Kennedy Appeals To Students

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29942, 2 October 1962, Page 15

Kennedy Appeals To Students

(N Z.P.A .-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, October 1. President Kennedy made a solemn and direct appeal last night to the students of the University of Mississippi, over the head of the rebellious Governor. Mr Ross Barnett, to rally behind the admission of a negro, Mr James Meredith.

The President, speaking to i the nation from his office at the White House, concluded with a plea to the students - “to show that you are men i of patriotism and integrity.” He told them that the most ; effective means of upholding ; the law was not -the State policemen or the marshals, , or the National Guard which ■ had assembled around the • campus at Oxford. Missisi sippl

"It is you,*’ the President told the students. “It lies in your courage to accept those laws with which you disagree as well as those with which you agree. “The eyes of the nation and of the world are upon you and upon all of us, and the honour of your university and the State are in the balance. I am certain the great majority of the students will uphold that honour.” The President's address, postponed for two hours and a half from the scheduled time of 7.30 pun., came at the end of a day of intense behind-the-scenes activity in Washington as the Federal Government sought to break down Governor Barnett’s resistance to enrolment of Mr Meredith.

The President appeared to be making every effort to avert a showdown by force. He pointedly praised the part played by the Smith in the development of good race relations, named the Southern States where universities had allowed racial integration, paid specific tribute to the military honours won by men from Mississippi and its National Guard unit, and the student tradition of “honour and courage

on the field of battle and on the gridiron (football field), as well as on the university campus.

“There is no reason why the books on this case cannot now be quickly and quietly closed in the manner directed by the Courts.” the President said. “Let us preserve both the law and the peace, and then, healing those wounds that are within, we can turn to the greater crises that are without and stand united as one people in our pledge to man’s freedom,” he said.