Quiet Day at Little Rock

With other self-conscious youngsters whose names begin with G, 16-year-old Ernest Green, Negro, filed across the speakers' platform set up last week in the stadium of Little Rock's Central High School, got a handshake and a diploma from Principal Jess W. Matthews. Watching intently were Ernest's mother and brother, his classmates, part of a detail of 200 federalized National Guardsmen and 137 cops. Two days before, as Central High seniors marched away from their baccalaureate service, a white youth was arrested for spitting in the face of a Negro girl. But from the white parents gathered for the graduation of their children, there was only the usual low rustle of voices as Green, the only senior among the nine Negroes who entered Central High last September, got his diploma. Prospect for Scholar Green: four years of study at Michigan State under a full-tuition scholarship, leading to work in law.

Day after commencement, a National Guard captain and two G.I.s--the last Guardsmen left at Central High--got in a jeep and drove off to be de-federalized.

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