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powered to bypass and circumvent every one of those fundamental constitutional rights?

Mr. GRAYDON. In my judgment, that is the intent, purpose and operation of the bill.

Senator ERVIN. I would like to ask you this further question, if under the existing law where a suit is brought to collect damages for an alleged deprivation of a civil right, the defendant would have a right to trial by jury-would he not?

Mr. GRAYDON. Correct, sir.

Senator ERVIN. And I will ask you if, in your opinion, the Attorney General would not be granted by these bills the power to bring an equitable proceeding and recover incidental damages for the benefit of a private individual in a proceeding in which the defendant would be denied the right to have à petit jury pass upon the issues brought against him?

Mr. GRAYDON. That is my assumption.

Judge, I want to make one other observation about trial by affidavit. Thirty-five years ago I had a case where I made an affidavit. I was very elated because I had a very prominent banker in town to make an affidavit in favor of my client.

I went into court very much puffed up about this good banker who had made this fine affidavit, and low and behold, the other side went, in return, to this banker and he made an affidavit in their favor. So I say affidavits are things that can be, no twisted, but shaded, you might say, by a lawyer in one way or another.

And another thing, you do not have any right to cross examine him about what he has said.

Senator JOHNSON. I can bet you that banker made that statement without telling any falsehoods, too?

Mr. GRAYDON. He did.

Senator JOHNSTON. In other words, he told the truth in both affidavits?

Mr. GRAYDON. That is correct.

Senator JOHNSTON. He left out of yours the things that were against you, and in the other affidavit he left-out the things that were against them.

Mr. GRAYDON. That is exactly correct.

Senator ERVIN. We used to have, in my county, a surveyor who was somewhat like that. A party would bring a suit for an injunction, to restrain trespassing on land until the title could be adjudged in a trial of merits. The plaintiff would go to this old surveyor and get an affidavit to make out the plaintiff's case, and then the defendant would go and get an affidavit from him to make out a defense to the case stated in the other affidavit. This illustrates the point made.

Mr. GRAYDON. Yes.

Senator ERVIN. I want to ask you another question, about parts III and IV of S. 83, the bill recommended by the Attorney General, which contains identical provisions, reading as follows:

The district courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction of proceedings instituted pursuant to this section and shall exercise the same without regard to whether the party aggrieved shall have exhaused any administrative or otherremedies that may be provided by law.

I will ask you if under the second article of the Constitution of the United States, which prescribes the qualifications for voters for Mem

bers of Congress, and under the 17th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which prescribes the qualifications for voters for Senators, each qualification being prescribed as being the electors entitled to vote for the most numerous branch of the State legislature, do not the States have the right to describe the qualifications for electors for the numerous branch of the State legislature and, incidentally, for Congressmen and Senators?

Mr. GRAYDON. That has always been the theory, Judge, up to this time. But they are trying to disturb that.

Senator ERVIN. And I will ask you if virtually every State in the Union has not enacted statutes, establishing administrative machinery to determine how it shall be determined whether a particular person possesses these qualifications for voting?

Mr. GRAYDON. Every State in the Union that I know of has that, an administrative system whereby they can establish the right of a person to vote or not to vote.

Senator Ervin. I will ask you, if this bill, if enacted into law, would not confer upon the Attorney General of the United States the sole power to determine in a particular instance whether those administrative remedies should stand or fall?

Mr. GRAYDON. He could bypass them; not fool with them.

Senator ERVIN. I will ask you if you think that any executive official ought to be entrusted by Congress with the power to strike down at his election state administrative remedies established pursuant to the Constitution of the United States?

Mr. GRAYDON. I think that would be a horrible thing, and I think that is exactly what they are trying to do. I do not think there is a bit of doubt.

Senator ERVIN. Don't you believe that the Supreme Court of the United States would have to hold the provisions of virtually all the civil rights bills unconstitutional if Congress should adopt them?

Mr. GRAYDON. I do not think there is any doubt about that. But I was just telling them, Senator, when you were out, every time the Supreme Court describes something they put it under the 14th amendment, and they have practically abolished the first 10. It is cap-all that covers everything, so they say.

Of course, I do not want to criticize the Supreme Court of the United States; I am not going to. I just say that they can be wrong, thank God, like anybody else can. And when they are wrong, I think they ought to find out something about it. I do not think they are God, I do not think they have any deity or divinity in them. I think they are good men, but I think they could be wrong. If they were not, they would not be men.

Senator ERVIN. I will ask you this final question question, and if it does not apply to virtually every one of the so-called civil-rights bills, that these bills propose to grant so-called civil rights to certain groups of our citizens by denying constitutional safeguards and civil rights to all of our citizens, including the groups in whose name these bills are advocated?

Mr. GRAYDON. I think you are right, sir. I think that in trying we are using the Constitution in this respect, not as a shield to protect people, but as a sword to cut their heads off. It has become an offensive weapon, not a defensive weapon, in my judgment. And I think the bill, of course, is-Well, I am like the judge, who is a member of

our legislature, and they had a bill up to give a man the right-he was one of the grandest people whoever lived, but he was not very well educated-to allow a man to kill a rabid dog on sight. The old man got up and said, "Gentlemen, I am agin that bill, I am agin it". He said, "Kill a poor white man's dog, Mr. Speaker, gosh almighty, that is horrible, I am agin it."

So I will leave with you the final word that I am "agin" this bill, been agin it, going to stay agin it, and even though you may try to pass it, I will still be agin it, don't worry about that, trying to fight it as best I can in a legal fashion.

And I want to say further that some of the people in my State, and in the Southern States, I am sorry to say, are going to fight it probably not so legally. I regret that, but I think some of them are. Why, the Ku Klux Klan is being reorganized in South Carolina. For what, I do not know, but it is being reorganized. I deplore that— we have a law against it-and it should not be.

However, it is creating unrest, anger, bitterness, distrust-that is the worst thing. It is tearing our civilization to pieces.

Senator ERVIN. I might state that some persons recently attempted to reorganize it in one of the North Carolina counties. Some of the members resorted to violence. Some 70 of them were prosecuted in our State court and virtually every one of them was convicted, despite the fact that the Attorney General comes in and asks us to pass bills that are predicated on the thesis that the courts of the States do not possess the competency to enforce law in cases of that kind.

Mr. GRAYDON. I think you are right, sir, I think that the State courts in most every instance will enforce a law equitable and justly in accordance with the law.

Senator ERVIN. I will ask you one final question.

Mr. GRAYDON. Judge, you can ask me all the questions you want. You know, a lawyer has to have a glib tongue, a good imagination, and a total disregard for the truth. [Laughter.]

So you ask me anything you want.

Senator ERVIN. I want to ask you this: Would not these bills deprive all the American citizens of right far more precious than the so-called civil rights that they would confer upon one group?

Mr. GRAYDON. I consider the first 10 amendments the basis of our liberty, and I consider this strikes at the first 10 amendments.

I want to say one thing, when I was a little boy-that has been a long time ago they threatened to have some trouble in my county, and my mother and my father took these people into our home and kept them for 5 days to prevent them from having trouble, at some considerable risk to our property and ourselves.

I just mean that everybody I know-I was laughing here-in the elevator I said "Did you boys leave your pistols with Senator Johnston?" and when I got up here I saw more policemen than I ever saw in my life. I think they thought I was going to shoot the place up. Because I had no idea then-I was forewarned, but not forearmed in this matter.

Well, gentlemen, I have enjoyed talking to you and I want to say, in the words of the Judge: Why kill a poor white man's rabid dog, gosh almighty damn, I am agin it and I will stay agin it.

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Senator JOHNSTON. We are certainly glad and appreciate your coming before us, too.

The Honorable James Spruill.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES SPRUILL, STATE REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

Mr. SPRUILL. Mr. Chairman and Senator, and everybody, I want to express my appreciation for being permitted to appear here today and express my views as a Southerner, and I think, to express my views as one who is generally deeply interested in human rights and local self-government.

I think that there are too many people that think civil rights embraces human rights. I think there are too many people who fail to distinguish between civil rights and proposed Federal civil-rights legislation.

It is my view that we in the South are genuinely deeply interested in human rights; that we have civil-rights legislation on our statute books; that we have Federal civil-rights legislation now available: we have remedies in our State courts; we have remedies in our Federal courts; and that we do not need the intrusion that would be effected by this proposed new legislation that this committee, the subcommittee, is considering. I think that those bills would make the situation worse, not better.

You gentlemen are from the South, and you know that we are two minorities. The colored people of the South are a minority, and it is sometimes forgotten, I think, that we white Southerners are a minority. We are two minorities who are living within a circumscribed geographical area. We are bound together by our history, we are bound together for the future.

I take great comfort and great pride in the fact that conditions have improved so much so fast. It is still less than a century since emancipation. We have come far, and we have come far despite much do good legislation of that reconstruction period.

We had a flood of legislation, and I think that that legislation and the Federal bayonets which enforced it is responsible for that bitterness that lingered on so long in the South-that, and not the Civil War.

The South took pride at the chivalry of Grant when he returned Lee's sword to him at Appomattox. It took pride in his magnanimity to the soldiers of the South. However, that supposed Civil War reconstruction period left scars which were long in the healing.

And I want to call the attention of you gentlemen to the fact that that legislation was partly punitive, and it was largely political. No doubt much of it was designed to do good, but I question whether that accomplished the purpose for which it was intended.

Now, as I say, we have come very far. There has been mention of lynching. Lynching is a thing of the past in South Carolina and in the South. It is a thing of the past, not because of Federal marshals, it is a thing of the past because the people of the South demanded it.

I am sorry that Senator Ervin has left.

Senator JOHNSTON. For your information, those two bells was rollcall, and he had to get on the rollcall. If he gets back in time, I will go, and one of us will stay here.

Mr. SPRUILL. I realize that, Senator Johnston, but I wanted to say that I remember with pride a story that concerned one of his circuit judges in North Carolina. It was back in the days when I was in college. They were having a capital trial at Pittsboro, N. C., and during the course of that trial a mob came in, intent upon lynching the prisoner on trial for his life. There was no lynching that day, and the reason was that that country judge, presiding there at Pittsboro, pulled out a good 45 revolver and he stood and he said, "The first man who comes within the bar of this court, I will kill.”

Now, that judge prevented a lynching. I think he is symbolic of many law-enforcement officers in North Carolina, South Carolina and throughout our South. He is symbolic of many good citizens who have been just as intent as he on preventing lynching.

And I tell you that that judge with his 45 gave more protection to that prisoner than would a dozen Assistant Attorney Generals, 250 Federal marshals than one Corps of the United States Army that day in Pittsboro.

Senator JOHNSTON. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. SPRUILL. Mention has been made to our voting. Now, we readily recognize that all qualified citizens are entitled to vote regardless of race, color or creed. We are proud of the fact that in South Carolina we accord all peoples that privilege.

Mention has been made to our South Carolina law, and I want to emphasize the fact that the test is a simple literacy test, nothing more, nothing less. A party is entitled to register and to vote if he or she can read and write. Now, there is an alternative, but it is purely alternative, and that is to own and pay taxes on property assessed at $300 or more. But the vast majority of our people vote on the basis of a simple literacy test. And as I vote, I stand in a line made up of white citizens and colored citizens, all waiting to get to the poll to cast a ballot.

We have no poll tax in South Carolina, that has been repealed for some years.

Now, I am especially interested in education. We have a difficult. problem to educate all of our children. As the Senator from South Carolina so well knows, we were an impoverished people after the Civil War. We are still relatively low in wealth. We are third from the bottom per capita, and we have more children than most States. Only one State in the Union has more children per capita than South Carolina the national average of population under the age of 20 is 34.3 percent. In South Carolina it is 44.9 percent. That means we have more children to educate and fewer adults to pay the bill.

And incidentally, it is an interesting thing that the one reason why we have relatively more children is because we have many parents who have gone north and left their children in South Carolina and in our other Southern States. We have many colored parents who, for economic reasons, have gone to New York, Detroit, Chicago, or somewhere else and have left their children with their aunts and their uncles or their grandmothers. Now, those parents could have taken

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