Answer to Byrnes

Governor James F. Byrnes's threat to abandon the public school system in South Carolina rather than give up segregation (TIME, March 26) got a sharp answer last week from the only Negro Nobel Prizewinner. Said Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, professor of government at Harvard (on leave) and onetime U.N. mediator in Palestine:

"Southern anti-Negro bitter-enders . . . persist, of course, but ... it is shocking surely now, to find James F. Byrnes joining in the forefront of them along with Herman Talmadge. I say shocking, not because it is Byrnes, Governor of South Carolina, but Byrnes, former Supreme Court Justice and Secretary of State . ..

"Who, indeed, could be in better position than Byrnes to know how costly are such undemocratic declarations and practices to our foreign relations, to our international reputation for democracy?

Such actions and policies are taken by many throughout the world ... as typical of the American way of life. In a very true sense, Byrnes and South Carolina, whether we like it or not, speak to the world for you and me."

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