Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-07-05
Continued From First Pag.

OOutAuucu FEOm FlESt rage
Caldwell or Truman Capote
were to block out a story of
suspicion, hatred and unrest,
Clinton would be the last place
the author would select. Yet II
is precisely this town-in the
persons of Is of its citizens and
one wayfaring stranger-that
goes on trial Monday.
There is disagreement in Gin
ton today about what started all
the fuss. But the intellectual
element of Clinton is fairly well
unified in the belief that if John
Kasper had stayed away in Au-
gust. 1856, Clinton would never
have been heard Of, except pos
sibly as the first town in Ten
nessee to integrate its schools.
On the wall of the combined
business Office and newsroom OF
the weekly Clinton Courier News
hangs a printed quotation from
Reinhold Niebuhr. It reads:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot
change, courage to change the
things I can. and wisdom to
know the difference"
Resigned to Decision
AS of last August, says Courier
News Editor Horace v. Wells,
jr., Clinton had the wisdom to
know the difference. Not that
Clinton likes it: rather, Clinton
was resigned to the inevitable
AS Mr.. Wells testified in Federal
Court in an earlier contempt case
involving Kasper:
I'VE told him (Kasper) that
the people of Clinton and Ander-
son County were opposed to in
tegration. :. We had to inform
him, since he was newly-arrived
that the Clinton school was be-
ing integrated on Federal
Court order, and that the people
of Anderson County had fought
for five years against it, that we
had lost, but that we believed in
the law, and that we believed
that our Government was found
ed upon law and that the schools
were being opened according to
law, and we urged him not to
create any trouble"
Yet trouble there was-trouble
that ended with Kasper under
arrest and II Clintonians along
with him. OF the II local folk,
one is now dead and another, q
15-year-old, is doing time in
the State reformatory at Nash
vile on criminal charges grow
ing out Of subsequent disorders
And all, the civic leaders say
because Kasper came to town
and famed into flame the en-
bers of racism that had smol-
dered quietly before.
Peaceful Town Erupts
No more peaceful town could
be imagined than this one as
1t lay half asleep under the broil-
ing Tennessee sun this Fourth
of July week end. If there was
q White Citizens Council or 9
Ku-Klux Khan in existence yes
terday, no one could point to q
building and say There's its
meeting place" or to a man and
say There's the Kleagle." Bobby
Cain, the first Negro ever to
graduate from a State-supported
integrated school in Tennessee
was still around town some
where, but nobody paid him
much mind.
Yet it was this town, sever
months ago, where men, womer
and children rioted, where the
town police and then the STATE
troopers gave up and finally the
tanks Of the National Guard hac
to move in, their machine gun,
and cannon bristling, to restore
order. 1t was this town where
the high school principal was
publicly called a "nigger lover
because he insisted on obeyine
the court injunction laid upor
him. 1t was this town where &
white Baptist preacher was sci
upon and beaten for performing
the Christian service of walking
to school with q fellow human
being whose skin happened to bI
brown. 1t was this town where {
rabid segregationist went mac
and tried to take the high schoo
to pieces at 4 o'clock one morning
with no tools but his bare hands
and a milk bottle crate from {
local creamery.
After the nights of terrol
from December 4 to December
6 last year, there we're two
months Of low-key unrest, char
acterized mainly by provocative,
acts by white students against
Negro students at school and by
more or less aimless nighttime
dynamiting. No one has vel
figured out a way to legislats
against bullying and hooliganisn
in the corridors of a school, but
against explosives the STATE
Legislature acted in the last SEES.
sion. 1t is now a felony to owl
dynamite in Tennessee without
q license and a crime punishable
by 20 years in prison to set 4