Page images
PDF
EPUB

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMIE L. WHITTEN

Mr. WHITTEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There are numerous others that wish to be here and may show up, but all of them are busy, as you know, and many of them are unable to come. However, they are vitally interested in this problem.

I would like to preface my remarks by what may seem to be a little bit beyond the immediate problem.

We have had a wonderful country through our history, and it goes back to the Constitution, with which the chairman is thoroughly familiar, as well as the members of the subcommittee. Right now is a time when we are seeing our colleges just torn asunder and we are seeing law and order go by the boards.

Burglary, larceny, vicious assaults are regular occurrences. From my own residence there was hauled off three carloads of personal property, about the middle of November last year. I learned from talking to the police department here there are numerous places in town where, if you drop the word you are interested in buying a new television set or almost anything else, on a half-price basis, within 10 days someone will show up at your house with what you "ordered." The condition prevails over much of the United States and is bound to be disturbing.

The point I wish to talk to you about today is related to this disregard for the protection of life and property which appears in many court decisions. I would like to digress a minute to point out some of the reasons for such a condition to exist.

As we all know, and for the record and only to reminisce, the Constitution provides for three separate equal and divisions of Government. The legislative, the people's branch, is the first one provided for, and much more space is given to that than to all of the others, and it is the only branch that has the power to punish the other two. Next is the executive department, which has its powers listed. And last is the judiciary.

Alexander Hamilton, who described the Federal Government, and who was in probably as good a position as anybody to do so, used these words in the Federalist:

The Executive not only dispenses the honor, but holds the sword of the community.

In other words, it makes the appointments and has all the power. The Legislative not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated.

The Judiciary, to the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse and can take no active resolution whatever.

Yet we as the legislative body and the executive body have stood by and let the Supreme Court and judicial branch, which has no power to pay itself and no power to enforce its decrees except with support of the executive branch, take over.

To review for the record on this breakdown of law enforcement, it started off with what seemed relatively minor things. The Court said it did not really damage anything for somebody to sit down in your place of business and get in your way and keep you from using the property, but any lawyer who studies the matter is bound to see that

when the Court established that principle of approving or condoning individuals preventing you from using the property, to that degree they were taking your property. And while it was restricted to one section of the country at the beginning, if you establish a legal principle in one area, it is not long until it is the rule all over the country.

The next step of course was to lead these people on to taking your property. When this was condoned long enough, the next thing was burning and destroying your property for which you had worked and saved.

We have seen through the television news media, which has had a great effect on the people, much of it beneficial, I am sure, but highly inflammatory in other instances. We talk about a generation gap. Youngsters are born every second of every hour of every day in the year, so there is a constant flow of new births and deaths and so forth. The generation gap that is referred to might be taking those that have grown up since the courts set out to put the rights of the individual ahead of the interest of the general public. It might be said the generation gap is between those that were reared before television showed local law officers being kicked around and belittled and belabored, and those that have grown up seeing that as an everyday sight on television.

That is where I would tend to draw the line, not that anybody may have intended this.

On the campuses, I happened to be in California when the nonstudent Mario Savio was tearing up the University of California at Berkeley, which nobody expected when he took his one year of training in my State, where he had come from New York City. After creating a year's disturbance, he left Mississippi and went to Berkeley. Such actions have now spread all over the country-and any study of the subject shows that whole terrible situation leads right to the door of the judicial branch, which the other two branches have let take over.

I placed the facts before the local grand jury here in connection with these burglars breaking into my house and carrying off our property. A Negro policeman caught the third car. He saw a dresser drawer in a parked car. Inside there was correspondence with my name on it. By this means we recovered that carload. Fortunately I happened to have insurance on the property we did not recover. I understand, however, burglary is so prevalent that the insurance companies now are requiring deductible insurance on theft just like in insurance or to damage to your automobile.

Mr. FLOOD. I believe Congressman Sikes had the same experience in recent months.

Mr. SIKES. I have had firsthand experience with the crime problem in Washington.

Mr. WHITTEN. The tragedy is, with the possible exception of my section of the country, it seems to have become prevalent pretty much over the country.

As many of you folks here have, I used to try lawsuits and I lost some cases I thought I should have won criminal cases, but it was a jury decision and established no precedent. When you let the Court, which has neither the power of the purse nor the sword, take unto itself the right to dictate, and on technicalities put the rights of these

individual criminals ahead of common public interest the Court establishes a precedent and you can see where it has led. According to the U.S. News & World Report, the Court, by new interpretation of the original Constitution, has restricted or limited police in 35 different instances in the meeting of their duty of protecting the public. The result is a breakdown in law and order. Cities are burned, people are killed, campuses are wrecked, people are afraid to be on the streets after dark-even as in the Middle Ages.

I have discussed the breakdown in law and order with you who handled funds for education, for it is a direct parallel to what is happening to public education.

When I was before you last year, I pointed out that the Congress had the right to provide funds for education and that funds for education were badly needed. I pointed out at that time that the act creating the Department of Education spells out that education is its purpose. Yet the purposes of the Department and the purposes for the congressional appropriation were being destroyed by funds being withheld from schools that were fully desegregated, as that term is described in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, section 401, subsection (b), where desegregation is defined as follows:

"Desegregation" means the assignment of students to public schools and within such schools without regard to their race, color, religion, or national origin***"

At that time I pointed out to the committee that the practice followed by the Department of Education was to withhold funds until the schools "offered" plans that went far beyond the requirements of statutes; and, in the withholding of funds, were preventing their use for education and thereby depriving children of all races from the benefits of educational funds provided by the Congressand for the executive department to take unto itself that power was to usurp the power of the Congress to appropriate money and spell out what it was for.

I pointed out, too, that the Department of Education was having other departments to withhold funds; that the Atomic Energy Commission had been required to withhold educational films from fully desegregated schools because they had not offered a plan providing a satisfactory racial mix to suit the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. I also pointed out that notwithstanding the Weeks Act (16 U.S.C., sec. 500) which provides for the acquisition of lands within various States for forestry purposes with the consent of the State and provides further that where the States consent for the purchase of such lands by the Federal Government, which of course takes them off the tax rolls of the State, that the Federal Government had in turn agreed to pay to the States 25 percent of the timber receipts received from timber sales from such lands for the benefit of roads and schools in the counties in which the lands were situated. and notwithstanding the fact that relying on this provision in the law and the Federal agreement, and notwithstanding the fact that title. to the lands remained in the Federal Government, the Federal Government, at the instance of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, was retaining the full 100 percent of the land rentals refusing to turn the 25 percent of receipts over to States and thereby depriving youngsters of all races in these counties, which are fully

desegregated-being open to children of all races as this term is defined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, from education and the other citizens from repairing or building needed roads.

I pointed out further that in numerous instances the Federal courts had required schools to come in and make "voluntary" offers to go much farther than any Supreme Court decision has gone, and that some district judges were, in effect, demanding that there be full integration rather than desegregation, even to the point of directing that certain school buildings be closed and that all students be put in the remaining building, even though the classrooms were overcrowded and children were required to go much further distances.

I wish to say at the same time the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, in certain similar cases, withheld funds appropriated by this Congress for use until the schools "voluntarily offered a plan" of providing a racial mix to the degree determined satisfactory by HEW.

Throughout all of this, the courts and HEW operating apparently with their consent, have been usurping the right of the people's branch of the Government the legislative branch-to make appropriations and to provide for their use; and instead of promoting education have been depriving many youngsters of education.

Following this presentation in which I was supported by many, many of my colleagues, the committee wrote into the appropriations bill last year the following language, which I sponsored:

SEC. 409. No part of the funds contained in this Act may be used to force busing of students, abolishment of any school, or to force any student attending any elementary or secondary school to attend a particular school against the choice of his or her parents or parent.

SEC. 410. No part of the funds contained in this Act shall be used to force busing of students, the abolishment of any school or the attendance of students at a particular school as a condition precedent to obtaining Federal funds otherwise available to any State, school district, or school.

This was adopted by the committee 24 to 15 and was retained in a floor fight by a vote of 137 to 101. Upon the passage of this act by the House, it went to the Senate; and the Senate, in addition to adding the words "in order to overcome racial imbalance" to each of the foregoing sections which I wrote added the following language:

Provided, That the Secretary shall assign as many persons to the investigation and compliance activities of title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 related to elementary and secondary education in the other States as are assigned to the seventeen Southern and border States to assure that this law is administered and enforced on a national basis, and the Secretary is directed to enforce compliance with title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by like methods and with equal emphasis in all States of the Union and to report to the Congress by March 1, 1969, on the actions he has taken and the results achieved in establishing this compliance program on a national basis: Provided further, That notwithstanding any other provision of law, funds or commodities for school lunch programs or medical services may not be recommended for withholding by any official employed under appropriations contained herein in order to overcome racial imbalance: Provided further, That notwithstanding any other provision of law, moneys received from national forests to be expended for the benefit of the public schools or public roads of the county or counties in which the national forest is situated, may not be recommended for withholding by any official employed under appropriations contained herein.

When the Senate language was added, local newspapers carried the statement that HEW was now confident that it had the upper hand— that the Senate language would prevent the House language from being effective.

Later when the conferees agreed on the House language, the HEW officials were quoted again as saying that this was a serious blow to their efforts to fully integrate schools-which is not called for in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which calls only for the desegregation of schools; "desegregation" again being defined:

"Desegregation" means the assignment of students to public schools and within such schools without regard to their race, color, religion, or national origin * * * You will recall, further, that when the conference report containing only the House language came up for a vote in the House, we were unable to hold the House language-losing on section 409 by eight votes. A change of five would have caused it to go the other way. When it came to section 410, we lost this by 11 votes, and a change of six would have retained the House position. We ended up then with my language to which had been added the Senate language. That is the present law.

Mr. Chairman, I regret to say that during the past year H.E.W. has used the Senate modifications to the degree that they have continued to deprive many schools of finances made available to them by this committee-schools that are fully desegregated; that they have continued to have the Department of Agriculture withhold funds due the States under agreements by which the States removed their own lands from their own tax rolls; have continued to call on various schools to propose plans to force integration against the wishes of all parties, beyond that desired by the people who are for desegregation.

I have only recently learned that at the direction of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the U.S. Corps of Engineers is withholding from counties funds which are a part of land rental receipts and which are set aside by Federal law, of which I was the author, for lands which the Federal Government has taken by right of eminent domain or condemnation for flood control, thereby removing them from the tax rolls of the local county.

These funds are set aside by act of Congress to offset tax losses imposed by the Federal Government; and to withhold them from the counties where they are set aside for roads and schools is detrimental to education and to the people of all races within such counties and is to renege on an outright commitment.

I have not had the opportunity to check as to in how many other cases similar funds are being withheld at the direction of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

All of this is being done under the claimed authority of title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I respectfully submit that neither the timber receipts nor the share of land rentals directed to be paid by law to the counties adversely affected by reservoirs come within the provisions of title VI. These funds are not grants. They are payments and actually constitute consideration for the State having passed legislation authorizing the Federal Government to acquire lands for forests on the one hand and, in the second instance, are to offset tax losses from lands taken for flood control. Congress provided this payment in the way of compensation for damages done to people in the counties and for schools and roads in the counties by reason of taking such lands off the county and State tax rolls.

Now if this same Department of Health, Education, and Welfare is to direct and handle the appropriations which this committee

« PreviousContinue »