May 19, 1970
Page 16123
MISSION TO MISSISSIPPI
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on May 4, 1970, four students were shot to death at Kent State University. More were wounded. This tragedy began with a student demonstration. The National Guard was called in. Rocks and bricks were thrown at the security forces. The National Guard engaged the demonstrators.
They shot into the crowd. They shot claiming self-defense. Slain were two young men and two young women.
Within 2 weeks, on May 15, 1970, two more young people were shot to death at Jackson State College in Mississippi under circumstances similar to the shootings at Kent State. But this time by police officers, not the National Guard. It was a police force called to quell a demonstration. No tear gas was used to disperse the demonstrators, and in response to what was thought to have been sniper fire, the police riddled the Jackson State dormitory with bullets.
In between these appalling killings of young people, was the tragedy in Augusta, Ga., where on May 11-12, six blacks were killed.
Within less than 2 weeks, 12 people have been killed. It is vital that the facts be uncovered fully and objectively in each instance. But that is the beginning, and it is not enough. Nor will it be enough to determine that better security tactics are needed to keep the peace in today's turbulent society. Our effort must be to understand why students feel alienated from society, why we must listen with greater sensitivity to the changes taking place in society.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed at this point in the RECORD an editorial on the Jackson State incident which appeared in the Washington Post of Monday, May 18, 1970.
There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, May 18, 1970]
JACKSON STATE
Almost nothing about Jackson State College would remind you, ordinarily, of Kent State University, the one being primarily black and in Mississippi, the other being largely white and Middle American. By race and history, as well as geography, they are miles, not to say worlds, apart and yet "today it is the similarities between them that are striking," according to a report in this newspaper yesterday by Haynes Johnson, who visited both campuses in the aftermath of tragedy. That's what is so particularly appalling about the killing of two Jackson State students, and the wounding of another nine, by police officers – that it could have happened in a way so strikingly similar to the shootings at Kent State, within two weeks.
The two tragedies began the same way, with student demonstrations. They evolved the same way, with the calling in of police and National Guard units, with an outbreak of violence, with the throwing of rocks and bricks at the security forces. And they ended the same way. At Jackson State the Guard was held back and the local and state police moved in; at Kent State, the Guard engaged the demonstrators. Otherwise it was horribly the same, in the essential details. The security forces were armed with live ammunition; they shot, not to warn or to disperse, but right into the crowd. They shot to kill. According to the authorities, they shot, in both cases, without order, spontaneously, claiming self-defense. You have only to look at the windows of the women's dormitory at Jackson State to see how it was done – in a great indiscriminate fusillade against the wall of the building.
So it was very much the same at Jackson State, except for one thing – we had just had Kent State. We had just had the example of sending tired, tense, ill-trained Guardsmen with loaded weapons up against a group of student demonstrators for whom they apparently had a resentment, if not a contempt. Not the least of the lessons, already learned on other campuses and in other cities, was that tear gas in ample quantities works better than guns; at Kent State the Guard ran out of tear gas.
At Jackson State this lesson was applied by not using tear gas at all. There was no first effort to disperse the demonstrators before they could become a menace to the security forces. At Jackson State, white policemen went for their guns against black students – theirs was a different kind of contempt.
We are being told, as we were told at Kent State, that snipers started the shooting, that the security force had to fire back to save themselves. And we are also being told by eyewitnesses, as at Kent State, that this isn't so. The inevitable investigation is underway and if it establishes that the police at Jackson State were under fire, then this would go some way toward explaining why they might have been under extreme pressure to fire back out of fear for their lives. But this would not explain the ruthless, aimless cannonading that pockmarked the wall of the women's dorm; there was a report of a sniper on the fourth floor but nobody has claimed there were snipers in every window. It would not explain why tear gas was not even tried. It would not explain why the crowd was not warned and ordered to disperse before the police went for their guns. And nothing can explain away the hardest fact of all about the Mississippi tragedy: it is not just that it was senseless and needless but that only two weeks before Jackson State there had been Kent State.
Mr. MUSKIE. The time has come, for this Nation once again to go on record and reaffirm the commitments we made to all Americans in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of the United States. The sacredness of human life, the worth, dignity, and liberty of every human being are what this Nation is all about.
Yet, we have witnessed sudden and tragic death at Kent State in Ohio, at Augusta, Ga., and at Jackson State in Mississippi. We know all too well that violence, hate, and divisiveness must be brought to an end. If we are asked to remember our commitments abroad, we must never forget our commitments right here at home. Our basic commitment is to "one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." It is not liberty and justice for some. It is not to a nation divided – black from white, young from old.
We must seek every chance for unity, every chance to enhance the value of human life. We must not allow ourselves to be divided by words or deeds of men in whatever position. It is never too late to start afresh, to move the country and its people together through compassion and mutual respect.
This morning, Mr. President, I received the following telegram from Mayor Charles Evers, of Fayette, Miss., in which he said:
Would be honored if you and other national leaders could join us Friday in Jackson for funeral of slain students.
As a symbol of our concern, I have arranged for a charter aircraft to carry a group of citizens – black and white, young and old – from Washington to Jackson, Miss., for the funeral on Friday of one of the two young students who were killed there.
Abraham Lincoln said that "a house divided against itself cannot stand" To reunite our people, we must reaffirm our fundamental values, we must reaffirm them with a continuing commitment to make them real for all Americans. If we together exercise compassion and love, if we now determine that our responsibility is to heal, the tragedies of the past 2 weeks need never be repeated.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am pleased that my distinguished colleague from Maine has made those remarks. This has been a terrible tragedy. I would recommend that if we ever needed proof of the ineffectiveness and destructiveness of this kind of approach, we certainly have it now.
There has to be a better way. There must be a better way. Those who would continue to use this particular method which ends in riots, bloodshed, and shootings should be dissuaded from their course.
Mr. President, I am sure that I have worn out the patience of my colleagues on all of these matters since way back, when this whole trouble began in Watts, my hometown. I watched the whole community damned unfairly. It is a bad neighborhood, but it is not a bad community. It is a good community with good, hard-working and honest people living there. But there were some troublemakers on the streets that night. But that was not my community of Watts. I have said that on this floor many times.
Mr. President, with reference to the unfortunate tragedy that took place at Kent State University, I notice that recently the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Larry O'Brien, shocked me and I think possibly shocked the Nation with an exhibition that I thought was in appallingly bad taste to the degree that my friend, the Senator from Kansas (Mr. DOLE), felt compelled to take him to task for it.
In one of the most sickening and demagogic utterances in this history of American politics, Mr. O'Brien attempted to play politics with the tragedy at Kent State University by trying to line that sad event with what he called the "Nixon-Agnew-Mitchell inflammatory rhetoric."
I sincerely hope that Mr. O'Brien did not mean that. I hope that some speech writer in the enthusiasm of the moment put those words on paper and that he read it quickly without even having thought it through.
The Senator from Kansas suggested in his remarks that Mr. O'Brien apologize to the President and the Vice President and the Attorney General. I agree, of course, but I feel that it is just as important for Mr. O'Brien to apologize to the political party he obviously was trying by innuendo to embarrass, as well as to the responsible and sensitive good members of his own political party who I am sure were just as offended by his remarks as I was.
Parenthetically, I would like to observe that I feel I can speak for certain Democrats in this matter, too, not only because many voted for me in the State of California – I must have had well over 700,000 of their votes – but more importantly because the principles of good taste know no party lines.
I cannot help but think that although many members of my party disagreed at times with the late President John F. Kennedy over certain policies and decisions, almost all agreed – in fact, I know of no one who ever disagreed – that he at all times tried to observe the dictates of good taste and good manners. Therefore, it is particularly disturbing to me when a man like Mr. O'Brien, who was so closely associated with the late, greatly respected, and loved President Kennedy, defiles the example so well established.
I ask unanimous consent that at this point in the RECORD a copy of the news release relating to Senator DOLE's action be made a part of the RECORD.
There being no objection, the news release was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
SENATOR BOB DOLE'S ACTION
NEWCASTLE, N.H., May 11.– U.S. Senator Bob Dole (R-Kans.) today blasted National Democrat Chairman Larry O'Brien for his statement that "Nixon-Agnew-Mitchell inflammatory rhetoric" may have contributed to the deaths of four Kent State University students. He suggested that O'Brien publicly apologize, "or be prepared to accept responsibility for Vietnam and all its consequences."
Dole spoke before the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women.
The Kansas Senator said, in part:
"The war in Vietnam is a tragic conflict. It has not been in the past and should never become a partisan matter, but regrettably many leading Democrats are intent on making it so. Frankly, I was shocked to read that the National Democrat Chairman, Lawrence J. O'Brien, stated in a meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Saturday evening, 'I can only speculate in sorrow whether these young people (at Kent) would have been killed were it not for the Nixon-Agnew-Mitchell inflammatory rhetoric.’
"I recognize that a chairman of a political party must speak out for his party, but it is incredible that a responsible spokesman for any party would utter such nonsense.
"I believe Mr. O'Brien should publicly apologize to President Nixon, Vice President Agnew and Attorney General Mitchell and to the parents of these young people at Kent State.
"Frankly, I am becoming a little tired of and frustrated at the protestations of O’Brien and other leading Democrats in and out of Congress, who daily seek to divide and frustrate not only America's youth, but all Americans.
"By employing such ‘speculation' used by Chairman O'Brien, he should, on behalf of his party, announce that if President Kennedy had not moved combat troops into south Vietnam in 1963 and that if President Johnson had not escalated the war which sent some 540,000 young Americans to South Vietnam that some 42,000 Americans might be alive today and that nearly 300,000 would not have been wounded, prisoners, or missing in action.
"So, Mr. O'Brien, first let me caution you to not make tragedy in America or in Vietnam a partisan political issue – but if you insist and persist, you shall not have it both ways. Admit your indiscretion, apologize to President Nixon, Vice President Agnew and Attorney General Mitchell – or be prepared to accept responsibility for Vietnam and all its consequences.
"While I share the view that we must lower our voices, this does not mean standing idly by while Democrat peddlers of doom and gloom trample at will on our President or his Administration or the rights, feelings and hopes of a great majority of Americans."