While filing stories about the 1953 South African elections for the Vancouver Sun, Jack Scott faced criticism from readers who were less sympathetic to the tragedies of apartheid. On this page I have included some of those "letters to the editor" as well as Scott's responses. He was unapologetic, showing incredible moral conviction.
"Before take-off this morning I got a batch of letters from home. Some of them were comments from readers on the series of pieces I wrote before the election. One man wrote this: "Your stories have been far from objective. Surely there must have been other things to write about in that great country besides the native problem."
It is probably a valid critism. I did not write of South Africa with any more or less objectivity than I would write about witnessing a simple case of rape. But this also is true: The story of South Africa is the story of color, however unpleasant or repetitive it may be. And far better newspaper men than I have found that o be true.
Africa is not the kind of story you can enjoy writing, it is a story of stupidity and greed, of people of your own breed driving on to an objective they know is wrong and that can only lead to the same kind of violence and terror that lies now ahead of our propeIlers in Kenya.
I think I lost any objectivity I might have had on the night after spending some hours with a native family. I returned to Johannesburg's Langham Hotel, where the Aga Khan had recently reserved an entire floor, and sat in the lounge for a drink, trying to shake the depression that came from seeing a little girl who knows the taste of milk as a rare luxury.
It was a Saturday night. There was a dance in the hotel ballroom. The Rolls Royces and Jaguars were rolling up to he hotel. The handsome people in their evening wear were flowing past me, full of gaiety and the best champagne. And I decided then that it could not be written with any dignified reserve." - Jack Scott, South Africa, 1953