Full Text of the Excerpt

WALTER DE VRIES:

But didn't you actually campaign on an anti-busing platform in part?

ORVAL FAUBUS:

No, it had never come up when I was governor before.

JACK BASS:

No, I say in 1970.

ORVAL FAUBUS:

Oh yeah. I'm opposed to it now. I think it's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard in my life. Three quarters of a million dollars of unnecessary expense in Little Rock, which could go to increased teachers' salaries, buy training aids for children, have better school facilities, or whatever.

JACK BASS:

But you wouldn't have desegregated schools.

ORVAL FAUBUS:

Well, the basis of the first suit in Little Rock was that they lived in this region, therefore they should be permitted to go to this school in this region. Neighborhood school complex. That was the basis of the suit that brought about this crisis. So now it's completely reversed.

JACK BASS:

— the Supreme Court decision since that time, which have made changes in the interpretation of what the 14th Amendment requires and I think the Alexander case [unclear] unknown achieve the greatest degree of desegregation.

ORVAL FAUBUS:

I think all that's beyond the Constitution and beyond the intent of Congress even, at the time. But then if the president doesn't sort of halt the courts. . . . If the chief executive, whoever he is, of whatever party, if he continues to carry out any order of a federal court, no matter how illegal, then they have complete authority. They can rule. If you set up a judicial dictatorship. And it's not just in this field. In the field of, say, law and order, their interpretations of say legal rights, individual rights of criminals.

JACK BASS:

You said that. . . . Is there a way in which a Supreme Court decision can be illegal?

ORVAL FAUBUS:

Sure, any time it goes beyond the Constitution or the law of Congress, it's illegal.