Editorial
EDITORIAL A Great Decision America has just experienced one of the great moments of its history, a moment to which thousands of men and women, from William Lloyd Garrison to Walter White, have...
...he had covered such vital events as the organizing battles in bloody Harlan County and the rise of the CIO, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1942...
...Both the journalistic profession and the labor movement will miss him...
...Kenneth Clark, a prober into segregation's psychological effects...
...Marshall on behalf of the NAACP...
...the Court has called for further discussion next fall: all the parties involved will be asked to participate in advising it on specific procedures for enforcing the decision...
...They did not duck the momentous issues involved, as Congresses and Presidents have in the past, but courageously delivered an unequivocal decision...
...The Court first received the school cases almost two years ago: rather than spring a quick decision on an unprepared nation, it carefully heard argument on the constitutional issues not once but twice, determined to leave no aspect of the controversy unexamined...
...Today—and it was not true twenty years ago—only a handful of old demagogues dare to defend segregation on principle...
...Jackie Robinson, an athlete...
...In the unanimity of the Court's decision was reflected the quiet revolution in American thinking which has taken place during the last two decades...
...The wonderful reality about the decision is that all children will now be able to read that history—and believe it...
...His skill, knowledge and scrupulous regard for facts won him the respect of labor, industry and Government alike...
...they include such diverse people as Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of a President...
...He and his associates are assured of a glorious page in any history of American democracy...
...So are Chief Justice Earl Warren and his colleagues on the Supreme Court...
...But among these heroes the first rank must be occupied by Walter White, Roy Wilkins and the other leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and that organization's brilliant attorney, Thurgood Marshall...
...President Truman described him as "dean of all reporters on the labor scene.' Between 1919 and 1951...
...Now that it has established the principle of free education for all...
...In doing so, they displayed truly conservative statesmanship at its finest...
...Not only the public-school cases, but many others which paved the way for the great decision, were argued by Mr...
...The vane which tells us how the wind is rising is the attitude of Southern youth...
...Louis Stark Louis Stark of the New York Times, who passed away last week at the age of 66, was America's outstanding labor journalist, an unusually kind and wise human being and a loyal friend of The New Leader for many years...
...more than any single man, he was responsible for raising labor journalism to its present level of accuracy and sobriety...
...They may make a few more ugly headlines, but time and, now, the law are against them...
...Thanks to this course of action, not only clarity but valuable time will have been gained...
...These heroes are too numerous to mention...
...With all our victories in war, with all our industrial achievements, American democracy has had few triumphs in this century to match the unanimous Supreme Court ban on segregated public schools...
...the demagogues will have had their say, and thoughtful, moderate opinion will have had an opportunity to assert itself...
...Despite the wild words being uttered by the likes of Herman Talmadge (see Joseph Fiszman's pre-decision story on page 10), the manner in which the Court has proceeded will cut the ground away from the extremists...
...In the long view of history, the Court's decision will be counted not only as a triumph for the American people, who were capable of wiping out a cancer at the heart of their national life, but as another vindication of responsible free government, which makes truth the greatest power in politics and brotherhood the highest aspiration of society...
...Said North Carolina University's Daily Tar Heel: "This is the time for the yielding of personal prejudice and discrimination, for the changing of opinion and practice...
...Said the Kernel, student newspaper at the University of Kentucky: "Unpleasant as it is to many Southerners, we are on the road to making the democratic principles embodied in our Constitution a fact...
...and Dr...
...When he retired as a reporter three years ago to join the Times's editorial board...
...Nazi racism and the challenge of Communism have both had something to do with this great change...
...The people and officials of the Southern states will have had at least three years to prepare the end of Jim Crow education...
...But, primarily, the quiet revolution is the work of individual Americans who, each in his own way, helped mold a new national conscience...
...EDITORIAL A Great Decision America has just experienced one of the great moments of its history, a moment to which thousands of men and women, from William Lloyd Garrison to Walter White, have dedicated their lives...
Vol. 37 • May 1954 • No. 21
