The Georgia Bulletin in its last edition editorially urged Gov. Lester Maddox to “Knock It (fighting school desegregation) Off” and to get on to something that counts.

The governor replied thusly in a speech to Gate City Masonic Lodge 2:

“Last Weekend, I saw where one large church publication had an editorial advising Lester Maddox to “knock off” standing up for the children of this state and this nation and ‘get on to something that counts’.”

“Can you imagine an official publication of a church taking such a stand as this? What in the world, I ask you, can be more important than our children and their education?

“…I would recommend that these top public officials set aside all other domestic matters at this time and concentrate their energies on cleaning up the mess which has resulted from giving too much power and too little attention to the bureaucrats who have ‘knocked off’ trying to provide our children with a worthy education and have concentrated their full efforts on destroying the basic freedoms of all Americans, black, and white, in a promotion of a long-since disapproved social theory.

“Until the chaos which has been made of education can be cleared up, I believe that Mr. Nixon should put his new welfare program in a drawer and that the Congress should cancel their vacation flights which they have planned and stay in session until the job is done.

“We have seen that those in high public office, in most instances, are responsive only the high-pressure tactics from organized groups. The president, the Congress and the Supreme Court have gone the way of the howling mobs in recent years, and they will continue to do so unless a counter pressure from God-fearing, liberty-loving, hard-working and fed-up Americans is shortly forthcoming.

“It is up to us to tell HEW and the Justice Department to “knock it off”.

It is up to us to tell the Supreme Court and misguided church officials to “knock if off”.

Education in America today is a tragedy, but I believe it is a tragedy which could have been prevented.

“If our presidents, our congressman, our Supreme Court justices, our governors, our businessmen, our ministers, our local officials, our teachers and our parents had kept the faith of our forefathers—a strong faith in God that made this county possible—all of what we see today would not be happening.”