This resolution aims at perpetuating a belief which has long been discredited by the scientific and religious leaders alike, namely that Negro citizens are innately inferior to white citizens and therefore their whole way of life must be kept on a plane lower than other citizens.

Because of that, they must be segregated from white citizens in education and other endeavors. This segregation, in our experience, has always resulted in a Negro being kept on a lower plane.

This un-Christian and unscientific conception has been responsible for developing the growth of every kind of humiliation, foul practice, and terror against our people. It has made a mockery of our Constitution, our Bill of Rights and our declared Christian principles based on the belief in the dignity, worth, and salvation of all God's children here on earth.

We must not be misled into believing that those who shout loudest about white supremacy, get their ideas from Christianity. They develop these false theories and hand them down from generation to generation because they find that it is profitable to do so. Such theories make it possible for reducing to economic slavery today, a whole people who 80 years ago fought heroically and won in the fight to be freed from the chains of chattel slavery, and who today are still fighting the complication of that chattel which is reflected in an attempt of this Congress to approve a Jim Crow school.

So profitable was slavery to those who owned slaves in the early days of our country that religious leaders debased themselves without shame in the eyes of God and man, to proclaim theories that slaves were not human beings and therefore it was God's will that they remain slaves. But truth, and justice in the hands of millions of Christians, God-fearing people prevailed and slavery was abolished. Thus those who used the Christian church itself to keep alive the foul institution of slavery, were in the end discredited before the eyes of God and man.

As a spokesman for the church today, I will not defile myself or the church by endorsing a plan or scheme which seeks to continue degrading human beings.

Having lost the fight against keeping the Negro people enslaved as chattel, there are those in our country and in our Government councils who seek to keep us economic slaves by denying to us the right to decent education, free of the discrimination which destorys the faith of our young people in the very democracy we claim to uphold.

Indeed the authors of this measure and those who support it are proclaiming in the name of democracy that this resolution is fair and just. It should be pointed out that not only is this bill aimed at keeping on a lower level Negro citizens but other citizens as well. For of course it is a fact that the Jewish people in the North, Mexican, Puerto Rican and other Spanish Americans in the Southwest are also subjected to the evils of discrimination in medical schools, colleges, and grade schools.

If we are not deeply concerned about the degeneration of our moral leadership which this resolution exhibits to our children and to the American people as a whole, are we not concerned about the effect of its passage on the two billion black, brown, and yellow people in Africa, China, Korea, India, and other countries who look to us for

democratic guidance? What concern have we for its effect upon the Russian people, whose government we accuse of supporting and developing police state methods?

We must understand that we do not live alone in the world. We have now set ourselves up as the one nation in the world whose wealth, power, and Christian ideals entitle us to the respect of millions now striving to attain freedom in other parts of the world.

I therefore solemnly declare that passage of this resolution will take us another step along the road that leads to an undermining of all Christian belief in the dignity, worth, and love for human resources, human values, and human personality. The loss of our Christian belief in these great basic principles cannot be measured in money. It can only be measured in terms of the gradual disintegration of all morality in our everyday life. It can only be measured in terms of a gradual weakening of our world leadership, at a critical period in the history of all peoples.

Let me close with this admonition, long proclaimed from the Bible and found true by nations and peoples in all ages, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Today we stand to reap war, death, and destruction, unless we turn back to the path of peace built on brotherhood.

The CHAIRMAN. As to the others, I wonder if I can ask them to give us their statements. Congress is in session this afternoon. I am an hour late over there.

George M. Johnson?

STATEMENTS OF GEORGE M. JOHNSON AND JAMES M. NABRIT, JR., REPRESENTING THE CONFERENCE OF PRESIDENTS OF NEGRO LAND-GRANT COLLEGES

Mr. NABRIT. Mr. Chairman, we would like to file a statement but we would like to call attention to one or two of these questions you asked on the law.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Sit right down and tell it to us, and give us your statement.

Mr. NABRIT. The statement is filed with the clerk.

I am James M. Nabrit, Jr., professor of law at Howard University, a member of the Texas Bar.

There are several propositions presented in our memorandum, which we won't take up the time of the chairman and the committee to read. In the first place, I think it might be helpful to the committee to know that there have been decisions of the Supreme Court which hold that the consent of Congress to compacts by States may be coupled with conditions prescribed by Congress.

And if you are interested, there is an article in 70 U. S. Law Review, 557 and 577, by Professor Dodd, that deals with that question; and the Devardo Drainage Co. case, in 302 U. S., although I don't recall the citation just this minute.

Also 34 Yale Law Journal, page 76. All of those bear that out. So we make the proposition, Mr. Chairman, that this committee and the Congress can prescribe conditions. We have a further suggestion in that light that the committee prescribe as a condition that the assent of Congress to this compact if it is approved, shall not in

any way be construed as an endorsement of segregation in education. The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much, sir. You and I have arrived some place.

Mr. NABRIT. My point is, Mr. Chairman: Assuming that everyone has said that segregation is not involved in this, I am saying, on behalf of these land-grant college presidents that it not be construed that this act of Congress is an endorsement of that. That leaves it free, and we don't have to go into that question. And the Congress is empowered to prescribe that condition.

The CHAIRMAN. There is no question about it in my mind.
Mr. NABRIT. All right.

Another question that has been raised as to the matter of constitutionality of this compact itself. Now, I don't propose to analyze it strictly from that standpoint. I do want to point out what appear to me to be some additional disabilities imposed upon a plaintiff in a suit, which may not go to the extent of a deprivation of due process of law, but certainly is a question.

No. 1, in determining the equal protection of the law, and the guarantee of equal rights under the Constitution, the Constitution not spelling it out, the Supreme Court has spelled it out, by saying, in substance, that this equal protection, this equal but separate doctrine, must be observed by equality in the State. It appears to me that this question is implicit in the compact. Is this compact and the assent to it by Congress an extension of the area in which equality must be tested constitutionally?

I will put it another way, so that it will be clear what the question is that in my judgment this compact raises in itself. Does this compact and the assent to it by Congress enlarge the area in which the constitutional test of equality must be applied?

For example, in Texas if I want to test the equality of a law, I test it on the basis of the laws and practices in Texas. Under this compact, must I then test it by the area of the compact, or the region? I submit to you, Mr. Chairman, that that is a sound constitutional question which must be decided by the Supreme Court.

I also raise the question of whether the Congress wants to introduce that additional constitutional disability to a Negro plaintiff who wishes to test this.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you cover that in your brief?

Mr. NABRIT. I do; not as clearly as I would like, because I just had a short time.

The other point I wish to raise, Mr. Chairman, is that there is the additional question, in all these cases in which we participate, that you must exhaust your administrative remedy in a State before you have access to the courts. The constitutional question there is: Does this administrative remedy under this compact and this assent to it by Congress include an application to this board of regents, or recourse to Congress?

Has the area in which the exhaustion of administrative remedies heretofore governed by the State in these equal protection cases now been extended to the domain of the region of the States participating in the compact?

I submit that that is a question which is going to cause considerable difficulty.

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It is another disability which this compact, in my judgment, places upon parties seeking to secure the equal protection guaranteed by the Constitution.

There is another, which I will merely mention, and that is the question of parties. It is always difficult in these suits, trying to find the right party. You bring a suit against the board of regents of the University of Texas. They tell you you should have brought it against the board of higher regents for education. Or they tell you you should have brought it against the board of regents for a Negro university. That is to be expected. You are in a State. You are governed by that procedure. You have to determine it.

Who is to determine the proper parties in a suit under this compact for a Negro citizen attempting to get equal protection under the law? Is it the board of regents of the University of Oklahoma? Is it the board of regents for higher education in Oklahoma? I mean, it may run into Massachusetts versus Mellon, where we don't have anybody

we can sue.

I think this committee should seriously consider whether this sets up disabilities on Negroes in which they cannot find a party defendant. Now, there are any number of other provisions of this compact. I will mention one more, because I know you say you are an hour late. Another one is this: In the compact, on page 2, paragraph 1, it states that the board "shall have power to establish," et cetera, "such schools as they may deem and determine to be proper, necessary, or advisable."

Now, that gives the board, I suppose we would all concede as lawyers, discretion.

Is that discretion as to the rights of the party in Texas, or is that discretion as to the rights of the party in Louisiana? In other words, I am merely pointing out in this rapid summation of what seems to us to be basic questions inherent in the compact itself, that, No. 1, there are constitutional objections and constitutional questions which will have to be determined by the courts, which are inherent in the wording of the compact.

No. 2, the matter of procedure, discretion, parties, exhaustion of administrative remedies, must also now be litigated anew if this compact should be adopted.

And finally, the State now seems to be superseded as a region of test of due process by a region composed of many States, increasing both the distance, the nonavailability of witnesses, expenses, and unfamiliarity with the forum in which this may be litigated.

We feel that these questions are sufficient to cause this committee to seriously go into these matters ere it lends its approval.

If it feels, in fact, after it has satisfied itself in that respect, that these questions are not as great as I think they are, then we think that certainly the least that the committee can do is to leave open and free for litigation the question of segregation. And on that it can simply state that this is not to be construed as a declaration of policy by Congress on this matter. That, I am sure, the proponents would agree to. And it leaves that area open.

I would like to file this, but I did want to make that statement, since it went to the heart, as I understood it, of many of the questions which the chairman has been asking.

The CHAIRMAN. Your associate?

Mr. JOHNSON. George M. Johnson. I am a member of the California bar, professor of law at Howard University.

I think we should point out at the outset that Mr. Nabrit and I have been authorized to represent the Conference of Presidents of Negro Land Grant Colleges.

The CHAIRMAN. How many of them are there?

Mr. JOHNSON. There are 17; either 17 or 24, but there are 17, I believe.

We have been dealing with the president, Mr. Luther H. Foster, of Virginia State College, in Petersburg, Va., who is the president of the Conference of Negro Land Grant Colleges.

These college presidents, Negro land-grant college presidents, at a special session held in Atlantic City on February 23, 1948, went on record as being opposed to this compact, and retained and authorized us to represent to you their convictions on this matter. And our statement in many parts is repetitious and in support of what has been said.

I should like to point out one proposition, however, and that is this: We wish to make it clear to the committee that these college presidents are opposed absolutely to segregation in all forms, and certainly in education. They believe absolutely in the findings of the President's Commission on Education. They are presidents of institutions in a segregated system, and necessarily are working to make these institutions as efficient as possible.

But in line with all other thoughtful members of the Negro race, they urge this Government not to lend its aid and support to segregation, either in the perpetuation of it or in extension of it, and therefore urge that this resolution be not approved.

And may I say, on my own behalf, having listened to my colleague present to you the position of the Negro land-grant colleges, that in addition to that resolution or his suggested amendment, I think careful consideration should be given to the amendment also suggested, that a proviso should be put in, that if it be the conclusion of this committee that the compact should be approved conditionally, it should be conditioned on the proviso that such regional educational institutions as are established under the compact shall not make any distinctions as to students, faculty, administrative officers, based on race, creed, color, or national origin. That was in that, and we both subscribe to that on

our own.

One other point, and that is this: Even if it be assumed that segregation by States is constitutional, even if that matter had been established by the Court-and we submit that it has not been-it is our judgment that this committee, representing Congress, would still have before it the grave responsibility of determining whether, as a matter of policy, in these perilous times of international conflict, this Nation should be put on record as wavering in its beliefs in the fundamental oneness of American citizens.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think it would be put on record if we adopted the suggestion first made by your associate?

Mr. JOHNSON. I certainly do. I think that that in itself would be a recognition that the Federal Government is powerless to extend a national policy to a section comprising a fourth of its States.