"President Eisenhower did nothing in this period to abolish the impression many had that he was supporting the South. He never made a public statement of support for the Brown decision. (Earl Warren later wrote: 'I still believe that much of our racial strife could have been avoided if President Eisenhower had at least observed that our country is dedicated to the principle that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."') He avoided commenting favorably about proposed legislation that would prohibit segregation in interstate transportation: 'I am not sure. I would have to consult the Attorney General...' He stressed his hope that the matter would be solved within the state, without federal goverment interference; and he expressed doubts about the usefulness of laws to 'change men's hearts.' The president stressed the need to rely on education to achieve change rather than on the force of law, but he refused to use the prestige of his office for that purpose. Instead, he issued what could easily be understood as an apology for Southern intransigence by reminding the country that 'the people who have this deep emotional reaction... were not acting over these past three generations in defiance of the law. They were acting in compliance with the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States under the decision of 1896.'
As the resistance movement grew, Eisenhower tried to ignore it. Indicating that he chose to stay out of the controversy, the president proclaimed that he 'would not make any assumption that the judicial branch of the Government is incapable of implementing the Supreme Court's decision'--meaning specifically that he did not wish to send in government troops. And if the FBI was sent in to investigate some of the more spectacular occurrences, as Ann Moody had said, 'the investigation was dropped as soon public interest died down.' This state of affairs led one analyst to declare that 'there can be little doubt that some of the South's political leaders took the President's continued neutrality to mean he was secretly on their side.' (Earl Warren later confided that before the Brown decision he had been invited to a White House dinner at which the president went out of his way to praise the South's counsel to the chief justice. 'The President... took me by the arm and as we walked along, speaking of the Southern states in the segregation cases, he said, "These are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes..." Shortly thereafter the Brown case was decided, and with it went our cordial relations."' Pages 105, 106, Class, race, and the Civil Rights Movement, by Jack M. Bloom