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The Augusta News-Review - August 23. 1973 - r BIBMHHMSI HOB ■Walking Il lr| With If ■ Dignity Jjfc/jAill| If li I The present supreme court tends to support SENATOR SAM ERVIN’S COMMITTEE AGAINST PRESIDENT NIXON IN THE BATTLE OF THE TAPES. IN 1972, THE HIGH COURT TOOK A STAND IN THE BRANZBURG V HAYES LITIGATION, BETTER KNOWN IN THE TRADE AS THE CALDWELL CASE, WHERE NEWSPAPERMEN WERE ORDERED TO DISCLOSE THEIR SOURCES TO THE GRAND JURY. President Nixon is standing hard by what he thinks is his constitutional confidentiality to save the powers and prerogatives of the presidency. Thus he will not relinquish his White House papers and tapes. The President evidently holds that he is doing nothing less than defending the Constitution and the separation of powers in the same manner of all his predecessors. The entire civilized world is wondering if the President’s stand is basicly sound. It is a rarity in this country that a court or a Congressional Committee has called for a President’s testimony. There is no known president on a direct question whether the separation of powers shelters the presidency from compulsory process by the Judiciary or the Congress. Nevertheless, the President has a strong argument. The most famous case goes back to 1807, when tough-minded Chief Justice John Marshall, sitting in circuit as judge in the famous trial at Richmond Virgina of Aaron Burr for treason. The Chief Justice subpoenaed President Thomas Jefferson, in doing so Marshall began by stating that it is not incompatible with presidential diginity for Jefferson to submit to the voice of the courts. The English principle that the King could do no wrong, did not apply to he United States where the President could be impeached, and removed from office. The crusty Jurist contended that the President may be subpoenaed, and examined as a witness, and required to produce any paper in his possession. This tough edict was reinforced with a dogmatic reminder that this order was not controverted. Os course many legal and moral axioms have been eroded over the years. President Jefferson certainly could not contest the principle layed down by the Chief Justice without saying in part that the President could do no wrong. But he was damned if he would go to Richmond. What he did was to send a deposition. Mr. Jefferson contended that a President had a higher obligaiton to the particular set of duties imposed on him. In short, his theory was that the President was not above subpoenas, but no rational person would expect the President to abandon his superior duties at will. If a President was forced to honor every subpoena, the courts would be forcing a breach of separation of powers, and keep the President hopping to and fro, anywhere his enemies so desired. The 1807 incident ended with Chief Justice Marshall establishing the rights to subpoena the President, and President Jefferson standing on his presidential rights not to show up. Marshall, in other words, had said that the President was subject to the same law as anybody else; and President Jefferson said, that’s partly true, but the President also had more solemn responsibilities than other people. Both Marshall and Jefferson were surely correct. The answers always are in he tact of finding a sensible balance, somewhere in etween. PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON KEEPING THE SOUTH IN LINE Sixty years after the Justice Marshall-President Thomas Jefferson tangle, the state of Mississippi tried to enjoin President Johnson from enforcing the Reconstruction laws. The case wnet to he Supreme Court, which declared that Johnson was immune from judicial jurisdiction in carrying out the laws arising out of the Civil War. But the High Court ruled that the President was not exempt from judicial or legislative process. The Court stated that carrying out the law was an official duty; breaking it, for example, is not. The Federal Attorney-General argued “that the President’s case put it to the Court, he was not relying upon any personal immunity that the individual who happens to be President; upon any idea that he cannot do wrong, nd upon the idea that there is any paricular sanctity belong to him. As is the case with one who has royal blood in his veins.” This decision did not set a precedent holding that a President was never to appear in a court of law. Johnson’s successor, President Grant, wanted to testify as a witness for the defense when his private secretary was prosecuted by his own Department of Justice, and he did file a deposition in the unfortunate General Bobcock's behalf. It can be plainly seen that the separation of powers has never been conceived as inhibiting all direct intercourse between President and Congress. President George Washington on a momentous occasion in 1789 went to Congress to ask its advice on a tready. The Congress was outraged by the President coming to them, it discouraged him from doing that again 3 THE GREAT MAN HONORED THE CONGRESS WITH HIS PRESENCE - President Abe Lincoln, the great Emancipator went before the House Judiciary Committee in 1862 to discuss the leak of his State-of-the-Union message to The New York Herald, and he also went to a session of the Committee on Conduct of the War to deny that his wife was a Confederate spy. Many Presidents have invited committees of Congress to talk at the VTiite House. Many of the Presidents in the past have looked forward to going before the committees and the entire Congress. But President Andrew Jackson was not one of these. He was the stoutest of all defenders of the presidential prerogative. 1846 Another President tangled with the lower branch of Congress. It was President James K. Polk, another hard champion of the presidency. The House of Representatives requested him to tum over information about secret intelligence operations conducted by the previous administration. President Polk, like President Nixon, refused to do so. Mr. Polk pointed out a complex constitutional situation, if he yielded to he Congressional demand. President Polk wanted to know what was Congress’ intent in this information. He feared this probe swould penetrate too far into the most secret recesses of the Executive Department. Mr. Sam’s Committee had better think out this current confrontation or it just might put the nation in a totally irreparable condition. THE AUGUSTA NEWS-REVIEW PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY Mallory K. Miflandar Editor and Publisher Mailing Address: Box 963 Augusta, Ga. Phone 722-4555 Second Class Postage Paid Augusta, Ga. 30901 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Payable in Advance One Year in Richmond Countyss.oo tax incl. 6 Months,s2.so tax incl. One Year elsewheres6.oo tax incl. ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT Classified Advertising Deadline 12 noon on Tuesday 1 Display Advertising Deadline 12 noon On Tuesday News Items Printed Free 4 {Msryow ~Y TO BE equal //W » L——— f 1 . By J ► Verno" E. Jordan, Jr. g/ k IN MEMORIAM, GEORGE WILEY George Wiley’s sudden death in a boating accident was a terrible blow to all who shared his passionate concern for equal rights. What follows are excerpts from my remarks at the moving memorial service held in his memory in Washington, D.C.: “George transcended the mean barriers of a racialist society to make all of this society’s victims his concern and all will miss him. Wewill miss him as we miss Martinis we mourn Whitney, as we miss other great warriors of justice. George’s death leaves a gaping void in our ranks . . . That George must join the long line of fighters for justice untimely ripped from us, tries our faith and tests our will. “With souls heavy, we must carry on. Just as did when we lost Martin; just as we did when we lost Whitney. We must carry on the work of George’s life, even as he has left it; we must work from his blueprints, flesh out his sketches and breathe life into his plans. We must continue to plod the weary path of righteousness and fight the evils he fought; help the people he helped. “In doing this , we must be ever reminded of what was unique about this man, what was special about his leadership, which roads he trod and we should follow. “George understood the underlying dynamics of social movements. He knew that human rights could be won through different tactics, so long as the overall strategies were based on humane principles of justice without hatred, unity without uniformity, progress without vengeance. “It was his special gift to understand that attempts to change a system of exploitation demand a variety of roles and functions that must be assumed by a variety of people and organizations working in harmony toward the same ends. “It was his special gift to know that while race has been the most divisive factor in this country, used to oppress black people and to keep them from joining with their white brothers, that the structures of racial oppression would fall before the onslaughts of economic justice. “George knew that poverty afflicts blacks and browns, but that it also scars the lives of whites, too. And he set for himself the task of bringing poor people of all races together in a movement for economic justice. He fought to tear down the barriers, the artificial barriers of color and of race, the barriers that enslave millions in their wretchedness and poverty. He fought to help create a society in which children didn’t go hungry, women go homeless and men go jobless. “Now it is we who must carry on his fight, keep his dreams before us as we march into the dark and unknown future. It is we who must help bring about the economic justice George tried to secure for millions upon millions of poor Americans. It is we who must rekindle the faith he had that this system can change, that it can be made, in spite of itself, to change. It is we who must keep alive the flickering flame of belief in peaceful change that restores this nation to its allotted place as home of humanity, dignity and fulfillment. “It is we who must bear witness to the lessons Goerge taught us. For above all, George was a teacher. He chose to abandon his test tubes, taking his Ph.D. into the human laboratory of social action, teaching people pride and respect. He went among our society’s outcasts and taught them there was no shame in welfare, that the shame lay in an economic system that forces people into dependence. And he taught that the evil was not in taking the check, but in the fact that the check wasn’t large enough and that it came with so many strings attached and that the society unfairly condemned as it gave. He organized welfare recipients and created an organization self-confident in it pursuit of decency and fairness. “Yes, George taught us lessons, but he also has left us some homework to do. He dissected our society and showed us where it is diseased. He organized a new constituency of people newly active in the human rights movement. He created a dynamic new thrust for us to follow. This, his legacy, his unfinished legacy, is the homework our good teacher left us.” hgUSind I >CENTER Hoy ■ $ || |T,C | -i Mobile Homes ■■ '%'■ 12’Wides 24'Wides y LOW BANK FINANCING v Quality Homes . Free Delivery And Setup MU' HOUSING CENTER, INC. Cornnell “Nell” Harris ■ /Vx. J 227 Bobby Jones Expressway f ■< dtdr At Marti ll62 B S •/* Phone 863-7182 Tuffey’s Restaurant 2061 Milledgeville Road For The Finest in Soul Food & Good Home Cooking Come To Tuffey’s Try A Great Menu To Choose From. Phone Your Order In and Your Food Will Be Ready When You Arrive. For The Friendliest, Courtiest services Come To Tuffey’s It is "Tough” Enough Open 24 Hours A Day For The Friendiest, Courtiest Services I GOING I I PLACES IsX I ■ 1 ■ PHILIP WARING gs JIM HINTON’S RELATIVE IS HIGH FEDERAL OFFICIAL Subject for today’s column is a special feature article in the travel section of the Sunday N.Y. Times. It is all about Miss Barbara Watson, a high State Dept, official who has to do with visas and passports. She is a sister-in-law of Augusta’s Attorney James Hinton NOTES: TRAVEL TROUBLES ARE HER BUSINESS With about eight million Americans traveling abroad this year and another 1.5 million living overseas, many of the 250 consular offices of the United States around the world are being kept pretty busy these days. It is to these offices that Americans abroad take their problems. They may have lost their passports, or lost their money, or they may have been robbed, or found themselves stranded, or they may need medical attention or legal advice, or they may be unable to find their missing spouses. Worst of all, they may have run afoul of the narcotics laws. Busy though the personnel in the consular offices may be, the woman who supervises them all, Miss Barbara M. Watson, urges American travelers in other countries to take full advantage of them. “All those in serious need of assistance or advice are welcomed,” Miss Watson said in her Wasington office the other day, “and, in some instances, at least, consular offices can supply invaluable and even life-preserving advice.” Miss Watson is Administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs, which directs visa and passport matters in addition to its responsibility for a variety of consular services. She is the first woman, and the first black person, to hold such a senior position in he State Department. The nation’s number one travel-problem solver is a native of New York City and the duaghter of the late Judge and Mrs. James S. Watson. Her father was the first black person elected to a judgeship in New York. Miss Watson, who graduated from New York Law School, joined the State Department in 1966. Commenting on the number of Americans who get into some kind of trouble while overseas, she said, “In many cases this is due to nothing more than a lack of knowledge of local customs, mores and language.” The more serious incidents ususally involve Americans who are arrested, andof these she points out: “It comes as a shock to many Americans, who feel that all they have to do is to say that they are Americans and they will be let free or, at worst, will be tried under American law, to discover that this is not the case at all.” What can the consulate do? It can help, says Miss Watson, by making sure that those arrested “understand the nature of the charge” and by providing a list of local attorneys. It can also insure that jailed Americans are not discriminated against and are given the same rights available to local citizens. A happier task for the consular offices, which are located 127 countries and staffed by 2,000 American and local employes, is to advise Americans planning to buy property in other countries. The consulates maintain lists of local attorneys who can insure that buyers’ interests are protected. To be safe, Miss Watson advises, potential buyers should acquaint themselves with the legal requirements. “Otherwise,” she says, “they may discover too late that the property they ‘purchase’ will one day not be theirs any more-if it ever was.” I Attention 1 |To have the! 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