Atlanta Daily World

Preview Of A Pattern

(From The Christian Science Monitor)

The Montgomery (Alabama) City Lines, Inc., grievously hurt financially by the boycott of its busses by Montgomery Negroes, canceled its segregation ruling on hearing of the Supreme Court's decision. The City of Montgomery declares it will continue to enforce local laws and ordinances requiring segregation on public conveyances.

The officials point out the decision was handed down on a South Carolina, not an Alabama, case and that technically it did not deal with segregation at all. Montgomery Negroes, realizing they are caught in the middle, have voted to continue their boycott of the bus lines.

Legal opinion agrees the Supreme Court's decision of outlawing segregation on intra- as well as inter-state transportation.

But it is true that technically the court's ruling dealt with whether in enforcing South Carolina's segregation laws the Columbia bus drivers were acting as employees of the company or as special police officers of the state. And Montgomery Negroes would be working against their own cause if they complied with local laws, and would be arrested if they didn't.

This may all seem quite frustrating to many on both sides of the segregation controversy. But it supports informed predictions that adjustment to desegregation ruling will have to be worked out state by state and community by community. It supports deductions that the high court, in ruling on the narrowest grounds possible, is giving latitude for adjustments to be made in just this fashion.

And one can hardly avoid noting such a process nevertheless may be affording the two races time to hammer out the multiplicity of new accommodations necessary for them to live side by side in harmony.