SUBSIDIES FOR SEGREGATION? NOTES IN THE NEWS
Subsidies for Segregation? FEW ISSUES in recent years have been charged with greater tension or have cut more sharply across party and ideological grounds than the current struggle over the Powell...
...Senator Eastland has added a new test of patriotism to the weird yardsticks employed by McCarthy...
...President Eisenhower opposes the Powell amendment, but his chief lieutenant in the House, Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin, favors it...
...Far from "subverting" the Court's decisions, as Lippmann contended, the Powell amendment proposes to make federal funds available to school districts that respect the Court's mandate, with all its latitude for reasonable transition, and to withhold federal funds from those who defy the Court and the Constitution...
...George Meany, president of the newly combined AFL-CIO, leans against the Powell provision, but Walter P. Reuther, first vice president of the labor confederacy, leans toward it...
...But the President was equal to the occasion...
...Acceptance of the Supreme Court's decisions on segregation in the public schools has become an automatic indictment of an American as a Communist, in the eyes of this powerfully placed bigot...
...Fred and his associates did indeed grasp the importance of Sip-pie's suggestions...
...Dullei ponder the significance of a recent dispatch of the New York Times assessing Indian public opinion...
...a start has been made, the courts may find that additional time is necessary to carry out the ruling in an effective manner...
...Log on Liberties Cautious optimism, hemmed in with many a warning of "the great task remaining before us," characterizes the 35th annual report of the American Civil Liberties Union...
...It is true, of course, that there has been a heartening measure of improvement since the darkest days of McCarthyism, but the Eastland-Jen-ner team that dominates the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee has made a shambles of much of the pious promises of reform by its invasion of freedom of the press, notably in the case of the New York Times...
...That is why the United States is the friend of the colonial powers...
...Ill The Court's decisions, to which Representative Powell has fastened his amendment, provides a mixture of the moderation of which Mr...
...Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation in the public schools...
...Several months ago G. E. Sipple, commander of the Wisconsin department of the American Legion, put the University of Wisconsin to a new test...
...Again it is the federal judiciary that emerges as the hero of the continuing drama to preserve and strengthen freedom in the United States...
...It is a dictatorship, but part of the fault lies in the fact that the Western powers have surrounded it with enemies since its birth...
...Tennessee's Governor Frank G. Clement told a group of die-hard segregationists who jammed angrily into his office that he would not accede to their demands for defiance of the Court, that he was committed to a gradual approach to solution of the problem...
...Commenting on the civil liberties aspect of the security-loyalty problem, the report finds the situation still critical and then goes on to observe: "But now, at least, there are signs that the country may be turning from an unhealthy preoccupation with its fears to a practical use of its strengths...
...In a Senate speech Eastland in-sisted that the Supreme Court, in reaching its anti-segregation derision, "revealed to a shocking degree in connection with and participation in the world-wide Communist conspir acy...
...See Robert Lasch's "I See by the Papers" on Page 18 for an interpretative commentary on this phase of the Eastland inquiry...
...Texas is struggling with plans to achieve a measure of integration...
...The Powell rider, moreover, provides that states which do not immediately qualify for their share of federal aid because of failure to conform with the decisions of the Court may obtain their full allotment if they do conform within three years...
...Lippmann and Mr...
...In other speeches the Mississippi Senator has counseled a course of endless stalling to circum-vent the Supreme Court decisiom "By changing state laws and creating new state policies," he said, "we can litigate this matter for an indefinite period...
...He rests his proviso on the simple proposition of conformity with the Supreme Court decisions...
...The Southern people will not give an inch...
...The Bulganin statement had appeared three weeks before, and had turned up on countless front pages of the American and world press...
...He simply said he had not read the article everyone else was discussing and debating, and besides, Mr...
...His statement was character ized by the usually dead-pan Associated Press as one which "openly defied VS...
...Stevenson often speak with approval, and a degree of firmness they rarely mention in this discussion...
...He is James E. Eastland, Democrat of Mississippi...
...When a Georgia community, Val-dosta, decided to discuss segregation, state officials filed suit to prevent the school board from even considering the possibility...
...These examples could be multiplied many times...
...The principal spokesman for the most openly defiant racists in the South sits in the United States Senate...
...For all our own criticism of American foreign policy we find this Indian assessment a far harsher indict' ment than the facts warrant—and a wholly unrealistic appraisal of Soviet conduct and intentions...
...If we understand the Powell amendment, it is this "good faith implementation" and "prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance" that it would require—not the immediate and total achievement of racial integration so carelessly suggested by some critics of the Powell rider...
...I haven't heard that one yet...
...Collector of Customs a list of the foreign publications which it receives for determination as to whether they appear on the list of newspaper periodicals or other literature officially denied entry into the United States...
...Eisenhower replied quite casually, "That is one I missed...
...We find it hard to picture Mr...
...It is no exaggeration to speak of open rebellion: • In Alabama, which was soon afterward to become the scene of mot violence on the campus of its state university, the state legislature arrogantly proclaimed that the Supreme Court decisions were "null, void, and of no effect...
...It is here that the Powell amendment does its most effective and useful work—in drawing a sharp distinction between those states and districts which are making a conscientious effort to achieve integration along orderly lines and those states and districts which are in open rebellion against the decisions of the Supreme Court...
...In the matter of desegregation," he said, "my pride in Maryland is not that it has given us no trouble, but that we have tried to meet the trouble in a fashion worthy of civilized men...
...If the Powell amendment would do what Mr...
...Adlai Stevenson is against it, but his leading supporter for the Presidency in pivotal New York, Senator Herbert Lehman, is for it...
...E. B. Fred, president of the university: "1...
...Both find their guiding light in the historic decisions of the United States Supreme Court invalidating segregation in the public schools and prescribing the broad outlines for orderly transition to racial integration...
...a terrifying lot of unfinished business still faces us . . . Em-mett Till is kidnapped and killed in Mississippi, neo-Klan organizations exert various kinds of coercion on Negroes in the many parts of the South...
...Dulles was the best Secretary of State he has ever known...
...If this were in fact the issue, The Progressive would tend to range itself on the side of gradualists, especially in an area of human relations so heavily charged with social and emotional conflicts...
...It has recognized that there must be a period of transition—a period of persuasion and accommodation—and the Supreme Court has accepted the burden of presiding over the transition...
...Representative Powell, it seems to us, has nailed his amendment securely to the Supreme Court decisions...
...That is why the United States," these people say, "in spite of talk about freedom and the American revolutionary heritage, is interested in the independence movements of the world only so far as they affect the fight against the Soviets...
...The Powell amendment runs counter to the letter and the spirit of the Supreme Court's decision...
...In Georgia, Governor Marvin Griffin called for a "great crusade" against racial integration in die schools...
...there are countless men and women of integrity and good will, dedicated alike to federal aid for education and to the banishment of segregation, who disagree strongly on this crucial issue...
...Give the Soviet Union a period of freedom from fear and the dictatorship will relax...
...The two most articulate spokesmen for moderation are Adlai Stevenson and Walter Lippmann...
...We would like to suggest, in all humility, that as he flies the Pacific and Indian oceans Mr...
...Maryland's Governor Theodore McKeldin predicted his state would resolve the issue just as the state's early settlers worked out the problem of religious freedom...
...Specific areas of progress singled out in the report were court decisions limiting the State Department's power to deny a citizen a passport without fair hearing and the continuing efforts of the judiciary to break through barriers of discrimination and segregation in education and places of public accommodation...
...White House Reader President Eisenhower's much publicized passion for two-gun western stories has not noticeably interfered with his boning through the heavier stuff of his office, or tightly trimmed summaries of same...
...Customs Service in forwarding to the proper U.S...
...McCarthy's Successors In at least one area the ACLU report sounds somewhat more content than the facts seem to warrant...
...The Progressive is convinced of the essential reasonableness of the Supreme Court's decision...
...For more than a half century its principal building has been adorned with a bronze plaque proclaiming that "whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere," the University of Wisconsin should "ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth may be found...
...But the issue in this case is of quite a different character, as we propose to show in the paragraphs that follow...
...Dulles has provided enough provocation during his stewardship in the State Department to furnish the basil for much of Indian criticism of U.S...
...Our Court has been indoctri nated and brainwashed by left-wing pressure groups . . . There will be compromise...
...During this period the courts will retain jurisdiction of these cases.' "The Supreme Court, recognizing that the change-over from segregated schools is a difficult and complex matter, has refrained from demanding immediate and unconditional application of its ruling...
...Asked at a press conference what he thought of Soviet Premier Bul-ganin's statement calling for another Big Four conference at the "summit," Mr...
...In the meantime, Moscow supports the freedom struggles of the colonized peoples and fights for peace...
...In a recent speech, for example, he charged that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is backed by organizations "of all shades of red, ranging from the blood red of the Communist Party to the almost equal red of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A...
...Sometimes the university has strayed from that faith, but not often or for long...
...Speaking in Memphis at a secret meeting of delegate...
...But the Court also asked for "good faith implementation" and a "prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance . . . with all deliberate speed...
...But the Powell rider iays down no such arbitrary or unconditional mandate...
...Mississippi, with its brazen flouting of the Court and the Constitution, as equally qualified to benefit from aid for school construction as McKeldin's Maryland, which knows it faces complex and tormenting problems but is prepared to face up to them in a fashion worthy of civilized men...
...The position taken by the Supreme Court," wrote Lippmann, "is that segregation in the public schools is unconstitutional, being a denial of the equal protection of the laws, and that the Court will pass upon 'the adequacy of plans' that state and local authorities may propose 'to effectuate a transition to a racially non-discriminatory system...
...Back went a letter rejecting all of them and reaffirming the university's determination to maintain the widest measure of freedom consistent with state and national laws...
...But more than that, passage of federal aid legislation without the principle of the Powell amendment would tend to encourage and perpetuate segregation, for the rebellious states would then know they were free to continue their lawless defiance without penalty—and, indeed, with the financial support of the federal government...
...Dr...
...Failure to enact the Powell amendment, or something much like it, makes Eastland's...
...He does not demand that integration be an accomplished fact as a condition for federal aid...
...Supreme Court's decisions...
...Shortly afterward Secretary of State John Foster Dulles created a world sensation with his chilling "brink of war" interview in Life...
...The exact language of the Powell amendment sets up the requirement that federal aid shall be made available to school facilities of the state that "are open to all children without regard to race, in conformity with the requirements of the U.S...
...The Soviet Union is trying to walk the road of peace...
...and in the North—whose holier-than-thou bluff is being called by the rapid increase of its Negro population—discrimination takes on an alarming proportion...
...Lippmann says it would—"deny federal funds to states or local school districts which continue to maintain segregated schools"—we would stand with him in opposing the amendment as an effort to nullify the moderation prescribed by the Court...
...The Times correspondent found among the Indians a real fear that the United States is bent on destroying the Soviet Union by war...
...Dulles performing great feats of good-will in India, but it is permissible to hope that he will do his best to keep his celebrated foot out of his equally celebrated month...
...Newsmen went to their conference with the President loaded with questions that they hoped might unravel one of the major mysteries of American foreign policy...
...Is the University of Wisconsin now prepared to deny the use of its tax-supported facilities to any speakers having a public record of continued support of communist or subversive movements of any kind...
...But, the ACLU hastened to point out...
...The clash among those who are dedicated to both federal aid to education and an end to segregation has been presented to us as a renewal of the ancient struggle between the moderates and the radicals, between those who believe that action should come no faster than education can prepare community acceptance and those who are convinced that action itself builds acceptance...
...Happily, there are more constructive forces and figures at work in the South...
...The nine justices recognized that "full implementation . . . may require solution of varied local school problems . . . Once...
...Is the University of Wisconsin prepared now to ban the Labor Youth League as an accredited organization from the campus and deny it the use of the tax-supported facilities of the university...
...Representative Adam Clayton Powell, New York Democrat, would amend the original bill to deny any part of the $400,000,000-a-year building fund to states or school districts which fail to conform to the requirements of the U.S...
...But Mr...
...But twice in recent weeks, when he was said to be back on a full schedule of work, he displayed a rather remarkable lack of knowledge of some pretty important printed matter...
...except that if a state plan does not so provide, it shall not prevent payment of funds authorized under this act to such state for use in counties or other political subdivisions within the state that are operating their schools in conformity with the said Supreme Court decisions...
...As Others See Us Secretary of State John Foster Dulles is heading away for India— apparently to attempt to repair some of the damage done by his own policies and pronouncements in recent months...
...Fred wrote, "that they have the freedoms and responsibilities equal to citizens outside the university, we do not enact, and would oppose, restrictions on discussion and inquiry other than those applicable to all citizens in the state . . . The University of Wisconsin supports the principles of American democracy by demonstrating faith in them...
...foreign policy...
...II Lippmann has argued, and Stevenson has indicated he shares the view, that far from upholding the Supreme Court's decision, the Powell amendment would subvert it...
...from 12 Southern states gathered to plot resistance to the Court's decisions, Senator Eastland called on the group to "fight the Supreme Court, fight the CIO, fight the NAACP, and fight all conscienceless pressure groups who are attempting our destruction...
...This was no report of the mood of the Communists or the firebrand extremists, but in the words of the cautious Times, "the mental image built up in the minds of scores of millions of people...
...Because students must be convinced," Dr...
...Supreme Court decisions...
...FEW ISSUES in recent years have been charged with greater tension or have cut more sharply across party and ideological grounds than the current struggle over the Powell amendment to legislation that would provide federal aid for public school construction...
...To its everlasting credit it generated little of the hysteria that swept other campuses when McCarthy was riding high, despite the fact that this, of course, is the university of McCarthy's home state...
...And with characteristic Sipple subtlety, the letter concluded: "It is my hope you and your administration will grasp the importance of what we are suggesting to you...
...For the ACLU listed as the dominant development of the year the defense of due process and equal treatment under the law by the federal courts...
...It is their differences that concern us here—not the opposition to the original bill that comes from sincere conservatives convinced that federal aid to education means creeping socialism or a corruption of our school system, nor the opposition to the Powell amendment that comes from incorrigible racists committed to permanent segregation in the South...
...The governors of Virginia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia agreed at a joint conference in January to press the doctrine of "interposition"—a high-sounding word for outright disobedience of the Supreme Court on the theory that the statei can interpose their sovereignty between the federal government and the people to obstruct "unconstitutional" decisions by the Supreme Court...
...He addressed this series of questions to Dr...
...Is the University of Wisconsin prepared to cooperate with the U.S...
...nor does he attempt to exact any specific degree of desegregation as a qualifying requirement...
...Faith in freedom, not fear of freedom, is the American heritage.'" Sipple expressed "surprise and disappointment," but most of the state's newspapers, publicists, and a goodly number of Legionnaires felt the university had come through with flying colors...
...Wisconsin Sets an Example Here in Madison, where we publish The Progressive, is a great state university...
Vol. 20 • March 1956 • No. 3
