The Omaha guide., 1956-01-06

ON REQUEST
enforce segregation of the races
by law. Recent decisions of the
Court, however, have
withdrawn constitutional sanction
from officially enforced segrega-
ton in one field after anotehr.
This has given the people of
local communities the opportuni-
ty, and imposed on them the
responsibility, for devising their
own solutions for race problems
within the framework of demo-
cratic processes.
ut is right and wholesome
that private persons, white as
well as colored, should take an
interest in this vitality important
problem. 1t is a controversial
problem for which no S olution
of general applicability has yet
been found. The best American
tradition calls for an experiment
tai, trial and errors approach,
seeking sound empirical solu-
tons rather than rigid doctrin-
aire judgments. Those who think
integration should come sooner,
and those who think it should
come more gradually or not at
all, should be allowed to expound
their opposing views and try them
out in practice, all without Off
cial Intervention except for the
protection of legal rights of per-
son and property.
"Much as we may dislike those
who hold up the mirror to the
community and remind us that
our ideals of justice and tolerance
and equality are not yet fully re-
allied in actual practice, we must
beware the danger of making
the way of the critic too hazard
Gus. If he demands a standard
of performance which is present
ly beyond the capacity of the
community, his criticism may
not be effective. If he adopts IL
legal methods, his illegal acts
should be punished. But if his
are lawful we must not
silence him because we dislike
his views. And we must not pun
ish him because lawless means
are used to oppose him.
THE best, and perhaps the
only, hope of a sane and whole
some solution to such problems
racial i~ntegration is to allow
peaceful experimentation of the
sort the Wades attempted. To
help them attempt it, as the de-
PENDANT did, is not a crime"
Lusky and Zollinger also see a
to freedom of the press in
the cross-examination of Braden
a news story he had writ
ten. Braden was formerly labor
reporter for The Cincinnati En-
and The Louisville Times.
At the time of his conviction he
was a copy editor for The Louis
Vile Courier,Journal and was
in labor and in~terracial af-
"The prosecution invited the
Jury to convict him because of
lack of optimism displayed in a
factual report on unemployment
in the Louisville area, which he
had written as a news service
correspondent in 1948," the brief
Il. mo evidence was ever Of
fered to show that the news story
certainly did not advocate
criminal syndicalism or sedition)
was false in any respect, or that
the defendant believed it to be
untrue. The court, by ruling that
its truth or falsity was imma-
terial, struck a far-reaching blow
at freedom of the press"
The brief also contends that
the indictment was so vague that
no adequate defense could be Of
fered; that the courts instruc-
rs to the jury failed to define
the offenses in any understand
able way, and that the terms of
The sedition statute are so in
definite "that men of common
intelligence must guess as to its
meaning and differ as to its appli-
cation"
The attorneys are also critical
of the prosecutions use of an af-
fidavit by Braden's 15-year-old
foster daughter, Sonia, to obtain
information about books in hi;
home. "The blood runs cold al
the thought that, in America, in