Perhaps it is one of the lowest, but admittedly it is one of the laziest, forms of reporting to resort to quotations and slogans. The following that came across my desk this week, however, could not be resisted:
“It is hard to tell where the State Department ends and Life and Time magazines begin.”
Another: “Liberals must believe but they cannot have beliefs…. They must face the challenge of maintaining a creedless credo.”
“Many are liberals for all the liberties already acquired, but are formidable conservatives for those liberties which it is still necessary to acquire.”
Another, this time from Gandhi:
“Individual freedom alone can make a man voluntarily surrender himself completely to the service of society. If it is wrested from him he becomes an automaton and society is ruined. No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom. It is contrary to the very nature of man, and just as man will not grow horns or a tail, so he will not exist as man if he has no mind of his own. In reality, even those who do not believe in the liberty of the individual believe in their own.”
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It has not been so long ago that this reporter was opposing, in as strong words as he could muster and dared used, the tactics of one Joseph P. McCarthy, who violated about every civil right in the book, as well as every known decency in conduct of public officials. Such violation is as reprehensible when committed by members of one party as another. McCarthy was a Republican; but the same performance by Democrats, perhaps in a little less-publicized form, is going on under both Senator Eastland and Rep. Francis Walter, of Pennsylvania, both Democrats. For example, at the recent contempt trial of Mrs. Goldie Watson, Philadelphia teacher, before District Judge Schweinhaut, prosecutor William Hitz, Jr., argued that the House Un-American Activities Committee could, if it chose, summon every American in the country before it and ask him if he was or ever had been a communist. Opponents of this “exposure for exposure’s sake” tactics have argued that the committee must show that their questions have relevance. For instance, in another but similar case, the judge invoked the words used by Chief Justice Warren last year when he said that the congressional power of investigation “cannot be used to inquire into private affairs unrelated to a valid legislative power.” In the case of Mrs. Watson, she earned her contempt citation for refusing to tell the House committee about the beliefs and associations of her fellow teachers, and in doing so invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Now this reporter takes it for granted that a communist cannot be desirable as a teacher in the schools in our democracy because the first commitment of such a teacher is to an honest search for truth, while to the communist, truth is secondary and any means justifies the end. However, there is a vast difference between being a member of the party and being required to give evidence before a legislative committee as to the affiliations and associations of colleagues. In this connection, you are urged to read Dr. Griswold’s able discussion of The Fifth Amendment Today, wherein are discussed the pitfalls of penetrating investigation into the beliefs and associations of individuals. While innocent enough in themselves, these can easily lead to an assumption of guilt that is not really true. Ours has been traditionally a society of belief in freedom of thinking in the fields of politics, religion, and social and economic matters. Unwarranted invasion of these beliefs by a congressional committee is not justified, whether that committee is headed by a chairman of one party or of the other. In brief, it is none of their business.
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The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina takes issue with the national Episcopal Church stand against racial segregation. The 166th annual convention of the South Carolina Diocese adopted a resolution declaring there is nothing morally wrong in a voluntary recognition of racial differences, and that voluntary alignments can be both natural and Christian. It is believed to be the first action by a diocese against the stand taken by the national Episcopal Church.
Now this reporter should like to make it very clear that nothing he has ever said has been in denigration of or in conflict with the idea of voluntary segregation. On the contrary, he believes that a lot of voluntary segregation is going to exist for a long time, regardless of what the courts do. The only position he has taken, and still takes, is that such segregation must be voluntary on the part of both races. If both races prefer to segregate themselves from each other, there is no good reason why they should not do so. However, there is no logical or legal reason why they should be required to do so unless they wish. And if one race wishes to segregate and the other does not, again, there is no legal or logical reason why there should be segregation.
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Whether the following item belongs in a program of this kind, you are the judge. It was difficult to resist including it. John Williams of San Mateo, California, was arrested for speeding on the Ohio turnpike. The patrolman ordered him to report to the Mayor’s Court in Swanton, Ohio. All the way to the court, police say, Mrs. Williams was scolding her husband for his driving. He paid a $20 fine, and left the mayor’s office to discover that wife and car were gone. She had dumped his suitcases on the sidewalk and taken off on her own. Police caught Mrs. Williams again and brought her back to Swanton, with a traffic charge against her too. But her fine was suspended on condition she let her husband back into the car. Police say she did, and they drove off, with Mrs. Williams once again telling her husband what she thought of him. Veritably there is no justice for husbands in this world.
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In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the issue of racial segregation comes before the General Conference of the Methodist Church at its quadrennial session next Wednesday. The issue is expected to provoke considerable debate.
At the same time, a new head of the Methodist Council of Bishops will take office during the week. Bishop W. Earl Ledden of Syracuse, New York, will begin work in the post when the session opens. He succeeds Bishop Claire Purcell of Birmingham, Alabama. The pre-conference meetings of the bishop’s council also has resulted in the election of Bishop W. Angie Smith of Oklahoma City as vice president. He is the 1957 president-designate. The council also selected Bishop Roy Short of Nashville, our Holston Conference bishop, as its secretary. He succeeds Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of Washington, who has been secretary since the Northern and Southern factions of the church united in 1939.
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At Salisbury, North Carolina, the Synod of the United Lutheran Church has gone on record as opposing the involuntary practices of segregation of the races. At its convention, the North Carolina Synod adopted a resolution in support of equal privileges and unrestricted opportunity for all.
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Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania: The annual meeting of the United States Conference of the World Council of Churches has dedicated a plaque commemorating its beginning in the United States. The plaque was dedicated by Dr. Henry Smith Leiper, of New York. The World Council was organized at Amsterdam, Holland, in 1948, after a meeting by a provisional committee had originated the idea at Buck Hill Falls the previous year.
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Denver, Colorado: Sterling W. Sill, a leader of the Mormon church, says the church recommends that all members keep a year’s supply of food on hand in their homes at all times. Sill says the storage of food is in line with the Mormon principle of being self-reliant and also would provide food during catastrophe or depressions.
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Milan, Italy: An Italian magazine says other parts of the world may have to send missionaries to Europe some day. The journal says during the past 85 years the number of Catholic priests in Italy has dropped by two-thirds, while the population has doubled. Many European parishes, it says, have no priests at all. The magazine points to the acute shortage of priests in France, Spain, and Portugal, as well as Italy.
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Vatican City: Pope Pius XII has urged the world’s scientists to conquer the biblical source of leprosy. In an address before an international leprosy congress last Monday, the pontiff advocated a union of forces of science and religion to wipe out the disease which has claimed millions of victims.
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Again, Vatican City: The pope has named Monsignor Alden Bell as titular bishop of Rodopolis and auxiliary to James Francis Cardinal McIntyre, archbishop of Los Angeles. Monsignor Bell has been parish priest of Los Angeles Cathedral. He was born in Peterborough, Canada, and has served as U.S. Air Corps chaplain, and most recently has been in charge of Los Angeles archdiocesan social work.
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Kansas City, Missouri: The Lutheran Baptist Convention is standing on its invitation to Mayor H. Roe Bartle, of Kansas City to address the convention. Some Baptists had demanded withdrawal of the invitation to Mayor Bartle on the ground that he is in the liquor business. Actually, according to the mayor, he is stockholder in a chain of stores which deal in liquor but are primarily food distributors. Mayor Bartle has offered to withdraw as a speaker, but the program committee chairman promptly reiterated the invitation.
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Plans for an outdoor Roman Catholic cathedral have been announced by the Barnabite Fathers Guild of Lewiston, New York. The cathedral will appear from the air to be a giant cross surrounded by cypress trees. Glass stone aisles will lead to three altars, the central one of which will be topped by a granite canopy. It will be built on a 15-acre sited at Lewiston, New York, at a cost of half a million dollars.
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Washington: FBI director J. Edgar Hoover calls on the nation’s churches to play a more active role in the fight against juvenile delinquency. In an article for the United Press, Hoover says what is needed is an extension of the influence of the church into every home and to make the church the center of the family so that it may hold the place it once had as the wellspring of community activity. The FBI chief added churches opening at 11:00 one morning a week miss their full potential just as do those without dynamic programs of counsel and guidance for their members.
All of which this reporter is in agreement. However, as a student of both history and sociology, he has often wondered just how much more the homes of yesteryear were the center of religion teaching than they are today. How much of such talk is reality and how much is nostalgia or bad memory or wishful thinking? He does not know; he merely asks.
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The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada has proclaimed this coming Monday, tomorrow, as a day of special prayer and fasting on behalf of peace in Israel. The union represents about 650 Orthodox rabbis.
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A Roman Catholic scholar says superficial and misleading claims are being made about the famous Dead Sea Scrolls found in Palestine within the last few years. The criticism comes from Monsignor Patrick Skehan, director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. He is on leave form his post as professor of Semitic languages and literature at the Catholic University of America. In Washington, D.C., he is also on the international team working on the scrolls. Monsignor Skehan tells of the attempts to connect Christianity with some of the Dead Sea texts that contain no basis for such connection. He terms it regrettably true that some persons are much more interested in finding in the Scrolls plausible counterparts to Christian teaching than in evaluating what the documents themselves reveal. The scholar names no one, but many articles and publications suggest that the sect that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls started ideas that were later incorporated into Christianity. Monsignor Skehan also states the general public is repeatedly told this or that phrase or teaching is used in the same by the Dead Sea texts and in the New Testament. But it is not told at all of a connection with Old Testament text or doctrine. The Catholic scholar also takes alleged similarities between Jesus and the leader of the Dead Sea sect, who is known as the “Teacher of Righteousness.” He asserts there is no suggestion in any text that any value of the salvation of anybody was seen in the death of the “teacher.” And where angels fear to tread, this reporter dares not butt in.