The Long, Hot Century?

In his quest for the presidency, Michigan's Governor George Romney--unlike any other potential candidate for 1968--has to prove that his religious beliefs will not influence his political decisions. Though Romney, a Mormon, has an admirable record as a civil rights advocate, he has yet to persuade most Negroes that he does not share his church's traditional belief that they are the sons of Cain (TIME, April 14).

Romney has been successful in his home state, where Negro support at the polls has risen from below 6% in his first campaign in 1962 to 33% in 1966. Last week, addressing the American Jewish Committee in New York, he defined his views on civil rights before a national audience. Charging that federal civil rights programs have been "shallow," Romney declared that the battle for equality "can only be won in heart-to-heart combat."

"What should have been clear from the beginning," he argued, "is now unmistakable. Federal legislation and federal programs, however desirable, cannot by themselves result in the early eradication of social injustice, discrimination, and prejudice. The elimination of social injustice depends not only on federal action but on state action, local action, and especially private, personal action. All four are needed. Overreliance on individual action clearly is mistaken. But overreliance on federal action is also mistaken. It can provide an excuse for those who wish to avoid needed state, local, personal and private action."

Romney obliquely chided Lyndon Johnson's Administration--which he dubs "the Great Facade"--for falsely raising hopes among Negroes of the social and economic gains to be achieved by federal programs. In a prepared text that he did not have time to read in full, Romney also admonished the nation itself for having become "cynical, apathetic and overbearing" toward the rest of the world, and particularly the nonwhite world.

"Our attitudes and actions at home and abroad," he said, "too often give the lie to our sincerity. It is vital that we make our practices match our principles." Otherwise, he warned, the U.S. faces not only a "succession" of long, hot summers at home but the "equally forbidding prospect of a long, hot century" throughout the world. Romney clearly would like to be the man to bring principles and practices together, and recognizing that his major deficiency is in his unfamiliarity with foreign affairs, is now planning a 19-day look-and-learn trip through South America later this spring, followed by a trip to Asia--including Viet Nam--next fall.

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