Note (Back) — CHAPTER 15

Congress was slow to see that changes were gradually transforming the armed services. In its special preelection session, the Eightieth Congress ignored the recently issued Truman order on racial equality just as it ignored the President's admonition to enact a general civil rights program. But when the new Eighty-first Congress met in January 1949 the subjects of armed forces integration, the Truman order, and the Fahy Committee all began to receive attention. Debate on race in the services occurred frequently in both houses. Each side appealed to constitutional and legal principles to support its case, but the discussions might well have remained a philosophical debate if the draft law had not come up for renewal in 1950. The debate focused mostly on an amendment proposed by Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia that would allow inductees and enlistees, upon their written declaration of intent, to serve in a unit manned exclusively by members of their own race. Russell had made this proposal once before, but because it seemed of little consequence to the still largely segregated services of 1948 it was ignored. Now in the wake of the executive order and the Fahy Committee Report, the amendment came to sudden prominence. And when Russell succeeded in discharging the draft bill with his amendment from the Senate Armed Forces Committee with the members' unanimous approval, civil rights supporters quickly jumped to the attack. Even before the bill was formally introduced on the floor, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon told his colleagues that the Russell amendment conflicted with the stated policy of the administration as well as with sound Republican principles. He cited the waste of manpower the amendment would bring about and reminded his colleagues of the international criticism the armed forces had endured in the past because of undemocratic social practices.[15-42]