NVCR 2
Page 8

H: In 1958, there was an explosion at the Jewish Community Center in Nashville.

K: The Jewish Community Center?

H: Yes sir.

K: [That was in] 1958?

H: Yes sir.

K: Well, that would be in the realm of another ballgame, you might say. The
 Federation for Constitutional Government had no animus towards the Jews
 whatsoever. I don't even recall the event.

H: Okay. Do you think that members of the TFCG would have been willing to close
 the public schools rather than integrate?

K: Oh yeah.

H: Why is that?

K: Because public schools are basically opposed in theory to the whole attitude of
 America; it is government intervention into something which is a family matter.
 We didn't have public schools noticeably until after the War Between the States.
 Education was desirable so far as the government was concerned, but not its
 responsibility. No state universities could amount to anything at all, I don't think,
 before the War Between the States. You had private schools [at] both [the]
 college/university level and [the] academy [level]. That's the way it should be
 today, naturally. I know that the public-school hierarchy would shudder to hear
 me say that, and they will shudder to read it if they ever do, but the best thing in
 the world that could happen in education today would be to abolish all public
 schools. The faculty and the administrative people there may be very capable,
 but they're hamstrung [by] remote and unfeeling orders from Washington
 indirectly and from the state directly. So give them...you could set up a financial
 structure that allowed a faculty of, say, West End School, or any school to
 borrow the money to buy the school and run it as a private enterprise. Then we
 would have true education. But separation of state and church is a desirable
 situation, [and] by the same token, absolutely, separation of state and education.
 It's desirable because the state may not be given the authority to influence the
 little hearts and minds, as the jurist said, any more than having a state church. Of
 course, that's all the Constitution ever anticipated. That's what the Constitution
 talks about. Of course, in those days, they were state churches. The
 congregation in Virginia was a state church supported by taxes, which is not a
 good thing, in my opinion. So long as the state does not operate the church by