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Ernest Mimms, William Crawford, and Clara Bell Peak which positively identify 16 members of the mob that lynched Norris Dendy. Governor Blackwood of South Carolina and his subordinates are making efforts to secure indictments or convictions. I have been informed by 2 State detectives that a written confession has been secured from 1 of the lynchers. It is exceedingly doubtful, however, whether or not indictments will be returned despite the positiveness of the evidence, and even more doubtful that there will be convictions.

(The said affidavits of Ernest Mimms, William Crawford, and Clara Bell Peak are filed with the committee's records.)

A vast number of additional instances could be cited at this point in support of the contention that in many of the States there has been a complete break-down of the machinery of Government in preventing lynchings or punishing lynchers.

In 1999 the House of Representatives passed by a vote of 230 to 119 the Dyer Anti-Lynching bill which was similar in many respects to the Costigan-Wagner bill. This bill was defeated by a long drawn eut filibuster in the Senate, led by Senators from States which had the worst lynching records. Repeatedly during that filibuster the assertion was made with great vehemence that the States themselves could suppress lynching and that the Federal Government should not interfere. What has been done since 1922! Only six States, according to Professor Chadbourn of the University of North Carolina, have passed new laws or strengthened old ones against lynching. Three of these are in northern States where lyn hings are infrequent. Two of these are border States where lynchings have teen few. Only one of these States is in the deep south where the majority of lynchings take place. The States which have passed legislation since 1929 are: Pennsylvania. New Jersey, Nebraska, Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama. But during the years 1:2-54 there have occurred 277 lynchings, 28 of whites and 249 of Negroes. Full credit should be given to these States for this action. We urge enactment of the Costigan-Wagner Federal bill not only that it may supplement this commendable State action, but to reach those States which will neither pass a lequate State laws against lynching nor make gerrine effort to enforce them should they be pasei. This applies particularly to these States, where jubins are most freement and where the majority of år But many far-reaching aid sbtle

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seen, are equally, if not more fallacious and misleading in considering means of curbing lynching. A great many southern as well as northern papers have come out without reservation for Federal legislation and I wish here to introduce for the information of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Congress a few of these recent editorials.

I wish to leave the names of a number of these papers. I have editorials here from the Atlanta, Ga., Constitution; Brunswick, Ga., News; Norfolk, Va., Pilot; Bradenton, Fla., Herald; Lynchburg, Va., News, two editorials from that paper; Roanoke, Va., World; Macon, Ga., Telegram; Newport News, Va., Press; Winter Haven, Fla., Chief; Knoxville, Tenn., News Sentinel; El Paso, Tex., Herald Post; Houston, Tex., Post, two from that paper; Charlottesville, Va., Progress; New Orleans, La., Item; Trenton, N.J., Times; Springfield, Mass., Republican; New York, N.Y., New Leader; Waterbury, Conn., Republican; Leavenworth, Kans., Times; Cleveland, Ohio, Press; Portland, Oreg., Oregonian; Portland, Maine, Evening News; Cincinnati, Ohio, Post; Indianapolis, Ind., Times; Cleveland, Ohio, Plain Dealer; and an article by H. L. Mencken in the Baltimore Sun.

Many more could have been presented, but these, coming from every section of our country, will indicate the very widespread support by the press of this bill.

Senator CoSTIGAN. Mr. Chairman, may I ask the gentleman a question?

Senator VAN NUYS. Certainly.

Senator CoSTIGAN. May I ask whether the editorials referred to and the article by Mr. Mencken are of recent date?

Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir. Most of them have been written and published since January 1, 1934.

Senator CoSTIGAN. Mr. Chairman, is there any objection to having them inserted in the record following the testimony of the witness? Senator VAN NUYS. With the consent of the committee that may be done. It is so ordered.

(The newspaper editorials and articles referred to are set forth in full at the close of the testimony of this witness.)

Senator KEAN. Have you not submitted a considerable number of newspapers, such as the Newark News, the Brooklyn Eagle, the New York Times, and various other New York papers, as well as numerous local papers throughout New Jersey?

Mr. WHITE. Senator Kean, I was trying to follow the plan of the President for economy, and trying to save printing bills for the Senate. I just took these articles from all over the country. I could have furnished a very large number of them.

Senator VAN NUYS. You may proceed.

Mr. WHITE. "State rights" should not and must not be permitted to deter prompt passage of this bill. To those who may attempt to use this argument on the floor of either House of Congress I should like to point out that no "State rights" arguments are ever raised when States seek financial aid for relief, public works, education, and other boons from the Federal Government. We hear such arguments in the main when the Federal powers are invoked

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to restrain some element in the states willen seeks to impose its will In mother, and usually helpless, sement.

In providing for Feveral action only vier vtates skal have fallel, neglected, or refused to at. the Costigan-Warmer bli deprives the States of no single right which they Low have. It is my profound hope that the time will come when the Costigan-Wamer c. if enacted into law. will Lever have to be enforted because all of the States of the country will, through the enactment and enforcement of laws. act so speedily and effectively to prevent lynchings and punish lynchers as to make it unnecessary to invoke the powers invested in the National Government by the Costigan-Wagner bill. There are persons, some of them quite forest in their opinions, who doubt the efficacy or the wisdom of Feleral legislation because they feel it will cause the State to feel that they are there by relieved of responsibility. This argument is, in my opinion, an unsound one. The Costigan-Wagner bill shoubi serve and will serve to stimulate action by the States themselves if only to prevent Federal action.

The provision for a financial penalty upon the county which permits a lynching to take place within its borders will materially stimulate that frequently apathetic better element of property-owning citizens to take action to prevent lynchings in order that the financial penalty may not be imposed.

Lynching is no longer either a sectional or a racial issue. The United States today stands at the crossroads. If Negroes can be lynched with impunity and without fear of punishment today, white people can be lynched tomorrow-in fact, that is already occurring. Should there be continuance of physical suffering through unemployment and maladjustments of the economic, social, and political order, it is not at all impossible nor improbable that lynching mobs will extend their activities to Communists, Socialists, the foreign-born and members of whatsoever groups which happen to incur popular disfavor, whether justly or not, in any part of the country. This spirit of anarchy and of lawlessness is the gravest question facing the American people today. Passage by the Congress of the Costigan-Wagner bill will add, in the words of President Roosevelt in his opening address to Congress, "the strong arm of government for immediate suppression" and will help to replace orderly processes of the law for the present dangerous anarchy.

Lynching is but one of the manifestations of economic, political, and racial maladjustments. Enactment of the Costigan-Wagner bill will not solve all of these problems but it will be a step not only in assuring to all citizens, regardless of race or color, in all parts of the country, the fair and impartial trial guaranteed by the laws and Constitution of the United States and the several States, but it will help toward saner and more just consideration of the evils from which lynching springs.

It was the hope of many of us that the gratifying decrease in the annual toll of lynchings since 1922 when Congress almost passed this legislation would be continued until lynching was eradicated. from our national life. The increase of 180 percent in the known lynchings during 1933 when 25 persons were lynched, as compared with but 10 in 1932, provides all the argument necessary for passage of this bill.

There are lawyers who seem unaware of our expanding Constitution who maintain that no constitutional antilynching bill can be drafted. There are other lawyers equally eminent who believe that the present bill does meet the test of constitutionality. No lawyer or group of lawyers, however eminent, can, however, decide that a bill 1- or is not constitutional. Only the Supreme Court of the United States can make that decision. So critical is the situation that there is no other procedure which is honorable or humane for the Congress in this era of the "new deal" to pursue than to pass this bill and place the responsibility for determination of its constitutionality before the only body which has the authority to pass upon this question-the United States Supreme Court.

Twelve million Negroes who have been the chief sufferers from this evil are today anxiously looking to this committee and to the Congress for speedy and favorable action on this bill. Energetic and long-continued efforts have been made by certain radical movements to convince the American Negro that his hope of justice under the present form of government is useless, and that he must lend his aid in helping to overthrow this Government and to establish a new one. This propaganda has not succeeded as well as it might have for two reasons only. The first of these is the ineptitude and lack of wisdom and honesty with which some of these radical movements have been led. The other reason is that a majority of American Negroes still hope, though with less assurance that in the past, that eventually justice and freedom from the mob may be possible under the present system. It is for this committee and for this Congress either to demonstrate that this hope is not a futile one, or else to give weight to those who contend that such a hope is idiotic. No longer is the Negro the carefree, happy-go-lucky, laughing individual pictured by minstrel shows and vaudeville comedians. Swift, deep currents of unrest, of bitter resentment against the lynching mob and every other form of proscription surge through the life of those who form one tenth of America's population. Refusal based upon figments of expediency or constitutionality to afford Federal aid against lynching will inevitably result in a deepening of this resentment which America would do well to consider. I urge prompt and favorable consideration by this subcommittee, by the full Committee on the Judiciary, and by both Houses of Congress of this sorely needed. legislation.

Senatort NAN NUYS. Mr. White, I should like to ask you a question or two. Is it true that several States have similar statutes imposing penalties upon the counties under the conditions described in this bill?

Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir.

Senator VAN NUYS. Is it true that the courts of last resort in those States have upheld those statutes, have held them to be constitutional?

Mr. WHITE. In South Carolina they have a statute providing for a financial penalty upon the county, which is automatically placed upon it.

Senator VAN NUYS. And that has been held constitutional?
Mr. WHITE. It has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Senator VAN NUYS. Is it not also the opinion of the best authorities that the State and Federal Governments have concurrent juris

diction, and that both Federal and State courts might enforce similar statutes at the same time?

Mr. WHITE. It is my impression that it is.

Senator DIETERICH. You have referred to the laws of some States that inflict a penalty upon the county. Do they do that regardless of whether or not the county officers have used diligence in the enforcement of the law?

Mr. WHITE. Without regard to the actions of the officers?

Senator DIETERICH. I think we have a law in my own State of that kind, where property is destroyed by mob violence.

Mr. WHITE. Yes, sir.

Senator VAN NUYS. Are there any other questions?

Senator MCCARRAN. Mr. Chairman, I have been interested in these discussions, both those by Senator Wagner and Senator Costigan and the witness now on the stand. But I want to hear sometime during the course of the hearing before this committee some argument or brief on the subject of the constitutionality of this law. I can see how a law enacted by a State would be held constitutional by the court of last resort of that State, but I must confess to you now that I am in doubt, and I want to remove that doubt, if possible, because I am in sympathy with the measure-I am in doubt as to a Federal law of this nature being held constitutional.

I make the assertion that, if a law of that nature can be held constitutional as coming from a Federal authority, which in itself transposes the Federal court into a novel situation, giving it a novel jurisdiction, and laying the hand of the Federal Government upon an individual State for the enforcement of a Federal law, without any sanction in the organic law itself, I should be glad to be relieved of my doubt. I favor the principle, but I think that is the most questionable feature of the entire bill. I am willing to go further than that, as stated by Mr. White. I am willing to hand it up to the court of last resort and let it decide it, but I am not willing to lend myself to that position without first being advised as best I may be on the question of the constitutionality of such a law. I have very grave doubts on that subject and have had ever since the bill came before the Senate. I hope someone will devote himself to a study of the law on the subject as a question of utmost importance and present it before the committee.

Senator COSTIGAN. Mr. Chairman, may I say to the able Senator from Nevada that there will be one or more witresses at this hearing who will discuss the question of constitutionality. Furthermore, let me say that during the argument on the Dyer bill in 1992 there was a more or less elaborate discussion of the law. The Senator from Nevada will find among the briefs presented in that conneetion ample citations of authority in support of the constitutionality of the measure. I venture to refer members of the committee to the report submitted in 1922 on the Dyer bill by Representative Dyr, of Missouri, and Senator Shortridge, of California.

Senator VAN NUYS. In that connection, Serator M Carrat.. I think the nest exhaustive brief was prepared by Hor. Gray D. Goff, the n Assistant Attorney General.

Senator CoSTIGAN. And later United State Serator from West Virginia.

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