Do They Really Hate to Hate?

On matters where legal guilt is not the issue, people tend to draw their passionate conclusions snap-shut: quite as though they were standing under the great sycamore tree tugging on the rope bound to the neck of the victim they hate.

Hate. How many times we have heard that word during the weeks since the tragic assassination of President Kennedy. And against whom has it been almost universally directed? Not against the Communists, of whom Lee Oswald considered himself one. Moments after the assassination some of the most influential—and self-righteous—opinion-makers in this country jumped to the conclusion that an Extreme Rightist did It. In a matter of hours a Communist was apprehended, and it transpired that it was he who had done the job.