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. _ SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—FEBRUARY—PAGE 5 ARKANSAS Bennett Enters Race; Handshake Stirs Debate MRS. BATES AND GOV. FAUBUS SHAKE HANDS At Center, W. A. Richardson, West Indies Official LITTLE ROCK, Ark. A tty. Gen. Bruce Bennett filed early as a candidate for gov ernor, saying that school desegre gation would be one of two main issues in the campaign. Gov. Or- val E. Faubus still wasn’t saying whether he would try for a fourth term. (See “Political Ac tivity.”) Faubus charged that his “ene mies” at Washington had set up his meeting in December with Mrs. L. C. Bates, state president of the National Assn, for the Ad vancement of Colored People, in an attempt to damage him politic ally. (See “Political Activity.”) In the Dollarway desegregation case, the school board and the Negro plain tiffs filed long briefs debating whether the board was using the placement laws constitutionally. (See “Legal Ac tion.”) A Negro organization investigated conditions at Little Rock Central and Hall high schools and disputed charges by a Negro congressman from Michi gan that the eight Negro students were receiving gross mistreatment. (See “Community Activity.”) Atty. Gen. Bruce Bennett announced as a candidate for governor and paid his $1,500 filing fee on Jan. 13, three and half months before the deadline for the Democratic primaries. It was one of the earliest filings in modem times. Bennett, who debated for months two years ago whether to run and then didn’t, said he just wanted to be sure that all of his supporters knew that he was in the race this time. He is the first and, so far, the only one to an nounce. The only comment from Gov. Faubus, who is expected to try for a fourth term, was that he wouldn’t criticize anybody for having the ambition to ran for governor. Bennett was asked for but wouldn’t give his opinion of the Faubus admin istration. “That has no bearing on my candi dacy,” he said. He said the principal issues in the campaign would be the school deseg regation problem and how to get enough new industry to stop the loss of population in the state. Bennett, 42, is an avowed segrega tionist. As attorney general, he has worked to put the NAACP out of busi ness in Arkansas. Bennett has been critical of the governor for using the National Guard. Resisting school desegregation must be handled in the courts and through law suits, he says. Besides Faubus, six or eight others have been mentioned as possible gu bernatorial candidates. Some are in the Faubus administration and can’t be expected to run if the governor does. Faubus has said that he will an nounce his political intentions at least a month before the filing deadline of April 27. One prospective candidate, former Congressman Brooks Hays of Little Rock, is no longer a prospect. On Jan. 26 he took a new nine-year appoint ment as a director of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The first Democratic primary this year is July 26. The runoff primary, if needed, will be two weeks later. FAUBUS-BATES MEETING There was a mild repercussion in January from the surprise meeting Dec. 16 of Faubus and Mrs. L. C. Bates, state NAACP president. They met in his office and shook hands while she was there as host to Wil liam A. Richardson, federal informa tion officer of the government of the West Indies. Richardson was in this country on a tour sponsored by the State Depart ment and wanted to meet the gover nor. He is a Negro. A month later the national news services quoted Mrs. Bates as saying at a Moral Re-armament (MRA) meet ing at Washington, D. C.: “When I met the governor, I said, ‘I am not interested in fighting the Civil War. I am interested in where we are going from this hour. I am in terested in tomorrow and the future of America.’ Without Moral Re-arma ment I don’t think I could have done that.” At the governor’s press conference the next morning, Faubus said: “That’s a complete fabrication, but it’s a very nice one. She made no comment like that to me. If she had, I would have had no objection to it. But truth is truth—and she did not say it to me.” Reporters said she did make a re mark about the Civil War to them while waiting outside the governor’s office to see him. Then the governor went on to say that he thought the arrangements for Mrs. Bates to meet him had been made in advance by his “enemies” at Wash ington. By enemies he said he meant the Justice Department, the NAACP and “other pseudo and extreme liber als who are trying to dictate policies.” He said he thought they set it up be cause they figured it would hurt him politically, whether he received Mrs. Bates and Richardson, or whether he refused to meet them. Faubus said he had not hesitated to receive Mrs. Bates. “I could not have embarrassed all concerned by refus ing to see the two,” he said. He added that he did not believe the incident had damaged him. In the Dollarway School District case (Dove v. Parham), the two sides filed lengthy briefs in January before Fed eral District Judge J. Smith Henley. The main issue now is whether the Dollarway board is using the state pu pil placement laws, already held valid on their face, to discriminate against the three Negro plaintiffs. Another point is the contention of the Dollarway board that the plaintiffs should have gone to the Circuit Court in Jefferson County before filing in federal court. Judge Henley has this motion and the plaintiffs’ petition un der advisement. The plaintiffs, Earnestive Dove, James Warfield and Corliss Smith, tried to show that the board’s use of the placement laws was unconstitu tional because Negro students applying for reassignment were required to meet special conditions not imposed on other students. The brief said “no children other than the plaintiffs have been required to give reasons why they should be admitted to a particular school; none other have been subjected to public hearings, with the attendant exposure to threats, abuse and violence; no other students have been subjected to physi cal examinations, tests and interviews, in the consideration and determination of their school assignments; and, ap parently, no applicants other than the plaintiffs have been denied admission and enrollment in the school for which they expressed preference.” At the start of the school year, the brief said, the board sent all students to the schools they had attended the year before, thus tunneling all Negro students into the Negro school and re quiring them to stay there pending individual reassignment to another school. “This does not constitute an ar rangement for desegregating the schools or even a step in that direction,” the brief said. The brief also attacked some of the 16 criteria, established by the board under placement laws. It said that one of them, “the possibility of breeches of the peace or ill will or economic re taliation within the community,” al ready had been ruled out by the Su preme Court when it denied Little Rock’s plea in 1958 for a 2%-year de lay. Five others, it said, are so vague or irrelevant or dependent on subjective judgment that they cannot be applied constitutionally. These were psycho logical qualifications of the pupil for the teaching and associations involved; psychological effect on the pupil of at tendance at a particular school; home environment; maintenance or sever ance of established and psychological relations with other pupils and teach ers; and the morals, conduct, health and personal standards of the pupil asking reassignment. If a Negro child’s morals, conduct, health and personal standards are such that he can attend a Negro school, asked the brief, how does that dis qualify him from attending a white school? In an answering brief the Dollarway board contended that its position is constitutional. THREE OBJECTED At the beginning of the school year, the brief said, the Dollarway board assigned each pupil. Only the three plaintiffs in the lawsuit have objected to those assignments, the brief said, and when they objected that put into motion placement procedures. The same procedures apply to all students, white or Negro, the brief said, and all who object to their assignments will be treated the same. Only those who ask reassignment receive the special tests, the brief said, and there is noth ing in the record to support an in ference that any student of any race would be treated differently. The brief also said it is legal to con sider race in making an assignment as long as race is not the only considera tion. It also served notice that the Dollar way board “can and should” take a different view of pupil transfers at the first grade level from transfers at a higher grade level, and that it was go ing to take particular care with as signing first grade students in the 1960-61 school year. This plan is based on the testimony given for the board in a December hearing by Dr. John E. Peters, associ ate professor of psychiatry at the Uni versity of Arkansas School of Medi cine, and Robert Moore, psychologist and dean of students at Arkansas State College. Quoting at length from their testi mony, the brief said Peters and Moore gave two basic reasons why the plain tiffs should not be transferred to the all-white school—one that they would be removed from their friends and a known environment, and the other that they would have to face extreme emo tional pressure because of the rigid attitudes that children develop on such matters as race by the time they are 14 or 15 years old. TWO OTHER LAWSUITS The State Supreme Court heard oral arguments Jan. 11 in two lawsuits at tacking Act 10 of 1958. The act re quires public school and college em ployees to list under oath their organi zational memberships. The cases of Gephardt v. Tucker and Carr v. Young are being appealed from the Chancery Court of Pulaski County, which upheld the law. The plaintiffs are Ernest T. Gephardt, former teacher of printing in the Little Rock public schools, and Max F. Carr, former teacher of music at the University of Arkansas. In an earlier suit (Shelton v. Mc Kinley) a three-judge district court upheld Act 10 but the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Jan. 25 to hear an ap peal in the case. The Gephardt and Carr suits are based on a contention differing from Shelton’s. They say their employer is entitled to all of the in formation required under Act 10 ex cept that of a private nature, such as church membership. Both are represented by Edwin E. Dunaway of Little Rock, who told the Supreme Court that teachers could lose their jobs through pressure if they be longed to some private organization that certain groups do not like. As an example of an organization whose members are subject to such pressure he mentioned the Urban League, of which he is president at Little Rock. For the state, Asst. Atty. Gen. Bill J. Davis argued that private employers could get such information from their employes without any constitutional fuss and that public employers should have the same privilege. SENTENCING DELAYED The sentencing of Jesse Raymond Perry and John Taylor Coggins for their part in the Labor Day dynamit- ings at Little Rock was postponed from Jan. 11 to Feb. 5. Each is scheduled to get three years in prison. E. A. Lauderdale Sr., also convicted, was scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 1. His penalty is three years and a $500 fine. A Negro organization made its own investigation of charges by Rep. Charles C. Diggs Jr. (D-Mich), a Negro, that the Negro students in Central and Hall high schools at Little Rock were grossly mistreated. In a report released Jan. 8, the Arkansas Christian Move ment refused to uphold the charges made by Diggs (Southern School News, January 1960). It said condi tions were “almost normal” at Hall, attended by three Negro students, and were “bad but much better than in 1957” at Central, attended by five Ne gro students. Diggs spoke out in December after spending about a week in Little Rock as part of a tour through the South to gather material for anticipated civil rights debates. School authorities denied his accusa tions at the time. The Arkansas Christian Movement is an organization of Negro church leaders formed in 1957 to challenge the legality of the four segregation laws adopted by the General Assembly that year (the Sovereignty Commission and registra tion laws). A committee of three Ne groes investigated Diggs’ charges. They were Thad Williams, attorney; the Rev. C. C. Walker, and I. S. McClinton, presi dent of the Arkansas Democratic Voters Assn. Excerpts from the report follow: ALMOST NORMAL “We are happy to report that the con ditions at Hall High School are almost normal... “While conditions at Central High have greatly improved from the 1957 status, there still remains misconduct which needs much correction. It was found that there is name calling and periodic physical manifestations of mis conduct such as pushing and kicking. Some of the physical intimidation is be ing carried on by children not in school. “It was also found that the parents still feel that carrying the children to and from school is necessary for the protection of the children. The parents seem somewhat reluctant to make con tinuous complaints as their child might become a central target. However most of the physical misconduct was reported to the principal or to the faculty ... “The Negro children at Central High feel that the faculty is not sufficiently sympathetic toward their plight and tends to minimize the reported inci dents. Thus the students are also reluc tant to report incidents of misconduct. “The committee found that organized open defiance to complying with the famous Brown decision has been great ly retarded in Little Rock. For the most part this retardation resulted from the work of Chief of Police Eugene Smith and his staff, Prosecuting Atty. Frank Holt and his staff and the political ef forts of the responsible citizens (white and Negro) of this community.” The committee joined with Diggs in asking that President Eisenhower make a goodwill tour of the South. It sup ported the President in his request for civil rights legislation. L. C. Bates of Little Rock has been hired as a regional secretary of the NAACP, the New York headquarters announced. His wife is the state presi dent of the NAACP. They published a weekly newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, until last Oct. 30, when they sus pended publication because, they said, so many of their advertisers had been pressured into dropping out. Roy Wilkins, executive director of the NAACP, said Bates would work in Ar kansas and, possibly, neighboring states. SCHOOL BOARDS AND SCHOOLMEN So far this fiscal year, 271 Arkansas school teachers have retired. Last year the total was 214 and the year before 185, for years ending on June 30. The director of the State Teachers Retirement System, Hoyt Pyle, said he expected the trend to change downward this year because there is less unrest in the public school system over deseg regation. He said about 150 teachers a year retire usually. Last July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year, 219 teachers retired and 52 more have retired since then. The Little Rock public high schools were still closed last July 1 and whether they would re open was unknown at the time. “The figures certainly show that it was an abnormal and unusual year,” Pyle said. “The situation caused some teachers to retire and to go to other states to teach.” SCHOOLS RECEIVE FUNDS The Little Rock School Board asked for and received from the State Depart ment of Education $129,752 as the re mainder of the money withheld from Little Rock schools during 1958-59 when they were closed. The schools were closed by Faubus under Act 4 of 1958 and the money withheld under Act 5 of 1958, to be paid to the schools to which the displaced Little Rock stu dents transferred. Other schools received $187,768 of Lit tle Rock’s withheld money before the two laws were held unconstitutional by federal courts. Marion A. Wright of Linville Falls, N.C., retired lawyer and former presi dent of the Southern Regional Council, spoke at the annual meeting of the Ar kansas Council on Human Relations. The meeting was attended by about 150 whites and Negroes at Philander Smith College in Little Rock. Wright said there is a “bankruptcy of leadership” in the South regarding the racial situation. The leaders aren’t leading, he said, and in some cases have actually prevented progress in the racial situation. VETERAN VISITS FAUBUS John M. Hobble of Liberal, Kans., na tional commander of the 40 et 8, visited Faubus in the governor’s office and commented later that they had a mu tual problem in segregation. “The only difference is that he hasn’t been thrown out and we have,” Hobble said. The 40 et 8 was ordered expelled re cently from the American Legion by the national Legion commander for refus ing to admit Negro veterans. Hobble said he considered that order illegal and said that the 40 et 8 would ignore it. Faubus, a member of the 40 et 8, agreed with him. SAYS ISSUE DISTORTED As a political issue, civil rights is dis torted far out of its importance, accord ing to Gov. Faubus. He said polls show civil rights far down the list of needed legislation and he wondered why some national political leaders continue to harp on it. Talk by Democratic leaders of quick action in Congress on civil rights brought this comment. “We have some of the most stupid leadership that the Democratic Party has ever been burdened with,” Faubus said. Back from Jacksonville, Fla., where he attended the Gator Bowl football game, Faubus reported that he was sur rounded there by people urging him to run for president. He said he neither encouraged nor discouraged them. The election of Jimmie Davis as gov ernor of Louisiana certainly was not a setback for states rights, according to Faubus, who said he thought the issue of segregation was the deciding one in that campaign. Georgia will shut its schools rather than allow federal courts to force de segregation, Faubus said. And if they are closed don’t blame the segregation ists, he added—blame the federal gov ernment and the NAACP. # # #