THE MOOD OF AMERICA

...In such cases, NCCJ's staff of trained men can help greatly to re-direct the program along more soundly-grounded and proven paths...

...All decisions at Macedonia are arrived at by the slow process of unanimous consent through group meetings so that no dissident minority is overridden...

...Collins and his family are taking the mob attacks...

...It ar-ranged for the coach to meet with the college president for a discussion of the issue, relating it to goo^ sportsmanship...

...Jobs were plentiful and wages high in the world outside, and some of the families pulled out...

...A dozen of these men devoting most of their spare time to the study of the cooperative community later transferred to the camp at Trenton, N. D., where they were influenced by the strong farmers' cooperatives in and around the nearby city of Williston...

...Actually one organization played an important role in both events...

...He showed how tensions caused by prejudice produce physical ills...

...Morris Mitchell had planned his experiment to show people of the Clarkesville area they could work out their own salvation through cooperative methods, but by the fall of 1946 the resident group was largely made up of pacifists devoted to the idea of a cooperative community in which all resources were owned outright by the group...

...Ministers, educators, and town officials were given the facts on the covert methods and concealed objectives of the Klan...

...These men and their wives who share their conviction can no longer be satisfied in doing things by halves...

...The coach voluntary ily retracted his previously expressed views...

...Julius Schreiber, program chief for Army Orientation during the war, talked about some case histories...

...But the quiet meeting, which dug deeply into the problem of race relations, attracted no comment...

...But privately they admit they are fighting a hopeless battle...

...They have a large funded debt to retire...

...As childhood is the time where personality and character are shaped fundamentally, the NCCJ has spent much of its efforts in reaching boys and girls...

...Prejudice with its accompanying tensions could get the whole body off balance and accelerate the course of almost any disease...

...I saw two modest cottages which were bombed only a few weeks ago...

...Soon the Klan organizers moved away—empty-handed...

...The NCCJ has found that it is often unwise for mixed groups to tackle immediately the more knotty problems...

...They face the problem of schooling for the youngsters who they hope will learn to share their beliefs...

...Equally in contrast to generally accepted opinions about housing segregation, few of the whites in the area are moving to other sections of' the city...

...Macedonia is counting heavily on the fine sets of children's blocks and farm animals and sturdy trains turned out in the wood-working shop as a source of revenue...

...Several pioneering families of the Clarkesville region joined with him to develop its 800 acres of woods and bottom land...

...Having little faith in a police department headed by "Bull" Connors, commissioner of police and leader of the Dixiecrat walkout from the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, they take turns in guarding the areas themselves...

...The college wanting a seminar, or course in human relations, is welcome to assistance and guidance...

...Macedonia was begun before the war by Morris Mitchell, a native of the South, as a Rochdale cooperative...

...Its objectives were WALTER WHITE, executive secretary of the Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is the author of several books on race problems, including his own autobiography, "A Man Called White...

...Prejudice and discrimination, it has been found, are usually caused by lack of information about other groups...

...ALBERT V. FOWLER, a Philadelphia free-lance writer, has just edited "War and Civilization," by Arnold J. Toynbee (reviewed in this issue...

...The results were a series of shirt-sleeved round table discussions of a rough-and-tumble type...

...Albin Krebs of Pascagoula, editor of the campus newspaper at the University of Mississippi, wrote that Negroes ought to be admitted to the law and any other professional schools "that will enable them to better themselves, and thus everyone in the state...

...Van Collins, who is today fighting in Korea to defend and preserve the democratic process...

...ideas...

...Hughes assumed the leadership in the struggle to free national political campaigns from religious bigotry...

...Some of the young campers working on the development were pacifists who ended up in CPS or prison during the war...

...It will be worth our while to keep an eye on these people at Macedonia as they work out their experiment, whether or not we share their convictions...

...Many of them turned to the newly formed NCCJ as the instrument to attain a better understanding of the true meaning of the American heritage...

...It has promoted books produced documentary films, and entered the struggle against restrict ed housing and unfair employment practices...

...Colored students are now studying and being warmly welcomed with not one untoward incident at state universities in Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Missouri...

...No miracles were wrought at Perth Amboy, but a whole community began to think in different terms about the problems arising out of various religious, racial, and national backgrounds...

...The original leaders of the NCCJ were certainly no radicals...

...the other belongs to hip mother-in-law, m'i What is amazing to the visitor » the calmness with which Negroes like Lt...

...These leaders passed on the information to the townspeople, whose interest in the Klan dropped sharply as a result...

...Then General Cable's president, tall, hearty Dwight R. G. Palmer, who worked his way up from a lumberjack, got together with the company's AFL Union...

...College research and discussion groups, inter-group relations programs in public schools, special courses for teachers, summer youth conferences, and human relations clinics in business and industry became part of a program which was extended each year...

...The Alumni News of the University of Virginia has asked ironically where else a Negro can study Thomas Jefferson's philosophy of freedom except at the Alderman Library at Charlottesville...

...Yet drama comes frequently to the NCCJ...

...Driving in by the red clay road from Clarkesville, you wind up the hill across fills with pine branches to check the washing from heavy rains, through a shallow ford and over a narrow bridge into the busy center of Macedonia with the co-op store and milk house facing the shop where children's blocks are patterned out of smooth-grained river birch...

...For three successive summers the American Friends Service Committee aided the community through a work-camp program there...

...The dairy herd is constantly improving in quality...

...An employee of a large brokerage house, while intoxicated, broke out with anti-Semitic diatribe over the telephone to a Jewish acquaintance...

...I saw today the ruins of some of the houses whose bombing by the Ku Klux Klan was featured on the front page of New Delhi newspapers when we were in India last year...

...Unlike the Rochdale principle of capital shares, this was the unlimited liability of the group for its members who have put all their possessions at its disposal...

...Things are happening in an almost, though not quite, bloodless revolution which a year ago would have been impossible to believe...

...NCCJ for the first time in history is applying the latest scientific findings about people and society to the civic relationships of Jews, Catholics, and Protestants...

...The community building where the nursery school is held and where the families gather at noon to lunch together stands on a knoll above the shop, flanked by the low-roofed dwellings...

...Workers were encouraged to express their opinions on the religious beliefs of the other groups...

...There is plenty of hard work to do and great satisfaction to be gained from the challenge of doing it in the service of a peaceful society...

...The second is the skill and determination of Negroes themselves which won U. S. Supreme Court decisions in the Texas and Oklahoma cases...

...The work of the NCCJ is built on a triangular base...

...Prime instigator of this disorder was the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, which used Smith's nomination as a lever to rebuild its organization...

...If he thinks that what is taking place is all bad, he is even more mistaken...

...The chairman for the first meeting was the late Charles Evans Hughes...

...The scope of the NCCJ is tre-mendous...

...Why weren't they content with the existing Rochdale plan...

...One of the two chief reasons they know the tide is against them is the fact that student papers can and do take so unequivocal a stand and know they have support for that stand...

...It had always been Morris Mitchell's aim to turn the ownership and direction of Macedonia over to its residents, and in 1948 he transferred his interest to the permanent members of this group operating as an unincorporated partnership association...

...When the smoke of Presidential battle had blown away, men of good-will throughout America recognized the peril in which democracy had been placed and sought a way to prevent the repetition of the recent events...

...Methods employed by local NCCJ units vary greatly according to needs—from the militant group on the West Coast fighting against the segregation of Japanese, Filipinos, and Mexicans, to the rather whimsical New Haven housewives who have started a program called "Taste What's Cooking in Your Neighbor's Kitchen...

...The 'Trio Idea" was one of the first to emerge...

...The same attitude of enlightened self-interest and justice, which the ubiquitous Congressman Rankin instantly declared to be "shocking," has been voiced by the student publications at the University of Alabama and the state polytechnic school at Auburn...

...NCCJ therefore asked for the man's reinstatement...

...Confined and deprived as they were, the stimulus of penalization evoked a strong response in them and opened to them untapped resources of power...

...It is a working brotherhood of members of the three primary religious groups in America —Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, of whatever race or national origin...

...Newton D. Baker, Carlton J. H. Hayes, and Roger Williams Straus became first co-chairmen...

...they spring out of the deeply felt needs of the people...

...Perhaps the most sensational method of teaching tolerance has been employed by the hair-raising favorite of the children's radio audience—Superman...

...The man had apologized, and they felt that punishment or vengeance would make the man's prejudice more virulent...

...Instead, there is recognition of the fact that each plays an important part in American life and that each has a right to continue as a separate entity...

...The nursery school movement is just coming into its own in the South, and the Macedonia shop is one of the first to locate in the area...

...Local observers believe thai he is now on the side of good will and that they have won a potential ally...

...This is the setting for an experiment in cooperative living carried on by people who refused to take part in the last war and who believe there is a positive way out of our present dependence on military power...

...NCCJ officials sit with other advisers on this program to suggest ways of inculcating inter-group understanding in the young...

...The work of the NCCJ is largely: one of cooperation with other groups...

...Getting to know one another is the first step...

...Ever since 1944, when Negroes were first hired in the plant, there had been threats of strikes based on racial tensions...

...Within the past week, for example, the student newspapers of the University of Alabama, the Alabama Polytechnic Institute at Auburn, and of the University of Mississippi at Oxford have unequivocally come out for admission of qualified Negro students to those institutions...

...They endured years of segregation and ostracism in CPS camps and prison for the sake of this conviction...

...They hope to prevent the same thing happening at the undergraduate, high school, and grade school levels for as long as legal technicalities and threats of.violence can do so...

...The NCCJ brought in a minister, a priest, and a rabbi to explain in easy-to-under-stand language the points in each religion which had given rise to misunderstanding and resentment...

...The answer, I believe, lies in the profound stimulus of their wartime experience...

...NCCJ preferred another approach...

...As a result, many of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have engaged in activities sponsored by the NCCJ are not even familiar with its name...

...II The NCCJ has played this quiet, unassuming role for 22 years...

...There is no "best way" of handling intergroup problems, for each situation is unique...

...There was a definite interest in cooperatives among a certain group of CPS men which took shape in the School of Cooperative Living conducted at the camp at Walhalla, Mich...

...the real task and the great strength of the movement lie in the fact that accomplishment rests with the people of the local community...

...Morris Mitchell directed this school, and shared with his students his enthusiasm for the cooperative way of life as a solution for many of our present social ills...

...Others with similar ideas came to join them from different parts of the country...

...II The question arises why these young pacifists chose so difficult a method of community life...

...A somewhat similar incident occurred in a mid-western university The popular football coach had be talking against minority group When NCCJ brought this to the at tention of the president of the col-lege, some of the more heated asked for the coach's dismissal...

...As a whole, the NCCJ prefers to work in areas where a crisis does not exist...

...Comic strips, radio pro-grams, and children's books are among the devices commonly used...

...In that year, the Democratic candidate for President was Alfred E. Smith...

...An Experiment In Cooperative Living By Albert V. Fowler Macedonia, Ga...

...Although campaigns of smear and slander have, unfortunately, been far from uncommon in American history, never was an attack on a Presidential candidate so abusive and defamatory as that launched against the Happy Warrior...

...Such activities, however, are never superimposed upon a community...

...The predominently Protestant firm dismissed him but NCCJ leaders, including members of the Jewish community, deemed this inadvisable...

...Each had some distorted impression of the faiths of the others...

...WENZELL D. BROWN is a novelist and writer on current affairs...

...IF ANY person believes the racial pattern here in the South is static, he doesn't know what he is talking about...

...The men now at Macedonia are still responding to the negative challenge of a war-making society, and the positive response takes the form of establishing a small working model, a social unit, in which the seeds of conflict are carefully weeded out...

...Most of them were unaware of what had happened, but they had seen the NCCJ in action combating intolerance...

...NCCJ urges tolerance of those who express violently worded dislikes against other groups...

...So was the inclusion of a Chinese boy on the Unity Club's baseball team...

...It's difficult to snap out an easy answer, for the organization is dealing in intangibles like goodwill, breakdown of prejudice, better understanding among all groups, a healthier society, and a stronger democracy...

...The stands of pine and hardwood grow in value each year and are marked for scientific cutting...

...Scores of other network programs call upon the NCCJ for advice...

...they are finding a wide market in nursery schools and in training centers for the handicapped...

...Herbert Hoover, the man who defeated Smith, echoed Hughes' point of view...

...He stripped his speech of all medical terms and got down to facts...

...Refusing to be intimidated, they rebuild their destroyed homes and courageously live in them...

...The Macedonians have no easy road ahead...

...Possibly the most significant aspect of this trend is the calmness and agreement with which these editorials have been accepted by all groups except, as has been noted, Rankin...

...What has the NCCJ accomplished in 22 years...

...One example is the discussion groups of the General Cable Company of Perth Amboy, N.J...

...An obstreperous minority the next day burned a cross and demanded the resignation of the editor, but as yet no one appears to regard that action as representative of student opinion...

...Nearly 50,000 work sessions and discussion groups were held during the year and permanent committees were operating in 310 cities...

...III Responsible Republican leaders were aghast at this turn of events, and were among the first to defend Smith as a man and denounce the tactics employed to discredit him...

...However much the NCCJ may point the way...

...IV The NCCJ recognizes that the bigot suffers as much or more from his prejudices as do those against whom his venom is directed and is equally in need of help...

...Floggings, lynchings, burning of homes, and the mass intimidation of minority groups reached their highest peak in 1928...

...There is a tremendous potential in the small groups of CPS and prison pacifists who are making practical tests of their beliefs in various parts of the country...

...He cited examples where this type of emotional strain caused high blood pressure, heart ailments, and stomach ulcers...

...The individual gives his enthusiasm, his labor, and all his resources to the group, and the community guarantees to provide him and his family with the necessities of life— food, shelter, clothing, and medical care—and to care for them if disabled...

...NCCJ officials point out, however, that whereas it was rare to find activities in which the three groups participated 22 years ago, it is so common now that it has become a part of the generally accepted pattern of American life...

...It supplied the local leaders with free literature, educational motion pictures, and speakers to make their programs more appealing...

...The basic trio idea, however, has come to America to stay, and whether it is exemplified by the rabbi, the priest, and the minister, or by three small boys of different faiths listening to Superman, its concept of brotherhood is the same...

...From the beginning the NCCJ conceived its task to be one of education and dissemination of information...

...A Protestant, a Catholic, and a Jew speak together, plan together, and work together for the common good while maintaining their own religious faiths and practices...

...That same evening, in a community 15 miles away, civic leaders representing the various religious creeds and racial groups of the town met to discuss closer cooperation...

...Not infrequently the attempt of well-meaning but inexperienced reformers serves to accentuate rather than to ameliorate difficult situations...

...Their talents and energies found little significant work to do for the building of a better society...

...it has avoided the limelight and rejected all forms of sensationalism...

...The knowledge that men could get together and discuss their differences openly lessened the gap between them...

...The original Rochdale community at Macedonia had suffered from the dislocations of the wartime economy...

...For it is unhappily true that friendly cooperation between men and women of varying faiths seldom makes headlines while acts of violence and inter-group conflict get top billing in the news...

...IF YOU follow down the Blue Ridge mountains from Front Royal, Va., along the Skyline Drive and the Parkway skirting Asheville, you will find in the Georgia piedmont a small cooperative community called Macedonia...

...These men, convinced that social conflict cannot be resolved by the organized killing of fellow human beings, were penalized by their government for refusing to take part in the last war...

...When that is accomplished, other problems often solve themselves...

...they ran a dairy and a sawmill and set up a co-op store...

...One of the houses belongs to Lt...

...A case of this type arose while this article was in preparation...

...In 1949 officials computed that over 5,000,000 individuals participated in activities which the NCCJ sponsored...

...It feels that when there is a normal situation, a healthy attitude toward intercultural thinking can be made even stronger and that the activities of such a community will spread out...

...J Individuals or groups who are in-terested in taking active part in this fight against bigotry and intolerance will find that NCCJ has set up I smoothly-functioning department of speakers, motion pictures, activity projects, and other useful aids to organization, not the least of which is a trained staff of organizers and fiUti agtf^Sftcti committees may avail themselves of these services by offering concrete evidence of a local plan and desire to participate in the larger program...

...Instead of running as might have been the case a few years ago, they take out heavy bombing insurance, the rates of which are fixed by law so that there can be no exploitation of their dis-, tress and danger...

...The Chamber of Commerce, civic group, or women's club seeking to better relationships between the various ethnic groups in its community may make use of the Conference's 22 years of experience in the field...

...NCCJ officials believed that the adequate interchange of ideas among the multitude of groups of which America is composed would eventually lessen bigotry...

...The extraordinary progress which has been made, however, does not mean that the Negro's enemies have surrendered...

...they have to go the whole way in setting up what they consider a truly peaceful community...

...Shortly after the war ended several of them went down to Macedonia with their wives to try out their ideas there...

...Prejudices were brought out in the open and examined realistically...

...Cooperation with local leaders of good will has been its keynote...

...The NCCJ was called in...

...vague at first, but the Presidential campaign of 1928 gave swift impetus and clarified purpose to the group...

...The vituperation against the Catholic Church and its leaders almost passes credence, but one has only to examine the newspaper files for the story of that wave of hysterical hatred which swept the country 22 years ago...

...The concrete gains of the Conference can be best seen, perhaps, in its myriad projects and discussion groups throughout the country and through the general recognition of Brotherhood Week, originated by the NCCJ in 1934...

...Some of them have found that their new neighbors, chiefly doctors, lawyers and insurance men, are better educated and better neighbors than the whites who left, An Adventure In Religious Tolerance By Wenzell D. Brown New York City RECENTLY the fiery crosses of the Ku Klux Klan blazed on the hillside of a small Florida town...

...The National Conference of Christians and Jews acted quietly in the case of the Ku Klux Klan...

...It ranges from the comic strip and the kindergarten to the United Nations Assembly where, as the carrier of a petition from 245 million people, it led the fight to out law genocide...

...Most important is the opportunity the community gives its members to work for the great goal of a man at peace with himself in a harmonious society...

...The organization set out to develop techniques which would make such interchange possible...

...Even the most intransigent foes of the Negro admit that there is no way to stop entrance of Negroes into every Southern state university at the graduate and professional level within two years...

...The NCCJ sponsored the first movement toward intercultural education in the school systems, and in 1935 it established the first Institute of Human Relations at Wil-liamstown, Mass...

...No attempt is made to modify the religious concepts of any group...

...Why did they feel moved to take the further step into unlimited liability for all members and complete surrender of individual resources to the group...

...Superman's Unity Club, wherein boys of different faiths and races mixed amically, was one of their...

...They need more like-minded men and women to join them in expanding the shop and building new houses and increasing the efficiency of the community...

...In the case of the inter-faith meeting in the nearby town, the NCCJ played a more active part...

...The burning of the crosses was broadcast across the country, frontpaged from coast to coast, and featured in the Communist press of Europe...

...This was by no means the usual reaction among CPS men, but to some of them suffering for an ideal brought increased strength...