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PACE 4 GEORGIA BULLETIN THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1964
WARREN REPORT
Archdiocese of Atlanta
the
GEORGIA BULLETIN
SCRVINO GEORGIA'S 71 NOUTMMw COUNTIES
Official Organ of the Archidocese of Atlanta
Published Every Week at the Decatur DeKalb News
PUBLISHER- Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan
MANAGING EDITOR Gerard E. Sherry
CONSULTING EDITOR Rev. R. Donald Kiernan
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rev. Leonard F. X. Mayhew
Member of the Catholic Press Association
2699 Peachtree N. E. and Subscriber to N. C. W. C. News Service
P. O. Box 11667 Telephone 231-1281
Northside Station
Atlanta 5, Ga. Second Class Permit at Altanta, Ga.
U. S. A. $5.00
Canada $5.00
Foriegn $6.50 -
Don’t Wonder Why!
Some people wonder why we re
fuse to go along with racial ex
tremist; some people wonder why
we plead for justice for the Negro
especially in Mississippi. Per
haps the following list of Church
buildings destroyed or damaged
by fire or bomb in Mississippi
this summer might enlighten.
June 15: Hattiesburg, Rosary
Catholic Church (auditorium gut
ted by fire • after meeting of
Negroes who discussed means
of averting racial violence).
June 16: Philadelphia, Mt. Zion
Baptist Church (leveled by bomb
after local whites beat three
Negroes).
June 21: Brandon, Church of
Christ Holiness (bombed by
Molotov cocktail; destroyed in
early August).
June 25: Ruleville, Williams
Chapel (Molotov cocktail).
June 26: Clinton, Church of the
Holy Ghost (extensive damage
from kerosene).
July 6; Jackson, McGraven-
Hill Baptist Church (kerosene
fire, slight damage).
July 11: Browning, Pleasant
Plan Baptist Church (burned to
ground).
July 13: Kingston, Jerusalem
Baptist Church (leveled by fire).
Chuch (moderately damaged by
fire).
July 30; Meridian, Mt. Mor
iah Baptist Church (leveled v
by fire).
July 31; Rankin County (on
Highway 80, about three miles
from Brandon), Pleasant Grove
Baptist Church ( burned to the
ground.
Aug. 5 Finwick (near Natchez),
Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church
(burned to ground).
Aug. 11: Gluckstadt (near Clin
ton), Mt. Pleasant Church
(severely damaged by fire).
Aug. 12: Brandon, St. Mat
thew’s Baptist Church (heavily
damaged by fire).
Aug. 22: Itta Bena, Perry's
Chapel (burned to ground; local
fire department deemed building
out of its jurisdiction).
Sept. 9: Aberdeen (on Route 45),
Mt. Moriah Baptist Church (parts
destroyed by dynamite).
Sept. 12: Aberdeen, Daniel
Baptist Church (porch burned
off).
Sept. 16: Valley View (eight
miles from Canton), St.John the
Baptist Church(totally destroyed
by fire).
July 13: One mile <east ofl
Kingston, Bethel Methodist
Church (totally destroyed by
fire).
July 17; McComb, Mt. Zion Hall
Baptist Church (moderate dam
age).
July 19: Madison County (on
Highway 51, between Ridgeland
and Madison, Christian Union
Baptist Church (burned to
ground).
July 22; Pike County (six miles
east of Magnolia), Mt. Vernon
Baptist Church (completely des
troyed by fire).
July 24; McComb, Rose Hill
Sept. 17: Madison County
(seven miles east of Canton on
Route 43), Cedar Grove Bap
tist Church (church leveled by
fire; only stone steps remain
standing).
Sept. 18: Near Philadelphia,
a Negro church and a Choctaw
Indian church severely damag
ed by fire.
There appears to us no reason
to wonder why, for few of these
crimes have been solved in Miss
issippi; in just the same manner
as the slayers of the three Civil
Rights Workers still are not ap
prehended even though their
bodies were found more than two
months ago.
Mission Sunday
Mission Sunday is always
taken for granted. The appeal for
Christ’s poor, be they in
Georgia or Africa , has one vi
tal element that almost always
is missing -- the personal con
cern of those who right off obli
gations with a check.
The work of the Propagation of
the Faith is bound up with
this appeal, which takes place
within the Archdiocese this
Sunday (Oct. 4.) The Propa
gation's keyword in all of its
activities is Love. We give to the
missions, not only because it’s
nice to help those in need; rath
er we give mainly because
we are called to love our bro
thers, and this is but one way
to express this love.
In giving generously to the
appeal for the Church’s missi
ons, let us also express the
other essential elements in
love-- prayer, concern, sacri
fice and understanding. Let us not
only pray for the mission needy,
but also for the missioners-
priests and religious who labor
in the vineyard sacrificing and
dying for the spread of Christ’s
Kingdom on earth.
Yes, Mission Sunday means
more than paying off an obli
gation with a check-- it means
returning the Love of Christ.
PEACE IS A GIFT OF
G0D...AND WE0BTAIN
IT BY PRAYING —
PauljZI
Pop
e
Month of the Rosary
GEORGIA PINES
Botany And Buccaneers
BY REV. R. DONALD KIERNAN
While north Georgians take a particular pride
in the fact that the first land-grant university in
the United States is located in these parts, ac
tually Athen's University of Georgia had its
birth place in Savannah.
The capitol of the State of Georgia was, at one
time, located in Savannha. The appropriations for
Georgia's first state university
were rriade while the General
Assembly met in the port city
making the "Birthplace of the
University" Savannah I
THIS FACT is attested to by a
marker located near the present
city hall on a bluff overlooking
the Savannah River.
This whole section of Savan
nah is rich in history. The pre
sent city hall is reputed to be on the exact
spot where General Oglethorpe landed when
he arrived here from England in 1733.
A BOUT EIGHT or nine blocks from this land
ing spot General Oglethorpe established an ex
perimental garden modeled after the Chelsea
Botanical Garden in London. The General named
the garden Trustees Garden, after the men in his
native England who were the Trustees of this
new colony named Georgia.
It is interesting to note that from this garden
came the original peach trees which were plant
ed all over South Carolina and Georgia and gave
rise to the latter’s claim to fame.
AS SAVANNAH grew and more and more im
migrants arrived, this area Expanded and be
came known as the "Old Fort". It was the
"high Irish" section of the city as distinguish
ed from the "low Irish" who settled in another
section of the town known as Yamacraw. Old
Saint Patrick’s Church became the parish church
of the Yamacraw-ites; and the proud boast of the
"old Fort Irish" was the Cathedral which even
to the present day is advertised as the barome
ter of Catholic prestige in the South.
Mainly through the efforts of Mrs. Hansell.
Hilyer, the wife of the president of the Savannah
Gas Company this whole area has been restored.
What originally was the gardener’s house in
Trustees Garden is now one of Savannah’s more
famous eating places, called the Pirate’s House.
TRADITION has it that when Savannah became
a flourishing sea port and the need of the Gar*r
den was abandoned, the Gardener’s house became
a rendezvous for bloodthirsty pirates and sail
ors. Stories still persist that a tunnel ran
from the cellar of the Pirate's House out to
the river. Through this tunnel men were car
ried, drugged and unconscious, to ships waiting
for a crew before sailing.
Legend says that one Savannahian stopped by for
a friendly drink in the tavern and awoke on a
schooner headed for China, not to return for over
two years I
ONE SUCH shanghaied sailor was a man by the
name of O’Keefe. Some years ago Hollywood made
a picture about this Savannah native who became
famous. The movie was named: "His Majesty,
O’ Keefe". National Geographic magazine had
an Interesting article a few years ago about
this interesting character too.
While the circunstances of his departure from
Savannah are debatable, O'Keefe did wind up
out on an island in the Pacific named Yap.
His memory of Savannah never waned, though,
because his will contained a remembrance of in
heritance for his relatives in Savannah.
IT IS interesting to note that the legal as
pects of "King O'Keefe’s" will were handled by
a Savannah law firm by the name of O'Connor,
O'Byrne and Hartridge. The late Mr. O’Byrne
was the father of Mother 0*Byme, president of
Manhattanville College in New York; and the late
Mr. O'Connor was the father of Monsignor O'
Connor, pastor of Decatur’s Saint Thomas More
Church.
REFUGEES ONCE MORE?
Your World And Mine
BY GARY MacEGIN
Forty minutes in a fast American car along
the new American highway south from Saigon,
capital of South Vietnam, takes one to Van Hoi.
It is a village of wood workers. Some of the men
are lumberjacks in the nearby forest. Many
have little carpentry shops by their homes,
and display the furniture for sale on the road
side.
All around are grouped other villages
20 or 30 families, others with
several hundred. On every side
stretch the paddy fields which
have made this region famous
as the Rice Bowl of the Orient,
and because of which rice-hun
gry China looks down on it with
covetous eyes. Each village,
even the smallest, is dominat
ed by its Catholic church. Such
was the custom in the homes
from which they fled in North Vietnam when
ten years ago the Geneva Agreements gave the
Communist regime of Ho Chi Minh control of
their country to the 17th parallel. A million
escaped to the south in American ships and pro
ceeded to re-create in each detail the life they
had always known.
THEY ARE hardy people, the ones from the
north. They have the Chinese virtues of family
unity and hard work. Their soil was such that they
literally had to hang it up to dry between corps
to maintain a cultivable texture. For them it was
child’s paly to grow rice on the rich virgin soil
on which they were settled. American aid help
ed them over the first year while they cleared
the forest and built simple earthen huts. Soon
the nightmare of the escape was a memory and
busy hands were rebuilding something of the
simple comfort they had sacrificed in favor of
freedom.
Always the first project was a church. The
priest had come with his people from the north
and he continued to be their guide and leader.
A school followed the church, a school in which
the priest taught until the-village could afford
fulltime teachers. After that, the men began to
replace the huts of the first years with solid
buildings. This was now their home. In due course,
they would be better off than before.
SUCH WAS their dream, but it is a dream that
has been shattered. "Can we find peace in Aus-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 5
Reliving
The Unbelief
BY GERARD E. SHERRY
Issuance of the Warren Commission Report on
the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
brings back memories of the evening of un
belief almost ten months ago in Rome.
I was sitting in the Columbus Hotel on the Via
Conciliazione having just finished dinner when the
news broke. My first thoughts were that some
right wing extremist had finally put words into
deeds and eliminated our President. And while I
was thinking this in
other parts of the
world some of my
Conservative
friends were thinking
quite the opposite.
To them, the assass
ination was the work
of a Communist un
der orders to create
chaos in our land.
It wasn’t as far fetcheda thought as itmight seem
for John F. Kennedy .’had all but humiliated
Khruschev in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the
Communists were not past doing just that.
REAPINGS
AT
RANDOM
MOST OF us were wrong in our assumptions
as a reading of the Warren Commission Re
port reveals. There was no conspiracy domestic
or foreign, to take the life of the President.
It was all the work of one man, Lee Harvey Os
wald. And what about Jack Ruby who slew Oswald
in a Dallas police station? Here again the Com
mission concludes that Jack Ruby acted on his
own, without assistance, and that his act was
no part of a conspiracy.
The Warren Report puts to rest many of the
theories circulated as to how and why the Pre
sident was slain. There is no guess work, only
conclusions based on the facts available. And these
facts were established only after exhaustive in
vestigation by the Commission and its staff. It
was a bipartisan Commission including persons
from all areas of responsible political and legal
activity. The members paid lip-service to no
one and criticized government agencies which
they felt had been lax in protecting the Presi
dent. Both the Secret Service and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation received strong criticism
for lax practices. It said that both these agen
cies failed to coordinate essential information
and actions in safeguarding the President. I am
glad that even these super agencies are not im
mune from criticism.
THE MOST significant thing about the Report
was its analysis of Lee Oswald, and it remin
ded-me of some words I wrote forto specials unj
editorial when I. returned from Romq.lLsaid,
"The alleged assassin was a child of turbulence.
An avowed Marxist, he saw violence as the solu
tion to the problems whirling through his twist
ed mind. As a result of his actions, a Presi
dent lay dead and a world was disrtuped from
its chosen task of establishing peace and tran
quility in the hearts of mankind.
"It would be comforting, in some ways, if we
could lay the philosophy of violence solely at
the door of the Marxists and their world. But
who will cast the first stone? We, as a nation,
are not warlike. Yet we are suffering from a
dreadful malady which now seems to have
struck the vitals of our body politic. At both
ends of the political spectrum there are indi
viduals and groups wishing to impose their
views on the nation— by violence if necessary.
Both elements of the extremist cause claim
patriotism as their motive, and scoff at the dissi
dent view. Physical violence seems to be the
answer if they cannot succeed in overwhelming
the majority viewpoint by insiduous propaganda.
"THESE extremists of the Right and the Left
do not reflect the American way. They are ser
vants of alien causes whose masters seek either
a dictatorship of the Proletariat, or a master
race, nurtured on violence and disorder.
"John Fitzgerald Kennedy saw things dif
ferently. He belonged to a new generation of
Americans who saw war as the least suitable
way to accomplish a peaceful world. He was a
man of courage, who had been tested in battle
and had earned "a profile in courage". Although
born to riches, he possessed a compassion for
his fellowman which knew no bounds. His con
stant goal was peace at home and peace in the
world. But when the time came to stand up to
the enemy, he never flinched, and won the
day. No need for him to rattle a sabre, because
he was seeking plows to till the valleys of
peace. He wanted the American dream realized
through brotherly love, rather than hate. It
was a lot to ask of this disturbed nation, but he
had faith in its people, whose generosity of heart
had been proven so many times before.
"IT IS tragic that only through his death
could the real sentiments of the majority of our
people be given witness. The genuine expressions
of horror and disgust from leaders of both our
main political parties was carried through to the
millions of members throughout the land. The
extreme Right Wing and extreme Left Wing could
only be isolated in this hour of national travail.
Their mockery of our patriotic values could
only be laid bare at such a time."
After the Warren Commission Reprt, I would
not change a word of these views.