934 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

This willingness to tolerate individual irresponsibility under any
circumstances other than insanity, can crumble the walls of a con-
stitutional democracy. For democracy is sustained through one great
premise: the premise that civil rights are balanced by civil responsi-
bilities. My right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is
secure only so long as I respect your right to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. I can claim no right as a human or a citizen
that you cannot claim under the law.

In excusing individual responsibility we condone lawlessness and
encourage cynical leaders to exploit the madness of the mob. We
tacitly endorse such inflammatory statements as Rap Brown's "Vio-
lence is as American as cherry pie. " Remarks like this, widely and
cheerfully disseminated by the media, have created an aura of belief
that rioting is the inalienable right of the ghetto resident.

If one wants to pinpoint the cause of riots, it would be this per-
missive climate and the misguided compassion of public opinion. It
is not the centuries of racism and deprivation that have built to an
explosive crescendo but the fact that lawbreaking has become a
socially acceptable and occasionally stylish form of dissent.

Just how stylish rioting has become is reflected in a further report
from the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, released
just three days ago. This report indicates that about 18% — instead
of the commonly believed 1 or 2% — of Negro residents in major
1967 riot areas participated in the disorders. It shows that the rioters
were not outside agitators and "riffraff" but were representative of
the young, adult, Negro males in the urban ghetto. They were not
newly arrived immigrants from the rural South, they were not un-
employed, and they were not predominantly young teenagers. Most
shockingly, the report shows that the overwhelming majority of
Negroes do not unequivocally oppose riots. They are ambivalent
and deplore the violence in riots, but a majority feel that the riots
will have a beneficial consequence for improving the Negroes' soda!
and economic conditions.

Ironically, it was the orderly demonstration of civil disobedience,
praised and participated in by our nation's civic, spiritual and in-
tellectual leaders that gave impetus to civil disorder.

As Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote in 1966, "Once you
give a nervous, hostile and ill-informed people a theoretical justifica-
tion for using violence in certain cases, it's like a tiny hole in the
dike; the rationales rush through in a torrent, and violence becomes