice, in the narrow view, pushes charity from
the picture.
At one time in our country we had racial
zoning laws. In 1917 the U. S. Supreme Court
declared them unconstitutional. Some still existed
a few years ago.
Then we adopted restrictive convenants, made
part of the deed of ownership, forbidding sale
of the property to colored people. In 1948 the
U. S. Supreme Court declared that these conven
ants could not be enforced.
So now we have pacts among real-estate brok
ers that they will not sell properties in white
areas ^to Negroes, agreements among financial
sources that they will not lend money for pur
chase of such property, and neighborhood unions
which use all available means to prevent sale
to non-whites. Many cities of our country have
known various forms of mob violence to drive
Negroes from their homes in white areas. Even
Catholics have been known to take part in these
mob activities, reasoning that “the Church has
no right to tell me who can live next to me,*
Segregated housing is the least eradicable form
of discrimination, at least in the North, because
it can touch our pocketbook, and because it is
so highly rationalized. In another column some
day I will write about that bogey of declining
property values resulting from a Negro’s mov
ing into a neighborhood. It is largely an adage
which proves itself true by the panic it creates.
It contradicts the basic laws of economics.
After all that, I leave you to make your own
moral Judgments. Consider charity — love of
neighbor— in all its facets; and consider jus
tice in its wider, social aspects. Justice may
not require YOU as an individual to sell your
house to a particular Negro family. But Justice
certainly does require YOU, as a social group,
not to discriminate in such sale. Where there
is group obligation, some part of it must wash
off on the individual.
Father Leonard, a professional theologian,
states that you violate charity -- sometimes
gravely — by racial discrimination in property
deals. I maintain that you also violate justice
in its broader, social aspects. A Negro family
has a right to leap the walls of its ghetto, and
YOU — at least the group YOU — deprive him
of that right.-
“He who possesses certain rights has like
wise the duty to claim those rights. . . while
all others have the obligation to acknowledge-
those rights and respect them.'XPope John XXIII),
Saints in Black and ELQEWd CASE
Prayer In Schools Heads
ST. VALERY, ABBOT
STr'
For Supreme Court Again
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Five franc piece
Manage
This one (Latin)
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Sunrise
Irish castle
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Disease of the ■
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ANSWER TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE ON'PAGE 7
NEW YORK (NC)—The issue
of religion in public schools is
headed for the U. S. Supreme
Court again.
Four Miami, Fla,, parents
have taken preliminary steps
toward obtaining a Supreme
Court ruling on prayer, Bible
reading and other practices in
public schools there, according
to an announcement by the
American Jewish Congress.
LEO PFEFFER, general
counsel of the AJC, is repre
senting the parents-a Unitarian,
an agnostic, and two Jews—
without fee, the organization
said. Pfeffer has written and
lectured widely on Church-State
issues.
The parents will ask the U.S.
high court to reverse a ruling
handed down Jan. 29 by the Su
preme Court of Florida. The
state court upheld the Florida
statute requiring Bible reading
and prayer in public schools.
THE FLORIDA court said the
law’s purpose was “secular
rather than sectarian” and thus
did not violate the First Amend
ment’s ban on an establishment
of religion.
In both 1962 and 1963 the U.S.
Supreme Court handed down
controversial rulings on pray
er in public schools. Its 1962
decision barred a brief nonsec
tarian prayer recited in New
York state schools. Last year
the court ruled against recita-
ARNOLD VIEWING
Tom Jones 9 Great?
BY JAMES W. ARNOLD
Of the many possible reactions to “Tom Jones,”
it seems to me that at least two are wrong: one,
that is a great film, and two, that it is a deplor
able film. The first opinion would be based on
producer-director Tony Richardson's vast skill
as a movie-maker, the second on the film's
unrelenting use of immoral sexual action as a
source of humor.
Finding tenable middle ground is not easy. For
the film fancier who is also a man of faith, “Tom
Jones” seems designed as a final test of theory.
If the movie were the product 6?
lesser talents, the moral quest
ion would be far less sticky.
BUT IT IS beautifully done,
and secular critics whose idea
of beauty covers only technique
have the enviable, uncomplicat
ed task of simply cataloguing
its excellences. The task Is
widespread, for the film seems
destined to sweep every award
in sight.
The job would start with Richardson’s use of
the camera as his primary tool in story-telling.
Characters speak to the lens, glance at it furtively,
wink at it, cover it. The camera is always mov
ing, sometimes at fantastic speeds. Cuts from
image to image and scene to scene are appro
priately rhythmic and meaningful, using every
known device from the freeze (a frame held for
several seconds, like a still photo) and montage
(succession of superimposed images) to the
speed-up (herky-jerk oldtime movie effect) and
the iris-out (the screen blacks out except for a
small circle on one item of interest).
-Each scene has its appropriate color and dis
tinctive instruments in the musical background.
Each scene is shot from a half-dozen angles
and distances. In one magnificent hunt sequences
Richardson cuts, often instantaneously, from heli
copter shots of a fleeing deer to blurred front
closeups of horses, dogs and humans, to shots
from sationary ground points, from saddles,
from tracks parallel to the moving action. Rich
ardson also favors the wobbly, hand-held camera,
which projects the viewer into the middle of act
ion that never holds still for full perception.
THE ARTISTIC effect is inevitably either excit
ement (from the high-tempo cutting and “feel”
of motion) or comedy (by placing together images
that don’t logically go together). “Tom Jones” is
clearly a movie; it affects its audience cinema-
tically.
The only possible complaint is that Richard
son has been artsycraftsy: he has drawn attent
ion from the material to himself. The argument
here Is false. The tricks are not foisted on the
material but naturally suggested by It; they do not
intrude, but add to the joy of the viewer who is
following the girls and horses and not the camera.
Unfortunately, the film draws its comedy from
the incongruity of man’s human and animal ap-
petities, chiefly sexual. The sympathetic hero
(Albert Finney, here boyish and wide-eyed) has
only one weakness, but he indulges it frequently,
with gusto, and with no ill effects. There are
so many hay piles, bedrooms and meaningful
glances that Richardson is genuinely taxed to find
new ways of photographing them.
IT IS USEFUL here to ask two questions: is
sin treated, at least by implication, as sin? could
the sexual scenes be considered immorally tempt
ing? The first answer is that sin here is always
funny, always ridiculed. The people who indulge
in it are not meant to be envied. But they are
shown as better than the falsely virtuous hypo
crites with whom they are contrasted. Here sexual
license (and gluttony) are venial, “natural” sins;
the mortal sins are the calculated ones; hypo
crisy and meanness of spirit.
LITURGICAL WEEK
Penance For The Renewal
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4
MARCH 4 WEDNESDAY, 3RD WEEK IN LENT.
We who prepare to celebrate the Church’s init
iation rites at the Easter Vigil today hear God’s
commandments of the Old Testament—those com-
mandaments which are not put aside but fulfill
ed in the new covenant.
As the First Reading gives us the comman
dments, the Gospel demands that we respond
with more than a merely external performance,
with an Interior assent of our free wills.
MARCH 5 THURSDAY, 3RD WEEK IN LENT.
The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on pub
lic worship places an emphasis on preaching
which may be startling to some. , . and even
unwelcome news.
Yet preaching, the proclamation of the good
news, was the great Physician's task during
His public ministry (Gospel) and is a major work
of all who would heal humanity in His wake and
in His name. Both lessons are concerned with
this message, and with the all-important fact that
it is God’s.
MARCH 6 FRIDAY, 3RD WEEK IN LENT.
Water as a means of life, in both First Read
ing and Gospel, is a symbol of baptism and of
the kingdom of God’s sons in which “true wor
shipers will worship the Father in spirit and in
truth” (Gospel).
Our desire at all times, but especially during
Lent, must be a thirst for “living water,” a
thirst for the water of divine life in Christ.
This is the water which satisfies the dee* "t
aspriations of man, puzzling to those who attempt
to quench their thirst at more shallow fountains.
MARCH 7 SATURDAY, 3rd WEEK IN LENT.
God’s justice is not the limited justice and the
senseless violence of man and of human society.
Both Susanna (First Reading) and the woman guilty
of adultery (Gospel) are saved from death or
human recrimination by God's intervention.
In them we see figures of those who are about
to be received into the Church, upon whom our
Father is to pour His life and love through Jesus
Christ, with whom we fast in preparation.
tion of the Lord’s Prayer and
Bible reading in schools in
Maryland and Pennsylvania on
the grounds that these practices
violate the First Amendment.
THE FLORIDA case was be
fore the high court last June
when it ruled on the Maryland
and Pennsylvania cases. In
stead of dealing with it direct
ly, however, the court remand
ed it to the state Supreme Court
for a second look.
But the second time around
the state court upheld the con
tested law as it had done before.
THE FLORIDA Supreme
Court’s first ruling in the case
came in August, 1962. At that
time the state court barred cer
tain religious practices from
public schools, including the
celebration of religious holi
days in schools, the use of
school facilities for after-hours
religious instruction classes,
and the showing of religious
movies on school property.
But the state court also up
held recitation of the Lord’s
Prayer and Bible reading in
public schools, along with the
practice of holding baccalau
reate services and requiring
students and teachers to state
their religious affiliation.
UPON REMAND, the Florida
court last January again upheld
the prayer and Bible reading
statute and declined to deal with
the other practices on the
grounds that the record of the
case did not show whether the
pupils involved had actually
been affected by them.
In ruling in favor of prayer
and Bibe reading, the state high
court said the objective of the
law that requires them is secu
lar rather than religious.
ENACTED IN 1925, the Flori
da law says it is “in the inte
rest of good moral training, of a
life of honorable thought and
good ctizenship that the pub
lic school children should have
lessons of morality brought to
their attention during their
school days.”
The Florida court also said
it would be “more fitting” for
any further action in the case to
come from the U. S. high court.
IN ANNOUNCING the appeal
maneuvers by the Miami par
ents, the American Jewish Con
gress said Pfeffer “is expected
to make” these arguments be
fore the Supreme Court:
—That there is "no substan
tial difference” between the
Florida prayer and Bible read
ing law and the Maryland and
Pennsylvania practices which
the high court held to be un
constitutional last June.
—THAT THE public school
baccalaureate programs are
“permeated with religious ex
ercises” which are “an un
constitutional infringement on
religious freedom and Church-
State separation.”
—That requiring job appli
cants and teachers to state their
religious affiliation is unconsti
tutional in light of a 1962 Su
preme Court ruling against
state-imposed religious quali
fications for public office.
Papal Message
VATICAN CITY (NC)-In-
formal Vatican sources have
confirmed that Pope Paul VI
has sent a message to Premier
Nikita Khrushchev of the U. S.
S. R. acknowledging receipt of
a peace message the Soviet
leader sent to all heads of state
on Dec. 31.
God Love You
BY MOST REVEREND FULTON J. SHEEN
Our Blessed Lord fed the multitude who followed Him into the
desert and then talked to them about the Eucharist. He fed their
hunger of body, then their hunger of soul. Some such procedure has
to be followed in many mission lands. One missionary informed
us that it took him a full year to find land on which to start a
mission. Everyone in the neighborhood declared himself ready
to help, but they also told him there was not a single inch of land j
to be sold.
“I, myself, could see a lot of useless, uncultivated land,” the
missionary wrote, “but you would think it pure gold because the
owners would not sell it at any price. This was their way of say- jj
ing, “Who are you? What doj
you want? We don’t trust you
and we don’t want you.’
“When I was at the end of my jj
rope, God opened a door. Some- i
one in the village, knowing I f
had a dispensary, had told one
of the older men that I was a
first-class doctor who could
perform miracles with my
medicines from abroad. The old
man’s son was dying; all administrations of the sorcerers had
failed, and the boy became weaker every day.
“Since the boy was the only son and heir, the father was
willing to pay any price to have him cured. I found him in despe
rate condition, suffering from dysentery, fever and anemia.
Much of God’s help would be needed to save his life. The parents
agreed that I must try. I stayed with him for three days, and the
antibiotics performed a real miracle. After this, many sick were
brought to my tent. The only limit to my activity was the small
quantity of medicines.
“Without saying anything, people understood that if I could get
a piece of land, I would open a dispensary and give them medi
cine which they had never had before. The next evening, some of
the elders came and gave me some very fine land at a reas
onable price. After two years, I built a church. Not after eight
years, it is a promising parish.”
The corporal works of mercy are, in the underpriviledged
lands, the condition of spiritual works. With us in the United
States it is different. Itis our Faith which must dictate our works;
it is ourlove of Christ which must inspire self-denial to bring
food to the starving. How does your Faith measure up to this
test? Answer that question by sending your sacrifices to TheSoc-
iety for the Propagation of the Faith.
GOD LOVE YOU to Mr. and Mrs. J. L. C. for $6 ”My husband
gave up smoking after 20 years! Here is the first installment
of the money he would have spent on cigarettes.” . . .to A. W. for
$5 “I promised this to the Missions if my favor was granted
and it was.” .... to Mrs. E. R. for $100 “For the education of
a priest in Africa.” . . . toM. M. for $169.62 “This is the sum of
all my loose change this year.
You who are Interested in missionary activities throughout
the world will want to read MISSION, a bi-monthly publication
featuring stories, pictures and details of our Holy Father's Mis
sions. Send a request to be put on our mailing list, alolng withyour
sacrifice.
Cut out this column* pin your sacrifice to it and mail it to Most
Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, National Director of the Society for the Pro
pagation of the Faith, 366 Fifth Avenue, New York lx, N. Y. or
your Archdiocesan Director, Very Rev. Harold J* Rainey P. 0.
Box 12047 Northside Station, Atlanta 5, Ga.