On the Right

New York, Oct. 7—What to do posthumously about Martin Luther King is becoming a Cause. One encounters here and there petition forms to Congress, requesting that his birthday be made a national holiday, like Lincoln’s, or that the day of his assassination be made a national day of mourning, like Memorial Day. And then Mrs. Martin Luther King, who clearly learned from her husband the uses of the press, is omnipresent: saying, sometimes, useful things. Saying, other times, most unfortunate things.

A week ago she revealed that she had been in communication with the Administration concerning a national memorial to her dead husband. So far, unexceptionable. But she has now said she has abandoned the negotiations, on the grounds that she has detected an “indifferent attitude” toward black and poor people. “We felt that to get federal support for a memorial would have been a beautiful thing. . . . But President Nixon’s attitude, his lack of real concern, suggests that his Administration is motivated by racist attitudes.”

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William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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Martin Luther King Jr

New York, Oct. 7—What to do posthumously about Martin Luther King is becoming a Cause. One encounters here and there petition forms to Congress, requesting that his birthday be made a national holiday, like Lincoln’s, or that the day of his assassination be made a national day of mourning, like Memorial Day. And then Mrs. Martin Luther King, who clearly learned from her husband the uses of the press, is omnipresent: saying, sometimes, useful things. Saying, other times, most unfortunate things.

A week ago she revealed that she had been in communication with the Administration concerning a national memorial to her dead husband. So far, unexceptionable. But she has now said she has abandoned the negotiations, on the grounds that she has detected an “indifferent attitude” toward black and poor people. “We felt that to get federal support for a memorial would have been a beautiful thing. . . . But President Nixon’s attitude, his lack of real concern, suggests that his Administration is motivated by racist attitudes.”