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PAGE 10—AUGUST 1957—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
D.C. Board Votes Record
$58.2 Million Request
WASHINGTON, D. C
record $58.2 million District
school budget request for fis
cal 1959 won the board of educa
tion’s unanimous approval last
month.
The board also accepted the
school administration’s decision
to seek a 32 to 1 pupil-teacher
ratio in 1958 but unanimously
voted to “reaffirm the 30 to 1 ratio
as an ideal toward which to aim.”
■*It is our thorough intention to go
ahead on a 30 to 1 basis the following
year,” School Supt. Hobart M. Coming
told the board.
Adoption of the lower ratio in 1958-
59, he said, would aggravate classroom
shortages and increase split-session at
tendance. There was no way, he said,
to step up the building program to
accommodate 30 pupils to a
District room except by borrowing.
School Two bills permitting the
Affairs school board to borrow funds
for a school construction pro
gram now are before the Senate District
Committee.
Meanwhile, Sen. Joseph S. Clark
(D-Pa.), chairman of a Senate District
subcommittee considering home rule
legislation for the District, found little
support for an elected school board. He
made that statement after questioning
school board members for two hours on
the degree of autonomy the board
should have over school budget matters
and whether it should be elected.
School board President Walter N.
Tobriner testified for an elected board,
but four other members expressed satis
faction with the present method of se
lection by district court judges.
Rowland Kirks, chairman of the
board’s legislative committee, said a
“higher caliber” school board results
from appointment rather than election.
Others said it would be a mistake to
mix politics with school matters.
SEGREGATION RIDER
Carrying once again an anti-segrega
tion rider, the federal aid for school
construction bill was killed and its
revival appeared unlikely, either this
year or next.
The intent of the amendment was
demonstrated by its new author, Rep.
Stuyvesant Wainwright (R-N.Y.) who
introduced it, voted for it—and then
voted to kill the bill. So
Federal did the Republican party’s
Aid To principal leaders in the
Education House, Rep. Charles Hal-
leck and Rep. Leslie
Arends.
The Republican leadership, partic
ularly President Eisenhower, was
blamed for the five-vote defeat of the
school bill.
“If the President had come out with a
strong statement we could have won,”
said Rep. Augustine Kelley (D-Pa.), a
sponsor of the measure which would
have provided $1.5 billion in federal
funds for new schools.
The motion to strike th e bill’s enact
ing clause, thereby effectively killing it,
won by 208-203. Voting to keep the bill
alive were 126 Democrats and 77 Repub
licans. Voting to scuttle it were 111
Republicans and 97 Democrats.
The motion came as support was
mounting for an amendment which
would have thrown out the bill in favor
of the President’s original school aid
proposal which placed greater emphasis
on need in the distribution of federal
funds.
The maneuver to substitute the Presi
dent’s bill also would have cut from the
aid bill the controversial anti-segrega
tion amendment. Wainwright said the
amendment would not be offered if the
President’s bill were substituted.
Wainwright’s amendment was accept
ed by a teller vote of 136 to 105 amid
warnings that its adoption would kill
the bill since southern Democrats would
not vote for prohibiting the allocation
of federal funds to school districts re
maining segregated.
SOUTHERNERS TAKE WALK
Adoption of the Wainwright amend
ment was assured by southern Demo
crats who failed to vote against it dur
ing a standing count. More than 50 of
the southern Democrats reportedly left
the floor during the count. Parliamen
tary procedure did not permit a roll call
vote that would have put the southern
ers on record.
The National Education Association,
meeting in Philadelphia early in July,
withstood several attempts to amend its
desegregation resolution. Instead, it re
affirmed a statement substantially the
same as in previous years.
The statement said the problems of
integration “are capable of solution at
the state and local level
NEA On by citizens of intelli-
Desegregation gence, saneness and
reasonableness, work
ing together in the interest of national
unity for the common good of all.” It
also urged that integration be ap
proached “with the spirit of fair play,
good will and respect for law.”
Efforts to strengthen the resolution
backing integration in the public schools
were defeated by big majorities and an
effort to take a roll call of the state dele
gation also was beaten down.
Most of NEA’s convention sessions
were studded with pleas for federal
school aid. Their campaign to shower
congressmen with telegrams urging fed
eral aid died aborning when the House
killed the measure.
The Senate has transformed the ad
ministration’s general civil rights meas
ure into essentially a right-to-vote bill
by axing the bill’s integration section.
A vote of 52 to 38 ripped
Civil Part III from the bill—the
Rights section which Sen. Richard
Debate B. Russell (D-Ga.) declared
would force racial integra
tion of the schools and would bring
bayonet law to the South.
The last major issue remaining in the
civil rights fight is the question of
whether jury trials should be guaranteed
violators of the right-to-vote section of
the bill.
School integration has figured prom
inently in this debate. Southern sena
tors, assisted by moderates on both sides
of the aisle, seized on the conviction of
John Kasper and six defendants by an
all-white jury in Clinton, Tenn., to make
a strong stand for insertion of a jury
trial requirement.
Before the Senate now is a broad new
amendment which in effect would re
vise the general law governing contempt
of court cases. Offered by Democratic
Senators Joseph C. O’Mahoney (Wyo.),
Estes Kefauver (Tenn.) and Ralph
Church (Idaho), it would guarantee
jury trials for all types of criminal con
tempt, including labor cases.
RUSSELL LAUDS AMENDMENT
The authors of this amendment
promptly were congratulated by Sen.
Russell for their “attempt to preserve
the right of trial by jury.” Unless the
bill is softened by a jury trial amend
ment, Russell has warned that southern
senators would filibuster.
Until now, the civil rights showdown
has been Sen. Russell’s show. It began
July 2 when the southern bloc leader
startled his colleagues by charging that
the administration's bill was craftily
written to force integration of southern
schools, hotels and swimming pools.
Sections of the bill, he said, were
grafted onto old laws which would au
thorize the President to call out federal
troops to enforce integration. Passage of
the bill with these sections, he warned,
“will cause unspeakable confusion, bit
terness and bloodshed.”
‘SOUTH WILL OPPOSE’
“If you propose to move in this fash
ion,” he continued, “you may as well
prepare your concentration camps now,
for there are not enough jails to hold
the people of the South who will today
oppose the use of raw federal power to
forcibly commingle white and Negro
children in the same schools and in
places of public entertainment.”
Russell called for a national referen
dum if the bill passed Congress.
President Eisenhower flatly rejected
this but appeared shocked that Russell
and others read the bill as a plan to
force integration upon the South with
federal bayonets if necessary. At his
press conference, President Eisenhower
appeared to confirm Russell’s view that
the President did not know what was in
his administration’s civil rights bill.
President Eisenhower declared there
were certain phrases of the bill which
he “didn’t completely understand” and
that his sole objective was “to prevent
anybody illegally from interfering with
any individual’s right to vote.”
STRIKE SECTION 121
The southern victory came when the
Senate voted on an amendment by
Sens. Clinton P. Anderson (D-N.M.)
and George D. Aiken (R-Vt.) to strike
out Section 121 of Part IH of the bill.
The southerners routed the newly
formed civil rights coalition of admin
Digging in Along the Potomac
Baltimore Sun
istration Republi
cans and liberal
Democrats. Thirty-
four Democrats and
18 Republicans
supported the
amendment. Thir
teen Democrats and
25 Republicans vot
ed “no.”
Senate Majority
Leader Lyndon
Johnson (Texas)
declared the vote
“may well be the
deciding factor as to
whether we have a
bill or no bill. As
far as I am con
cerned I am ready
to support an ade
quate right-to-vote
bill with proper
safeguards,” he said,
“I am willing to
support a [civil
rights investigat
ing] commission
which will make
reasoned inquiries
into this serious
problem. I believe
we can work out
such a measure if
we do not clutter up the bill with
other details.”
EXPRESS CONCERN
Republican and Democratic liberals,
however, voiced concern for other sec
tions of the bill. Sen. Jacob K. Javits
(R-N.Y.) said the bill is now in “great
jeopardy.”
“I hope those who are really for civil
rights will see the jeopardy of losing
one position after another and rally to
support the other provisions of the \
House bill,” he said.
Immediately following the vote 0 „ ' *■
Part IH, Senate Majority Leader Johjj s
son moved to call up an amendment by f
Sen. Joseph C. O’Mahoney to require a >
jury trial in criminal contempt cases.
As the bill now stands, the attorney
general can still use injunctions to en- f
force voting rights. Persons violating the I
injunctions could be charged with con
tempt and tried by a judge without jury *
O’Mahoney’s amendment would still ‘
permit this procedure in so-called civil SJ
contempt cases, but require a jury j,
criminal contempt cases. A similar
amendment also was offered by Sen 5
Kefauver.
ON JURY TRIAL
Kefauver and O’Mahoney then joined
with Church of Idaho to offer the
broader amendment to guarantee jury E
trials for all types of criminal contempt. e
This move was interpreted by some
as an attempt to get labor behind a jury
trial amendment and thus woo the votes f
of northern senators now opposed to t
any change in the civil rights legislation. •
Sen. Paul H. Douglas (D-Ill.) con- i
demned the new amendment, declaring i
it was so widespread it would change 1
at least 36 statutes, including the Fair
Labor Standards Act, antitrust laws and ! I
others banning false labeling.
Meanwhile, President Eisenhower, fol
lowing a meeting with Senate Repub
lican Leader William F. Knowland (R-
Calif.) was represented as urging
passage of the civil rights bill without
another major change. # # #
Kentucky NAACP Bid for Faculty
Mixing Rebuffed by 2 Boards
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
n naacp request for teacher
desegregation elicited official
announcement that neither Louis
ville nor Jefferson County schools
plan to desegregate faculties in
1957-58. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
The Louisville Story, a detailed
report on Louisville’s school de
segregation by Omer Carmichael
and Weldon James, was published
in New York. It included an eval
uation of the program by Supt.
Carmichael and several princi
pals, and a public opinion poll
showing that “69 per cent accepted
the change, 7 per cent didn’t care
much one way or the other, and
only 24 per cent registered com
plete disapproval.” (See “What
They Say.”)
Alabama’s assistant state superin
tendent of education, Dr. Joseph H.
Hadley, accepted appointment effective
Aug. 1 as assistant superintendent of
the Louisville schools. He said he “fully
understood” Louisville’s desegregation
policies. (See "School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
Officials of the Kentucky Citizens
Councils at a Louisville meeting an
nounced plans for a “vigorous” pro
gram for segregation in Louisville and
said they already had 8,000 signers of
petitions requesting the transfer of
children to all-white schools. (See
“Community Action.”)
In a letter to the Louisville Board of
Education, attorney J. Earl Dearing,
president of the Louisville branch of
the NAACP, requested a plan of
teacher desegregation “to accompany
student desegregation.”
Dearing said the branch “goes on
record as being vigorously opposed to
the policy and practice of teacher seg
regation as now promulgated by the
Louisville Board of Education.”
The letter expressed dismay that “no
public statement has been made indi
cating that a plan of teacher desegre
gation is remotely within the contem
plation” of the school board.
“The failure and refusal to desegre
gate public school teachers,” it con
tinued, “blurs the picture of public
school desegregation in Louisville as
portrayed by the publicity surround
ing the many honors received by Mr.
Carmichael, and is inconsistent with
the impressions that this publicity has
created in places outside the city of
Louisville.
‘MORAL IMPLICATIONS’
“Of course, the recent decision of the
Supreme Court outlawing segregation
... appertains to the pupils. However,
the legal reasoning supporting the de
cision, as well as the moral implications
inherent therein, are of sufficient sweep
to apply to the public school teaching
force.”
The letter contended that the school
board’s attitude “... places young Ne
gro teachers of this community in a
pitiful plight. This was shown this
spring when two Negroes applied to
teach in summer school and were re
fused employment because the board
would not place them in a desegre
gated situation.”
In reply Carmichael said he had dis
cussed the question informally with the
school board and believed the board
concurs in his desire to continue an
other year with segregated faculties
He said he favors delay because “inte
gration of faculty creates a number of
problems not created by integration of
pupils. I believe in solving one major
problem at a time.”
In the 1956-57 school year, Louisville
had 1,340 white and 347 Negro teachers
—a white decrease of 4.37 per cent, a
Negro decrease of 11.9 per cent. The
overall decrease was caused by cutting
out kindergarten and home instruction.
NO TEACHERS FIRED
Carmichael said fewer Negro teach
ers were needed because more Negro
children transferred to schools pre
viously all-white than white children
to previously all-Negro schools. No
teachers were fired, he said, but re
placements were not hired for some
who resigned or retired.
Jefferson County School Supt. Rich
ard Van Hoose, questioned by the
press, also said that there are “no
plans” to desegregate county schoo
faculties this fall.
Appointment of Dr. Joseph H. Had
ley as Louisville assistant school su
perintendent in charge of instruction
will become effective Aug. 1. Now as
sistant state superintendent of educa
tion in Alabama, Dr. Hadley, 49, is, like
Carmichael, a native of Alabama
Asked for his views on desegregation,
he answered:
“I came here fully understanding the
policies of the Louisville Board o£
Education. I have known Mr. Carmi
chael a long tune, and that strengthens
my belief in the situation here.”
Louisville has three other assistant
superintendents—W. F. Coslow (admin
istration), William D. Chilton (busi
ness affairs), and Sam V. Noe (school
relations and public relations).
On July 29 Simon and Schuster pub
lished both hard-cover and paperback
editions of The Louisville Story, by
Omer Carmichael and Weldon James, a
169-page report on the city’s school de
segregation program and on “what
went before and what came after ”
Reviewing it for The Courier-Jour
nal, Jean Howerton, the paper’s edu
cation specialist, noted its familiarity
to Louisvillians but said the authors
had made it “exciting and new... a
spellbinding story as they tell it, even
to one who knows it by heart.”
SUPT. OMER CARMICHAEL
Relates Experiences
Much of the book is equally familiar
to readers of Southern School News.
New to all readers is an “interim
evaluation” of the Louisville program
and a public opinion poll of Louisvil
lians, both made at the midway point
of the 1956-57 school year.
CARMICHAEL’S EVALUATION
The evaluation, in Carmichael’s
words:
“The program has worked far more .
smoothly than we had dared hope—
there have been no serious incidents
. . . our teachers and pupils are learn
ing a great deal about the adjustment
necessary in working successfully with
people of another race . . . many
our teachers have had to work harder,
as we all expected . . . the first semes
ter experience confirms our earlier be
lief that real effort will be required to
maintain current standards in many of
the desegregated schools.”
Noting that such general conclusions
varied a bit from school to school, the
authors supplemented them with re
ports from individual school principal
and teachers. A special “note on dis- (
cipline” included an interview with
Louisville Chief of Police Carl Heustts
(“fortunately the ‘grandfathers’ have
been content to get things off them (
chest with nothing much worse than
talk.”)
Carmichael also restated some of his
published criticisms of the NAACP 311
his critical estimate of the competent
of Negro teachers.
OPINION POLL DETAILS
The public opinion poll findings ar®
detailed in several tables in the
pendix of the book. Summarized, they
indicate that “69 per cent accepted .
change, 7 per cent didn’t care ® uc ^
one way or the other, and only 24 P®
cent registered complete disapP 10 '’
and proposed an attempt to turn ,
clock back ... a majority, includ®^
many who disapproved of the chang
itself, felt that the procedure was aC
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