Can Moderation Succeed in the South? - Page 11

Speech reflecting on recent Congressional election defeat-11- moderate label. While Governor Faubus has said that public education must be sacrificed if necessary to preserve segregation, the moderate view is that we must save our public schools. Our public school system must be preserved because without it, the freedom that flowers from an educated citizenry would perish. James Madison put it succinctly: “Without popular education, popular government will be a farce or a tragedy, perhaps both.” The reaction of fair-minded people in the South to the recalcitrance of Alabama election officials is another omen that bears attention. A basic constitutional guarantee is that no one should be denied the right to vote because of race, creed or color, and certainly Negro citizens who meet the qualifications for electors should be enfranchised. The entire membership of the Civil Rights Commission, a distinguished body of three Northerners and three Southerners, was shocked at the unrebutted testimony that there were counties in Alabama where no Negro voted and those who tried were always unsuccessful . We know that there can be no government of and for the people without government by the people. Minority rights should not be lost sight of in the recognition of the principles of the majority rule, and the South’s case for free debate in the Senate rests on the same logic. No Southerner can support the position that rule 22 must be upheld or only slightly modified, and then defend white majority control of the election machiner