The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Personalizing Problems LILLIAN SMITH and Paula Snelling ca>ry on deep down in Georgia. But to countless persons scat-J tered all over the country they are nearer...
...Of the authors it is possible to identify 10 as southern women...
...But to countless persons scat-J tered all over the country they are nearer than go-t-door neighbors...
...A questionnaire was sent out to preacher* and ehurehwerker...
...I suggest that Miss Snelllng and Dr...
...Many of our ministers are one hundred year* behind the timea, They know nothing of the economic end social battles that are taking place In the world today...
...It ia much easier to quit smoking or drinking than it ia to treat a Negro brother decently...
...That ia, I am curloua about what the other preachers would say, the enea who didn't get the questionnaire or who failed to answer...
...Together th«y could give us something hot...
...Anyone who wants to help solve any problem must begin at home...
...Gallup would mate of a survey like thia one by Paula Snelllng...
...Wrong ideas, attitudes, habits, purposes sre not limited to some other fellows away off somewhere—southern bourbons, for example...
...The other 8 letters from southern women sre not merely laudatory...
...All of these vigorous expressions come from the South...
...And then she announces crushingly that it is her exalted notion that the book should be banned from her library...
...And good people in New York or Chicago can't help the world by denouncing these other fellows...
...Their attack is modern...
...They don't deal in percentages as do Dr...
...There is never anything mathematical about their summaries...
...But It does show what aome church people are thinking and trying to do...
...The question* are better than any of the answers...
...But the way in which these girls apply it is aa fresh as the latest jumping-jive tune...
...Eight native southern women from various places in different southern states write in thst strain...
...They see how poverty and ignorance and frustration deform human beings -and how cruelty and bigotry come jetting out of the subconscious welter that forms deep down in them...
...Another "southern-born white lady" confesses that the book drove her to repentance: "I am thoroughly ashamed of myself for ever being such a narrow-minded person...
...The meet astonishing is the fart thst the comebacks cannot be classified according sex, race or region...
...Southern Women and Strange Fruit In one way these women prove their expertness in every issue of their journal...
...Another is a prissy and toploftical essay from a member of the book committee of a town library...
...But no carefully calculated chart of the national or regional mind ever seemed as fresh or real as what they manage to distill within the small space at their disposal...
...She wants to know how a southern woman could "harbor such unlovely thought* in her mind" as thoss which Lillian Smith has set down in her novel...
...I don't want one of them to mi*s the meaning of it ? " * • rhe Cnurca and Mag's Meeds B UT the results of th* biggest and best survey which South Today has ever put on are summarized in this, last number by Pauls Snsllfng...
...But what struck me hardest Was the expression of thought and feeling from southern women...
...They know how minds come to be twisted...
...Spurts ef anger and denunciation came from northerners as well as southerners, from men as well aa women and from Negroes as well as whites...
...In piously refusing to amoks or drink and in strenuously teaching others to do so...
...Just aa there are a lot of southern women supporting the campaign for racial insight and justice, so th*r* are a lot of southern preachers who are willing to take Christianity seriously all round the circle of our social problem...
...Th* wife ef a Methodist missionary testifies that she felt, on reading the book, "as if all the front door* of the little and big house* of th* little town nearest us had been torn off and the innermost recesses revealed...
...And, finally, a prominent woman church worker in Georgia thinks that "those of us who value truth and goodness above prejudice and a very real dishonesty of mind and spirit, cannot but b* grateful...
...They understand that mere denouncing or opposing or preaching will'not help...
...There are many thinga to be said about the reflex actions from so many minds...
...The Church in the South is sn appanage of property and reaction...
...Lillian Smith has found support there on her native heslth...
...They sre not scared by rode words or fresh thoughts...
...A writer described as A Southern Whit* Lady writes: "1 happen to have been born and raised . . . not many miles away from the very real and true little town you have written about Naturally 1 was touched by your warm and tender feeling for th* beauty, romance, drama and tragedy that this part of the country i* so deeply steeped in...
...But they are psychologists...
...they are full of a fln* understanding...
...But, having written all thia, I confess thst I am curious to know what Dr...
...So for them queer quirks about race don't exist by themselves...
...Think what this means...
...Without much trouble I could find quotations from the Bible that formulate it in fine words...
...Ths editors wanted to know what sort of world we want for our children and what the church is doing to create It and if it isn't doing enough, why T Here are a few quotations from the answers...
...They publish South Today, and la e»*ry issue they prove their mastery of a technique that beats anything which any other publishers or editors save thought of...
...Gallup collaborate...
...A woman from North Carolina, after acknowledging that the novel has tender moments, concludes that is ,. "Just-^-and terrible, as justice can be...
...One of these letters is a stupid outburst from a vulgar poor white, wihch Miss Smith trea/s with charming good humor...
...If you are suspicious of my enthusiasm, just address a letter to Clayton, Georgia, and enclose 50* for your copy of South Today...
...They are willing to face up to the realities...
...The men and women were, naturally, selected—so ths results cannot be taken as a picture ef the mind of the church...
...There were many thousands of letters, 96 percent of which praised the book...
...There are about 60 excerpts from letters included in Mis* Smith's report...
...Since they work in the South, their prime concern is with the race problem...
...If they could teach every preacher and every social worker this technique, they would upset our dull way of pretending that -monstrous evils do not exist Their secret weapon is to bring every individual reader spang up against social wrongs and make him feel personally responsible for them...
...That make* two...
...Another woman reader, this one from Mississippi, reports that she felt a cold, small voice within her saying: "This is my town...
...Excerpta from 70 repllea are given, and exactly on* half of them com* from the South...
...Maybe this is beginning to sound like a radio commercial...
...They get under your skin...
...I sm puting this down especially for my New York readers...
...But because we feel guilty for not having treated him decently we seek a scapegoat...
...Too often the church has tried to save men'a souls without saving their bodies and their minds...
...Gallup and Elmo Roper...
...In their last number, for example, Lillian Smith shares the mail that poured in on her after the publication of Strange Fruit...
...This sounds like old-fashioned preaching...
...They always give you a lively report, on some segment of public opinion...
...An Atlanta woman ia convinced that "only a frank expose of conditions will startle the southerner* into sn honest realisation of the conditions they are half unconsciously supporting...
Vol. 28 • April 1945 • No. 14
