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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS —Dec. I, 1954 — PAGE 5
Florida
MIAMI, Fla.
F LORIDA provided the setting in
November for a struggle among
the governors of 16 southern states
over a united stand on the issue of
segregation in the public schools.
The Southern Governors’ Confer
ence at Boca Raton turned down a
resolution by Florida’s acting Gov.
Charley E. Johns asking President
Eisenhower to call an immediate spe
cial session of Congress to deal with
the question.
Specifically, Johns’ resolution sug
gested asking that Congress “con
sider and submit to the 48 states
an amendment to the Constitution
which will provide that the various
states may furnish for their children
separate but equal educational facili
ties.”
Failing this, Florida’s governor
asked that “we, in our individual re
sponsibilities as governors, consider
the necessity of calling into special
session the legislatures of our various
states to petition the Congress for
enactment of such constitutional
changes.”
Johns’ proposal was unexpected.
The matter was not on the confer
ence agenda and Johns said later he
had revised his prepared address of
welcome at the last moment to in
clude the comments.
ACTION URGED
“I strongly urge you governors to
take action at this conference on th'
important question,” Johns told his
colleagues, and added:
We in the South are particularly proud
of the progress that has been made in
education for our white and our colored
citizens.
Based upon an early decision of the Su
preme Court of the United States that
equal but separate facilities was not a
violation of the Constitution of the United
States, we in the South, as well as those
in the North and in the West, have made
tremendous investments to provide sep
arate but equal educational facilities for
our white and colored.
Then came the decision which repre
sented a change in thinking on the part
of the Justices who occupy the highest
tribunal in the world. That decision, which
impressed the philosophy of those justices
upon the Constitution as written by our
forefathers, has created turmoil and con
fusion, not only in the southland, but also
from Maine to California.
The question of whether or not our
schools shall be segregated is by far too
peat an issue to rest simply upon a
judicial opinion of only nine men, parti
cularly when there is a constitutional
method by which the people themselves
are permitted to speak.
This, Johns said, is the procedure
for amendment of the Constitution.
Gov. Herman Talmadge of Georgia,
following Johns’ talk said, that the
southern governors are “fainthearted
ln their refusal to take a flat, open
stand against racial integration.”
Talmadge recalled his efforts at a
orevious meeting of the conference
to get a united policy on segregation
before the Supreme Court ruling.
I thought the rest of the nation,
and especially the Congress and Su
preme Court, ought to know the sen-
lm ent of the southern states,” he
said.
Talmadge added that he had little
■ °Pe of “positive results” from Johns’
Proposal.
‘You can’t make the people do
^ . they don’t want to do simply
y judicial decree, unless you want
°e a nation like Russia or Ger-
man y under Hitler,” he said.
favors referendum
sa'rnT Ffugh White of Mississippi
end F avore( f such a national refer-
sio U °f ° n se ff re S a ti° n as the submis-
. n ° an amendment to the national
institution would provide.
e nce* tp 6 secon d day of the confer
ee ff° vern °rs found copies of
the' P ;° P0sed Johns resolution on
j„ ° e .• Johns pressed for action
e nine-man resolutions com-
0 f rp e beaded by Gov. Allan Shivers
Q 6Xas - He asked for a roll call vote,
romrn Fbird day the resolutions
.Johns'^ 6 rejected the proposal,
states t ” en Prepared an unofficial
tiors 1 6r « basing individual gover-
r °gati° exerc * se every proper pre-
= iples Ve f t0 preserv e the basic prin-
0Ur constitutional govern-
e statement pledged the signers
to “preserve the right of the states
to administer their public school
system in the best interests of our
people.”
Signing the statement were Johns,
Govs. Herman Talmadge of Georgia,
Thomas B. Stanley of Virginia, Ro
bert F. Kennon of Louisiana, James
F. Byrnes of South Carolina, Allan
Shivers of Texas, and Johnson Mur
ray of Oklahoma. Gov-elect George
B. Timmerman Jr., of South Carolina,
added his name.
Declining to sign were Govs. Theo
dore R. McKeldin of Maryland,
Lawrence W. Wetherby of Kentucky,
Frank G. Clement of Tennessee,
Francis Cherry of Arkansas and Wil
liam C. Marland of West Virginia.
Gov.-elect James E. Folsom, Ala
bama, was in this group.
Two other participants, Gov. Hugh
White, Mississippi and Gov.-elect
Leroy Collins, Florida, had left the
meeting place before the matter came
up.
Johns said the statement was a
“moral victory” for his stand.
in fact an invasion of the police
powers of the respective states.”
The Governors Conference rejected
the resolution on grounds that such
action must originate with one of its
members.
Lofton, president of the committee,
is an Orlando radio commentator who
offered to run for Congress in 1952
with a statement calling the United
Nations a “hot air debating society”
in its present form, and demanding
that the Communist party be out
lawed.
During November the National As
sociation for the Advancement of
Colored People pushed an all-out
campaign to build its membership
which is down from a high of 8,000
several years ago to about 5,000. Wil
liam A. Fordham, president of the
Florida branch, said the segregation
question is being used as a recruiting
aid.
Confirming this, Francisco Rod
riguez, Tampa attorney for the Flo
rida NAACP, added:
I feel that if the larger and more en
lightened counties such as Hillsborough
(Tampa), Dade (Miami), Duval (Jackson
ville) and Pinellas (St. Petersburg) take
the initiative, others will of course fall
in line. I am of the opinion that where
school boards voluntarily institute a pro
gram of desegregation, it will for the most
part succeed.
Rodriguez said he had talked to
several county school superintend
ents who demonstrated that “their
approach to the question has certain
ly shown a type of open-mindedness
McKELDIN STATEMENT
Gov. McKeldin of Maryland made
a statement of his own, declaring it
was the duty of every citizen to ac
cept the Supreme Court decision.
“The very suggestion that Maryland
should offer resistance, active or pas
sive, is fantastic nonsense,” he said.
Defiance of the Supreme Court
order would mean, McKeldin said,
“that there would be no security for
property, for liberty or even life it
self.”
Johns’ proposed resolution was dis
cussed editorially by the Miami Daily
News while the conference was con
sidering it. The newspaper said:
It is worth recalling that Acting Gov.
Johns did not spring his idea in time for
the Florida electorate to react to it at the
polls in May and Floridians instead nom
inated, and on Nov. 2, elected, LeRoy Col
lins. Therefore we believe it would be
at least courtesy to Florida for Collins to
be considered the state's more legitimate
spokesman on desegregation at the South
ern Governor’s Conference.
Johns and Collins were opponents
in the May primary. The segregation
question was not an issue.
A new organization seeking a solu
tion similar to Johns’ proposal for a
constitutional amendment came to
light during the conference. John D.
Lofton of Orlando, president of the
National Committee for the 23rd and
24th Amendments, urged the confer
ence to adopt a resolution for the
amendment which would deny the
Supreme Court the right to handle
matters pertaining to racial segrega
tion. The group also advocated an
amendment limiting federal income
tax to ten per cent.
The committee’s proposed segrega
tion resolution said the Supreme
Court’s ruling “was in fact based on
no living law, either statutory, com
mon or constitutional.” It is contrary
to the Tenth Amendment “and was
Miami Herald Photo
TAKING TIME OUT from the recent Southern Governors Conference at
Boca Raton, Fla., Acting Gov. Charley E. Johns of Florida, left, and Oklahoma’s
Gov. Johnston Murray try on new hats donated by a Florida Cattlemen’s As
sociation.
ACTING GOVERNOR CHARLEY JOHNS (standing)
is shown as he welcomed chief executives attending the
recent Southern Governors Conference at Boca Raton,
Fla. Gov. Johns called on President Eisenhower to back
a constitutional amendment permitting the states to op
erate segregated schools. In the center is Gov. Johnston
Murray of Oklahoma and at right is Gov. Frank Clement
of Tennessee.
and objectivity.” Among these he
named J. Crockett Farnell of Hills
borough and Floyd Christian of
Pinellas.
The NAACP attorney said that
geographical conditions would tend
to reduce frictions under desegrega
tion in such areas as Tampa where
the Negro population is concentrated.
“We wouldn’t send a Negro child
to a school outside his residential
area just to prove a point,” Rodri
guez said, and added:
If then, from a practical standpoint, the
changes would be negligible, what’s the
shouting all about?
But because we are not unmindful of
local differences, we believe the best in
terests of justice will be served if we
follow the present scheme of things to
the end that we will adhere to whatever
course is prescribed by the Supreme Court
as to time and method.
These local differences cited by
Rodriguez are one of the big points
made by Atty. Gen. Richard W. Ervin
of Florida in his brief now before
the Supreme Court for aid in its final
consideration of ways to implement
the decision.
to be used for separate white and
Negro schools, contrary to the Su
preme Court decision.
In approving the bonds the Florida
court said the segregation ruling was
“a great mistake.”
Justice Glenn Terrell’s decision for
the court, to which only one justice
dissented, said the ruling “will re
tard rather than accelerate the re
moval of inequalities” between the
races in the schools.
“Whether or not the doctrine of
‘separate but equal’ has a place in
the field of public education is a
question of policy determinable by
the legislature,” the court held.
“It is not a judicial question as I
understand the canons of interpreta
tion. Likewise, the question of segre
gation is for the same reason a leg
islative rather than a judicial ques
tion.”
The court declared “segregation
must come by gradual adjustment.”
Therefore bonds for separate schools
are needed now.
CITES OPPOSITION
Ervin said the great majority of
Florida citizens are not ready for
immediate desegregation and to
ignore that fact might make an
orderly end to segregation impossible.
In his brief, Ervin said:
There is some reason to believe that
segregated schools can be ended in Flor
ida in an equitable manner without de
stroying the school system itself.
But there is no reason to believe that
this can be accomplished hurriedly or
caught in the impossible dilemma of con
fronting on the one hand the irresistible
force of a judicial edict which must be
obeyed and on the other hand the im
movable object of public opinion which
cannot be altered.
The only hope for a solution is for this
court to restrain the use of coercive
measures until the core of public opinion
has been softened to the extent that there
is acceptance on the part of the majority
of the people.
In discussing his decision to file
the brief, Ervin said:
The court itself has said that its de
cision is based on psychological and so
ciological factors. I therefore think it will
have to consider the same factors in the
thinking of white people on the subject
if it is to be at all consistent.
Under Article 6. Clause 2 of the U. S.
Constitution, Florida will be bound by the
decision of the U. S. Sunreme Court if
the state wants to continue its public
schools.
Whether we filed the brief or not, the
decision of the U. S. Supreme Court will
apply as a binding precedent to Florida
regardless of anything you have heard
to the contrary.
Segregation was brought up by the
Florida Supreme Court in ruling on
a Manatee county school bond issue.
A taxpayer challenged the legality of
the bonds, on grounds that they were
BOWLES IN STATE
In the latter days of the month,
Bryant Bowles, head of the National
Association for the Advancement of
White People, the organization which
figured in incidents in Delaware and
other states over the segregation
question, returned to his native Flo
rida in a recruiting drive. Bowles
spent his early days in Tampa.
In speeches at Jacksonville and
Tavares, Bowles said the “Com
munists want to found a Negro re
public in the South.” Bowles said the
National Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People “is not
a Negro organization. The real bosses
are Jews.”
“There is nothing wrong with be
ing a Negro. I’m willing to help the
Negro see that all his descendants
will be Negroes.
“The Negro would still be happy if
the left wingers hadn’t started (in
tegration.)”
Bowles said he will form a chapter
of his NAAWP in Lake County and
“turn it over” to Sheriff Willis V.
McCall. Sheriff McCall spoke to a
mass meeting under NAAWP spon
sorship at Milford, Del., just prior to
the disturbance last September.
Bowles told his audience there had
been recent incidents in Lake County
and in Apopka, near Orlando, in
which Negro children tried to enter
white schools and were removed by
police. This was not confirmed by
other sources.