The Augusta Courier

Negro Crime Record Best Segregation Argument, Editor Says

Herald-American In Syracuse Is Not Impressed By Hue And Cry Of NAACP

Daylight on the Negro problem is gradually seeping through the minds of Northern people.

Alexander F. Jones, Executive Editor of the HERALD-AMERICAN, of Syracuse, New York, recently wrote an article in which he said:

"The best argument for segregation is the crime record in Negro centers and the fact that education standards are set back dangerously where there is integration."

Comparisons Are Made

He compares the Negroes and the Puerto Ricans in our big cities to the Hawaiians and said:

"Whoever heard of gangs of Hawaiians running the U. S. city streets like wild animals?"

And he further said of the Hawaiians:

"And they never create slums."

Negroes, Puerto Ricans

Here's his article as it appeared in the SYRACUSE HERALD-AMERICAN on the 6th day of September, 1959:

Juvenile crime increased 8.1 percent in 1958 in the United States, the F.B.I. reports.

The worst records, according to the figures, were in the large cities where the local statistics show the increase in juvenile crime was almost in direct ratio to the added Negro and Puerto Rican population.

It is a sad thing, and a matter that is being suppressed in most northern cities, but the fact is that the best argument for segregation is the crime record in Negro centers and the fact that education standards are set back dangerously where there is integration.

Flow of Scum

And it is equally true that the best argument for Puerto Rican independence is that the U.S. could then put a quota on immigration to this country and stop the flow of the scum of the San Juan slums into American cities.

This is no racial screed, or attempt to arouse prejudices.

It is intended as a challenge to Negro and Puerto Rican leaders to devote stronger efforts to instilling a greater degree of social responsibility in newly arrived southern Negroes in northern cities and in Puerto Rican groups just deplaned on the mainland.

NAACP Yells

There is a great hue and cry from the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People that Negroes are treated like second class citizens.

The point is that a man is rarely treated like a second class citizen unless he acts like one.

There are hundreds of thousands of first class Negro citizens in northern cities who are equal in every way to the whites. And their children are equal in every way to others in school.

They are proof that social responsibility need not have anything to do with the color of anyone's skin.

But it is also a fact that when the present type of Negro and Puerto Rican newcomer moves into a city district it quickly becomes a slum and crime figures soar.
Sneer At The Law

If the same number of Scandinavian newcomers moved into that district it would not become a slum. In fact, values would increase and improvement associations would be formed over night.

The facts in this situation have been ignored too long and social welfare organizations and indeed the public attitude towards social responsibility and discipline of youth has become so lax that young criminals sneer at the law.

Today police are hard put in dealing with Negro and Puerto Rican gangs. If they use night sticks, they are charged with "police brutality" and mobs form to free the prisoner.

This happened in New York's Harlem recently when police arrested a drunk a Puerto Rican woman.

Human Garbage

The nation was shocked by the murder of two white boys in a New York City playground by a gang of Puerto Rican hoodlums who have since been revealed as sneering, arrogant, garbage can scrounging little punks who grinned vacuously for the cameras as the funeral processions of their victims passed the police station where they were held.

I remember well how Sergeant Mike Tuohy at the "back of the yards" police station in Chicago used to take punks like that down to the basement and apply a length of rubber hose.

When they came upstairs they were not good subjects for pictures. There were no "to hell with the police" sneers.

More likely than not they were paroled to Father Shell-now Bishop-and one violation and Sergeant Tuohy took over again.

Negroes In Washington

Police are being badgered by racial groups, mostly Negro and Puerto Rican, to the point they are often afraid to act.

In Washington, where the population is now 54 per cent Negro, muggings, murder, rape and robberies have increased to the point where the nation's capital has one of the worst crime records in the country-and its fully integrated schools have fallen two to three years behind former standards. A total of 26 police officers were attacked in July alone.

Rep. Charles Diggs, Jr., a Michigan Congressman, and himself a Negro, saw a gang of Negro thugs beating an officer recently and sought to stop it. He fled when one of them advanced on him with a knife.

U. S. Constitution

"I know there are certain conditions which produce this kind of anti-social attitude, but we need more responsibility on the part of the Negro community, too," he commented later. "We can't just blame conditions and let it go at that."

That is the case, exactly, so far as I am concerned.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees rights to all citizens. but not included in those liberties is the privilege of flouting the law and committing crimes.

Furthermore, no citizen has the privilege of pointing to the color of his skin and the character of his dwelling as an answer to why he murdered innocent children in a playground.

More harm is being done to the cause of the law abiding, responsible Negro by racial Negro agitators, who harp on his rights and completely ignore the responsibilities of citizenship, than any other one factor.

Hawaiians Law Abiding

And for an example of the type of Puerto Rican we are getting in the United States contrast them with the Hawaiians.

Hawaiians are a mixture of Polynesians, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos and Caucasians.

Yet, who ever heard of gangs of Hawaiians roaming the U.S. city streets like wild animals?

They are peace-loving people, who are law abiding and ambitious and make excellent citizens. They have pride of race, pride in their homes, pride in their accomplishments.

And they never create slums.

Laws, democracy, and the Christian spirit can do just so much for any people.

In the end their own character and efforts tell the story.