The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1964. Binding Up The Wounds

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30478, 27 June 1964, Page 12

The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1964. Binding Up The Wounds

The passage of the Civil Rights Bill by the United States Senate, one year after President Kennedy presented it to Congress and 101 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, is not the end of the struggle. When President Johnson, with a fine sense of history, signs the new law on July 4, the 188th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the complicated task of enforcing it in the recalcitrant Southern States will begin. And that will not be the end, either. The legal revolution will at last be complete and the “ self-evident ” truth that all men are created equal will be enshrined in the law of the United States; but the work of the Founding Fathers will not be done until it ends in a social revolution. The bizarre circumstances that led the man who seeks the leadership of the party of Lincoln to vote against the bill is an illustration of how painful the social revolution will be. Senator Goldwater may believe that his betrayal of what the Republican Party has always stood for will persuade the Southern States to support his Presidential campaign. He must also believe that he will not alienate too many Republicans in the North. If so, it is because in the North, as in the old Confederacy, the Negro is still socially inferior. The law may assure him of equal rights; it may forbid active discrimination or segrega-. tion; but a man may be as lonely in a crowded room as outside. The Northern Negro is still a lonely man, though he would be the first to claim that he has incomparably greater privileges than his distant kinsman in Africa. It is precisely because he is an American and not an African that he wants to be thought of only as an American, as an heir to the estate of Hancock, Washington, and Jefferson. In part, some of the present fear and mistrust of Negroes in the eastern part of the United States is the result of the impetuosity of some Negro leaders just as the political tide was turning in their favour. When, after nearly a century of ill-requited patience, they could afford to be patient, they became impatient. Seen from a great distance their behaviour can be understood. To their close neighbours, while the established order is crumbling, it has been frightening. The greatest good that could come from the passage of the Civil Rights Bill would be recognition by Negroes and whites that the time has come for reconciliation. To the second Johnson to succeed to the Presidency may fall the historic destiny of doing what the first Johnson could not: he may “ with malice toward none, with charity “for all . . . finish the task we are in; to bind up “the nation’s wounds”. Censorship Prodded The decision of the Comptroller of Customs not to refer “The Group” to the Indecent Publications Tribunal and not to detain future imports of ffie book conforms with most competent critical opinion of the novel Threatened action against the book in two Australian States was hardly sufficient justification for ignoring this body of opinion. But, having taken preliminary action against the book, the Customs Department should not have needed two and a half months to reach a decision about submitting it to the Indecent Publications Tribunal. In contrast to this tardiness, commendable expedition has been shown by the department since public attention was drawn to the matter. The whole procedure, indeed, was so much at variance with the intention of the recent legislation to liberalise and modernise censorship that it may be surmised that the Minister of Justice (Mr Hanan) has been moved to prod bureaucracy where it badly needed to be prodded. The Beatles Christchurch awaits the Beatles today with mixed feelings. The young men themselves are welcome as notable figures in the entertainment world, whose talents are large, if indefinable; but the older generation must have some reservations about the behaviour they inspire in others. That is not, of course, a new phenomenon. Some of the older generation in their time would have made fools of themselves over Rudolf Valentino if they had had the chance; and young people have been doing the same thing at intervals ever since.

Their successors today are no worse, though a good deal noisier. It is a strange idea of fun to subject their ears to a prolonged torment equivalent in volume to the mercifully brief sound of a jet aircraft taking off. Yet that is what the Beatles achieve, aided somewhat by electric amplifiers but chiefly, it seems, by the screams of their admirers. The fact that the Beatles appear to enjoy the noise is not surprising, since it has something to do with the fabulous earnings that have won the approval of the British Prime Minister as a valued source of hard currency. Why the so-called audience like it is something of a mystery, since their enjoyment of “ the Liverpool sound ” is plainly only a function of memory. How much of this seeming ecstasy is selfinduced because to scream is to be “with it”? It must be admitted that screaming has been a relatively durable fashion, perhaps because indulgent parents, who had become bored with taking their pleasures sadly, did not begrudge their children an “outlet”. Screaming, like barracking at football, is one thing; horseplay, as it has always been, is another. Much more disquieting than the decibels are the rows of solemn policemen guarding the Beatles from the girls who are prepared to love them too much—in the safety of a crowd. No doubt Christchurch in its own rather restrained fashion will give the Beatles the kind of welcome they expect. The Beatles would be disappointed if it were otherwise; and so, it may be suspected, would thousands of staid citizens who take their ecstasy vicariously.