Did you know your archbishop was either a “left-wing white or an EOA worker.” I may be a left-wing white, whatever that is, but I have a full time job with the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Yet if you call 758-0734, that’s what you are told.

Were you aware that I was either a Negro or a white liberal? I am sure that my many respected Negro friends will agree with me that I am Caucasian. But after watching Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier on TV recently, I envy their abilities.

Did you know that I could well belong to an identified Communist front group? (Wait until Rome hears about that!)

Klan Is Happy

As you probably know, the Human Relations Commission set up by the mayor and aldermen, is in trouble. Some Negroes are very angry because the executive secretary (the only paid job on it) was not rehired. At the same time, the fine dynamic chairman had to resign because he lived in a suburb, not in the city proper. Some Negroes are bitter about the first, but happy about the second.

I think most Atlantans deeply regret the whole crisis because the year-old commission had achieved some small but significant victories, notably at Dixie Hills and in the school board showdown.

But I find some consolation in the telephone call. Apparently some Georgians are happy about both the chairman and the executive secretary. The telephone number is paid for by the United Klans of America. Where would we be without them? When the Human Relations Commission first began to meet no one paid much attention. When the KKK began to picket our meetings, in white robes, and tried to scare members by telephoning them, they gave us our best publicity, and indeed, we are grateful.

On an earlier occasion, I spoke briefly at Macon, sympathizing with the Klan because with the emergence of Negroes, Jews, and Catholics and their growing prestige, the Klan had no one left as a target for the hate. I was assured, in a wild, misspelled letter, that the Klan hated us Catholics more than ever!

Since then, during the 1960 election, their numbers have grown even in the North. Georgia has had a heavy influx, and if you want to see a cross burning go to Stone Mountain some night.

A Fine Study

William Pierce Randel, in 1965, wrote a fine book on the Klan with a chapter called “Georgia Scenes.” He explodes the myth that “the Klan does more good than harm.” It did not even start honestly as many textbooks still hold. It evolved almost instantly from a social club into an active terrorist group, to “put the Negro in his place” and to insure white supremacy. This is anti-Christian to start with. But its record of lynchings, beatings, house-burnings and general terror is one of America’s blackest pages. The Georgia motto was: “We are forced by force to use FORCE.” (It is an interesting historical footnote that law and order, demanded of the Negro today were the last thing the Georgia Klan wanted. In the Klan’s book, the Negro benefited by no law at all, and the only order he knew was “keep in your place, boy!”)

There were many good and gracious things in the old Southern way of life. The Klan, then or now, was not one of them.

Poor, Honest and Lucky

As a kid, I read every Horatio Alger book I could get my hands on. Starting with “Rags to Riches,” I ate them up as poor but industrious lads went to the big city and made good.

The books cost a quarter each and appeared to be available in hundreds of titles. The plots were all the same; small town boy, the villainous stranger he met on his way to the city, his harrowing experiences, an innocent girl and a wealthy patron who finally sets him up in a fine trade. The happy ending, of course, was inevitable.

My teachers thought Cooper’s Indian Tales and a dash of Shakespeare would be a more stable diet of letters, but these were big enough to conceal an Alger book behind their covers.

That is why I used the term, “Horatio Alger mentally,” so glibly in a recent column. I forgot that those under 35 probably wondered whether he played linebacker for the Colts or second violin for the Minneapolis Symphony. Several have asked who Alger was.

As sometimes used, the term means the American “principle” that if you are good and honest and work hard, you’ll come out on top. It ignores those who never get started, the babies born in the slums, with no known father, the underfed, the unschooled, the handicapped.

These are the American citizens that some of our politicians would take care of themselves. Alone of 62 other civilized nations, we do not provide for these poor-starters, except begrudgingly, penny-wise. They are the first to be cut off welfare lists.

Why not? They can’t vote.

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta