would be no need to have a written Constitution; for that is the very purpose of a written Constitution-to delineate specific powers to be exercised by government and to restrict to those powers exclusively the jurisdiction to be exercised by governments.

The Federal Government is not the creator of the States; it is a creation of the States, although in recent years there has been a tendency on the part of the Federal Government to attempt to cannibalize its creators.

Once more we who consider ourselves Jeffersonian Democrats must resort to quoting Jefferson who said, in effect, that it is not through the assumption or concentration of power, but rather by its very distribution, that good government is effected and liberty for its people maintained.

Mr. Chairman, I fear greatly these attempts to destroy the integrity and the sovereignty of the several States. Each and every one of the bills before this committee would constitute a further usurpation of States powers and a further encroachment into their constitutional prerogatives.

Mr. SLAYMAN. We have just received a telephone call; there is a quorum call in the House of Representatives.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I am just about through.

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion I would like to touch on a very practical aspect of these measures. It is going to be extremely difficult for the southern people to continue to lend their support to a political party-into which they have breathed the breath of life for so longif the party's leadership continues to insist on passage of this kind of punitive legislation directed against the best friends the party ever

had.

Party leaders appear to have placed on the scales the southern vote, and on the other side of the scale minority bloc votes in the northern and eastern cities. At the moment it appears that they believe that the minority bloc vote outweighs the vote of the Southern Sates. can assure them though that they are in for a rude awakening. Southern Democrats cannot afford to continue forever to support a party which refuses to lend an ear to their problems, or to consider the most serious problem facing the South today. As more Negroes move North and more problems in that area are created the great majority of the people of the North will not long support politicians who continually agitate for forced integration legislation.

I would advise these public officials to be cautious when they agitate merely for political reasons and not in the interest of the country, for sooner or later they will find that they have destroyed their own political fortunes.

Through organization, the NAACP has convinced a lot of people that they, the NAACP, hold a balance of political power in these United States. We in the South may be forced to organize a counterpart-I hope we are not, of course and from the information available to us there appear to be millions of good people outside the South ready to join in a combined effort to prevent forced intermixing of the races, and to repel these assaults against our Constitution.

If such were to happen it might change a lot of minds and it may soon become necessary and desirable to take this matter to the people. The day is not too far off, Mr. Chairman, when the supporters of the

so-called civil rights legislation will regret that they ever let their names be used in a proposition that is doing more to divide the people of our great Nation than anything since the tragic War Between the States.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator JOHNSTON. I appreciate your coming before us, Congressman Williams, and testifying here. I know how you feel on this matter. You feel like I do on it, that if integration goes forward it is going to cause a great many headaches to a great many people throughout the United States. It shows here very plainly on the face in the integrated States just how much trouble they are having in the field of crime, much more than they are where we have segregation. Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Chairman, I am even more concerned about the violence that this kind of legislation does to our system of government even than I am with the social problems attendant to integration. Each and every one of these bills is designed to break down further the lines that separate the States and to destroy the very foundation upon which our Republic was built: the right of the people to govern themselves, free from the tyranny of oppressive governments.

It is my opinion that unless we retain in this Government the dignity and autonomy of our local political subdivisions, sooner or later, even in our lifetime, Mr. Chairman, we may see a dictator riding a white horse down Pennsylvania Avenue. May God forbid that this should ever happen.

Mr. Chairman, that's the reason that we are fighting so hard to retain this necessary and proper distribution of powers so essential to human liberties, and consonant with the theories, beliefs, and ideologies of Thomas Jefferson and the other immortal statesmen of America's past.

Thank you.

Senator JOHNSTON. The hearings are recessed until tomorrow at 11 o'clock to meet in the same room.

(Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the subcommittee took a recess to reconvene Tuesday, May 26, 1959, at 11 a.m.)

CIVIL RIGHTS-1959

TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1959

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 11 a.m., in room 312, Old Senate Office Building, Senator John A. Carroll, acting chairman, presiding.

Present: Senator Carroll.

Also present: Charles H. Slayman, Jr., chief counsel and staff director.

Senator CARROLL. The committee will come to order.

Senator Hennings, chairman of the Senate Constitutional Rights Subcommittee, is detained elsewhere this morning on other Senate business and has asked me to preside at this hearing in his absence.

We are very glad to have with us this morning the very fine lawyer, U.S. Senator John Stennis of Mississippi, who is our witness this morning. Are you ready to proceed, Senator Stennis?

Senator STENNIS. Mr. Chairman, I am ready.

Senator CARROLL. You may proceed.

Senator STENNIS. Thank you, sir.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN C. STENNIS, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Senator STENNIS. Mr. Chairman, I want to especially thank you and this committee for the long, laborious hours that you have spent during these hearings. I know it has been extended over weeks, and even months.

I appreciate your concern about this subject matter, the so-called civil rights bills. I appreciate the attention that you are giving them. Just as a little background, of course, the most important subject matter in these bills now, from my area of the country, my State, and the people in my area, pertains to our public school system. It is under the most severe attack because of related matters than it has ever been.

I want to point out to you in the beginning, and I have a few figures here to back up what I am going to say, that in Mississippi we are really very proud of our public school system. It has been provided for in our constitution since 1870-one of the earlier provisions for mandatory public school system. It is a pattern of life, of course. It provides for separate schools.

But so far as the idea of the public school systems within our means, there have been several years when the percentage of our tax dollar

that went for education was the highest in the Nation, statewise. There were some other years when it was second. It is not in a high position now, relatively, but we have a tremendously strong and extensive public school program for expansion of the facilities, as well as the increased teachers' salaries, that was well underway before this recent Supreme Court decision that gives us so much trouble. All this has been accomplished.

I am not pointing out any lack of economic strength now, because we have great pride, both races have great pride, in that State, but it is a fact of life that the assessed valuation of all of our property has finally gotten back to where it was in 1860. You would be surprised to know that it was between 65 and 70 years before the assessed valuation of that property got back to where it was in 1860.

Now, that was from 1860 to about 1925, during the period of constructive growth and expansion and development of this entire Nation. In other words, while the rest of the Nation was growing and becoming strong and developing industrially and agriculturally and in every other way, it took us that many years, due to the devastation of the war, to get back where we were in 1860 so far as economic assessed valuation was concerned, which is a pretty good index.

Another phase of this matter is that it is my children and other people's children that are going to live with the future of this problem about schools and about the so-called civil rights problem. You will not find it with the people in Colorado so much as it is with us. We are the ones. It is my children, my own flesh and blood, and those of my neighbors and the people throughout the State and the whole

area.

So this is not theory; these are hard, actual facts of life: We faced the problem in the past, live with it now, and will be the ones to face it in the future.

Now, you might discount what I would say. We might discount controversial political positions. We think that there was a little bias or a little political viewpoint in some of our conclusions, but you had one man before this committee whose testimony I can't understand why it will not receive great weight, one man in particular. That was Mr. Boyd Campbell, of Jackson, Miss.

Mr. Campbell is a very fine and a very intelligent man. I am not here to compliment him. I am referring to the type of man. He is what we call a successful, self-made businessman. In other words, he started with a strong heart and a willing mind and some educational training in a great spirit and zest for life. He has been successful, not in a huge way but he is a successful businessman.

He was selected to be the president of the National Chamber of Commerce, for instance. It shows his leadership and trust and competency. He is a philanthropist, not a self-advertised one, but he is a leader in civic affairs, and very honest. As I say, he is a very intelligent man. He is a Christian gentleman. He has lived among these problems that come about by the school decision, the civil rights agitation, all these years.

He testified here in a very earnest way and said that these matters would have to be worked out among the races, that it would take time, and that judicial fiat or legislation or any force would work the con