JAN 9 1940 ANTILYNCHING BILL 76th CONGRESS THIRD SESSION VOL 86 PART 1

<This first section is the introduction of the bill for debate. What is important is that
not only does Hatton W. Sumners speak out against the bill, but he is the manager of
the congressional debate team of representatives against the bill. That is he is the
leader of the opposition to the anti-lynching bill in the house.>

PAGE 150 JAN. 9 1940

Mr. GAVAGAN: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House resolve itself into the Committee of
the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H. R. 801) to
assure to persons within the jurisdiction of every State due process of law and equal
protection of the laws, and to prevent the crime of lynching.

The motion was agreed to.

Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the
state of the Union for the consideration of the bill H. R. 801, with Mr. McCORMACK in
the chair.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

By unanimous consent, the first reading of the bill was dispensed with.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York [Mr. GAVAGAN]
for 3 hours and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. SUMNERs] for 3 hours.

Mr. FISH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GAVAGAN. I yield to the· gentleman from New York.

Mr. FISH. Do I correctly understand that the gentleman from New York has agreed to
yield me half of his time?

Mr. GAVAGAN. Mr. Chairman, I have an agreement with the gentleman from New York
[Mr. FISH] to divide my time of 3 hours evenly with him, he to control one hour and a
half of the time allotted to the proponents of the bill. I ask unanimous consent that this
division of the time may be in order.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from New York?

There was no objection.

The CHAIRMAN. In accordance with the unanimous consent agreement, the Chair will
recognize the gentleman from New York [Mr. GAVAGAN] for 1½ hours, the gentleman
from New York [Mr. FISH] for 1½ hours, and the gentleman from Texas [Mr.
SUMNERS] for 3 hours.

<Skipping down to Mr. Sumners’ section.>

PAGE 155

The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentlemen from Ohio has again expired.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 minutes.

In times like these, with problems national and international such as we have now, I
wonder what impression this proceeding would create in the mind of an individual
sitting in the galleries looking upon this scene, studying his House of Representatives in
action. A bill is brought into the House that proposes to subject to Federal control the
police agencies of the States—a bill which violates the provisions of the Constitution of
the United States in order to attempt to do it; a bill which violates the fundamental
natural law of democratic government, which we are so loudly proclaiming our interest
in preserving. It is a bill which comes here without any necessity in point of reason, even
from the standpoint of its advocates, only one lynching last year out of each 43,405,009
people.

Besides, there is not a human being on the floor of this House—on either side of the
House-who does not know that the one thing most responsible for the record which is
shown by that chart which I have had brought on the floor is the fact that the people of
the communities of this country have had entire, exclusive responsibility for the
suppression of mob violence.

I challenge anybody on the floor of this House to point to a single major offense that has
been reduced as rapidly as that chart sho.ws the offense of lynching has been reduced.
Do not forget that. I challenge anybody on the floor of this House and in this hour, when
democratic government is being challenged all over the earth, to deny what this chart
shows. Those who advocate this bill would have this House, by its vote, testify to the
world that the institution of democracy, the States, and their subdivisions-the only
possible agencies of government under our system through which a democracy can
function-have failed and Uncle Sam has to step in. Why do you do it? What is the reason
for bringing this bill out at a time when every statesman, when every patriotic citizen,
knows that we need a united people in America? [Applause.]

What is the reason for bringing in this bill now, in this hour, to take up the time of the
House and the Senate when there is not a man or woman on the floor of this House who
does not know that the public business of this country requires all the time that we can
give to it? Is there a human being on the floor of this House who does not know that
when this bill reaches the Senate of the United States it will be held there to consume
time and time and time, divide our people, stir up bad feeling, consume time that ought
to be devoted to the country's serious business, testify against the efficiency of
democratic government, while a poor gesture is made to a deceived constituency.
The thing which I regret most is this attempted new concentration of Federal power—
this testimony of the great House of Representatives—that democratic institutions in the
United States have failed, and that it is required that the great Federal Government shall
step in and be given the power to take the officers of a State from their business and
send them to the penitentiary, because, forsooth, they have not carried out a
congressional edict.

Mr. FISH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Not now.

Mr. FISH. I .have a question that I would like the gentleman to answer.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Oh, the gentleman will have plenty of time to answer his own
question, and he cannot answer any question that I have put. It would take more time
than the gentleman has to answer these questions. I will leave that to the House when
the gentleman gets through.

A MEMBER. Speak louder; we cannot hear you; get before the microphone.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Oh, I despise this talking into a knothole worse than anybody.
Mr. Chairman, I can understand how people feel about this lynching business. I think
I understand how the colored people feel about the one which occurred down in
Mississippi, at Duck Hill, some 2 years ago, for instance. I had a feeling that I would like
to go down there and do business with them. But, Mr. Chairman, ours is the
responsibility of statesmen; we have a governmental responsibility.

We have to be governed on the floor of this House by those things which judgment
dictates to the statesmanship of this country. I want to stop lynching. Do we want to
stop lynching? Then why this bill, that injects the Federal Government into a situation
which has all but been finished, lessening the sense of local responsibility? Honest to
God, man to man, do we want to stop lynching in this country? Do you not know as a
matter of horse sense that when a person is in danger of lynching the only protection he
can ever have is the protection afforded by the community in the place where the danger
arises? As a matter of horse sense, there is not anybody who has not sense enough to
know that—even a Republican.

PAGE 156

Mr. HOFFMAN. Oh, four or five of us will vote with you.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, we know that in order to have dependability
you have to have responsibility. You do not have to read a lot of books to know that. You
know that in order that these communities shall best discharge their duty to people in
danger of being lynched they must have the responsibility for doing so. Nobody has
done more than I have toward suppressing lynching in this country. When this lynching
in Mississippi took place I sent a red-hot telegram down there. A fellow sent me a letter
and said that I could not go down to Mississippi and say what I had said in that
telegram. I did not know but what I might want to go down to Mississippi sometime,
and I did not want to go down there if it was dangerous. Just to try it out, I went down
there and made the same sort of a speech as was my telegram. I did not get shot or run
out of the county. I know how to talk to those people. They are my people. I am the son
of a Confederate soldier. I have a right to talk to them. I have made this fight here for a
long time. I know what I can give them, and I gave it to them.

A man down in Memphis, I think, wrote me, and he was raising Cain about what I had
said. I wrote back to him and told him I was born in Texas and I had a perfect right to
say what I had said. He wrote back and said, "Oh, excuse me I thought you were from
Pennsylvania." [Applause and laughter.] Mr. Chairman, we are dealing with human
nature in this matter, and human nature is nine-tenths of every equation in which
human beings have to act; and I tell you there is nobody on the floor of this House who
has not sense enough to know that when you have the Federal Government intervene
and attempt to coerce those people who know they have a difficult situation on their
hands, that you lessen the sense of local responsibility, and when you do that you
imperil the people in danger of being lynched. We are talking horse sense, and that is
why we are fighting this bill. I am not running for President, like my distinguished
Republican friend back there thinks he is. I like him, too. He does the best that he can. If
he had more sense, he would not be supporting this bill. I can appreciate just how he
feels about it. But look at this chart. It shows that in the decade between 1882 and 1892
there was an annual average of 155.8 lynchings— 1 lynching out of every 380,000; from
1893 to 1903, an annual average of 133.1 lynchings—1 out of 555,000; from 1904 to
1914, 69 lynchings—1 out of 1,308,000; from 1915 to 1925, 50.3 lynchings—1 out of
2,129,000; from 1926 to 1936, 16.4 lynchings—1 out of 7,468,000; for the year 1936, 8
lynchings—1 out of 16,053,000; for 1937, 8 lynchings—1 out of 16,157,000; 1938, 6
lynchings—1 out of 21,702,500; and 1939, 3 lynchings—1 out of 43,405,000. Here are
the statistics from 1892 to 1939, inclusive, showing the year, population, number of
persons lynched, populations per person lynched, and number lynched per million
population:
These figures put to shame the pretended belief of the advocates of this bill that there is
any need or even excuse for this proceeding which does no credit to the House of
Representatives. It certainly adds nothing to the assurance of the people that they have
public servants here to whom they may safely entrust the business and guardianship of a
great republic in these times when only real statesmen can meet the challenge of their
responsibility. I do not mean to be offensive but I believe that must be the public's
reaction. Look at these figures; face your conscience and tell yourself the truth once; do
you believe that any agency of government could have done better than has been done in
these communities with this difficult situation? Of course, lynching had to stop. All the
way from the Atlantic to the Pacific population preceded organized government, and
home-made government preceded organized government. This is the key to
understanding the "why" of lynching in America. When these pioneers got over into
communities that were beyond the reach of the sheriff and the legislature, the most
perfect functioning democracies in the history of all time sprang up. They executed
people for violating home-made laws.

That sort of government did not fade out of the picture until this other government—
organized government—came in and established itself. When you check on those
communities where lynchings have occurred in later years, you will find that organized
police protection has not extended into them 9 times out of 10. People there are
accustomed to doing their own protecting. Now, as roads have been developed, as
organized government has been extended, as people have become conscious of the fact
that no longer do pioneers sit in judgment, men who were instinctively honest and just,
that other form, home-made government, is fading out. It is true, no doubt, that
hoodlums now largely make up the mobs, and the people are stopping them. Does
anybody brag on the people for what they are doing? Does anybody praise them? Is
there anybody here, favoring this bill, who claims to believe in democracy, who points
with pride to those democratic institutions that are under popular control? Who praises
them? Who reduced lynching last year to 1 in nearly 50,000,000 people? It almost
makes one It almost makes one wonder if a few—not many, of course—of these
advocates are not almost sorry the States and their communities have done so well.

Some Members stand on the floor of the House and do their best, it seems, to create the
impression that the States and their communities have not done their job. Of course,
three is too many. But last year there was only 1 lynching for every 43,405,000 people.
Yet you bring in this bill and pretend to the American Nation that you honestly believe
there is necessity for this invasion of the exclusive responsibility of the States. You ought
to be ashamed of yourselves,

PAGE 157

and I think my friend is. I will bet he goes to confession, or something, about it.
[Laughter.]

Mr. GAVAGAN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I yield.

Mr. GAVAGAN. I assure the gentleman that I take full advantage of the faith of my
fathers.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Well, use some of their sense next time, and come her~ and
help beat this bill: [Laughter.] Faith without works is dead. Somebody said something
like that.

Mr. GAVAGAN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Yes, I will, because I like the gentleman.

Mr. GAVAGAN. I am trying to perform the admonition to work for, besides having faith
in, the passage of this bill.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Yes, we believe in the honesty of your purpose—no, the
honesty of your efforts. There is a little difference.

Now, this remarkable bill is brought in here with the clear-cut condemnation of the
Supreme Court resting against each of its provisions. My distinguished friend, a moment
ago, made some reference to suits against counties. Why, of course. Where States
possess the police powers of our system of government, State legislatures may enact a
law, constitutionally, levying a fine against a county; but no such power rests in the
Federal organization.
Now, let us see about this organization of our Government a minute. I am not trying to
talk in sequence. I am not trying to make a speech, but I am saying some things that the
people of America are going to begin to think about if we are to preserve the structure
and distributed responsibility and governmental capacity and virility of the people
essential to the preservation of true democracy. We may think we can continue to do
what an interested minority wants to do, to the destruction of this great democracy of
ours, and get by with it, but we do know that unless the body of the people supporting
fundamental principles stand against the pressure of these minorities we must go the
way of the other democracies of the world. The time cannot be far distant when the
people who do that thing will have to answer to the people who believe in the
preservation of a democratic system of government. Governments, like all other things,
are subject to the law of cause and effect. People cannot do things which are destructive
of democratic government and escape the reasonable and probable consequences of
their conduct.

You cannot preserve a democratic system of government unless you preserve the
governmental responsibility of the individual citizen of that system. All progress in a
democratic system of government is in that direction which moves governmental power
and responsibility closer and closer to the people. This bill moves in the opposite
direction. It is not like the ordinary extension of Federal power, which at least holds to a
respectful attitude toward the States. This is an impudent, arrogant assertion of
governmental overlordship over the States and the governmental power to prosecute the
States and their officials for their failure to carry out the Federal edict.

We are all "het-up" about what the "reds" are doing. I hold no brief for them, but here is
where the real job is being done. We are taking these powers away from the States,
concentrating them in a great Federal bureaucracy. When the problems of government
exceed the governmental capacity of the people, then democracy must fade out of the
picture. Is it not strange that this people are deaf to this solemn warning of history and
of common sense? Here we are, all "bet-up" about what the "reds" are doing, while we
are taking governmental responsibility away from the smaller units of government, and
doing it under the pretense of necessity, in the face of figures like this. There are the
results-only three lynchings in a year in this Nation. Are you sorry it is so small?

Mr. FISH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I believe I will.

Mr. FISH. I thank my good friend.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I know it. I am for the gentleman.

Mr. FISH, The gentleman is one of the greatest expounders of the Constitution, and very
sincere. The gentleman talks about these three lynchings. The gentleman made the
identical speech when there were 33 and 63.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. That is right. That is exactly right. Now, do not grin too much,
because I am going to hit you one. [Laughter.] I made the speech because we were in
process of reduction, and I told you then on the floor of this House that if you would
leave us alone we would continue to reduce.

I want to say something more. If you had succeeded in passing this monstrous bill back
in 1922 and lynchings had been reduced to three, you would have been hollering your
head off about the inefficiency of the States and the glorious achievement of the Federal
Government. That is what is destroying this democracy-a Nation of people afflicted with
"Federalitis," deploring concentration of governmental power, and belittling the result
of State and community achievement and hollering for Uncle Sam to butt in on a
situation which for actual achievement has no parallel among the records of crime
suppression. As I see it, the sponsors of this bill are trying here to rob the smaller units
of government of that to which they are entitled in order that credit may go to the
Federal Government for that which has already been achieved. That is one of the real big
things in this bill.

Gentlemen, the States about which you talk so much, the States you claim you want to
preserve, have accomplished this thing themselves; but you come in here howling for an
extension of the Federal power to destroy independent sovereignty of these States, the
very ones you profess a desire to preserve. What is left of State sovereignty, if State
officials operate under the threat of Federal prosecution for a failure to perform their
State duties as per the Federal edict? It makes no difference about facts in any case. We
are talking about the allocation of governmental power under our system of
government. What have you got to say to that? Nothing. You cannot say anything to it.

We are afraid of the "reds." We are destroying this great democracy under the dome of
this Capitol. That is where it is happening. A few followers of soap-box orators cannot do
anything. We can do it, however. We send out the word from here beneath the dome of
this Capitol to the American people, out to the world, that you cannot depend upon the
States; you have got to have the Federal Government supervising them doing
everything; and you do it in the face of the fact that belies the same kind of argument
that was made in support of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. You ought to be ashamed of it,
for you know better. It will not get you anything in this next election, for the people are
getting sense today. They have been foolish, but they are getting smart. The people of
this country are becoming concerned for the preservation of this great system of
government. Let me trace it for you; let me see if I can get the picture across.

A long time ago, back in the first century, we see where our system was functioning.
Tacitus tells us that, while the leader had a right to present the matter and had the
opportunity to persuade, the people spoke the voice of government—these people that
gathered in from the forests of Germany. A few centuries after that we see the same
system of government still operating; we see the government of the hundred, the
government of the shire, the government of the city, the government of the borough—
those great breeding places, those great nourishers and developers of democratic
capacity to govern—local governments.

Then we watched the most magnificent struggle in the history of the ages when those
people who had developed governmental capacity in those smaller units of government
met the king, the concentrated power and they compelled him to decentralize—to yield
to them the Habeas Corpus Act, the Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, the Bill of
Rights,

PAGE 158

the Acts of Settlement; and finally we wrote the great Declaration of Independence.
Long before we had written the Declaration of Independence, however, those
institutions of local democratic government were thoroughly rooted in American soil in
the Colonies. In the main they functioned through the smaller units of government.
When that time came, the period of the Revolution, the royal representatives ran away
and the people filled in their places. The government of the Colony became the
government of the State, and it did not miss a beat.

Those governments of the States are the only possible and I make this statement and
challenge the world to contradict it—under the American system of government the
States are the only possible agencies through which a democracy may function.
[Applause.] We are destroying them. When the time came when these States recognized
that they had need for a common agency to do some things for them which the States
separately could not so well do, these 13 independent sovereignties met in Philadelphia
through their representatives. Those representatives had no commission to create a
government; they were the creatures of a government of 3 coordinate branches
functioning through distributed agencies like communities, municipalities, and the
smaller units of government. They had no notion then that they had given to this agency
of theirs the power to send their Governors and their other officers to jail. They never
dreamed in those days that their posterity would ever stand under the dome of their
Capitol and ask the privilege of putting on the statute books of the Federal Government
a law that would subject these States to the domination of this agency of theirs. This is
no time to be playing with great responsibilities.

There is not a man or woman of intelligence and information in America who looks into
the eyes of his child and feels with absolute certainty that he or she can transmit to that
child the opportunity to live under a free government. I do not know of a man or woman
in America facing the future and contemplating the present who can be certain that he
will be able to bequeath to his child the privilege of being free. I am not an alarmist. I am
not an optimist or a pessimist. These people, especially if they get professional, are
neither optimists nor pessimists. They are merely foolish. Sensible people seek to know
the facts and to arrive at a sound judgment.

When these States sent those men to that convention and those men functioned, and the
document was drawn up—and this delegated certain responsibilities to their common
agent—listen to me, men and women! That document as amended provided that the
powers not given to the Federal agency, and which the States had not in the document
denied to themselves, were reserved to the States and to the people. They reserved this
power that you are now trying to rob the States of; they reserved it. There is no doubt
about that.
I want to call attention briefly to the fourteenth amendment, adopted in 1868. Soon
after that the Supreme Court was called on to construe the fourteenth amendment. The
first great opinion was the Slaughterhouse cases. I quote from that decision:

It would be the vainest show of learning to attempt to prove by citations of authority that
up to the adoption of the recent amendments no claim or pretense was set up that those
rights depended on the Federal Government for their existence or protection, beyond the
very few express limitations which the Federal Constitution imposed upon the States-
such, for instance, as the prohibition against ex post facto laws, bills of attainder, and
laws impairing the obligation of contracts. But with the exception of these and a few
other restrictions, the entire domain of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the
States, as above defined, lay within the constitutional and legislative power of the States,
and without that of the Federal Government.

Then the Court asked this question:

Was it the purpose of the fourteenth amendment, by the simple declaration that no State
should make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of
citizens of the United States, to transfer the security and protection of all the civil rights
which we have mentioned, from the State to the Federal ·Government? And where it is
declared that Congress shall have the power to enforce that article, was it intended to
bring within the power of Congress the entire domain of civil rights heretofore belonging
exclusively to the States?

The Court answered that question, as follows:

When the effect is to fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the
control of Congress, in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of
the most ordinary and fundamental character; when in fact it radically changes the whole
theory of the relations of the State and Federal Governments to each other and of both
these governments to the· people, the argument has a force that is irresistible, in the
absence of language which expresses such a purpose too clearly to admit of doubt.

Near the close of his opinion, Mr. Justice Miller uses this significant language:

Under the pressure of all the excited feeling growing out of the war our statesmen have
still believed that the existence of the States with powers for domestic and local
government, including the regulation of civil rights-the rights of person and of property
was essential to the perfect working of our complex form of government.

This bill undertakes to do the specific thing which the Supreme Court in its first
pronouncement on the fourteenth amendment said could not be done.

It was not intended—

Said the Court—

 to fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the control of
Congress, in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of the most
ordinary and fundamental character.

Members of Congress in the first instance must be the judges of the limitations imposed
upon them by the Constitution. We took an oath to support the Constitution, and if the
Constitution itself indicates we may not do something, and if the Supreme Court, our
court of last resort, passing upon the question states we may not do it, then Members of
Congress of necessity must desist from doing so.

[Here the gavel fell.]

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 additional minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I want to direct attention now to the next decision, and I hope the
Members will examine these decisions carefully, I will skip two or three, but I would like
to direct attention to a decision in the case of United States v. Harris (106 U.S., p. 629).
This was a lynching case.

Harris and 19 others were indicted for taking from was charged that the prisoners had
been duly arrested, were then, and there in the custody of a deputy sheriff of said
county, I were entitled to due and equal protection of the laws thereof; that the said R.
G. Harris and 19 others, naming them, with certain other persons, did then and there
unlawfully conspire together and take these prisoners from the custody of the officers,
beating, bruising, wounding, and otherwise ill-treating them, contrary to the form of the
statute.

That is the identical kind of a case that would arise under this bill as it was presented at
the last Congress. That prosecution was under section 5519 of the first Civil Rights Act. I
do not like to discuss constitutional questions in this way, but I have to hurry along.
After quoting the authorities in the Slaughterhouse cases, the Cruikshank case, and
Virginia against Rives, the Court said:

These authorities show conclusively that the legislation under consideration finds no
warrant for its enactment in the fourteenth amendment. • • • In the indictment in this case,
for instance, which would be a good indictment under the law if the law itself were valid,
there is no intimation that the State of Tennessee has passed any law or done any act
forbidden by the fourteenth amendment. On the contrary, the gravamen of the charge
against the accused is that they conspired to deprive certain citizens of the United States
and of the State of Tennessee of the equal protection accorded them by the laws of
Tennessee.

Concluding, the Court says:

It was never supposed that the section under consideration conferred on Congress the
power to enact a law which would punish a private citizen for an invasion of the rights of
his fellow citizen conferred by the State of which they were both residents on all its
citizens alike. We have, therefore, been unable to find any constitutional authority for the
 enactment of section 5519 of the Revised Statutes. The decisions of this court above
referred to leave no constitutional ground tor the act to stand on.

PAGE 159

Mr. VORYS of Ohio. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. VORYS of Ohio. Does not the gentleman concede that this law does not attempt to
punish private citizens at all; therefore it is clearly distinguishable from the law which
was objected to in the Harris case?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. As I understand this bill, it proposes to punish private citizens
who engage in mob violence.

Mr. VORYS of Ohio. There is no such provision in the bill. It provides for punishment of
an officer and a county, but clearly avoids the objection that was raised in the Harris
case by not applying to private individuals at all.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I was not advised of that change from the Gavagan bill of last
session. The gentleman concedes that under the Constitution there could be no
punishment of a private citizen who conspired to commit mob violence?

Mr. COX. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. COX. It is the law that even a private citizen is under the duty and has the authority
to protect any individual from any violence that might be threatened him.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I make the statement upon the responsibility of my judgment,
without taking further time, that no power rests in the Government of the United States
to punish private citizens, to punish officers of a State or the subdivision of a State, or to
levy a fine against a county for any -of the things that are prohibited in this bill.
There is an interesting and a very distinct thing about the present bill. It specifically
exempts labor organizations from the operation of the bill.

Mr. FISH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FISH. It is my understanding that the gentleman from New York [Mr. GAVAGAN],
author of this bill, proposes to offer an amendment to do away with that clause.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. It is a very interesting thing, and is in the picture. As the States
and communities move out insofar as lynchings are concerned, and they are about out,
it looks to the casual observer as though those whom Mr. GAVAGAN exempted in his
bill, will be the ones directly in front of the gun if he passes his bill and it is held
constitutional.

If you establish the power in the Federal Government to prosecute in those instances
indicated in this bill, that same power is a power to prosecute the officers of States,
municipalities, and communities in every instance where there is violence either to
persons or property. Does anybody challenge that?

Mr. KITCHENS. That is what I was about to ask.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Well, I just said it. I will show you where you are going. We are
getting out from under. There have been only three lynchings in the last year. We are
about out from under.

There is no distinction in the fourteenth amendment between the protection of persons

and the protection of property. If this power which you seek to rest in the Federal
Government is established and recognized by the Supreme Court, by that establishment
and recognition you put it within the power of the Federal Government to prosecute for
every violation of the rights of persons and property where you can develop a failure of
equal protection. Under that theory, the fact that the thing happens in effect is evidence
that there has been a failure of equal protection. Nothing in the fourteenth amendment
deals with mob violence. There is no distinction between violence by a mob and by one
person.

This is what you who have been hollering your heads off about States' rights are trying to
do by this bill. You are trying to establish as a part of the governmental philosophy
a power of the Federal Government-a governmental overlordship on the part of the
Federal Government-to enact legislation and to prosecute in every instance where there
is a failure to accord what you call equal protection of either property or person in the
United States. This mob business has nothing to do with it.

I ask you, man to man, is there anybody on the floor of this House who, in the first place,
believes that that constitutional power is given to the Federal Government, or who
would be willing to have it recognized and established, even if it is given to it? Yet that is
what you are doing, and I want to warn you. There may come a time when we who have
been bearing the brunt of this thing will get tired and step aside, and there might come a
time when a Supreme Court of the United States would not have any more sense than to
hold this power constitutional. We will be out. It will be just retribution—just exactly
what you deserve.

We are standing here fighting now to protect the States and their communities and their
people against the establishment of this unnatural, unreasonable, and monstrous
Federal power. You are trying to force it on us and you are going to force it on
yourselves.

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. COX. Has the gentleman any doubt whatever in his mind as to what a Supreme
Court brought up to date would find on the question of the constitutionality?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I do not want to discuss that.

Mr. KNUTSON. None whatever.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I do not want to discuss that.

Mr. GAVAGAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I yield.

Mr. GAVAGAN. I dislike to break into the gentleman's remarks.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I would not let the gentleman do so if I were not willing; go
ahead.

Mr. GAVAGAN. If I understand the argument of the gentleman, the gentleman's answer
to the gentleman from Georgia is that he is fearful that the Supreme Court as now
constituted may uphold the constitutionality of this proposed legislation?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I did not say that.

Mr. GAVAGAN. I understood the gentleman to say it.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I cannot help the gentleman's understanding.

Mr. GAVAGAN. I am sorry if I misunderstood the gentleman I would like the gentleman
to clear it up.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. It is clear. It may not be clear in the gentleman's head but it is
clear.

Mr. KITCHENS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Yes.

Mr. KITCHENS. The title of this bill is, "To assure to persons within the jurisdiction of
every State due process of law and equal protection of the laws." Suppose I have a
neighbor who is shot down in cold blood by two men, and that I have another neighbor
who is mobbed. Under this bill we are going to give them equal protection of the law. We
are going to reward the heirs of the man who was mobbed, and leave to suffer the heirs
and family of the man who, innocent, was murdered in cold blood. I would like to know
if this is equal protection of the law.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. The thing is perfectly monstrous insofar as helping to attain
the results they claim.
We are trying to stop mob violence. We are stopping mob violence. I tell you this
proposed law would not help us.

In Williamson County, in my State, in a Bohemian settlement one morning a family

went to the field and left a 14-year-old girl at home. She was not well. They came back at
noon that day and found the child weltering in her own blood. The countryside was
aroused. They found a man on the railroad track about 3 miles away and took him into
the village. Someone said, "This is the man who is responsible for that condition. He has
blood on his person." They examined him and found he was clotted with blood. They
killed him.

This happened in a community that did not have police protection. There was not a man
there who did not know that it was mere accident that it had not happened to his

PAGE 160

child rather than to his neighbor's child. Suppose this law had been in effect. I happen to
know that after the people were calm they were ashamed of their action. The community
began to bring pressure on this. Every time you get a community right on this mob
suppression it spreads from community to community. The big thing about this method
is that the people have changed. It is getting to be a matter of pride in my country to
stop this sort of action. Suppose this law had been in effect, however. The Federal
marshal would have come in there and taken the father and brothers and neighbors of
that child to a Federal court and sent them to a Federal jail. He would have taken the
officers, anyhow.

Mr. FISH. The gentleman knows that is not in the bill. The officers, yes; but not the
father and brothers. The gentleman does not want that statement to remain in the
RECORD, does he? The gentleman is essentially a fair man.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. That is right; they are taken out.

These folks who are behind this bill have gotten scared of the bill and have begun to trim
it down; just want to leave enough in the bill to get by the next election, and they can do
just as well with taking the folks out and leaving the officers in there; in fact, that is
better. There are just a few officers and a whole lot of folks. They took the labor people
out also, but the trouble there probably was that exempting them from the operation of
the bill rather turned the spotlight on them, and there is not much doubt that the
suggestion came down from headquarters to turn off the spotlight. I would not be much
surprised that around these headquarters are some smart people who can see a very
clear probability that if this bill is passed and held constitutional, its application will be
quite a bit broader than has been mentioned by the proponents of the bill.

[Here the gavel fell.]

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 additional minute.

Suppose then they had levied a fine of $10,000 to go to the family that had raised a
rapist, as is provided in this bill. The parents-and this is where the parents come in-and
the kinfolk of that little kid would have had to pay a part of the $10,000. Do you mean to
tell me that that would help the people there who are trying to stop this thing? We know
what we are doing. Why do you not leave us alone? Look at the results. Down to three in
1 year. Why do you not brag on us a little bit? Why do you not give us a chance to stop
this thing? It is our job, it is our responsibility. We are ashamed of it. We can talk to our
people. Why do you not keep the Federal Government out and let us stop this thing?
But you will not do that. Why? For the same reason, and I say this in all kindness. The
mob batters at the door of the jail and whispers to the sheriff, "political expediency,” and
he lets them have the prisoner.

[Here the gavel fell.]

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 more minute.

And today the Constitution stands between this Congress and the right to pass this bill.
You are opposed to mob violence, and so on, while we are trying to stop mobs from
lynching people, and sheriffs from yielding for political expediency. Suppose we get
together before voting time and see to it there is going to be no lynching of the
Constitution, whether for political expediency or not. I know this is a difficult situation
for many of you. I can understand how many colored people feel about it. I understand
how some of your communities feel about it. You are good fellows. I do not want to see
any vacancies over there, and every one of you who can vote to support the Constitution
and get back here at the next election give us a vote, will you not, boys? [Laughter and
applause.]

[Here the gavel fell.]

Mr. FISH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

The gentleman from Texas [Mr. SUMNERS] has just made a very able defense of State
rights and State sovereignty, but never in the entire history of our country have we ever
had such an example of dominance by the Federal Government of the States and
interference with State rights and State sovereignty as we have had under the New Deal,
and the gentleman himself has voted with them on many occasions. It is enough to make
the angels laugh.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FISH. Certainly.

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. I make this statement and I do not brag about it. I have as
good a record as any man in this House in voting against the concentration of power in
the Federal Government, and if the gentleman will check up, he will find that is so.

Mr. FISH. Well, I am proud of the gentleman, and I hope the gentleman will continue
that record. Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr.
ROBSION].
Mr. ROBSION of Kentucky ….