The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1958-11-28

tcorlefon Putnam. who wrote the following
| letter to President Eisenhower, Is q member
Of the famous New Ensland Putnam fomily.
| q motive of New York City, q aroduofe OF
Princeton and columsio. founder and presi.
| dent of the Chicago and Southern Airlines
1888 l948l. and is on the board Of pelto
Airines. He recently published widely.
praised biography Of Theodore ROOSEVELT.
October Is, 1868.
Washington, d. c.
The Hon. Dwight D. Eisenhower
President of the United States
The White House
Washington %, D. C.
MY dear Mr.. President:
A few days ago was reading
over Justice Frankfurter's opinion
in the recent Little Rock case.
Three sentences in it tempt me to
write you this letter. 1 am a
Northerner, but l have spent a
large part of my life as BUSH
ness executive in the South. l
have a law degree, but l am now
engaged in historical writing.
From this observation post, l risk
the presumption of a comment.
The sentences l wish to examine
are these: Local customs, how
ever hardened by time, are not
decreed in heaven. Habits and feel
ings they engender may be coun-
teracted and moderated. Experience
attests that such local habits and
feelings will yield, gradually
though this be, to law and educa-
ton"
1t is my personal conviction
that the local customs in this case
were hardened by time" for a
very good reason, and that while
they may not. as Frankfurter
saws, have been decreed in heaven,
they come closer to it than the
current view of the Supreme
Court. l was particularly puzzled
by Frankfurter's remark that "the
Constitution is not the formulation
of the merely personal views of
the members of this court" Five
minutes before the courts desegre-
CATION decision, the Constitution
meant one thing; five minutes
later, it meant something else.
Only one thing interviewed, namely,
an expression of the personal
views of the members of the court.
1t is not my purpose to dispute
the point with which the greater
part of Frankfurter's opinion is
concerned. The law must be obey
ed. But / think the original de-
segregation decision was wrong,
that it ought to be reversed, and
that meanwhile every legal means
should be found, not to disobey it,
but to avoid it. Failing this, the
situation should be corrected by
constitutional amendment.
cannot agree that this is a
matter involving "a few states" as
Frankfurter suggests. The picture
in reality is of court, by one
sudden edict, forcing upon the en-
tire South a view, and way of
life, with which the great majority
of the population are in complete
disagreement. Although not from
the legal, in fact from the practi-
cal, standpoint the North, which
does not have the problem, is pre-
Stunning to tell the South, which
does have the problem, what to do.
To me there is a frightening
arrogance in this performance.
Neither the North, nor the court,
has any holy mandate inherent in
the trend of the times or the
progress of liberalism to reform
society in the South. In the mat
ter of schools, rights to equal edu-
cation are inseparably bound up
with rights to freedom of associa-
ton and, in the South at least,
may require that both be consider
ed simultaneously. I'm using the
word Association" here, mean
the right to associate with whom
you please, and the. right not to
associate with whom you please
/ Moreover, am / not correct in my
recollection that it was the social
stigma of segregation and its EFF
feet upon the Negroes mind and
heart" to which the court objected
as much as to any other, and thus
that the court, in forcing the black
mans right to equal education