Return Visit

At 7:15 a.m. yesterday morning Governor Ross R. Barnett left Boston for the Mississippi he praised so highly before the Law School Forum. Boston, Cambridge, and Harvard did well by him while he was here. Boston and Cambridge police protected him, and the Harvard police surrounding Memorial Hall prevented the thousand ticket holders who were refused admission from suffering any greater harm than disappointment.

Governor Barnett's party included several Southern newsmen, who received every courtesy shown the Governor and his family. They were invited to dinner at the Faculty Club, shared his excellent Boston accommodations, and enjoyed complete freedom of movement.

In public, the Governor was allowed to express himself unhampered, on the dangers he sees facing state sovereignty. In private, at the Faculty Club reception, for Forum members following his address, his assertions of racial differences were respectfully received, if not accepted.

Governor Barnett invited his audience to visit Mississippi. Whether the representatives and people of Mississippi would receive with equal hospitality someone as repugnant in thought and act to them as was Governor Barnett to many of his hosts here--someone as willful in defending human equality as Governor Barnett in attacking it--is a question to wonder about. From the loss of life in September in Oxford, and the retrograde arrogance of Governor Barnett's praise of Negro humility, one suspects the answer to the question is "No." But Mississippi will have a chance to answer the question again, and again, and again. This visit should show Governor Barnett how it could be answered "Yes."