The Petal paper. [volume] (Petal, Miss.) 1953-19??, 1960-02-18
McCiIl on Lincoln

sciences of our time.
Is Lincoln's Cooper Union APP
peal for national fdgaDgae to be
historically rejected generation
after generation?
This raises the question of who,
or what groups, JIM any. society
can conduct a dialogues 1t must
oe, OF course, those ON each side
OF a question who have-aeense of
the vital role of communication
who are more Interested in build
ing bridges Of Communications
than IN destroying them,
The greatest failure to -ioin in
the dialogue has, it seems to me.
been on the part of. ail..tha is
wrapped UP in the word business.
We of late have had a great
deal OF talk about business met
getting into politics. This has
been urged, | believe, by various
persons and committees of the
National Association of Manu-
facturers, the United States
Chamber of Commerce. and
heads of some of the larger cor
porations But from the begin
nlng they have revealed a fatal
law IN their image of what get
ing INTO politics means! They
nave had the narrow one of mere
~ electlng someone they thought
would best represent them locally
Getting into politics means
much more than that Politics de-
mands a public philosophy. This
IS basic. If, for example, we allow
pubic education to be DESTROYED
III several states, the reverbera-
tons of it will echo in every state.
II Will poison the legislative wells
OF necessary federal assistance to
education. It will take up tn
time of the Congress in acrinon-
lous debate which will stir up
extremist, hate groups in every
state in the Union. 1t already has
done something of this.
The whole issue has been. left
to politicians. They have had the
assistance of church, groups and
of several organizations and in
dividualS. But, here is something
which will harm the nation and
its economy unless it is resolved
nationally The South has been
| blamed for something in which
the North has an almost eGtial
blame, The South has no exclu-
sive franchise on prejudice
Lincoln said here that moral
| right makes might. That, be-
lieve, is yet, true. II the nations
business leadership will get into
politics in the fullest and best
| sense we can make real progress.
/ The Committee for Economic De-
velopment, for example, has re-
Gently released a study and rec
ommendation on education That
| is business craftsmanship Here
is a public philosophy on educa-
ton by leaders of the nations
| productive economy We can use
it in other fields. If we leave it
only to the politicians, then the
instinct for survival will allow
most of the talking and interpre-
tation to be done by the extren-
lists We are all citizens of this
country or we are not. The soon
er we make up our minds about
it, with help from the Chambers
of Commerce, the sooner this ma
ton will bridge the gap which is
presented to us in this last half
of the Goth century. Let us re-
peat getting into politics re-
quires mature public philoso-
ply if the political system is to
be backed by a healthy public
opinion
Because Of our failure to do
this in the field of race we see
again the dangers present at the
time of Lincoln's speech, The ex-
tremists of action and perspec-
tive have been too much in the
fore.
Yet, there is hope. and some
progress, even though Deep
South extremism which, because
it declines to accept the authority
| of courts and the decisions IF the