Mississippi Crisis Poses Test of U.S. Constitution
Page 7
Bv Louis Cassals
United Press International The impending test of strength between Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett and the federal government poses the gravest constitutional crisis the United States has faced since the Civil War.
At the heart of the struggle is the doctrine that federal authority is supreme, a doctrine supposedly established once and for all by the Civil War. The Mississippi governor has challenged that doctrine.
The Little Rock, Ark, crisis of five years ago posed no problem of such magnitude. When U.S. troops went into Little Rock, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus stopped short of a final showdown. He never personally defied a federal court order.
IN CONTRAST, Barnett has defied U.S. Courts by personally blocking the entrance of Negro student James H. Meredith to the University of Mississippi. He moved after the courts had forbidden him to interfere.
Senate to Check Humphrey Gains
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — The Senate Armed Services Committee rejected strong Republican protests today and voted to let its stockpile investigators examine the tax returns of mining companies once controlled by former Treasury Secretary George M. Humphrey.
The 9-4 vote was announced after a closed door session of the committee which was marked by a spirited debate over the move. The committee gave special permission to a subcommittee headed by Sen. Stuart Symington, D-Mo., to look at the tax files of three Humphrey firms.
THE ACTION ALSO opened the way for another face-to-face clash between Symington and Humphrey over multi-million dollar nickel stockpiling government contracts held by the companies.
In a previous appearance by Humphrey as a witness, Symington virtually called the Ohio financier a war profiteer. Humphrey denied this and accused subcommittee Democrats of attacking him because they feared to attack former President Dwight D. Eisenhower personally.
Republican Senators Prescott Bush, Conn., Barry Goldwater, Ariza. J. Glenn Beall, Md., and Leverett Saltonstall, Md., voted against the tax examination move.
IT OPENS FOR SUBCOMMITTEE scrutiny the tax returns of the M. A. Hanna Co., Hanna Mining Co., and the Hanna Nickel Smelting Co. Humphrey once held controlling interest in all three Cleveland firms.
The authorization also covered the personal tax returns of Jesse Larson, a Truman administration official who signed the nickel contracts four days before Humphrey took office in January, 1953, and Melville C. Robinson of Pompano Beach, Fla. The latter is a retired government contracting officer who helped negotiate the contracts.
The committee further gave investigators the right to look at the books of Humphrey's charitable trust, The George M. & Pamela Foundation of Cleveland and the Oregon Nickel Smelting Co., of San Francisco which leased nickel property to the Hanna Interests.
TESTIMONY ABOUT THE Hanna companies' tax returns was given to Symington's subcommittee earlier by auditors for the general accounting office.
One auditor, Walter Henson, said the returns disclosed profits of $10 million on the stockpile contracts in a 7-year period ending 1961. Humphrey placed the profits at $7.3 million.
Henson evidently based his calculations on information given him by the Hanna company.
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Furthermore, the governor has ordered state police to resist federal marshals and to arrest them if necessary.
Justice Department officials in Washington hoped some way could be found to avoid a blunt test of strength with Barnett, but Atty Gen. Robert F. Kennedy stated that it was his responsibility to see that federal court orders are obeyed "no matter what course is ultimately necessary."
The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered Barnett to appear before it in New Orleans at 10 a.m. Friday to show cause why he should not be cited for contempt.
University Daily Kansan
IF THE GOVERNOR spurs this summons, the federal government will be faced with an agonizing choice. It can let Barnett get away with his defiance, or it can send a sufficient federal force into Mississippi to take him into custody, regardless of any resistance that state authorities may offer.
The latter alternative is hardly less grave, they acknowledge, since it could have incalculable consequences.
The word from officials in Washington today was that the Kennedy
administration was prepared to send in troops if necessary.
HISTORIANS said there has been no test of federal-state power during the past century, save for the Little Rock situation, which remotely approached the gravity of the deadlock which has developed in Mississippi.
"To find a precedent for Gov. Barnett's actions," said Prof. Wood Gray of George Washington University, "you'd have to go back before the Civil War to 1832, when the legislature of South Carolina declared a federal tariff act, null and void."
The 1832 "Nullification Controversy" never reached the stage of a show of force. The issues were compromised by the enactment of a new federal tariff law the following year.
Prof. Gray said Barnett had revived the basic doctrine which South Carolina proclaimed in the nullification controversy — namely, that a state has the right to "interpose" its own authority to prevent enforcement of a federal law when it considers the federal law to be unconstitutional.
U. S. courts have rejected the "interposition" doctrine several times in recent years. Many historians feel that the Civil War itself was the ultimate repudiation of any idea that state sovereignty is supreme in a head-on clash with federal authority.
Wednesday, Sept. 26, 1962
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil --(UPI)
—Former Prime Minister Francisco Brochado da Rocha died today, three days after he was stricken with a brain hemorrhage at a political rally.
Former Brazil Premier Dies
Da Rocha resigned the premiership earlier this month when congress refused to approve his program of government. A political protege of Rio Gran Do Sul's nationalist governor, Leonel Brizola, Da Rocha was a close personal friend of President Joao Goulart.
He had undergone two brain operations since he suffered the stroke. Death came in the San Francisco Hospital while he was being prepared for a third operation.
Mistakes in the preliminary student directory should be reported by Oct. 1, George B. Smith, vice chancellor in charge of institutional affairs, asked today.
The preliminary directories have been placed in all departments and residence houses.
Chancellor Smith asked that students report mistakes in the directory to the registrar's office and faculty members to the chancellor's office.
Student Help Asked In Spotting Mistakes
A final edition of the directory will be printed at a later date.
Cedric Price Is Architect Lecturer
Cedric Price, well-known English architect and lecturer, will speak at the 50th anniversary celebration of the department of Architecture of the School of Engineering and Architecture. The two lectures by Price will be given at 3:30 p.m. today and tomorrow in Strong Hall Auditorium.
Educated at Cambridge University, Price is an architect in partnership with Lord Snowdon, husband of Princess Margaret. He holds several architectural positions on councils in England has written on architecture and allied subjects, and has lectured at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London and various other centers.
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