St. Paul recorder., 1963-06-06
You Can't Compromise
On Civil Rights

The new line in the civil rights battle is that
the northern liberals ought to adopt positions of
sweet reasonableness and come out on the side of
law and order" If we read this phrase correctly,
those who push it have a kind of atavistic Tor nos
talgic) idea going back to the days when "law and
order concept Of society maintained and
forced by the dominant industrial firm in each
with the aid Of tear gas professional thugs and the
local cops.
Todays concept leaves out the big corporations
supplements the poison gas with wild police dogs
and fire hoses. and is just bitter and wild and
vicious - and just as futile - as its predecessor
idea
There is one difference This is the first time a
widespread organized effort to involve liberals in
reputation of campaign for civil rights has been
attempted. Who in the world ever thought this one
up?
Liberals are being lectured about keeping
"calmer tempers" and 1.-The use of questionable
means to accomplish good ends"
We are bewildered Is the resort then, to the
right of petition spelled out in the United States
Constitution questionable means? We dissent The
only questionable course would be to fail to use this
great power which was put in our hands by very
wise forebears.
Is it questionable to stand up to the wild dogs
and wild cops of Dixie in exercising the right Of
petition? We dissent.
Negroes are being chided for the ugly rise of
tempers" This is most unltind and unfair. 1t is Ne
groes who being placed in Dixie concentration
camps, who being cubbed, who are being torn
by savage dogs 1t is Negroes who being taxed
to support colleges and universities which they
not allowed to attend.
Tn tha rnidS If bo 10
old enough to know better) writes in the New York
Times (Which is sophisticated enough to know bet
teri: In a unanimous decision last week the Su-
preme Court complained about the slowness Of pub
lie school desegregaton. No more delay be toll
Grated remarked the Washington Post.
But what does this mean? When you stop
'tolerating' delay, what do you do-integrate by
force?"
OF course, Mr. Reston is not so uninformed or
politically ilterate as his question may suggest.
What you do, he full well knows is start enforc-
ing the law. Enforcement of the law is not resort
to force in the way Mr. Reston suggests.
Thousands Of Negroes are in Jail in Alabama
for exercising the right of petition Governor Wal
lace, who has openly defied the mandates of the
Supreme Court of the United States is not in Jail.
Not a single southern official governor mayor
policeman, of all those who have been shouting de-
fance of the constitution of the United States is to
our knowledge, in Jail.
Governor Wallace has chosen to make his def
of the law the court and the constitution a
personal and partisan political matter. If those who
are worried about keeping orderly procedures will
join those of who worried about the rights
of man, then the issue be readily resolved. De-
fiance of court orders such Governor Wallace is
carrying out is fragrant contempt, and punishable
Ni,
with appropriately, and the disorders of Dixie will
quickly die down.
AS to those who want to persuade the liberals
to back down this issue the answer Is obvious
The Bill of Rights is not subject to compromise or
watering down. It is an absolute statement of the
rights of Americans and every time we let people
like Governor Wallace defy it. we fail in our duties
as citizens
Evidently there Is going to be a high powered
campaign against the liberal, Jeffersonian doctrine
of the rights of Americans. But we can promise
those who organizing 1t that liberals won't buy
it.