Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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l s/ ^ -** L»--- BUILDING FUTURE CITIZENS Piggybacking Ab reports of increasing violence, crime, and just plain hell-raising on the part of American yx>uth fill the news columns, so grow the complaints of our schools, teachers, and educa tional methods. It should always be remembered, however, that most of our youth today are doing very well indeed, although, unfortunately, they do not always at tract as much public attention as the wrong-doers. By the same token, most of our teachers are performing very well, sometimes, it would seem, up against mounting odds. Most of our teachers, also, believe in America, believe in our youth, and have confidence in the fu ture of both. Such a teacher is Dr. Max Rafferty, superintendent of pub lic instruction and director of educa tion for the State of California. In answer to critics who complained that California schools were too patriotic. Dr. Rafferty had this to say: “There is a strange state of mind to be found in certain circles in our tend today—a sort of sick campaign of Whispering and inference to the effect that a patriot is somehow an enemy of international peace and goodwill, that a man who loves his country must nec essarily hate other countries, and that therefore we should soft - pedal the teaching in our schools of the great hero stories out of our past, and the wonderful songs and poems which breathe such unashamed love and ad miration for the land which our an cestors came across so many leagues of stormy sea to transform into a na tion which is today the wonder and en vy of the human race. “It has been said in recent months by a high appointed official of Cali fornia that the idea of America being ‘sacred soil’ is a lot of paranoic pa triotism.” “I am sure that to this gentleman the soil of his native land is not sa cred, that it’s just dirt, no different from the soil of any other land. That is his privilege. “But I want to make my own posi tion crystal clear. “America’s soil is sacred to me.” So long as we have teachers such as Dr. Rafferty, we shall look with confidence to the future of our youth, and of a free America. THE WISHFUL THINKERS There are, in this country, some perennial optimists who always, but Always, insist that no matter how bad ■jt has been, or how bad it is now, com- ■irnunism is getting better and better. This was true relative to commun ist Czechoslavakia. Reports from : that country, three and four years kgo, that “communism was mellow ing” were greeted with wild enthusi- iasm by some of the left-leaning pa pers in the United States. What hap pened to this pipe-dream, of course, is now a tragic page in history. Another country which has been a “favorite for the apologists of commun ism is Yugoslavia. This commnuist country, we have been told, shows ihat there are “many roads to social ism" and that communist countries ■ ; can be “independent.” £ Unfor peem to funately, however, reports teep leaking out from Yugo slavia which indicate that — alas all is Snot well. Last month the student ^newspaper at Belgrade University was •^quietly “suspended” through the sim- vple expedient of removing its entire ^editorial staff. The college youth, it ^seemed, were critical of communist ^government policies. <♦ Last September, Zoran Gluscevic, editor-in-chief of a leading literary weekly, Knpizevne Novine, brashly re ferred to the Soviet officers and troops who invaded Czechoslavakia as “mur derers”. Today Mr. Gluscevic is in jail for his excercise of free speech. Also, last fall, a stage play written by a leading Yugoslavian playwright, Dragoslav Mihajlovic, was closed by the police after three performances. Although the play—“When the Pum pkins were Blooming" — was osten- sively “anti-fascist”, the authorities felt that the dramatization of Nazi methods of suppression appeared un comfortably similar to Communist policies. Whatever the “difference" be tween Communist Yugoslavia and oth er communist countries, one fact re mains: Yugoslavian communism is a one - party system of government whereby the people have no choice. There is only one employer, the Yuglo- slavian Communist dictatorship, which owns and controls all the means of production. Within that framework of government and society, the limits of freedom are narrow indeed—and wishful thinking will never make it better. .. v.. :.i y Dfljar Editor: •S 3 read the February 5th, 1970 edition of THE CLINTON CHRONICLE with great interest, p&ticularly your quote (Caught ’:the Middle). Unfortunately I bpened to be an eye witness, neglected to state there were nflfjnerous cars stopped for both ctfpssings on both sides of the rillroad tracks. Also, one off- duty Clinton Policeman had just informed two cars that had stopped on the SCL tracks to get off as the signals lights were flashing and the warning bells on these crossing signals were ring ing. Mr. Ira Whittle stopped for the stop sign at Highway 76 and Broad Street intersections, at which is also located a flash ing red light and bell signal, at which time two autos were stop- Mayo Clinic £ /7fk / , ^ (y rv 2-B—THE CHRONICLE, Clinton, S. C., Feb. 12, 1970 UNITED STATES SENATOR k, .r King Feature* Syndicate A 'Whipsaw' Strike In Essential Industry ped to allow this train to pass. At this time a CN&L train was approaching the Broad Street crossing headed west on CN&L tracks. Mr. Whittle made a right turn into Broad Street and also into the side (About Middle Ways) of the lead engine on the SCL train. He made this turn in front of the cars that were stopped on Broad Street waiting for the SCL train to pass. It would appear to me that your caption for this pic ture should have been “Train Struck by Motorist". T. R. McElveen (former SCL RR Employee and now private Citizen) BY THURMAN SENSING The four AFL-CIO unions that called a strike against the Union Pacific Railroad Jan. 31 were using an infamous device topres- sure an entire industry and, thereby, to threaten a giant trans portation system essential to the American people. In court proceedings which led to an injunction forbidding the strike, Edward J. Hickey, a union attorney, conceded in answer to a question from the judge hearing the case that the walkout against the Union Pacific was a “whip saw” strike designed to force the railroad industry into a settlement, one railroad at a time. While no one wants to see vital railroad service threaten ed, the strike called against the Union Pacific may serve to alert the U.S. public to the unreason able conditions under which the railroads have to operate because of an archaic labor law that gives unions monopoly power. The unions, ofcourse, are accus tomed to getting their way, and they don’t hesitate attempting to paralyze commerce if they think such action will enable them to get what they want. That the nation’s economy is injured by a strike apparently doesn’t faze the railroad unions. Certainly a strike against a key railroad system such as the Union Pacific would have severe ly restrained interstate com merce in many states. Long ago, Congress enacted laws against restraint of trade. Corporations may not restrain trade to promote their interests. But unions are exempt from such restrictions. Every strike called by a union is a restraint of trade in some measure. A strike against a rail road , shipping line, air line or bus company constitutes re straint of trade to an excep tional degree, for America’s complicated, inter-related econ omy depends absolutely on the availability of transportation service. Some people in considering labor-management disputes on the railroad argue for com pulsory arbitration by govern ment boards or agencies--an im posed settlement on unions and companies alike. But compulsory arbitration isn’t the answer. Indeed many union bosses fig ure that their political muscle is such thift the unions would al ways get much of what they sought in a forced arbitration procedure. Certainly, the public can look at the National Labor Relations Board, which governs disputes in other areas of the economy, and see the built-in bias that denies industry a fair shake in the settlement of dis putes. What’s really needed to create a healthier labor-management situation—-and healthier econo my —is elimination of the mono poly power now possessed by the unions. This is as true in respect to railroad disputes as it is in respect to other types of industrial disputes. In brief, management should not be com pelled to bargain collectively af ter a certain time passes and it is clear that the union will not bargain in good faith. Man agement should be able to bargain directly with its employes. And if these employes finally demon strate that they are more inter ested in political or socio-econo mic agitation than they are in working, management should be completely free to recruit other employes. The country has been living for years with notions that should be discarded., The first one is that unions own jobs in industry and can say who will fill those jobs. That concept entered our society more than a generation ago during the early New Deal. It is as faulty in the 1970s as it was in the 1930s. The econo mic growth of the United States is seriously retarded by this role assigned to unions. The unions are non-functional in our economy in that they don’t make a contribution to the production process, to the successful opera tion of an enterprise---whether it is a railroad or an industrial plant. In the Middle Ages, the guilds exercised some of the powers now exercised by unions. But, unlike today 's unions, they stres- ed high standards of perform ance. They helped advance the earliest, pre-factory phases of manufacturing. In brief, the railroad unions are fighting the 20th Century. They are trying to force the lines to retain outmoded operat ing procedures. In so doing, the unions are fighting the taxpayers of the nation who have a stake in a more productive economy. SENATOR STROM THURMOND REPORTS TO THE PEOPLE THE SCHOOL CRISIS The Nixon Administration has appointed a cabinet-level committee, headed by Vice Pres ident Spiro Agnew, to assist in the problems created by the Supreme Court school edicts. The composition of this com mittee, and its high-level status, indicates that the Administra tion recognizes that the situa tion created by the courts has the utmost urgency. PRINCIPAL MEMBERS The other members of the (Committee are U. S. Attorney General Mitchell and HEW Sec retary Robert Finch. Although Secretary Finch does not have the conhdence of the Southern people, the other mem bers have a reputation for being fair and even-handed in deci sions which affect the South. In announcing the Committee, the Vice President took pains to note “the undue, untoward vic timization of the South.” In addition, the Committee will be assisted by a task force of Southern educators—men and women who are acutely aware of the concrete problems in volved. Too often in the past critical orders have been handed down by HEW bureaucrats who often have exaggerated inter pretations of the actual court decisions. The task force will ensure that the local voice will be heard. IMPOSED BY COURTS Unfortunately, the courts have taken the possibility of freedom of choice out of the Administra tion’s hand. The crisis in the South was imposed by a judicial tyranny exploiting the law-abid ing good will of the people of the South. The U. S. Supreme Court, with little concept of the prac tical result, broke faith with the principle of Constitutional in terpretation upon which the Un ion of States was founded. A basic injustice has been visited upon the South; and now the Court has exacted its ultimate demands. Understandably, the burden of the court orders fall unevenly acrom the region. In some coun ties, the problems will be rela tively light; in others, parents will find it almost impossible to maintain their cultural identity. With the destruction of historic communities, something richer will have been lost to future generations. Southerners accept the duty to abide by the law, but there is no requirement to accept a regressive social action as desir able. More than one social dis aster has been visited upon our region in the false name of “progress,” and it is only by courage and perseverance that we can hope to work towards a just society with freedom of choice for all. PROSPECTS FOR CHANGE In the long run, the hope for freedom, now denied, lies with the Supreme Court itself. Hav ing declared that Constitutional interpretation is governed only by the weather vane of liberal propaganda, the Court itself may find the wind blowing from a different direction. Once the absolutes of justice have been abandoned, one can legitimately hope that whim will eventually rule in one’s favor. When the New York State Legislature can pass both an anti-bussing law and a law to prohibit the assign ment of pupils to achieve racial balance, there is hope for sanity. The children are being made to pay for the destruction of a secure and stable environment, and the erosion of absolute principles. Let there be no mis take: Every child of every race and color should have the best opportunity for the best educa tion; but it would be difficult for a unitary school system to achieve that goal in a pluralistic society. If a rejuvenated Supreme Court is not responsive to re forms in its education posture, the Constitution itself possesses the remedy. Two-thirds of the State Legislatures can request Congress to call a Constitu tional Convention to consider amendments to the Constitution. Close to that number have al ready done so in the case of returning prayer in the schools; it is reasonable to believe that the requisite number of States can do so in order to return education to the schools. Mean while, the South will endure its special burden. * ERNEST F. HOLUNGS REPORTS TO SOUTH CAROUNA TEXT OF SPEECH DELIVERED MONDAY. FEBRUARY I, 197n. BY SEN. ERNEST F. HOLLINGS. ON FLOOR OF THE SENATE. ON FREEDOM OF CHOICE SCHOOL DESEGREGATION Inm prepared or printed til itm ernment expense) MR PRESIDENT: The chaos caused in the public schools by the Alex ander integration now" de cision has taken on an as{>eot of the war in Vietnam to the nation generally, it is someone else's problem. Just as long as you disrupt Mississippi and South Carolina and the South and leave us alone in New York and Chicago, then fine business. This leaves people of my region not only dis traught hut bitter And. an orderly elimination of the dual school system, and a con sequent legal elimination can't Iw obtained with this bitter ness and misunderstanding The reason for deliberate - peed" was the human ele ment We are dealing with humans in our public schools the parents, the teachers, the legislators who draw up the budgets, the Gov ernor and administrators who >et the policy, and the taxpay ers who pay the budgets We must wank together if an et- lective educational program is to lie maintained Judges can t run schools, and I doubt if an\ of our Justices have had anv exfiericnee in operating a pub lic -ehool system Certamlv they didn't use it in the Alcx- mder decision, lor thev showed no awareness tot the contracts made tor teachers lor the school >ear. that Inis- sing .md physical laelhties arc planned l>\ thi school veal that il is |Ust as difficult to ( hatiL'c a teacher or . pupil ! rom his district as it is to .,s. sign a iiidgc a case out o! his district Tr.c schools <it South l io- ' ma have Item mov mg with b liberate spot (I The high school that I attended III t 'ha i lesion South l 'ai olina nas a ratio ot 4< • pel rent bluek md tit iM iccnt white, and this has Ix'cn accomplished with out incident I know a* Sen itoi w ni king with the trust ees 111 the other districts .,! the state and with the De partment ot Health Eduea- tion and Welfare that, like Kansas City, each year we have gone about as lar as we i an go The direction has t>eon clear and certain and our jxilieies have fx'en guided by the equally clear consti tutional principle of equal prottction No child has been denied his freedom of ehoiee We have had difficulties in I>oiChester and a couple of other areas But, after appro priate hearings, the court, it self, h.is made eeitaln that all children are receiving an ■ ■qua! op|M>rtunity. regardless of race Viewed m the bio.id per- s|H‘cttve, we are ahead o( schedule I remember well conversation during the 1952 hearings Udorc the I'nited States Supreme Court in the original school cases Then Attorney Thurgood Marshall was discussing the problem with the present Dean of our Law School, Robert Me Eigg and myself In discussing im plementation, should wo lose the cast 1 . Dean Eigg comment ed that there couldn't be any substantial integration for at least 25 years. Mr. Thurgood Marshall commented, nearer 50 years." It has only been some 16 years and already in the deep South, we have a 50-50 proportion in the public- schools of my home town. But, when you talk of years, immediately there are those who observe that a right is a right. If the Constitution gives this right to the citizen, how can the southern school hoard deny or delay that right. To them I ask, if one is given his freedom of choice, then how is he being denied or delayed u right. For an institution to be public, dot's not necessarily mean that its composition must bo rrcially balanced. No one would contend that the Senate is unconstitutional be cause we have only' one Negro member. The thrust of the 14th Amendment is that rights not be denied the in dividual. If the individual bo given the right he chooses, then the spirit and letter ol the 14th Amendment is com plied with. To implement this guarantee. Congress should provide that the individual not be forced against his choice This is the reason for the in troduction on last week ol an amendment by the distin guished Senator from Missis sippi, Mr. Stennis; the distin guished Senator from Georgia, Mr. Russell, and myself. This is a freedom of choice amend ment, if you please, that wasn't drafted by southern bigots or by southern illiter ates or by southerners want ing to turn the clock back, or by southerner^ with preju dice or by southern red necks. The words of our amendment are the words of the enlight ened liberals of New York, signed by the enlightened lib eral Governor ol New York, Nelson Rockefeller. I^ist June, the parents of New York faced up to a hu man problem. A bill was in troduced in the Lower House by Joseph J. Kunzeman and. of course, the usual catcalls and rebuffs were heard im mediately Even the Governor- threatened to veto this bill. But. pass it did by a 2-1 ma jority, and sign it into law did the Governor of New York Now, we of the South w mt equal rights. We make no ap|ieal for special treat ment For myself, I reject a southern strategy. But. I do appeal for a national strategy that would include the South I am tired of being excluded and my people have tired ol tveing used as the 'whipping !>oy." Ironically, the South would leceivo more satisfaction il the Vice President were as- Mgned to New York if he were assigned as chairman of a task lone ol educators ot Ixith laces from New York to implement the Court decision in New York Never has then- been more discrimination in the name of eliminating dis crimination than in the Wash ington implementation of c'ourt decisions Two y ears .go w bei, t hi list inguished Seii.tior tiom Georgia. \j r Rijsst || uitn,. dueed .111 .inietlilment to the HEW Appropriations Act it was impressed ii[N)n my mmd that the I x-p.irtmmt ot HEW had 17 agents m South c 'aro- lino and two in all of N't \,v York Oh you readily read of th( Mississippi order. tin Greenville South ('arnlnia order, the Darlington. South Carolina order But where is the Minneapolis order, the Chicago order, the New York order'’ The people of New York have I rei'dom ol choice md I have seen no (x-tHion or statement by the Justice Department or th< Attorney General that this action of New York is unconstitutional I can t find Mayor Lindsay s statement that the New York Legislature acted unconstitu tionally. And. my research finds no record of any state ment by our distinguished colleagues from New York that New York is evasive, has acted unconstitutionally, or acted improvidently I assume that Senators Javits and Goodell support the majority action of the people of their state And, when the New Yiuk amendment of Senatm Stt runs is called lor considera tion later this week I unit, the support ot the Senators Irom New York Now. the second amend ment calling fot unitornnty • m evenness in the applicatioa ol guidelines, in the assign ment of the agents, in the bringing up ol petitions by Justice, in ihe elimination of a dual school system in Amer ica is simply a strategy to bring the C'ourt and the Con gress. through the people, to its senses 1 really don’t want to bring discord to New York or any other section of this nation. But. I know of no other way to get the attention of my colleagues in the Con gress that we are headed down the road to chaos. We must be more deliberate We must be more objective. We must bo more tolerant and understanding. When you make it appear that you art' using my section as a whip ping boy, they dig in their heels. Parentally and politi cally, we are polarized and the children suffer. Public colleges and univer sities are supported by public funds. But, the public only allows those to enter who are economically wealthy enough to pay tuition. It has been ac cepted public policy that a college education for some should not be denied until the public could afford college education for all. 1 believe shortly in America we will have free tuition. But, it makes no sense to tear up these public institutions in the meantime. And, similarly, each child under freedom of choice should, be allowed, and should not b^glenied admis sion, into a non-segregated, non-dual school. But, eco nomically and historically, the public schools, under the Con stitution, have so operated for 100 years, so as to overnight forbid what the Alexander decision calls for by yester day. There is no reason to tear up the public school sys tem of America just because a recently invented unitary school is not available to all. Our main concern is that the privilege of education must be fairly rendered to all, that education’s opportunities are not discolored by racial policies of some, and politically punitive policies by others.