Education: Integration & Defiance

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But odds are that the courts will compel at least one of the four cities to integrate. What happens then depends on whether Governor Almond shuts the schools on receipt of a "final and unappealable" federal court order, or waits until a Negro child tries to enter a school. There are rednecked minorities in each city, and the effectiveness of Little Rock mobs may encourage them.

Last week, as the integration fuse sputtered toward September, Washington offered no leadership. President Eisenhower's lame contribution: "Mere law will never solve this problem . . . If I could think of anything that I thought would be effective in August or in the few weeks before, the two or three weeks before, the schools start, why, I certainly shouldn't hesitate to do it."