The results of a survey of national reaction to the U. S. Supreme Court decisions banning Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools were made public here today by the American Jewish Committee, on the eve of its five-day annual meeting which opens at the New York Hilton Hotel tomorrow.
The survey found “widespread compliance” throughout the country despite pockets of discontent which exist in a number of regions. At the same time, however, the survey found “widespread introduction of substitute practices” for those which had been banned by the Supreme Court decision. Outright defiance of the Supreme Court was found to be most common in the South, sections of the rural North such as in New Hampshire, and in northwestern areas such as Idaho.
Morris B. Abram, president of the American Jewish Committee who made public the results of the Committee’s nationwide survey on the Supreme Court decisions, said that the substitute practices which the survey has found to be widely introduced, include “silent meditation, silent prayer, increased and intensified moral and patriotic exercises. “
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