Fellow-Travelers

The long line of presidential candidates bestraddling the Civil Rights fence has a new addition: General Eisenhower. At his Thursday press conference, the General mounted up one side when he insisted upon his "unalterable support of fairness and equality among all types of American citizens," and then cast his leg over the other side by asserting that the states, and not the federal government, should try to guarantee measures like fair employment practices.

Senator Taft, Senator Kefauver, and Senator Kerr are others who believe that racial equality is a wonderful thing but are not serious enough to do anything about it. They dissolve all hopes for equalizing the civil rights of Negroes in the crucible of States Rights. For as long as the United States has had a history, the motto "states rights" has been the dodge for politicians who were afraid to tell the electorate to forget the issue altogether. Fair employment practices is an example. Thirty-seven states have no compulsory FEPC laws. All the southern states, in which equality is practiced least, are in this group. It is most difficult to see how the unofficial White House proddings of General Eisenhower or anyone else will make them enforce fair employment practices.

Many Southern politicians make no pretensions about racial equality. They don't want it, and are not afraid to say so. Others who don't want equality, but are afraid to say so, are perched on the same fence of states' rights as the General, et al. If the presidential candidates would look around at the Southerners they would realize how hypocritical their desire for equality but unwillingness to enforce it really is. They would sense the obvious fact that they are in the position of fellow travelers to the Bourbons and the bigots.