The Power of Nonviolence

 

By Richard B. Gregg

(Abridged and simplified by M. M. Temple)

 

 

Published by M. M. Temple P.O. Box 214, Lusaka Rhodesia

September, 1960

 

FOREWORD

 

 

WHEN THE GREAT QUAKER leader, Rufus Jones, wrote an introduction to the first edition of The Power of Nonviolence, he observed that "here is anew kind of book ... a fine blend of what is and what ought to be.... There is as much realism in this book as there is idealism."

That was in 1935. Since then history's most devastating war has swept the globe, and new weapons of terrifying dimensions have made it more clear than ever that war and civilization cannot both continue into man's future. New ways of solving conflicts, without violence, must be discovered and put into operation.

The years since 1935 have not only demonstrated how uncontrollable war is when it breaks out; they have shown also how right Richard Gregg was in preparing this perceptive study in the first place. The heroic, though unanticipated nonviolent resistance against the Nazis in Denmark and Norway, recounted in this new edition, and by smaller groups in France, the Netherlands and in Germany itself, was such a demonstration. So has been the struggle in South Africa against unjust laws, the wining of its freedom by the new nation of Ghana, and our own experience in Montgomery.

I am delighted that Richard Gregg, after spending another eighteen months in India in more research into this vital new kind of action, should have put the time and effort into this new version of his classic book. I hope it gets a wide readership, particularly among those, in this country and throughout the world, who are seeking ways of achieving full social, personal and political freedom in a manner consistent with human dignity.

 

-MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

Montgomery, Alabama.

 

 

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE

PREFACE

 

 

The choice before us in Central Africa since "Congo" has suddenly become unmistakably clear. It is now a question of "Black votes or Red gutters".

At the time of writing (September 1960) the Governments of Northern and Southern Rhodesia have decided against a wide extension of the franchise to include the majority of the inhabitants of these two countries.  Thus force of arms, not popular consent, preserves the Constitution and maintains law and order.

In this situation where the vote is denied to the majority, change by constitutional methods is precluded and there remain only two ways open to those who wish to change the government.

The first of these is by armed revolt. The African leaders who represent a peace loving and unarmed people have rejected this method as both unpractical and immoral. It is true that there is a small minority who believe-not without some justification- that a campaign of riot, arson and thuggery is the most effective method of wringing concessions from a reluctant Government, but the mass of the people have no desire for violence in any of its forms.

The second method of unseating the Government is that of nonviolent mass resistance. The nonviolent demonstration staged in Salisbury on July 19th and 20th this year after the arrest of three leaders of the National Democratic Party is a classic example both of the power of nonviolence to bring great grievances to the notice of the government, and of the desperate danger involved in its use.

It seems opportune to publish for Central Africa a cheap, abridged and simplified edition of Richard Gregg's now famous book, because both the National Democratic Party in Southern Rhodesia and the United National Independence Party in Northern Rhodesia have pledged themselves to a policy of nonviolence. This small

PREFACE

pamphlet is being produced with one object only, and that is to enable those who advocate policies of nonviolence to spread a knowledge of its teachings and techniques to the mass of their followers.

" Nonviolence " as a method of protesting against injustice is more than a slogan, it is a technique of revolu­tion that must be learnt by discipline and practiced in

suffering. Any who would use its methods without subjecting themselves to its disciplines will assuredly fail.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to all who have made the publication of this pamphlet possible at this time. To Richard B. Gregg and Messrs. James Clarke

and Co. Ltd. the British Publishers of "The Power of Nonviolence ", for permission to publish chapters from his book, to The Central African Examiner for permission to publish their account of the Salisbury demonstrations, and to the Joseph Rowntree Trust for financial assistance in publication.

 

Merfyn M. Temple

Lusaka Sept. 1st., 1960.

 

1

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE

THERE HAVE BEEN many instances of the successful use of non­violent resistance in different countries and at different times. Be­cause the taste of historians inclines more toward politics and wars, these other events have received but slight attention at their hands, and the records of many of them have been lost. In some instances the nonviolent resistance was by individuals, in other instances it took a mass or corporate form. The latter form is rarer and perhaps more significant. For this reason and because this book is not pri­marily a history, I will attempt to tell of only a few outstanding suc­cessful modem examples of the latter sort.

 

 

HUNGARY

 

THE FIRST TO BE considered occurred in Hungary during the mid-nineteenth century. The emperor Franz Josef was trying to subordi­nate Hungary to the Austrian power, contrary to the terms of the old treaty of union of those two countries. The Hungarian moderates felt helpless, as they were too weak to fight. But Ferenc Deak, a Catholic landowner of Hungary, protested to them: "Your laws are violated, yet your mouths remain closed! Woe to the nation that raises no protest when its rights are outraged! It contributes to its own slavery by its silence. The nation that submits to injustice and oppression without protest is doomed."

Deak proceeded to organize a scheme for independent Hungarian education, agriculture and industry, a refusal to recognize the Aus­trian government in any way, and a boycott against Austrian goods. He admonished the people not to be betrayed into acts of violence
THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE                                    2

nor to abandon the ground of legality. "This is the safe ground," he said, "on which, unarmed ourselves, we can hold our own against armed force. If suffering must be necessary, suffer with dignity."

The advice was obeyed throughout Hungary. When the Austrian tax collector came, the people did not beat him or even hoot him they merely declined to pay. The Austrian police then seized their goods, but no Hungarian auctioneer would sell them. When an Austrian auctioneer was brought, he found that he would have to bring bidders from Austria. The government soon discovered that it was costing more to distrain the property than the tax was worth.

The Austrians attempted to billet their soldiers upon the Hungarians. The Hungarians did not actively resist the order, but the Austrian soldiers, after trying to live in houses where everyone despised them, protested strongly against it. The Austrian government declared the boycott of Austrian goods illegal, but the Hungarians defied the decree. The jails were filled to overflowing. No representatives from Hungary would sit in the Imperial Parliament.

The Austrians then tried conciliation. The prisoners were released and partial self-government given. But Hungary insisted upon its full claims. In reply, Emperor Franz Josef decreed compulsory military service. The Hungarians answered that they would refuse to obey it. Finally, on February 18, 1867, the Emperor capitulated and gave Hungary her constitution.

The campaign seems to have been defective because of some violence of inner attitude on the part of the Hungarians. But even so, it provided a remarkable example of the power of nonviolent resistance, even though the principle was imperfectly realized and applied.

SOUTH AFRICA

THE NEXT EXAMPLE occurred in South Africa. It lasted eight years, beginning in 1906. For many years previously, Indians had been coming to Natal as manual workers in the mines and elsewhere, originally at the invitation of the Europeans who wished to develop the country. Many thousands of the Indians came as indentured laborers, whose term of service was five years. They were industrious, entered into farming and trade, and thereby began to compete with the Europeans. By 1906 some 12,500 of them had crossed the border and settled in the Transvaal. They were subject to many unfair laws.

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         3

In 1906, the Transvaal government introduced a bill in the legislature which would require every Indian to be registered by fingerprint, like criminals, and to produce his certificate of registration upon demand of any police officer at any time. Failure to register meant deportation, and refusal to produce the certificate would be punished by fine. The Indians had always been subject to severe restrictions, but this proposal meant their complete subjection and probably their destruction as a community. Under the leadership of an Indian lawyer, M. K. Gandhi, they held meetings of protest and asked for hearings on the bill. But the government said no and passed the bill Thereupon the leading Indians, at a huge mass meeting, took an oath that they would all refuse to register and would go to jail rather than obey a law that they regarded as an attack upon the very foundations of their religion, their national honor and their self-respect.

 They stuck to their resolve, and Gandhi and many others went to jail. The Prime Minister, General Jan Christian Smuts, then undertook to have the law repealed if the Indians would register voluntarily. The Indians agreed and did their part, but General Smuts did not carry out his side of the agreement. Moreover, the government introduced a further bill which applied the old registration law to all Asians who had not registered voluntarily. The Indians then resolved to renew the struggle.

Not long after, in 1913, a European judge in the Transvaal Supreme Court made a court decision that invalidated all Hindu and Mohammedan marriages, thus rendering all Indian children illegitimate and incapable of inheriting property. This roused the Indian women. A group of them, at Gandhi's suggestion, crossed from the Transvaal into Natal, and picketed the Natal mines, which were worked by Indian laborers. Since Indians were forbidden by law to cross the boundary without permission, the women were imprisoned. The men, numbering about five thousand, all came out on strike as a protest. Under Gandhi's leadership they proposed to march on foot across the border into the Transvaal, by way of a nonviolent protest.

Gandhi notified the Government of this proposed action and asked for a revocation of the law, several days before the march, and again just before it started, but to no effect.

They marched, some four thousand strong, about twenty-five miles a day, living on the charity of Indian merchants. During the march

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE                                    4

Gandhi was arrested three times, released on bail twice, and finally put in jail. The border was crossed and the army continued, leaderless, but still nonviolent. Finally they were all arrested and taken back by train to Natal. They were impounded at the mines and beaten and ill-treated. Still they remained firm and nonviolent.

This brutal affair aroused a tremendous storm of public opinion both in South Africa and India. Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India, in a public speech at Madras, praised and defended the conduct of the nonviolent resisters and protested against the acts of the Union _ of South Africa. Two Englishmen, C. F.' Andrews and W. W. Pearson, went to South Africa from India at the request of the Indian public. Later, the Viceroy sent Sir Benjamin Robertson to represent the Government of India. But the negotiations with the protesting Indians remained entirely in Gandhi's hands.

General Smuts, seeing that he had to retreat, appointed a committee of investigation to save the face of the government, and at the same time released Gandhi and two other leaders of the Indians. The Indians requested representation on the committee as surety of good faith. When Smuts refused, Gandhi prepared to renew the struggle.

Just then a strike broke out among the European railway men in South Africa. Gandhi saw that the government was in a very difficult situation, but instead of taking advantage of the incident, he chivalrously suspended the Indian struggle until the railway strike was over, an act that won much admiration for the Indians.

After the strike ended, Smuts found it necessary to yield, and the Indians won all the major parts of their demands: namely, the abolition of the registration, the abolition of the three-pound head-tax, the validation of their marriages, the right of entry of educated Indians, and an assurance of just administration of existing laws. Thus the whole struggle was won by nonviolent resistance.

 

INDIA: CHAMPARAN

IN CHAMPARAN, northern India, in 1917, the peasants had been compelled by law to plant 15 percent of all their land in indigo and also were subject to other oppressive exactions by the planters.  Gandhi, who had returned to live in India in 1914, was invited to investigate the conditions of the workers on the indigo plantations and the treatment given them by their employers.  He began his inquiry

4

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         5

"Without publicity, but the planters much resented his activities there and persuaded the district magistrate that the presence of Gandhi was dangerous to the peace of the district. The magistrate served an order upon Gandhi to leave the district by the next available train. Gandhi replied that he had come there from a sense of duty, that nothing was being done except carefully and quietly to ascertain facts, and that he would stay and, if necessary, submit to the penalty for disobedience.

He and his companions then proceeded quietly to take down in writing the statements of the peasants who carne flocking to tell of their grievances. The witnesses were questioned to elicit the exact truth. The government sent police officers who were present at these proceedings and took notes of what happened. Gandhi and his assistants arranged that if he should be jailed or deported, two of them would go on taking the peasants' testimony; and if those two were arrested, then two more should take up the work, and so on.

Gandhi was Summoned to court and tried. He simply pleaded guilty, and stated that he was faced with a conflict of duty-whether to obey the law or his conscience and the humane purposes for which he had come-and that under the circumstances he could only throw the responsibility of removing him upon the administration. The magistrate postponed judgment, and before it was rendered the lieutenant-governor gave orders that Gandhi should be permitted to proceed with the investigation. Then the governor of the province interested himself in the case and, after, conferring with Gandhi, appointed a government commission of inquiry with Gandhi as a member. The commission reported unanimously that the law was unfair and the exactions of the big planters unjust. The law was repealed and justice given to the peasants. All this was wholly nonviolent. This was a struggle for economic justice, with no political implications.

 

INDIA: VYKOM

ANOTHER NONVIOLENT struggle, this time for social rights, took place in a village called Vykom, in the State of Travancore in southern India. It was also directed by Gandhi, through some of his followers. A highway ran through the low-lying country around Vykom and through the village and close by the Brahman quarter and a temple. For centuries the Brahmans had refused to permit any low

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE                                      6

caste "untouchable" people to use this road. The followers of Gandhi decided that this custom must be ended and the road thrown open to all human beings alike. Gandhi was ill, many hundred miles away, but the young leaders came north to consult with him, and as the campaign proceeded he instructed them by letters and telegrams from his sickbed. Later he visited Vykom personally.

The leaders started the struggle by taking several of the "untouchable" friends with them along this road and into the Brahman quarter. They were immediately beaten by the Brahmans, and one was seriously hurt. But the young reformers offered no violence in return. Then the police arrested several of these young men for encouraging trespass. They were condemned to prison for different periods of time, up to one year. At once, volunteers came pouring in from all parts of the country to take the place of those who were arrested. The State then forbade any further arrests but ordered the police to prevent any more of the reformers from entering the road. The police formed a cordon across the road. Thereupon, by instructions from Gandhi, the reformers stood opposite the police barrier in an attitude of prayer. They organized themselves into shifts, taking turns in standing there for six hours at a time. They built a hut nearby, undertook their duties on a religious basis and did hand spinning while not on active duty. At no time did they use violence.

This program continued for months. Gandhi told them it must continue indefinitely until the hearts of the Brahmans were melted. When the rainy season came, the road, being on low ground, was flooded. Still the volunteers continued to stand, at times up to their shoulders in water, while the police kept up the cordon in small boats. The shifts had to be shortened to three hours.

The endurance and the consistent nonviolence of the reformers was finally too much for the Brahmans. In the autumn of 1925, after a year and four months, their obstinacy broke down, and they said, "We cannot any longer resist the prayers that have been made to us, and we are ready to receive the untouchables." The Brahmans opened the road to all comers and the low-caste people were allowed to walk at any time past the temple and past the Brahman quarters.

This change of policy had reverberations all through India and aided in removing similar restrictions against "untouchables" in other parts of India, and in strengthening the cause of caste reform.

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         7

 

INDIA: KOTGARH

IN THE HIMALAYAS, north of Simla, there is a little district called Kotgarh, with a population of only a few thousand. This district is on the highway between India and Tibet. As the scenery is of surpassing beauty and grandeur and some good hunting ground is not far beyond, the road was frequented by hunters and government officials on vacations. Here, in 1921, another nonviolent struggle for economic justice was won.

For years there had been a custom known as Begar, whereby any government official or European could demand from any village headman along the road the services of as many men as the traveler desired, at any time, for as long a period as he wanted, for carrying luggage or messages at an utterly inadequate wage. Also the people could be required to drive their cows to the dak bungalow (a sort of inn) and supply as much milk as the traveler desired, also at ridiculously low prices. Thus farmers, many more than were needed, could be haled away from plowing, or sowing or harvesting their crops or any other pressing business, to suit the whims of any European who was on the road.

One of the local Indian leaders protested, but he was immediately jailed and the villagers were threatened with talk of machine guns and the like. An ex-American resident of the district, S. E. Stokes, decided to organize the resistance against this injustice. He was in sympathy with Gandhi's ideas and worked out the plan on nonviolent lines. Gandhi himself had no part in the struggle.

The district elected a Small committee or panchayat to direct the movement, of which Stokes was a leading member. In every village in the district all the people took an oath by their village gods to obey the orders of the committee and not to negotiate with the government in this matter except through the committee.

The committee wrote out a long and carefully worded statement of the situation and its injustices and sent it to the district commissioner. They requested hearings, but no notice was taken of it by the commissioner. Letters were written to all the responsible officials. Copies of all letters were retained by the committee. Still the Begar exactions continued. The committee then notified the commissioner that if the

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE                                8

exactions were not ended on a stated date the entire district would refuse all requests for service.

This brought action. The commissioner came up from Simla and called a large meeting. He threatened and used every stratagem he could to cause division between the different villages and castes, so as to break down the authority of the committee. But every man who was asked a question declined to answer except through the committee. Moreover, they all refused to give food or any service to any government official or European traveling on that part of the road.

In a few weeks the district commissioner had acceded to every single demand of the villagers' committee, and had to post all along the road printed rules which strictly limited the amount of service that could be asked and specified the wages. The struggle lasted several months, without the least violence by the farmers, and the outcome was a complete success in the district.

 

INDIA: BARDOLI

IN BARDOLI TALUKA, a small district near Surat in Bombay Presidency, 88,000 peasants undertook a nonviolent campaign in 1928 to correct an economic injustice.

Contrary to the advice of the Joint Parliamentary Committee appointed to consider the Government of India Bill, 1919, and contrary to, a resolution of the Legislative Council of the Bombay Presidency in 1924, the Bombay Provincial Government in 1927 raised the rate of rural taxation very severely-nominally 22 percent but in actual application in some instances over 60 percent. The peasantry claimed that the investigation upon which the increase had been based was wholly inadequate, that the tax official's report was inaccurate and carelessly compiled, and that the increase was unwarranted and unjust. They asked the governor to appoint an independent and impartial committee of inquiry to hold a thorough public investigation of all the evidence. The government paid no attention to the request. Then, after giving due notice of their intentions, the peasants of the entire district refused to pay the tax.

At the initiative and request of the local people, the movement was led by Vallabhbhai Patel, with the inspiration and advice of Gandhi. Patel held several large conferences with representatives from more than half the villages and of every class and religious com-

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         9

munity. He questioned these representatives very closely to estimate their determination and strength, and the cohesion and staying power of each and every village of the entire district. He explained in detail the history of the case, their legal rights and the justice of their demands. He described clearly and fully to the villagers the possibilities and terrors of government power. He told them that the struggle might be prolonged indefinitely. He gave them several days to think it all over, to count the cost, and to discuss it among themselves. Later, they returned to a still larger meeting and after further discussion resolved to enter upon the struggle.

            For several years there had been four or five social service centers in different parts of the district, headed by well-trained and disciplined workers. These were the beginning of the organization. Sixteen "camps" were located at convenient places through the district, and about 250 volunteer leaders were placed in these camps. In addition, there were volunteers in each village. These volunteers were to collect the news and information about the struggle in each village and forward it promptly every day to the headquarters of the movement. The volunteers also kept careful watch of the movements of all government officials and warned the people of their coming and intentions. A news bulletin was printed every day and distributed to every village. Eventually, 10,000 copies a day were distributed in the district and 4,000 to subscribers outside. Patel's speeches were also distributed in pamphlet form. For the first month the volunteers spent much time getting signatures to a printed pledge in which the signers promised to stick together under their leaders, to adhere to truth and to remain nonviolent no matter what happened. Almost everyone signed the pledge. The women were organized as well as the men and took just as active a part.

The government did its best to compel the peasants to pay the tax. It tried flattery and bribery with some; fines, floggings and imprisonment of others. It tried to divide the communities against each other. The government officers seized and sold goods of the peasantry. It caused much of the peasants' land to be forfeited, and sold over 1,400 acres of such land at auction. It brought in numbers of Pathans, Moslems of the Northwest Frontier Province, who insulted and tried to terrorize the villagers, who were mostly Hindus. There were but few waverers or weaklings. The oppression solidified

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE                              10

the feeling of the people. A strong social boycott was maintained against all government representatives and any one who purchased disdained goods or forfeited lands. The boycott did not interfere with the supply of physical necessities to such people.

The publicity all over the country was enormous, and the sympathy of Indians of all kinds was almost universally with the peasants. The matter was discussed very fully in the provincial legislature, and several members of the legislature resigned in protest against the government's stand. The matter was discussed even in Parliament in London.

Through it all, the peasants stood firm and nonviolent. After five and a half months, the government had to yield to practically every one of the demands. The governor appointed a committee of inquiry, agreed to restore all the land that had been sold or forfeited, and reinstated the village officials who had resigned. When the committee of 'inquiry made its report, it "substantially justified" the original complaints of the peasants and recommended a tax increase less than that which had been assessed by the government.

 

INDIA: THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

OTHER INSTANCES of the successful use of organized mass nonviolent resistance include the Ahmedabad mill strike in 1917 and the struggles against the government at Kheda in 1916-17 and at Borsad in 1923 against unjust taxes, and at Nagpur in 1927 for the right to parade with an Indian Nationalist flag. All of these were conducted or supervised by Gandhi.

Besides these there was the all-India non-cooperation struggle of 1921-22 which was unsuccessful in its immediate objective and yet immensely successful in awakening that country with its population of 350,000,000 people to desire freedom and to work concretely for its attainment. It profoundly altered the entire political situation in India, and thereby in the British Empire. Here are portions of press dispatches about two incidents in the continuing struggle of 1930.

The New York Telegram carried a long dispatch from Webb Miller, special correspondent for the United Press. I quote only a part:

"Dharasana Camp, Surat District, Bombay Presidency, May 22 (by mail)Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when more than 2,500 Gandhi 'volunteers' advanced against the salt pans here in defiance of police regulations.

"The official government version of the raid, issued today, stated that 'from

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         11

 

Congress sources it is estimated 170 sustained injuries, but only three or four were seriously hurt.'

      "About noon yesterday I visited the temporary hospital in the Congress camp and counted more than 200 injured lying in rows on the ground. I verified by personal observation that they were suffering injuries. Today even the British owned newspapers give the total number at 320. . . .

"The scene at Dharasana during the raid was astonishing and baffling to the Western mind accustomed to see violence met by violence, to expect a blow to be returned and a fight result. During the morning I saw and heard hundreds of blows inflicted by the police, but saw not a single blow returned by the volunteers. So far as I could observe the volunteers implicitly obeyed Gandhi's creed of non-violence. In no case did I see a volunteer even raise an arm to deflect the blows from lathis. There were no outcries from the beaten Swarajists, only groans after they had submitted to their beating.

Obviously it was the purpose of the volunteers to force the police to beat them. The police were placed in a difficult position by the refusal to disperse and the action of volunteers in continually pressing closer to the salt pans.

      "Many times I saw the police vainly threaten the advancing volunteers with upraised lathis. Upon their determined refusal to recede the lathis would fall upon the unresisting body, the volunteer would fall back bleeding or bruised and be carried away on a stretcher. Waiting volunteers, on the outskirts of the pans, often rushed and congratulated the beaten volunteer as he was carried off the field. It was apparent that most of the injured gloried in their injuries. One leader was heard to say,       `These men have done a great work for India today. They are martyrs to the cause.'

      "Much of the time the stolid native Surat police seemed reluctant to strike. It was noticeable that when the officers were occupied on other parts of the line the police slackened, only to resume threatening and beating when the officers appeared again. I saw many instances of the volunteers pleading with the police to join them.

      "At other times the police became angered, whereupon the beating would be done earnestly. During several of these incidents I saw the native police deliberately kick lying or sitting volunteers who refused to disperse. And I saw several instances where the police viciously jabbed sitting volunteers in the abdomen with the butt end of their lathi. . . .

      "Once I saw a native policeman in anger strike a half-submerged volunteer who had already been struck down into a ditch and was clinging to the edge of the bank. This incident caused great excitement among the volunteers who witnessed it.

      "My reaction to the scenes was of revulsion akin to the emotion one feels when seeing a dumb animal beaten-partly anger, partly humiliation. It was to the description of these reactions that the Bombay censorship authorities objected among other things.

      "In fairness to the authorities it must be emphasized that the Congress volunteers were breaking laws or attempting to break them, and that they repeatedly refused to disperse and attempted to pull down the entanglements with ropes, and that the volunteers seemed to glory in their injuries.

      "In eighteen years of reporting in twenty-two countries, during which I have witnessed innumerable civil disturbances, riots, street fights and rebellions, I have never witnessed such harrowing scenes as at Dharasana. The Western mind can grasp violence returned by violence, can understand a fight, but is,

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE                                            12

I found, perplexed and baffled by the sight of men advancing coldly and deliberately and submitting to beating without attempting defense. Sometimes the scenes were so painful that I had to turn away momentarily.

"One surprising feature was the discipline of the volunteers. It seemed they were thoroughly imbued with Gandhi's nonviolence creed, and the leaders constantly stood in front of the ranks imploring them to remember that Gandhi's soul was with them."

 

The Chicago Daily News published the following account from

      "Bombay, June 21.-Heroic, bearded Sikhs, several with blood dripping from their mouths, refusing to move or even to draw their 'kirpans' (sacred swords) to defend themselves from the shower of lathi blows

      "Hindu women and girls dressed in orange robes of sacrifice, flinging themselves on the bridles of horses and imploring mounted police not to strike male Congress volunteers, as they were Hindus themselves

      "Stretcher bearers waiting beside little islands of prostrate unflinching, immovable Satyagrahis, who had flung themselves on the ground grouped about their women upholding the flag of Swaraj–

      "These were the scenes on the Maidan Esplanade, Bombay's splendid seafront park, where the six-day deadlock between police and Mahatma Gandhi's followers has broken out in a bewildering brutal and stupid yet heroic spectacle.

"The scene opened at six o'clock outside the Esplanade. At the police station facing the park some hundreds of yellow turbaned blue-clad, bare-legged Mahratti policemen were leaning on their dreaded bamboo lathis under the command of a score of English police sergeants in topees and cotton drill.

      "At 6:45, marching in good formation down the tree-lined pleasant boulevard, came the first detachment of volunteers. This was the ambulance unit, mostly boys and young doctors, dressed in khaki with Red Cross badges on their arms. They marched past the waiting police without a glance to the south side of the playing field, where they parked their ambulances and brought out their stretchers.

"It was like nurses and orderlies preparing an operating theater.

"At 7 o'clock began to come processions of white-robed volunteers bearing red, green and white banners, singing 'We will take Swaraj-India Our Motherland.' At the head of each walked a tiny detachment of women and girls dressed in orange robes, many garlanded with jasmine. They marched steadily on past the policemen and actually lined up behind the stretchers.

“They waited there in a long front down the boulevard for the order to march on the field.

"I shall not forget the scenes which followed. Dark faced Mahratti policemen in their yellow turbans marched along in column led by English sergeants across the field toward the waiting crowd. As they neared it the police went faster and faster. The Hindus, who may be willing to die but dread physical pain, watched them approach with frightened eyes. Then the police broke into a charge.

"Many Hindus at once ran, fleeing down the streets-but most stood stock still.

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         13

"Crash! Whack! Whack! Whack At last the crowd broke. Only the orange clad women were left standing beside the prostrate figures of crumpled men. Congress volunteer ambulances clanging bells, stretcher bearers running hel­ter-skelter across the field. Whack! Whack! Whack!

"A minute's lull and then, with flags flying another column of volunteers marched onto the vast green field. A column of Mahrattas marched to meet them. They clashed-a clash, a rattle, dull thuds, then the faint-hearted ran and again there was the spectacle of the green field dotted with a line of fallen bodies and again the same islands of orange clad Hindu women holding up the flags of Swaraj.

"And here in the center of one of these islands sat a little knot of men, their heads bowed, submitting to a rain of lathi blows-refusing to move until on a stretcher and completely laid out. And there were stretchers within two feet of the suffering men, waiting for them.

"Then came a band of fifty Sikhs-and a heroic scene. The Sikhs, as you know, are a fierce fighting brotherhood. As soon as he can raise one, every man wears a beard which he curls around a cord or ties to his ears. The Sikhs also wear their hair long like women and curl it in a topknot under their turbans. These Sikhs were Akalis of a fanatic religious sect. They wore the kirpan, or sacred sword.

"With them were fifteen of their young girls and women. The women also wore sacred swords, and although dressed in orange saris like Hindu women, they wore little cotton trousers which reached to their tiny, sandaled feet. They were pretty girls and not so loud voiced and excited as the Hindu ladies. They simply smiled-as if they liked danger-which they do.

"One of them had her little baby, which she wanted to hold up before the police to dare them to come on. She laughed at me when my remark was translated that it was terrible to drag a child into this.

"Coming from all districts as representatives of the fighting Punjab, these Sikhs swore they would not draw their kirpans to defend themselves, but they would not leave the field. They did not.

"'Never, never, never!' they cried, to the terrific delight of their Hindu brothers, in Swaraj.  We will never retreat. We will die, we will!' The police hesitated before hitting the Sikhs. They asked their women would they not please, please, leave the field.

"'No!' said the women, 'we will die with our men.'

"Mounted Indian policemen who had been galloping across the field, whacking heads indiscriminately, came to a stymie when they faced the little cluster of blue Akali turbans on the slender Sikh men.

"'The Sikhs are brave men-how can we hit them?' It was not fear, but respect.

But the police, determined to 'try to clear the field, at last rushed around .the Shikh women and began to hit the men. I stood within five feet of a Sikh leader as he took the lathi blows. He was a short, heavily muscled man.

"The blows came-he stood straight. His turban was knocked off. The long black hair was bared with the round topknot. He closed his eyes as the blows fell-until at last he swayed and fell to the ground.

"No other Sikhs had tried to shield him, but now, shouting their defiance, they wiped away the blood streaming from his mouth. Hysterical Hindus rushed to him, bearing cakes of ice to rub the contusions over his eyes. The Sikh gave me a smile-and stood for more.

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"And then the police threw up their hands. `You can't go on hitting a blighter when he stands up to you like that."'

In 1947, after twenty-six years of nonviolent struggle under Gandhi's leadership, India won her political freedom from Britain. Not a single Briton, so far as I know, was killed by Indians as part of this struggle. It was the Indians who voluntarily endured the nec­essary deaths and suffering. This was the first time in the history of the world that a great empire had been persuaded by nonviolent re­sistance to grant freedom to one of its subject countries. Of course, as in all great and complex events, there were many reasons for the re­sult, but the nonviolent method is what eventually unified all Indians and gave them the necessary self-respect, self-reliance, courage and persistence, and also resulted in mutual respect and good feeling be­tween Great Britain and India at the end.

IN OTHER COUNTRIES there have been instances of the successful use of this method. Here are the stories of three of them.

 

DENMARK

THE NAZIS INVADED Denmark in April 1940, giving the Danish King and Prime Minister only one hour to choose between admitting German troops without fighting or having the Danish cities bombed like Rotterdam. The King and Prime Minister, within the hour, is­sued a proclamation calling on the army and Danish people not to fight. The Nazis, eager to win converts to the New Order and prob­ably wanting to use Danish agriculture to the utmost and save their troops for attacks elsewhere, pledged that they would not in any way interfere with Denmark's constitutional guarantees of civil liber­ties or with the workers' or farmers' organizations.

The German government issued strict orders to its soldiers to behave with the utmost "correctness" toward the Danes; the coalition cabinet under Social Democratic leadership was permitted to function, and an effort was made by the Nazis to convert Denmark into a "show window" for the New Order. From the first of the invasion the King, in order to encourage the people, rode on horseback every day through the streets of the capital city. Though at first the Nazis interfered rela­tively little with Danish domestic policy, gradually they began to put pressure on the Danes to conform with the Nazi program.

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         15

Late in 1940 the Nazis displayed the swastika emblem from a Dan­ish public building. According to a report in The New York Times, "the monarch protested that the act was contrary to the occupation agreement and demanded that the flag be removed. The German military officials refused. `I will send a soldier to remove it,' the king replied, or so the story ran. He was informed the soldier would be shot. `I am the Soldier,' he retorted, and the Nazi flag was lowered.”

The Nazis compelled the Danish Prime Minister, Scavenius, to sign the Anti-Komintern Pact without consultation with his cabinet col­leagues or with King Christian. But the Danish Government flatly disavowed the pact.

The German efforts to win over the Danish people were unsuccess­ful. Danish response to German offers of friendship was the "cold shoulder." While large-scale sabotage was discouraged by the Danish authorities, the Danes used the slow-down and other similar tactics whenever possible against the Nazis.

When the Germans tried to compel the Danes to adopt the Nürem­berg laws against the Jews, the Danes refused. When the Germans ordered that all Danish Jews should wear a yellow star and that a Jewish ghetto Should be established, King Christian announced that if this were done he would be pleased to move from his palace to such a ghetto and, according to an Associated Press dispatch of October 11, 1942, said, "If the Germans want to put the yellow Jewish star in Denmark, I and my whole family will wear it as a sign of the highest distinction." He attended in full uniform a special celebra­tion in a Copenhagen synagogue. All over Denmark opposition to the German plans of repression arose. Pastoral letters were issued by the Bishop of Zealand and others, protesting in the name of Chris­tianity against the introduction of humiliating anti-Jewish measures.

In a Danish parliamentary by-election held in March 1943, the vote was 95 percent against the Nazis.

From June to September 1942, the King was sick with jaundice, and in October, while riding in the streets, he was thrown from his horse and received severe head injuries. Then he got pneumonia. Thus the people were deprived of their great leader till May 1943.

Among the people, resistance to the Nazis increased, especially in the form of sabotage. In May 1943, the King warned the people against the growing sabotage in munition works and railways. The

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE                                    16

British Government had secretly been instigating the Danes to more sabotage and violence. In August 1943, fighting broke out between German soldiers and Danish civilians, especially in Odensee, the third-largest city in the country; there was a four-day general strike at Esbjerg; the Danes scuttled one of the ships of their navy, and other Danish naval units fled to Sweden.

The Germans placed King Christian and his family under house arrest and poured troops into the country, and several thousand Danes were killed.

All this time the Danes, at great risk to themselves, had been sheltering Jews and smuggling them to Sweden in spite of the German ships patrolling the intervening seas.

Even while under house arrest, the King refused to form a pro-Nazi government. He was quoted by a Danish refugee as having requested the Danish Bishop Fugelsang Damgaard to "tell everyone that peace is on its way. We have allies in other countries fighting for our cause. Let everyone know that so long as the Germans are in the country I will sign no decree forming a new Danish government. What I have signed so far has been forced. God protect you all. God protect our country."

Thus the Danes, without previous preparation or training in nonviolent resistance, nevertheless used this kind of defense, not perfectly, yet effectively, against the ruthless Nazis whose cruelty and iron discipline was a byword. The Danes resisted nonviolently and successfully for two and a half years, until the warring British government persuaded them to use violence.

NORWAY

DENMARK'S NEIGHBOR, Norway, was invaded by the Nazis in April 1940. For two months the Norwegians offered armed resistance which was wholly suppressed by the far more powerful Nazi troops. A pro-German Norwegian, Vidkun Quisling, was made dictator of the country by the Germans. The Norwegian king and government fled to London, leaving the people leaderless. The people wanted to resist but did not see how they could do so. Until September of that year there was confusion among the people. In the autumn some underground newspapers were started and distributed secretly.

The pressure and violence of the Nazis generated resistance. Spon-

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         17

taneously and without organization, school children and others began wearing paper clips as a sign of unity. The authorities sensed the meaning and forbade this action. Then people began wearing other emblems-coins, flowers on the King's birthday, red caps, even potatoes. Secret organizations grew up with headquarters at Oslo.

The first organized resistance came from the hundreds of thousands of youth in the athletic clubs. As soon as the Nazis tried to take control of these clubs, all organized activity immediately ceased and remained in abeyance till the Nazis left. Next to resist was the Supreme Court of Justice. As soon as the Germans tried to reshape the laws in accordance with Nazi principles, all the members of the Supreme Court resigned. The teachers and clergy especially embodied, upheld and stimulated the spirit of resistance. No leaders were chosen in advance; the resistance struggle produced its own leaders.

Gradually the resistance took form. Haaken Holmboe, a teacher in a small town north of Oslo, had heard of Gandhi and read a little about him. But very few others knew of Gandhi or the method of the Indian struggle for freedom. Hohnboe became a contact point for resisters in a large rural district in East Norway in the autumn of 1941. During that autumn an underground press was started and maintained all through the five years of the German occupation. By this means the people were informed of what was happening and what they should do to resist. Imprisonment, torture and killing by the Nazis only made the resistance firmer and more complete.

In June 1941, Quisling abolished the former teachers' organization His government was trying in various small ways to influence people to adopt Nazi ideology, such as by decreeing that Quisling's portrait should be hung in all schools. These efforts aroused strong opposition among both students and teachers. In February 1942, Quisling tried to start a corporate state on Mussolini's model. He began with the teaching profession. After the abolition of the former teachers' organization, a new teachers' organization was started with the chief of Quisling's secret police as its head. A new youth movement was set up by the government, also, modeled after the Nazi youth movement of Germany. The government decreed compulsory membership in it for all young people 10 to 18 years of age.

A secret illegal organization among the teachers had been developing. Its members decided that teachers would resist all the following

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four points: (1) any Government demand that teachers should become members of Quisling's party, the Nasjonal Samling; (2) any attempt to introduce Nasjonal Samling propaganda in the schools; (3) any order from outside the school authorities; (4) any collaboration with the Nasjonal Samling youth movement.

On February 20, 1942, between 8,000 and 10,000 of the total of 12,000 Norwegian teachers each wrote to Quisling's Education Department a declaration reading, "I declare that I cannot take part in the education of the youth of Norway along those lines which have been outlined for the Nasjonal Samling Youth Service, this being against my conscience. According to what the leader of the new teachers' organization has said, membership in this organization will mean an obligation for me to assist in such education, and would also force me to do other acts which are in conflict with the obligations of my profession. I find that I must declare that I cannot regard myself as a member of the new teachers' organization."

Every teacher wrote this statement himself, signed it with his own name, and mailed it himself to the Education Department of Quisling's government. On February 24, the Bishops of the State Church, who had already protested about the Nasjonal Samling Youth Service, resigned their official posts but retained their religious duties. On the same day, 150 University professors also protested against the Nasjonal Samling youth front.

On February 25, the Quisling government announced that the teachers' protests would be regarded as official resignations and that if they persisted they would be discharged. On the same day the Education Department closed ail schools for a month, on the pretext of a shortage of fuel. From all over the country offers of fuel came to keep the schools open. The official newspapers told nothing about the teachers' resistance, but the "fuel holiday" spread the news.

On March 7, the official newspapers announced that 300 teachers would be called to do "some kind of social work in the north of Norway." In a bulletin of the Education Department issued only to teachers, March 15 was set as the final date for compliance; teachers who resisted government orders after that date were threatened with loss of jobs, pay and pensions. The Quisling Education Department received tens of thousands of letters of protest from nearly ten percent of Norway's parents.

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         19

When March 15 came, the teachers remained defiant. None of them crumbled. Beginning about March 20, about one thousand men teachers were arrested, among them Haaken Holmboe, but no women teachers. The arrests did not terrify the people. Arrests seemed to be haphazard. Neither all the leaders nor all the weaklings were arrested. After the arrests, the clergy made a statement in the churches at Easter, and nearly all of them resigned their jobs. Many of the clergy were transferred to other places than their homes; their leaders were sent to prison and concentration camps.

From southern and western Norway about 650 of the arrested teachers were transferred from jails to a concentration camp at Grini. From some undisclosed source-not the government-their families received the equivalent of their salaries all through their detention. In the camp the government issued an ultimatum to the imprisoned teachers, but only three gave in.

On March 31, the 650 teachers were taken in cattle cars to another concentration camp about two hundred kilometers from Oslo. At the railway stations, children gathered and sang to them as the train passed through. A few more were added, making their total number 687. After a few days at the new camp they were put on rations of four small slices of bread (150 grams) a day and water. The bread was given out at night. Each morning they were compelled to crawl and run in deep snow for an hour and a half. Then came an hour and a half of heavy work, mostly shoveling snow, followed by another hour and a half of crawling and running in the snow. Then they were given a meal of hot water. After the second day of this, seventy-six of the older teachers, from 55 to 59 years of age, were questioned by camp officials, but not a single one of them backed down.

In most places elsewhere in Norway, the government reopened the schools on April 8 except in Oslo and Aker, and even there the schools reopened a few days later. But in reporting for work, all the teachers publicly repudiated membership in Quisling's new teacher organization and told their classes so the first day. The teachers spoke to the children of conscience, of the spirit of truth and of their responsibility to the children. Among the teachers there was a strong feeling of solidarity.

Among the imprisoned teachers two cases of pneumonia developed.

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When another of the teachers physically collapsed and a German officer asked him why he did not give in, the teacher answered, "Because I am a Norwegian." After several days more of this treatment, the camp authorities marched the prisoners through a room, asking each one if, he would sign a retraction of his protest. As they filed through the room each prisoner said "No," often in advance of the officer's question. Out of 637 prisoner teachers only 32, after this grueling treatment, retracted. So the terrorism and torture gymnastics were resumed, and the starvation rations continued. All the time, threatening rumors were circulated among the teachers, both inside, and outside of the camp. Yet the wives of the teachers said they did not want their husbands to yield, and sent that word to them.

After about a week of this treatment, 499 of them were taken in cattle cars to Trondheim and thence in a steamer built to carry only 100 passengers, north for thirteen days to Kirkenes, a small town near the Finnish (now Russian) border, far beyond the Arctic Circle. There, custody of them was transferred from the German Gestapo to the Wehrmacht. In a few days more the remaining 153 teachers, after again refusing to give in, were also sent to Kirkenes.

When the schools at Oslo reopened on May 7, the teachers there also dissociated themselves from the new government-sponsored teachers' organization.

At Kirkenes there were no beds, bedding, mattresses or furniture for the teachers. Surreptitiously they got hay from nearby haystacks. The prisoners were put to work unloading from ships heavy crates of Supplies and oil drums. Though they had not been trained for such work, they worked seven days a week. One was killed, two lost an eye each, and one broke a leg and both arms.

The deportation of the teachers to Kirkenes stiffened the morale and resistance of the other people of Norway enormously. Quisling knew that if he became harsher with the teachers, the resistance of the rest of the country would become far stronger and more 'difficult to deal with. Talking to a group of teachers in a small town on March 22, Quisling threatened, stormed and raged at them. He ended by Saying, "You teachers have destroyed everything for me." He had them all arrested. Next day a few teachers of that school who had been absent when he spoke went to the hall and asked to be imprisoned with the others. Quisling had intended the new organization of

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE         21

teachers to be the pilot project of his corporate state, but the teachers blocked it.

In late, August, 50 teachers who were ill were sent home. On September 16, a second group of about 100 were sent back home. On November 4, the remaining 400 or so were sent home from the camp, after eight months of hard forced labor. They were allowed to remain teaching without recanting their principles.

All this nonviolent resistance was unprepared for. There was no training. It grew up out of the strong urge to resist somehow. There was no theory or philosophy in it. Most of the people would have used violence if they had had the means. Toward the end there was a secret military organization called Milarg, promoted and supplied by the British. But most of the resistance, which lasted five years, was nonviolent.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt is reported to have said on September 16, 1942, "If there is anyone who doubts the democratic will to win ... let him look to Norway.... Norway at once conquered and unconquerable. At home the Norwegian people have silently resisted the invader's will with grim endurance"

This Norwegian nonviolent resistance was possible because all the people were self-respecting, self-reliant, self-confident, courageous, filled with a spirit of unity, independence and liberty, and felt urgently and steadily that they had to resist somehow. It was unpremeditated and spontaneous.

Of the forms it took, one of the leaders, Diderich Lund, wrote afterward that the Norwegian economic resistance broke down completely. Sabotage was effective only to a small degree, and secrecy was also not as effective as bold, forthright candor and adherence to open truth. Those who resisted in this spirit were filled with a "strange feeling of quiet happiness . . . even under hard and difficult conditions," says Lund. "The unshakable conviction of fighting in a good cause has always been the strongest incitement to the making of fanatical soldiers, and perhaps we also need fanatics. But above all we need efficiency and wisdom, courage and readiness to self-sacrifice. If we possess to some degree these qualities, nonviolent resistance will give us the sure and joyful knowledge of fighting in the cause of justice and love. And we shall also know that our fight is the only one leading to .lasting victory."

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE                        22

 

 

UNITED-STATES: MONTGOMERY

THROUGHOUT, THE Southern states of the United States, custom and state laws have combined to segregate Negroes from whites in re­spect to hotels, restaurants, schools, housing, use of parks and recrea­tion ,grounds, waiting rooms in railway stations, on trains, buses, street cars and all sorts of public facilities; In many localities in such states, Negroes were not and are still not allowed to vote. Until fairly recently, white mobs would occasionally lynch a Negro without even the pretense of a trial. Often Negroes would be arrested and punished for alleged misdemeanors, the real reason being to assert the superior status and power of the white man. All this is the result of the fact that Negroes were formerly slaves of the white man and considerably outnumber the whites in some parts of those states. The white man's idea of his own superiority has been unyielding.

Very slowly after 1870, but increasingly in recent decades, Negroes have been gradually getting more and better education and rising; economically. During the First World War Negro regiments made a good record. They were asked and compelled to suffer and die for the white man's civilization. In the Second World War, Negroes were integrated with whites in the 'same companies and regiments and were admitted as pilots in the Air Force, and again did splendidly. But after the war, when they came back to civilian life, they were treated again as second-class citizens. Naturally they did not care to be considered cannon fodder, and naturally they keenly resented such indignities, but the majority of Negroes were discouraged and un­willing to assert their rights. In 1954, however, the United States Supreme Court decided that segregation in public schools was un­constitutional and would have to stop, though it allowed a certain gradualness for the change.

In Montgomery, Alabama, the "cradle of the Confederacy," racial segregation of course prevailed. In the buses, the first four rows of seats from the front, holding about ten persons, were reserved for whites, and theoretically the last three rows of seats were reserved for Negroes. But if a white person boarded the bus when the front four rows were filled with whites and the last rows filled with Ne­groes, the bus driver -would ask a Negro to "move back" and he

MODERN EXAMPLES OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE       23

would have to stand while the white person took his seat. Sometimes this request was made courteously, but often rudely and insultingly. On December 1, 1955, a Negro seamstress, Mrs. Rosa Parks, boarded a bus to get home after her day's work. She sat down in the first seat behind the section reserved for whites. Soon after she took her seat, some white people got on the bus and the driver ordered Mrs. Parks and three other Negroes on that seat to move back in order to accommodate the whites. By that time all the other seats were occupied. The other three Negroes complied with the order. Mrs. Parks quietly refused. The driver called the police and she was arrested for violating the city's segregation ordinance.

She was a quiet, dignified person, with a sweet personality, soft-spoken and calm in all situations, and highly respected in the Negro community. She could no longer endure the indignities to which she and other Negroes had been subjected. Her self-respect could take it no more.

This arrest proved to be a trigger which released the long-smoldering resentment of the Negro community into action. A few Negro leaders, including E. D. Nixon, head of the local union of sleeping car porters, and a number of Negro ministers agreed that a boycott of all the buses by all the Negroes should be undertaken as a protest. A meeting of Negro leaders of almost all groups in the community was called and they decided that the whole Negro community of Montgomery should be asked to boycott the buses all day Monday, December 5, and then come to a mass meeting in one of the Negro churches that evening to decide what further action to take. The Negro ministers agreed to tell their congregations on Sunday. From the beginning, the Negro ministers played a very large part in the leadership of the protest. The newspapers got hold of the story and published it and thus 'spread the news all through the Negro com­munity.

The boycott was a complete success. Not one of the fifty thousand Negroes of the city rode that day in a bus. That same day Mrs. Parks was tried in court and fined ten dollars. She appealed from the de­cision to a higher court. The mass meeting that night filled the church to overflowing, two and a half hours before the time set for it. Those present decided unanimously to continue the boycott until: (1) cour­teous treatment by the bus operators was guaranteed; (2) passengers

THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE                                    24

were seated on a first-come, first-served basis-Negroes seating from the back of the bus toward the front while whites seated from the front toward the back; (3) Negro bus operators were employed on predominantly Negro routes. They formed an organization to direct the protest, and named it the Montgomery Improvement Association. They chose as president of it a young, highly educated Negro minister, Martin Luther King Jr., who had pondered social problems earnestly and been much influenced by Thoreau's "Essay on Civil Disobedience" and the teaching and program of Mahatma Gandhi. Most of the other leaders of the MIA were ministers, too, and all were Negroes, except Robert Graetz, white minister of a Negro church, the only white minister in the whole city who took part in or showed sympathy toward the protest.

The leaders promptly organized several committees: for transportation, finance and strategy, a program committee for the mass meetings, and an executive committee.

The transportation committee first organized a Negro taxi service, but this was blocked by an existing law which required a minimum fare of 45 cents for any taxi ride. Then a car-pool was formed and later was added to by station wagons bought and operated for this purpose by several of the Negro churches and by other contributors. Transportation under the car-pool was quickly and efficiently organized. Yet thousands of Negroes had to walk. Once a pool driver stopped beside an elderly Negro woman who was trudging with obvious difficulty. "Jump in, grandmother," he said, "you don't need to walk." She waved him to go on. "I'm not walking for myself