Evening star., 1962-10-02

patrols Degdn bringing III
prisoners to the Lyceum COM
mard post. Almost all of the
men were taken into custody
after weapons were found in
their cars within the city limits,
The stories of those caught
with guns varied little: They
had been hunting SQUIRRELS or
doves, or were about to. None
admitted being involved in the
insane rioting Sunday night
and yesterday morning.
Students Included
About 20 per cent OF them
were Ole Miss students but
others were Of rougher and
older appearance. The soldiers
call the latter "rednecks. T"
meaning country people or out
of-towners, the term implying
diehard segregationisrn.
Only another Army could
have staged a riot on the Ole
Miss campus last night. The
ellipse around which the uni
versity buildings stand wa S
crawling with troops last night.
And an inner Gordon Of United
States marshals. more than
300 strong, protected the build
ings and the apartment where
Negro student James Meredith
is staying in Baxter Hall.
The marshals, armed with
pistols and sawed-off tear gas
guns, seemed undisnayed by the
six-hour attack they barely beat
off Sunday night and early
yesterday. Their numbers last
night were augmented by an
undisclosed force of F. dera
Bureau of Prisons guards and
United States Border Patrol Of
ficers.
Inside the nerve center of the
Federal Governments citadel
for enforcing the law on an
unwilling State, there was mild
were the rule rather than the
chaos and a great coming and
going Of officials, troops, mar
shals, FBI men and a few uni
versity officials. Most Of them
had not slept since Saturday
night. Their clothing was
rumpled and incipient boards
exception.
In the basement. a team of
FBI agents was engaged in as
sembly line fingerprinting of
scores of men taken prisoner
during the riotous outbreak. On.
the ground floor, Justice De-
partment lawyers took state
ments, interrogated suspected
rioters, labeled the confiscated
arsenal of weapons and pre-
pared charges against 18 Of
those seized in embattled Ok
ford.
Outsiders Ousted
The majority OF the men
from elsewhere in the South
were placed on buses shortly
after dark and escorted under
guard outside the town limits.
They were warned not to come
back. The students of Ole Miss
were sent to their dormitories
but their fingerprints are on
file and they we're dismissed
with lectures that were brief.
and in the main fatherly, by
the Justice Department officials
To a man, they denied hav-
ing any part in the riot in
which at least 1000 screaming
persons participated. One stu
dent. Walter Merritt. came in
voluntarily and said he wanted
to surrender his three hunting
guns because he had heard
about the general roundup Of
weapons.
THAT boy showed the best
sense Of anyone here" said one
harried Justice official.
Another lawyer from the At
torney Generals office weighed
the story of a young sailor in
a dirty, blood-stained white
uniform whose eyes were
swollen grotesquely shut. The
sailor said he was hitchhiking
from Tupelo, Miss, to his base
in Memphis, Tenn, when some
men offered him a ride in q
fire truck. Before he knew it,
the sailor said. he found him.
self being driven into the midst
of the swirling riot on the Old
Miss campus.
A tear gas shell. fired by one
of the marshals. crashed
through the window Of the
fire truck and exploded in his
face. He said the blood came
from the beating the marshalS
gave him when he was dragged
from the truck.
One of those picked up was
a colored man who was found
with a .38-caliber pistol in his
car. Another was a white sheet
metal worker who said the .3S
caliber pistol in his car was
used only to shoot snakes and.
by odd coincidence, he had
fired it early that morning at
a reptile he saw in a creek.
Hearings for Prisoners
At $50 pm. United States
Commissioner Omar Craig Of
oxford. arrived at the Lyceum
to conduct preliminary hearings
for II of the 18 men under for
NAL arrest. He walked past a
university bulletin board bear
ing q sign Welcome to Ole
Miss. Everybody speaks" and
went through the formality OF
establishing probable cause for
the arrests and setting bonds.
The IL men, brought before
him in handouts, were charged
with four counts each Of in
citing insurrection; seditious
conspiracy; resisting Unite d
States marshals in performance