Senator O'MAHONEY. I assure you that before this committee has finished, that question will be propounded to Mr. Sobeloff.

Mr. DUNSTON. I certainly hope it will, sir.

Senator O'MAHONEY. It will, so you do not need to worry. That statement has already been made. Proceed to something else, won't you?

it.

Mr. DUNSTON. Yes. And I think I have covered the ground about

Senator O'MAHONEY. Thank you very much.

Mr. DUNSTON. I value my race, and I am telling you facts, gentlemen. I just want to end by saying this: If this thing goes on like it is going on, we will have no race or law, as far as written law is concerned. I tell you that.

Senator O'MAHONEY. We appreciate your testimony, sir.

Mr. DUNSTON. Thank you, sir.

Senator O'MAHONEY. The next witness is Mr. O. L. Warr, of Timmonsville, S. C.

Mr. Warr, bear in mind that the reporter is here, and if we are going to have a good record, you had better be talking into his ear. Never mind the audience.

STATEMENT OF 0. L. WARR, DARLINGTON COUNTY, S. C.

Mr. WARR. I am O. L. Warr, a farmer from Darlington County, S. C. I speak only for myself and other individuals with whom I have talked on this question.

We feel that I have a prepared statement. I am just going to touch the high spots of it.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Your prepared statement will be received and made a part of the record, and it will be very kind of you just to summarize it.

Mr. WARR. I will make it very brief.

We feel that the legal and intellectual qualifications of a judicial appointee are by no means the only factors that should be considered by this committee.

The attitude of the people over whose fates and fortunes he is given tremendous authority is a matter of prime importance. Although you would have the power to do it if you wished, you will agree that it would not be wise to impose on the Virgin Islanders or the people of any other Territory a governor or a judge who was known in advance to be personally objectionable to them.

The reasons that might underlie their opposition would be of little importance. The fact of their antagonism, and its intensity, are something which do merit and which we feel should merit your consideration.

Surely the attitude of citizens of old and sovereign States should merit the attention and understanding that is at least equal to that which would be accorded to the likes and dislikes of the inhabitants of the Nation's most insignificant and outlying possession.

I would beg of you not to be misled by the comparative outer calm that has thus far prevailed in the South. The forces that are so powerfully surging there today remind me of Tennyson's "tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam." But its strength and its

direction I well know, because I am myself moved upon it, whether I would or no.

There seems to exist a casual and mistaken acceptance of the belief that the South is completely helpless and unable to defend its way of life. Let me impress upon you gentlemen that the people of the South do not share that belief, that feeling, although they realize full well they do not have the physical force to protect their rights against the encroachments that we feel are threatened.

I believe that you would be interested in knowing what they plan to do, and that knowledge might have a bearing in your consideration of this nomination that is before you.

I would not wish you to infer from what I say in the next few sentences that I necessarily agree with every detail of their decision. But I do hope that you will believe me when I say that this decision has already been made.

Should southerners become the objects or victims of any overt act of judicial or executive force, they mean to use to the fullest the weapons of passive resistance and noncooperation.

If any southern citizen should be ordered to Federal jail because of refusal to obey decrees regarded by them as tyrannical, or if troops should be sent to attempt to impose integration by force, then the men of the South are determined and ready to regard every Federal court as a sworn enemy from that day forward.

I have listened carefully to many a conversation, and if my ears have heard aright, southerners plan to defend themselves by steadfastly refusing thenceforth to convict any citizen of any crime in any Federal court. They do not intend to confine their "not guilty" verdicts to cases involving civil rights, but they propose to apply that effective veto to every criminal proceeding in every Federal court.

And it should always be remembered that each individual juror is a law unto himself, and that in the end it is the verdict of the juror that determines the law of the land.

Senator WATKINS. May I ask you a question at that point?

Mr. WARR. Yes.

Senator WATKINS. You pretend to speak for the South. You think that is the universal feeling down there?

Mr. WARR. Amongst we will say my own feeling and that of all my neighbors; they do feel that way.

We realize it is a very serious step, but I believe all the people I know are willing to take that step.

Senator WATKINS. Let's see how many you are speaking for.
Mr. WARR. Only myself and the neighbors I have talked with.
Senator WATKINS. How many neighbors would you say?

Mr. WARR. I would say 100.

Senator WATKINS. One hundred.

Mr. WARR. Yes, sir.

Senator WATKINS. I wanted to be sure, because it sounds like you were trying to speak for the whole South, and I wanted to be sure how far you go.

Mr. WARR. For the people whose opinions, we will say, are similar to mine. We feel like we are neighbors, but that is subject

Senator O'MAHONEY. May I ask if I interpret you correctly when I understand you to mean that if certain conditions, which do not

now exist, should develop, then this plan of which you speak would probably be evolved?

Mr. WARR. Yes. I bring up the seriousness of the situation that exists in the South.

Senator O'MAHONEY. You are not talking about present conditions? Mr. WARR. No, not now. But the seriousness-I don't wish to imply any word of threat, but rather of advice, and a warning as to the seriousness of the feeling that exists.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Let me say, Mr. Warr, that I can say to you that in my judgment, from my conversations with Members of Congress, it is generally recognized that this is a serious question, and that it calls for the exercise of the greatest amount of patience and tolerance and good will and understanding among the peoples of the North and South and East and West. And I think that personsyou speak temperately. I think you are a temperate man. Mr. WARR. I feel that way.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Surely, and I think that is the general attitude of all the people of America, and even the most difficult problems can eventually be worked out in that spirit.

Mr. WARR. Well, that was as much as I had intended to say on that, merely to bring the seriousness of the situation out.

I would say that this nomination which you are considering is regarded by the people that I know as sort of an insult and a provocation. Its approval would be like throwing fat into a fire.

We feel that when so many other able men are available for this important position, that it would be an imposition and an error to grant power over our lives and fortunes to that individual who is most prominently associated in our minds with the attempt to overturn our way of life.

We do not regard the man who directed the effort to change lifelong and history-long habits of human beings as being adaptable to the task of fairly and impartially deciding disputes which spring from disagreement over the meaning and the extent of these new and untried and undefined precepts which he has sought to clothe with the force of law.

For many years to come the roster of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals will probably be predominated by cases involving racial disputes and constitutional interpretation. If ever there was an occasion which demanded the presence upon that bench of men in whose calm and impartial judgment every citizen might have confidence, surely that time is now.

I question neither the ability nor the integrity of the nominee whom you now consider I would like to assure the person of that-and there are many offices of public trust that he could fill with distinction other than the one he holds, and we would have no objection to his filling them.

But at this tense moment in the affairs of the Nation, it would be neither wise nor proper, we feel, to invest with the tremendous power of judicial review and decision any man who has acquired the reputation of a crusader, whether justly or not, upon one side of the very arguments over which he would be called most often to preside and to adjudge, and who is already the object of such bitter animosity as to preclude any public acceptance of his judgments as being fair and impartial.

We cannot believe that his should be the role to "ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm."

That is my feeling as a "Deep Southerner."

(Mr. Warr's prepared statement is as follows:

The legal and intellectual qualifications of a judicial appointee are by no means the only factors that should be considered by the committee.

The attitude of the people over whose fates and fortunes he is given tremendous authority is a matter of prime importance. Although you would have the power to do it if you wished, you will agree that it would not be wise to impose upon the Virgin Islanders or upon the people of any other territory a governor or a judge who was known in advance to be personally objectionable to them.

The reasons that might underlie their opposition would be of little importance. The fact of their antagonism, and its intensity, are features that do merit and should receive your consideration. And surely the attitude of citizens of old and sovereign States is entitled to attention and understanding at least equal to that which would be freely accorded to the likes and dislikes of the inhabitants of the Nation's most insignificant and outlying possession.

It is, of course, the Declaration of Independence that I quote when I remind you that "just power is derived only from the consent of the governed." The committee should by all means take into consideration the state of public opinion in the South and in the States which compose the Fourth Judicial Circuit, and it should give serious thought to the effort that approval of this nomination might have in further inflaming what is already a smoldering cauldron.

I am not by nature an alarmist, but I confess to you that I am this day alarmed. In what I propose to say I would not imply the slightest note of threat, but I do believe that you should be advised and warned of the seriousness of the situation that now exists in the South.

To describe it in the mildest terms, our section is the scene of a gathering storm. Of a storm so frightening in its nature and in its proportions that it sickens me to watch it as it thickens. For I hate to see the pleasant and friendly and cordial relations that have prevailed amongst us as individuals replaced by the hatred and bitterness and violence that are so rapidly coming to the fore.

I would beg of you not to be misled by the comparative outer calm that has thus far prevailed. The forces that are so powerfully surging in the South today remind me of Tennyson's "tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam." But its strength and its direction I well know, for I am myself borne upon it, whether I would or no.

The nature and the extent of the havoc that may yet be wreaked by its intensity before it is done are unpredictable but nonetheless perilous and frightful. It is within your power to stave off its fearful onset, in the hope that the winds of reason or of chance may by some miracle dissipate or divert this public hurricane whose lightning and thunder we have already seen and heard, and the first hailstones of which we have already felt as it rushes forward in its rapid approach.

There seems to exist a casual and a mistaken acceptance of the belief that the South is completely helpless and unable to defend its way of life. Let me impress upon you that the people of the South do not share that feeling, although they realize full well that they do not possess sufficient physical force to protect their rights from the encroachment that are threatened.

I believe that you would be interested in knowing what they plan to do, and that the knowledge might have a bearing on your consideration of the nomination that is before you.

I would not wish you to infer from my statement that I necessarily agree with every detail of their decision. But I hope that you will believe me when I say that that decision has already been firmly made.

Should they become the objects or the victims of any overt act of judicial or executive force, they mean to use to the fullest the powerful weapons of passive resistance and noncooperation.

If any southern citizen should be ordered to Federal jail because of refusal to obey decrees regarded as tyrannical, or if troops should be sent to attempt to impose integration by force, then the men of the South are determined and ready to regard every Federal court as a sworn enemy from that day forward.

I have listened carefully to many a conversation, and if my ears have heard aright southerners plan to defend themselves by steadfastly refusing thenceforth to convict any citizen of any crime in any Federal courtroom.

They do not intend to confine their "not guilty" verdicts to cases involving civil rights, but they propose to apply that effective veto to every criminal proceeding in every Federal court. And it should always be remembered that each individual juror is a law unto himself, and that in the end it is the verdict of the juror that determines the supreme law of the land.

Should such a state of affairs be brought to pass, the real problem of the Federal Government in the years that lie ahead will not be the imposition of integration, but the preservation of peace and order.

Surely it is not wise to push the men of the South to such an extreme defense of last resort. For if they are to be treated as scorned and friendless outcasts and reprobates, then they will have no alternative but to play the part to which they feel that they have been unjustly assigned.

If the southerner is forced into the role of an Ishmael, if every man's hand shall seem to be against him, then you may expect to return that "his hand will be against every man." Certainly the sight of a South more oppressed under military heel than the lowliest Balkan satellite would be a poor recommendation for a nation which boasts of its love of freedom and its respect for the rights of the individual.

It has been stated in high place that the only question confronting the southern people is that of conforming to a decree. Just a few years ago the important question that faced the great German people was whether or not to conform to a tyrannical decree, backed by all the power of law and military might, which demanded the utter extermination of a remarkable race of men. Be it said to the credit of some of the men of that unfortunate country that they sacrificed their lives in preference to becoming a party to such a crime. There are many such men in the South today, men who are willing to take any step and to face any fate before they will conform to a decree which would, with the passage of time, result in the slow but certain disappearance of the AngloSaxons, who are themselves the extraordinary people also.

They abhorred the extermination by government edict of another great race. They refuse to consent to the destruction of their own by a similar process.

The nomination that you are now considering is regarded by southerners as a contemptuous insult and a gratuitous provocation. Its approval will be a throwing of fat into a fire. When so many other able men are available for this important position, it would be an onerous imposition and a grave error to grant power over the lives and fortunes of freemen to that individual most prominently associated in their minds with the attempt to overturn their way of life.

They do not regard the man who directed the effort to change lifelong and history-long habits of human behavior as being adaptable to the task of fairly and impartially deciding disputes which spring from disagreement over the meaning and the extent of these new and untried and undefined precepts which he has sought to clothe with the force of law.

For many years to come the roster of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals will probably be predominated by cases involving racial disputes and constitutional interpretation. If ever there was an occasion which demanded the presence upon that bench of men in whose calm and impartial judgment every citizen might have confidence, surely that time is now.

I question neither the ability nor the integrity of the nominee whom you now consider, and there are many offices of public trust that he might fill with distinction and without objection. But at this tense moment in the affairs of the Nation it would be neither wise nor proper to invest with the tremendous power of judicial review and decision any man who has acquired the reputation of a crusader upon one side of the very arguments over which he would be called most often to preside and to adjudge, and who is already the object of such bitter animosity as to preclude any public acceptance of his judgments as being fair and impartial.

I cannot believe that his should be the role to "ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm."

Senator WATKINS. What is your educational background?

Mr. WARR. I am a graduate of the University of South Carolina, 1927; member of Phi Beta Kappa. I should never say that, because

Senator WATKINS. I want to find out-you handled this very wellbecause you said you were a farmer.

Mr. WARR. I am a farmer.