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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—NOVEMBER 1958—PAGE 7
WEST VIRGINIA
Racial Issues Are Avoided As Campaign
Near End; School Amendments On Ballot
CHARLESTON, W. Va.
HE GENERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN
went into its final lap this week
with every West Virginia candi
date in a major race dodging the
issue of racial desegregation in the
public schools.
The closest any of them got to
it was when two Democrats run
ning for the U.S. Senate endorsed
further federal aid to education.
Both senatorial seats must be filled
this year—one for a full term and
the other for a two-year term.
(See “Political Activity.”)
Wiley A. Branton of Pine Bluff, Ark.,
became involved in a controversy
over an assistant attorney generalship
in his home state as a result of an ad
dress to the Charleston NAACP branch.
(See “What They Say.”)
Parents in Raleigh County were
divided over plans to desegregate a
Negro school. (See “School Boards and
Schoolmen.”)
Arkansas’ Gov. Faubus was criti
cized in a Wheeling speech.
Most of the politicians remarks were
confined to criticizing one another or
the parties they reprent, with an occa
sional slap at the Eisenhower admin
istration or the former administration
of ex-President Harry Truman.
Even when he came here for a public
appearance Truman refused to com
ment on the racial question. “Let’s
stick to the important issues,” he told
an inquiring newsman.
BUTLER SPEAKS OUT
In Wheeling, Paul M. Butler, Demo
cratic national chairman, was quoted as
saying, “I would not be too unhappy if
Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas would
leave the Democratic Party.”
He was queried at Wheeling Airport
regarding his remarks at Follansbee, a
Northern Panhandle steel town. He
was reported to have said there that
segregationist southerners “would have
to take political asylum wherever they
can find it, either in the Republican
Party or a third party.”
His reply in Wheeling was to the
effect that “we’re certainly not going
to read anybody out of the party.”
HARMLESS SPLIT SEEN
There will always be some people
and groups who won’t accept a party
platform, he added, but he doesn’t
think a split over the desegregation
question in 1960 will hurt the Demo
cratic Party any more than it did in
1948.
West Virginia’s two Democratic
candidates for the U.S. Senate issued a
joint statement late in October calling
for increased federal aid to education.
“Education is a national problem,”
said Rep. Robert C. Byrd, candidate for
the full term, and former Rep. Jen
nings Randolph, candidate for the un
expired term of the deceased M. M.
Neely. “Therefore, it should be in part
a federal responsibility to help solve
the problem,” they added.
SCHOOL ISSUES
Two of four constitutional amend
ments on which West Virginians will
cast ballots Nov. 4 directly relate to
the public schools. One would make
the office of state school superintendent
an appointive post, and the other would
permit special levies to run for five
instead of three years and to be passed
for higher amounts than are now legal
under the Tax Limitation Amendment.
Every professional education group
in the state, plus State Supt. R. Virgil
Rohrbough, favor them. Other inter
ested groups have endorsed them also.
Only one person, Harry G. Wheat,
professor emeritus at West Virginia
University, has come out in opposition
to the appointment of the state super
intendent. He says it would take too
much power away from the public and
put it in the hands of the state Board
of Education.
Once again the state supreme court
has voided an order removing two
members of the Raleigh County Board
of Education because the charges
against them were not put in writing
and entered in the record.
DECISION AGAIN NULLIFIED
As in the previous case, considered
earlier this year, the unanimous deci
sion held that the Raleigh County Cir
cuit Court lacked jurisdiction to hear
the proceedings because of the techni
cal failure.
The removal proceedings against the
two men were instituted by five Ra
leigh County citizens. The lower court
upheld their charges that members A.
P. Loeber and Dale Covey had voted
in favor of contracts in which they
had a special interest. The contracts
were for the employment of their
wives as teachers.
Ten citizens of Edwight, a small
mining town in Raleigh County, voiced
protests early in October to the deci
sion by the board of education to make
Elliott school, a former all-Negro fa
cility, a desegregated school. Other
white schools in the area are crowded
while Elliott isn’t, and upon petition of
white parents the board agreed to make
the change.
The complaining parents charged
that only two of the 25 parents re
questing the desegregated arrangement
lived in the community. “The remaind
er of the group,” they said, “live . . .
from Pettus to Glen Daniel.” (This is
still in the same general area.)
ACTION PENDING
The board has taken no other action
on the matter to date.
A survey made by the West Virginia
Education Association in October shows
that Hancock County, a steel-making
center and fully desegregated, has the
highest teachers pay scale in the state.
Hancock pays its beginning teachers
with bachelors’ degrees $3,765 a year.
Kanawha, the state’s wealthiest and
also a fully desegregated county, pays
$3,510. West Virginia’s average teach
ers’ salary ranks 37th among the
states.
The NAACP’s lawyer in the Little
Rock school controversy, Wiley A.
Branton of Pine Bluff, Ark., was quoted
in Charleston Oct. 13 as having said
the Faubus administration offered him
a deal if he would give up the inte
gration fight.
“I could have become the first Negro
attorney general of Arkansas if I had
used my influence to get Gov. Faubus
off the hook with a cooling-off period,”
a Charleston Gazette newsman reported
he told an NAACP audience.
“But I refused,” Branton is alleged
to have said, “because the segregation
ists are only interested in maintaining
segregation for eternity. I won’t stop
the fight.”
The news story, which appeared the
next day, also quoted Branton as say
ing:
“Most of the trouble in Arkansas to
day stems from the actions of one man,
Gov. Faubus. By and large, the people
of Arkansas believe in segregation.
But they also are law-abiding citizens
who eventually will obey the law even
if it goes against their personal views,”
DENIES STATEMENT
Back in Little Rock Oct. 14, Branton
denied the statement attributed to him
that the Faubus administration offered
him a deal. Branton told the Associated
Press “someone has apparently taken
some statements out of context... I
have not received any offers for any
deal from the Faubus administration or
from Atty. Gen. Bruce Bennett what
soever, though certain offers have been
made to me by other parties.”
In Charleston, the reporter who cov
ered the NAACP meeting—Harry Ern
est—and two other Gazette staff mem
bers said the newspaper’s report of the
meeting was correct.
Willard Brown, president of the
Charleston NAACP, confirmed that
Branton discussed the matter. But
Brown said he recalled that Branton
qualified the statement by saying he
“possibly or probably” could have be
come the first Negro attorney general
of Arkansas.
“The article as a whole was very
good,” Brown added. “But I don’t think
Branton meant to imply that a specific
deal had been offered him.”
PACKED CLASSES BLAMED
Crowded classrooms are largely re
sponsible for the fact that West Vir
ginia children are about two years
behind the national average in reading
by the time they reach the sixth grade,
according to a West Virginia University
professor.
Dr. E. C. Kennedy said crowded
classrooms often make it necessary to
put as many as 60 pupils in one room.
“Teachers don’t have enough time to
give individual attention to the slow
reader or the gifted child,” he said,
“and often they are forced to promote
students who are not fully qualified
because there isn’t enough room in the
classroom to hold them back.”
Enrollment in West Virginia colleges
will almost double to 58,500 students
by 1970, the Southern Regional Edu
cation Board predicted in October.
That’s a jump from 2,885 students
in 1957. A total of 21,095 fulltime stu
dents were enrolled in West Virginia’s
20 colleges and university this fall.
That’s a 9.4 per cent increase over
1957.
West Virginia University, looking
toward larger enrollment, will have its
$31 million medical school finished by
1960. Also under construction at that
time will be four new buildings which
will house the colleges of engineering
and agriculture.
The College of Engineering will be in
an 11-floor tower, while the College of
Agriculture will occupy three buildings
nearby.
The medical school is being financed
by a soft drink tax. The colleges of
engineering and agriculture are being
built through a revenue bond program
which will be retired with student tui
tion and fees.
Marshall College, the state’s second
largest institution of higher learning,
also is taking steps to have facilities
ready for the coming influx of stu
dents through the building of a health
and physical education building. But
Marshall is running into trouble.
When bids were first asked on the
structure last summer the lowest was
$400,000 over the legislative authoriza
tion. Bids will be asked again.
Concord and Shepherd colleges have
recently begun planning for new dor
mitories, and the Board of Education,
at its meeting this month, added over
$200,000 to budgets of the two schools
to pay for furnishings.
The Shepherd dormitory, which will
house 200 women, will cost almost a
million dollars. The Concord dormi
tories—one for 210 women and another
for 197 men—will cost an estimated
$1% million.
Morris Harvey College, a private
segregated co-educational institution
here, started work in October on a new
men’s dormitory with a capacity of 86.
It will cost $350,000. A new women’s
hall was completed four years ago at a
cost of $300,000.
Meanwhile, efforts were launched in
the Charleston area to raise funds for
Wheeling College, the state’s only
Catholic institution of higher learning.
It was established in 1954 by the Jes
uits of Maryland Province, and already
$3 million has been spent on new fa
cilities.
SET ADMISSION RULE
The state Board of Education warned
this month the bottom fourth of West
Virginia high school graduates will not
be granted automatic admission to the
state’s nine colleges beginning in 1961.
Only students in the upper three-
fourths of their class for four years of
high school will be allowed to enter
without qualification tests. The others
will be granted entrance if they pass
what the board calls college ability
tests.
West Virginia in October was allotted
$511,754 from the first federal appro
priation to aid higher education and to
help college students.
Almost $53,000 of the appropriation
will go to West Virginia colleges and
the university—both of which are de
segregated—for student loans. The
schools are expected to match this
money on the basis of one dollar for
nine dollars from Washington.
A public kindergarten, West Vir
ginia’s first in almost 25 years, opened
in Upshur County this fall. Only seven
other states, mostly in the South, have
no public kindergartens.
In Upshur County savings from the
elimination of several one-room schools
were used to finance the experiment.
Part of the savings came through de
segregation mergers.
Forty children were enrolled this
fall. State School Supt. R. Virgil Rohr
bough hopes to push such public
kindergartens in other counties in the
next few years.
In Kanawha County, special instruc
tion for gifted children, a longtime goal
of the Board of Education, has been
delayed by a lack of funds.
“Our plans are in the embryonic
stage for such programs,” said Harry
G. Kennedy, member of the board,
“but we’re short on funds.”
# # #
Texas
(Continued From Page 6)
by the Hale-Aikin Committee, would
be on top of the $75 million needed for
items already supported by the state.
Tax INCREASES
Gov. Price Daniel said he believed
the state could maintain its present
services without levying any general
sales or state income taxes. He sug
gested present selective sales and other
taxes could be raised to the levels of
states bordering Texas, plus levying of
unspecified other individual taxes.
State Sen. W. S. Fly of Victoria, chair-
man of a legislative tax study, com
mented that most persons suggest either
general sales or income taxes to raise
the money. L. P. Sturgeon, spokesman
°r Texas State Teachers Association,
old a convention of school board mem-
bors he believes these two sources are
e only ones which would provide nec
essary funds.
t.*3 * *4.*'
P Texas Commission on Higher
^ducation reported both public and
Private institutions gained enrollment
s fall, compared to a year ago.
l e . een fully state-supported col-
8n § <«o including two junior colleges, had
’ students registered on Oct. 15,
°Tvf are d a year earlier,
i hirty-seven private and church col-
59 581 ^ enr °ll e< l. compared to
coU^ 6 two Principal state-supported
c egGS for Negroes shared the in-
28 A se - Texas Southern University has
A &M StUdentS ’ U f > f54> and Prairie View
“1 2,492, one more than last year.
The University of Texas is the largest
with 17,792, up 807. Enrollment at Texas
A&M, an all-male school, declined from
7,469 to 7,077. A lawsuit is now under
way to admit women to Texas A&M.
The latest ruling by a state intermedi
ate court denied their application.
The Student Assembly at the state
university passed a resolution, by 17 to
1 majority, asking that off-campus
establishments serving students be de
segregated. Cafeterias and some boys’
dormitories at Texas are integrated.
In the midst of a hot political cam
paign for places on the Houston school
board, six out of seven candidates at
one rally pledged to desegregate schools
rather than close them, if that became
the choice. Mrs. Enid Eggum Smith, the
seventh candidate, said she would sup
port closing rather than integration.
The Houston district is under federal
court order to desegregate “with delib
erate speed.” It has mainly waited upon
the outcome of Dallas’ court actions in
volving laws which also apply to Hous
ton. (See “Legal Action.”)
EVENLY DIVIDED
Three of the six Houston board can
didates who opposed closing schools are
described as segregation advocates and
three others integrationists.
The Houston Association for Better
Schools, backed largely by liberal po
litical factions, recommended desegre
gation for the district. Conservative seg
regation supporters now are in major
ity on the seven-member Houston
board. There were numerous candidates
for the seven places, including one Ne
gro woman.
The state AFL-CIO convention at
Houston adopted a 2,600-word civil
rights resolution which seemed to sat
isfy both integrationists and segrega
tionists. The resolution covered much
more than race relations.
The race relations provision was a
watered-down version of one adopted
in 1953 by the AFL-CIO nationally. The
parent organization had denounced
school segregation and groups like the
Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens
Councils “which seek by the vilest and
most brutal methods to deny all politi
cal and civil rights to America’s Negro
citizens.”
WIN POINT
The national policy was endorsed.
But segregationists won a point by hav
ing removed the names of specific or
ganizations. This reportedly was a con
cession to union members who belong
to the White Citizens Councils.
The resolution avoided any recom
mendation to integrate Texas labor
unions.
“Federal Schools May be the Only
Final Solution” headlined an editorial
in the Houston Informer, principal
Negro newspaper in Texas. Similar pro-
federal school editorials had appeared
previously.
A statewide conference of science and
mathematics teachers at Austin heard
Dr. Randall Whaley, executive director
of the National Academy of Sciences-
National Research Council Advisory
Board on Education, compare U.S. and
Russian schools. He recently visited
Russia.
School systems of both countries are
undergoing vast changes and becom
ing more alike, Dr. Whaley reported.
“Now they’re realizing what we have
known all along,” said Dr. Whaley. “Not
all children are bom equal, at least not
with an equal ability to learn.”
CAPITAL CALLED MODEL’
At Austin, a Negro community lead
er said members of his race consider
Austin “a model” in handling race rela
tions. Public schools have desegregated
there from the ninth grade up. Of 1,100
Negroes eligible to attend formerly
white schools only about 35 have en
rolled. The others by choice attend seg
regated Negro schools.
Dr. E. H. Givens, the Negro spokes
man, thanked the Austin school board
for “the fine schools we have.” Then he
recommended some specific improve
ments in Negro schools—more science,
mathematics, foreign language and vo
cational training.
At Fort Worth, Dr. J. H. Jackson, na
tional president of Negro Baptists, told
a Texas convention of the group that
“love and understanding” are needed in
the segregation problem.
An unsigned advertisement appeared
in the Dallas News: “If you are op
posed to the results being obtained by
the NAACP, Support the NAAWP. P.O.
Box 118, Dallas 1, Texas.”
# # #
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AUGUST 24, 1912, AS AMENDED BY THE
ACTS OF MARCH 3, 1933, AND JULY 2, 1947
(Title 39, United States Code, Section 233)
SHOWING THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGE
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SCHOOL NEWS, published monthly at Nash
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Term.; Editor, Edward D. Ball, 1109 19th
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(My commission expires July 20, 1960)