Law Student States Moderation Needed for Integration Problem

Southern moderates "must organize and assert their views if we are to continue a nation under laws," Herbert H. Browne, Jr. 3L said last night. Browne's plea for a moderate approach to the integration problem came at a meeting of the Dunster House Forum.

Browne, himself a Southerner, stated that "there is a much larger feeling of compliance with the law" in the South than many people realize. However, he pointed out that those holding moderate views are subjected to "economic, social, and physical" pressures. This situation, he said, "calls for courage to assert that compliance with the laws must be upheld."

Browne gave several reasons behind the resistance of many Southern whites. He said that one of these, the fear of intermarriage, stems from the "club-like attitude" of the pre-Civil War South, "where ideas of race supremacy grew up."

Another cause of resistance, according to Browne, is the fact that many members of the lower economic classes in the South "fear the loss of something to look down on."

Browne also stated that some white people feel that the Negro is basically inferior. This is a case of mistaking lack of education for lack of intelligence," he commented.

Discussing the Little Rock dispute, Browne said President Eisenhower's position that Governor Faubus was a cause of the violence "has some merit." The Arkansas trouble, he added, was a case in which "renegade elements came in and caused the trouble with little resistance from the moderates."

Nevertheless, he stated, there have been cases of peaceful integration. These incidents, he said, show that "the plan of gradual integration county by county should be given full consideration."

"I would hate to see it rushed with consequences far greater than Little Rock," he concluded.