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PAGE 2—APRIL 1956—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
—$ Special iJc
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‘Southern Manifesto’ Criticizes Supreme Court
District of Columbia
(Continued from Page 1)
But in Congress, the manifesto, in
the eyes of many, marked a reopen
ing of the split which often has
harassed the Democratic party.
Many Republicans privately ex
pressed jubilation over the growing
in-party rift.
Some Democrats showed marked
reserve. Senators Richard Neuberger
of Oregon and Hubert H. Humphrey
of Minnesota were calm but grave in
their answers to the southerners.
There was no bitterness that usually
goes along with floor discussion of
civil rights. They urged moderation
and recommended that a White
House conference on civil rights be
called.
Sen. Herbert Lehman of New
York said in a Senate speech the
words of the manifesto, while calling
for “lawful means” were actually in
support of “action in some states to
defy the law and to prevent its en
forcement.”
RECALLS PROHIBITION
This criticism caused Sen. A. Willis
Robertson (D-Va.) to recall the
North’s fight against the Prohibition
amendment in urging recognition of
the “justice” of the South’s fight
against integration.
He said New York and other
northern states fought against the
18th Amendment, which banned liq
uor, just as the South “now objects
to a prohibition against separate but
equal schools” for whites and Ne
groes. Robertson said that Lehman
in 1933 while governor of New York
called the 18th Amendment “and the
related enforcement act ‘sumptuary’
legislation which, according to the
dictionary, means law designed to
regulate habits primarily on moral
or religious grounds by the use of
the state’s police powers.
Political writers predict the mani
festo has increased the threat of a
southern bolt from the national con
vention this summer. But southern
Senate leaders are talking down any
chances of a third, or pro-segrega
tion, party. The question of any split
“depends on what happens” at the
Democratic conclave, they say.
MARSHALL HEARD
Speaking at a Washington conven
tion last month, Thurgood Marshall
warned Presidential candidates that
“they can holler, scream, beg and
cajole, but there’s not a candidate
who can get the Negro vote until he
can produce something close to civil
rights.”
The chief counsel of the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People criticized the Demo
cratic party and Stevenson for fail
ing to “divorce” themselves from
Sen. James Eastland (D-Miss.). “No
party,” he said, “is going to get my
vote and Sen. Eastland’s at the same
time.” He warned the fight for Ne
gro rights will be “mean, nasty and
dirty.”
To date, President Eisenhower has
failed to answer a proposal by a
group of House Democrats that he
declare he will not permit federal
funds to go to a school district re
fusing to comply with the desegre
gation decision.
An amendment by Rep. Adam
Clayton Powell (D-N.Y.) which
would accomplish the same thing,
has bogged down a federal aid to
school construction bill in both
houses of Congress. Powell, a Negro
minister, has said he would with
draw his amendment if Mr. Eisen
hower made the statement. A $1.6
billion, four-year school aid bill cur
rently is bottled up in the House
Rules Committee, which must give
the legislation clearance for floor ac
tion.
UP TO COURTS
U. S. Education Commissioner
Samuel M. Brownell last month
told Congress he has no responsibil
ity for blocking federal aid for school
districts which defy the Supreme
Court desegregation order. He said
it is the job of the courts to deter
mine what schools are operating in
violation of the Constitution.
Brownell also told the House Ap
propriations Committee during
closed-door budget testimony that
he opposes the proposed Powell
amendment to bar aid to any such
school districts.
'T'he unwarranted decision of the
A Supreme Court in the public
school cases is now bearing the fruit
always produced when men substi
tute naked power for established law.
The founding fathers gave us a
constitution of checks and balances
because they realized the inescapable
lesson of history that no man or group
of men can be safely entrusted with
unlimited power. They framed this
constitution with its provisions for
change by amendment in order to se
cure the fundamentals of government
against the dangers of temporary
popular passion or the personal pre
dilections of public office holders.
We regard the decision of the Su
preme Court in the school cases as a
clear abuse of judicial power. It cli
maxes a trend in the federal judiciary
undertaking to legislate, in deroga
tion of the authority of Congress, and
to encroach upon the reserved rights
of the states and the people.
The original Constitution does not
mention education. Neither does the
Fourteenth Amendment nor any
other amendment. The debates pre
ceding the submission of the Four
teenth Amendment clearly show that
there was no intent that it should
affect the systems of education main
tained by the states.
The very Congress which proposed
the amendment subsequently pro
vided for segregated schools in the
District of Columbia.
When the amendment was adopted
in 1868, there were 37 states of the
union. Every one of the 26 states that
had any substantial racial differences
among its people either approved the
operation of segregated schools al
ready in existence or subsequently
established such schools by action of
the same law-making body which
considered the Fourteenth Amend
ment.
As admitted by the Supreme Court
in the public school case (Brown v.
Board of Education), the doctrine of
separate but equal schools “apparent
ly originated in Roberts v. City of
Boston... (1849), upholding school
segregation against attack as being
violative of a state constitutional
There were many developments
last month in the Washington public
school integration picture.
Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Lane, Dis
trict Engineer Commissioner, startled
educators here with a recommenda
tion for mass demotion of public
school children who show achieve
ment lags.
Lane, one of the three Commis
sioners charged with running the
city government, said the “unman
ageable” educational achievement
problems existed principally in for
mer Negro schools since 1949. They
are no better today under integra
tion, he said.
It is unrealistic, Lane said, to think
that 50 per cent of the integrated
school students can be advanced by
one or two years up to their normal
achievement level through special
remedial classes and other devices.
TRY AGAIN
If a student can’t make the grade
he should stay back and try again,
Lane told an education convention
attended by many top District school
officials.
As a consequence of integration,
Lane said, “we have united in one
class students of widely varying ed
ucational standing.” He said teachers
now are faced in one class with pu
pils prepared to pursue a level of
instruction and “others who are to
tally unprepared.”
In the segregated school system,
the educational lag was also segre
gated, Lane said, and “we had some
uniformity of student ability to
which a teacher could address him
self.”
School officials have discovered
since the start of integration two
years ago many Negro junior and
senior high students who can work
only on a third, fourth or fifth grade
level in such basic subjects as read-
guarantee of equality.” This constitu
tional doctrine began in the North—
not in the South, and it was followed
not only in Massachusetts, but in
Connecticut, New York, Illinois, In
diana, Michigan, Minnesota, New
Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other
northern states until they, exercising
their rights as states through the con
stitutional processes of local self-
government, changed their school
systems.
In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in
1896 the Supreme Court expressly
declared that under the Fourteenth
Amendment no person was denied
any of his rights if the states provided
separate but equal public facilities.
This decision has been followed in
many other cases. It is notable that
the Supreme Court, speaking through
Chief Justice Taft, a former president
of the United States, unanimously
declared in 1927 in Lum v. Rice that
the “separate but equal” principle is
“... within the discretion of the state
in regulating its public schools and
does not conflict with the Fourteenth
Amendment.”
This interpretation, restated time
and again, became a part of the life
of the people of many of the states
and confirmed their habits, customs,
tradition and way of life. It is founded
on elemental humanity and common
sense, for parents should not be de
prived by government of the right to
direct the lives and education of their
own children.
Though there has been no consti
tutional amendment or act of Con
gress changing this established legal
principle almost a century old, the
Supreme Court of the United States,
with no legal basis for such action,
undertook to exercise their naked ju
dicial power and substituted their
personal political and social ideas for
the established law of the land.
This unwarranted exercise of power
by the court, contrary to the Consti
tution, is creating chaos and confu
sion in the states principally affected,
It is destroying the amicable relations
between the white and Negro races
that have been created through 90
ing and arithmetic. School officials
hope to screen these students into
special remedial classes but haven’t
the budgeted funds to hire addition
al teachers for this purpose.
ASKS BACKING
In pushing for his wholesale de
motion plan, Lane called for the co
operation of Negro leaders. He said:
“Let me say a word to the colored
leaders of our community because I
feel that my comment has a special
significance for you. Your children
have been the victims of a segre
gated system in which equal stand
ards were not maintained.
“It would appear, therefore, that
if we started the next school year
with all children placed in grades
according to the level of work which
they are prepared t<? pursue, more
colored children than white would
be set back a grade or two.
“There could be a clamor against
such an adjustment unless our col
ored citizens understand that this is
the only way to correct the disease
which has produced our present
condition.”
DRAWS CRITICISM
Shortly after his address, which
drew immediate criticism from ed
ucators and some support from cit
izens, Lane sent a memorandum to
top Washington civic leaders. It pri
marily said that District public
schools can afford to teach only those
children “who have the capacity to
take advantage of it.”
“If they won’t learn, kick them
out of school,” Lane said, adding,
“that’s the way they do it at West
Point.” Lane is a former Army
teacher.
School people and parents cried
out: “There’s a law against such a
practice.” Lane replied: “Change it.”
He said he thought it was unneces
sary to hold some children in school
until their 16th birthday.
Asked what these young people
would do, Lane said, “Why, work,
years of patient effort by the good
people of both races. It has planted
hatred and suspicion where there has
been heretofore friendship and un
derstanding.
Without regard to the consent of
the governed, outside agitators are
threatening immediate and revolu
tionary changes in our public school
systems. If done, this is certain to de
stroy the system of public education
in some of the states.
With the gravest concern for the
explosive and dangerous condition
created by this decision and inflamed
by outside meddlers:
We reaffirm our reliance on the
Constitution as the fundamental law
of the land.
We decry the Supreme Court’s en
croachments on rights reserved to the
states and to the people, contrary to
established law and to the Constitu
tion.
We commend the motives of those
states which have declared the inten
tion to resist forced integration by
any lawful means.
We appeal to the states and people
who are not directly affected by these
decisions to consider the constitu
tional principles involved against the
time when they too, on issues vital to
them, may be the victims of judicial
encroachment.
Even though we constitute a mi
nority in the present Congress, we
have full faith that a majority of the
American people believe in the dual
system of government which has en
abled us to achieve our greatness and
will in time demand that the reserved
rights of the states and of the people
be made secure against judicial
usurpation.
We pledge ourselves to use all law
ful means to bring about a reversal
of this decision which is contrary to
the Constitution and to prevent the
use of force in its implementation.
In this trying period, as we all seek
to right this wrong, we appeal to our
people not to be provoked by the agi
tators and troublemakers invading
our states and to scrupulously refrain
from disorder and lawless acts.
what else?” But staff members of
the District Employment Service
said that Lane was badly mistaken
if he thought “jobs grow on trees”
for young people without a high
school education.
Employers seeking to fill the most
menial jobs “won’t look twice at the
young person who wasn’t steady
enough to finish school,” they said.
MANY DROP OUT
Asst. School Supt. Carl F. Hansen
said Lane’s proposal is not the an
swer. He pointed out that nearly
1,000 high school students have
dropped out of school since last fall.
Records show these youngsters
aren’t leaving to take jobs, Hansen
said.
Since last September, Hansen has
been studying ways of making school
interesting for teen-agers who don’t
“take” to books. He hopes to give
them a special course in which they
can prepare for a job and, at the
same time, learn to read and spell
and add.
As the comment over Lane’s school
views (including an end to coeduca
tional junior and senior highs)
grew louder, Commissioner Samuel
Spencer offered another suggestion.
Spencer proposed a “thorough
study” of school operations to deter
mine whether teachers and facilities
are being put to their best use. Sub
sequently the Board of Education
ordered School Supt. Hobart M.
Coming to make a full-scale sur
vey of present school standards and
practices.
KIRKS’ PROPOSAL
This was done on the suggestion of
member Rowland F. Kirks, a law
yer and former university presi
dent, who many months ago scored
the school system for promoting stu
dents by a “weight and height” for
mula.
Leaning in the direction of Lane’s
views, Kirks asked Coming to study
the possibility of testing all school
Resistance
(Continued from Page 1)
preme Court extended its ban on ra
cial segregation to all tax-supported
colleges. The case involved three Ne
gro undergraduates enrolled at the
University of North Carolina.
Oklahoma
Ten more school systems, mostly in
east and northeast Oklahoma, have
announced plans for desegregation
this fall.
South Carolina
Fourteen new pro-segregation
measures were enacted by the 1956
session of the legislature, including
one which forbids NAACP member
ship to state, county, school district
and municipal employes. A test is
planned. Continued economic boy
cott activity was reported from the
predominantly Negro Lowcountry.
Tennessee
A three-judge federal court in
Nashville granted a continuance in a
city desegregation suit; the school
board, admitting unconstitutionality
of Tennessee’s segregation laws, will
have at least seven months to work
out a plan of compliance. There was
continued activity by pro-segrega
tion forces but moderation was re
ported to be still the keynote in the
state. On March 31 Chattanooga, first
city to announce compliance, said de
segregation would be delayed “prob
ably for five years.”
Texas
The Democratic executive commit
tee is making interposition a topic
for local and state party conventions
this year. A newspaper survey
showed that 11 more school districts
were planning desegregation this fall
and that about 1,650 Negroes are now
attending school with whites without
friction but with some scholastic
problems.
Virginia
The Prince Edward County case
(one of the original five before the
U.S. Supreme Court) has been re
opened with an expected NAACP
petition. Five pro-segregation bills
were adopted by the legislature in
March, but it was said that in gen
eral the state had made an about-
face on the need for early passage of
laws to prevent desegregation.
West Virginia
A suit has been filed against Logan
County, charging first grade deseg
regation now in force there is a
“meaningless” program. Suits were
reported under consideration in the
five remaining counties which have
not yet taken any action on desegre
gation.
students and regrouping them ac
cording to achievement in city
schools.
Board member Margaret Just
Butcher, a Howard University pro
fessor, said: “Maybe the study is a
good way to bring this Lane non
sense to an end.”
Coming agreed to give board
members the school system study.
He emphasized that his officers and
faculty “have not been inactive” in
meeting the present problem of serv
ing 106,000 students, the bright, the
normal and the dull.
Hard-pressed for funds and hamp
ered by a costly dual school system,
the District lagged behind the rest
of the country in getting smaller
class size.
Here in Washington, this cam
paign didn’t really begin to roll un
til after the start of integration-
when parents put aside self-interest
requests and demanded a lower
pupil-teacher ratio in the schoo
rooms. Heeding these demands,
school board agreed to change i fs
grade school pupil teacher ratio from
36 to 30 children as soon as me
funds were available to hire the 540
additional instructors needed.
As a start on the program, school
people asked for 180 more teacher*
next fall. The commissioners * al
the city could only afford 40 more
teachers.
Parents plan to renew their
quest for 180 teachers—obtai* 1
without transfer—before the Sen 3
Appropriations Committee. R "
the teacher fight that started I^j
thinking about the administration
the schools.