The expenditures for which a Federal share of the total sum will be paid under the act are described as: "7

as:

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Any expenditure . . . for which the State expects the Federal Government to pay its share must be included in the plan and must meet the requirements of the act. Such expenditure may include salaries and wages, the purchase of books, other library materials, and equipment, and operational costs applied to the further extension of public library services to rural areas.

State expenditures must be made out of public funds which are defined

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Public funds may include contributions by private organizations or individuals which are deposited in accordance with State law to the account of a unit or agency of State or local government without such conditions or restrictions as would negate their public character.

The patterns of the State plans vary. They include county and regional library demonstrations, and establishment of State library service centers. These centers give permanent service to individuals lacking local libraries, operate bookmobile service and exhibits, or provide scholarship and in-service training projects to improve rural library service.

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare reported that as of March 1958, 45 States, Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands were participating under the Act. Under the program over 300 rural counties throughout the Nation with an aggregate population of over 7,500,000 people were receiving new or improved library services. Approximately 90 bookmobiles had been purchased. More than 120 county and regional library projects had been established by June 30, 1958. State funds for rural library services had increased 38 percent between 1956 and 1958.49

Recent reports indicate that, during its first 4 years of existence the program brought library services to 30 million Americans in rural communities, 4 new regional libraries to Alabama, a statewide conference on book selection to Mississippi, the first trained administrator to the State library of Idaho, bookmobile grants to 5 Ohio counties, and centralized book ordering services to West Virginia.5o

The statutory formula for distribution of funds heavily favored the 17 Southern States because of their predominantly rural economies. According to the 1960 census, one-third of those States had between 64 and 74 percent rural population, another third had between 46 and 56 percent, and the remaining 5 States had from 31 to 42 percent. Thus in 1957-58, the first full year of operation of the Library Services

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Act program, the Southern States received $2,035,904, or approximately 41 percent of the total $5 million appropriation.52 In fiscal 1961, out of a total appropriation of $7,500,000, they received $3,188,883 or approximately 43 percent.5

AVAILABILITY OF SERVICES

In the fall of 1960 the Commission, through its State advisory committees, addressed questionnaires to 256 LSA participating public libraries in the 17 Southern States in an effort to ascertain the type and availability of their services to both the white and Negro residents of the community served.

The questionnaire inquired as to the availability to both races of fixed location reading facilities; as to whether or not facilities were segregated; as to hours of service and size of reference and circulating collections; and as to bookmobile service.54 In most cases the questionnaires returned were completed by the librarian.

Replies were received from only 109 libraries located in 11 States."5 This small return was due in part to the inability of some advisory committees to undertake the task, and in part to the lack of cooperation or even open hostility of State and local officials.56 Replies were received from 62 libraries in 6 of the former Confederate States.57 While the results of the survey are insufficient for a conclusive statistical presentation, nevertheless the data collected disclosed practices in some of these federally-supported libraries clearly in violation of the statute authorizing Federal aid, and also of the constitutional equal protection clause.

All 109 replying libraries reported having one or more fixed locations offering library service. Of these, 61 gave unqualified service to all races; 9 reported that the main reference library was for whites only but that Negroes and whites were served at branches. Of the 9 reporting qualified service, 4 had separate racial facilities available at the same location; 2 reported "cooperation" between branches and main libraries in availability of special equipment; 2 maintained racially separate rest rooms; and I reported that while the State allows "service to racial groups" where books and facilities are provided with public funds, the county library boards set their own racial policies. The remaining 39 libraries reported having reading facilities only for whites, or at segregated branches (some of which were merely service stations for bookmobile pickup and delivery in homes, banks, stores, etc.). In one heavily populated county with 12 library branches none were located in Negro communities, allegedly because of insufficient Negro population.

In another county with a heavy ratio of Negro population there were 12 stations, only 1 of which was for Negroes.

Among the libraries maintaining racially separate branches, the 30 reporting hours of service showed an average of 33.3 hours weekly service at the white branches and 15.2 at the Negro branches. Two libraries reported being open to Negroes only during the summer.

Twenty-eight of the 39 segregated libraries reported on the size of their book collections. Nineteen reported an average of over 28,000 circulating and 959 reference books at white branches and an average of 4,379 circulating and 161 reference books at the Negro branch. As to reference books in these 19 libraries, 2 reported no reference books for Negroes while in the remaining 17 there were between 1.2 and 15.2 times as many reference books for whites as for Negroes.

Seven libraries reported only on the combined reference and circulating collections. The average in white libraries was 30,555 as against 8,323 at the branches for Negroes-the range of difference being between 3 and 6.8 times as many books in the white, as in the Negro libraries.

The Commission's survey included only about one-third of the public libraries in the 17 Southern States receiving Federal aid under the Library Services Act. The information received shows clearly that in some cases services are not available to Negro residents at all though they are available to whites. In others, some provision is made for Negroes in separate inferior branches. Surely these discriminations violate the Federal law authorizing financial aid, and requiring that services shall be free to all residents of the community served. Surely they also violate the equal protection clause, which does not permit racial distinctions in public educational facilities.

On April 13, 1961 the Commission addressed a letter to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, requesting information as to the following:

(1) amount of funds allotted to the Southern States under the Library Services Act of 1956 for fiscal 1961;

(2) the existence of any policy established by agency regulations on the equal availability to all residents of the community of library facilities receiving Federal aid; and

(3) any requirement by the Commissioner of Education, in approving State plans, that the regulations prescribed by the State library agency contain such a provision.

In his reply of May 10, 1961 the Assistant Secretary supplied the fiscal data requested, but failed to disclose the department's policy, if any, with regard to enforcement of compliance with the provisions of the statute requiring the libraries to "serve free all residents of a community, district, or region."

10. Role of the Executive Branch

Each branch of the Federal Government has a role in the maintenance, improvement and constitutional operation of public schools throughout the Nation. Congress has authorized grants-in-aid to improve the quality of State and local educational institutions. As a result of violence in connection with court-ordered desegregation, it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1960 which imposes criminal penalties upon those guilty of willfully obstructing Federal court orders. The Federal courts have had direct responsibility for carrying out the United States Supreme Court decisions on school desegregation.

The Chief Executive is charged by the Constitution to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." This duty is not limited to the enforcement of Acts of Congress but includes obligations growing out of the Constitution itself. One President dispatched troops to Little Rock in 1957 and sent Federal marshals to New Orleans in 1960 to prevent mob interference with Federal court desegregation orders. Presidential statements have stressed the importance of carrying out the constitutional principles announced in the School Segregation Cases. On the occasion of the opening of the Commission's third education conference at Williamsburg in February 1961 the President telegraphed the conference:3

Let me here pay tribute to these educators-principals, officers of school boards, and public school teachers. The constitutional requirement of desegregation has presented them with many new responsibilities and hard challenges. In New Orleans today, as in many other places represented in your three conferences, these loyal citizens and educators are meeting these responsibilities and challenges with quiet intelligence and true courage. The whole country is in their debt, for our public school system must be preserved and improved. Our very survival as a free nation depends upon it. This is no time for schools to close for any reason, and certainly no time for schools to be closed in the name of racial discrimination. If we are to give the leadership that the world requires of us, we must be true to the great principles of our Constitution—the very principles which distinguish us from our adversaries in the world.

Let me also pay tribute to the school children and their parents, of both races, who have been on the front lines of this problem. In accepting the command of the Constitution with dignity, they, too, are contributing to the education of all Americans.

In the same spirit the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare turned down a request for aid from white private schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia, where public schools had been closed to avoid desegregation. The Secretary stated at the time "any aid to the Prince Edward School Foundation would not only constitute aid to a private school to the detriment so to speak of the public school system, but would also discourage efforts to reactivate the public schools in the county." The Secretary added that he hoped the department would reject any future requests "in which the donation of surplus property would contribute to the abandonment of a public school system rather than its furtherance.” “ His successor has indicated to a Senate Committee that the policy will be continued.

The most effective executive action in public school desegregation has been the participation of the Attorney General of the United States in some desegregation suits. His activity in the traditional role as adviser on the law and his intervention as plaintiff will be recounted in this chapter.

THE SECOND BROWN CASE

The first appearance of the Attorney General in a school desegregation case came in Brown v. Board of Education. In its 1954 decision in the School Segregation Cases the Supreme Court requested further argument on the question of relief, and invited the United States Attorney General and the attorneys general of all States in which racial segregation was explicitly required or permitted by law to file briefs as amici curiae, or "friends of the court." Plaintiffs in the consolidated cases contended that there was no justification for delay, and that Negro children should be admitted to public schools on a nondiscriminatory basis "forthwith." On the other hand defendants and some of the amici curiae argued for delay. They emphasized the long history of legally sanctioned segregation and the social pattern established thereby, concluding that the Court should leave the implementation of its decision to the voluntary action of local communities. The Federal Attorney General proposed a middle course which the Court in substance adopted. He suggested that the cases be remanded to the lower courts to require the defendant school boards either to admit the plaintiffs immediately,