THE MOOD OF AMERICA

...Only the mobilization of labor's best brains, talent, and vision can meet the challenge posed by this great need...

...For example: "It is widely conceded that the immediate factor contributing to enactment of the right-to-work law was the cane field strike of 1953 . . . Furthermore, the general organizational project of NAWU in Louisiana formed the foundation for an uprising against labor...

...The committee did its work brilliantly...

...At that time they felt the warm hand of moral and financial support held out by organized labor in Louisiana...

...Organized labor, he insists, is now in a better position to help the farm hands...

...Probably some were thinking back to the newspaper headlines the day before which revealed that Orr had been a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for two years...

...On one morning the familiar pattern of lights on the display board of the voting machine was drawing attention...

...Much of the South's recent economic growth is, I believe, due to reduction of discrimination in many fields...

...There is a moral question here that is not too easily shrugged off...

...Neither the bills passed nor interposition will permanently maintain segregation, and upon their failure, complete integration may be imposed immediately upon the state without our having made adequate plans to orient our people to the change...

...and] placed its Louisiana membership in a position of helping, rather than hindering, the efforts of the agricultural workers in repealing the right-to-work law affecting approximately 240,000 organized workers who can now work to assist the agricultural workers...

...But John Orr is a young man, and perhaps to a young man twenty years is not such a long time...

...NEXT TO LeRoy Collins, Florida's popular governor, the man you're likely to hear most about in Florida is John Orr, The Man Who Voted Against the Segregation Bills...

...When our diplomats preach equality abroad while we practice discrimination at home, the Communists score a propaganda victory...

...The kind of inferiority complex that causes a man to look down on another because of the pigmentation of his skin is responsible for most of our problems and our wars...

...As the first expression of the liberal viewpoint toward racial integration to find voice in a Southern legislature, it is certain to be studied, praised, and condemned for a long time to come...

...suited...

...Civic leaders of such stature as Eleanor Roosevelt and Norman Thomas are roundly criticizing labor's top leadership...

...If that nameless legislator was right, it may be twenty years before those words sound quite right in the Florida House of Representatives...

...None of the bills contained the word "segregation...

...Louisiana Underlines Labor's Blind Spot by BARROW LYONS ORGANIZED LABOR is under fire as a result of the response of top leaders to a troublesome situation in Louisiana...

...Perhaps some of the younger or more liberal of them were thinking to themselves the thought that one of them expressed aloud much later: "It was a fine speech, but it came twenty years too soon...

...The National Bureau of Economic Research recently released estimates of union membership by states...

...Whatever else one may say about the Southerner's convictions on segregation, it is a fact that he holds them honestly, and a man doesn't feel guilt over his convictions...

...It was a message as old as the struggle for racial equality, but it rang a decidedly new note in the chambers of a Southern legislature...

...One could only guess at what must have been going on in the minds of the legislators during those seconds...

...The drama which unfolded during that tense quarter hour in the House chamber had its beginnings in April, when Governor Collins, making good on a campaign promise, appointed a special committee to study ways and means of preserving segregation in the public schools of Florida...

...The bills passed the Senate unanimously...

...On the segregation bills the long rows of green "yea" votes contrasted sharply with the single red "nay" opposite the name Orr, as the Dade County representative voted silently against the committee bills and other "wildcat" segregation bills and resolutions that were presented from time to time...

...Nobody took the floor to criticize Orr...

...It was four days before Representative Mallory Home answered him in a formal statement for the record, and though Home was applauded vigorously, nobody chose to follow his example...

...The speech itself, however, has taken on a life of its own...

...John Orr has returned to his law practice in Miami to face whatever political consequences his speech and his vote will have...

...Worldwide, the white race is a minority group...

...When the last of the bills had passed with the usual thumping majority, Orr rose and asked quietly for permission to take the floor on a point of personal privilege...

...Some members of the Young Democrats of Dade County proposed that a resolution be adopted recommending that Orr be read out of the Party...

...The development of this kind of attitude will surely do our children more harm than seating them next to a Negro in a classroom...

...The State Council insisted it had done nothing to harm the farm workers, that it merely agreed that the status quo should remain...

...And, if the anti-union forces are as powerful politically as the State Council asserts, organized labor might well hope to gain more by going hat-in-hand to the powers that be, in the traditional manner of the cane workers, who have hardly ceased to be serfs...

...So it was natural that the Louisiana State Labor Council should turn to representatives of these interests to determine whether they could be induced to sponsor repeal of the right-to-work law when the legislature met this year...

...He was not merely reading something into the record that day...

...But the problem of organizing agricultural labor in the United States has been labor's big blind spot, elsewhere as well as in the South...

...As he strode to the well of the House the tumult died down...

...It was the only way, he argues, in which organized labor could get the hated right-to-work law off of the statute books...

...Five bills eventually came out of that committee, and the governor called a special session of the legislature to pass them...

...Time and again our arguments and pleas were rejected, unless labor supported a bill covering agricultural workers . . . "Only after a thorough analysis of the possibilities of such a bill, and upon complete concurrence from union officials versed in agricultural attainments as to the acceptability and advisability of the measure, did the Louisiana State Labor Council AFL-CIO agree to sponsor the original version of House Bill 255...

...But for John Orr, they would have had the unanimous support of the House as well...

...Fifteen minutes later he was well on his way to becoming the most controversial political figure in the state...

...The State Labor Council justified its position in a 110-page document presented to the national AFL-CIO Executive Council at its August meeting...

...When he rose to ask for the floor in the Florida House of Representatives recently, Orr was a generally respected but little known Miami lawyer...

...In a move to oust Orr, David Hawthorne, a Miami real estate investor, tried to get a bill through the special session of the legislature that would bar members of the NAACP from holding office in Florida, but he failed to get the necessary support among the lawmakers, who seemed inclined to the opinion that Orr was dangerously wrong but entitled to dig his own political grave...

...The movement failed, but may be revived...

...The utter silence with which it was met was extraordinary...

...There was nothing secret about the deal which led organized labor in Louisiana to support a right-to-work law for farm labor...

...Actually, the only word that accurately described it was "complete...

...The capitol is quieter now that the legislators have packed up and gone home...

...The NAWU also raises questions as to the real value of the "Louisiana Compromise...

...But let the Louisiana State Labor Council tell the story in its 1956 Legislative Report: "With the approval of the Louisana State Labor Council AFL-CIO, there was launched an extensive, statewide tour by the chief officers of the State Council among the newly elected senators and representatives . . . During these tours it developed beyond question that there was absolutely no hope of repealing the right-to-work law without separate provisions for agricultural workers...

...All of these circumstances combined to bring the Farm Bureau Federation into organizational alignment with the right-to-work group . . . "And underlying all of these considerations is the mighty, sometimes surging influence of Louisiana's basic economy—agriculture...

...The Council found the sugar interests could be induced to sponsor repeal, if...

...Nobody unfamiliar with their background could suspect a segregation purpose...

...Such a development might mean the regeneration and liberalization of the Democratic Party in the South...

...Even those who were trenchantly opposed to his stand, which included virtually everybody who heard the speech, said the message seemed to come from the heart...

...They showed uniform approval of his stand...

...It is difficult to make these dedicated men believe Bussie is as well-meaning as he sounds...

...Condensed from its original thousand or so words, it would read: I favor the gradual integration of our public schools because I believe that segregation is morally wrong...

...But in doing so it sponsored a right-to-work law for agricultural labor...

...Walter Reuther, vice president of AFL-CIO, had nothing to say...

...As Orr turned to hand a copy of his speech to the chief clerk, his colleague, Representative Clif Her-rell, rose to commend him briefly for voting his convictions as a minority of one...

...If it stands, the effect of this law will be to put the fight for integration in Florida on a pupil-by-pupil basis...

...And, although organized labor did not support the amendments to the bill, which included the sugar, cotton and rice mill workers, along with the field workers, it did not make a fight against these amendments...

...And it was interpreted as a flagrant insult to men of stature and influence who controlled the system...

...BARROW LYONS, a free lance writer in Washington, is the author of "Tomorrow's Birthright," a political and economic interpretation of natural resources development and exploitation...

...Simply because it is an established custom makes it no less so...

...Anybody familiar with the ordinary rules of evidence and burden of proof knows that a case of this type has less than a hundred-to-one chance of success...

...Some of the members of the house, it may be, were thinking with Orange County's Representative Henry Land, "I obviously don't agree with you, but I admire your courage...

...But to H. L. Mitchell, president of the National Agricultural Workers Union AFL-CIO (NAWU,) and those who have worked with him for more than twenty years to organize farm hands and small farmers, Bussie's promise has a hollow ring...

...It might appear from the Council's report that it was considerably irked by the criticism by Mitchell and his AFL-CIO union...

...Headed by retired Florida Supreme Court Justice L. L. Fabisinski, the committee devoted hundreds of hours to Studying court decisions and the many bills, resolutions, and memorials passed by the legislatures of the other Southern states in an effort to maintain the status quo...

...The next day there were several telegrams on Orr's desk...

...George Meany, president of AFL-CIO, wrote Mitchell that the Louisiana State Labor Council "took the only course of action open to it to repeal the right-to-work law in Louisiana . . . The Louisiana State Labor Council has acted in the best interest of organized labor as a whole...

...With only a few minor interpolations he stuck to the manuscript word for word...

...But perhaps the most dangerous by-product of these efforts is the attitude of disrespect for our laws and the principles of common decency that they foster...

...If we hope to maintain our leadership among free people we must demonstrate that our democracy does not set up artificial barriers between men...

...In fact, as companions in political and legislative attainments labor and agriculture could constitute a formidable, perhaps an unbeatable combination . . . "We wish to respectfully reiterate that this measure was not conceived by the Louisiana State Labor Council AFL-CIO, but was advanced by well-meaning legislators in agricultural precincts, as a method by which they might be enabled to help the organized labor movement . . . They represented agricultural regions which have been strongly anti-union and pro right-to-work . . . "The cane-field strike was a direct challenge to a traditional system in one of Louisiana's oldest and most basic industries...

...Requests for copies came to Orr from all over the state, and many copies have been sent out...

...Many thoughtful observers believe that the key to coping with this menace is the organization of farm wage-earners and small farmers...

...It was largely in response to pressure from the Louisiana Sugar Cane League, which has brought into its fold most of those concerned with the sugar industry, that the right-to-work law was passed in Louisiana in 1954...

...They may have reflected that this was what one could expect from a born-and-bred Southern white man who could bring himself to join that organization...

...In each case it will be necessary to prove that the official involved has grossly misused his authority...

...The Louisiana State Labor Council AFL-CIO last summer won legislative repeal of a right-to-work law which had made union organizing in a weakly organized state virtually impossible...

...It is not possible to provide separate but equal educational facilities, and the result of trying it in the South has been that a large segment of our population is poorly educated...

...he was making a real effort to communicate a message which he believed to be of vital importance to his hostile audience...

...If this growth is to continue we must provide the same educational facilities to all children...

...I hope," he said, "if I am ever faced with the same problem on any subject, I have the same courage...

...The result has been a moral headache for the labor movement in the United States...

...Victor Bussie, president of the Louisiana State Labor Council AFL-CIO, a kindly man, patiently explains that abandonment of the farm workers really wasn't abandonment...

...One observer's suggestion that they might have been experiencing pangs of conscience is probably wrong...

...The NAWU, however, feels that its work for many years has been largely undone, and that it will require many more years before farm workers in Louisiana, and elsewhere, regain faith in the labor movement...

...Organization of farm workers, while difficult, is of more importance to all of organized labor than most of its leaders recognize...

...Meantime, I will take solace in the prayer our chaplain delivered last Tuesday: 'Help us, thus, to see that it is better to fail in a just cause that will ultimately succeed, than to succeed in an unrighteous cause that will ultimately fail.' " Those last words hung in the air for several seconds before anybody stirred...

...achieved] a great salutary political effect throughout the country...

...Orr explained that his purpose in asking for the floor was to explain his vote on "the several segregation bills," and that due to the possibility of being misunderstood he had written the speech...

...Their plight is all the more tragic because the cane workers made a desperate effort to gain recognition as union workers three years ago...

...Orr's final words were those of a man who has weighed his personal political future against his principles and found the principles more important...

...It had been a busy, noisy morning...

...In rural areas it frequently holds the whip-hand over industrial labor by threat-tening to introduce hostile legislation unless farm wage-earners and small farmers are left to its mercy...

...In these areas America produces the most reactionary legislators, socially and politically...

...From the viewpoint of organized labor, agriculture is the most compelling concern of a majority of Louisiana's people . . . Under normal circumstances neither agriculture, nor labor, have any design of injuring each other...

...One newspaper described it as "stony," another as "chilly," and a third as "stunned...

...who feels that he must have his say though he knows it will do no good: "When we finally have to face up to this problem, and we surely will be required to, I hope that God gives us the wisdom and strength to conquer prejudice and bigotry and to renew our faith in our Constitution...

...For the next quarter hour John Orr got something that few men ever get from a state legislature—the complete and undivided attention, of every member of the House...

...The end result is that the living standards of everybody have been pulled down...

...Corporation farming, which grows apace in the United States, is effective, not only technically, but politically...

...The impact of Louisiana's new right to-work law is that some 30,000 farm hands on sugar plantations in Delta parishes must live and work under conditions bordering on serfdom...

...The key piece of legislation simply places in the hands of certain administrative officials the sole responsibility for assigning pupils to any schools within the state...

...Everybody agreed that the committee bills were more likely to work than any segregation legislation yet passed by a Southern state...

...Louisiana with 19.5 per cent of its non-farm workers organized stands thirty-fifth from the top of the list...

...The National Agricultural Workers Union, which organized an unsuccessful strike in 1953, was not conTHEODORE CLEVENGER, Jr., is instructor in speech at Florida State University...

...Segregation has had a deplorable effect on our economy...

...Thereafter the stack of letters on his desk grew steadily higher every day...

...Behind the immediate conditions in the sugar cane fields lay a backlog of highly-resented NAWU efforts in agricultural regions...

...Few people can read a speech well, but John Orr is one of the few...

...This embraced not only field workers, but in its amended form thousands in cane-processing plants, cotton gins and compresses, and rice mills...

...Naturally there was much unfavorable reaction...

...It asks whether organized labor in Louisiana can expect to gain much through its sacrifice of the farm workers...

...Today these people—most of them Negroes—feel they have been thrown to the wolves...

...Top national labor strategists unanimously con-doned the deal...

...The fact that about three-fourths of the cane-field workers are Negroes helps, too, to explain why the State Council fears the wrath of powerful forces in Louisiana society...