The Charlotte News

Monday, August 26, 1957

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House Rules Committee, where the compromised civil rights bill had been stalled since August 7, had finally voted 10 to 2 this date to provide a recommendation for it so it could move to the House floor for a full vote. The vote overrode the dissents of the chairman, Representative Howard W. Smith of Virginia, and Representative William Colmer of Mississippi, opponents of the compromise measure. The House vote was anticipated to occur the following day. The meeting of the Committee had been forced by seven members because Mr. Smith had refused to call it into session. Mr. Smith, bowing to the will of the Committee majority, said that he had assigned the bill to Representative Ray Madden of Indiana, a supporter of the measure, for its handling on the House floor. The compromise measure approved by the Committee had been approved by Congressional leaders of both parties the prior Friday. If the House voted approval, it was expected that the Senate would follow likewise and that the compromise measure would thus go to the President for signature, to become the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.

On the editorial page, Drew Pearson tells of some Southern institutions of higher learning apparently not having read the fine print of the educational grant contracts being advanced to them by the Atomic Energy Commission to promote education in nuclear physics. The U.S. had been falling behind Russia in that field and so the AEC was helping colleges and universities purchase nuclear reactors and laboratory equipment and funding fellowships and endowments totaling eight million dollars. The contracts required that at the recipient institution's nuclear physics program, "no person shall be barred from participation or be subject of other unfavorable discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, or religion."

At least ten Southern institutions had agreed to the provision for the aid, including N.C. State, recipient of $202,000, Miami University, $5,800, VPI, $159,700, the University of Florida, $225,550, Georgia Tech, $34,000, the University of Texas, $74,500, Texas A&M, $158,000, Rice, $121,350, the University of Tennessee, $97,350, and Alabama Poly, $74,800.

Clemson College, however, had refused the grant and returned the $99,050 contract to avoid having to integrate the program.

It appeared that it was better dead than Red at most places, but at Clemson, 'twas better disintegrated than desegregated.

As we have fallen behind, full notes associated with the pages will be sporadic until we catch up.

Framed Edition

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