Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1960s. Response to political assassinations

The 1960s were a decade of political assassinations. This is how the Journal's editorial pages responded:

"The hand of the assassin has struck down John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States of America, and the grief of the nation will not be easily assuaged.

"The shadow of death stands at the elbow of any President every sleeping and waking hour. Three Presidents died under the guns of assassins. But there was in Mr. Kennedy a vigor and a vitality that belied the danger of a lurking gunman . . .

"To his wife and children and to all the members of his sorrowing family, the nation extends its deepest sympathy. There is nothing we can do for them but weep, and weep we shall. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, as was said of another President who died by assassination, belongs now to the ages.

"To President Johnson, the nation will turn, praying with him and for him, beseeching divine guidance in the troubled hours that have brought him so abruptly to the leadership of this, the greatest free nation on the face of the earth. To assume the presidency is awesome enough; to assume it in the shadow of an assassination is a soul-shaking thing.

"Let us then call a halt to national bickering; let there be a truce among us for the sake of the late President and to give Mr. Johnson the time to take up the reins of power, to get a solid grasp of the infinite detail that must pass before him, to fix and hold the course of the government. We can do no less for John Fitzgerald Kennedy."

-- Excerpted from The Journal's lead editorial, Nov. 23, 1963

" 'I have been to the mountaintop,' said the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I have been to the mountaintop and looked over and I have seen the Promised Land. And though I may not go there with you, we as a people will reach that Promised Land.'

"The tragedy in Memphis that robbed the world of one of the most remarkable leaders of modern times is a shocking reminder that Dr. King's struggle is not alone the struggle of black Americans. His death will not diminish the movement for social change in this country. Rather, out of this tragic loss must come a new beginning in which every living American has a profound responsibility.

"The shock of this assassination will be a relatively fleeting thing. For a time, people of goodwill will be sick inside, horrified by the significance of Dr. King's martyrdom, stunned by the hate, cruelty and injustice symbolized by the flight of a single fatal bullet. But psychological wounds are healed by time and humans are restored to old patterns of thought and deed.

"What Americans have most to fear is that the lesson of Dr. King's life, his dedication to non-violence as a follower of India's Mohandas K. Gandhi, will not sufficiently penetrate the consciousness and conscience of the nation's leaders, from the local councilman on up the ladder of officialdom, to militate for peaceful, non-violent change . . .

"He was the outstanding young active civil rights leader who disavowed violence and maintained good communications with white America. Now he is gone. But his gift to the country he loved so much must be kept alive, by all men, black and white."

-- Excerpts from Journal editorial, April 7, 1968

"Everybody being killed was trying to do something for the black people, for the poor and the old," said the Negro hot dog vendor. And he must have voiced the special grief that Negroes everywhere felt at the murder of Senator Robert Kennedy. They had been shocked and hurt only two months ago by the equally tragic killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most dynamic Negro leader in the country and the one who understood best the necessity for controlled protests against the black man's burdens of discrimination and poverty.

But Senator Kennedy had a special appeal to Negroes. He had been through the struggle of President Kennedy's administration to strike down legal and physical bars to Negro equality. He had come to feel deeply about the suffering of citizens who were denied dignity because of their color. He had roused a response of admiration among Negroes; more than any other candidate for the presidency, he had evoked an attitude of hope.

No wonder if many Negroes felt a new sense of persecution at the assassination of their most hopeful champions . . ."

-- From a Journal editorial, June 9, 1968.