Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—NOVEMBER, 1962—PAGE 17
Stopped at Dormitory Door
The building was being searched.
MISSISSIPPI
Incidents at
Bring Many
(Continued From Page 16)
dent of the American Association of
Colleges and Universities, maintained
that Registrar Ellis’s decision “had
nothing to do with Meredith being a
Negro.”
“We have never had a rule or policy
prohibiting enrollment of qualified per
sons in ‘Ole Miss’ regardless of their
color,” he said.
Relative to the board’s role in the
political aspect the university head
outlined, he said:
“The board felt that they were pro
tecting the university in doing this
but their action has come under fire
by the accreditation committee of the
Southern Association of Colleges and
Secondary Schools.”
Disavow Politics
The chancellor said that in a move
to avoid discreditation the board of
trustees “have no hesitancy to com
ply with a request from the accredit
ing committee to present letters vow
ing not to allow political interference
in the school.”
That assurance has been given the
accrediting association, which meets in
Dallas this month.
Relative to a statement by a group
of professors defending the tear-gas
throwing by federal marshals, who
were under threats from a mob near
the Lyceum building, Chancellor Wil
liams said the statement resulted from
“pressure from outside educational
groups.”
Sees Little Effect
“History will look back and reflect
that the resolution (of the professors)
had little effect, but it did show that
there is a freedom of speech on the
campus.”
The statement was made at a time
when state officials were accusing the
federal marshals as the aggressors.
The resolution by the professors
mentioned by Chancellor Williams was
adopted Oct. 3 by the University of
Mississippi chapter of the American
Association of University Professors. It
called for an investigation of the riot
ing “by the proper authorities” in
asserting that they have “evidence that
attempts to place all the blame for the
Oct. 1 and Oct. 2 rioting on federal
marshals is unfair and almost com
pletely false.”
Membership in the AAUP, the lead-
mg professional organization for uni
versity professors in the nation, is re
stricted to faculty members and does
not include deans or members of the
university administration. Despite that,
. an Robert Farley of the law school
Sl gned the resolution.
Jhe resolution said:
We believe in the use of courts and
® °t boxes to state our convictions;
e oppose and deplore the useless
mployment of clubs and missiles
“gainst fellow citizens in behalf of any
convictions whatsoever.
Riots, weapons and agitators have
one - Ce at 3 diversity- With the co-
.fation of the overwhelming major
tho °tt ^ w ~ a h>iding Mississippi citizens,
turn •‘ vers !ty of Mississippi can re-
allv m near future to the norm-
edn ? eace .f u l conditions essential to
andt 0n ^ Mississi PPi> in the nation
future” construct i ve work for the
★ ★ ★
University Became ‘Pawn’,
hancellor Williams Says
meet' an ° t ^ ler undress before a joir t
mg of civic clubs and “Ole Miss’
Federal Aid to Education
ee t. Charleston News & Courier
University
Statements
! alumni at Greenville on Oct. 31, Chan-
! cellor Williams said the university be
came “a pawn in a combat between
powerful political forces” and “the-
effective control of the university was
taken out of our hands.”
The chancellor declared that news
media had given the world an image of
the university and of Mississippi which
“is not the whole picture.” Although
he said the trouble at Oxford is “sad
and humiliating,” and “we cannot in
honesty gloss over it,” Williams noted
that “there are other parts of the story.”
Detailing efforts by the majority of
“Ole Miss” students to avoid disorder,
the university official said all but a
small percentage of the student body
made major efforts to maintain normal
college life. Chancellor Williams praised
faculty members and the university
staff for their faithfulness, and he noted
that Negro employes on the campus had
a particularly difficult time during the
riots.
The chancellor said “it is only too
easy to misinterpret” the actions of the
university trustees. He made this state
ment about the board’s position:
“The board members were caught,
just as the university was, in the con
flict between two powerful political
forces. Nothing would have been easier
than for them to save themselves from
trouble by leaving the university a vic
tim of these powerful forces, but they
did just the opposite.
“To prevent such treatment of the
university, they took upon themselves
the full responsibility for the Meredith
case . . . Because of their action, the
university officials were found not guil
ty of contempt in a federal court hear
ing and were able to resume their cam
pus duties with hardly a break.
An unanswered question in the “Ole
Miss” disorders of Sept. 30-Oct. 1 was
whether Mississippi highway patrol
men, who had ringed the Oxford
campus for days, were withdrawn
when federal marshals arrived to pro
tect Negro James Meredith in his
enrollment.
Gov. Ross Barnett contended he did
not order the highway patrol with
drawn prior to massing of a mob
around the Lyceum building which the
marshals had surrounded. That same
denial came from State Sen. George
Yarbrough of Red Banks, the presi
dent pro-tem of the Senate, who was
sent to Oxford with full authority from
the governor to take whatever action
he felt was necessary.
U. S. Attorney General Robert Ken
nedy said he was assured by Gov.
Barnett over long-distance telephone
Sept. 30 that ample protection would
be afforded and law and order main
tained.
Regardless of the orders, a throng
was at the Lyceum building when mar
shals fired tear-gas bombs to ward off
threats interspersed with rock-throw
ing.
Talking To Governor
Sen. Yarbrough said when the Sept.
30 riot started, he was inside the
building telephoning Gov. Barnett in
Jackson to determine whether state
highway patrolmen should be called
out of service since the marshals had
moved in.
He said he had suggested to justice
departmen attorneys at the scene that
“since you have moved in and in con
trol it might be well for the highway
patrolmen to be called off in order to
prevent violence.” He said the gov
ernor told him to keep the patrolmen
on duty.
However, State Sen. John McLaurin
of Brandon, who accompanied Sen.
Yarbrough to Oxford, said he was out
side and that the marshals opened fire
on highway patrolmen to their backs
when they were attempting to move
the crowd away from the building.
Sen. McLaurin contended the patrol
men were unarmed.
Chief U. S. Marshal James J. Mc-
Shane, in charge of the marshals sent
to Oxford to enforce the federal court
order for Meredith’s enrollment, main
tained that the state patrolmen were
not aiding in breaking up the throng
which he said was “moving in” on
the marshals.
“The board’s later naming the Gov-
J emor to act for it was not a pusillani-
| mous gesture. The board is a state body,
set up by the state constitution. The
Governor had issued a proclamation
I stating that in this area of education
the state was supreme. It was not for
the board to determine the legality of
j this move. The board could and did
| take the position that, if this doctrine
j of interpretation were to be acted upon,
then the proper person to act under it
was the executive head of the state.
“When the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals stated that the board’s action
was not consonant with federal law, the
board promptly rescinded its actions
and—again taking responsibility upon
itself—directed me to admit James
Meredith.”
Chancellor Williams said “Ole Miss”
alumni in many ways rallied to help
the university through the crisis, and
he noted that “a large group of promi
nent Mississippians” met in Jackson to
pledge their aid. He made this state
ment:
“To our sorrow, there was a bloody
riot; to our shame, in that mob were
some of our own students. But against
the scores who were lawless and irre
sponsible, let us weigh the thousands
upon thousands who by deed and word
have stood up for law and order, for
human dignity, and for the high prin
ciples of education.”
The chancellor warned, however, that
“it is not enough . . . simply to keep our
doors open. A deeper question presses
upon us: Shall we have a real univer
sity, or only the outward husk and mere
appearance of a university?”
Declaring that “a university is a place
of ideas, an institution dedicated to the
courageous pursuit of truth,” Williams
warned: “We cannot be a university
and deny our teachers and our students
the freedom to teach and to leam.”
He said “every new idea is in some
degree dangerous, but none is so dan
gerous to a free society as mental stag
nation and intellectual dry rot.
“A university is and ought to be a
place of intellectual ferment, a field for
the examination and testing of ideas,”
Chancellor Williams asserted.
Shortly after midnight, the morning
of Oct. 1, when the rioting was at its
height, a Mississippi national guards
man, who is a state senator and cap
tain of one of the federalized units,
said his troops were not assisted by
patrolmen in an effort to get on the
campus. Sen. Herman Camp of Ful
ton said the patrolmen “stood around
their cars” and offered no help to
clearing the way for his federalized
troopers.
Incidentally, he said his jeep was
fired on, and an assistant state attorney
general—Guy Rogers—called into serv
ice as a national guardsmen, was
struck in the head with a rock.
Mayor’s Statement
Mayor Robert W. Elliott of Oxford
said that on Oct. 1 he was refused help
by the state highway patrol when the
rioting spread from the university
campus into his town.
He said when he appealed for help,
a patrol officer told him: “We have
orders not to interfere.”
“I would rather have had my own
state patrol helping us but they would
not do it,” Mayor Elliott said in an
Oct. 4 statement. “I feel the least they
could have done was to help our own
people.”
He charged that “patrolmen actually
‘Ain’t Them Fun-Lovin’
Schoolboys a Riot?’
—Mauldin, Chicago Sun-Times.
Governor Says Efforts
Followed Oatli of Office
Gov. Ross Barnett in an Oct. 16
statement said his efforts to block Ne
gro James Meredith from enrolling
in the University of Mississippi were in
keeping with his oath of office.
The statement followed an asserted
misinterpretation of his position by his
attorneys in a Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals hearing. The court was con
sidering contempt action against Gov.
Barnett for going against its mandate
when attorneys discussed whether the
governor considered himself “purged”
of the contempt after Meredith had
been forcibly enrolled.
“I have never taken the position that
I have purged myself, nor have I
authorized anyone to take such a posi
tion on my behalf,” the governor said.
“My position is that I have upheld the
law and am not in contempt of any
court.”
Counsel for the governor said they
had not informed the court that the
chief executive considered himself
saw cars demolished and saw mobs
on the streets and did nothing about
it.”
Mayor Elliott said when bands of
marauders started hurling rocks and
gasoline bombs he then appealed to
FBI Agent Robert Cotton to call army
troops.
Would Do It Again
“If I had it to do over again, I would
do it the same way,” he said. “I was
trying to save my town and keep
people from being killed.”
The mayor said he had deputized
the city’s 30 firemen to augument the
seven-man police force, but the in
creased force “was no match for the
rioters.”
Mayor Elliott said that when he
appealed for army help there were “50
to 60 persons in town trying to burn
down Negro churches.”
“I had to act quickly,” he explained.
“1 have been praised by many people
in Oxford for what I did in calling for
the army. Some people did not under
stand at first, but now they do and
they are glad the troops came.”
★ ★ ★
Johnny Frazier of Greenville told a
statewide meeting of the Mississippi
branches of the NAACP in Jackson
Nov. 3 that he plans to seek enrollment
at the University of Southern Missis
sippi at Hattiesburg later this year. He
revealed he had unsuccessfully tried
to enter Millsaps Methodist College in
Jackson.
Frazier, 21-year-old sophomore and
student body president at Campbell
College in Jackson, said he had applied
to Millsaps three weeks before and lat
er received a letter of rejection. He
said college officials advised him he
could not be accepted “at this time be
cause of current racial tension over
army enforced enrollment of James
Mereidth at Ole Miss.”
Frazier, president of the NAACP’s
State Youth Council, said he wants to
major in religion and philosophy or so
cial science at the University of South
ern Mississippi. He spoke at a dinner
attended by Meredith.
Clyde Kennard of Hattiesburg unsuc
cessfully sought to enter the University
of Southern Mississippi several years
ago. He was arrested on a traffic charge
and later indicted in a chicken feed
theft case and sentenced to the state
penitentiary. He owns a chicken farm
near Hattiesburg.
purged since Meredith had enrolled.
They said their statement was that
the suit was against the college board
and since Meredith was enrolled, the
other features of the case (including
the contempt citation) are “auxiliary
and there is no longer a suit and noth
ing else for the court to consider.”
Text of Statement
The governor’s Oct. 16 statement
said:
“It is my position that my first obli
gation, as the governor of Mississippi,
is to my oath of office to uphold the
constitution and laws of Mississippi
and the constitution of the United
States, and to preserve law and order.
The people of Mississippi built its
University and other schools at great
sacrifice. These properties and their
control belong to the state and the
supreme court of the United States
has expressly so ruled in Waugh vs.
University of Mississippi, 237 U. S. 589.
“All of the actions that I have taken
were taken because of my duty to obey
my oath as governor and as long as I
am the governor of this state, all ac
tions that I will take in the future will
be in obedience to this oath.
“I conscientiously believe that it is
my duty, as governor, deliberately,
solemnly, fully and free from the con
trol or interference of anyone, to ex
ercise, according to my own judgment
and my own discretion, the duties the
people have entrusted to me as their
governor. I would not be faithful to
my oath of office should I surrender
to any federal or other courts the right
to exercise those discretionary powers
the law has placed in me. To maintain
law and order, to prevent a breach of
the peace, violence or bloodshed, my
discretion must remain free. I shall
ever and eternally stand for the exer
cise of my own discretion in my own
right and shall repudiate the right
of anyone to take that discretion away
from me and exercise it in my behalf.
Separate Functions
“The constitutions of the United
States and the state of Mississippi
provided for the separation of the
judicial, executive and legislative
functions. The people have never given
any right to any one of these depart
ments to act for the other.
“If any act that I have done as gov
ernor or any act that I shall do as
governor in the future causes any
person to believe that I have violated
his rights, the courts are open to chal
lenge my action in a proper court
proceedings. Mississippi has not yet
had her day in court.
“My position is based upon the con
stitution of the United States and the
constitution and laws of Mississippi.
My every decision in this matter has
(See ‘OLE MISS,’ Page 18)
‘Ah Jes Hope His Name
Ain’t Jim!’
—tStockett, Baltimore Afro-American.
Question Remains: Did the State
Order Patrolmen Off the Scene?