The Augusta Courier

Three-Judge Federal Court In Atlanta Has Created Confusion Confounded Exposure Of The Southern Regional Council's Objectives Brings Hasty Conference Of Ralph McGill, Morris Abram

Cook Threatened With "A Fight Unto Death," If State Investigates Group

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Eight years ago we carried a series of stories on the Southern Regional Council. Since its activities have been turned into a political drive over the South, operating out of Atlanta, we think it will be interesting to our readers to reproduce these articles. We printed one in each of the following issues: May 7th, May 28th, and June 4th. You will find the fourth in this issue today. Other articles in this series will be reproduced during the next few editions of the Courier. The following is the story as it appeared under date of July 19, 1954).

The exposure of the Southern Regional Council, beneficiary of a $240,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, as a haven for known Communist-fronters and potentially the Communist Party apparatus in the South, has created consternation among the liberal element in Atlanta and the South.

The Ford Foundation and the Southern Regional Council have been under fire for seeking to destroy segregation in the South.

Recent Developments

1. A hasty meeting between Morris Abram and Ralph McGill which resulted in a telephone call to the Attorney General of Georgia threatening him with opposition if he investigated the Southern Regional Council.
2. A statement by Morris Abram to the Attorney General of Georgia in a telephone conversation threatening the Editor of THE AUGUSTA COURIER.
3. A bitter letter from the Editor of THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION to the Editor of THE AUGUSTA COURIER denying that Ralph McGill had ever been a member of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare;
4. The policy of the Atlanta newspapers to suppress all news not favorable to the SRC; and,
5. Additional detailed information from the House Committee Investigation

Page 3)
Cook Threatened
With "A Fight
Unto
Death," If State
Investigates Group

(Continued from Page 1)

investigating Un-American Activities and the
records of the Attorney General of the
United States regarding Communist-
front activities and Communist Party
membership of some of the leading
lights of the Ford Foundation-financ-
ed Southern Regional Council.
Abram, McGill Confer
THE AUGUSTA COURIER has learn-
ed from unimpeachable sources that
when Morris Abram read the expose of
the Southern Regional Council in THE
AUGUSTA COURIER of June 28 he
immediately began a series of talks with
Ralph McGill in order to combat and
suppress the COURIER story.
When the press contacted Attorney
General Eugene Cook relative to the
expose, he had not read the COURIER
and said that if Communists were at
work in any organization that he would
certainly be interested in it and would
investigate the same. One reporter took
this statement to mean that he would
launch a full scale open investigation
against SRC, but this was not what
Cook said.
The Attorney General told the press
that as far as he knew the Special Serv-
ices Agency of the State government
ferreting out Communists, and the FBl
might already be looking into SRC's
activities.
Cook Is Threatened
When Cook's statement hit the radio
Abram was on the phone moaning and
complaining to the .Attorney General. He
said that the interpretation placed on
Cook's statement had not only "hurt his
feelings" but had also hurt Bishop
Moore's feelings.
It was then that Abram threatened to
get out opposition to the Attorney Gen-
eral. He told Mr. Cook that he had just
talked to Ralph McGill and that they
had decided to get out opposition to
him in the Attorney General's race.
We intend to beat you, it's a fight
unto the death!" Abram is reported to
have stated in the telephone conversa-
tion.
Abram Complains
This same Abram is a candidate for
Congress now against Jim Davis in the
Fifth District. He complained to Mr
Cook for not "ever saying anything on
our side" about segregation and the
county unit system.
Cook's reply to Abram was that he is
a supporter of both these traditional
Georgia institutions and that he would
continue to fight for them with all of
the energy which he possesses and fur-
ther told Mr. Abram that he and McGill
could get out any opposition they de-
sired.
It was then that the Atlanta attorney
threatened the Editor of THE AUGUS-
TA COURIER saying:
SOMETHING OUGHT TO
BE
DONE TO ROY; HE'S CRAZY!"
McGill's Letter
Close on the heels of the Abram-
Cook telephone conversation, Ralph Mc-
Gill, Editor of THE ATLANTA CON-
STITUTION, wrote a bitter letter to the
Editor of THE AUGUSTA COURIER
stating that charges made by this paper
in the Southern Regional Council expose,
which quoted him as being a member
of the Southern Conference for Human
Welfare and got out of the organization
when he found it infiltrated by Com-
munists, "is completely false.
Last week we printed McGill's col-
umn which by his own statement he ad-
mitted he belonged to the Southern Con-
ference for Human Welfare and that
he was at the first meeting of the or-
ganization. We convicted him by his
own evidences as quoted in a column
which he wrote several years ago.
He wrote then: "As I have said here
before, the Communist Party is almost
negligible in the South, but it does main-
tain and has maintained a small South-

Southern headquarters at Birmingham. And it
did participate openly in the first South-

Southern Conference
for Human Welfare
meetings at Birmingham.
When
this
happened, I knew enough
to
get
out
and knew enough
to
know
that the
Southern Conference was finished even
as it began."
Expected Something Else
Undoubtedly, McGill
and
other
leading lights of the SRC saw the box in
THE AUGUSTA COURIER printed the
week before alerting our readers
that
an expose of the SRC's activities
s was
coming the following week. McGill and
his satellites in Atlanta started oscillat-
ing to determine the best strategy
for
answering the COURIER article.
According to reliable information, we
have learned that they were expecting
undocumented
general charges which
they would answer by the tactic of con-
fession and avoidance.
However,
when
the COURIER ex-
pose came out proving SRC to be the
successor to
SCHW; naming two Reds
as members of the SRC top level Board
of Directors and exposing 38 of its of-
ficers and Board of Directors as mem-
bers of Communist fronts, it was too
much for McGill's pen and the
power
of the Atlanta press to answer.
They
knew that the COURIER had the facts
and deadwood.
Atlanta Papers Suppressed Story
As a result McGill and other top level
officials issued orders to subordinates
on both the morning and afternoon pa-
pers to completely ignore the story and
not print a word about it even though
a wire service had sent the story to all
daily papers throughout the State and
nation.
When officials of the Southern Reg-
ional Council learned that the COUR-
IER'S expose of that group was going
to be spread before the public in the
columns of this newspaper, they sought
by every means to 1
bring pressure
to
suppress the story.
They claim that the SRC is not suc-
cessor to SCHW but another organiza-
tion the
Southern
Conference
Educa-
tional
Fund,
Inc.,
headed by Aubrey
Williams,
as
its
president,
is
the
suc-
cessor
to
SCHW.
McGill Hunts Libel
They did not know that the COURIER
was
in possession of documentary evi-
dence to prove its charges conclusively
and shatter these claims. Dr. George S.
Mitchell, executive director of the South-

Southern Regional Council, told the
press that
he is not a communist
"but
a
harmless
old
socialist."
Editor
Ralph
McGill
sought to
dissuade
the
wire
services
from
carrying
news
stories
of
THE
COURIER'S
expose
by
asking
the
threatening question: "Is there any libel
in it?"
It was also learned authoritatively that
queries were made by the press to ex-
perts on the question of communist sub-
version in an effort to diseredit the
COURIER'S news story. We have learn-
ed from an unimpeachable source that
the replies to all of these queries was
that the "Southern Regional'Council is
just as red as Roy says it is."
Documentary evidence supplied us by
the House Committee Investigating Un-
American Activities shows that 24 of
the officers and directors of the South-

Southern Regional Council held top policy
posts in the Southern Conference for
Human Welfare or were extremely ac-
tive in it. This, in itself, gives the lie
to the claims of the Southern Regional
Council that it is not the successor to
the Southern Conference for Human
Welfare. The Southern Conference Edu-

Southern Conference Edu-
cational Fund can make no such claim.
Any impartial investigation of Com-
munist-front organizations proves con-
clusively that there is much overlapping
of officers and membership, but that
the goal of all is one and the same -
that of the overthrow of our form of
government.
Records and official reports of the
House Committee Investigating Un-
American Activities reveal that the lead-
ing lights of the Southern Conference
for Human Welfare, its offshoot, the
Southern Conference Educational Fund
and its actual successor, the Southern
Regional Council are one and the same.
. Two Known Communists
We have discovered that two persons
who have been branded as known Com-
munists in testimony before the House
Committee Investigating Un-American
Activities are listed in official publica-
tion of the Southern Regional Council
as members of its Board of Directors.
One of these, Aubrey Williams, is also
president of the Southern Conference
Educational Fund.
To keep the record straight, the
Southern Conference Educational Fund
was set up by Aubrey Williams and
James Dombrowski to combat the ef-
fectiveness of the Southern Regional
Education program. The organization
has met with no success, has no stand-
ing and has not been able to garner
the funds which it expected to receive.
However, the Southern Regional Coun-
cil operated by the same element has
met with financial success through
grants from the Rosenwald Fund Foun-
dation and at present the Ford Foun-
dation. It is pursuing the course laid
down in the platform of the Communist
Party-U. S. A.
Courier In Demand
The COURIER has received tele-
grams, telephone calls and letters from
all over the South and throughout the
country requesting additional copies of
this article exposing the SRC and show.
ing another way that the Ford Founda-
tion is expending its funds to advance
the destruction of segregation in Geor-
gia and the South.
The COURIER heard from several
prominent Southern leaders and
ap-
preciates their commendation.
The COURIER has at hand addition-
al information from the House Commit-
tee Investigating Un-American Activi-
ties and from the records and files of
the Attorney General of the United
States information relative to the top
manipulators of SRC's policy and anti-
segregation effort in the South.
Next week The COURIER will carry
another article giving full details on the
records of five of these individuals in-
cluding two known Communists who
are members of the top level Board of
Directors of the Southern Regional
Council.
WATCH FOR IT!