September 9, 1971
Page 31223
SENATOR MUSKIE'S VIEWS ON BUSING
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, the Members of this body and the members of the public generally are always interested in the views of potential presidential candidates on problems of great importance to the Nation.
While our colleague, Senator MUSKIE of Maine, is, not yet an avowed presidential candidate, only a cursory glance at the daily newspapers and at the Gallup poll indicates that he is the front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
For these reasons, Senator MUSKIE's views on the most important subject of busing students to achieve racial balance are of great interest. I noticed in yesterday's Evening Star where Senator MUSKIE discussed this subject at length, and his views were most interesting.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled "Muskie Dislikes Busing but Says It's Needed," which appeared in the Evening Star, Wednesday, September 8, 1971, be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
MUSKIE DISLIKES BUSING BUT SAYS IT'S NEEDED
(By James M. Naughton)
SAN FRANCISCO.– Sen. Edmund S. Muskie has joined President Nixon in voicing distaste for the busing of children to desegregate public schools, but he has sharply criticized the President for attempting to prohibit the use of federal funds to acquire the buses.
The Senator from Maine, touring California in search of money and support for his undeclared candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, yesterday announced this position at a news conference in the Fairmont Hotel.
"Like everyone else, I don't like busing," Muskie said in response to a question. "It's inconvenient to parents, consumes time that students could better use for studying and it uses up resources for the purchase of buses and so on that might be better used."
CALLS IT NECESSARY
"I disagree with the President's position because it has had the effect of disrupting movements that have been under way, plans that have received (or parents) as they accepted the necessity for moving toward the integration of their schools."
But, Muskie said that until the nation successfully integrates its cities "we're going to have to rely on busing to some extent to deal with the problem."
Thus he took issue with Nixon's declaration on Aug. 3 that the attorney general and the secretary of Health, Education and Welfare should work with Southern school districts "to hold busing to the minimum required by law."
Nixon also directed his administration to submit an amendment to the Emergency School Assistance Act to stipulate that none of the act's $1.5 billion in aid to desegregating school systems may be used to acquire buses.
"His proposal to deny federal support for school districts in implementing busing programs, I think, is a disservice to those communities. And it has a disruptive effect on public opinion in those communities."
PARENTS ARE OUTRAGED
Parents of Chinese-American pupils in San Francisco have cited Nixon's statements in expressing their outrage at a court-ordered plan for widespread busing to achieve racial balance in the city's schools.
Muskie said he understands the "fears of parents" about the busing of their children, "but this is a difficult social problem that threatens great division in our country, threatens the peace of the country, really.
"So all of us, including parents, have a responsibility for undertaking to recognize the problem at the same time that we search for better answers."
Asked for his own solution, Muskie said that there is "no perfect answer" to a problem rooted in "a distortion of our values over a long period of time, which has produced communities that are segregated and separated people from each other for reasons that are wrong in terms of the American ideal."
POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE
As possible alternatives to busing, he mentioned redrawing of neighborhood school boundaries – an approach which federal courts in urban areas of the South have found unsatisfactory – for the creation of new school facilities "in a way that avoids separatism."
One newsman pressed the senator to be more specific in recommending a better solution than busing.
"I'm afraid you're not listening to what I'm proposing, sir," Muskie snapped back. "You're asking me for a blueprint, which nobody has yet proposed"