<--PREV Doc #839  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #841 Document #840; September 3, 1958 To Ralph Emerson McGill Series: EM, WHCF, Official File 142-A-5 ; Category: Personal The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIX - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part V: Forcing the President's Hand; June 1958 to October 1958 Chapter 13: Quemoy and Matsu   Dear Ralph: Your letter of the twenty-first did not reach the White House until just before we left for Newport, and this is the first opportunity I have had to acknowledge it.1 Previously, however, Charlie Yates sent me the column entitled "The President as Professor."2 Far from being off the mark, it demonstrated once again your understanding of my convictions. The entire situation distresses me profoundly, as I know it does you and all other leaders of American thought.3 There doesn’t seem to be any solution in sight--for the simple reason that not even the principles of political and economic equality will be accepted in some of our states. Any start, any degree of progress toward practicing this kind of equality, even though many years might be required to reach fruition, would, in my opinion, reverse this situation. Lacking such a start, I rather agree with you that there will be a decline in the influence that the deep South has traditionally exercised.4 All of us, collectively, seem to lack the wisdom we should have to deal adequately with the entire problem.5 With warm regard, Sincerely 1 Atlanta newspaper editor McGill had written in response to the comments on segregation that Eisenhower had made at his August 20 news conference (same file as the document). On August 18, 1958, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals had refused to postpone the desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School, and its decision had been appealed to the Supreme Court. Refusing to comment on the case itself, Eisenhower had emphasized "the solemn duty that all Americans have to comply with the final orders of the court." It was, he said, the responsibility of each state to ensure compliance with court orders and to ensure the suppression of unlawful forces: "The very basis of our individual rights and freedoms rests upon the certainty that the President and the Executive Branch of Government will support and insure the carrying out of the decisions of the Federal Courts" (see Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1958, pp. 621, 631 - 32). For background see no. 833; on the President's Newport vacation see no. 825. 2 McGill had enclosed his front-page editorial from the August 22 Atlanta Constitution, in which he reviewed Eisenhower's position on the courts and civil rights decisions. Eisenhower felt, McGill wrote, "that some of those who have been most defiant of the court have obscured the issue and made many people believe that the President may, by his own decision, take some other course. Some, apparently, have been caused to believe the President himself is trying to force something upon them." Eisenhower's statement was intended to "remind the people of their government and its functions." Charles R. Yates of Atlanta, an executive with Joshua L. Baily & Company, was a golfing companion of the President (see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, no. 852). 3 On Eisenhower's stance on civil rights see, for example, no. 726. 4McGill had written that he had received reports that Southern opposition in the Senate to the Civil Rights Bill had led to a decline of Southern influence in the current session of Congress, and was likely to lead to further decreases in the future. McGill said that he was saddened to "think that the deep South blinds itself, not merely to what is happening in the rest of the South but to the great historical forces which are at work." 5 For developments see no. 879. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal To Ralph Emerson McGill, 3 September 1958. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 840. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/840.cfm <--PREV Doc #839  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #841

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