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JOHN WEATHERLY We have had a very eventful past few days set off by Judge W. A. Bootle’s order that Miss Hunter and Mr. Holmes be allowed to enter the University of Georgia. After allowing a stay which is denied by Judge Tuttle and the U. S. Supreme Court, we are relieved to learn that Gov. Vandiver is aware of the subserviency of state power to federal power. We are heartened to learn that he chooses not to be “a party to de fiance of federal law” and thus refrains from throwing the area effected into chaos through a path of resistance and defiance trod by Gov. Faubus and Gov. Davin. These things that he could have done, he did not do, and for that we may be grateful. After a state of the state message marked by little con tent concerning the specifics of the problem, but coming out favorably for children, he moves to which he urges the legislature to eliminate since cut off funds to Georgia under a ‘66 statute current developments turned it “from a source of hope to an albatross.” But Judge Bootle saved him from having to strike out their law by or dering Vandiver to keep the university open. He didn’t like to be told what to do. But he had called school closure “the saddest duty” of his life. At most of the crisis, Georgia students were friendly toward the pair, but a riot caused their temporary suspension Thursday morning. Meanwhile, back at Mercer an effigy of Judge Bootle, a former dean of our law school, is found dangling from the arch at the entrance of Tattnal Square Park. President Harris comments that “I would seriously doubt that any Mercer student would do it.” At Georgia students conduct themselves on the whole with the degree of order hoped and asked for by their university, their stu dent leaders, and the Governor himself. Such are the stream of events. The air is a clearer now. The state is “off the hook” and to enact local option and pupil placements such as they have in North Carolina would provide for the barest minimum of tion. The state can stop meeting the fervor of the Negroes reflected in Holmes statement that he and Miss Hunt “should conduct ourselves so we do credit to race and change the steretype of the N with sheer emotion. And in doing so she will ably learn that a lack of “massive resistance” not met with “massive attendance” on the part Negroes. It has been true for North for, some time now. And as the dust settles we find Mercer, Emo, Agnes Scott, and other Southern church-rela schools in an interesting position. As privat schools we cannot be touched by court order, der the present interpretation of the U. S. Cons tation. So what is to be our future? As schools give way to desegregation either court order or the shifting tide of opinion, may remain as the last “strongholds of tion,” static, unwilling to back local custom, may do so as Southern private schools. But are also caught in the stream of Christian tion. And this tradition calls into serious the exclusion of qualified Negro students pure on the basis of race and local custom. This probably make a difference in the long run.S dents at Duke are working actively to desegregat their school. Georgetown College in Kentuck desegregated through the actions of its pre dent and trustees in the early fiftys. But hi long will it take and under what circumsten. The question has been put this way, “Can we by grace what Georgia is doing by law?
Newspaper Details
Macon Mercer Cluster
Macon, Georgia, US
Fri, Jan 13, 1961
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Alice H.
USA 04 Jun 2026
Other Publications Near Macon, Georgia
Macon Georgia Weekly Telegraph and Georgia Journal and Messenger
Macon Georgia Weekly Telegraph
Macon Georgia Telegraph and Republic
Macon Georgia Telegraph
Macon Daily Telegraph and Messenger
