Minneapolis spokesman. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1944-04-14
UncOvering
Washington
By Harry S. McAlpin
(White House Correspondent
NNPA)

their nick in history and in momory.
Less frequently, but often, the
names of judges make permanent
impression on the pages of time
and recollection.
The infamous bred Scott deci-
sion, rendered in 1857 and de-
livered by Chief Justice Roger B.
fancy of the United States Su-
preme Court, is illustrative of the
point. Grovey v. Townsend, in
which the decision was rendered in
1885 by Justice Owen ]. Roberts,
a member of the present Supreme
Court, is another case in point.
But the lawyers who prepared
the cases, pored and sweated over
books and documents while "dig-
ging out" the law, wracked their
brains for the right words and
phrases, passed through the ordeal
of argument and matching of legal
wits, then waited impatiently and
prayerfully for the courts verdict
they are too soon forgotten.
Perhaps many other lawyers
could have done equally as good
job, but none-white, black, red
nor yellow-could have surpassed
the effort turned in by Thurgood
Marshall and William HASTE who
pied the case of Smith v. Albright
ct al.
We remember them now because
their legal, civic and national &C
tivities keep them in our current
public eye-and the case was ar
gued only last November, reargued
in January, and decided just last
week.
But ten years from now, only
the officers of the NAACP, the stu
dents at Howard Law School, a
few newspaper men with sharp
memories, and Lonnie Smith, the
complainant and appellant, will re-
member the names of these two
men as being the brilliant lawyers
who won the historic, epoch-chang-
ing case out-lawing the exclusion
of Negroes from the primaries of
the Democratic party in Texas
and perhaps in the entire South.
They should never be forgotten!
1 swell with pride each time ]
relive the experience in memory
of those two stalwarts, giving the
lie to the race-inferiority theories
of Hitler and Bilbo and Rankin,
belittling the objections of Rep.
May (D) of Kentucky to the truth
that many Negroes are superior to
many whites, as they argued the
Texas Primary case before the
highest court of the land.
Their diction, their appearance
and their legal logic held the nine
justices, including Mr.. Justice Rob-
erts, enthralled. They failed in
only one instance. They were I'M
able to raise the Negro, in the mind
of Mr.. Justice Roberts, above the
status of a small "n." He wrote
NEGRO" in his decision delivered in
Grovey v. Townsend on April l,
1935-when he held, with the back
ing of a unanimous court, that the
Negro was not entitled to vote in
the Texas primaries because a pol
itical party could select its own
members-and he still uses the
small IN" in his dissenting opinion
to the 81 decision of last week
reversing Grovey v. Townsend, nine
years later almost to the day.
april 8, 1944).
But if Marshall and HASTE could
not convert Justice Roberts by the
manner in which they over
Swallowed George w. Barcus, as
sistant attorney general for Texas,
who was more of a buffoon than a
lawyer before the court, then no
one ever will.
I'm all for referring to the Texas
Primary case as the Marshall
HASTE Second Emancipation case,
so their names will not be forgot
ten, nor their efforts lost.
If every school child could have
sat in the court and heard them,
there would be far less hopeless
ness when he faces obstacles of
race in later years.
If every mother and father could
have witnessed their presentation
of the case to the court, there would
be far more incentive to work and
sacrifice to give their kids an OPP
portunity.
If every Bilbo-minded bigot could
have watched the proceedings, he
would have realized the futility of
this "white supremacy argument.
Marshall and Hastie-democracy
is indebted to you!
Visitors
Among the visitors to this papers
office this week were: George Tot