Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.
President Eisenhower (Courtesy: Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock”
(September 24, 1957)
In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition and, under the law, I yesterday issued a Proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse.
This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again. preventing the carrying out of the Court’s order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school….
They thus demonstrated to the world that we are a nation in which laws, not men, are supreme.
I regret to say that this truth–the cornerstone of our liberties-was not observed in this instance…
The interest of the nation in the proper fulfillment of the law’s requirements cannot yield to opposition and demonstrations by some few persons.
Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.
Source and Complete Text: “Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock.,” September 24, 1957. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
Learn more about the Little Rock Crisis at the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. Read more in Don’t Know Much About® History and Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents.
Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition (Harper Perennial and Random House Audio)
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion Paperback-April 15, 2014)
