Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.
Congressman Spark M. Matsunaga, Democrat of Hawaii, declared in a radio broadcast last night he believed it was going beyond the bounds of decency for pickets to use such signs as "Go Home Murderer" at the time President Johnson arrived in Honolulu Saturday.
He called upon objectors to the President’s policies in Vietnam to "rise above the gutter" if they expect to influence American public opinion.
Matsunaga said he had no objection to demonstrators as such but said he objected to their calling the President "murderer."
Such signs as "Stop the War in Vietnam" or "Vietnam for Vietnamese" are tolerable.
Matsunaga said, "As citizens of the youngest state in the union, we have a real cause to be proud that President Johnson has chosen Hawaii as the site for this historic meeting (between himself, some of his top advisors and South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Caro Ky)."
"This is not the first time that the President has favored us."
He added: "You will recall that it was principally through his efforts when he was Majority Leader of the Senate that we won Statehood."
JOHNSON’S CHURCHGOING PRAISED
The Reverend Abraham K. Akaka, pastor of Kawaiahao Church, Sunday praised President Lyndon B. Johnson’s attendance at Mass at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Waikiki.
The Protestant pastor told his congregation at Kawaiahao that the Pro-testant President’s act of worship in a Roman Cath-olic church "in an important and good example.
"I hope that Roman Catholic leaders will follow his example and worship in Protestant churches also," Mr. Akaka said.
"True ecumenism and true internationalism is like a happy family of many members — a beautiful and wonderful thing to behold.
"One of the bad things our children must be taught to avoid and overcome is the idea that they will keep what they have and take or destroy what belongs to others.
"Such covetousness is destructive of harmony in any family," Mr. Akaka continued.
"This tragic philosophy of unfair play and unequal treatment is what our nation is trying to prevent in South Vietnam."
