The famous dictum says that "power corrupts." On this 50th-anniversary of school desegregation in Little Rock, Tom Parsons points out that one man's desire for continued political power contributed to the stain of racism that has afflicted the United States.

Parsons writes that Faubus seemed to be "an unlikely fomenter of racial hatred," but that he took on the role to better position himself against a political opponent who gave him a scare in the primary election the year before.

Certainly, racist attitudes have been around a long time, and continue in some measure today. So has government. It is a perversion of the highest value that government can have, though, when desire for continued power brings about such results.