124.-A-1 SCHOOL AND/OR SCHOOL (6) DECISION CON Beginning May 17, 1954 J NED MOORE, MAYOR COUNC ILMEN M. L SENN, CITY CLERK (y fabama YAD, DAMS, SR DD EILAND, CHIEF OF POLICE 4A NNELL, SR CLARENCE BYRD, RECORDER MUNICIPAL BUILDING Z EY JAKE BENTON, FIRE CHIEF 4pbm ;bIAT Opp, e5Uabama Fk ' JACKSON November 16, 1958 Mr. E. Frederic Morrow, The White Houses Washington, D. C. Dear Mr. Marrow: Your letter of the 1th writing for the President received in this ironing's mail. Thanks for the consideration. Your letter though somewhat short is so thought provoking that much time would have to be spent in writing to adequately express one's view of what you wrote speaking for the President. Frankly speaking, I regard your letter as a polite evasion of answering two particular questions asked the President in my letter to him. One, What human right, including that of the right of life, lib- erty and the pursuit of happiness, is the negro race deprived of by affording them equal opportunities in separate or segregated schools? Two, Why has it happened in short a time as less than a decade that negroes cannot be accorded a public education in any but integrated schools? You will no% doubt remember that the President implied if not outright asserted as much when answering Mr. Mr. Eolston's letter from Virginia. I take it for granted that you have had an opportunity to read Mr. Carleton Putnam's letter of October 13th to the President. Mr. Putnam's letter so aptly covers about every point raised in your letter to me that I am submitbing a clipping of the publication thereof in lieu of further comment on my part. If you have not read the letter, wont you do us the favor to read it thoughtfully and without prejudice to any area of our country? By so doing you will give regard to the sensitive issue of human rights of all the people and not a mere minority, some- thing the incumbent Supreme Court judges are not doing. I have written Mr. Putnam to acknowledge the debt of gratitude I believe the south owes for the intuition and courage manifested in the writing of his letter to the President. It is my opinion that the decent thing now for the incumbent judges to do is to follow the example of the Ex-Attorney General and resign. It iqumble opinion that they have committed a greater sin than Mr. Brownell was guilty of. Resectfully, N / U.S. Supreme Court's "Arrogance". As. Yiewed By Famous Northerner (Editor's Note: Carleton Put- arably bound up with rights t o play chess with the champion. nam, who wrote the following let- freedom of association an d, isn Pin down the man who uses the ter to President Eisenhower, is a the South at least, may require word "equality," and at once the member of the famous New Eng- that both b e considered simul- evasions aid qualifications b e- land Putiam family, a native of taneously. (In u s in g the word gin. As I recall, you, yourself, in New York City, a graduate of "association" here, I mean the a recent statement used so me Princeton and Columbia, founder right to associate with w h o m phrase to the effect that men and president of C h i c o and you please, and the right not t o were "equal in the sight of God." Southern Airlines (1933-1948), and associate with whom you I would be interested to. know is on the board of Delta Airlines. please.) where in the Bible you get your He recently published a, widely- In any case the crux of thih authority in Scripture for th e praised biography of Theodore issue would seem obvious: so- concept of potential equality in Roosevelt.) cial status has to be earned. the sight of God-after earning Personally, I f e e 1 only affec- that status, h n d with various Washington, D. C. tion for the Negro. But there are further qualifications-but where Oct. 13, 1958 ,,facts that have to be faced. Any is the authority for t he sort of The Hon. Dwight D. Eisenhower man with two eyes in his h e a d ipso facto equality suggested b y President of the United States can observe a Negro settlement your context? The whole idea The White House in the Congo, can study the contradicts the basic tenet of the Washington 25, D. C. pure-blooded African in his na- religions My dear Mr. President: tive habitat as he exists when left Christian a n d Jewish on his own Pesources, can com- that status is earned through A few days ago I was reading righteousness and is not an auto- over Justice Frankfurter's opin- pare this settlement with L o n- don or Paris, and can draw h i s matic matter. ion in the recent Little Roc k Frankfurter closes his opin- case. Three sentences in it tempt own conclusions regarding rela- tive levels of character and in- ion with a quotation from Abra- me to write you this, letter. to whom the Negro I ath a Northerner, but I have telligence-or that combination of ham Lincoln, spent a large part of my life as character and intelligence which owes more than to any other a business executive in the South. is civilization. man. I too, would like to quote I have a law degree, but Iam Finally he c a n inquire a s to from Lincoln. At Charleston, Ill., now engaged in 'historical writ- the' number of pure- blooded in September, 1858, in~a debate ing. blacks who have made contribu- with Douglas, Lincoln said: From this observation p o s t I tions to great literature o r engi- "I am not, nor ever have been risk the presumption o f a com- neering or medicine or philos- in favor of bringing about in any ment. ophy or abstract science. way the social and political The sentences I w i s h to ex- We were all in caves or trees equality of the white and black amine are these: "Local cu s- originally. The progress which races; I am not nor ever h a v e toms, howe ver hardened by the -pure-blooded black has made been in favor of making voters time, are not decreed in heaven. when left t o himself, w it h a or jurors of Negroes nor qualify- Habits and feelings they engen- minimum of white help or hin- ing them to hold office. .I will der may be counteracted a n d drance, genetically or otherwise, say in addition to this that there moderated. Experience attests can be measured t o d a y in the is a physical difference between that such local habits and feel- Congo. the white 4and black races which ings will yield, gradually though Bryce's View I believe will ever forbid the two this be, to law and education." Lord B ry c e, a distinguished" races living together on terms of Good Reason impartial foreign observer, pre- social and political equality. And It is my personal conviction sented the situation accurately in as much as they cannot s o t h at the local customs in this in his American Commonwealth live, while they do remain togeth- case were "hardened by time" when he wrote in 1880: er, there must be the position of for a very good reason, and that "History is a r e c o r d of the superior and inferior, and I a s while they may not, as Fi a n k- progress toward civilization o f much as any other man a m in furter says have been decreed in races ,originally barbarous. B u t ,favor of having the superior posi- heaven, they come closer to it that progress has in all c a s e s tion assigned to the white race." than the'current view of t h e Su- been slow and gradual. Utterly The extent to which Lincoln preme Court. dissimilar is the case of the Afri- would have modified these views I was particularly puzzled b y can Negro, caught up in and t o d a y, or may have modified Frankfurter's remark that "the whirled a 1 o ng with the swift them before his death, is a moot Constitution is not the formula- movement of the American de- question, but it is clear on it s tion of the merely y personal mocracy. In it we have a singu- face that he would not have been views of the members of t h is lar juxtaposition of the m o s t in sympathy with the Supreme court." primitive and the most recent, Court's position o n 'desegrega- Five minutes before the court's the most rudimentary and t he tion. desegregation decision, the Con- most highly developed, types of Spectacle stitution meant o n e thing; five culture. .A body of savages i s Perhaps the m o s t discourag- minutes 1 a t e r, it meant some- violently carried across the ing spectacle is the spectacle of thing else. Only one thing inter- ocean and set to work as slaves Northern newspapers dwelling vened, namely, an expression of on the plantations of masters who with pleasure upon the predica- the personal views of the mem- are three or four thousands years ment of the Southern parent who bers of the court.