It is not up to me in South Carolina to tell people from Virginia or from Mississippi or other States what qualifications they should demand of their voters, and it is not only not my business, but I say that it is not the function and the business of this Congress.

Last week, Senator Ervin, you will be interested to know, that after I made a statement that in my opinion no citizen of New York had a vested right as to my voting or not voting in South Carolina, the 14th amendment was posed to me, the old catchall, and if you will read the 14th amendment you will see that the only thing it says and the only thing it can possibly be construed to mean insofar as voting is concerned is, first, that no citizen could be deprived of that right without due process of law, and secondly, that the Congress, after the illegal voting has occurred, has the right and the duty under the 14th amendment to reduce the voting strength of the Congress from that particular State.

But the 14th amendment does not put upon Congress any duty to police elections prior to their being held.

It simply puts a burden upon Congress or a duty upon Congress to take action if, in Congress' opinion, there has been illegal voting and it affected the result of the election.

Don't you agree with me in that, Senator Ervin?

Senator ERVIN. Yes.

Mr. POPE. Right, sir.

Now, may I say too, that as far as voting, if we take the civil rights as they come, as far as voting is concerned, any citizen of South Carolina who can read and write can vote, and I challenge anyone to come before this committee or to go anywhere else and say that he has been deprived of the right to register or the right to exercise his franchise in an election in South Carolina within recent years.

I wish that that same thing could be said about some of the other great States whose members are on this subcommittee.

I remember just a few years ago when we had a tremendous voting fraud scandal out in Kansas City when the Pendergast machine was broken up. Thank God, it did not happen in South Carolina.

Senator ERVIN. I might say that in that case the Attorney General of the United States, who was not the present one, held in substance that there was such grave doubt about the jurisdiction of the Federal Government in the matter that he would not let the FBI go in and. make a free investigation.

Mr. POPE. Yes, sir. You can bank on the fact that that was not the present Attorney General.

I would like to ask you this, Senator, about the present Attorney General. If my memory is correct, there is a Federal statute which requires the Attorney General to assist the Governors of the various States in apprehending and returning to the respective States fugitives from justice who cross State lines, is there not?

Senator ERVIN. Yes.

Mr. POPE. We have a fugitive in the State of New York named Delaney, whose return to South Carolina was not requested of the Governor of New York, which would have been a futile gesture, but whose return was requested of the Attorney General under the United States act, and he refused to intervene. If he is so concerned over the civil rights of citizens, why isn't he equally concerned with carry

ing out the laws which the Congress has passed in bygone years, and why isn't he willing to cooperate with State governments?

Governor Timmerman would like to know the answer to that also. Now the second civil right after the voting right is freedom from lynching, I suppose you would say, and I am proud again that in South Carolina we have had since 1895 an article in our constitution which reads as follows-and which should be of some interest. In article VI, section 6, it is provided:

In the case of any prisoner lawfully in the charge, custody, or control of any officer, State, county, or municipal, being seized and taken from said officer through his negligence, permission, or connivance by a mob or other unlawful assemblage of persons, and at their hands suffering bodily violence or death, the said officer shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon true bill found, shall be deposed from his office pending his trial, and upon conviction shall forget his office and shall, unless pardoned by the Governor, be ineligible to hold any office of trust or profit within this State.

It shall be the duty of the prosecuting attorney, within whose circuit or county the offense may be committed, to forthwith institute a prosecution against said officer who shall be tried in such county in the same circuit other than the one in which the offense was committed as the attorney general may elect.

The fees and mileage of all material witnesses, both for the State and for the defendant, shall be paid by the State treasurer in such manner as may be provided by law, provided in all cases of lynching when death ensues, the county where such lynching takes place shall, without regard to the conduct of the officers, be liable in exemplary damages of not less than $20,000 to the legal representatives of the person lynched.

Provided further, That any county against which a judgment has been obtained for damages in any case of lynching shall have the right to recover the amount of said judgment from the parties engaged in said lynching in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, we also have a statute which supplements that constitutional mandate.

Senator ERVIN. If you will pardon me, I would like to say that from my study of the so-called antilynching laws of the country, I think that South Carolina has the strictest and severest antilynching law of any of the 48 States.

Mr. POPE. Thank you, sir. I was just coming to some of those provisions, which might be interesting to Senator Hruska who comes from another section and who might not be familiar with that.

In section 10-1961 of the code, which code provision supplements the constitutional requirement, it sets out again that:

In all cases of lynching when death ensues the county in which such lynching takes place shall, without regard to the conduct of the officers, be liable in exemplary damages of not less

It did not put a ceiling

of not less than $2,000.

Now, Mr. Chairman, in the case of Kirkland v. Allendale, reported in 128 South Carolina reports at page 541 and in volume 123, Southeastern Reports, at page 648.

The court upheld a verdict which had been directed by the trial judge against the county of Allendale, and the court, in doing so, said that article 6 of section 6 and code section 10-1961 should receive a liberal interpretation—

to the end that the remedy prescribed should not be denied in any case coming substantially within its entirety.

We hear a lot about South Carolina being a lawless place. In this particular case of Kirkland v. Allendale County, a white doctor, Dr. Walker, had been shot by a Negro in Allendale and killed. When the Negro assailant attempted to escape, Dr. Walker's nephew shot him in the leg. He received a severe wound and he bled profusely. The sheriff of that county took that Negro down to Gifford and put him on the train to take him to Columbia so that he would not be rescued or so that he would not be taken by a mob.

The mob entered the train in Fairfax and took him from the train. The question was, and it was a very real question, whether the wound that he had received prior to his being seized by the mob had caused his death or whether he had died from wounds received at the hands of the mob, and our court, speaking through Mr. Justice Marion, said that the language of the constitution in saying that whenever death ensues simply meant that when death came later than the actual seizing and I know that you lawyers will agree that that is the most liberal interpretation that can possible be placed upon that

case.

That case was decided in 1924, 30 years before the Supreme Court handed down its decision of May 17. It was decided in the same year that the late beloved Miss Kate would have hired a Negro assistant to help her in the schools of Laurens County.

I tell you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I resent having South Carolina held up and pillored as a place of lawless elements.

We have the laws on the books that are designed to protect our citizens and they are being protected. The antilynching law which Senator Ervin mentioned is a model which could well be adopted by any State in the Union. It provides that when two or more people gather, they constitute a mob. It provides that if death ensues after a mob has seized a person, that they shall be punished by death unless mercy is recommended, in which case they shall serve not the 20 years proposed in your Federal antilynching law, but up to 40 years, which is the same punishment as given for the crime of burglary in my State.

Then it provides further that if death does not ensue, they shall be punished at hard labor for not less than 3 nor more than 20 years. Mr. Chairman, about 10 days ago I read an act of a very unfortunate incident that happened in Boston, Mass.

It involved four white men who seized a Negro upon the streets of Boston and killed him in plain sight of the woman that he was with. The Associated Press reported that that was not called a lynching in Massachusetts. I tell you that had it occurred in South Carolina it would have been a lynching and it should have been called a lynching in Massachusetts or in South Carolina.

We do not stand up for violence in my State. We have not had a lynching in South Carolina since 1945. The Tuskegee Institute reports that there has not been a lynching in the South in 10 years, does it not?

I don't advocate, just because the State of Massachusetts in its wisdom does not see fit to pass an antilynching law, I don't advocate that the Congress should go in there and try to do by Federal legislation what the people of Massachusetts who in the old days burned witches, refuse to do now.

We also have a statute which deals with conspiracy against civil rights, Senator, and we call it a conspiracy against civil rights. We have 16-101, which reads as follows-and the language is remarkably like the language that some of your gentlemen are using in the Congress.

The only difference is that we have got a perfectly constitutional right to use it in the Code of South Carolina and you have not got any right to use it in the Federal statute:

If any two or more persons shall band or conspire together or go in disguise upon the public highway or upon the premises of another with intent to injure, oppress or violate the person or property of any citizen because of his political opinion or his expression or exercise of the same, or shall attempt by any means, measures or acts to hinder, prevent or obstruct any citizen in the free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution and laws of the United States or by the constitution and laws of this State, such persons shall be guilty of a felony and on conviction thereof be fined not less than $100 nor more than $2,000 or be imprisoned not less than six months or more than three years or both at the discretion of the court, and shall thereafter be ineligible to hold and disabled from holding any office of honor, trust or profit in this State.

We have companion legislation. Our statute books are replete with legislation which is designed to protect a person's civil rights. In South Carolina today any citizen who feels that his civil rights have been violated can go into the State courts of South Carolina and sue the person who is attempting to oppress him.

Secondly, he can go into the criminal courts and swear out a warrant for such oppression.

Thirdly, he can go into the Federal courts and bring suit against the person who seeks to deprive him of his rights, and fourthly, he can go to the district attorney, either district attorney in South Carolina, and have a warrant sworn out which would be presented then in the form of a bill to a grand jury.

I say to you that it is completely unnecessary, in view of the State and Federal statutes, for this Congress to pass any additional statutes, even though it is being done in the holy name of civil rights, and although we know it is being done for the unholy purpose on the part of the Attorney General of the United States to circumvent the plain language of the Constitution.

With the chairman's permission, I would like to file this memorandum of the statutes of South Carolina and of the Federal statutes with the committee.

I have several copies.

Senator JOHNSTON. I was just going to ask if you had a copy for the record.

Mr. POPE. Well, I have got about six, Senator. (The document is as follows:)

Article I of the South Carolina constitution for 1895 enumerates the rights of its citizens and includes among other guaranties those of free elections, trial by jury and universal manhood suffrage. Payment of a poll tax or any other tax is not a prerequisite to exercising the right to vote in South Carolina. Section 6 of article VI of the State constitution reads as follows:

"Prisoner lynched through negligence of officer; penalty on officer; county liable for damages.

"In the case of any prisoner lawfully in the charge, custody or control of any officer, State, county, or municipal, being seized and taken from said officer through his negligence, permission, or connivance, by a mob or other unlawful assemblage of persons, and at their hands suffering bodily violence or death,

the said officer shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon true bill found, shall be deposed from his office pending his trial, and upon conviction shall forfeit his office, and shall, unless pardoned by the Governor, he ineligible to told any office of trust or profit within this State. It shall be the duty of the prosecuting attorney within whose circuit or county the offense may be committed to forthwith institute a prosecution against said officer, who shall be tried in such county, in the same circuit, other than the one in which the offense was committed as the attorney general may elect. The fees and mileage of all material witnesses, both for the State and for the defense, shall be paid by the State treasurer, in such manner as may be provided by law: Provided, In all cases of lynching when death ensues, the county where such lynching takes place shall, without regard to the conduct of the officers, be liable in exemplary damages of not less than $2,000 to the legal representatives of the person lynched: Provided, further, That any county against which a judgment has been obtained for damages in any case of lynching shall have the right to recover the amount of said judgment from the parties engaged in said lynching in any court of competent jurisdiction."

Section 10-1961 supplements this constitutional guarantee and reads as follows: "When county liable for damages for lynching.

"In all cases of lynching when death ensues the county in which such lynching takes place shall, without regard to the conduct of the officers, be liable in exemplary damages of not less than $2,000, to be recovered by action instituted in any court of competent jurisdiction by the legal representatives of the person lynched, and they are hereby authorized to institute such action for the recovery of such exemplary damages. A county against which a judgment has been obtained for damages in any case of lynching shall have the right to recover in any court of competent jurisdiction the amount of such judgment from the parties engaged in such lynching and is hereby authorized to institute such action."

Our Supreme Court has held that section 6 of article VI and code section 101961 should receive a liberal interpretation to the end that the remedy prescribed should not be denied in any case coming substantially within its spirit. Kirkland v. Allendale County (128 SC 541, 123 SE 648).

Title 16 of the Code of Laws of South Carolina for 1952 deals with crimes and offenses. Article 2 of chapter 2 defines lynching and provides for its punishment. Section 16-57 provides that any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person which results in death constitutes the crime of lynching in the first degree and is a felony. Any person found guilty of lynching in the first degree shall suffer death unless the jury shall recommend mercy, in which event the defendant shall be confined at hard labor in the State penitentiary for not less than 5 years nor more than 40 years.

Section 16-58 provides that any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person and from which death does not result constitutes the crime of lynching in the second degree and is a felony. Any person found guilty of lynching in the second degree shall be confined at hard labor in the State penitentiary for not less than 3 nor more than 20 years.

Section 16-59 defines a mob as the assemblage of two or more persons, without color or authority of law, for the premeditated purpose and with the premeditated intent of committing an act of violence upon the person of another. Section 16-58.1 provides that all persons present as members of a mob when an act of violence is committed shall be presumed to have aided and abetted the crime and shall be guilty as principals.

Section 16-59.2 directs the sheriff of the county and the solicitor of the circuit where the crime occurs to act as speedily as possible in apprehending and identifying the members of the mob and bringing them to trial. Section 16–59.3 gives the solicitor summary power to conduct any investigation deemed necessary by him in order to apprehend the members of a mob and empowers him to subpena witnesses and to take testimony under oath, and section 16-59.4 provides that this article shall not be construed to relieve any member of any such mob from civil liability.

Article 1 of chapter 3 deals with conspiracy against civil rights. Section 16–101 reads as follows:

"Conspiracy against civil rights.

"If any two or more persons shall band or conspire together or go in disguise upon the public highway or upon the premises of another with intent to injure, oppress, or violate the person or property of any citizen because of his political opinion or his expression or exercise of the same or shall attempt by any means, measures, or acts to hinder, prevent, or obstruct any citizen in the free exercise