March 20, 1962 (4)

The Senate resumed the consideration of the motion of the Senator from Montana [Mr. MANSFIELD] to proceed to the consideration of the joint resolution <S.J. Res. 29) providing for the establishing of the former dwelling house of Alexander Hamilton as a national monument.

Mr. EASTLAND. Mr. President, as I stated, we do not have jurisdiction over those States, but we have primary jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. The Constitution of the United States places that jurisdiction in the hands of Congress.

Let us go further into this record. Baltimore, Md., has a population of almost 200,000 in excess of Washington, D.C. It is interesting to compare certain of the Baltimore statistics with those of Washington. As bad as the record is in Baltimore, Washington outdoes Baltimore in the vital categories that strike terror so deep into the hearts of those people who live in the Washington area. There were 134 rapes recorded in Baltimore in 1961, and 100 recorded in Washington.

Baltimore is a city with 200,000 more people than reside here. Police officials have told me that, in their judgment, there are as many unreported rapes in the District of Columbia as there are rape cases that are reported to the police.

Baltimore's record of robberies was 1,029 against 1,348 in Washington. In the category of aggravated assault, there were only 1,966 in Baltimore, as compared to 2,955 in Washington. As to burglaries, 4,573 were recorded in Baltimore, while Washington reflects a total of 4,902. In larceny of $50 or over-the common stealing crime-there were 4,460 in Baltimore against only 2,464 in Washington. These figures reflect that the crimes of violence are much more rampant in this Capital city than they are in the near-neighbor city, and it is in these self-same cities that we find the spearheads of the agitation for the abolition of the poll tax and the enactment of civil rights legislation-God spare the day when their culture can be forced upon the Southern States, where peace and tranquillity prevail-all laws that are designed as penal measures against those areas of the United States which crime statistics reveal are the most peaceful and most law abiding in the entire country.

A most interesting editorial in line with the discussion of my colleague from Mississippi [Mr. STENNIS] and my present discussion appeared in the Monday edition of the Evening Star. It states: Donald Clemmer, district director of corrections, seems to have been right when he predicted that the outbreak of violence in Washington would get worse before it gets better . The recent epidemic of vicious and unprovoked attacks is enough to make decent citizens fearful of leaving their homes. This is not organized crime in the usual sense. Nor are the thugs responsible for it content to rob and steal. In more cases than not, their victims also are brutally beaten. Chief Judge McGuire, of the district court, didn't exaggerate when he commented in court that "You can't go out in the street without being hit on the head. You can't ride a bus. You can't close your place of business at night but what thieves get in." And he was right when he said that one thing that can be done is to let it be known that stiffer sentences will be imposed on those who are caught. "When you snatch a pocketbook," he told one offender, "you are just snatching a little time out of your life-you are going to jail. That is the way it is going to be."

District Commissioner John B. Duncan has more or less echoed these sentiments in a companion move against criminals initiated by all three Commissioners.

This move takes the form of an appeal to the House District Committee for speedy action on a bill to authorize the Commissioners to mobilize the city's police reserve corps. If necessary legislation is enacted, this group of some 2,000 men and women would be able to work with the regular police on street patrols and similar assignments. Certainly it should be helpful in dealing with the yokers, the clubbers and the stompers.

Mr. Duncan makes · the point, and we think he is right, that public tolerance of crime, indifference to conditions which breed crime and insufficient discipline of young people are major contributing factors to the upsurge of violence in the Nation's Capital.

The immediate problem, however, is that of coping with crime itself, not the conditions which produce criminals. In this connection, more extensive policing of the streets and the severer penalties suggested by Judge McGuire certainly would help. To be avoided is the fuzzy-minded notion that the yokers will go away if we all pretend that they don't exist. ·

I am in thorough agreement with the remarks made by Chief Judge McGuire that the thing to do with the thugs and hoodlums and the murders and rapists is to put them in jail and see that they stay there. If I had to point my finger at the one agency that must take the greatest share of the blame for creating a climate that allows crime to run so rampant, I am constrained to lay the responsibility on the judges, not so much those who try to sentence the criminals, but the appellate courts and in the hierarchies of the appellate courts. The ultimate responsibility, particularly insofar as the District of Columbia is concerned, must rest squarely and firmly on the shoulders of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The second offender, Mr. President is the Congress of the United States, which refuses to come to grips with murder, rape and robbery in the District of Columbia. The police of this city are doing · a fine job, but the politicians, because of pressure from · pressure groups ill great northern cities, will not come to grips with the issue. We do not give adequate protection to the employees whom we bring to this city to help carry on the work of the American Congress, We do not give adequate protection to the people who live in the District of Columbia. Charles J. Bloch, who in my judgment is the greatest living constitutional lawyer, made a masterful speech before · the southeast regional meeting of the American Bar Association in Birmingham, Ala., on November 9, 1961. Mr. Bloch not only is a trial lawyer of great distinction, but also he is the author of several books and is recognized as an authority in the great area of conflict of laws between the Federal and State jurisdictions. In this masterful speech he said, in part:

Perhaps the most frequently cited case in support of the thesis that the Supreme Court is maintaining a soft line toward criminals is Mallory v. United States, wherein the case of a rapist was reversed and remanded because he had not been taken before a committing magistrate "without unnecessary delay."

I venture to predict that, . in the future, Willie Lee Stewart will supplant Mallory in this respect. Willie Lee had been twice convicted of murder and secured reversals on the basis of trial errors. A third trial also resulted in a verdict of guilty and a death sentence. While he was on the stand, the prosecuting attorney asked him, "Willie, you were tried on two other occasions-this is the first time you have gone on the stand, isn't it, Willie?"

By a vote of 5 to 4 this was held to have been erroneous.

The Supreme Court of the United States held that to be reversible error, Mr. President. Think of such a foolish thing. He was asked whether he had been tried twice before and this was the first time he had gone on the stand.

One of the four was Mr. Justice Clark whose opinion commences:

"It may be that Willie Lee Stewart had an the roll. intelligence level in the moronic class but he can laugh up his sleeve today for he has again made a laughing stock of the law."

Mr. President, the Supreme Court of the United States has made a laughing stock of the law.

Another of the four was Justice Frankfurter. He quoted from ex-President, ex-Chief Justice Taft: "When a court of highest authority in the country thus interposes a bare technicality between a defendant and his just conviction, it is not too much to charge some of the laxity in our administration of the criminal law to a proneness on the part o1 courts of last resort to find error and to reverse judgments of conviction."

A continuation of this policy toward criminals can only lead to the making of a laughing stock of the law-and when a laughing stock of the law is made, assaults on police Officers, such as we read of in New York, follow, become more and more frequent. In their wake, anarchy and communism thrive. Let us hope that the winds may change. If they do not, the present temporary debacle will turn into a rout of our internal security (a. quotation from Justice Clark 1n Greene v. McElroy).

If, though, those who framed the Constitution could arise from their tombs and speak to the members of the legal profession, they would say: "We furnished the safeguards; you a.re too cowardly or you are too selfish or you are thinking too much of political situations to see to it that those safeguards are utilized.

It is needless to say how prophetic were the words of my great and good friend, Charlie Bloch. Willie Lee Stewart was tried again and the last jury was hung when one or two members held out for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity against the balance of the jury that wanted to :tlnd him guilty as charged. Again a laughing stock has been made of the law and, as Mr. Bloch so forcefully points out, the blame can be laid squarely on the shoulders of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Terror in the streets can stop when the courts perform their proper function in protecting organized society against murderers, rapists, muggers, thugs, and hoodlums. If we systematically remove these criminals from the streets there will be none to take their place. The average citizen must be made to feel that it is not only his right but also his duty to aid and abet our duly constituted law enforcement agencies in carrying forth this duty.

Mr. President, this reign of terror is aided and abetted by the Supreme Court of the United States, which will resort to any technicality to free a murderer, to free a rapist, or to turn loose on innocent people a savage who goes around committing crime after crime.

I say to Senators, the next most re· sponsible is the Congress of the United States, for not coming to grips with this question upon Capitol Hill. We should be interested in that field of legislation, rather than conducting an attack upon :tlve States of this Union on a negative matter.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to call

Mr. HOLLAND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.