THE PRESIDENCY: Temperate Law

Neither passionate proddings by Northerners nor desperate defiance by Southerners have swayed Dwight Eisenhower in his refusal to make a moral crusade out of the civil rights issue. The President’s bedrock position: the law must be obeyed. Last week the Administration sent to Congress a civil rights bill that is even more temperate in its use of law than its 1957 version. Notably missing: the celebrated Title III of the 1957 bill that would have empowered the Attorney General to file suits on behalf of citizens deprived of civil rights,* an omission seeming to indicate that the President is satisfied with the present pace of integration. Key provisions of the new program : ¶ Make force or threat of force a federal offense when used, as in Little Rock, to defy U.S. court integration orders; recommended maximum penalties: two years and $10,000 fine.

¶ Provide, through the U.S. Office of Education, technical guidance, limited subsidies, and other aid for schools wrestling with integration problems. ¶ Authorize federal operation of integrated schools for servicemen’s children when legal wrangling over segregation closes any schools in areas heavily populated by service people. ¶ Grant the Attorney General power to subpoena records for any election involving federal officeholders; require all state and local officials to keep such records for three years. ¶ Set federal penalties (five years, $5,000) for flight across state lines from any state’s investigation of school or church bombing. ¶ Extend the life of the late-starting, hard-working Civil Rights Commission, created by the Administration’s 1957 bill, for another two years.

Said the President at his news conference: “I believe that legislation that is certain to exacerbate the whole situation, that is going to raise tempers and increase prejudices could be far more harmful than good.” Echoed Texan Lyndon Johnson, Senate majority leader who fanfared his own conciliatory program last month: “There is an atmosphere of reason in which all proposals can be considered and the issues decided upon their merits.”

* A tough provision killed out of the 1957 bill by mutual agreement of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Walter Reuther’s United Auto Workers and the Americans for Democratic Action.