The Charlotte News
Tuesday, September 24, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports from Newport, R.I., that the President this date had ordered
Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson to federalize the Arkansas
National Guard and Air National Guard to preserve order in the
integration of Central High School, stating that his cease and desist
order to rioters in Little Rock had not been obeyed. He also
authorized Secretary Wilson to call out such troops, in addition to
the Guard units, as he deemed necessary to deal with the situation.
He signed the executive order at 12:22 p.m., shortly after 200 white
men and women had again gathered at the high school, though no violence was
reported, in contrast to the previous day during which nine black
students had entered the school and then withdrawn. The black
students were not present this date. White House press secretary
James Hagerty would not say what specific incidents this date
triggered the order. The President had warned the previous day that
he was willing to use the full force of the United States, "including
whatever force may be necessary" to ensure that the black
students were able to attend classes without interference. Mr.
Hagerty said that the President had consulted with Attorney General
Herbert Brownell before issuing the order. The President was planning
to return to Washington to provide a television and radio broadcast
A quiet crowd of about 200 whites had gathered outside the school this date at the start of classes, but no black students had shown up by 9:30 and no incidents were reported. Early this date, five white men had been picked up by police and later two youths, identified as North Little Rock High School students, had been taken into custody for unstated reasons. A State trooper said that the previous night when he told the driver of a car occupied by two black men and three women to move on, the driver attempted to run him down. He had been knocked down by the car, jumped up, fired two shots at the fleeing car and then chased it. A City police officer also fired a shot and two City police cars joined the chase. After 12 blocks, the chase ended when the car went into a yard and smashed into a fence. Two men were arrested for disturbing the peace and one of them for also having a concealed weapon, a metal club, and assault with a deadly weapon based on the use of the car to try to run down the officer. At a drive-in restaurant, a hangout for white teenagers, some blows were struck but no one was hurt seriously. One officer contended that blacks, armed with pistols and other weapons, were attacking whites. Between eight and ten blacks were arrested. No whites were arrested.
Vice-President Nixon said this date that the "disgraceful Little Rock integration situation" was largely the fault of Governor Faubus, whose handling of it had "the inevitable effect of inspiring extremist elements."
At Sea Island, Ga., Southern and border state governors, including Democrats and Republicans, this date stated their opposition to the use of Federal troops to enforce school integration in Arkansas or in other Southern states. They compared it to the use of Federal troops by President Grover Cleveland to break a Pullman strike in 1894. Governor Theodore McKeldin of Maryland, a supporter of the President, said he hoped there would be no necessity of sending Federal troops to enforce the matter. Governor Faubus said that he did not believe he had obstructed any Federal court order. Governor Raymond Gary of Oklahoma, who had sponsored the school integration cause at the conference, said that regardless of how any governor personally felt about integration, he would deplore the use of Federal troops to enforce it. He hoped that tolerance would solve the problem. Governor Marvin Griffin of Georgia said that he hoped that the President's statements were not interpreted to mean he intended to use Federal troops in the South. Governor Frank Clement of Tennessee, previously making no comment on the matter, had said that he hoped Federal troops would never be sent to march against any citizens of any state. An aide later amended the statement to insert "law-abiding citizens".
In New York, evangelist Billy Graham said at a press conference this date that he thought the violence in Little Rock the previous day was the "work of extremists" from out of town, that the people of the city had little to do with the violence, and referred to it as a tragedy which gave the Communists "one of their biggest propaganda weapons in years". He said that violence did not represent the feelings of Southerners at all, that Southerners were opposed to integration but also equally opposed violence and defiance of the law. He asserted the belief that in years to come, race relations in the South would be the best anywhere. "There is a foundation of affection and love, because of the close contact between the races there, that will make race relations in the South ultimately better than anywhere else in the country." He also said that he had been in contact with ministers in Little Rock and praised them for their efforts in trying to ease the tension.
In Levittown, Pa., State police were on duty this date at the home of the first black resident of the planned community 25 miles northeast of Philadelphia, after a round-the-clock vigil had been ordered because the resident had been sibjected to a "war of nerves" during the previous few weeks.
The editorial page is here. "Little Rock: The Theme
It finds that at one extreme would be heady elation and speculation that sustained threats of violence by the segregationists, with occasional use of violence to provide force to the threats, could effectively overrule the duly constituted authority, while at the other extreme, there would be self-righteous assent to the theory that the threatening, violent conduct ought be put down by Federal troops if necessary. In the middle, it finds, would be "the great, mute mass of Southern moderates", as former Superior Court Judge Fred Helms of Charlotte had described it, among whom there would be probably a mixture of grief and dismay, which it finds should be the reaction, as the extremists, assisted by Governor Faubus, had succeeded in "smashing down many of the fragile bridges built over a sea of social unrest by men of patience, good will and courage", the compromisers who were damned for their moderate attitude.
It finds that attitude reflected in a speech by Tennessee Governor Frank Clement, who had said he could not say that he did not like segregation in the state where he had been raised and sent to segregated schools, but that preference became moot in the face of duty. He said he had been reared in a Christian home and that when he had sworn to uphold the Constitution, he believed God did not intend for him to do anything else, and he would "uphold the law and protect the rights of every citizen of every creed and color in Tennessee."
The piece suggests that wisdom, rather than sincerity, in abundant supply on all sides, was needed from Southern leaders. "Maintenance of the law's supremacy is the very least that should be expected from them." It indicates that in Tennessee, where there had been mobs, there was peace, whereas in Arkansas, where there was peace, there were mobs. A mob, it offers, was no place to find proof of anything, including justification for Governor Faubus in calling out the National Guard. Since he had avoided appearance in the courtroom to present evidence to oppose the preliminary injunction, it was no longer possible to know whether he did or did not have grounds for the deployment, as he presented no evidence. It finds that it showed he had failed in his role as peacemaker and that the task of the peacemakers had become much more difficult.
But the compromisers, it urges, had to persevere, as they had held the nation together except during the Civil War, as they would have to do again 90 years later.
As people pause to vote in the next two days in 2024, it might be noted that in terms of racial violence and stimulation to same, there is a stark choice, as the violence of Charlottesville in 2017 and the stream of violence cascading in the wake of the fatal police beating in Minneapolis and the vigilante violence in Kenosha, Wisc., in 2020, all took place under Trump's watch, characterized by violent rhetoric and tolerance of violence, as his rhetoric and that of his surrogates still issue in that vein, while none of it beyond that which is inevitable in any time has persisted in the Biden-Harris Administration, noted by tones of moderation while getting things done for the people instead of engaging in brash talk, carping at institutions of the "Deep State", and inaction otherwise save mindless scrapping in the streets.
Compromise and moderation have sometimes come to be considered the height of folly, the reason for mock, in the face of tension and frustration over slothful movement toward achievement of a more perfect union, in tension since the Founding, with the temperature lowered on that tension through time, though occasionally raised at points on the temporal spectrum to the spiked fever pitch into explosive dynamite, cannon shot and musket fire; without sanity at the top, where will compromise and moderation be found, in the streets with the mob and their confederated leaders? "You've got to fight like hell," issuing on January 6, 2021 from the mouth of a person who never fought in battle, not even on the sporting fields, turning what is designed as a purely ministerial proceeding to demonstrate sportsmanship and the peaceful transition of power on the national stage, the epitome of which was demonstrated on January 6, 2001 by Vice-President Al Gore, into an insurrection and brawl at the Capitol is not wisdom, but rather its antithesis, a cheap appeal to the power of the mob, any mob of angry, desperate, frustrated people, urged to topple off the teeter-totter at the tip of the Washington Monument into the abyss of violence, always a possibility, as man is imperfect while seeking a more perfect union, being susceptible to such tendencies, especially when pushed and stoked to the end of his pike by his worshiped lord and liege, the Leader.
We hated with a passion the result in 2000, still think it was the classic example of a stolen election, with Florida's funky voting machines and their punch-styluses leaving uncounted hanging chads for the weak of hand, and the confusing butterfly ballots of Palm Beach County strangely resulting in a heavy vote for Patrick Buchanan, ultimately leaving a 537-vote "majority" after the Supreme Court narrowly bailed and bowed to the mob, including the mob of Republican lawyers pushing and shoving outside the Miami-Dade counting office
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