There doesn't seem to be anything in the Tallahassee bus incident to cause excitement — IF all parties concerned will keep cool heads and do a little thinking and reasonable talking before they act further.

Like so many incident which during intemperate times flare into major conflicts, this one appears to have been a mater of little things and misunderstandings at the beginning.

The two Florida A. and M. women students may have been impelled by a misunderstanding of what the United States Supreme Court ruled was their right in intrastate bus seating. They could hardly be blamed. The Supreme Court was so vague in its decision that even experienced judicial news reporters were fooled into first writing that it had ruled segregation in intrastate buses was unconstitutional. It wasn't until days later that lawyers discovered the ruling wasn't that broad at all.

If, as the two students claim, they asked for their fares back rather than have to stand in a bus where there were vacant seats, it would seem that the bus company and the community could have been spared an embarrassing and volatile incident if their dimes had been refunded.

The burning of the cross in front of the students' home was something that would inflame the fears of members of their race, but it was such a crude little things that it could have been no more than a prank or a one-man demonstration of no significance.

The A. and M. Student body, from all accounts, has refrained from any attempt at violent demonstration. Indeed, the students' actions have been more orderly than we might have expected from almost any campus at the end of the term.

The most disturbing element in the picture is the statement of the president of the Tallahassee chapter of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People that the boycott will be carried beyond the campus.

The NAACP probably as a result of the tone of the governorship campaign recently has undertaken a drive for new members here.

If that organization, or any other, seizes upon this incident and agitates it for the purpose of enlisting members or soliciting funds we may be in for a rough time.

We hope the level heads among both races will prevail.

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