Washington and the nation

...Washington and the nation The Winfred Lynn Case By Clifford Forster ^ POTENTIALLY political "hot potato" will shortly be brought before the United States Supreme Court...

...He found it difficult "to think of more apt language to express the congressional intent...

...If s favorable result is reached a .further case testing the practice of segregated training units will then hare to be brought, before the larger problems of military discrimination against the Negro will have been solved...

...It is to be hoped that although there are technical difficulties in the record which the majority noted as to whether or not Lynn was aggrieved by the discrimination, the Supreme Court will accept the case and rule upon the substantive issues involved...

...A CHALLENGING dissent by Judge Charles E. Clark upheld all the contentions of Arthur Garfield Hays, Lynn's counsel, secured through the American Civil Liberties Union...

...They held "in our opinion the statutory provisions which the appellant invokes mean no more than that Negroes must be accorded privileges substantially equal to those afforded Whites in the matter of rolunteering, induction, training and service under the Act...

...But in view of the fact that by the time the case will be decided, the vast majority of men will already have been drafted, slight practical relief will be afforded the Negroes...

...However undesirable the colored people may regard service in segregated units, they are justified in asserting that it is less degrading than no service at all or aervice delayed, if not belittled, in the light of their available manpower...

...But actually, these precedents call for the contrary result...

...in other words, separate quotas in the requisitions based on relative racial proportions of men subject to call do not constitute the prohibited discrimination...

...The majority rationalized its interpretation of the Statute by referring to the traditional history of racial segregation in the Army, and concluded that if Congress had really intended to prohibit separate quota lists it would have done so explicitly, rather than by the general prohibition against discrimination...

...No question was involved, however, as to segregation in the training camps...

...Pointing out that under the present system Negroes not only may have their induction accelerated but also delayed, he said: "it is to he noted that in the final analysis the case for the validity of the call here rests upon the policy of segregation where equal facilities are afforded, as sanctioned by various Supreme Court Decisions...

...It must not be overlooked that they do insist upon equal accommodations, which here must mean equal calls to service...

...If the derision is overruled s grest advance in the legal status of the Negro wil] have been made...

...The eighten-year-olds will be the chief recipients of the benefit...

...3, the Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, affirmed in a 2 to 1 decision the denial of a Writ of Habeas Corpus to Winfred Lynn, Negro, in the first case ever to test the validity of the dual quota system for the selection of men for the armed forces...

...The majority opinion written by Judge Thomas A. Swan, concurred in by Judge Augustus N. Hand, met the issue squarely as to whether the Selective Service Law in providing, "that in the selection and training of men and in the interpretation and execution of the provisions of this Act, there shall be no discrimination against any person on account of race or color" meant to outlaw racial segregation in the form of separate quota lists for Negroes and Whites...