St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1943-06-04
Southern "White
Friends" Book Is
Planned By Writer
The Fighting South
Reviewed by M. Moran Weston


you, but watch your closest
friends" John Temple Graves and
his new book "The Fighting South"
make this old folk saying seem full
of the wisdom of Solomon.
JIG is a SANITY" white South
erner of an old and influential fam
lily. His heart just bleeds for
the poor Negro. Things aren't
just as they should be. Mr.. Graves
admits: "The Negro in the South
suffers many injustices at the hands
of white majorities and as a race
is hated by many Southern whites"
There is no democracy in the antics
of the xxx, of the f1ag-waving
lunatics-and certain industrialists
who are positive the masses must
be kept ignorant, non-voting, and
unorganized."
But Mr.. Graves is about to have
the st. Vitus dance for fear some
one-especially those Yankees and
"uppity Negroes''-will really do
something to get rid Of pellagra,
of ignorance, of lynch terror. 1t
really makes Mr.. Graves i'll to think
some of these foreigners" might
do something to beautify what he
says is "dreary, damned lost land,
as hollow-eyed, thin and sick as the
people who try to make a living
on it for themselves and a down.
at-the-heel landlord"
"Please leave US alone" chants
Mr.. Graves. Gus pure-hearted
whites and good old faithful Uncle
Toms will fix things up just like
they ought to be. We want no
outside agitation for the unobtain-
able" I take it the only thing
unobtainable is democracy for Ne
groes.
It isn't quite clear what Mr..
Graves would do to make Dixie a
real heaven on earth, if the med
dlers would just keep their noses
out. One thing, however, is clear.
He would have US get rid of "the
NAACP, the Northern Negro press,
the politicians and sentimentaists
in high places in Washington and
the devoted cross-eyed humanitar-
ians."
Mr.. Graves thinks the xxx is
nothing to be proud of. But the
pains he takes to point out that
the motive of the xxx is "the
preservation of the law" that cts
basis was a belief that people must
behave properly" makes me shud-
der. Does Mr.. Graves believe, as
he says the Klan does Gin honesty
and passion" that &c. atheists,
Communists, Negroes who are up
pity, labor leaders, Jews, Catho-
lies :" are the ones who do not
behave properly?
One thing is clear. Mr.. Graves
and DR.. "Uncle Tom" Warren
Brown of Readers Digest fame be-
lieve that the Negro Press is
child of Satan.
Another thing is clear. The
South cannot be left alone to Mr..
Graves and other liberal" whites
such as Mark Ethridge, and Vir-
ginius Dabney any more than a
sick child can be left alone with
witch-doctor. If it is, then Amer
lea, the America we love and are
ready to die as well as live for,
will be sick a long, long time.
MAKE HASTE
eve must crowd the business of
an age into the compass of a few
months" This is the way Tom
Paine summed up the situation in
the crucial year of TIT. And this
is the way things are today. We
just can not use the old time sched-
ule any longer.
1t is encouraging that the Negro
leaders in the South, who met in
Durham last year, recognize that
we must go faster and farther. It
is encouraging that the White lead
ers in the South, who met in At
lanta a few days ago, recognize
there is a job that must be done.
That job is to bring the full power
of the people of the South into the
war on the side of "justice and
liberty for ALL"
But they have not recognized
that they cannot do this and keep
that old buzzard Jim Crow alive.
It can't be done. It can't be done
any more than can India be kept in
chains and unarmed. Any more
than can the African people be kept
tied to the coat tails of European
imperialists. This Column is con-
fident that, despite our present
snaiPs pace, the people of the
South, hand in hand with the people
of all America, will rise to meet the
challenge: eve must crowd the
business Of an age into the COM
pass of a few months"