Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1958-09-12
BY MARY McGRORY
Star Stan Writer


The first thing that greets a
visitor entering the massive
Supreme Court building is a
little sign enjoining Silence. =
Yesterday, when all corners were
tense and subdued, it seemed
superfluous.
The wistful crowds that lined
the corridor - roped of and
overseen by stony faced guards,
were as quiet as such numbers
can be. Inside the ill-propor-
tened chamber itself, with its
swollen pillars and swathings OF
crimson velvet, the lucky, seated
spectators, self-monitored, con-
versed in the merest murmur-
ings.
J. Lee Rankin. the mild Soil
citor General. formally attired,
sat in a high-backed chair
nervously drumming his fingers
on its wooden arms. At a table
to his left, the NAACP attor-
neys sat nervously smiling. Al
the petitioners table. one of the
Little Rock lawyers sat obi
viously reading a pamphlet.
A few minutes to IL, all con-
versation abruptly ceased
Knickerbockered page boys ap-
piled a few last-minute touches
to the desks. The appointed
hour of noon came and went,
and several anti-climactic mo-
ments later, the Justices. in
groups of three, appeared
through the openings in the
red velvet curtains.
Butler Meets Resistance
Richard C. Butler, spokesman
for the Little Rock School
Board, was the first to speak.
1t seemed likely that if any
man could persuade the court
to stay its hand, he might be
the one.
Nothing in his manner or ap-
pearance is exaggerated or pro-
vocative. He has regular fea-
lures and wavy grey hair parted
near the middle and clear grey
eyes. He speaks with deliberate
speed" in tones brushed with
the lightest imaginable South
ern accent. His arguments were
couched in language from
which all the agony and vio-
lence Of the controversy had
been drained.
When he spoke of ''the total
opposition" of the people of
his State to the Supreme Court,
he did so with the air of a man
speaking a simple fact. His dis
passionate attitude seemed ut
terly suited to the antiseptic
atmosphere of the courtroom.
Mr.. Butler proceeded, but not
for long. Soon he had run into
massive resistance, Justice
Frankfurter interrupted to ask
him about the possibility of
changing public opinion and in
quired a trifie waspishly If the
indignation had come. mot
from the people rising up" but
from the leaders.
1t was Mr.. Buffers conten-
ton that the Little Rock School
Board was being ground be-
meath the upper and neither
millstones Of Federal and State
law. He commended further that
in a collision of sovereignties,
the real victim was the school
system of Little Rock. Time. ito
let things simmer down" was all
he asked.
Chief Justice InterpOses
But Chief Justice Warren
would not have it so. The
Chief Justice apparently is not
much beguiled by legalisms,
anyway, and he was conspicu-
ously not dazzled by Mr.. But
ler's reckoning hope that vari-
Gus restrictive Arkansas laws
propounded by Gov. Faubus
might be thrown out Of court.
Chief Justice Warren, white
haired, benevolent, seemed in
a manner of speaking to be
looking over the heads of the
Governor, the State Legisla-
ture, the clustering attorneys,
to the human beings most
crucially involved. What he
saw was "the children" Time,
he seemed to feel, would help
them not tail.
Was not the real issue, he
inquired equally, that the
school board was frustrating
'the rights of the children"