Nation: Where Barry Stands

Although he was not there in the flesh, Barry Goldwater was much talked about at last week’s Governors’ Conference. And talked about especially was his position on civil rights.

California’s Democratic Governor Pat Brown came right out and charged that Goldwater shares the “position of extreme Southern Governors.” That sent newsmen scurrying to ask other Governors where they thought Barry stood. Georgia’s Carl Sanders said that in his state Goldwater is widely “thought of as a segregationist.” Mississippi’s Ross Barnett said he was not sure, but “I understand he’s an integrationist.” No, argued Arizona’s Paul Fannin, a Goldwater Republican: Barry is neither a segregationist nor an integrationist, but “an American.” Well, New York’s Nelson Rockefeller put in, it would be “helpful” if Goldwater would clarify his views. Michigan’s George Romney said he was uncertain where Barry stood, added that he would like to know.

Goldwater himself energetically denied that he is a segregationist or has ever been one. “When Pat Brown calls me that,” said Barry, “he speaks from his usual source of ignorance.”

Two Viewpoints. Where does Goldwater stand on civil rights? And why the confusion and doubt about where he stands? The confusion arises largely because Goldwater has spoken out on civil rights from two distinct viewpoints —as a man who sympathizes with the Negroes’ demands for equality and as a conservative bent on conserving constitutional government.

Goldwater claims a proud civil rights record in his home state of Arizona.

He was the first chief of staff of the Arizona National Guard to desegregate the Air Guard. He was a member of the N.A.A.C.P. in the early 1950s, contributed $400 to the N.A.A.C.P. effort to get the Phoenix school system desegregated. He quit the N.A.A.C.P. several years ago, but he remains a member of the Urban League, which is also dedicated to the advancement of Negroes.

Again and again, Goldwater has said that he sympathizes with the Negro protest movement. “If I were a Negro,” he recently said, “I don’t think I would be very patient either.” He endorses federal intervention, with troops if necessary, when state and local officials fail to maintain law and order in racial disputes. He subscribes to the idea that the Constitution empowers the Federal Government to protect Negroes against discrimination in interstate travel. And he believes that race discrimination by proprietors of stores and public accommodations is morally wrong (but not unconstitutional).

Goldwater’s position on the Kennedy civil rights bill is made up of characteristic distinctions. He opposes the “public accommodations” section, on grounds that any attempt to correct a moral evil by law “will not solve anything,” and such a law would “upset individual rights and states’ rights.” He favors the proposal to expand job training and vocational education programs, because he feels that the heart of the racial crisis is economic. “What Negroes want is job equality.” As for Kennedy’s request for discretionary authority to withhold funds from federally assisted programs in which discrimination is practiced, Goldwater would go the President one better: he would make denial of funds mandatory. It would be interesting, he says, to see “how long a state would push for segregation if federal funds for roads ‘got lost.’ ”

Rifle & Shotgun. Many Southern segregationists feel that Goldwater is really on their side because he sturdily defends “states’ rights.” In his bestselling credo, The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater took a constitutional view of the conflict between states’ rights and federal intervention on the side of Ne groes. The Federal Government, he said, can lawfully intervene to protect a right, such as the right to vote, that is asserted by the Constitution or by a valid federal law. But public education is among the matters that the Tenth Amendment reserves to the states. “It may be just or wise or expedient for Negro children to attend the same schools as white children, but they do not have a civil right to do so which is protected by the Federal Constitution or which is enforceable by the Federal Government.” He subscribes to the “objectives” of the Supreme Court’s 1954 desegregation decision, Goldwater says, but “I am not prepared to impose that judgment of mine on the people of Mississippi or South Carolina.”

Only last week Goldwater modified that position a bit. He said “there might be an excuse for” a federal law requiring desegregation in public schools, if such a bill could be so drawn that it would be “aimed like a rifle, not like a shotgun.” Perhaps Goldwater’s views on civil rights would seem clearer if he used only one barrel.