ing constitutional provisions with the further proviso that the amendment shall not be interpreted as weakening any other powers reserved to the States and to the people under the 10th amendment of the Constitution.

The threat is mastery over all of our minds and over all of our lives. The fate of all of us and our country, is largely in your hands. Only through restoration of constitutional government can we hope to escape the tragic fate of all republics.

Constitutionally, legally, the sovereign people already have jurisdiction over their schools. Whether there is any advantage in making it crystal clear by constitutional amendment so that no court can misinterpret, is something for legal minds to determine.

We commend the effort to bring this vital situation and the problem that faces us to public attention and especially commend the move because it gives decentralists the initiative. We have been too long on the defensive. Patriotic Americans want to do something to salvage what is left of constitutional government and ask your wisdom and statesmanship in the attempt.

Senator KEFAUVER. Thank you very much, Mrs. Leetch.

Mrs. LEETCH. Without getting into a debate which I am not equipped to do

Senator KEFAUVER. You are not a lawyer?

Mrs. LEETCH. I am not.

The 14th amendment, however, by any amateur's research at the time certainly covered only adult rights, did it not? And it did contemplate that it covered children in school, and I think to back that statement up would be to call attention to the irrefutable fact that many States, as many as 35, were concurrently establishing by separate but equal education in their respective school systems at the time of the adoption of the 14th amendment.

Which was a much later decision, am I correct, much later decision which provided education to the 14th amendment."

Senator KEFAUVER. The 14th amendment to the Constitution, all of the Constitution, applies to every person in the United States, child or adult. The courts have held that the protection of the Constitution applies to aliens within the United States.

Mrs. LEETCH. I know that. It is a very debatable amendment and greatly debated but it was not drawn to affect children in school and the interpretation that it affected education came many years later at the turn of the century.

I do not know that it makes a great deal of difference, but the point is that the makers had it apply, intended it to apply to the adult rights, voting rights, political rights, property rights, that sort of thing.

Senator KEFAUVER. It is organically a part of the Constitution. The whole Constitution applies to everybody.

Mrs. LEETCH. This is to assure the committee that the concern is not only in the South but it is everywhere. It is not just in the South. And our concern also is for some of these advantages for our own white race would like to have children have some place to go. If there is a choice of rights for Negro children which could be argued as proper, there should also be a choice of rights for white children.

Let us not abdicate their rights in our scramble to give the Negroes their rights.

Senator KEFAUVER. Any questions, Mr. Fensterwald?

Mr. FENSTERWALD. I would like to ask one very brief question:
Are your cooperating societies all American societies?

Mrs. LEETCH. Oh, yes.

Mr. FENSTERWALD. Some of the names of them are rather unusual, such as the Order of the Three Crusades, and the National Society, Magna Carta Dames.

Mrs. LEETCH. These are heriditary societies of the women descendants of the men who were taking part.

Mr. FENSTERWALD. In the three crusades?

Mrs. LEETCH. Yes.

Mr. FENSTERWALD. How about the Network?

Mrs. LEETCH. The Network; that is not a heriditary society, that is an organization with headquarters in California. It is an extremely patriotic group, a study group of individuals in and around Pasadena. Mrs. FENSTERWALD. How about the Magna Charta Dames?

Mrs. LEETCH. Hereditary. The barons of Runnemede John's barons.

Senator KEFAUVER. Thank you very much, Mrs. Leetch.

We will meet again at 10 o'clock in the morning. We stand in recess until 10 o'clock in the morning.

(Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m. the hearing was recessed until 10 a.m. Friday, May 15, 1959.)

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT RESERVING STATE CONTROL OVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS

FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1959

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:10 a.m., in room 2228, New Senate Office Building, Hon. Estes Kefauver (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senator Kefauver (presiding).

Also present: Bernard Fensterwald, counsel; Miss Kathryn Coulter, clerk.

Senator KEFAUVER. The committee will come to order.

Our first witness this morning is Mr. Albert F. Metz.

Mr. Metz is president of the American Taxpayers Association. Mr. Metz, will you tell us your residence.

STATEMENT OF ALBERT F. METZ, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION

Mr. METZ. My residence is Rutherford, N.J.

Senator KEFAUVER. Do you want to tell us what the American Taxpayers Association is?

Mr. METZ. It is a rather old association interested largely in the Federal tax policies and in those things which affect Federal tax policies. We think this is one of those issues which does affect our tax policy and, of course, reaches pretty far because it is a constitutional question itself.

Senator KEFAUVER. Do you have members in various parts of the United States?

Mr. METZ. Members in various parts of the country.

Senator KEFAUVER. All right, sir. We will be glad to have your

statement.

Mr. METZ. I am Albert F. Metz, president of the American Taxpayers Association and appreciate very much this opportunity to comment on Senate Joint Resolution 32.

I believe that Senator Talmadge's introduction to this proposal will go down in history as one of the famous documents of this great body. I hope my remarks may add support to his statement.

Our Nation has been known throughout its history as a melting pot for the end product of a citizen-alloy purged of the dross of group differences and dedicated to the utmost freedom in the pursuit of happiness.

The catalyst or flux in the production of this citizen-alloy is our Constitution to which we all swear our support.

One does not responsibly approach the consideration of an amendment to our Federal Constitution without thoughtfully reviewing the obvious intent of this great document-and further, because of its sufficiency, any amendment would only seem mandatory when poor understanding of its intent results in devious or mischievous misinterpretation of its very obvious purposes.

Our Constitution is recognized universally as the greatest instrument of man for a government of free and independent citizens.

It has the eternal essence of the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments but like them, requires the self-discipline of both the individual citizen and our public servants.

Generally speaking, I would defend the following as the major premises of the several original States in forming the Constitution which are widely recognized by informed students of constitutional government:

(1) The individual States were and can be sufficient unto themselves

(a) except for the hazard of foreign aggression,

(b) except for the peaceful development of constructive and prosperous interstate and international relations, and

(c) except for major catastrophes and other such matters requiring joint State action.

They set about writing a Constitution to restrict Federal Government to just those responsibilities. There certainly was not intended any forced Federal conformity in other areas of government.

(2) The States were to be the final arbiters of the powers specifically assigned to the Federal Government. This was not intended as a function of any court.

(3) The States were to retain all other government responsibilities. As a matter of fact, the preponderance of evidence definitely indicates that the States were quite determined that they maintain complete sovereignty to the greatest extent possible.

(4) The Senate was conceived as a body to particularly represent State government and it would seem by inference a guardian of State sovereignty.

(5) The requirements for so-called checks and balances were meticulously thought out to prevent the exercise of centralized power and government by mob hysteria.

One hundred and twenty years of respect for these concepts produced an independent, energetic, progressive, and enterprising federation of States which set a pattern for self-government. We had survived a foreign invasion, crushing depressions, a bloody Civil War, a foreign war to prevent European tyranny in the Western Hemisphere and at the same time we expanded the territory and prosperity of our people to envious proportions. Our debt was nominal and our budgets were balanced-all of this while we had an ingrained understanding of our heritage.

It is regrettable that from about 1910 we seem to have gradually lost this understanding of the bare rudiments and disciplines of our constitutional form of government. Both the 16th and 17th amendments were emotionally and thoughtlessly ratified although they

are in complete discord with the tenets expressed and implied in our proven constitutional philosophy.

Senator KEFAUVER. What is the particular significance of the date 1910?

Mr. METZ. That is about the time that the 16th amendment was conceived.

And I think it was the one great departure from our traditional thinking of constitutional government.

Senator KEFAUVER. The 16th amendment was adopted in 1913 or 1914.

Mr. METZ. Yes.

Senator KEFAUVER. All right, sir, proceed.

Mr. METZ. The 16th amendment destroys the concept of taxation by enumeration which recognizes the responsibility of each and every citizen. In its place it has substituted the very type of taxation which caused the Revolutionary War and which certainly should have had some constitutional limits to this Pandora's box. The 16th amendment is practically an exact reproduction of the most destructive plank in the Marx Communist manifesto.

The 17th amendment peculiarly sacrificed a most important check on unconstitutional infringement by the Federal Government. It provided no watch dog to supplant this necessary function for the benefit of the States. In the face of all history and reason, the 17th amendment acceded to the gradual domination of what Mr. Jefferson so aptly described as mob rule which is a sort of fanatic worship of the concept that a 51 percent majority should have the power to confiscate the substance of the remaining 49 percent. The State Governors and legislatures are certainly in the best position to select Senators with a dedication to State prerogatives.

The 18th amendment attempted to interfere with morals, ethics and private personal preference which never have and never will be governed by legislation. No police force could possibly be made available to administer such legislation. It made us a nation of lawbreakers and had to be revoked.

Our Supreme Court, unfortunately subject to the good and bad features of political patronage, has been properly and critically censured by the greatest legal organizations in the country. The positions traditionally rated as the greatest rewards for highly reputed career jurists have not maintained the regard which has been inherent in those offices. As one consequence, we now have so much conflicting Supreme Court interpretation of Interstate Commerce that no self-respecting attorney will hazard an opinion on the subject. This, in spite of the fact that the intent of the Constitution is most direct and simple in this respect. As another consequence of this conflict of interpretation we have seen such presumption of our highest Court of legislative and administrative authority as to nullify the Constitutional process in such areas as sedition, State law, treason, farm subsidy, taxation, labor and education. We have been saddled with law which has not been arrived at by procedures provided in the Constitution.

Therefore, largely because of our deliberate although perhaps unknowing departure from our traditional Constitutional purpose since about 1910, we have accepted the prime tenet of communism in our