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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 (Continued On Next Page)