STATEMENT OF SAM H. JONES, FORMER GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Sam H. Jones. I am 61 years of age, a resident of Lake Charles, La., and am at the present time in the private practice of law, as the senior member of the law firm of Jones, Kimball, Harper, Tete, and Wetherill.

By way of identification and qualification I served as Governor of Louisiana from 1940 to 1944. I was the youngest member of the 1921 constitutional convention which wrote Louisiana's present constitution. I served as one of the 15 Presidential appointees on the Federal Commission of Intergovernmental Relations from 1953 to 1955. I have also served in various official capacities on the local and parish (county) level and am, at present, a member of the Democratic State Central Committee of Louisiana.

Both in private and public life I have made a study of the problems of the South, particularly in the economic, social, and political fields, and have written a number of articles for periodicals including the American Legion magazine, Life, the Saturday Evening Post, and the Reader's Digest.

I have traveled extensively in the Southern States and have lectured and made public addresses in nine of the so-called "Confederate States." My travels have not been limited to the South, but have extended to 47 States of the Union and some 20 foreign countries. I have made public appearances in at least 30 States of this country. And I have made a study of the racial and minority problems in every region of America and in many foreign countries.

There is nothing in my record, background, and heritage that would suggest a narrow, prejudiced, or bigoted attitude as regards the racial problems of the South. My forebears were not slaveowners. They lived in the frontier territory of southwest Louisiana, which, in its ethnic makeup and economic outlook, at that time, was not unlike certain areas of east Tennessee and northwest Arkansas. Notwithstanding the inflamed state of mind in the South, generally, my people voted for the Bell and Everett ticket in 1860, which had for one of its objectives the preservation of the Union. Later, in a plebiscite of the people, they voted against secession. But when the die was cast they were loyal to their homeland and fought for the South in the War Between the States. For at least four generations my people have been arden advocates of States rights. And in the areas of education, elections, taxation, and local police functions they, and I, remain unequivocally so dedicated.

When I was Governor of Louisiana the percentage of voting Negroes in Louisiana was probably as low as it has been at any time since the Reconstruction. Yet, despite this, my administration devoted considerable time, money, and effort to the task of providing better schools, more jobs, and better advantages for the Negroes. As an illustration, we increased the allocations to Negro schools from State funds by 48 percent, while the increase to white schools was only 27 percent during the same period. Realizing that mechanization of farms meant displaced and uprooted labor of both the white and Negro races, we inaugurated a program for the industrialization of the State to provide new and better jobs. Today Louisiana is a part of, and is participating in, the great gulf coast industrial boom that is transforming the entire region. Concurrently with these developments the Negro commenced to avail himself of his rights under existing Louisiana laws to register and vote in primary and general elections. His status was correspondingly improved in cultural, business, and civic fields. All in all, the Negro was making rapid progress, and this continued down to the date of the May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court decision in the school segregation cases.

From the foregoing background, heritage, and practical down to earth experience I believe you will agree that I have had a more than normal acquaintance with the racial problems which are identified, in the public mind, with the South: and that my attitude has not been the popular misconception of a race-hating. race-baiting, radical, demagogic southern political leadership. In that respect I am no exception to the rule. One of the most gallant fights ever made in this country is being made today by the able, serious, dedicated, and patriotic leadership of southerners both in the Congress and in the State houses from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. And if the good Americans of the non-South will listen to that leadership, as I believe they ultimately will, we will be able to solve one of the most delicate and serious problems that ever confronted the people of this Nation.

I am opposed to the pending civil rights bills for these basic reasons: They will retard rather than advance the cause of the minority races. They are matters that are, both historically and constitutionally, within the province and purview of the State governments. The record of the Southern States in grappling with a racial problem has constituted one of the most amazingly successful achievements in the history of civilization. Finally, all the world's far flung examples have shown that the matters, sought here to be controlled by law and force, can be achieved only voluntarily by the tolerant attitudes of heart and mind, and certainly not by national law.

The great tragedy in respect to this subject is that the 1954 decision and your civil rights measures have largely destroyed the great bulwark of good will between the races, that was built up over the greater part of a century, with such painstaking care and patience, and with great vision and intelligence.

I have given you a brief insight into some events and developments that took place in my State during the years of my administration in the early forties. These were no exceptions. They continued with accelerating speed during the intervening years. And before the 1954 decision, by virtue of the voluntary action of the people of Louisiana, our Negroes were able to boast of school buildings equal, if not superior to those of the whites; industrial jobs by the thousands brought about, to a large extent, by changes in political policy to balance the State's economy; and more than 100,000 registered voters. There is nothing in this record which could possibly suggest the advisability of "force bills" to regulate our schools and our elections and our law-enforcing agencies from a centralized authority in Washington.

Nor is the record of Louisiana substantially different from other Southern States; for what Louisiana has done has been accomplished by the other Southern States, with substantially the same degree of progress and success. If we view these records in the light of history, and in the perspective of worldwide comparisons, we are at a loss to understand the attitude of our friends of the non-South, and we find ourselves completely bewildered. For here in this region of this Nation we find the greatest progress in the handling of a minority race problem ever accomplished anywhere in all history. As evidence of this I call the committee's attention to the statements of nonsoutherners like Carlton Putnam and the late Senator William E. Borah whom I quote in the conclusion. Yet instead of commendation we receive condemnation. Instead of flowers and thanks we now receive brickbats and censure.

To paraphrase another treating of a similar problem the South is criticized by a section of national opinion which does not properly understand either our circumstances or our motives but, when all this has passed, it is the end result— in terms of human happiness and human achievement-under God's grace, which will be proof of the correctness of the course we of the South are pursuing.

There seems to have grown up, overnight, the idea that segregation, per se, has always been legally and morally wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. For approximately 80 years prior to the Brown decision, and in scores upon scores of court decisions, State and Federal, the doctrine of separate but equal school facilities was accepted by everybody everywhere. And, insofar as the issue of segregation being morally wrong, a majority of the great leaders of this Nation did not so believe from the foundation of this country down to 1954. Even the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, did not so believe, and said so. And notwithstanding all the furor in recent years, an actual scientific poll of people, outside the South, shows that a majority are today opposed to integration in the public schools in those localities where the Negroes outnumber the whites.

Under sanction of numerous U.S. Supreme Court decisions the people of the South and several border States proceeded to build a dual system of schools. And thus billions of dollars were spent in the South on school plants, constructed in accordance with repeated decisions of the highest Court of the land. So our dual system has been built and maintained under authority of the highest judicial sanction, by a tribunal made up of jurists from every region of the land. Some of the greatest impetus in favor of segregated schools came in the Reconstruction days from the carpetbag governments of the South, controlled by the Negro votes, who wanted separate schools for the Negro race. And you may not know it, but it was the Negroes, after the War Between the States, who set one of the first examples of segregation, by voluntarily withdrawing from the white churches to set up their own. And such segregation, notwithstanding recent sporadic statements and resolutions, has either been sanctioned or practiced and acquiesced in for a hundred years by every church denomination in

the South, and is still being practiced in our southern churches. And these religious leaders and men of the cloth are universally recognized as the moral leaders of our people.

The U.S. Government, by acts of Congress, set the first example of segregation when they set the Indians aside on reservations, in the most extreme practice of segregation known to the American people.

Then, in the face of this overwhelming approval of the practice in the past, to have it said that what had been done and sanctioned by our finest people, white and black, north and south, for generations, was morally wrong, is just too strong for our people to take. To adhere to this thinking is to malign the morals, ethics and Christian rectitude of both our forebears and contemporaries and to stigmatize the Negro race as hopelessly inferior.

You may say that times have changed and that we should change with time, and I would agree with you. We have changed and there has been an evolution in the South that is nothing short of miraculous. In the brief span of 80 years the American Negro has made greater progress than that race, or any minority race so situated, has ever made in the history of civilization. With no more than 18 million Negroes in this country they have more students in college than all of West Germany; and they produce more college graduates than the United Kingdom with 50 million people. And remember those two countries are among the cultural leaders of the world.

The economic standards and living conditions of the American Negro are infinitely higher than any country of Asia or Africa. They excel those of South America. The 18 million American Negroes have more purchasing power than the 16 million Canadians-one of the most advanced countries of the world. The fact is there are few countries in the world, anywhere, whose economic status is higher than that of the American Negro.

And most of the credit for this progress must be given to the South for that region has been the home of the American Negro.

The southern Negro is voting and holding office in the South. As I said before, more than a hundred thousand are on the voting rolls of my State, and more are being added to the rolls of Southern States every day. This, in itself, is the strongest refutation that Negroes are being denied their civil rights in the South.

Times will continue to change. And we will continue to change with it. The southern Negro formerly lived on the farm. But our farms are now being mechanized and his labor there is no longer needed. So the migration will increase and in a few years this trend will place a majority, if not an overwhelming majority, of the Negroes in the North and West. Then every part of the Nation will share the burden of the problem that has been shouldered almost alone by the South in the past. With each passing year the problem will be changed and, we hope, simplified. Considering all this flux and change and transition, it is difficult at this time to abruptly chart a new and permanent course.

In the meantime why not follow the tradition of our political system and let those who live with the problem solve it. Some portions of the South are handling it like the States of the non-South. And even in the Deep South the conditions vary from State to State, and will continue to vary and change. Many of us believe that even in the most difficult areas, with the harmonious cooperation of both races, we have been making tremendous progress. And we believe that many short-sighted politicians are doing a distinct disservice to this country when they place the emphasis on the mistakes rather than the successes. And when they advertise to the world our few shortcomings instead of our outstanding accomplishments.

Compare, if you will, our record of the treatment of the Negro in the South, with the treatment his brothers have received at the hands of the Europeans in the various countries of Africa. In some of these countries they don't even count them in the census as people. And there is hardly a day when the Europeans and the natives are not engaged in actual warfare. And if you would condemn us for something less than perfection-which we admit-then think of the 50 million untouchables in India, which criticizes us and calls itself an enlightened country. The American Negro lives in a heaven compared to these poor Hindus who live in a land where the original meaning of caste was color.

Read your history of the conflicts between the Latinos and the Indians in the Latin American countries, and of the horrors the conqueror imposed upon the conquered-and then make your comparison. Give a brief thought to the conflicts between the Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East, and of the Hindus and

Moslems in south Asia-and then think of how white and the black man have lived side by side in peace and tranquillity for nearly a century in the South. Lift your thoughts, for a moment, from the narrow and restricted national or regional scene, where minor shortcomings are magnified, yet where progress has been amazing, and the success of the minorities has been astounding-to the worldwide horizons where not even hope is held out-and then thank God for the white peope of the South who have done the best job on a minority race problem in the history of civilization.

And then remind yourselves that the South took up its burden when it was bankrupt-when its land was laid waste--and there was destitution in the air. It not only had to rehabilitate the white race, it had also to build an entirely new way of life for the newly enfranchised black citizens. We accepted our fate and shouldered our burden. The southern white man dug down deep in his pockets and sacrificed to furnish the money to build and operate the schools for a people who had no money and who had not known schools.

The journey from 1865 to 1959 has been long and tortuous; but it has been fruitful and productive. We have conquered the past. We have fought the good fight. And we stand today on the threshold of a happy new day that will establish the South as one of the bright spots in the Nation. Don't be misled. We are no longer an embattled region. We are no longer a beleaguered people. We are as independent as any region of the land. We are strong and growing stronger and more resourceful. And we look to the future with a confidence and a sense of assurance that knows no fear.

Most of us would like to travel ahead along this same course, solving our own problems. We would like to carry our people with us. But we can neither go the whole way nor do the whole job without the active cooperation of broad gauged statesmen from other regions of the Nation—for political leaders without followers are like generals without armies.

Some of you may ask: "Have you not acquiesced in objectionable legislation in that past?" And the answer to that is "Yes," as a matter of compromise but not because we subscribed to those principles. And, moreover, the rank and file of the voters had confidence in the reasonable application of such legislation-a confidence which, in the light of recent events, they no longer have. So they are becoming sensitive to every move and they react with suspicion, opposition, and resistance. And thus what you do now may well be the signal that determines what course the South takes in the future.

One of the Nation's strongest bulwarks of strength consists of its congressional delegations from the South. They are fighting the country's battles. They are seeking to bind up the wounds and to bring peace and harmony to the ranks. But they can go no further than the sentiment of their people will permit. And if you have any doubt about that you have but to remember the case of my personal friend, Brooks Hays, of Arkansas, who in his efforts to moderate the differences between the two extremes became a victim of the growing sentiment that is sweeping the South.

I am dedicated to the proposition that the Founding Fathers were right when they gave us a Federal system which limited the powers of the National Government-and which reserved to the States and the people all the rest. I am a firm believer in States rights and States responsibilities. I believe the adherence to the doctrine is in the interests of the integrationists, the segregationists and the moderates alike.

It has never occurred to us of the South that we should meddle in the local affairs of other regions. We have never tried to tell the people of the Pacific coast how they should handle their problem of the Oriental minority. Nor have we assumed to dictate to the people of the Southwest how they should treat their Mexican minority. Nor has there ever been the remotest thought in the Southland that we were capable of telling the people of States with Indian population how they should handle the problems of these minorities. The people of these regions and these States, I assume, have made their mistakes; but by and large they have achieved workable solutions. At any rate they were better qualified to cope with the problems than those of us far away.

In the final analysis each State is a democracy and what is done for the people is determined by a majority. And the white people outnumber the Negroes in every State of the South. They are able to determine how much, if anything, shall be spent out of public school funds for schools, for health, for welfare and for roads. It follows that progress can only be had by harmonious action by men of good will. And it is axiomatic that the races must get along

together by mutual consent-and not by force from the outside which will be forever resented and resisted.

You have it within your power today to take a long step forward toward a solid front for the future. All you have to do here is to tell the people of the South that they have a right to control all strictly State matters such as schools, elections and police with State laws. It is simple. It is reasonable. And it conforms to established tradition of this Nation. If you give that answer and abide by the principle of States rights then you have improved immeasurably the position of the country.

But if, on the contrary, you insist on centralized control in matters that have, historically, been exercised by the States then we are in for a long period of turmoil, and bitterness and controversy. We shall lose much of the ground that we have gained, and much of the good will that we have built up over the decades.

So I repeat that the pending civil rights measures will, in actual practice, retard rather than advance the cause of the Negro race in the South. They relate to powers of government that always have been, and always should be, vested in the respective States. The record of Southern States in recent decades in promoting the advance of the Negro race has not been equalled by any peo-. ple, anywhere, any time, in the history of civilization. It so far exceeds the current handling of racial minority problems by Communist Russia and those that exist in Asia and Africa and Latin America that there is scarcely room for comparison.

So, in the name of commonsense, I beseech and implore you to proceed with wisdom and caution. Much depends on your decision. There is trouble in the Deep South. There is turmoil and bitterness and, above all, deep disappointment in that region. We are going through the travail of stormy days-a time when the minds of people become inflamed, and when their hearts, figuratively, become livid with emotion. These feelings bring eruptions of ominous portent. These are dangerous times for us because they are times that breed extremism. To counteract all this you have many brave, courageous, and able leaders in the Deep South. They are crying out against the extremists-whether from the North or the South. They are counseling that our people remain calm. They are saying to people everywhere "Let us sit down and reason together." The question before us today is whether this wise counsel will prevail, whether the lessons of history will be followed, whether the exercise of restraint will be practiced when it is most needed, whether the people of the entire country will recognize that we have arrived at a time in our history when hate begets hate, and distrust begets distrust, and yet when reason begets reason.

It is a time for tolerance and forbearance and understanding. It is time for great and wise men-and God knows we shall need them. But I say to you that unless you place your trust in men of good will, and unless you back up this sort of southern leader with reasonable concessions, his type will cease to exist and you will have instead the radical, the demagogue, and the bigot. For there are things even the best men cannot do against the tidal wave of public opinion. And their sacrifice is too great a price for this country to pay.

In conclusion may I suggest to you the wisdom of Woodrow Wilson when he said:

"It is the discovery of what they cannot do, and ought not to attempt, that transforms reformers into statemen."

And the observations of that illustrious statesman, Senator William E. Borah, of Idaho, speaking to the Senate February 7, 1938, when he said:

"I shall contend that the southern people have met the race problem and dealt with it with greater patience, greater tolerance, greater intelligence, and greater success than any people in recorded history, dealing with a problem of similar nature. Let us inquire what it is that the South has had to do, how it has done it, and what reason there is now, after 70 years of great effort, to pass censure or condemnation of those great States and that great people."

This, coming from a nonsoutherner and one of the United States greatest Senators of all time ought to put the issue at rest. And that memorable address should be required reading for all who would consider civil rights legislation

now.

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