THE CONGRESS: A Few Plain Words

Illinois’ Senator Paul Douglas knows the political risk of discussing racial tension. But last week, after a Cook County grand jury failed to indict Cicero, Ill. race rioters, and indicted instead the lawyer for a Negro mob victim, Douglas spoke a few plain, courageous words.

“What we need in this country, my own state included,” he said, “is a greater realization that the interests which all of us have in common are far greater than the points of difference between us. This is true for Democrats, Republicans and Independents, for the native-born and the foreign stock, for the Catholics, Protestants and Jews, for Northerners, Southerners and Westerners, and for the black and white as well. All of us are inheritors of our American traditions. We cannot ignore [conflicts of interests]. But I ask that we meet them with understanding, not with hate; with orderly procedures, not with mob violence.”