The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that segregated seating of the races on Montgomery, Ala., city buses must end because it is unconstitutional discrimination.

We doubt that we ever will agree that the Supreme Court of the United State was within its scope of judicial operations when it stepped so far into the internal affairs of a state and one of its cities to regulate their customs and ordinances, but the Supreme Court has usurped that authority and apparently is getting away with it.

Segregated seating on the buses in Montgomery has ended, and – we are gratified to hear – without the violence and discord many of us had feared.

Now, certain leaders of the Tallahassee Negroes, following the pattern of the Montgomery developments, have advised their people to bard the buses and sit where they please – preferably nearer the front than the back.

They have put the next move up to the City Commission and City law enforcement officers.

The Supreme Court's decision in the Montgomery case does not automatically apply to Tallahassee. The City can rely on its own segregation ordinances and fight the case through a long and expensive series of court appeals.

The day can be stalled but when it gets to the Supreme Court, our buses will be desegregated just as Montgomery's have been.

Unfortunately, while the case runs through the courts, there will be agitation, notoriety and more ill-feeling.

Already a leader of the Negro boycott has announced his candidacy for the City Commission. He will be using the issue to exhort and excite his people, further dividing our citizenry along racial lines.

In this situation, the question of keeping peace and order is of most immediate importance.

We don't know how many Negroes really will go all out to defy the old customs, nor how many white people will insist on maintaining the customs at all costs We have an idea that most of the Negroes who are agitating the matter aren't regular bus riders – and neither are most of the white people who talk loudest about "keeping them in their place."

The Negro leaders have appealed to their people to bend over backwards to avoid violence. We believe our white citizenry, almost to a man, has the same desire.

Seeing that such violence does not occur, that the hotheads of neither race shall not take over this situation, should be the first obligation of our police today.

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