FEDERAL PROTECTION OF CIVIL RIGHTS,

by Robert K. Carr '29. CornellUniversity Press, 194J, pp. 284. $3.00.

Robert K. Carr's recently published volume, Federal Protection of Civil Rights, would be an extremely important work at any time, but it gains a special significance today, when the issue of civil rights is splitting the Democratic Party in a presidential year and evoking prolonged ululation from old-line politicians of the Deep South.

Professor Carr's status as an authority in this field is high-lighted by his recent service as Executive Secretary of the President's Civil Rights Committee, for it was the report of this fact-finding body that prompted President Truman's 10-point civil rights recommendations to Congress and touched off the present controversy. The author describes the dual role of the federal government in protecting civil rights as that of "a shield" and "a sword." The shield is the symbol of the government's role which "enables a person whose freedom is endangered to invoke the Constitution by requesting a federal court to invalidate the state action that is endangering his rights." The sword symbolizes government's positive weapon when it "takes the initiative in protecting helpless individuals by bringing criminal charges against persons who are encroaching upon their rights." Professor Carr points out that the framers of the Constitution viewed the federal government as the chief threat to civil liberties, rather than individuals or local governments. While, on the other hand, the actual record of the past hundred years and more proves that the really dangerous threat comes not from the federal, but from state governments, as well as individuals. At least this is true in the case of unpopular racial, religious and economic or political minorities.

This book offers a frank and intelligent defense of the record of the Civil Rights Section of the Department of Justice which has received frequently bitter criticism from minority leadership for alleged over-caution on the part of this federal agency. The book is especially interesting and valuable to those lay readers who are most easily confused by tech nical, dry-as-dust" discussion of judicial procedure and policy, and who are impatient with administrative red-tape which results in avoidance, rather than accomplishment, of official responsibility.