National Reports
CORDON, WILLIAM K. WYANT JR., WILLIAM
National Reports Frying Omelettes, Western Style By William K. Wyant Jr. St. Louis Acapuchin monkey from Central America died of heat prostration at the St. Louis Zoo last month. The zoo's daily...
...What will the Supreme Court do next...
...The children cried and tossed in the long, hot night, and next day the sun rose again...
...Louisans take a kind of fierce pride in their weather, and they share Mark Twain's preoccupation with the subject...
...Not a word was uttered by a single Negro passenger...
...Without question, the effects of the Court decision reach around the world and lighten the hearts of more than a billion people in Africa and Asia who look to this country for leadership...
...And they realize also that they are not alone in this fight...
...As a famous American historian said recently: "Millions of Americans regard racial segregation as a stigma which brands its victims with a badge of inferiority...
...A million or more sweating citizens contemplated the fact that the Midwest is no place for the higher vertebrates when summer's wrath is on...
...The zoo's daily elephant show had to be called off because the pavement was so hot the pachyderms could not walk on it...
...On the day of the decision, May 17, the rear door of a downtown bus here jammed, forcing Negroes to use the front entrance to leave...
...For the benefit of press photographers, pretty girls fried eggs on sidewalks or dangled legs in fountains...
...There has been no gloating or bragging on the part of Negroes...
...Within a week, a similar stand was taken by the Georgia Methodists...
...Deaths attributable to weather mounted past the 200 mark...
...This was a great defeat, but Negroes took it like good soldiers and law-abiding citizens...
...Once in his castle, the suburban resident, who had perhaps spent the day in an air-conditioned office, soothed his rebellious wife as best he could...
...The fitful whir of electric fans disturbed rest...
...Here and there tempers snapped, as in the unseemly ruckus at a baseball game between the Cardinals and Phillies at Busch Stadium here...
...A heat wave in the Central United States is something to experience...
...In the Georgia Constitutional Convention of 1868-69, some 36 Negroes served and had a hand in working out what has been called the most liberal constitution this state has ever had...
...The high court, it will eventually be realized, struck a most damaging blow against Communism...
...These millions are patiently waiting for the Supreme Court to do something legally about segregation in order that they might have something to hold on to within the framework of law...
...A white woman sitting near the front complained to the motor-man: "Have they started this integration business already, letting Negro passengers use the same doors as whites...
...It was a great event, and back from his vacation in cooler climes hurried the official meteorologist, Harry F. Wahlgren of the United States Weather Bureau...
...Most people took the heat well...
...On the other hand, Southern Negroes will have no part of any maneuvers to circumvent the Court decision...
...each went about his business, ignoring the remarks and smiling broadly...
...Emerging for the first time as free men...
...Negroes know full well that discrimination is a pattern of life which can best be dealt with through legal means, not through violence...
...these former slaves harbored no bitterness or hate toward those who once held them in bondage...
...The prediction was for fair and increasingly hot weather...
...In a resolution, they declared: "There is no place in the Methodist Church for racial discrimination or racial segregation...
...Hardly a month after the Supreme Court decision, a group of prominent church women, white, representing fifteen Southern states, met here and declared: "We accept with humility the Supreme Court's decision as supporting the broad Christian principles of the dignity and worth of the human personality and affording the opportunity of translating into reality Christian and democratic ideals...
...The resolution further read: "We believe our people should face the practical phases of the recent Supreme Court decision with the courage, poise and maturity of law-abiding citizens...
...It is good that we took the initiative...
...They like to praise the fine days and curse the bad ones, of which there is no scarcity...
...It is up to the Southern whites to show an equal willingness...
...Although politicians continue to rant in the public square and use the race issue to stir the emotions of white people, they have not been successful in their efforts to arouse violence...
...Southern Negroes and the Court Decision By William Gordon Atlanta Negro citizens have calmly accepted the Supreme Court decision against segregation in public schools...
...In St...
...In Kansas, Illinois, Oklahoma and Missouri, the newspaper wire services kept a running mortality list...
...The two of them, with their children, put off as long as possible the dreary business of trying to sleep within walls which still seemed to vibrate with the heat of the day...
...In the light of these historical incidents, the Negro is not to be watched for possible violence, or for collusion in evading the Court decision...
...The same sanity and fair play was evident among Negroes under adverse conditions...
...Instead, they quickly set about working out a new document to fit the changes brought about by the Civil War...
...The urban worker, riding home on an oven-like bus, read about the monkey's demise on page 1. He read also of water shortages, of restrictions placed on sprinkling lawns, of sprinkler heads in factories popping like champagne corks, of cattle dying in the parched countryside and crops burning up...
...Responsible Negro leaders have always shown a willingness to work with their Southern fellow Americans in times of social change...
...I'm sorry I missed that one," Wahlgren declared in making the first forecast following his return...
...Other groups and individuals in the South have taken similar positions...
...Louis, citizens consumed quantities of gin and tonic, joked about the heat, mopped steaming brows and faced the next day with the strained cheerfulness of aircraft passengers who have just been informed that the plane's nose wheel will not come down...
...In 1883, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the National Civil Rights Law, which gave Negroes a right to the use of public places...
...This calm attitude does not indicate apathy...
...Surviving relatives had at least the consolation that the unfortunate victims, regardless of salvation, must necessarily be destined for a cooler place...
...Bastille Day, July 14, brought the city the hottest day in its 118-year history when the mercury reached 112.3 degrees...
...Once this is done, these millions will work quietly and yet effectively to eliminate this badge as part of the American pattern...
Vol. 37 • August 1954 • No. 31
