Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1963-10-06

was going 70 nave a TdLleF COM
Portable old age and now am
going TO be out scratching Just
TO keep q roof over my head"
On RocioI Crises
@. To turn to the racial issue
which seems to be tearing the
country apart. Is there any coun-
sci you could offer to help bridge
the gap between the segregation
lists and ntegrationists?
A. Unfortunately. people seem to
react more to emotional and SEN
timental factors than to cold sta
tistics. So you get a situation
where a consensus as to the best
method for proceeding is very diff
ficult to reach.
Just as q matter Of history,
there has been only one real civil
rights law passed In something
over 30 years. almost 30 I guess.
1t is very difficult. II you try
to cure everything at once by
law, the number Of clauses that
you put into q bill gives you the
aggregate Of the negative votes.
I am one Of those who is on
the side Of the underprivileged
people in their struggle to get
their political and economic
rights respected and observed.
Now believe it is not only a
legal but q moral problem for
every one Of us. I have been
preaching this for IL years and
more, ever since went to Co.
lumbia, I deeply believe this.
Now the practical question Is,
how do you make progress7 If
the leaders on both sides could
get together and say that the
first law that we need Is 50 and
so, 1t will be much easier to put
that through than It will be to
put all Of them through at once.
We should 60 after the thing as
a soldier does to win q campaign.
We win l victory in 10 in order
to go to another victory. We
should not try to put everything
in one basket at one time. Every
time you get one law passed, it
opens the way for another, be-
cause success breeds success. AS
each successive step became I'M
derstood and accepted by the pub
lie. the legislative jam would soon
be broken.
For example, the voting law
passed in 1857 could, II fully and
impartially inforced, accomplish
an awful lot by the very power
of the vote.
@. The greatest opposition
seems to be to this so-called
public accommodation" law. Are
you suggesting that perhaps that
should be put aside for the time
in order to move on the voting
rights and job rights areas?
A. Well. I don't know. That is
the most emotional one for those
people who have been denied
their rights. for the simple reason
they run into 1t every day, every
minute. My own solution, If !
were recommending one, would
probably be to make sure Of the
voting first and then, right after
that, the public accommodations
law. And I certainly wouldn't base
1t solely on the Interstate Com
merce Clause of the Constitu-
ton. think the relationship is
too remote.
I would put 1t on both the
Fourteenth and the Fifteenth
Amendments and the Interstate
Commerce Clause. think the In
terstate Commerce Clause prob
ably applies to the institutions,
at least the large institutions, but
I don't see how it applies to the
man as an individual. I would
think that any business that has
to be licensed by government in
order to operate probably has an
obligation to treat everybody the
same.
Most Precious Right
Q. You are suggesting, as a
matter of tactics, that it might
be well to let this go for a whileP
A. P u b C accommodations
ought to be taken up soon. But
I still believe that the most pre-
cious right you have, even more
than where you sleep, is can you
vote or not, can you participate in
your government?
I had reports when I was Presi-
dent that some Negroes who had
their PhD.s were denied their
right to vote in certain areas be-
cause of illiteracy. They must
have given them Sanskrit to
translate. I don't know how they
did it. But that is exactly what
they did
But again I say. there has got
to be a moral victory won. Each
of us must try to live up to the
Constitution and its nobly phrased
principles of equality for all.
Copyright. 1858. by the Detroit News,
Newark News, st. Louis Post-Dispatch
and Washington Starr