Atlanta Daily World

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - (SNS)

Lieut. George W. Lee, veteran Republican leader in West Tennessee and a member of the Tennessee Republican Committee, dashed off a letter this week to the national party chairman, William Miller, criticizing the proposal by some Republican bigwigs to bypass the Negro vote in the South.

Lieutenant Lee heaped his criticism upon two men in particular, Senator Barry Goldwater (R., Ariz.) and Wirt Yerger of Jackson, Miss., GOP chairman in that state and recently elected chairman of southern GOP leaders at a meeting in Atlanta.

The Republican Party faces dangerous times if it chooses to ignore the Negro vote. Mr. Lee declared. The letter to Mr. Miller follows:

"I have read the reports of the Atlanta meeting of Southern Republicans. I have read with shock and surprise the plan that he and others have put forth to bypass the Negro vote in the South. The reason I write this is that the Republican Party will not try to outpromise the Democrats for the Negro vote. Yet, on the other hand there seems to be the plan to outpromise the Democrats for the white Southerner's vote. This is symbolized in the election of Mr. Wirt Yerger, who said in a speech in Memphis in October, 1960, that, 'the Republican Party would never amount to anything until it got rid of the Negro.'

"When a Republican leader disregards our party's heritage and our party's regularity and join the cry of the White Citizens Council and other intolerant groups of 'down with the Negro,' we have a spectacle that calls for tears. Wiser men than I hold myself to be declare, at least in private conference, that a policy that excludes from the authority and responsibility of the Republican Party eight million citizens, because they do not resemble others in face and feature is dangerous and no Republican leader, certainly not one as deeply acquainted as you are with the history of parties, can afford to pursue such a policy - in the light of the changing political scene in the South.

"Ten years ago, there were only about five hundred thousand Negroes registered in the South. Today, there are in excess of three million. Perhaps, only in Mississippi, Mr. Yerger's state, and Alabama where force measures and borough systems have driven the Negro from the ballot box, could the white vote alone carry a state for our party. Now with the aid of Federal laws that are placing the ballot box within the reach of millions of Negroes in the South their registered numbers will be augmented to more than five million by 1964. While it is reasonable