Prayers in Public Schools and Other Matters

The committee met pursuant to call, at 10:30 a.m., in room 2228, New Senate Office Building, Senator Olin D. Johnston presiding. Present: Senators Johnston, Ervin, Hart, Hruska, Keating, and Scott.

Also present: L. P. B. Lipscomb, member, professional staff.
Senator JOHNSTON. The committee will come to order.

This hearing has been called for the purpose of taking testimony on certain resolutions introduced in the U.S. Senate in regard to prayers in public schools and certain other matters. Notice was duly published in the Congressional Record on July 19, 1962.

The particular measures involved are Senate Joint Resolution 205, Senate Joint Resolution 206, Senate Joint Resolution 207, Senate Concurrent Resolution 81, and Senate Resolution 356. The text of these resolutions will be inserted in the record at this point.

(The resolutions follow :)

[S.J. Res. 205, 87th Cong., 2d sess.]

JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to permit the offering of prayer in public schools

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is hereby proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

"ARTICLE

"SECTION 1. Nothing contained in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit the authority administering any school, school system, or educational institution supported in whole or in part from any public funds from providing for the voluntary participation by the students thereof in regularly scheduled periods of nonsectarian prayer.

"SEC. 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress."

[S.J. Res. 206, 87th Cong., 2d sess.]

JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to permit the use of prayer in public schools

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein) That the following article is hereby proposed as an amendment to the Constitu

tion of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

"ARTICLE

"SECTION 1. No provision of this Constitution or any article of amendment thereto shall be construed to prohibit nondenominational religious observance through the invocation of the blessing of God or the recitation of prayer, as a part of the activities of any school or other educational institution supported in whole or in part from public revenues, if participation therein is not made compulsory.

[S.J. Res. 207, 87th Cong., 2d sess.]

JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States permitting the offering of prayers and the reading of the Bible in public schools in the United States, and relating to the right of a State to enact legislation on the basis of its own public policy on questions of decency and morality

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

"ARTICLE

"SECTION 1. Nothing in this Constitution shall prohibit the offering of prayers or the reading of the Bible as part of the program of any public school or other public place in the United States.

"SEC. 2. The right of each State to decide on the basis of its own public policy questions of decency and morality, and to enact legislation with respect thereto, shall not be abridged.

"SEC. 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress."

Whereas, from the first permanent white settlements in North America at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, we have recognized the existence of God and our dependence on Him; and

Whereas the greatest single threat to our political and religious freedom is posed by nations who deny the existence of God; and

Whereas the atheists in our Nation are making a concerted drive to eliminate the recognition of God in our Government as completely as He has been eliminated in Russia and have recently included in that program the demand to eliminate from public schools not only the voluntary recitation of a prayer, but all hymns, all religious paintings, and all celebrations connected with Christmas and Easter; and

Whereas there never has been a greater need to inculcate in the minds and hearts of the youth of our Nation a reverence for God and faith in His omnipotence; and

Whereas, with that in view, the Board of Regents of the State of New York prepared for voluntary use in the public schools of that State a nonsecular form of civic prayer which merely recognized the existence of God and our dependence on Him; and

Whereas, in the case of Engel against Vitale, the Supreme Court of the United States on June 25, 1962, declared the use of that voluntary prayer to be unconstitutional; and

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