The Augusta Courier

STRICTLY PERSONAL
By ROY V. HARRIS

How did we get this way?

We are asked this question nearly every day. The question comes from people who are alarmed by what's going on in Washington and what's going on in some of our States and communities.

Many people are still puzzled. They can't understand why the Supreme Court has changed the Constitution and upset precedents that have continued for more than one hundred years.

They can't understand why the bureaucrats in Washington have acquired such power.

They don't understand why the Supreme Court of the United States will take over the supervision of the apportionment of members of the legislature of each State.

They can't understand why the whole federal government is determined to force the white people to mix with the Negroes.

The answer to all of these questions is simple: We lost our freedom and our rights and the Constitution through politics.

We haven't used our heads in politics. We haven't been active enough in politics. We have expected those whom we supported to save us without any effort on our part.

But the main thing is that we haven't been very particular about how we voted.

Remember this: Most of us voted for the very folks who have done this to us.

For instance, most of us voted for the Presidents who have appointed these wildcats on the Supreme Court. Most of us voted for Senators who voted to confirm their appointments and to put them on the Supreme Court.

Then, when it is all over, we wonder how it happened. We forget that we are getting what we voted for.

The Negroes have been smart in politics. They stick together and vote in a bloc and they vote for the people who they know will champion their cause.

On the other hand, the white people split in such a manner as to leave it to the Negroes to hold the balance of power and to cast the deciding votes.

The big cities of the nation are controlled by the Negro vote. This one bloc vote is the balance of power and the difference in most elections.

The finest example we have in the South is the last election for mayor in Atlanta.

Ivan Allen was elected. Yet, at the same time, Lester Maddox carried the white people by a majority of nine thousand. Yet, Ivan Allen received the solid Negro vote and enough to give him a good majority in his election.

Now, it was necessary to do two things for Allen to get the Negro vote: He had to champion their cause and spend a lot of money.

They bought Negroes in Atlanta during the last mayor's election more freely than they were bought and sold during slavery days.

But, here we have the white people dividing up and leaving the decision to the Negroes in Atlanta.

Now, what we need in Georgia and most of the Southern States is a new political organization.

We need a white man's party.

We should see to it that only real white men belong and men who are willing to stand and fight for the white race.

While we need this white man's party, we shouldn't wait for its formation. We should get busy in the year 1962.

We shouldn't wait until May to get busy. We should get busy in April. In other words, we should start now.

In most of the Southern States there will be elections this year.

Some of them will elect Governors and some will elect United States Senators.

All the States will elect members of the House of Representatives of the Congress.

Most all the States will elect members of the legislature this year and statehouse officials.

There has been a feeling among a lot of people that our fight was hopeless and that there is nothing they can do.

Now, I want to tell you that there is something that you can do. Pick out candidates that you know will stay with us in this fight and get out now and start working for them.

Let's work day and night for folks that we know will stand flatfooted in support of constitutional government and the separation of the races.

Now, we have a lot of officials who stand up and shout that they are in favor of these things, but their voting records are different.

We have got some officials that are bold as a lion when they are running, but when they get in office they are tame as a day-old kitten.

We lost our freedoms and our rights and we got in this terrible mess because we didn't exercise our rights in politics.

As a matter of fact, it was on the political field that we lost these rights and if they are regained they will be regained on the political field.

The federal judges are selected through politics.

So, it is through politics that we have lost and it is through politics that we must regain our liberty and our rights.

Now, if you have a candidate for the legislature in your county, find out how he stands. Examine his record and see if he has the nerve and courage to stand up and fight. If he measures up, get out and go to work and help him get elected.

If he doesn't measure up, hunt yourself another candidate and go to work for him.

The same thing should apply to all candidates for Congress, candidates for Governor and the United States Senate.

Then, at the same time, let's keep working and talking with our neighbors and friends about organizing a white man's party in our community. We could control this situation if we just have nerve enough to stand together and vote as a unit.

Now, the latest move by the Supreme Court is trying to supervise the apportionment of representatives among the various counties in the state legislatures.

This decision comes as a result of a new and strange philosophy which has been seized upon by the leftwingers today.

Now, if we will go back in our history we will find that this issue was debated in the Constitutional Convention which originated the Constitution of 1787.

In the convention, there were those who believed that all elections should be on a popular vote basis and that everybody should have the same vote, regardless of where he lived.

Then, there was another group who believed that the thirteen states should have an equal voice in the government.

They believed that each state should have one vote on every question.

The question was whether representation would be on a geographical basis or whether it would be on a basis of numbers regardless of where a person lived.

They hit upon a compromise.

There was a compromise on representation in the House of Representatives. They decided that each state should have at least one member of the House and that the others should be divided on a basis of proportionate representation.

At the same time, they decided that every state should have two members of the United States Senate. So, today, Alaska, with a little more than two hundred thousand population, has an equal voice with New York State with seventeen million people.

So, no law can pass the Congress unless it has the vote of a majority of the United States Senators voting on a state-unit basis.

In the election of a President and a Vice President, a compromise was also adopted.

It was agreed that instead of having a President elected on a popular vote basis that we would create an electoral college and let the members of this college elect a President.

It was agreed that each state should have one vote in the electoral college for each member of the House and each Senator allotted to that State.

So, representation on a geographical basis has been a part of the fundamental law of this country since its founding by our forefathers.

Never has it been a fundamental part of our government, or law, that every vote should have equal weight.

The framers of our Constitution, as a whole, were well-educated people. Some of them had lived in Europe. They had witnessed the mobs in London and in Paris and knew the effects they had in the great cities.

They also knew the history of Greece and of Rome and they knew what the mobs had done to these cities.

There was a fear in the minds of most of the framers of the Constitution that the mobs of the cities would take over and control the government.

So, it was the theory of geographical representation on which they depended to protect this country against the mobs of the cities.

And it is against these mobs that we are fighting today. Most of the people today live in the urban areas and a great percentage of the Negroes live in the big centers of population.

To see what these mobs can do we only need to look at the nation's capital. It is 54% Negro and the Negro population is growing. Eighty percent of the children in the schools in the district are Negro. The white people are moving out and leaving the City of Washington to the Negroes.

In Washington today, crime is rampant and the Negroes are found to commit 94% of the crimes committed outdoors and over 80% of all crime committed in the district.

Now, these mobs of the cities put John F. Kennedy in the President's office.

These mobs are dictating policies in Washington.

These mobs are dictating policies in most of your big cities and they are trying to take over every State.

If this doesn't suit you, it's time for you to get busy in politics. If you are not running for an office, go to work for someone who is running who will stay with us to preserve the white man's civilization.

But, before you vote, be sure you are voting for a real white man.