There is no authority, no authority of which I am aware, by which the Federal Government can authorize a tort action by an individual against a state or a political subdivision of that State. That is a matter that the States themselves can do. In South Carolina we have done it. The Federal Government is powerless to say that any individual can sue the State of South Carolina for tort. Mr. Chairman, as I said and as I am sure would be repeatedly said, we feel that this legislation is unnecessary. It is unwarranted, it is unjustified, and to my certain knowledge it is not demanded, certainly not in the State of South Carolina. I feel that that is true of the other parts of the United States. If the committee will bear with me, I want to quote just two short paragraphs from a speech made by Senator Borah in 1938. He said this: It is not in the interest of national unity to stir old envies, to arouse old fears, to lacerate old wounds, to again after all these years brand the southern people as incapable or unwilling to deal with the question of human life. This bill is not in the interest of that good feeling between the two races so essential to the welfare of the colored people. Nations are not held together merely by constitution and laws. They are held together by mutual respect, by mutual confidence, by toleration for conditions in different parts of the country, by confidence that the people in the different parts of the country will solve their problems. And that is just as essential today as it was in 1865 or in 1870 when the original civil-rights bills were enacted by the Congress here.. The only other matter that I wish to call the committee's attention to if I may, is what has already been touched upon by Senator Wofford. That is the fact that the adoption of these bills, Mr. Chairman, I fear will do this: create a government by injunction. That is to be avoided at all costs. The injunctive process can be abused. The injunctive process, as Senator Wofford said, is an extraordinary legal remedy that ought not to be lightly regarded. The effect of the injunctive mandatory and declaratory right granted by each and every one of these bills that I have observed will be to destroy the right of trial by jury, not only to destroy the right of being convicted by proof barred as Senator Wofford said, but to destroy the presumption of innocence that comes in under our common law and constitution with every defendant. I feel in the face of these bills that point alone is sufficient to render them unconstitutional. Heretofore as I understand the law, any person who violates an injunction, which violation is at the same time a violation of a law of the United States, is entitled to a trial by jury, and these bills do not grant that right. I fear, Mr. Chairman, that the reaction to these bills will be one of resentment and apprehension, to say the very least. I say that because there is implied in these bills, you cannot read these bills without seeing the implication clearly there, implying that the people of South Carolina, the people of Minnesota, the people of the other States of the Union are not competent to protect human life within their respective borders. That feeling of resentment will, as the chairman aptly pointed out a moment ago, result not in the preservation of civil rights but in the destruction of civil rights. Senator JOHNSTON. Isn't it also a strange thing to hear that in this field they are trying to give, as they say, some liberties and rights to individuals, who will be taking away the rights and liberties of others? Mr. MCLEOD. I think that is a very pertinent remark, and I think it is obvious, Mr. Chairman, very obvious. So, Mr. Chairman, there is a spirit of tranquillity in the State of South Carolina. I know of no lynchings, I know of no attempted lynchings. I know of no denial of the right to vote. I know of no imtimidation of anyone who wanted to vote the way he chose. I know of no appeal from any denial of a right to vote. It is provided for in the constitution and statutes of South Carolina. I know of no action that has ever been brought with respect to the intimidation of anyone in the exercise of his right of suffrage. But if this legislation is enacted I feel, Mr. Chairman, that besides having the result that I mentioned a moment ago, there is a potential danger. There is the opening wedge towards the creation of a police state. There would be chaos, there may be violence. There will, I know, be a period of uncertainty certainly during the generation when my young children are growing up. There will be a period of apprehension and fear, a period of hatred. That may pass but, Mr. Chairman, the thing that I fear more than that, and the thing that will not pass for generations is the permanent scars, the permanent wounds that will be made between two races that are living amicably and peacefully together now. There is something more than that I fear also, and it may strike me because of my peculiar situation as a father, and that is that I fear what I think would be the worst thing that could happen in the American Government in our present-day history, that the enactment into law of these bills could very well cause the lamp of free, public education to flicker out and die. Mr. Chairman, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to appear here before the committee, and I urge that the committee report unfavorably and disapprove the enactment into law of the bills now pending before it. Thank you. Senator JOHNSTON. We certainly appreciate your coming up here and giving us your thought on the matter. If you have anything else that you want to leave with the committee we will be glad to receive it. Mr. MCLEOD. I will submit a statement that I have prepared. STATEMENT OF CLINT T. GRAYDON, ATTORNEY AT LAW Mr. GRAYDON. Mr. Chairman, may I make an inquiry? The gentleman on the right has just come in. I would like to know who he is. Senator JOHNSTON. He is a staff member. Mr. GRAYDON. Mr. Chairman, I will stand when I am talking for the reason that I can talk better. I can't talk very well either way but I can do better standing. Senator JOHNSTON. You may sit or stand or run as you please. As I came into the elevator I said to one of my friends in a facetious fashion, "Did you leave your pistol with Senator Johnston?" I came in, found officers all over the place. I think they thought I was forearmed instead of forewarned. I think for the purposes of the record I should tell who I am. I am an expresident of the South Carolina Bar Association, expresident of the Richland County Bar Association. I am an exteacher, an exfootball coach, an exnewspaper man, and exjudge of the supreme court and the circuit court. You will notice all those are "ex's." I am a Democrat by persuasion. I am an Episcopalian by choice. I am a notary public without a seal. I think that gives you pretty full knowledge. I will have to explain to you why I am a Democrat. I am a Democrat because I believe in their principles. I don't like all Democrats. Some of them irritate me. I am an Episcopalian because I think it is the mildest form of religion. It keeps you from catching the real thing, like vaccination and smallpox. But I think that I have lived in South Carolina long enough to know what is happening down here. I want to say that my old great-grandfather, that the person who is reputed to be my great-grandfather, I hope he was-went into our public library down there and told the librarian, who by the way is a great niece of Wade Hampton, that they wanted to take all the books out of the library that had the word "Negro" in it and Miss Lucy said "Why, I am sorry but I can't do that," and he said, "Well, it is offensive." Miss Lucy said, "Well, there is about 5,000 books in here that have got the word "bastard" in them, do you want those out?" He said "We don't care, they are not organized so it don't make any difference." We are appearing against an organized effort to invade our way of life, to invade our civilization. This old great-grandfather of mine was against slavery and he emancipated the slaves and my grandfather emancipated his slaves. They lost a lot of money doing it but I think they did right, and I feel that we found out that slavery was wrong, and we took an awful licking about slavery, but it was wrong, and I am glad it was abolished. Now the next thing I want to call your attention to is we are not up here asking you for any help. We are like the man that went down the mountain trail and a bear got in his way, and the man began to pray and said "Lord, help me whip this bear." The bear kept on coming and he said "Lord, don't you hear me? Help me whip this bear." The bear kept on coming and the fellow got more and more excited. He said "Lord, if you can't help me, for God's sake, don't help that bear." So we just ask you for God's sake don't help the bear. Just let us alone. Now I want to say that some of you men called me at the last hearing Santa Claus. That sank deep into my soul, and I am Santa Claus. I am bringing you back today the Constitution of the United States which you seem to have lost. I am bringing you back the Magna Carta which was granted by King John, which you seem to have forgotten. I am bringing you back the principle that the individual people in the States on the low level of government have a right to manage their own affairs. Call it States rights if you please, call it whatever you want, but it is a fundamental principle of this Government, and I cite you some instances. In the Magna Carta they say that the borrowers and the poor shall have the right to govern themselves according to their usual laws, customs and usages. The English people, the Anglo-Saxons, fought for that principle. I come back with the Constitution and give it back to you, a Christmas gift if you please, and say to you that that Constitution guaranteed us ten fundamental rights in the Bill of Rights. Now we have the Supreme Court of the United States, every time they want to upset one of those rights they say we appeal to the Fourteenth Amendment. We say is the Fourteenth Amendment going to swallow up the other ten amendments? Are we to say it is going to be unlimited? I think that is abused. The Declaration says we are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They have circumscribed life. They have taken liberty away from us. Happiness is destroyed. The only thing we have left is pursuit. As long as we have got the pursuit I am going to be here pursuing it. Don't worry about that. Let's see what the fundamentals of this are. Of course you know and I know that in the original concept of this Government the convention decided 11 times not to give the Supreme Court the right to declare an act unconstitutional. Yet when the Government was formed, Mr. Marshall, who did a great job in a great many respects, he took it unto himself to declare it unconstitutional, and that is firmly imbedded in our Constitution and our laws today. I want to say to you, though, there is no place in any history where the Colonies gave the right to the United States to declare an act of the State court to be unconstitutional. You will not find that anywhere. I was very much amused at my friend Tom Wofford, who I love very much, saying that all you have to do is to have a law license and you could be a member of the Supreme Court. Why, Mr. Wofford does not realize it is not an essential qualification of a judge that he be a lawyer. I challenge you to find it. The President of the United States could-I do not say he wouldappoint a shoemaker, a cobbler, or horse rider if he wanted to. And I challenge any of you to find where there is any provision that a man has to be a lawyer to be a justice of the United States Supreme Court. Of course, I admit that they generally are lawyers. I also admit, that sometimes we doubt their learnedness in the law. I want to call your attention to one vital factor that has not been touched upon by anyone. The law enforcement in our State is a cooperative measure between the State law enforcement officers, the county law enforcement officers and the Federal law enforcement officers. The FBI relies heavily upon the State law enforcement division. I want to know what is going to happen when these local law enforcement officers realize that those same Federal officers have the right, under this act, any time they are dissatisfied, to bring the State officer into a Federal court and charge him with violation of civil rights. It is going to tear the law enforcement to pieces in our State, I think. It is going to have a material effect upon that great community of interest and cooperativeness of spirit which has grown up between the State and Federal offices. Now, I want to say to you further that this bill provides, the one I have been reading—there are so many of them, I have not read them all-that there should be a commission appointed, consisting of not more than three members from any one party. It does not say what party: Democratic, Republican, Communist, American Labor Party, Social Party, or it may be the cocktail party for all I know. It does not say what it is, it just says from any one party. How is that going to be allocated? I do not know. It does not say, it leaves it up in the air. Now, I want to say to you gentlemen here now-I wish some of the Republican members were here because I would like to tell them this one time in my life-I do not have to defend myself against communism. They are the ones that got the Communists with themnot with me thank God. And as I view the history of the world, the first thing a dictator does, or tries to do, is to obtain the sanctions of the court, control over the courts. And as soon as he does that, liberty is gone. That is what I am objecting to in this bill. It is an attempt to place in the hands of a few people the machinery, the court, pressed with a seeming legality that will gradually take away the rights of the people. I want to say to you that they talk about lynching. We have not had a lynching in 10 years. Oh, they talk about the Till case; and yet, when I picked up the paper the other day, I read that on the streets of Boston some man insulted a woman and they stomped him to death right on the street. I do not charge the colored race with that, I charge that up in Boston, just like in Mississippi, there are people who are unmindful of the restraints of law. That is everywhere, gentlemen. Senator JOHNSTON. You did not see that on the front page of all the papers, did you? Mr. GRAYDON. No, sir; I saw it in a little tiny article at the bottom of a paragraph on the want ad page in the New York Times. I think that is right. It was just a little tiny piece. Senator JOHNSTON. You probably will not see it in magazine articles, anything written about it in magazine articles, either. Mr. GRAYDON. No, sir; they do not want that kind of publicity, they do not care about it. I do not hear much about those people in Detroit. That could never happen in my State, where we could stone and rock people who bought a house. Yet, gentlemen, it apparently goes on everywhere. But every time it occurs in South Carolina or Mississippi, it is blazing in the headlines. And, of course, up here you do not hear a word about it. We have not had a lynching in 10 years, and I hope we will never have another one. I think it is a very bad thing for the law to be taken in the hands of a crowd of aroused people. |