The Augusta Courier

Ruthless
Minorities
Threaten
Ruin
Of Government,
Talmadge Tells DAR

Nowhere
Else
Are
Negroes
Happier
Than
In
South
Carolina

Sol
Blatt
Tells
Hebrew
Benevolent
Society
In
Charleston

Lawyer,
Legislator
Says
There
Are
No
Oppressed
People
In
The
Palmetto
State

Solomon Blatt, the Jewish Speaker of the House of Representatives in South Carolina, says that South Carolina is giving their Negro people real civil rights.

Blatt said:
"The fact is that nowhere else on the face of the earth are Negroes happier, more prosperous, more contented, more a part of the general way of life than in South Carolina."

He made this statement in an address delivered to the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Charleston, South Carolina on April 6, 1959.

Speaker of House
Sol Blatt has been Speaker of the South Carolina House for more than twenty years and is one of the most able, capable and substantial leaders in the whole State of South Carolina and the South as well.

And, proving his case, Blatt said:
During the last twenty-five years especially, the Negroes have made tremendous strides in this State politically, economically, professionally and otherwise.
Never before in any other part of the world has so much relative progress been made by the Negro race as has been enjoyed in the South during the present generation.

Record By Negroes
Where else in America are such a large proportion of Negroes actively participating as respected ministers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and citizens in general?

About 40% of the school teachers in South Carolina are Negroes, teaching in the most modern buildings, receiving the same State aid salaries as white teachers in their classifications, and otherwise becoming more and more a large and constructive force in our way of life.

Where else in America, outside of the South, are Negroes able to afford to become such extensive and prosperous participants in all phases of life?

Excellent Relations
There are more Negro teachers in the schools of South Carolina today than there are in any five or six states combined, this includes such States as New York, outside of the South and in that respect Michigan, California and others where the South is being used as a whipping political propaganda is rampant, where no genuine interest in the real progress of the Negro.

(Continued on page 4)
Lawyer, Legislator Says There Are No Oppressed People In The Palmetto State

(Continued from page 1)

We know that in South Carolina the already excellent relations between the races have been so sound and friendly that all of the misrepresentations in national newspapers, magazines and over television and radio have not so much as dented the good will existing down here.

That, to me, is the finest evidence available that our good relationships are based on proper understanding, proper treatment, a proper and rapid rate of progress, and proper perspective for the future.

Good Will is Strong

If our relationships were not based on strong and deep-rooted good will, we would be in a state of utter chaos because of the unwise, unfriendly and generally deplorable and deliberate misrepresentations which have been heaped upon us.

Make no mistake about it our racial relationships in the South have been put to the acid test, and we have not been found wanting.

Still another strong evidence is the fact that, as we have good reason to believe, the truly thoughtful and sincere people over the rest of the nation are beginning to understand, despite the false and tragic curtain of propaganda, that the South does indeed live in a much more healthy and promising atmosphere of racial good will than any other section of the country.

We do not have in South Carolina the kind of gangs, and mobs, and misunderstanding, and social conflict, and teenage terrorism which prevails in States like New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan and California -- the very states from which have come the most abuse against the South.

Equal Opportunity

So I say, that every race living in South Carolina has equal opportunity for happiness and progress that the members of every race living in South Carolina have the wide open opportunity, as individuals, to prove themselves for what they are worth.

No group of people is entitled, as a group, to be given special treatment.

If I had to select the one outstanding element in this nation's rise to becoming the greatest nation in all the history of the world. I would say that the freedom of the individual to express himself and to gain recognition according to his worth ranks ahead of all other blessings and attributes.

No, my friends, the Negro race, nor any other race, is oppressed in the South Carolina way of life today, and I am a living example of the tolerance of the people of this great State.

People of all races in South Carolina can look forward with confidence to the future, knowing full well that if they have character, talents and abilities, and if they exert themselves intelligently and constructively, they will be recognized and appreciated.

Justices Don't Care

The Supreme Court of our land was established to decide litigation in the light of past decisions and not in spite of past decisions. It is not the Court's function to lay down "the law of the land" by judicial fiat. It is the Congress under the American system that makes law. Flagrantly, baldly usurping the amendatory power of three-fourths of the states, the justices of the Supreme Court apparently take their gospel from Richard III, whom Shakespeare caused to say:

"Strong arms shall be our conscience, swords our law.

March on, join together to pell mell

If not to Heaven, then hand in hand to Hell."

It is distressing that the justices don't know where they are trying to force us but it is even more distressing that they, like Richard, apparently don't care.