Atlanta Daily World

The Top Campaign Issue

From the hysteria of a confused electorate, visited upon by every manner of subterfuge and wilful evasion, we believe the people now see the real top issue involved in the campaign.
Day by day, it has been ours to follow the chart, unwind the tangled webs, and keep before our people the real issues in this campaign. We repeat they are the same as in 1948 and '50; no more, no less and we would not be just stewards if we allowed those who sought from the very first to set up a campaign of confusion, meant by its modified strategy to divide the voters into a position of nullification.
In the first place, it was sought to make segregation the top place in the contest; this scheme was so well planned and synchronized that many an intelligent voter would think at times, that he was to vote for or against segregation! Since the segregation decision was a mandate from the courts, with the president and the army sufficiently equipped to carry out any order over which the federal government takes jurisdiction, it has been shown conclusively that this is NOT AN ISSUE.
From this strange set-up and kickoff, the race line was drawn; candidate Marvin Griffin, who apparently owns the patent, has made the most of it, and has engaged in a campaign of race-baiting over the state. Other candidates vied with him for the high place in a campaign bent on a payoff for intolerance and race hatred. However outmoded, mark you, it will be tried over and over again as long as it pays off.
Georgia has met with the first big opportunity to dig this thing up by the roots once for all. The time has come for the citizens of this state to strike the bold stroke. The opposition is definitely split three ways. It has tangled the web and has confused and divided its own following. Even among themselves, while having the same song, they have been unable to agree on a tune. In that the progressive and fairminded citizens of this state who have longed to see it loosed from the fetters that hog-tied it for generations, see the first real opportunity that has ever blessed this generation, to defeat racism.
Former Governor M. E. Thompson has never been aligned with the opposition; neither in theory nor philosophy. He is a school man and if and when the school question becomes a problem for solution, he is amply able to handle it. However, he has made plain his position on the question of public school segregation.
Be it remembered that if Lt. Gov. Marvin is elected, he will be duty bound to try to carry out the platform upon which he was elected, the tearing up of the public school system in Georgia. Thompson has not made any such pledge to the voters and will not be under any obligation to experiment in changing the school system that it took generations to bring up to the present level.
We recognize Mrs. Thomas' spirit of tolerance which she has striven to preach to the voters of this state, but she, like Rep. Charles Gowen, himself an able personality, is not sufficiently known to make much of a dint in the balloting in this campaign.
Thompson and Griffin are the only two candidates that have been elected to state-wide office and have the greatest possibility for election. This has been vouched for by the people, in that, they have risen to the places of top men in this race.
The issue resolves itself down to race-baiting - pure and simple - the same pattern used in 1948 and '50. The only difference is that a different person is the chief opposition candidate.
That issue must be solved by the voters in an expression at the polls on September 8th.
Yes, we have the same basic issue that has confronted us in previous years, We can make this Sept. 8th, the turn of the road where Georgia began the journey of jubilee toward the grand heritage meant for her from the foundation of this Republic.
Georgia, this is your day, it is "Thompson Time."