I have attempted to prove that an ever-increasing number of Americans are aware of the frightening aspects of the recent decisions of the High Court, and that Congress must curb, through this bill. possibly, this "Runaway Court," as provided by the Constitution. article 3, section 2, clause 2.

I wish to add: The laws should reflect the will of the people.

What are we to think concerning the recent action by members of the High Court? Are they ignorant of the ultimate aims of the international Communist conspiracy to destroy this Republic? Have they no knowledge of what communism is? Or-? Well, I prefer to give the august members of the Supreme Court the benefit of the doubt, and believe that their recent decisions are based on their terrifying ignorance of world communism, and also on their ignorance of the United States Constitution, its stated words, and the spirit in which it was written by our forefathers who pledged their "lives, liberty, and sacred honor" in another fight against tyranny.

The "big guns" of the liberals of both political parties are booming the propaganda of the need for Federal aid to education. Although I and my paper firmly oppose Federal aid to education, there is one program of education which I believe that conservatives throughout the country would enthusiastically support. I refer, of course, to Federal aid to educate the Supreme Court.

The cost of such a program would be 1 item in the Federal budget that would have the support of all the "budget-cutters" and conservatives of both parties.

The members of the Supreme Court, and I wish to add, all critics of this law, ought to be required to attend a course of lectures on the threat of the Communist conspiracy to the independence and the sovereignty of the United States of America. They should be required to read that excellent book on Communist infiltration by Louis Budenz, entitled "The Techniques of Communism."

To increase their eductaion, to enlarge their understanding, the members of the Supreme Court should be required to attend the hearings that are conducted by the Senate and House Investigating Committees when said committees are making inquiries regarding the activities of alleged members of the Communist Party.

Members of the Communist international conspiracy are now openly operating throughout the United States and preaching the overthrow of our Government, as a result of recent decisions of the Supreme Court.

They feel that they are now over the hump. In a recent meeting up in New York, they said this was a new Bill of Rights, these recent decisions during 1957. They said, "Now we can go forward."

Both political parties are in favor of billions of dollars for "defense against communism." Why, then, I ask-should we spend billions of the taxpayers dollars to defend America from communism abroad-and, at the same time, befriend Communists at home via Supreme Court decisions?

The Communist Party members and their fellow travelers are not worried about the fact that this committee may rewrite the law as to the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. These Communists are counting on their "friends in high places." (The Communist-befriending decisions of the Supreme Court in the past years

are tragically ample proof of this!) But, I sincerely believe that th the Communists and the Supreme Court, in their mutual arrance, have overlooked the ultimate controlling factor.

I refer, of course, to the American voter.

The domestic Communists and their liberal associates have been pending on the narcotic of apathy to anesthetize the American ple to the dangers on our very doorstep. But-the American eople are not asleep, as I have attempted to point out.

The American voter is looking for a defender. Conservatives of th parties who believe in the United States Constitution as it was ritten-not as it is presently interpreted-are looking to this comttee to provide the defense against Communist infiltration of this public.

It will be a simple matter to measure the fear of the leftwing, Communist element in this country today. All you have to do asure the vehemence and concentration of their attack on this to curb the Supreme Court.

What are they afraid of?

Are they afraid that true Americans will find out that theywho wish to circumvent and emasculate our Constitution, are ly a minority?

Therefore, it is imperative that this question of curbing the "Third lots of Congress," the Court, be openly debated on the floor of Congress. It is imperative that the people of these United Yes be given a chance to see who defends the pro-Communist decit of the Supreme Court, and who are the brave men who will ack the pro-Communist decisions of the Supreme Court. Doubtless, attempts will be made to pigeonhole this bill in comtee. But, let any who would be so unwise, be mindful of the Honwide public resentment against these recent decisions of the preme Court. Righteous indignation, when it sweeps a nation, e as overwhelming as a hurricane.

Gentlemen, the future survival of America is in your hands.

I was talking yesterday to Richard Arens, of the House Un-Ameriar Activities Committee, and he stated when he makes talks and s with groups across the country, that those people are alert the danger of the Communist conspiracy, and I believe that the orable Senator presiding this morning over this committee, SenaJenner, will agree with that.

Senator JENNER. Thank you, Mr. Courtney. Do you have any stions, Mr. Sourwine?

Mr. SOURWINE. No, sir.

Sator JENNER. There being no further questions, the committee stand in recess until 2 o'clock this afternoon.

Whereupon, at 12 noon the committee was recessed, to reconvene pm, Friday, February 28, 1958.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Senator HRUSKA. The meeting will come to order. This is a conation of the hearings on S. 2646. Mr. Sourwine, I understand at you have some material that you would like to incorporate in neord at this time.

Mr. SOURWINE. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Here is a letter addressed to Senator Holland from Mr. Earl G. Nicholson, of Palatka, Fla. It is transmitted with a referral slip from the Senator who asks that it go on our record.

Senator HRUSKA. It should become a part of our record. (The material referred to is as follows:)

Hon. Senator SPESSARD L. HOLLAND,

Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.

PALATKA, FLA., February 19, 1958.

DEAR HON. SENATOR HOLLAND: In regard to the United States Senate subcommittee hearing on S. 2646, as introduced by Senator Jenner, of Indiana, after having read this report, I am most happy to see that some action is contemplated in heading off the usurpation of the legislative powers of the United States Senate under the guise of sociological, philosophistic philanthropic system of government by well-meaning members of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, who delve more into the very fibers of our American way of life, breaking a strand at a time, until in a real time of crisis or need, we cannot withstand the tension and stress.

It is my sincere hope that this committee will prevail upon the Members of Congress to accept the action undertaken in S. 2646.

Would you please file the statement made in this letter in the records of the Internal Security Subcommittee.

Thanking you, I am

Respectfully yours,

EARL G. NICHOLSON.

Mr. SOURWINE. On Tuesday, Mr. Frank B. Ober of the Maryland bar will testify before us. In connection with his testimony it will be desirable to offer for the appendix of the record an oral statement which he wrote which appeared in the journal of the American Bar Association. As the chairman knows, we are up against the problem of getting our record printed by a deadline. It would facilitate the printing if this could be offered for the appendix now, and since it will appear in a different part of the record, it can do no harm and will help us in getting it in print.

Senator HRUSKA. It will be accepted for the record and will be printed in the appendix.1

Mr. SOURWINE. This, Mr. Chairman, is a portion of the testimony before the subcommittee by a witness under oath with regard to the jubilation of the Communist Party over certain decisions of the Court. I would ask that this might be printed in the appendix of the record.1

Senator HRUSKA. Very well. It will be accepted for that purpose. Mr. SOURWINE. Mr. Chairman, this is along the same line. It is an issue of the publication of the American Legion entitled the "Firing Line," dealing with the reaction of subversive elements to certain Supreme Court decisions.

Senator HRUSKA. That will be accepted for the record for inclusion in the appendix.1

Mr. SOURWINE. This, Mr. Chairman, is a communication received from Mr. Samuel B. Pettengill of Grafton, Vt. He was asked to appear to testify. His letter indicates that he could not do so, but he suggested that there be included in the record an essay he had written on this subject, and I offer his brief note and that essay for the record. Senator HRUSKA. Very well.

1 See appendix II.

(The document referred to is as follows:)

Mr. J. G. SOURWINE,

Committee on the Judiciary,

United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

GRAFTON, VT., February 17, 1958.

DEAR MR. SOURWINE: I appreciate Bill Jenner's suggestion that I be asked to testify in favor of S. 2646.

I could not make any statement of value without much previous study and I regret that I am already so committed on other matters that I simply do not have the time.

I am really sorry that I must decline.
Sincerely yours,

SAM PETTENGILL, Former Member of Congress.

P. S-Possibly the enclosed Human Events letter has enough bearing on the seed for S. 2646, as to be included in the record.

[From Human Events, vol. XIV, No. 40, October 5, 1957]

WHAT IS "THE LAW OF THE LAND"?

By Samuel B. Pettengill

The idea that whatever a judge says is law is actually "the law of the land" and st be obeyed by everyone as a matter of conscience and good citizenship is reading like seeds in a whirlwind.

There are degrees of intensity of conviction with respect to this idea, depending whether the judge is a State judge, a lower Federal court judge, or a United Cates Supreme Court Judge.

Decrees of the Supreme Court of the United States on constitutional questions e given the highest priority as "the law of the land." No such presumption of cability is given the acts of constituional lawmakers-State legislatures and fogress.

The Constitution, it is said, is "what the Supreme Court says it is." This quote attributed to Charles Evans Hughes, but because he was a great lawyer I have Lays supposed he said it with something of a chuckle beneath his beard.

If the idea that "the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is," no matter what, becomes uncritically accepted, it can lead to more harm than segrenation or integration or any other issue likely to arise. It can lead to the final struction of what is left of the boundary lines between the States and the Federal Government. That would, of course, practically destroy the Con

tution.

1 somewhat doubt that this nostrum will be permanently swallowed by the American people without regurgitation. Perfumed as it is now with political inse, the horsesense of the people will nevertheless remind them that, of those Tho now bow the knee to our judicial priesthood, few paid much attention a few ars back to its decrees that the Volstead Act and the 18th amendment were constitutional and the supreme law of the land-binding on one and all. Nevertheless, the doctrine is now epidemic and needs to be examined before w generation is completely brainwashed by long exposure to it. We begin with a recent case. Two Army wives murdered their husbands while med abroad. The women were convicted by court-martial and sentenced afe imprisonment. On June 11, 1956, the United States Supreme Court their trial was constitutional. It became so it is said, "the law of the land" at Army courts could try Army wives.

On June 10, 1957, on rehearing, the Supreme Court held that the act of Conwhich authorized their trial by court-martial was unconstitutional and murderers went free. What was the "law of the land" in 1956 ceased to the law of the land 1 year, less 1 day, later. It was the same case, same Te same facts, same dead husbands. Nothing new had been added or changed. Nothing had been written into or erased from the Constitution in the meaneto my knowledge, but the Constitution had changed. It commanded one one day, and the opposite on a following day. A majority of nine men 1180.

judges have the right to change their binds, but who changed the Conration? Not Congress, nor the people by amendment. The Court had changed

it.

If the Constitution is "what the Court says it is," then the Supreme Cour is a supreme legislative body, or a superconstitutional convention.

Told of this murder mystery, even a schoolboy will see that there is a flaw somewhere in this notion that what a judge, or several judges, say is the law of the Constitution is necessarily so.

If in this case, some State governor or jailer had been required to enforce the Court's first decision that the women had been given a constitutional tria and must be held in prison for life, but had challenged the correctness of the decision and refused to carry it out, would he be held in contempt of court by the American people a year later when the Court admitted that its decision was wrong and not the law of the land?

No. The fact is, of course, that the Supreme Court has reversed itself many times on constitutional questions. It attaches no such sanctity to its own pre vious judgments as the people are now told they must render. The Court has specifically held that judges, as well as executive or legislative officers of govern ment, State or Federal, sometimes act unconstitutionally.

During the time since the 14th amendment was ratified on July 21, 1868, down to May 17, 1954, a period of 86 years, the Supreme Court had held (although not in a public-school case) that the furnishing by public authority of equal but separate facilities to persons of different races or colors was not forbidden by the 14th amendment. During that long period neither Congress nor the people, by amendment, had seen fit to change the amendment to give it the meaning which the Court has now given it.

If ever court decisions and long usage and acceptance of them by the sovereign people during three generations of time had given a fixed meaning to words this would seem to be a settled thing.

On the day the Court ruled in the school case, segregation was required by law or State constitution in 17 States, and in the District of Columbia (under the jurisdiction of Congress itself), and was permitted by law in 4 other States. a total of 22 jurisdictions, whose legislative bodies, including Congress, had acted in the belief that segregation in the schools was constitutional, if facilities were equal. At least seven of these States were outside the South.

In 1867, a year after Congress had proposed the 14th admendment, it estab lished Howard University in the city of Washington as a separate coeducational institution of higher learning for colored men and women, as was, of course. common justice to them.

In 1862, while the war was on, Congress set up land-grant colleges for agriculture and the mechanical arts. In 1890, Congress authorized separate such colleges for white and colored students provided public funds for their support were equitably apportioned to them.

The school cases of 1954 reached the Supreme Court on appeal from four States-Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware, and Virginia-and the District of Columbia, where Congress itself had enforced or permitted segregation for over 80 years. On the way up, 3 United States district courts, each consisting of 3 Federal judges, as well as the Supreme Court of Delaware, relied on this longaccepted interpretation of the 14th amendment as "the law of the land" to the effect that equal but separate schools and schooling were constitutional. In the District of Columbia case, another United States district court had ruled to the same effect. All of these judges, State legislatures, and Congress were reversed by the Supreme Court, which also reversed its own previous ruling that bad been "the law of the land" for 58 years. The Court held that everybody had acted unconstitutionally for 86 years.

In the light of these facts, the decision amounts to judicial legislation, or judicial constitutional amendment by a body of men who have no constitutional power to enact law, or to amend the Constitution as the Court itself has many times said it has no power or right to do.

Strangely enough, the Supreme Court in the same term of court, had before it the question whether organized professional baseball was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, passed in 1890. In 1922, it had held that it was not in violation. The Court in 1953 said that "The business has thus been left for 30 years to develop on the understanding that it was not subject to antitrust legislation," and as Congress, the lawmaking body, had not seen fit to change the antitrust law to apply to baseball, the Court would not attempt to do so by interpretation.

As stated above, Congress, which proposed the 14th amendment for ratification by the States in 1866, at about the same time required or permitted segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia. Succeeding sessions of Congress never changed this practice in the district.