The States: The Edge of Violence

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Outnumbered 20 to 1. The confrontation at the door of Room 1007 was the second face-to-face encounter between Barnett and Meredith. A few days earlier, Barnett had blocked Meredith's path when he attempted to register at the University of Mississippi campus at Oxford (TIME, Sept. 28). In the interval between the two confrontations, impor tant events took place in the New Orleans courtroom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Faced with contempt charges, the state college board capitulated and promised to register Meredith. To keep Barnett from interfering again, the court issued a sweeping order enjoining him, plus a list of lesser state officials, from arresting, prosecuting, injuring, harassing, threatening, obstructing or interfering with Meredith.

The day after the second Barnett-Meredith encounter, another episode was enacted at Oxford. Once again, Meredith, accompanied by McShane and Doar, attempted to register. Barnett had planned to be there, but his plane was grounded by bad weather; he raced to the scene by car but did not arrive until after Mere dith had departed. In Barnett's absence, the man blocking the way was Lieut. Governor Paul B. Johnson. He stood in the middle of the roadway at the main entrance of the campus, with about 20 state highway patrolmen backing him up. About 100 ft. behind, a dozen sheriffs from various Mississippi counties stood in a single rank across the roadway. Behind them, forming a third line of defense, three police cars were parked end to end athwart the road.

"Governor," McShane began, "we want to take Mr. Meredith into the university under the direction of the Federal Government and have him registered."

"I am going to have to refuse Mr. Meredith," Johnson said softly.

As before, McShane and Doar tried pleading, urging, arguing, demanding and waving court orders—all in vain.* Now McShane tried using his muscles. Several times he pushed a meaty shoulder against highway patrolmen, trying to force his way past. Ruddy-faced Marshal McShane, 53, is a formidable man. He won the Golden Gloves welterweight championship of New York City back in 1930, and he has since added many pounds of solid flesh. He is also a brave man who won several citations for heroism during his years as a New York cop. But he was outnumbered 20 to 1 by the troopers, some of them pretty husky too, and his scufflings with them were utterly futile, merely adding a dash of absurdity to the proceedings.

Beyond Satire. Absurdity kept cropping out all during the prolonged wrangle between unbending Governor Barnett and the U.S. Government, as if the participants were following a script by that Mississippian master of grim comedy, William Faulkner, who until his death last July was Oxford's most famous resident. After turning Meredith away at Jackson, Barnett got stalled in the elevator for ten minutes while the crowd out side the building yelled "We want Ross!" A gifted satirist could hardly have invented the dialogue between Barnett and Doar. And there was something sadly comic about James Meredith's desire to enroll at the University of Mississippi.