NEED FOR FEDERAL AID

Developments since the Supreme Court antisegregation decisions clearly indicate the need for assistance from the executive branches of the Federal Government in the implementation of the decisions. Therefore, we strongly favor the plans for aid from the Office of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, as proposed in titles II, III, and IV of S. 810. The changes in the educational systems of Southern States required by the Court decisions impose an enormous burden on these systems. We feel it is desirable for the entire country to have a constructive part in this process. This would be made possible through the participation of the Secretary in the manner outlined in these titles.

CONCLUSION

Genuine progress has been made in the past decade in securing civil rights for more citizens in all parts of the Nation, including the South. But a great deal remains to be done. There are numerous States in which widespread patterns of racial and religious discrimination in employment exist. There are thousands of school districts in which not a move has been made to discontinue the practice of racial segregation. These blights on American democracy reflect on the entire Nation and must be speedily eliminated.

Primarily, our interests in this field arise from a religious interpretation of life and a belief in the infinite value of human beings as children of God. Our abhorence of discrimination and segregation is based on our conviction that it is an illusion to think some men are, simply by virtue of their race, religion, or place of birth, more or less valuable than others.

We feel that the majesty and power of the concept of equal protection under law can and should be used to help dispel these illusions.

Mr. SLAYMAN. I would like to put in the record, also, a letter from Harry J. Carman, chairman of the American Liberal Association, who did not ask to appear but wants his statement in the record.

Senator ERVIN. The statement will be admitted.

(The statement referred to is as follows:)

Chairman DR. HARRY J. CARMAN

Honorary Chairmah QUINCY WRIGHT

Secretary ERNEST ANGELL

Treasurer JULIAN S. BACH, JR.

AMERICAN LIBERAL ASSOCIATION

241 EAST 48th STREET, NEW YORK 17, NEW YORK

The liberal tradition is the American tradition-true liberalism is true Americanism

The Honorable Thomas C. Hennings, Jr.

Senate Office Building

Washington, D. C.

Dear Senator Hennings,

The supremacy of the law is essential to the security of the nation, and enforcement of the law demands that public officials take every proper action to uphold the Constitution. The guaranty of equal protection by law to every individual regardless of race, color, or creed is a fundamental concept of our constitutional system.

In some states laws have been passed and other actions taken which deny equal protection of the law to citizens because of their race or color, whether in respect to the right to vote or to attend unsegregated schools. Such acts are an offense against the government of the United States which should have legal remedy to correct the wrongs imposed by such action of the states.

Congress should give formal legislative power to the executivebranch of the government to enforce equal protection under the law where state action has denied it. The Attorney General should be empowered to institute court action in the name of the federal government for preventive relief by injunction, or otherwise, against officers of any state government who engage in action to deny to an individual the exercise of his rights under the law because of race or color. The protection to be thus invoked is more than merely assuring the right of Negroes to vote and to attend unsegregated schools-it is the affirmative duty of the federal government to enforce provisions of the Constitution as the law of the land as interpreted and declared by the constitutionally created final authority, the Supreme Court.

HJC/sfg

Sincerely yours,

AMERICAN LIBERAL ASSOCIATION

Harry J Carman.

By

Harry J. Carman, Chairman

DECLARATION

of the

AMERICAN LIBERAL ASSOCIATION

Facing global disorders caused by two World Wars and the possibility of a third, aware of the threat to our way of life in the doctrines of extremists both of the left and of the right, and convinced that discords throughout the world are largely due to the abandonment of liberal principles,

With this Declaration we affirm our faith in these principles:

1. Since man is endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights, respect for the dignity of the human personality is the only sound basis of society.

2. The State is the instrument, not the master of its citizens.

3. The freedonis guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are essential, and the liberal aim is to defend, strengthen and, with wisdom, extend them.

4. These freedoms can be secured only by a democratic and freely-elected government whose strength is based on the consent of the majority, with due respect to the rights and opinions of minorities.

5. Political liberty cannot exist where there is only a single political party controlling the government, means of communication, and the ballot-box.

6. Political liberty depends upon economic freedom as represented by the rights of private ownership of property and of individual enterprise. Government ownership is necessary only for undertakings beyond the scope of private enterprise.

7. The general welfare must prevail, safeguarded from abuse by regional or group interests.

8. The doctrine of class war is inconsistent with our traditions, present realities, and future welfare. The rights, duties, and interests of labor and capital are complementary, not antagonistic, and organized collaboration between them is essential to the common well-being.

9. History has placed the United States in a position to help lead the world to peace and prosperity. We must maintain and strengthen our position through the practice of liberal principles, in cooperation with other like-minded peoples.

10. Service is the complement of freedom and every right involves a corresponding duty. To make free institutions effective, citizens must have a sense of responsibility toward their fellow-men and must participate in public affairs.

II

World peace and prosperity can be secured only if all nations:

1. Adhere to a world organization which has the power to promote the observance of international obligations and in which nations, great and small, participate under the same law and equity.

2. Respect the right of every nation to develop its institutions under international law and the right of all peoples to enjoy the fundamental freedoms.

3. Respect the language, creed and customs of ethnic, religious and racial minorities.

4. Seek to exchange ideas, news, goods and services freely, unhampered by censorship and trade barriers, and grant freedom to travel within and between countries.

5. Develop backward areas in cooperation with their inhabitants.

We therefore call upon all who are in general agreement with these principles to join us in the effort to win their universal acceptance.

MARCH 16, 1959.

Dr. HARRY J. CARMAN,

Chairman, American Liberal Association, 241 East 48th Street, New York, N.Y.

DEAR DR. CARMAN: This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated March 11, 1959, concerning the Constitution and equal protection of the laws. The Senate Constitutional Rights Subcommittee begins hearings on proposed Federal civil-rights legislation on Wednesday morning, March 18, 1959. As chairman of the subcommittee, I shall ask that your statement be included in the record of the hearings for consideration in connection with proposed legislation. Sincerely yours,

THOMAS C. HENNINGS, Jr.,

Chairman.

Mr. SLAYMAN. Mr. Chairman, we have some other statements and resolutions from the National Catholic Welfare Conference; General Assembly, National Council of the Churches of Christ; Council of Methodist Bishops; and the National Lutheran Council. The National Lutheran Council's statement has already gone in.

I also have one from the National Presbyterian Office.

I would like to ask permission that these go in the record, but if some are cumulative here, that we put those in the appendix of the record.

Senator ERVIN. The statements will be placed in the record.

(The statements referred to will be found in the appendix.)

Mr. SLAYMAN. The last witness for today, Mr. Chairman, is the Rev. C. Stanley Lowell, associate director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State in the United States.

Senator ERVIN. Very well.

STATEMENT OF REV. C. STANLEY LOWELL, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF PROTESTANTS AND OTHER AMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Reverend LOWELL. Mr. Chairman, since my statement here is quite lengthy, I shall not attempt to read it, in view of the lateness of the hour, to save the committee's time, but I would like to ask permission to submit it in the file of the committee and to make one or two brief comments upon it.

My name is C. Stanley Lowell. I am editor of the Church and State Review, which is the official organ of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I am associate director, also, of that organization.

Our membership is predominantly Protestant. We have rather close liaison with most of the major denominations, but we have some Jewish and Roman Catholic members, as well.

Now, I should like to state just two or three things while I am here to identify the specific recommendations which we make in regard to some of these bills, to state the general context of the necessity for this legislation, and then to indicate briefly the range of documentation by which we support this.

It is rather voluminous, so I shall not attempt to read this last.

Now, our testimony bears upon Senate bill 499 and Senate bill 456. The former provides the so-called Johnson bill, for a Federal Community Relations Service to provide conciliation assistance in communities where disagreements among citizens are disrupting or threatening to disrupt the peaceful life of the community. We approve this general concept.

The latter bill authorizes the Attorney General to prosecute a Federal civil proceeding on his own behalf and to institute for or in the name of the United States, a civil action or other proceeding for preventive relief against persons who are depriving or threatening to deprive any person of his right to equal protection by reason of his race, color, religion, or national origin.

Now, we should like to discuss this proposal as it pertains to religious rights only, and I have no reference here at all to the race, color, or national origin problems. They are not in our purview.

But we do endorse in principle, extension of such authority to the Attorney General since, due to the decision of the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. Mellon (262 U.S. 447, the year 1923), there has been limitation on the right to sue in many kinds of cases involving the religious rights of individuals.

Now, the area on which this testimony concentrates is that, as I have said, which concerns the religious rights of persons, and mainly such rights of persons attending public schools.

The problems here have their origin in the kind of positive conviction which should and does characterize religious faith. The difficulty begins at the point where this votary of a particular religious faith, not content with the teaching agencies of his former church, desires to use, in addition to these, public facilities for the work of religious indoctrination.

Such a disposition on the part of parents is frequently buttressed, or even inspired, by the teachings of theologians who may hold that the church, not the state, should properly administer and control the education of youth.

And so, in one way or another, they may, in toto, take over control of the public schools, or they may use these institutions in some way for the teaching of their own sectarian religious doctrines.

In so doing, they violate the first amendment, which forbids an establishment of religion and which the courts have repeatedly construed as barring public institutions from participating in the affairs of religious organizations, and vice versa.

In so doing-and this is even more important-they have created a plight of extreme difficulty for religious minorities in the community.

Then there follows, Mr. Chairman, a rather lengthy documentation as to the kinds of violations which exist in the public schools due to sectarian instructions therein. These we have documented in Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Then we have referred also to what we have called the captive school problem. This exists in 24 States. We have given clinical studies of the effects in various communities of the captive school, and where the instruction of sectarian doctrines into the public school classroom has resulted in very serious intercreedal tensions within the community. This is all in considerable detail.