The Augusta Courier

STRICTLY PERSONAL

Bill Hartsfield and Ralph McGill are still trying to bluff the people of Georgia on the County Unit System.

On Wednesday morning, April 15, 1959, there appeared a story in THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION quoting Bill Hartsfield about the County Unit System.

The article starts off as follows:
"A suit opposing the county unit system would win in 1960, Mayor Hartsfield told a meeting of the Atlanta Chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, professional journalistic fraternity. Tuesday night."

The article quotes Hartsfield as saying:
"The rural representatives in the Georgia Legislature aren't going to do anything about it.

"A face-saving committee will probably be appointed to investigate, but they'll just try to persuade the Supreme Court not to make a decision."

Then this article also says:
"Asked why he was so certain the suit would win if filed next year, Mayor said 'we've scouted the (Supreme) court.'

Now, I know that it is hard for the average citizen to believe that Bill Hartsfield is telling the truth when he says:
"We've scouted the (Supreme) court."

But I believe Bill's telling the truth.

Now, the court has certainly reached a new low in depravity when a man like Bill Hartsfield can go up and ask them how they are going to rule on a case to be filed next year and get an answer.

But I am not surprised at this court. I have been of the opinion for a long time that they will do anything.

Now, of course, Bill Hartsfield hasn't privately "scouted the court", but I know that the NAACP and the leftwingers with which he associates are close enough to the court to do it for him.

This isn't the first time the court has been "scouted" and polled in advance.

Two incidents come back very clearly to my mind as I read this newspaper account.

A few years ago, a very prominent official in Georgia went to Washington to argue a case before the Supreme Court in which the State was a party.

When he returned, he told me that Georgia would win her case.

He told me that the night before he argued the case that Justice Douglas either gave a party for him or else that he attended a party given for him by a friend of Justice Douglas and that Justice Douglas assured him that the court would decide in his favor.

The other incident happened on either the 14th or 15th of May, 1957.

It was either Friday or Saturday before the infamous "Black Monday" decision in the school segregation cases.

A very prominent and very wealthy Negro friend of mine in Augusta called me on the telephone and sounded as if he were in distress. He asked me if he could see me immediately if he came to my office.

I told him to come on to the office and when he reached the office he was almost out of breath. When he got to the office he knew that the Supreme Court would decide the school segregation cases on Monday and he knew what the decision would be.

This worried him. He thought there would be trouble in Augusta as soon as the decision was announced on Monday and he asked me what in the world we were going to do to prevent trouble in Augusta.

I simply stated to him that if he could handle the members of his own race and they would agree to stay in their schools that the white people would agree to stay in theirs and that we would have no trouble.

He stated to me that he was of the opinion that he could handle his people and if the leading white people would make these facts known to the whites that we would have no trouble.

I guaranteed him that this would be done and he left the office feeling much better.

Now, how did this prominent Negro in Augusta have advance notice of the time the Supreme Court would decide those cases?

How did he know two or three days in advance what the decision would be?

After these experiences it isn't difficult for me to believe that Bill Hartsfield has had somebody poll the court and knows a year in advance what the court would do.

Yes, the NAACP and the leftwingers have "scouted the (Supreme) court."

Now, the present members of the Supreme Court are none too good to be engaged in such skulduggery with Bill Hartsfield or some of his NAACP friends or some of his leftwing associates.

Even the prospect of winning such a lawsuit has caused Ellis Arnall to make out like he has a little life left in his dead political body.

But Bill Hartsfield, Ralph McGill and Ellis Arnall are in for a rude awakening.

It doesn't make any difference what the Supreme Court decides about Georgia's primary law, we will have the county unit system in Georgia in 1960 and then again 1962.

Now, if any of them want to run for the United States Senate in 1960, they will have the benefit of running in the Democratic Primary under the County Unit rule.

Then, if they want to run for Governor in 1962 they can run under the County Unit rule.

Now, in the last two issues of THE AUGUSTA COURIER we have been dealing with the history of the County Unit System of voting in Georgia. We have shown you that we had a County Unit System of voting in the Democratic primaries in Georgia before we ever wrote it into law. We have shown you that it was written into law when the Neill Primary Law was adopted by the Legislature in 1917.

Prior to that time we had it in every election for many years, with the exception of the election of 1908, by a rule of the Democratic Party.

Political parties can select their own members and they can fix their own rules.

The only reason the Supreme Court would have jurisdiction of a suit involving the County Unit System of voting would be because it is written into the law of Georgia.

Now, when the law fixes the rule, that is state action and when the state adopts such a rule the Supreme Court might have jurisdiction.

Now, last week we tried to show you that if they tear up the Neill Primary Law then we will have no primary law and we can once again have a white primary in Georgia.

The reason the white primaries were outlawed by the federal courts is because the rules for holding primaries in Georgia were written into law and they held that the holding of primaries in Georgia was state action.

Now, if the Neill Primary Law is torn up, then the political parties will fix their own rules and regulations.

When a party acts it is not state action, it is party action and the federal courts could not interfere.

The rule is that states cannot discriminate, but individuals can still discriminate if they see fit.

Individuals are not required to take Negroes into their homes, or into their clubs, or into their political parties.

We can organize just as many parties as we wish. Everybody can organize his own party if he wishes and can determine who shall be members.

So, let's let Bill Hartsfield, Ralph McGill and these other leftwingers tear up the Neill Primary Law if they want.

Then, when they do, we will not only have the county unit system in our primary elections, but we will also have the white primaries like we ought to.

I can't help but laugh every time I think about it.

Poor old Bill and Ralph are between the devil and the deep blue sea.

If they tear up the Neill Primary Law, then they lose their Negro votes in the primary elections.

I can't make up my mind which I would rather see and when I think of the trap these poor devils are in, I am forced to lean back and laugh out loud.

So, let them go.

If they want to give us a chance to hold a white primary in Georgia, then let them go ahead and do it.

Now, let's see if our legal position is right on this question. Let's go back to the old Primus King case where the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that under the Neill Primary law we couldn't hold white primaries.

Judge Sibley wrote the opinion and here's what he said about the effect of the Neill Primary Law:

"We think these provisions show that the State, through the managers if requires, collaborates in the conduct of the primary, and puts its power behind the rules of the party. It adopts the primary as a part of the public election machinery. The exclusions of voters made by the party by the primary rules become exclusions enforced by the State and when these exclusions are prohibited by the Fifteenth Amendment because based on race or color, the persons making them effective violate under color of State law a right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States within the meaning of the statute which is here sued on."

Now, here's what he said we could do if we didn't have the Neill Primary Law:

" . . . but we are advised of no statute, State or federal, which undertakes to limit the right of citizens who form a political party to select those who shall participate in it. Nor is there any statute which prohibits those who do participate in a party caucus, mass meeting or election from agreeing to support the result thereof. Accordingly there may be parties composed wholly of whites, or wholly of colored people, or wholly of Jews, or of men, or of women."

So, let these rabble-rousing race-mixing troublemakers continue and they may give us a chance to straighten things out in Georgia.

They have already stirred up a mess and they are trying to make it worse.

In a recent issue of THE AUGUSTA COURIER. we quoted from a writer in Massachusetts who gives us a picture of some of the rising conflicts which these race mixers have produced.

Let me quote it to you again:

. . . The increasing schisms within Protestant sects, the growing doubts of each other's good will between Catholics and Protestants, the rising intolerance by Christians of Jews and animosity of Jews towards Christians, and now the darkening storm of activated hatred between white people and colored people these things aren't just happening by chance and they didn't, like Topsy, just grow up. They have been carefully planned, subtly fomented, cleverly nourished, and raised to tremendous forces of disruption by the Communist conspirators and the misguided dupes and allies who have been cued and egged on by them."