The Negro Inter Civil Council has announced abandonment of the car pool organization which led to a municipal court decision that it was operating an illegal transportation system without a franchise.

We're glad it has. A genuine issue of law is on its way through the courts. The Council got sound advice from its lawyer, who told members the City court's ruling is "The law until it is overturned."

But the Negro organization has not called off its boycott of the City buses. The head of the Council says "we are still walking" in protest to segregated seating. That's their privilege.

And if any citizen, of any race, is driving down the street in his own car and sees another walking he's free to pick him up as a neighborly act. The court ruling doesn't stop that, as long as it is not part of an organized unfranchised transportation system. The police must not harass drivers who pick up walkers in that spirit, and we don't believe they will.

No one is trying to make anyone else ride a bus. If he objects to them for any reason – hardness of seats, location of seats, odor of exhaust or shape of the windshield – he has a perfect right to stay off them.

Now the campaign for car pool operating funds is over. City officials are no longer under pressure to protect their franchise operators from unfair competition, and the legal issue is beginning to move through the courts.

We hope the agitation, the tension, the ill-feeling and the mistrust will begin to dissolve and that we will pick up where we left off nearly five months ago in the efforts of reasonable people of both races to solve the more serious problems before us in a spirit of cooperation and goodwill.

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