352 250 FEDERAL SUPPLEMENT tors and representatives by the direct primary. In United States v. State of Louisiana, E.D.La.1963, 225 F.Supp. 353, 359, aff'd. on other grounds, 1965, 380 U.S. 145, 85 S.Ct. 817, 13 L.Ed.2d 709 this Court said: "Congressional authority [under Ar- In United States v. Manning, W.D,La. 1963, 215 F.Supp. 272, one of the constitutional attacks on the Civil Rights Act of 1960 was directed at the provision for federal registrars. In the opinion upholding the act, the Court considered it important that "For purposes of accomplishing the constitutional objective the electoral process is indivisible. The act of casting a ballot in a voting booth cannot be cut away from the rest of the process. It is the last step in a process that starts with registration. Similarly, registration is an indivisible part of elections. * ** There is no separate registration for federal elections. Any interference with the qualified voter's right to register is therefore interference with a federal election." 215 F. Supp. at 283. [22] (c) Classic relied on three important cases that construe the nature and extent of the power of Congress to regulate federal elections: Ex parte Siebold, 1880, 100 U.S. 371, 25 L.Ed. 717; Ex parte Yarbrough, The Ku Klux Klan cases, 1884, 110 U.S. 651, 4 S.Ct. 152, 28 L.Ed. 274; and Burroughs v. United States, 1934, 290 U.S. 534, 54 S.Ct. 287, 78 L.Ed. 484, 485. These cases point to the principle that a congressional statute protecting against private interference before the voting stage is necessary and proper legislation under Article I, Sec tion 4, whenever it is reasonably related to "protection of the integrity" of the federal electoral process. Classic, 313 U.S. at 316, 61 S.Ct. at 1038. Ex parte Siebold involved a conviction of state election officers for ballot-stuffing in a federal election. The Court had before it the Enforcement Act from which Section 1971 was derived. The statute contained a number of extensive voting and registration regulations, including a provision for the appointment of federal election supervisors. These supervisors were authorized "to cause such names to be registered as they may think proper to be so marked". In sustaining the validity of the legislation under Article I, Section 4, the Court commented:.. The "It is the duty of the States to elect [23, 24] In Yarbrough the Court had before it the question whether Congress could protect civil rights against private interference, specifically klan aggression in the form of intimidation of voters. Yarbrough and eight other members of a Georgia klan were indicted for conspiring to intimidate a Negro in the exercise of his right to vote for a congressional representative. It was shown that they used physical violence and that they went in disguise upon the public highways. They were convicted under the section of the Enforcement Act of 1870, Revised Statutes Section 5508, that was the predecessor of 18 U.S.C. § 241; and also under Section 5520. These are the criminal law UNITED STATES v. ORIGINAL KNIGHTS OF KU KLUX KLAN counterpart to 42 U.S.C. § 1971. The Act [25-27] The heart of the Yarbrough decision is the Court's emphasis on the transcendent interest of the federal government.27 The violence and intimidation to which the Negro was subjected were important because they alloyed the purity of the federal political process. The federal government "must have the 27. Our silence with respect to the 15th Amendment carries no implied comment as to the scope of that amendment. We found it unnecessary to consider the 15th Amendment because of the Nation's manifest interest in the integrity of federal elections and the Supreme Court's approval of a constitutional basis for that interest. On its face, however, Section 1 of the Fifteenth Amendment clearly establishes a constitutional basis for Congress to protect the unabridged right of 250 F.Supp.-23 353 power to protect the elections on which its existence depends from violence and corruption". 110 U.S. at 658, 4 S.Ct. at 155. This implied power arises out of governmental necessity. The Court said: "The power in either case arises out of the circumstance that the function in which the party is engaged or the right which he is about to exercise is dependent on the laws of the United States. "In both cases it is the duty of that government to see that he may exercise this right freely, and to protect him from violence while so doing, or on account of so doing. This duty does not arise solely from the interest of the party concerned, but from the necessity of the government itself that its service shall be free from the adverse influence of force and fraud practiced on its agents, and that the votes by which its members of congress and its president are elected shall be the free votes of the electors, and the officers thus chosen the free and uncorrupted choice of those who have the right to take part in that choice." Since it is the purity of the federal political process that must be protected, the protection may be extended against interference with any activity having a rational relationship with the federal political process. Thus, the "rationale of Yarbrough indicates congressional power over voting, though limited to federal elections, extends to voter registration activities", including registration rallies, voter education classes, and other all citizens to vote in state elections free from discrimination on account of race. Given that basis, a congressional statute protecting citizens from state or private interference with the right to participate in any part of the voting process (registration, primary, pre-primary, etc.) would seem to be as "appropriate" for protection of voters in state elections, under Section 2 of the 15th Amendment, as it is "necessary and proper" for protection of voters in federal elections. 354 250 FEDERAL SUPPLEMENT activities intended to encourage registra- [28] Burroughs is one of a number of "While presidential electors are not [29,30] The states' power over the 28. Comment, Federal Civil Action Against tors is similar to the states' reserved pow- Classic involved federal indictments "The right to participate in the # is the right to vote at the election, (1965). And see Maggs and Wallace, UNITED STATES v. ORIGINAL KNIGHTS OF KU KLUX KLAN mary elections, Congress is left * " The innumerable cases in this Circuit involving civil rights speak eloquently against the use of economic coercion, intimidation, and violence to inhibit Negroes from applying for registration. This interference with nationally guaranteed rights, whether by public officials or private persons corrupts the purity of the political process on which the existence and health of the National Government depend. No one has expressed this better than Judge Rives in United States v. Wood, 5 Cir. 1961, 295 F.2d 772, cert. denied 369 U.S. 850, 82 S.Ct. 933, 8 L.Ed.2d 9 (1962).29 In Wood the interference was in the form of groundless prosecution of a Negro organizer who had set up a registration school in Walthall County, Mississippi, where no Negroes had ever registered. He was not even qualified to vote in the county where the intimidatory acts occurred; he was a resident of another county. In reversing the district judge's refusal to stay the state prosecution, the Fifth Circuit noted that the alleged coercion was of the kind the 1957 Act was intended to reach. Judge Rives, for the Court, said: "The foundation of our form of government is the consent of the governed. Whenever any person interferes with the right of any other person to vote or to vote as he may choose, he acts like a political termite to destroy a part of that foundation. A single termite or many termites may pass unnoticed, but each damages the foundation, and if that process is allowed to continue 29. In that case Hardy, a Negro resident of Tennessee, a member of the "Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee", was in Walthall County, Mississippi for the purpose of organizing Negroes of that county to register and vote. Hardy engaged in an argument with the registrar. The registrar ordered him to leave the office. As he got to the door, the registrar struck him on the back of the head with a revolver. Hardy was arrested and charged with a breach of the 355 the whole structure may crumble and fall even before the occupants become aware of their peril. Eradication of political termites, or at least checking their activities, is necessary to prevent irreparable damage to our Government." [31-33] We hold that the defendants' acts of economic coercion, intimidation, and violence directed at Negro citizens in Washington Parish for the purpose of deterring their registering to vote strike at the integrity of the federal political process. The right to vote in federal elections, a privilege of national citizenship secured by the United States Constitution, includes the right to register to vote. The right to register to vote includes the right to be free from public or private interference with activities rationally related to registering and to encouraging others to register. (2) The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Public Accommodation. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of Title II as it applies to motels and restaurants. Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 1964, 379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348, 13 L.Ed.2d 258; Katzenbach v. McClung, 1964, 379 U.S. 294, 85 S.Ct. 377, 13 L.Ed. 2d 290. [34] The defendants are left, therefore, only with the contention that the Act, for reasons not articulated, should not reach private persons. The defendants are really arguing against the judgment of Congress in selecting injunctive relief against private persons as one method of enforcing congressional policy. Once it is conceded that Congress has the power, under the commerce clause, to forbid discrimination peace. The Court hurdled (1) the fact that Hardy was not eligible to register and therefore his right to vote was not interfered with; (2) the appeal was from a denial of a request for a temporary restraining order, generally an unappealable order under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291, 1292; (3) the prosecution was a state criminal court proceeding, protected by the doctrine of comity and Section 2283 severely restricting federal injunctions of state proceedings. 356 250 FEDERAL SUPPLEMENT in public places, there is little doubt that injunctive relief against any person seeking to frustrate the statutory objective is appropriate. In this Circuit, relying on In re Debs, 1895, 158 U.S. 564, 15 S.Ct. 900, 39 L.Ed. 1092, the courts have held that when private persons burden commerce to the detriment of the national interest, the Nation may enjoin such persons even without enabling legislation. On two occasions courts have issued injunctions against klans and klansmen engaged in intimidation and violence burdening commerce. United States v. U. S. Klans, M.D.Ala.1961, 194 F.Supp. 897; Plummer v. Brock, M.D.Fla.1964, 9 R.Rel.L. Rep. 1399. See also United States v. City of Jackson, 5 Cir. 1963, 318 F.2d 1. (3) The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Equal Employment Opportunities. Title VII, like Title II, is based upon the commerce clause. The term "industry affecting commerce" used in Title VII parallels the definition of "industry affecting commerce" in the LMRDA (29 U.S.C. § 402(c)). This in turn incorporates the definition of "affecting commerce" in the NLRA (29 U.S.C. § 152 (7)). The National Labor Relations Act represents an exercise of congressional regulatory power to "the fullest jurisdictional breadth constitutionally permissible under the Commerce Clause," NLRB v. Reliance Fuel Oil Corp., 1963, 371 U.S. 224, 226, 83 S.Ct. 312, 313, 9 L.Ed.2d 279; Polish National Alliance of United States v. NLRB, 1944, 322 U.S. 643, 647, 64 S.Ct. 1196, 88 L.Ed. 1509, a conclusion equally applicable to Title VII. The sweeping regulations in the NLRA and LMRDA covering the terms, conditions, and policies of hiring and bargaining do not differ in any essential respect 30. The Court finds that on the admissions and on the evidence adduced at the hearing, a preliminary injunction should not issue against Charles Ray Williams, Louis Applewhite, and Willis Blackwell. The Court does not enter a judgment of dismissal as to these defendants, because the United States expressly reserved the right to introduce additional evidence at the hearing for permanent relief, as to these and other defendants. At the time from this legislation prohibiting discrimination in hiring practices and on the job assignments. The employer-employee relationship has, of course, direct effect upon the production of industries which are in commerce and upon the practical utilization of the labor force and the power of Congress to regulate these activities cannot be doubted. NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 1936, 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893; NLRB v. Fainblatt, 1939, 306 U.S. 601, 606, 307 U.S. 609, 59 S.Ct. 668, 83 L.Ed. 1014; Mabee v. White Plains Publishing Co., 1946, 327 U.S. 178, 66 S.Ct. 511, 90 L.Ed. 607. [35] Defendants admit that they beat and threatened Negro pickets to prevent them from enjoying the right of equal employment opportunity. The effect of course is to prevent Negroes from gaining free access to potential employers. Such acts not only deter Negroes but intimidate employers who might other. wise wish to comply with the law but fear retaliation and economic loss. This is precisely what the klan's Boycott Rules are designed to do. The United States has alleged, the defendants have admitted, and the proof has shown that the defendants have intimidated, harassed, and in other ways interfered with the civil rights of Negroes secured by the Constitution. The admission and proof show a pattern and practice of interference. Protection against the acts of terror and intimidation committed by the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the individual defendants can be halted only by a broad injunctive decree along the lines of the order suggested by the United States. The Court will promptly issue an appropriate order.30 of the hearing, Blackwell had not been correctly served. We find that James Ellis, Sidney August Warner, and Albert Applewhite are members of the klanACCA or were members until recently, and therefore should be enjoined. The defendants' request for dismissal of the action as to these named defendants and their request for attorneys fees are denied. |