Newspaper Page Text
BULLETIN
LBJ Will Curb Bombing At ‘The Right Time
ARCHDIOCESE OF ATLANTA
SERVING GEORGIA’S 71
NORTHERN COUNTIES
VOL, 5 NO. 29
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
THURSDAY, JULY, 20, 1967
NEW YORK (RNS)~President
J ohnson will play an "ace card"
by halting the bombing in North
Vietnam when he feels the con
ditions are right for such action,
a Washington news correspon
dent told 9 breakfast group
sponsored by the Council of
Lutheran Ministries here.
Ray Scherer, White House
correspondent for the National
Broadcasting Company, told 350
persons that "when enough time
has elapsed from the Glass-
boro summit and when we
have enough military strength
in Vietnam" the President
would issue the order to stop
the bombing.
"The other side has always
insisted this is the first move
we must make. 1 think we will
m ake it when the time is deemed
right/ Scherer said.
The breakfast was held in
connection with the convention
of the Lutheran Church-
Missouri Synod.
Scherer, a member of a Miss
ouri Synod congregation in
Washington, served the denomi
nation as a member of its
official publication’s editorial
commission.
He said that whatever the
turn , in the fortunes of the war
in Vietnam, President Johnson
could use the situation to ad
vantage. "I don’t say that he
does, but I do say it works out
that way," he declared.
"When ever the President
escalates the war, his rating in
the polls go up,’ he continued.
"At the same time, whenever
he makes a move in the other
direction, such as last year’s
bombing pause or the Glass-
boro- summit, his ratings
also move up.”
‘This is true simply because
of the power of the Presidency
and the public relish to get the
war over with, whether by in
creasing the military pressure
or via the peace route,” he con
cluded.
HEADS HOUSE OF USE
Walt Anderson Hunts Something Useful For Teens
BY MARY LACKIE
Walt Anderson says he doesn’t know how he got involved, but
he is working to get Negro and white teen-agers off the streets.
Director of the House of USE (understanding, stimulation,
education), Anderson said, "I guess I saw too many kids stand
ing around on street corners with nothing to do." About two
years ago, he said, "I just started walking up and down the
J streets at night, going into pool halls, beer joints, crap games,
f- Sure, the kids resented me at first — they were suspicious."
“One guy stopped me on the street and asked me if I was a
■secret agent’ ”, Anderson said. "I asked him if he had ever
seen any secret agents in this community before? He said,
■No’, and I asked him, 'Why the hell do you think they would want
to send a secret agent down here?’ The guy said, ‘Well, that's
the word that’s going around about you.' ”
After Anderson got "a few guys out of jail, hired attorneys
for them,' and had some put on probation to me, the word got
around, 'If you’re in trouble, call Walt' ".
"Now I have so many phone calls, I can’t handle all of them,”
f Anderson said. He has a file of about 300 boys and admits it
has been hard to do ‘follow-ups' because he has been working
> alone. "But you have to stick with them, that’s all,” he said.
"Do you realise,” Anderson asked, "that 80 per cent of the
juvenile crimes in this country are committed by 20 per cent of
the teen-age population? That Atlanta has one of the highest
juvenile crime rates in the country? There is something dras
tically wrong somewhere.”
Most of the boys in the House of USE come from fatherless
homes, and the majority have committed felonies of some kind,
Anderson said. ‘"ITiey’ve spent time in the city stockade, juve
nile courts, Alto, Reidsville. They have no sense of security.”
What does Anderson think about prison terms as punishment
f> for teen-age crime? "Prisons—are bad”, he said. ‘‘I’ve
seen a 15-year-old kid sent up for five years for something so
terrible as burglary.”
Anderson's idea is "to try to do a little crime prevention.”
“I try to find them jobs, hire attorneys when they need oiie,
get them back in school; give them a better self-image—that's
why I wear a tie.”
Anderson, an ex-Marine, said, "I guess the reason I get re
spect out of these guys is because I don’t take any trash from
them. You have to be firm and fair—and the important thing is
that when you have to discipline them, you are damn sure you
are right.”
Anderson was sure he was right about his project, but he did
a little crime prevention for a little longer than he could af
ford. "Most of my salary was spent on this—I was going broke,”
he said.
So he started knocking on some doors and writing letters to
people. "I just told them who I was, and what I needed.” An
derson ■ said, "Out of 39 people, I had only three denials. I
guess that is pretty good.”
Anderson gained support from business and civic leaders who
formed an advisory council for the House of USE. The new
program is sponsored by the Butler St. YMCA and funded by
United Appeal and EOA. The House of USE will be located in a
building at the corner of Georgia -Avenue and Terry Street.
"Now we can provide help for 500 ‘hard-core-unemployed-
disadvantaged-teen-agers between, the ages of 16 and 25,”
Anderson said. The renovated building will offer a place for
recreational facilities, vocational training and basic education
courses. jj
The House of USE will be staffed by Anderson, a full-time pro
fessional assistant, a counselor for the girls, and four assis
tants from among the boys "who have stuck with me,” Ander
son said.
"Our main purpose here is just to get these kids to the point
where they -will be motivated to get into some legitimate enter
prise, find jobs, get back in school—so they can grow up to
be ‘decent citizens—for instance, buying their cars on time in
stead of hustling them,” he said.
"For some of the boys, it means giving them just a small re
sponsibility at first,” Anderson said. "But they know they have
that job to do, and do it right." Anderson doesn’t keep assis-
ARCHBISHOP Paul J. Hallinan says Mass for members of the
Community of Christ Our Brother at Gammon Theological Sem
inary. The outdoor Mass was held when community members
discovered they were locked out of the building. At the left of
the archbishop is Father Noel C. Burtenshaw, chancellor.
FOR SALE* Negroes Moving In
The Rev. James Costen said
the flight of white homeowners
from Cascade Heights, a shady
neighborhood of well-kept brick
homes, is diminishing, but he
has seen enough "For Sale”
signs to have nightmares about
them.
“I think the white departure
is slowing down,” said Costen,
pastor of the United Pres
byterian Church of the Master,
"and we will be able to tell
more when we see what happens
in the area south of Sewell
Road.”
The husky, soft-spoken min
ister, pastor of an integrated
church, and Southwest Atlantans
For Progress (SWAP) have
worked untiringly to persuade
white residents to stay when a
Negro family moves into their
neighborhood.
"We have had some people
put up ‘For Sale' signs and then
take them down. Because. of
SWAP we now have white people
trying to get their neighbors to
stay.”
Costen said the failure of the
Board of Aldermen to pass a
ban on "For Sale” signs in the
area did not disappoint him too
much. "1 am sorry that many
of the aldermen have failed to
recognize that concrete Steps
must be taken to find a larger
solution.”
The minister said some real
estate men have been unethical
in pressuring white people to
leave and in charging Negroes
too much for homes."I’m not
anti-real estate even though
they have abused me.
"But it is not to the advan
tage of real estate men to
saturate one area. It is time
for Negro real estate men to
begin to find housing in areas
that have not been traditionally
open to Negroes.
"It would create open housing
and when every section and
every income-level neigh
borhood has Negro residents
then we will not have the
situation that exists in Cascade
Heights. As long as people can
run, some of them will do it.”
The minister said a national
open housing law is needed,
but he doubts if Congress will
pass one.
"Churches could help the sit
uation if they would buy five or
six homes in neighborhoods
near them and arrange for
Negroes to move in. Churches
have been anemic on this ques-
(CONT1NUEDON PAGE 2)
■■IS
'
THE REV. J., Riley McDonald, left, assistant pastor, and
the Rev. James Costen, pastor of the United Presbyterian
Church of the Master, are trying to stabilize Cascade Heights
and promote an integrated neighborhood..
WALT ANDERSON stands on the backporch of the House of
USE and studies the neighborhood where he works.
tants long. "As soon as they are ready to get jobs and be on
their own, I let them go," he said.
Sometimes the change in behavior is slow. Anderson gave
one example: "One of the kids kept getting into trouble for a
long time. Then one day, he loaned his hat to another boy. That
boy wound up shooting a man with a shotgun. So the police go
looking for the kid that owned the hat. It took about a week to
prove to them they had the wrong boy, and in the meantime, they
found the other guy,” Anderson said.
"The incident really put a scare into that kid,” he said,
"Now he has a steady job in a warehouse, makes about $85 a
week, and is considered one of the leaders around here."
Within the group of boys, there is a council called the Thump
ers. "They are selected from among the biggest and toughest
around here,” Anderson said. Asked what the Thumpers do,
Anderson replied, "They thump people. That’s their respon
sibility. When we have dances, they make sure nothing gets
started, and they pick up weapons, stuff like that, keep things
under control. Of course,” he said, "you have to be careful
they don’t start thumping just anybody.”
Anderson and the boys cleaned out the building that will be
the House of USE. It is empty now, waiting for painters and
planners to complete renovations. The place will be open from
noon until midnight, Anderson said, “because that's when the
kids are on the corners. We expect to be in operation in about
two weeks, and I think we are headed in the right direction.”
"Atlanta has an unique opportunity” Anderson said, "We
are looking at a growing city-a city still in the stages of con
ception. We have the chance to capitalize on all the mistakes
that were made in cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit. Their
slum problems, their crime rates—we could prevent all this,
and what are we doing about it? Not a damn thing.”
In his spare time, Anderson is writing a book. "It will be
about the South, and cover material nobody has thought about or
written about before—it will make "Manchild in the Promised
Land” look like a picnic, he said.
"Anderson is unencumbered,” said the Rev. Allison Wil
liams, pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church, and an early
backer of the House of USE project. "What intrigues me,”
said the Rev. Mr. Williams, "is that there is not a lot of struc
ture here to hobble the work. Anderson can establish a per
son-to-person encounter with people in need.” The minister,
a member of the advisory council, said "The House of USE has
generated a chain of interest among business leaders.”
One of the leaders and a council officer, said, "This is an
area where businessmen should have an interest. We hope we
can do some good in this effort to help unemployed youth de
velop their skills.”
"I have known Walt Anderson about three months,” said
Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan,” but that was long enough to find
out that this man is a Christian modeled after the gospels.
When a man stakes his time, money and energies against the
hopelessness and despair of young lives, I am for him.”
"I have been honored,” the archbishop said, "by this ap
pointment to the advisory council, but also chagrined that these
things had to be pointed out to me.”
He said, "Catholics who help Walt Anderson, whether in time
or in money, are producing good credentials for the Last
Judgment.”
SYMPOSIUM TOLD
Family Planning Programs
‘Ethically Acceptable’ In U.S.
WASHINGTON (NC)~Present
United States family planning
programs are ethically accep
table to the adherents of all
major U.S. religions, includ
ing Catholics, NormanSt. John-
Stevas told some 70 persons at
the closing session of a three
-day symposium on world pop
ulation here.
The symposium, sponsored
by the Georgetown University
Center for Population Re
search, was primarily made
up of government officials and
other persons active in the
field of population control. They
heard St. John-Stevas, a leading
Catholic Conservative in the
British House of Commons, ex
plain that this view was an
alteration of his earlier opinion
expressed in a paper, Birth
Control and Public Policy, pub
lished by the Center for Demo
cratic Institutions and reprinted
by the Family Life Bureau of
the United States Catholic Con
ference.
He said that he had decided
that U.S. programs on popu
lation are now ethical, because
the attitudes of Catholics toward
contraception have changed
since 1960, when his paper was
published. As long as the fed
eral programs scrupulously
maintain the principle of vol
untary participation, he said,
it is unnecessary for Catholics
to oppose them.
Two government representa
tives who addressed the sym
posium on current U.S. popu
lation programs stressed the
fact that participation in all
U.S.- supported family planning
programs is voluntary. They
also emphasized the fact that
the United States offers family
planning assistance only to
countries which specifically re
quest such aid.
Leighton Van Nort, chief of
the State Department’s division
of United Nations Economic Af
fairs, emphasized the potential
role of private groups in es
tablishing family planning pro
grams in developing countries.
Updating Of Liturgy Seeks
ToCreate Sense Of Oneness
The changes that are coming
in the liturgy are trying to
create a sense of oneness,
Father Henry Gracz told per
sons attending a program on
"Our Changing Worships: An
guish or Joy?” at St. Anthony’s
Tuesday night.
"The liturgy must be the
people's own worship. It must
be an action which the people
enact with the priest~an action
which involves all they are,”
‘^Father Gracz, secretary of
the Archdiocesan LiturgyCom-
mission, said.
"The people's action is just
as much a part of true lit
urgical celebration as is the
priest’s and it must ringtrue,”
the priest said.
The programs on changes in
the liturgy will be held again
next Monday night at Our Lady
of the Assumption, at St.
Anthony's on Tuesday night and
at the Cathedral of Christ the
King Wednesday night. The pro
grams begin at 8 p.m.
Father Gracz said the new
forms and the new spirit of
worship "will draw us to our
fellowman and to the needs of
humanity in the world, embrac
ing our culture and the people
who compose it, regardless of
class or reace, so that men
loving one another in the stream
of Christ Jesus will be lead to
our heavenly father.”
He said external changes
in the liturgy alone will not be
enough to make it the people’s
own action. An attitude of mind,
an interior spirit must be cul-
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 2)
ft**
LOUIS Erbs, chairman of the Archdiocesan Liturgy Commission,
and Mrs. Pat Vermilya, a member of Sts. Peter and Paul parish,
look at a banner which emphasizes the spirit of the changes in
the liturgy. ■ t