Senator ERVIN. During the last Democratic administration I had the privilege of sitting on the platform-drafting committee for 5 days in the city of Chicago, and during those 5 days a great many organizations came before us and deplored the Till murder case, which was an atrocious murder case. But during the time we were sitting and hearing of this atrocious case, 2 murders happened in the city of Chicago just as atrocious as the Till murder case, and yet nobody came before our committee to express any regret over those 2 matters.

Mr. BROWNELL. I think that that is correct. The Till case was used as propaganda on a worldwide basis. It had tremendous publicity, and damaged the interests of the United States, I am sure, because of that publicity.

But I agree with you, and the point I am going to try to make here is that we should consider the consequences very carefully when we are considering any such extension of this, of putting the Federal Government's jurisdiction into what are essentially murder cases.

There must be literally thousands, as you say, Senator, of cases each year, North and South, which involve violence to persons or property, in which the claim could be made that two or more persons conspired to commit the violence because of prejudice based on race, religion, or national origin.

Senator ERVIN. I might point out in this connection, Mr. Attorney General, while on the point that in the year 1955 there were 6,850 murders and non-negligent manslaughter cases in the United States. There were 19,100 rape cases, there were 57,490 robbery cases, and 92,740 cases of aggravated assault, and 492,530 cases of burglary, and 1,360,980 cases of larceny, and 227,150 cases of automobile theft, those being cases involving injuries to persons and property.

Mr. BROWNELL. Thank you for that bill of particulars Senator, which emphasizes the point I am trying to make, that if the Federal jurisdiction were extended in this way, the FBI would have the duty of investigating all these complaints.

The complaints would be larger than the numbers you have mentioned and ultimate Federal jurisdiction would turn on an issue of fact which would be, to put it mildly, exceedingly difficult to determine, that is whether the defendants knowingly in concert committed the violence because of antipathy based on race or religion or national origin.

Senator HENNINGS. That is a jury question.

Mr. BROWNELL. A jury question, so that we believe, we fear at least, that such Federal interference with local law enforcement would greatly disturb Federal and State relations throughout the country, and I think too it should be remembered that we have to depend on local communities to enforce the laws regarding violence to persons and property.

Senator ERVIN. Please pardon another interruption at this point. If such a bill were enacted and the jury should have a reasonable doubt as to whether the crime of violence grew out of a difference on a matter of race or color, the jury would have to acquit in the Federal court, no matter how atrocious the crime may have been?

Senator HENNINGS. May I say to my distinguished colleague from North Carolina that that also applies to murder in the first degree.

It must be done with premeditation, malice aforethought. Th a jury question.

All murders do not fall to the ground nor do many well-establishe cases of murder in the first degree simply because the State or the Federal Government, if the offense be committed on Federal property

Senator ERVIN. But a man can be convicted in the State court on a charge of murder in the first degree regardless of whether the crime grew out of race or color; while if he is tried in a Federal court, under this bill he would have to be acquitted if the jury had a reasonable doubt it was committed on account of race or color even though the evidence showed beyond all reasonable doubt that he was guilty of murder in the first degree.

Senator HENNINGS. Again we get into the question of deliberation, premeditation, malice aforethought, don't we, Judge?

Senator ERVIN. No, we do not-I am assuming all of that. If he is tried in the Federal court and the crime was not committed on account of race or color, even though he was as guilty as the depths of perdition, why you would have to acquit him and go back to try him in the State court where he should be tried in the first place.

Mr. BROWNELL. I think I can make my point clear this way, perhaps, Senator, in closing the discussion on this antilynching area.

What really bothers us is that this tremendous extension proposed for Federal authority in this area would have the unfortunate effect of relieving local communities of any feeling of responsibility in such matters, which would tend to take us away from the ultimate goal of enlightened and responsible local enforcement of the criminal laws in all cases whether or not racial prejudice is involved.

The real concern that we have, the reason we are discussing this here today, is that we want to secure the passage at this session of Congress of a legislative program adequate to deal with at least the most pressing problems before us, and we are really afraid that any attempt to press for the antilynching bill at this time would serve only to divert attention from the basic, what shall we say, middle-ofthe-road program which we have proposed, if we added the weight of substantial constitutional policy objections to the flood of determined opposition which already exists toward any form of civilrights legislation, and might destroy any change for affirmative action. at this session.

I have almost completed, Mr. Chairman. You have been very patient with me.

Senator HENNINGS. We have interrupted you, Mr. Attorney General and you have been very patient with us. Take all the time that you wish to.

Mr. BROWNELL. I have, since you asked me to comment on these other bills, a few other comments very briefly.

Mr. SLAYMAN. General, back on page 18 of your prepared testimony, where you were talking about the Emmet Till case, we had interrupted you there.

Did you finish that line "after the wolf-whistle"?

Mr. BROWNELL. I meant to, yes; I think I did.

Mr. SLAYMAN. What is that situation?

Mr. BROWNELL. I think I made that statement there, that we were also shocked by the situation in Montgomery, Ala. I think my words were, where private citizens have been shooting at Negro riders on buses and planting bombs in the houses of Negro citizens.

Senator ERVIN. While on that point, there was an assault committed on Nat King Cole and his assailants were tried by local courts in Montgomery and given the limit of the law; is that correct? Mr. BROWNELL. That is my recollection; yes.

Senator ERVIN. And there have been a number of arrests in Montgomery, Ala., on account of these so-called bombings; have there

not?

Mr. BROWNELL. That should be in the record and we are delighted with the action of the local authorities in that situation and hope it will be vigorously followed up so that the perpetrators of all of the crimes may be brought to justice.

Title V of the bill in the subcommittee print is substantially identical with the so-called administration proposal as contained in part 3 of S. 83. It does contain the additional provision that in civil actions the United States shall be liable for costs, the same as private persons.

I merely point that out in passing. The inclusion of such a provision is not of major importance. I think it perhaps would be preferable to leave it out. Then title VI of the bill in subcommittee print along with S. 468 and S. 504 proposes an amendment to title 18 of the United States Code, section 1114, to add to the long list of Federal officials the assaulting or killing of which while performing their official duties constitutes a Federal crime, uniformed members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps that is another one of those fringe matters that seems to be somewhat remotely related to the subject of civil rights, and while it is a question of policy concerning which we would not make any comment, I would be inclined for the accomplishment of our major purpose of getting this legislation through, to have that proposal considered separately on its own merits. Finally, we are opposed to the omnibus bill such as S. 510, because it seems to us that including so many different kinds of proposals in a single package would almost surely insure its defeat.

Senator HENNINGS. That is the bill by Senator Humphrey, I believe.

Mr. BROWNELL. I believe that is correct, Mr. Chairman.
Senator HENNINGS. It has the FEPC provision in it.

Mr. BROWNELL. Yes. S. 509 would make some minor amendments to the peonage statutes. We certainly have no objection to the enactment of that legislation, but we prefer to have that separated from the main proposal.

S. 508 would amend sections 241 and 242 of the code, title 18. There I guess I have made that point clear already, that while we recognize that there are some inadequacies in the present statutes, we are not recommending amendment of them at this time, because as you know, there is grave doubt in our minds as to whether any further extension of the criminal law into this area at the present time would be advisable.

Senator HENNINGS. By that you mean as a matter of practicability? Mr. BROWNELL. That is right.

Senator HENNINGS. And I take it-I do not use this unkindly-I gather, General, that it is your view that there must be a great deal of compromise in all this legislation in order to pass something, is that right?

Mr. BROWNELL. That is right; and after we have had a period of experience with these civil remedies, we might be back again one of these days seeking amendments to the criminal statutes which would cover specifically any area which our experience shows can be satisfactorily dealt with only by criminal prosecutions.

Mr. SLAYMAN. General, may I ask a question?

The Department of Justice lost the second Williams case in a very close decision of 5 to 4, but the decision was based on statutory construction rather than constitutionality.

I wonder, since the Department of Justice had presented what looked like such a fine brief in that case, if the Department has restudied section 241 and 242 provisions in line with making recommendations to the Congress to overcome that narrow statutory construction!

Mr. BROWNELL. Yes, we have.

Mr. SLAYMAN. I do not mean for this to interfere with your major points of emphasis, but it would be the kind of recommendation from the craftsmen in your Civil Rights Section that could be useful to us in looking at the criminal provisions.

Mr. BROWNELL. Might I have permission then to discuss that with the staff?

We do have some suggestions along that line. I think the only other one, Mr. Chairman, in closing these remarks, is the bill which would provide for the establishment of a joint congressional committee in the area of civil rights, and we feel that that is perhaps outside of our province and is entirely a matter for Congress to decide itself.

Senator HENNINGS. We will certainly be giving it a lot of study. Mr. BROWNELL. I would want to be sure it was not used as a substitute.

Senator HENNINGS. Of things which are not clear or all too apparent to many?

Mr. BROWNELL. I wanted to be sure it was not considered as a substitute for the executive commission which we propose. That I believe concludes my prepared remarks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for your courtesy and I will try to answer any questions you may have.

Senator HENNINGS. We appreciate very much your coming here today and calling attention as you have in this prepared statement to these matters.

I guess you and I could talk about this for a month in its various aspects.

Mr. BROWNELL. That is certainly true.

Senator HENNINGS. The Senator from North Carolina.

Senator ERVIN. Mr. Attorney General, this provision of the subcommittee print which is unnumbered provides that whenever two or more persons shall knowingly in concert commit or attempt to commit violence upon any person, because of his race, color, creed, national origin, ancestry, language, religion, such persons shall constitute a lynch mob within the meaning of this title, and it provides for their punishment.

I give you a hypothetical case.

There was a Presbyterian and a Methodist down in North Carolina who got to arguing about the Presbyterian doctrine of predestination, and like all religious arguments the longer it lasted the more wrathful they became.

Now it happened that the Methodist had a brother standing by, and finally the Methodist said, "Well, I will admit that there may be something in the doctrine of predestination. I think the Presbyterians are predestined to go to hell."

Then the Presbyterian said to the Methodist, "Well, I would rather be a Presbyterian and know I am going to hell than to be a Methodist and not know where in the hell I am going."

Now thereupon the Methodist brother who was standing by said "Knock the devil out of him," and the Methodist hit the Presbyterian and knocked him down.

Now under this bill those two Methodists would constitute a lynch mob, would they not, because that violence arose out of their creed? Mr. BROWNELL. I can't imagine a Methodist doing that, Senator. [Laughter.]·

Senator ERVIN. I will ask you to imagine that these were North Carolina Methodists who did things they ought not to have done, like the registrars in Camden and Brunswick County.

Now under this bill those two Methodists would be a lynch mob, would they not?

Mr. BROWNELL. I think I had better consult my pastor on that, Senator, instead of my legal judgment. I don't know. We are not advocating that provision.

Senator ERVIN. You are a lawyer and an expert on interpretation of statutes

Mr. BROWNELL. I would doubt whether the proponents of that provision had any such situation in mind.

Senator ERVIN. Take another indiscretion, I will put myself in it. This is hypothetical. My brother is standing by, and my good friend Senator Hennings calls me a red-nosed Scotch Irishman and my brother says "Don't take that off of Tom," and I hit Tom.

Now my brother and myself would be a lynch mob because that would be a reference to my ancestry.

Is that not so under the bill?

Mr. BROWNELL. In that case I would recommend a presidential pardon for you, Senator, so you would not have to go to jail. [Laughter.]

Senator ERVIN. I am interested in your statement with reference to 3 of the registrars down in my State of North Carolina, 1 of them in the Court House precinct of Camden County. You pointed out there this registrar gave an examination to four Negro high-school graduates and initially declined their right to register under the literacy tests of the North Carolina constitution.

Then two of them came back and recited the Preamble to the Constitution and the registrar registered them and permitted them to vote. Now so far as you know, was that statement based on evidence given by parties other than the registrar?

Mr. BROWNELL. I wonder if I could refer that to Mr. Olney, who is the head of the Criminal Division, who was in direct charge of the matter.