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Dallas Morning News articles about Hatton W Sumners opinion and politics

Compiled by Ed Sebesta 7/31/2020. Boldface has been added in some extracts.

Immigrants are “scum of Europe” and American cities have a

“mongrel people.”

No author, “Round About Town,” Dallas Morning News, Sept.16, 1907, page 14.

Hatton W. Sumners had recently returned from his tour of Europe and this
article was reporting what Sumners had to say about Europe. Sumners complains about
the rapid development of resources in the United States. From the article:

“We have gone so crazy in this regard that we call he man a fogy who dares to
suggest that the iron, coal, and petroleum deposited in the earth are as valuable as gold
deposited in the bank, and that virgin forests and fertile soil, which may bee enjoyed by
coming generations of America, are just as good as exhausted farms and crowded
cities thronged by a mongrel people. “

“I don’t know that I can make myself clear and I don’t know how it could be done
under our form of Government, but I know that something should be done to keep the
present generation from robbing unborn generations of their share of our country’s
wealth and from bringing into this country the scum of Europe to compete with our
working men today and to contaminate our body politic through the years to come.

Sumners talks about the Japanese in California and

exterminating war.

No author, “Hatton W. Sumners at Home,” Dallas Morning News, June 13, 2020,
page 6.

The Japanese problem, with which Congress has been confronted through the
California anti-alien land bill has been given considerable study by Mr. Sumners and he
considers it one of the gravest situations with which the United States is confronted.

“Members of Congress generally,” he said, “recognize the situation with reference

to Japan as one of potential gravity. While not acute at this time it looms big on the
horizon of the future. It is one of the big problems with which we must deal. I believe it
is generally recognized in this country, and that Japan recognizes either that the white
and yellow races must indulge in a warfare that will exterminate one or the
other races, or they must adjust themselves to certain portions of the earth which each
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will occupy. Because of an inborn racial antipathy it seems necessary either that
each race should take certain territory, or that there must be a struggle to determine for
all time which shall be the master. Because of the general appreciation of this truly
vital problem I believe it will be adjusted with the second deplorable alternative.

<Note: It has to be wondered what credibility the idea of liberal democracy

had with the Japanese as a choice for their nation.>

Sumners opposes women’s suffrage

Staff Special to The News, “Views of Texas Members: Entire Delegation in House Cast
Vote Against Mondell Resolution to Give Votes to Women,” Dallas Morning News, Jan.
13, 1915, page 2.

Representative Sumners of Dallas, one the early speakers against the resolution,
declared that the entire discussion did not seem pertinent, as it would be if no other
forum were open. It did not appear so much a question of whether women should be
given the ballot as it did, he said, whether Congress should take from the States the right
to determine the issue. His adherence to the principle of local control was not drawn
from theory, he added, butt from observation that the citizens makes the most rapid
progress under that system of government the power and necessity in control of which
was close to the people as possible.

Since submission of the question would be irrevocable action on the part of

Congress, he said, it ought not to speculate on the development of the future. When
three-fourths of the States have adopted the plan for themselves, it would be time
enough, he thought, for Congress to take notice of it.

<Sumners during his entire congressional career would have some rationalization
against civil rights similar or the same as explained here. He would avoid
speaking against a group that was oppressed, but have some constitutional
issue or issue of decentralization which would just happen to deny some group
civil rights.

Sumners explains this strategy in a series of private letters in 1944 when some of
his supporters wanted him to be more direct in his white supremacist politics.

Sumners does end up voting for the 19th Amendment when it does finally pass
Congress, because he recognizes that it will be the end of his political career if
he doesn’t. The daughters of Dallas’ white elite want to vote and their parents
want them to be able to vote.>
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Sumners feels “foreign-born” are the cause of labor troubles.

No Author, “Foreign-Born Cause of Labor Troubles,” Dallas Morning News, Nov. 19,
1919, page 4.

Labor troubles in the United States are being caused by people brought here
because Americans were not willing to do the menial work in this country, Congressman
Hatton W. Sumners said in an address to the members of the Lion Club at the weekly
luncheon meeting in the palm garden of the Adolphus Hotel yesterday.

Any person living in this country who is not willing to call the United States his
homeland has no right to remain here. Mr. Sumners said, as the Nation was fonded on
the idea of its being the homeland of its inhabitants.

<Sumners would use the theme of labor unions as being alien for his entire
career, emphasizing that the leaders of the C.I.O. are foreign born, and
incorporating it in his red-baiting of union leaders.>

Sumners denounces “N*gger agitators,” in attacking the

proposed 1922 Dyer federal anti-lynching bill in the U.S. House.

No Author, “Sumners Answers Critics of South: Tells Congress ‘Nigger’ Agitators Have
Been Lying About People,” Dallas Morning News, Jan. 5, 1922, page 5.

<In the newspaper account U.S. Representative Dyer of Missouri is described

sating the reasons why the bill should be passed. Then the article reports
Sumners’ response.>

… He was followed by Representative Sumners of Texas, the ranking Democratic

member of the Judiciary Committee, who made a legal argument to show that the bill
would be unconstitutional if enacted

Tired of Slanders

At the outset Mr. Sumners, who was put forward today to open the Democratic attack
against the policy, told the House that the wanted to answer some of the slanders hurled
against the South.

“Nigger agitators, white and black, have been going over the country lying about
my people, and I have grown tired of it,” said Mr. Sumners. He referred to the list of
lynchings read by Mr. Dyer, obtained, Mr. Sumners said, from the report made by the
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Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and which showed that of the lynchings last year but one
had occurred in the North. Mr. Sumners then read from a Washington newspaper a
report from Duluth, Minn., showing that they “had lynched three niggers at one time.”
No report of that occurrence, Mr. Sumners added, was made in the statement read by
the author of the bill.

….

The effect of the legislation even though it were held to be constitutional, said Mr.
Sumners, would be to mark the furtherest advance toward obliteration of the States as
independent governmental agencies of the people that had ever been registered. Such a
law, he explained would serve no purpose other than to give encouragement to the
ignorant and vicious and to encourage crime which arouses prejudice against the
minority race (negroes), a race which legislation could not protect.

<Sumners in this last paragraph is asserting that a federal anti-lynching law

would encourage African Americans to be rapists and implies that the source of
prejudice against African Americans is that some of them are rapists. The Dallas
Morning News toned down the speech some. The use of the term “n*gger” was
by Sumners himself, the newspaper didn’t use the term. The entire speech is
appalling and can be read online at http://templeofdemocracy.com/hatton-
w-sumners.html>

Sumners in 1937 speaks against proposed anti-lynching

legislation

<Sumners like many other white Southerners starts out by claiming to be against
lynching butt introduces a lurid story which he tells to make persons sympathetic
to persons committing a lynching.>

No author, “House Passes Antilynch Bill despite Sumner’s Hot Fight,” Dallas Morning
News, April 16, 1937, page 1.

Tells of Texas Case

I will illustrate this. Some years ago in a county community in Texas all the
members of a fine Bohemian family were at work in their fields except a little girl, 12 or
14 years old, who was not well. When the family returned to the house they found that
this little girl had been criminally assaulted and terribly injured. The whole countryside
was aroused. There were no policemen on watch; nobody to guard their homes but
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themselves. It was just an accident that it was the girl of this family instead of a girl of
any other family.

They took into custody a man walking on a railroad track a few mils away from
the crime. The girl identified him, but said he was dressed differently. They found where
he exchanged the clothes she said he had on at the time. Still they offered no violence,
but took him to a neighboring village. Somebody suggested that if he were the man,
judging from how bloody the little girl was, he would have blood on his person. They
examined him and found him clotted with blood. They killed him then and there.

After it was all over the people all agreed it was a terrible crime which had been
committed, that it would have been better to let the law take its course.

Suppose this bill of Mr. (Hamilton) Fish of New York had been the law then. A
Federal Marshall would have come into that community and arrested the father of that
little girl and the fathers and brothers of the other families and they would have been
prosecuted for a felony, and on conviction subjected to as much as $5,000 fine and five
years in the penitentiary.

<The entire speech is appalling and can be read online at

http://templeofdemocracy.com/hatton-w-sumners.html>

Sumners shamelessly exploits the war effort during World War

II to oppose anti-lynching legislation

King, John E., “Texas Congressmen Line up Against Antilynching Bill,” Dallas Morning
News, Jan. 9, 1940, page 2.

<Sumners repeatedly would argue that efforts for civil rights were divisive and
undermining the war effort during World War II.>

Sumners Opposes

Representative Hatton W. Sumners of Texas chairman of the House judiciary

committee, criticized proponents for bringing p the bill at this time when Democracy if
fighting for its life.
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Sumners does a little red-baiting to oppose anti-lynching

legislation.

No author, Associated Press, “GOP Would Buy Negro Votes, House Is Told,” Dallas
Morning News, Jan. 10, 1940, Page 1.

Hatton W. Sumners (Dem.) of Texas told proponents of the bill they should be
ashamed of proposing a measure which would “testify to the world that democratic
institutions have failed.”

“Here we ae,” he said, “all het up over what the Reds are doing, and we’re taking
away the powers of our local units of government, the heart of our democratic system.”

Sumners advocates electric chair for leaders of labor having a

strike.

King, John E., “Sumners Warns U.S. Of Dangers: Challenges Patriotism Of Labor;
Threatens Electric Chair,” Dallas Morning News, March 28, 1941, page 12.

Solemn warning to the people of the United States and a challenge to the
patriotism of American labor, backed by a stern threat of the electric chair for those who
interfere with the defense program was sounded by Representative Hatton W. Sumners
(Dem.) Texas, chairman of the House judiciary committee, in a stirring address on the
floor of the House Thursday.

….

Sumners’ address, delivered extemporaneously, constituted a powerful

indictment of the new deal for many of its socialistic policies and for the lethargic
attitude of the executive agencies of the government towards strikes in the defense
industries so seriously hindering the manufacture of airplanes and other essentials for
the adequate defense of the country.

<The C.I.O. group of labor unions opposed discrimination and were unionizing
African Americans in non-segregated union locals. They were also his political
opponents. The federal government established means of mediating labor
disputes so as to solve defense production issues without electrocuting the
leaders elected by the working people of America.>
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Sumners is upset with the Supreme Court ruling against the

Texas whites only primary, condemns it as causing racial strife.

No author, “Sumners Concerned,” Dallas Morning News, April 5, 1944, page 12.

<The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that having whites only primaries in which African
Americans were not allowed to vote was unconstitutional.>

Commenting indirectly on the Supreme Court opinion, Congressman Hatton W.

Sumners said at Dallas Tuesday that he was concerned over the intensive racial
consciousness and growing racial antagonism and friction which are developing in this
country.

He saw the opinion as an element in a larger picture, adding:

“In this country, especially in the Southern States, we are trying an experiment
which heretofore has had poor success in all periods of history: That is, having two dis-
similar races, each in large numbers, living in substantial harmony in the same country.

“In such a situation when substantial progress is being made in the relative
position of the minority race and friendly relationship between its members and
members of the race in a majority position obtains, it is a hazardous thing to initiate a
coercive policy, especially if it is attempted from without.”

Sumners sees efforts for civil rights creating a crisis which he

feels in speech to the U.S. House.

King, John E., “Race Issue Nears Crisis, Texan Says,” Dallas Morning News, April 28,
1944, page 2.

Events are moving rapidly towards a serious crisis in the relationships between
the white and Negro races through the exercise of federal power in the South and
activities of nonsoutherners who would dictate to the white people how they shall live
and deal with the Negroes, Representative Hatton W. Sumners of Dallas told the House
Thursday.

Certain forces are striving to speech the natural adjustment of the two races and
in so doing are defeating their own objectives, the Congressman warned. Explaining that
he was not prompted to discuss the issue because of the recent Supreme Court decision
holding that Negroes were entitled to vote in Texas Democratic primaries, Sumners said
that the decision, none the less, did interpose federal powers as against local policy and
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local judgement of party leaders and intensified an already existing strain on interracial
relationships.

Segregation Seen Solution

While the danger of racial conflict is great, the speaker said he was emphatic in
his belief that the danger can be averted, “but only if we appreciate its existence,
recognize its causes and the fundamental difficulties confronting the two races,
especially in communities where they live side by side in large numbers.”

….

Such segregation, Sumners told his attentive colleagues in the House, offers
probably the only solution for the race problems which develop when two strongly
dissimilar races live in the same community.

“We are trying an experiment in this country which has never before succeeded in
the history of the world,” Sumners said, “that of trying to have two basically dissimilar
races live together in large numbers in the same communities.”

<Sumners and his close political advisors had discussed the Supreme Court
decision regarding the Texas primary intensively and in letters said he would
have something to say that would shore up his support of those upset about the
Supreme Court decision. In the full speech in the U.S. House Sumners argues that
these efforts for civil rights undermine the war effort.

The entire speech can be read online at

http://templeofdemocracy.com/hatton-w-sumners.html>

Sumners speaks out against efforts to ban the poll tax by the
federal government. Compares the poll tax to union dues.

No author, “Sumners Raps Poll Tax Ban,” Dallas Morning News, May 13, 1949, page 2.

<Even after he retired Sumners campaigned against civil rights efforts. He last day in
office was Jan. 3, 1947.>

Former Rep. Hatton W. Sumners of Dallas told a congressional sub-committee

Thursday that proposed anti-poll tax legislation was “violative of the clearest sort of
language in the Constitution.”
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Brushing verbally with committee members, Sumners talked at length on his

well-known theme that the Federal Government was getting too big, trying to do too
many things and was encroaching on States’ rights.

….

The former congressman likened the poll tax to union dues.

“No labor union in the country would let you go into a meeting and vote unless
you had paid your dues,” he said. ….

Sumners compares the National Guard in Little Rock, Arkansas

present to preserve the peace while the schools are being
integrated to the Soviet invasion of Poland.

McKee, Ruby Clayton, “Speaker From Virginia Raps Supreme Court,” Dallas Morning
News, Oct. 15, 1957, page 2.

<James Jackson Kirkpatrick, editor of the Richmond, Va., paper, The News
Leader was in Dallas to speak to the Public Affairs Luncheon at the Hotel
Adolphus to condemn the Supreme Court for its ruling regarding school
integration and what was happening in Little Rock, Ark., where there had been
defiance of court orders for integration. Sumners contributed his opinion.>

Mr. Sumners defied anyone to draw a substantial difference between the

situation in Little Rock and that in Poland when the Russians went in with guns. He said
there’s not a split hair difference.

“What we’ve been doing is shifting power to bring money to Texas,” he stated,
“You can’t build up a federal bureaucracy and expect it to speak democracy.”

<Despite saying things like this, the Southwestern Legal Foundation published
Sumners’ book on government and the constitution in 1959. Also, Sumners had a
long history of tying together the arguments against civil rights with the
arguments against the New Deal and federal programs building an alliance
between business interests and those working to maintain white supremacy.

Unfortunately not much of what Sumners spoke about after his retirement is
known.>