Atlanta Daily World

REVIEWING THE NEWS
BY WILLIAM GORDON
Managing Editor
Atlanta Daily World

Peddling The Seeds Of Hate

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - (SNS) - It was a peaceful afternoon, the day we drove out of Knoxville for Oak Ridge. It was even more peaceful at the Oak Ridge high school where more than a hundred Negro children had been accepted, by faculty and students. The school has been opened to them without incident.

"These who agitate and peddle hate usually have a background for the trade," the principal of one of the schools there told us.

He related part of his own experience. Most of his trouble came not from many native-born Southerners, but from an "outsider"

who apparently was a chronic agitator. And so the story goes with Clinton, Tenn. This is a peaceful town, law-abiding, with a definite intent to do what is right. But up comes the chronic agitator, one who is obviously a trouble-maker, bent on sacrificing all principles of decency for the sake of bigotry.

Without such influence, Clinton would be the same peaceful and law-abiding place as Oak Ridge.

The people directly involved in the Clinton case have shown the willingness to go along with the Supreme Court's decision and they should be commended for taking a stand for the right.

The law enforcement officials there should also be congratulated for taking the initiative to maintain peace as not was the case in Alabama. But geography does make a difference sometime.

Fortunately, in Tennessee, we have many whites who are still God-fearing; many who believe in the orderly process of law and order.

It is unfortunate that hate has moved into the picture. It will be more unfortunate if hate gets out of hand and somebody is hurt in the process. The seeds of hate inevitably leave in their wake a kind of sickness that lives to haunt men's souls.

Americans know too well the story of World War I and World War II when hate took the lives of millions. Hitler's hate peddlers because they disliked Jews, took the lives of more than four million people. Many Americans were in this number.

We can trace many damages left by wars of recent times, all of which grew out of the hate for one country against the other race against race, or religion against religion.

We also know from experience that hate groups in this country have caused most of the discord, the mob violence the lynchings and disruption.

It is unfortunate that hate is on the march again. It is on the march in Tennessee, Florida, Texas and many other places, simply because we have stood silently by and let mob rule take the dominant leadership.

There should be some moral and ethical responsibility for all of us to take. The churches could do a job, except that many of them, white of course, are themselves shackled with chains of hate. The ministry is unfortunately poor in reasoning and offers almost nothing in the sense of guidance.

Our Southern daily press is also chained to the seeds of hate peddling. There is a constant play-up of the activities of mob leaders and hate peddlers. Seldom is there ever a play-up of the respectable Negroes and the whites who back their views. Many of our Southern editors seems to search and look for the worse to print.

There is one in particular, who makes a business to search northern papers primarily to agitate and invoke adverse criticism. His motives are always negative.

This is also an element of hate, the kind which will eventually backfire. Hate peddlers and their sympathizers should keep in mind that hate based on race, religion, nations is without logical foundation. It's a disease more deadly and crippling than any epidemic we have ever known. "Whom the Gods will destroy, they first make mad." Hate, like history, has a way of repeating itself.