The Augusta Courier

Eisenhower Will Not Run Over Georgia

Vandiver Declares

State Troopers, Sheriffs Will Be Used; Would Disband The National Guard

Ernest Vandiver says that he will use every sheriff, every state trooper and every national guardsman in Georgia, if necessary, to halt race mixing in this State at any time.

That is what he is saying in his speeches in his campaign for governor.

There will not be a single race mixed classroom in the State of Georgia so long as he is governor.

Once again, he says he will use the National Guard even in the face of the fact that Eisenhower took the National Guard away from Faubus in Arkansas.

Will Disband Guard

It is believed that Eisenhower will not do so again, but if he does, Vandiver is determined to use the guard until they are taken away.

Should the federal government ever threaten to take the National Guard away, he can disband the guard before this can be done and the individuals belonging to the guard units can be used to guard the schoolhouses.

Means Business

He means business.

Here's what he is saying in his speeches:

"There will be no mixed school or college classrooms in Georgia . . . no, not a single one . . . during my administration.

"We will never surrender our schools which we created, labored for, built ourselves and financed ourselves, to remote control from Washington, D. C.

"There is not enough money in the Federal Treasury nor enough Federal troops to force us to mix the races in the classrooms of the schools of Georgia so long as I am your governor.

Pattern of Segregation

"I pledge all of my talents and all of my strength to oppose unalterably any breakdown at any time at any place in the existing pattern of segregation in Georgia.

"Should the Federal Government ever attempt to integrate any school or college in this State, as your Governor, I will then and there summon every Sheriff in Georgia, every State Trooper in Georgia and every National Guardsman to the area affected, and bring an abrupt halt to any race mixing in this State.

The welfare and security of the children of this State come first with me.

"Georgians send this solemn word to Washington:

We will not bow our heads in submission to naked force.

"We have no thought of surrender.

"We will not knuckle under.

"We will not capitulate.

Georgia Is Prepared

"Georgia is prepared to meet the challenge, and meet it she will.

"I make this solemn pledge to the mothers and fathers and to the people of this State.

"When I am your Governor, neither my three children, nor any child of yours, will ever attend a racially mixed school in the State of Georgia."

And then he reviewed his record on segregation and this is part of what he is saying:

"In 1954, Ernest Vandiver resigned as adjutant-general in the Talmadge administration to make the race for Lieutenant-Governor.

Vandiver Was There

"Soon thereafter all of the candidates for governor and lieutenant-governor were invited to appear before the Georgia Commission on Education to suggest any plans that they might have to preserve segregated schools in Georgia.

"Ernest Vandiver was the only candidate for major office appearing before the Commission to endorse without reservation the school segregation amendment sponsored by Governor Talmadge as a solution to the problem.

"Vandiver went even further outlining in detail his proposals for future legislation to carry into effect the Talmadge segregation amendment.

The Georgia Plan

It is a matter of extreme significance that the proposals which Vandiver made at that early date to maintain segregated schools and colleges in Georgia were later adopted by the Commission as its own recommendations, word for word, and were proposed by it to the General Assembly and are now the law of the State of Georgia.

"The Georgia plan' for maintaining segregation in the schools, as originally proposed and sponsored by Governor Talmadge, and the laws which have since been adopted by the General Assembly, as originally recommended by Ernest Vandiver, have been copied in many states of the South and now form the very basis upon which our whole line of legal defense rests against mixing of the races in the schools."