The Cavalier daily. :: Friday, September 27, 1968 :: University of Virginia Library

Whatever Is Necessary

Wallace Supports Force To Suppress Violence

George C. Wallace advocates use of force by the police to
produce a "fear of the constabulary" in the country sufficient to
suppress protests and militancy among Negroes and on the left.

"Fear of the constabulary is the only thing left now to try to
curtail anarchy in the country," Wallace asserts. He would "let
the police stop it like they know how to stop it."

The former governor of Alabama, now a third party
candidate for president in all 50 states, contends that his
advocacy of the toughest police policy - of "whatever
suppression is necessary" - is holding back an explosion of
resentment and punitive violence against protest demonstrations
by the political right.

Wallace gave his views during an 80-minute interview with
editors and reporters of the New York Times. The interview was
held in Dallas on Tuesday, Sept. 17.

Publication of the interview was delayed until Wallace had
studied the transcript and made some minor editorial
corrections.

Unless "anarchy and violence" can be "contained and
controlled" by police force, Wallace declared, "you are going to
have a movement that's not going to be on the left - it's going
to be on the other side - that's going to stop it all."

In the interview, Wallace also set forth the changes he would
seek in government, if he is elected, and his method of
accomplishing them.

He said that:

(1) He would advocate an amendment to the Constitution
vesting "absolute control" of public schools in state and local
governments and in local school boards. He made clear that it
would be for the purpose of allowing local option on decisions
affecting racial segregation in the classroom, the system he call
"best" for Alabama and, by implication, for the nation.

(2) He believes that former President Dwight Eisenhower
appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1953 "to write this
[school desegregation] decision, and as a result they [the
Republicans] got more of the colored vote."

(3) He believes that states should have the right to outlaw
closed-shop practices by labor unions, as they now do under
Section 14(B) of the Taft-Hartly Act, but also that state
legislatures should not exercise the right by adopting so-called
right-to-work laws, which he said he opposed.

(4) He believes that public employees - policemen, firemen,
sanitation workers and teachers - should not have the right to
strike. But that they should be allowed to organize unions for
collective bargaining.

Both Wallace's emphasis - gauged by both the force and the
length of his remarks on a number of subjects - was heavily on
the problem of disorder and violence in the nation.

He asserted that "we have tried everything else" except
stronger police methods in an effort to meet the rising unrest in
the country.

"You have passed every civil right bill known to man to
placate the anarchist," he declared. "And the more bills you pass
and laws and judgments they render, the more we get into the
streets."

Wallace said that "one of these days this group [of
demonstrators], unless we stop their activities, somebody is
going to be in danger themselves."

"And that's the fear," he continued. "That's one reason I am
running, is that I want to change things in this country within
the constitutional contest, as the ballot box."

Wallace does not raise the explanation of his campaign at his
rallies. There his emphasis is entirely on his advocacy of greater
police force.

In the interview, Wallace said the Alabama highway
patrolmen and Dallas County sheriff's deputies at Selma, Ala.,
involved in the 1965 civil rights demonstration "ought to be
commended for not having lost their restraint and shot about
500 of them."

"But is the only solution to this beating them on the head?"
he was asked.

"We have tried every other solution," he replied.

"I haven't seen a police force yet that I didn't think was
great," he said. He explained that when he said in speeches that
"the police ought to run the country for about two years and
you could straighten it out," he did not mean to "turn the
government over to the police."

He said that Alabama businessmen who were supporting him
had collected money to reimburse three Denver patrolmen who
were punished by the loss of five days off for wearing Wallace
campaign buttons while on duty.

Such evidence of partisan political activity while in uniform
is prohibited by the regulations of most police departments. But
any policeman in the country who is suspended or loses pay for
wearing his campaign buttons, Wallace declared, will be
reimbursed by his Alabama friends," "We will pay them," he
said.

On foreign policy, Wallace said he would not favor a
declaration of war in Vietnam, where he has promised to bring
about a "military victory" if the current Paris talks fail. He
rejected the idea that it might take large additional numbers of
troops - nearly 500,000 or one million - to win. And he
unqualifiedly rejected any use of nuclear weapons.

He said he would favor delaying Senate ratification of the
nuclear nonproliferation treaty, as does Richard Nixon, the
Republican nominee. Wallace said the Communists would
"proliferate if they want to and non-proliferate if they don't want
to proliferate." Accordingly, he said, such a treaty might be
worthless.

Wallace indicated he was unsure of his plans for the national
economy. He would reduce taxes for "the little man" and
combat inflation by ending "over spending" by the government.
He believes there should be a statutory limit on income tax rates.