COLEMAN: THE THINKING MAN'S SEGREGATIONIST

Governor Coleman is a renowned strategist at bypassing the Federal judiciary and devising legal techniques to thwart the series of laws passed by Congress to protect the civil rights of all Americans regardless of race. Throughout his public statements runs a consistent theme: he is the only person with the legal experience and skill to consistently outmaneuver the Federal courts, Congress, and the Executive.

Speaking about the school integration decision by the Supreme Court when he was the incumbent attorney general running for Governor (June 28, 1955): "We have already planned our strategy. First, we will stand on the provisions of our State constitution. When the U.S. Supreme Court strikes that down, then we will start assignment under the Gore Act which is perfectly constitutional law. Should that fail, we can adopt a school on the local option plan, get it out of the clutches of the Federal courts, and immediately reestablish it with a new set of trustees."

October 14, 1956: "He (Coleman) told them of new laws most of which he wrote as attorney general and then signed when his people promoted him to Governorto keep Negroes out of white schools. They include authority for the legislature to abolish public schools." For the benefit of the committee the laws referred to are from the general laws of Mississippi of 1956. Chapter 228, signed by Governor Coleman on February 24, 1956, repealed the compulsory school attendance laws, thus allowing parents to withdraw their children from school in the event of school desegregation. Chapter 273, signed by Governor Coleman on April 5, 1956, provided, "In all school districts, separate schools shall be maintained or otherwise provided for children of the white and colored races." I would point out that this law was passed nearly 2 years after the Brown v. Board of Education case in which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the racial segregation of public school pupils.

Mr. Coleman is also smart enough to know when to make a tactical retreat. A year and a half after signing into law the authority for the legislature to abolish public schools, he advocated repeal because the legislative history of the bill would have been quite embarrassing in a court case. The November 19, 1957, Clarion-Ledger reported: "He (Coleman) said Mississippi's constitutional authority to abolish schools should be removed because legislative journals show "the clear purpose of that amendment was to preserve segregation to the last ditch and then abolish the schools as a last resort.'"

June 21, 1957: "It would be utterly impossible to integrate the schools of any State or this State now, if the State will take the right legal approach."

August 31, 1957: "Asked today if he thought the civil rights legislation would result in any increase in Negro voting in Mississippi, the Governor said: "That all depends on a lot of things. It does not necessarily follow that more would vote, although it could follow through a lack of management and preparation.' He said that with the defense be outlined and 'certain very necessary changes in the Constitution, the people of Mississippi will escape any substantial injury from this Federal legislation.""

July 10, 1963: "Former Gov. J. P. Coleman said Tuesday his opponents have taken a defeatist attitude on the race issue *** Coleman said he is the only candidate 'with hope of stemming widespread integration and the ability and experience to do it.""

August 1, 1963: “Coleman said that sovereignty can be maintained peacefully. 'But not by knocking over the paramount rules of the United States. You just have to learn how to plow around them.'"

CASE OF CLENNON KING: SHOWS WILLINGNESS TO SACRIFICE INDIVIDUAL TO POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY

The case of Clennon King, an Alcorn A. & M. College history professor, who attempted to enroll at the University of Mississippi in the summer of 1958, demonstrates Mr. Coleman's willingness to sacrifice one individual's constitutional rights to the dictates of political expediency.

Let me quote the article from the Clarion-Ledger of August 3, 1963, reporting Mr. Coleman's boasts about the incident "Coleman repeated the story about Negro Clennon King who attempted to register at Ole Miss during Coleman's tenure as Governor, but who was committed to Whitfield after 2 weeks after being held incommunicado for some time by highway patrolmen. "The point of this story,' he said, 'is not the fact that one man was kept out of Ole Miss. Rather

it shows that we know how to protect your rights in such a way that the Federal Government could find no excuse for putting hands on the State of Mississippi.'

I certainly agree with Mr. Coleman's assessment of the true significance of this incident. It demonstrates the cavalier attitude of Mr. Coleman to basic civil rights when opposed by the imperative of maintaining racial segregation. Mr. Coleman used the incident as a major campaign issue in his campaign for reelection to demonstrate his ability to maintain racial segregation in Mississippi public schools for the next 4 years.

March 17, 1963: ""The only racial trouble in this State from 1956 to 1960 was when Negro Clennon King decided he wanted to go to Ole Miss. He went in the front door and out the back door to another State institution. He decided then he wanted to leave the State, and he hasn't been back since.'" The ClarionLedger of June 7, 1958, reported how it was that Clennon King was committed to the State mental institution at Whitfield: "Examination by two Hinds County doctors was ordered by Chancery Clerk Frank Scott following a statement by Gov. J. P. Coleman who declared King 'went berserk' during his attempt at entry to the university Thursday."

CONCLUSION: COLEMAN UNFIT TO SIT ON THE FIFTH CIRCUIT COURT OF

APPEALS

Mr. Coleman has never been a dissembler nor a trimmer. His political promises and campaign oratory have been reflected in his actions while in office. He has made it clear to all that he is a firm, consistent, and able advocate of racial segregation. The Supreme Court, the Congress, and the executive branch have all declared in the clearest possible terms that public racial segregation is unconstitutional and violates the spirit of American democracy. Surely we can no longer afford to appoint Federal judges who have demonstrated their fundamental disagreement with this view of the Constitution and who have used their talents, experience, and influence- -no matter how great those may be to subverting Supreme Court decisions and the acts of Congress.

Senator ERVIN. I believe you stated you did not know Governor Coleman personally.

Mr. CONYERS. No, sir; I do not.

Senator ERVIN. And if I appraise your statement right, you concede that he is a man of great legal ability.

Mr. CONYERS. Well, the only test that we have had of his great legal ability is with regard to segregationist laws, and I think that it is perhaps even yet unclear in the mind of some whether this great legal ability extends to nonsegregationist legal activity.

Senator ERVIN. Let me put the question in another form. Do you question in any way Governor Coleman's capacity as a lawyer?

Mr. CONYERS. I am honestly not prepared, sir, to pass judgment on that question. I would not pretend to come here with that kind of background about him.

Senator ERVIN. Do you have any questions?

Senator HRUSKA. Mr. Congressman, in that connection of course you haven't personal acquaintance with him, but the record indicates that he has been in the private practice for many years. He was district attorney for the Fifth Circuit Court of the District of Mississippi. He was circuit judge for the Fifth Circuit Court of the District of Mississippi. And he was a commissioner of the Supreme Court of Mississippi. Would it be your idea that during all of this career as a lawyer, as a prosecuting attorney, as a judge, that he concerned himself solely with segregation cases, and therefore your appraisal of him in that regard is based only on that type of litigation?

Mr. CONYERS. I had no experience. The Attorney General and no one else gave me the information that you have presented to me now. I am willing to concede that he has been an eminent member of

the bar of the State of Mississippi and a jurist in many different capacities for a great period of time. I am not personally or otherwise acquainted with the character or ability of his activities on the bench, however.

Senator HRUSKA. That is fine. I am glad to have you make that statement for the record. Are you a lawyer yourself?

Mr. CONYERS. Yes, sir, and I am also

Senator HRUSKA. Do you presume that a man serving in all these legal and judicial capacities would have handled nothing except segregation cases during all these years from 1940 to 1960?

Mr. CONYERS. Of course not, and I have never suggested that that may be the case.

Senator HRUSKA. That is the only facet of his legal capacity on which you comment, and I wondered if your idea was that he was a specialist, an exclusive specialist in this particular type of law.

Mr. CONYERS. I see, sir. No. The question resolves itself in my mind, sir, of whether or not we are dealing with the nomination of a person in common parlance that is referred to as a segregationist or a moderate, and the thrust of my remarks were to establish my position in the matter.

Senator HRUSKA. Now, in your statement you also observed that the circuit court judge from a State "normally sits as a member of a three-judge court considering the constitutionality of a State statute. Are you prepared to say that that would be a normal situation where the judge was a former Governor of the State or an attorney general of the State at the time that statute was passed?

Mr. CONYERS. You are raising the question of whether or not he might disqualify himself?

Senator HRUSKA. Well, you say that "normally he sits" in these cases. Would he normally sit as a member of the three-judge court, sitting in judgment on the constitutionality of such a law?

Mr. CONYERS. I am not prepared to indicate what kind of cases are coming before the fifth circuit. I know one that certainly this might be involved; the United States versus Mississippi would involve certain general laws of that State which came into being or were developed while the nominee was either attorney general or Governor of the State, but I do not know how many other cases there are of that nature.

Senator HRUSKA. Yes; but are you suggesting that it is a normal situation where the judge would sit, where he had previously served as Governor or attorney general?

Mr. CONYERS. I would hope not. The whole question of disqualification, of course, would there be involved.

Senator HRUSKA. You would hope not but then you go on to say "following that practice, Mr. Coleman presumably will sit as a member of the three-judge court which will rehear this case of U.S. against Mississippi."

What is the basis for that presumption?

Mr. CONYERS. Well, the question in my mind is that I am unclear, and I do not think anybody here is prepared to predict this with any

reasonable certainty, which cases the Governor-assuming he were to become a member of the fifth circuit-would sit on involving statutes that came into being during his term of offices in the State and which ones he would disqualify himself from. That is, as you know, a very difficult line, and there have been great differences of opinions on which matters jurists should disqualify themselves from and which matters they should not.

Senator HRUSKA. Do you know of any case where there has been a failure of a judge, a circuit judge, to disqualify himself from testing the constitutionality of the law as a judge when he was Governor of the State and signed that law into effect?

Mr. CONYERS. I do not.

Senator HRUSKA. So that when you make that statement, it is a presumption, but you have no illustration or an example where that has happened.

Mr. CONYERS. No; I do not.

Senator HRUSKA. We frequently read, of course, of the disqualification of judges where they have participated either as a prosecutor or as a Governor or even as a legislator, frequently as a legislator. I just wondered if you had any examples in mind which would be to the contrary.

Mr. CONYERS. No. I just raised or intended to raise, sir, the point that disqualification is a very thin and technical question. There are many cases that have appeared in which judges were thought, and it was hoped, that they would disqualify themselves, and for some reason they did not. The law is replete with instances where there have been questions of whether or not a judge should or should not have disqualified himself.

Senator HRUSKA. In as clear a case as this where a Governor signed the bill into law?

Mr. CONYERS. No.

Senator HRUSKA. That is what I am asking.

Mr. CONYERS. No, sir. I do not have any

Senator HRUSKA. That is the basis for your objection, is it not? Mr. CONYERS. I do not have any citations in which a Governor was a member of the court in which this question was raised.

Senator HRUSKA. Thank you very much, sir.

Senator ERVIN. Do you not realize that as a matter of practice that Governor Coleman as judge of the fifth circuit would not sit in any of those cases unless he was assigned to the panel to hear the case by Chief Justice Tuttle of Atlanta?

Mr. CONYERS. Yes.

Senator ERVIN. And Judge Tuttle has been very faithful in enforcing the decrees in civil rights cases, has he not?

Mr. CONYERS. I think so in the decisions I have read.

Senator ERVIN. To make a long story short, you are opposed to Governor Coleman simply on the basis of his beliefs with respect to racial segregation and racial integration?

Mr. CONYERS. Yes, sir; that is essentially the point.
Senator ERVIN. You are a Congressman from Michigan.
Mr. CONYERS. Yes.

Senator ERVIN. Were you born in Michigan?

Mr. CONYERS. I was born in Detroit, Mich.; that is correct.
Senator ERVIN. Born in Detroit, Mich.

Mr. CONYERS. But I have been in Mississippi, Mr. Chairman. Senator ERVIN. Have you been in Mississippi? Do you know of any person that is likely to be recommended for judgeship in Mississippi that you would approve of?

Mr. CONYERS. Yes, sir; I am very delighted and surprised that I would be asked that question. I do have a list of recommendations that I would like to submit, but I am very hesitant to do so on the basis that they might be disqualified for a person like myself submitting their name. But in private I would certainly hope that if for any reason this nomination is unsuccessful, that I might submit quickly to the Attorney General a list of names.

Senator ERVIN. I am delighted to hear you say that because I am glad to know that you do not share the view with respect to Mississippi like those people in the New Testament who did not believe any good thing at all could come out of Nazareth.

Mr. CONYERS. I certainly do not. As a matter of fact, I am very hopeful that the situation in Mississippi is improving. I have a number of relatives myself as a matter of fact my mother was born in that great State-and we are very hopeful that the situation will improve. As a matter of fact, the State of Ole Miss, or the college Ole Miss I am sorry-the university just appointed a Negro professor to their faculty not more than 2 weeks ago. I think this is indeed a very significant indication of some of the breakthrough that is going on in that State.

Senator HART. Mr. Chairman, since I am not a member of the subcommittee, I was hesitant to introduce my colleague from Michigan, but now that he is finished, I think you will sense my great pride. He is a member, Senator Hruska, of the Judiciary Committee of the House, and I know how uncertain political careers are, but in the case of Congressman Conyers, I think that long after most of us have left this scene, John Conyers will be here.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you.

Senator ERVIN. Unless Congressman Conyers is unlike any other politician I know, I would hate to see him judged solely upon the basis of the statements he may make during political campaigns.

Senator KENNEDY. Congressman, as I would gather from the thrust of your testimony, you would like to at least have this committee possibly question the Governor to find out his attitude with regard to many of the laws which have been passed and which he signed to find out whether he would disqualify himself.

Mr. CONYERS. Yes, sir.

Senator KENNEDY. And as I would gather from your observations, that you feel that this is an area in which there can be and there should be legitimate questions raised and that you feel as a person who has come here to question the nomination of the judge that this would certainly be consistent with our responsibilities in considering this matter.

Would that be a fair qualification of at least part of your testimony this morning?

Mr. CONYERS. Yes, Senator Kennedy; that is precisely my view, because 29 pages of quotations running over a thread of some 10 years and they are not all political statements, incidentally-I think

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