To Fulfill a Historic Role

At hearings on the Administration's civil rights bill, the Senate Commerce Committee last week heard two opposing points of view from two star witnesses, both Southerners.

"The President and the Attorney General," rumbled Mississippi's Segregationist Governor Ross Barnett, "have encouraged demonstrations, freedom rides, sit-ins, picketing and actual violation of local laws. Gentlemen, if you pass this civil rights legislation, you are passing it under the threat of mob action and violence on the part of Negro groups and under various types of intimidation from the executive branch of this government."

By pressing for civil rights legislation, raved Barnett, the Kennedy brothers were aiding a "world Communist conspiracy to divide and conquer" the U.S. To prove that the Negro push for equality is linked with Communism, Barnett reached into his briefcase and pulled out a poster issued by the Georgia Commission on Education. In a display reminiscent of the late Joe McCarthy's famed "I-have-here-in-my-hand" performance, Barnett claimed that the picture in the poster showed Negro Leader Martin Luther King Jr. at the "Highlander Folk School for Communist Training, Monteagle, Tenn." *

Appeal to Ideals. From Georgia-born Secretary of State Dean Rusk the Committee heard a movingly eloquent appeal, not just for the Administration bill but for an end to all race discrimination in the U.S. "Foreign policy," he said, "is not the major reason we should eliminate discrimination. It is not some thing we should do merely to look good abroad. The primary reason why we must attack the problems of discrimination is rooted in our basic commitments as a nation and a people. We must try to eliminate discrimination not to make others think better of us, but because it is incompatible with the great ideals to which our democratic society is dedicated." The U.S., Rusk went on to conclude, "cannot fulfill its historic role unless it fulfills its commitment to its own people."

South Carolina's Senator Strom Thurmond, an unyielding segregationist, asked Rusk whether he would not "agree that we have been making great progress in this country." Rusk agreed, but added that "there is still unfinished business." Asked Thurmond: "Who has been responsible for that progress--the white man or the Negro?" Rusk replied softly: "Both, working together." Did Rusk approve of the Negro demonstrations?, Thurmond continued. "If I were denied what our Negro citizens are denied," said the Secretary of State, "I would demonstrate too."

Appeal to Fear. In testimony on legal aspects of the Administration bill, Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, touched fleetingly on two seldom mentioned points that are likely to take on greater prominence as the debate continues.

The Administration's proposal to prohibit discrimination in privately owned public accommodations carries no direct penalties for violation. Like other civil rights measures, it would be enforced through the courts, by means of lawsuits. Violators would incur penalties only if they persisted in discriminating after a federal court specifically ordered them to desist. The penalty would be punishment for contempt of court, not for practicing discrimination. The aim of the bill is to create a climate for integration; the Administration foresees relatively few actual penalties.

Those who argue that the public-accommodations title of the Administration bill should be based upon the 14th Amendment rather than the "commerce clause" of the Constitution (the Administration favors the commerce clause), should be wary of a possible constitutional complication. The 14th Amendment prohibits states from denying citizens "equal protection of the laws." Applying that prohibition to state-licensed businesses on the ground that they are "instrumentalities" of the state might open a gate to federal regulation of private establishments and individuals in matters far removed from discrimination.

So far the Administration has made little use of these points in its public arguments for its bill. The Administration's presentation of its case, indeed, has been at times inappropriate. There is some substance to the charge that the Administration is using the threat of violence to further its cause when it argues that Negroes will seek their goals in the streets if Congress fails to pass a suitable bill. This appeal to fear only tends to weaken the meritorious appeal to justice.

* The school was the Highlander Folk School. Established in 1932 by Myles Morton, a Tennessee educator, it was "progressive" in ideology, but U.S. Government investigators cleared both Horton and his school of accusations of Communist activities. Martin Luther King Jr. appeared there in 1957 for a 25th anniversary celebration. That is when the photo was taken.

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