The Press: The Hot Middle

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As the liberal editor of the Greenville (Miss.) Delta Democrat-Times, Hodding Carter has elected to stand in the middle ground of the hottest journalistic issue (TIME, Jan. 17) in the South: desegregation of the public schools. But Editor Carter is finding the middle ground an even hotter place to stand than the extremes. Last week in an editorial, Carter blasted visiting Michigan Democratic Congressman Charles C. Diggs, who told an all-Negro audience that "the hour in Mississippi is two minutes to midnight" for complete desegregation of the schools. Wrote Carter: "This is precisely the kind of inflammatory approach to interracial adjustments that this newspaper has been opposing for years. Whatever the source, it is virtually an invitation to battle."

In Memphis, Carter was in a battle with the other extreme. Appearing before the Memphis Public Affairs Forum, he denounced the pro-segregationist Citizen's Councils (TIME, Dec. 20) as "dangerous and unholy [organizations] unworthy to be called American ... a kind of uptown Ku Klux Klan." In the middle of his speech, Carter was interrupted by the wailing of sirens and the arrival at the auditorium of fire engines, police squad cars, a Navy shore-patrol wagon and two ambulances, all summoned by false alarms to break up the meeting. Cracked Carter: "The only thing missing was the Coast Guard." But back in Greenville his opposition to the extremist Citizen's Councils produced more serious results. The state government, which had drawn up a contract for a $25,000 job-printing order with his paper, summarily withdrew it. "It is apparent," said Carter, "that the contract was withdrawn because of political differences."