Race and reason

Chapter IV: +Conclusion+ 114

+Index+ 119

+Chapter I+

A FRAME OF MIND

When the Supreme Court reached its desegregation decision in 1954, not all of us stopped to think about its implications. There were many, of course, who were joyful. The Negro population and those white minority organizations which had played so large a part in pressing the case were elated. So were those good people who dream in general terms of pleasing everybody without counting the cost. But the majority of Americans, at least in the North, were preoccupied with other matters. They were surprised, perhaps a little startled, but quite willing to leave such a subject to the courts.

I confess that I was in the latter category. In those days, I was board chairman of a major airline, and such spare time as I had was occupied in beginning a four volume biography of Theodore Roosevelt. On the one hand, I was involved in a life of action; on the other, I was committed to the life of the mind, steeped in the moods of the nineteenth century, far removed from either action or the social trends of the mid-twentieth century. I cannot blame myself for not realizing immediately the meaning of the desegregation cases. Had I been resident in the South, it might have struck me sooner. But I was living in the national capital.