Gentleman from Georgia

Up to testify before a House committee was William Lorenzo Patterson, Negro attorney and a well-known and voluble mouthpiece of the Communist Party. First he refused to obey the committee's order to surrender records of his Communist-controlled Civil Rights Congress, which the committee had asked for. Then he began explaining certain expenditures by his outfit.

"I was fighting," he said, "for the life of a Negro in Georgia, nine of whom were lynched. Georgia state tried to lynch the Scottsboro boys--"

"The state of Georgia has never tried to lynch any Negro," wrathfully broke in Congressman Henderson Lanham of Rome, Ga., who was presiding. (He was certainly right about the Scottsboro boys, whom no one had tried to lynch--and besides, the Scottsboro case took place in Alabama, not Georgia.)

"The state of Georgia has lynched--how many?" chided Patterson.

"If there is any state where a Negro gets a fair deal in court," Lanham declaimed, "it is in the state of Georgia and any statement to the contrary is absolutely false." Negroes had no rights in Georgia, Patterson insisted. "That's another lie," said Lanham.

"And yours is a lie too," retorted Patterson.

At that, bald, 62-year-old Congressman Lanham leaped to his feet. "Damn son of a bitch!" he shouted. "Black son of a bitch!" With fists clenched, he raced around the committee table. Bespectacled, 59-year-old Attorney Patterson held to his witness seat. Lanham broke past two attendants before a pair of Capitol policemen managed to grab him. Subdued, Congressman Lanham returned to his place, abruptly adjourned the hearing.

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