Newspaper Page Text
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TBS SOVTIIIR II1ABLIT1
Friday, October 17, 1958
This Outrageous Deed Is Call for Action
To Erase Shameful Blot on City, State
Monday, Oct. 13, 1958
From Atlanta
Some slinky cowards posing as members of the
human race early on yesterday’s Sabbath morn
ing bombed Atlanta’s Jewish Temple, bringing
hatred upon themselves and shame upon this city.
Whoever is responsible—and the community can
not rest in peace until they are brought to justice
—should be removed permanently from the ranks
of decent citizens.
This outrage not only shames Atlanta but pre
sents danger to all her citizens. No home or build
ing is safe until these people are caught and put
away. Those who would bomb a house of worship
out of hate or any other motive are sick men.
Human lives or property mean nothing if they
can but satiate their perverted desires.
Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild and William B.
Schwartz Jr., president of the Temple congrega
tion, expressed it correctly in saying this despic
able and outrageous act “is in fact directed against
the total community.’’ It also is directed against
all the decent, law-abiding people of this state.
It has been known for some time that outside
anti-Semitic and racial organizations were ped
dling their gospel of hate and violence in Atlanta
and other Southern cities. Until this incident At
lanta had been spared violence, although there
was other evidence of their dirty work. Some other
Southern cities—and these were hit in the same
manner as Atlanta—have not been so fortunate.
This incident seems to prove that such South
wide organizations do, in fact, exist. Under what
ever banner they parade—be it Ku Klux Klan or
more high-sounding names—these hate mongers
and inciters to violence cannot be and must not be
tolerated in Georgia, the South or the nation.
In a statement yesterday, Mayor Hartsfield
pointed out again that Atlanta has prided itself on
being a fine example of tolerance and racial and
Constitution
religious decency. The overwhelming majority of
its people is indeed sickened and saddened by this
damnable act. They are in complete sympathy
with the Temple congregation and united in want
ing the guilty brought to justice.
Atlanta remains a decent, law-abiding commun
ity of tolerant people. It is revolted by rabble-
rousers and those who would turn man against
his neighbor. It hates those human vultures who
“sneak about in the dark” burning their crosses
and setting off dynamite to destroy community
institutions and property.
We have prided ourselves that it couldn’t hap
pen here. We have read and deplored such activi
ties in other towns and cities. But now it has hap
pened here. It cannot and must not happen again.
The FBI, the Atlanta Police Department and
every law enforcement agency of the State of
Georgia must indeed “sift every piece of debris
and move every stone” to bring those responsible
to justice. To that end, the community should
help protect its good name by contributing
to a reward fund in whatever amount necessary.
Each of us who believes in law and order is
challenged to help preserve them.
Those who have engaged in peddling of hate
and rabble-rousing for personal advantage also
should take a look at the rewards of their work.
Those who have contributed to an atmosphere in
which such human derelicts can thrive should
examine their consciences. They cannot be proud
of what they see.
This shameful and shocking incident has aroused
the entire city and state. No citizen can be at ease
until this cancerous growth is erased from this
community.
Let’s catch the sneaky cowards and put them
away!
RALPH McGILL
The F B I Is Welcome
President Dwight Eisenhower’s
order to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to participate in the
investigation of the destructive
bombing of the largest Temple
in Atlanta, Ga., was proper.
Unhappily, it also was, and
is, necessary.
And let none fail to see that
this casts a shadow of things to
come.
Gov. Faubus was the first
Southern governor to attempt by
force to deny the authority of
the Supreme Court and of the
district courts. But well before
this, the extremist utterance of
these governors and other politi
cal leaders in the South had
brought into the open the fanati-
ic anti-Semitic forces. They had
sound reason to believe that if
the top leadership could stand
against the due proccess of law
they could do the same. They
came to believe they, too, were,
or would be, immune to legal
punishment.
The oldest lesson in history is
that those who loose hate in one
field cannot contain it. It spreads.
And so, for more than a year,
running along with the extrem
ist views which encouraged the
people everywhere to ignore the
courts of law was the equally
violent pamphlets and utterances
of the really dangerous, lunatic
fringe of anti-Semi ticism.
Rabid Publications
The mail to editors as long as
a year ago began to fill up with
the unbelievably rabid publica
tions of these people. They join-
From Atlanta Constitution
Tuesday, Oct. 14, 1958
ed the two—race and anti-Semi-
ticism. Their charges and accu
sations are as weird as a narcot
ic’s dreams. Most of their stuff
is so incredible as to be beyond
belief. But, violent they are.
A sample, from a well-estab
lished farmer near Fort Valley,
Ga., will serve as an example:
"I venture to say there are a
million responsible men and
women in the South who hope
every integrated school will be
bombed or burned off the face
of the earth
Such writings, against Jew and
Negro, and against any person
who publicly stands for the pro
cesses of law, have been com
mon place for more than a year.
The mails are flooded with their
slanders and filth, revealing
their own poisoned minds.
All Saturday evening, for ex
ample, before the bombing of the
Temple in Atlanta, a group of
such persons were at the South
eastern Fair, near Atlanta, hand
ing out the most violent type
pamphlets , . .weird, lunatic
suff with the plain intent to in
cite violence. Those showing
themselves in public may not
have had any connection with
the bombing of the Temple—or
they may have. But some per
sons of like mentality did.
Now, back to the FBI.
Klan-Type
The President was right to
order them in. In the major
cities of the South every police
force is infected with possibly
five to 10 per cent of persons of
the Klan-type mentality. The
Atlanta police force is a super
ior one. It has a record far above
that of any city in states where
the top political leadership has
been inflammatory and has,
thereby, ecouraged those given
to violence. But, even its great
majority of honest, able men has
had to contend with its unstable
few. In many of the smaller
towns and cities over the South
the Klan mentality is in control.
At Clinton, Tenn., when the
splendid high school was dyna
mited, there were those forces,
claiming states’ rights, which
protested any participation by
the FBI. Technically, they were
right. No federal law had been
violated. The Atlanta case also
was a domestic, internal affair.
The President properly ordered
the Bureau of Investigation on
the job. Atlanta officials and
citizens welcomed them.
The undisputed fact is that
just as local law could not cope
with kidnapings, local law can
not now meet all the demands
brought on by violence and or-
ganzied agitation such as has
caused the South-wide bombings
and burnings of churches, tem
ples, synagogues and schools. As
of this writing not a single one
of the many dynamitings has
been solved. With the full force
of the FBI, happily, in Atlanta
the tide may turn.
The next Congress, to prevent
anarchy, will find it necessary
to adopt legislation in this field
as it did in kidnapings.
Photographs in This Section
Were Made by Bill Young*
and Dwight Ross, Jr.
A DESECRATED TEMPLE
CRIES OUT TO HEAVEN
Monday, Oct. 13, 1958
From Atlanta Journal
This Sunday bombing of The Temple defiled Atlanta and
Georgia as well as that holy edifice.
It was an act of aggression, a declaration of war against
all decent people by believers in force, violence and hatred.
It was an act symbolic of these troubled times, and an act
which if allowed to go unanswered, will be repeated again
and again.
It was an act of maniacs, today’s counterparts of those who
through history have taken advantage of ignorance and bigo
try and prejudice to rise to power and once in power have
kept themselves there by the tactics of terror.
It was an act of violence, directed against all the good
things for which this nation stands. The sticks of dynamite
that blasted the Temple blasted also the American traditions
of liberty, tolerance and freedom of conscience.
It was an act of calculated hatred, a match deliberately
touched to the explosive mixture of passions of these times
in hopes of a fiery reaction of more blasts, more violence
and the kind of burning hatred that consumes everything
that stands in its way, producing chaos, and finally bringing
power to the evil minds that inspired it.
This generation of Americans has seen this pattern in
Europe and in Asia and shuddered, as one by one the de
fenses fell and viciousness was triumphant.
The desecration of The Temple could be the first of many
such acts here, spreading in evil until finally no man’s home
is safe.
It also could be, and must be, the last. The challenge has
been made. The crisis, which long has been abuilding, has
arrived.
And Atlanta and Georgia have answered. From the gov
ernor down, the response has been magnificent. The blast
that shook The Temple shook the state.
The spontaneous outpourings of sympathy for the congre
gation, the flash of horror that such a thing could happen
here, show that the warning has been understood in all its
implications.
Those responsible must be brought to justice as an ex
ample to those who may think there is the least shred of
popular sympathy for this kind of deed.
And finally popular opinion must be firm in the cause of
peace and order. For no matter what comes, no matter what
trials the future may bring, violence and destruction breed
only disaster and death and are not the answers to the prob
lems of today.
HAROLD MARTIN
State Is Reaping
Its Bitter Harvest
From Atlanta Constitution
Tuesday, Oct. 14, 1958
They bombed the school in
Clinton, Tenn., and Jewish tem
ples in Miami and Jacksonville.
On Sunday morning they bomb
ed the Jewish Temple here.
Who’s next? My church? Your
church? My house? Your house?
We are reaping the whirlwind
our leaders have sown. We are
harvesting the fruits ripened by
the extremist statements of Mr.
Faubus, and Mr. Griffin, and Mr.
Bodenhamer, and Mr. Vandiver,
and Mr. Roy Harris and others.
When you preach, as our politi
cal leaders have preached, de
fiance of the supreme law of
our land, you preach defiance of
all law.
When you preach hatred of
one race you preach hatred of
all races. When you encourage
the ignorant and evil to hate
the Negro you encourage him
to hate the Jew and the Catholic.
You encourage him to hate all
men whose color is different
from his or whose manner of
worship is different from his—
or whose manner of thinking is
different from his.
The time has come for those
who believe in government by
law to stand up and be counted.
There is an evil worse than
rabies loose in our city, our state
and our region. All of us who
have been timid in the past must
now speak out—saying clearly
and unmistakably what we think
and feel—that this community
and this state and this region
shall be ruled by law. It shall
not be ruled by night-riding
terrorists. It shall not be domin
ated by hate-ridden cowards who
blow up schools and the holy
temples where a people worship.
If we keep quiet now, if we
dismiss this thing as something
that happened to someone else,
as something that doesn’t con
cern us, we invite anarchy. Your
home will be no safer than you
alone can make it. My home will
be no safer than I alone can
make it.
Shall you, or I, accept the pros
pect that the time may come
when we must stand armed
guard over our homes for fear
some sneaking craven who dis
approves of our views will come
by night to blow us up? Is that
the life a man must live in free
America, as a penalty for being
a Negro, or a Jew, or a Catho
lic, or for saying freely what he
thinks?
It is to be noted that the City
of Atlanta has offered a reward
of a thousand dollars for infor
mation leading to the arrest of
those who bombed the Temple.
These newspapers, I am proud
to learn, offered five thousand
more for the arrest of those
whose festering minds were re
sponsible for this thing.
But rewards are not enough,
and arrest and punishment of
the criminals will not be enough.
The first duty of thi3 community
is for every man and woman to
send in to the Temple his own
contribution—even if only a to
ken—so that the wrecked build
ing may be restored, not by the
members of its own congrega
tion, but by all the citizens of
Atlanta.
It is the least we can do. For
when we have heard men preach
hatred in the past, and allowed
them to go unrebuked, by our
silence we jointly share the
guilt