We of the faith of Judaism believe that mankind is one even as God is one-all peoples are potentially equal. We further believe that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." The Creator has given us an abundant earth, and He has been especially provident to America. It is His divine intention, we believe, that all shall share the benefits of His abundance if they but labor. To deprive any human being, created in the divine image, of the opportunity to work is to violate the will of God. Our American forefathers understood this when they fought and bled for equal opportunity of all Americans to pursue happiness. Our sons of all colors and all races and all creeds twice endorsed this principle with their blood on foreign battlefields in the last two World Wars. The eyes of all men are fixed upon America these days. The billions of little people are asking, "Does America only talk life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' or does America actually live these principles?"" We of the faith of Judaism urge you of the Eighty-first Congress to answer all the world with a resounding and unmistakable "Yes, we live God-inspired Americanism," by enacting this Federal Fair Employment Practice Act. Mr. POWELL. Thank you. In your Synagogue Council do you have a department of social action, or do you have at your fingertips the percentage of discrimination as regards various racial groups and religious groups? Dr. PILCHIK. We have been dependent on the information that has been put out by the National Community Advisory Relations Council. Mr. POWELL. Represented by Mr. Epstein? Dr. PILCHIK. Yes. We have been cooperating with them. Mr. POWELL. Mr. Epstein is going to testify later on in these hearings. What I would like to ask you-and you can reply generally since you are going to have the facts-most people seem to labor under many illusions concerning the FEPC, as they think it is something directed to the South, and secondly, they think it is something to help Negroes only. In New York State, which is the North and where people enjoy probably as high a democratic way of life as anywhere else, the New York State Commission has just announced that 15 percent of the cases of discrimination last year were because of the Jewish faith, the Jewish religion. Now that is in New York State where we have almost, I might say, the minimum of anti-Semitism, and yet 15 percent of the cases there were due to discrimination against people of the Jewish religion. Dr. PILCHIK. I am a rabbi in New Jersey, Mr. Chairman, where we also have a State FEPC law. I spoke about this with people who are familiar with it previous to coming here and their impression is that with the increase of unemployment, however slight, these discriminatory practices are beginning to come up again as they have in the past, and that the commission handling this matter has more applications for consideration than previously. Mr. POWELL. Tomorrow morning we are having the chairman and general counsel of the New York State FEPC, and also the Massachusetts State FEPC, and it is the purpose of the chairman to question them along those lines, because it has come to me that cases of discrimination in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have jumped almost 25 percent in the past 6 months, and if so, that means there is all the more need for some type of Federal legislation. Mr. Perkins, do you have any question? Mr. PERKINS. No. Mr. POWELL. Thank you, Dr. Pilchik. We will next hear from Dr. W. H. Jernagin. TESTIMONY OF DR. W. H. JERNAGIN, CONSULTANT, WASHINGTON BUREAU, NATIONAL FRATERNAL COUNCIL OF NEGRO CHURCHES Dr. JERNAGIN. Honorable Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am speaking today as a representative as well as consultant of the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches of America. This organization consists of 11 affiliated denominations with a constituency of more than 6,000,000 members. In speaking in behalf of this representative of the Christian church whose duty is to uphold the Christian ideals, and to work for a realization with belief that the conventions and customs of society can be changed by persistent pressure of Christian influence. We are especially pleased that this bill has come up for hearing at this time and we do respectfully urge members of the House committee as well as Congressmen generally, to look upon this bill favorably in the interest of our Nation's welfare. The Christian church is concerned specifically with the economic adversities which confront not only minority peoples, but with all peoples. However, it is needless to say minority groups will suffer most in the event of a depression. A Fair Employment Practice Committee established as a permanent function of the Federal Government is one of the best agents of a just society that we know. The purpose of this committee is to defend the economic rights of minorities among whom are Negroes, Jews, Spanish-Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, American Indians, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Catholics. All these groups have suffered and still are suffering in securing jobs in our American industry, and not only in our American industry but in some of our Government agencies. For years there has been that unpleasant and most unsatisfactory condition in the Bureau of Engraving. The highest position a Negro can attain in the Bureau is that of printer's assistant. Over 40 Negro World War II veterans have been denied their rightful opportunity to advance to jobs as skilled printers. As Christians, we are committed to the belief that no one person more than another, shall be debarred from the opportunity or means to a satisfactory life. This race myth, upon which discrimination against Negroes is organized and maintained, offers a superiority open on equal terms effortless to all white men. Through the very fact of birth white men belong to this superior entity. There is one highest right to which it is assumed God has elected them and that is the right of the superior to rule the inferior. This mystical concept of racial destiny is employed to conceal the actualities of economic exploitation. For based on this racist propaganda certain persons have been and are still being indoctrinated with the idea that there are certain jobs and certain job classifications that belong exclusively to white men and certain others that belong to black men; that the black man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect and that the Negro was somehow ordained from the beginning of things to be a drawer of water and a hewer of wood and capable only of being a servant to a white-master class. This discrimination denies the Negro his standing as a human being, shuts him out of the family, and deprives him of the moral dignity with which God clothed him. The House of Representatives must pass H. R. 4453 making freedom from discrimination in employment based on race, creed, color, national origin, or ancestry a policy of the United States Government. We cannot rest the case for economic security of minority groups solely at the mercy of private and public enterprise. We cannot expect one individual employer to have the moral integrity to stand out against or defy an unjust economic system when our Government and its lawmakers lack the moral courage to resist it or to establish any laws to abolish this discrimination. We can conceive of no more disastrous world misfortune than for our divinely favored Nation to forfeit its claim to moral world leadership at this tragic and critical moment in human history-injustice and exploitation do not work. The world and human beings are so made that you cannot organize life securely or permanently on injustice and oppression. Let us then face our common problem together, both church and Government, each of us having the courage to meet opposition with love and with the determination to build a new America in which you and I may stand and walk as freemen in a free country. As professed Christians, can we not break over the boundaries of race and act in the spirit of common brotherhood? Mr. Chairman, I want to say that the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches is very much interested in the passage of this bill, and leaders from every denomination belonging to it have expressed their desire that it pass, and we shall work with it until it is passed sometime. Mr. POWELL. Thank you. There is one part, Dr. Jernagin, in your statement about which I should like to talk with you. You say, "All these groups have suffered and still are suffering in securing jobs in our American industry, and not only in our American industry but in some of our Government agencies." Dr. JERNAGIN. Yes. Mr. POWELL. You further say, "For years there has been that unpleasant and most unsatisfactory condition in the Bureau of Engrav ing." Dr. JERNAGIN. Yes. Mr. POWELL. Just elaborate on that a little bit. The Bureau of Engraving is located here in Washington, D. C., is it not? Dr. JERNAGIN. Yes. Mr. POWELL. Does it practice discrimination? Dr. JERNAGIN. Yes; it has practiced it for years. Mr. POWELL. Does any other Government agency practice discrimi nation, as the Bureau of Engraving, here in Washington? Dr. JERNAGIN. Yes, there is some discrimination in most of them. Mr. POWELL. But not as much as in the Bureau of Engraving? Dr. JERNAGIN. Not as much. It has not been as pronounced as there. Mr. POWELL. Whom is the Bureau of Engraving under? Who is in charge of the Bureau of Engraving? Dr. JERNAGIN. Well, the Government here has simply got the commission to take charge of that part of it. Mr. POWELL. You do not know who the personnel director is here? Dr. JERNAGIN. No; not at this time. Mr. Hill used to be. Mr. POWELL. Is the discrimination in the Bureau of Engraving present at the time of hiring, or does it develop after the person is hired? Dr. JERNAGIN. Well, both. It is sometimes at the time of hiring. There are certain jobs that a Negro man or woman cannot get, and there are some jobs that if they do get, why, they simply have their limitations. Mr. POWELL. Would it be possible for the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches to prepare a statement that is specific on this situation? Dr. JERNAGIN. Yes. Mr. PowELL. Or if not the Fraternal Council of Negro Churches then some other group in Washington, so that the committee could have the specific instances. Dr. JERNAGIN. Yes; I would be glad to do that. Mr. POWELL. If you could present to the committee such specific instances the committee would be happy, I am sure, to invite whoever is responsible for these policies before this committee to testify. Dr. JERNAGIN. Fine. I will be glad to do that, Mr. Chairman. Mr. POWELL. I would like to have that as soon as possible. Dr. JERNAGIN. All right. Mr. POWELL. We are keeping our afternoons free for just such purposes, and you can get that to me tomorrow morning. I am sure you can get the assistance of other organizations in the community in securing that information, and I can present it to the committee. I am sure they would be interested in knowing whoever the Government Commissioner is. I think the whole thing comes under the Treasury, does it not? Dr. JERNAGIN. Yes; it is the Treasury Department. Mr. POWELL. So we could request Mr. Snyder, the Secretary of the Treasury, to come before the committee and testify on why this policy exists, in the face of Mr. Truman's orders to Government agencies not to have such policies. Dr. JERNAGIN. I will be glad to get that for you. Mr. POWELL. I would like at this time to introduce into the record a letter from Mr. Tobin, Secretary of Labor, endorsing fully this bill, and saying that the Department of Labor is in favor of its immediate passage. Mr. Tobin will appear toward the end of these hearings, but the chairman feels it important that this statement, from a member of the President's Cabinet, be incorporated in the record now. He wishes to reemphasize that this bill came to the chairman from the administration. We would also like to include in the record at this time statements from Representative Dingell, of the Fifteenth Congressional District of Michigan, in favor of this bill; from Representative John A. Blat nik, of Minnesota; from Representative Walter A. Lynch, of the Twenty-third District of New York, all in favor of this bill; a letter from the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union, A. F. of L., in favor of the bill; a letter and a resolution from the National Women's Trade Union League of America; and two letters from two chapters of the American Veterans Committee, in favor of this bill. (The several matters referred to above are as follows:) Hon. JOHN LESINSKI, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN LESINSKI: This is in further response to your request for my views on H. R. 21, H. R. 64, H. R. 192, H. R. 371, H. R. 384, H. R. 792, H. R. 1348, and H. R. 1578, bills to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, religion, color, national origin, or ancestry. While I approve of the objectives of legislation along the lines proposed in these bills, I believe that H. R. 4453 contains the specific provisions which I would like to see in such legislation, and upon which I will comment separately at a later date. The freedom to earn a living without being discriminated against because of race, color, or religion is as important in our modern economic system as the more familiar civil rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. That this freedom has not been achieved completely and that members of minority groups have suffered discrimination in seeking and obtaining work and on the job are facts that are well-known. With an awareness of the existence of this discrimination, one of the 15 points of this Department's legislative program to improve the economic status of those who work, is the enactment of a sound fair employment practice act to end job and wage discrimination against minority groups in interstate commerce. Legislation which places primary reliance upon peaceful persuasion as the most effective method of dealing with discriminatory employment practices represents a desirable approach to the problem of discrimination in employment. For those cases, however, in which informal methods of conference are unavailing, such legislation should provide sanctions which are appropriate to the offense. The mere fact that legal sanctions may be invoked would be of a considerable help in persuading employers and labor organizations voluntarily to discontinue their unfair practices. During the past several years, a number of States have adopted laws to eliminate discrimination in employment. The States of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, in particular, have such laws. The agencies administering these laws in these States have reported a marked decline in discriminatory practices since their enactment. Discrimination in employment, however, does not respect State lines. It is a national problem which affects our whole economy and requires action by the Federal Government. For these reasons the objectives of legislation along the lines proposed in these bills have my wholehearted approval. The Bureau of the Budget advises that it has no objection to the submission of this report since the enactment of legislation such as H. R. 4453 would be in accord with the program of the President. Yours very truly, MAURICE J. TOBIN, STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, RELATIVE TO H. R. 4453 Mr. Chairman, I shall not unduly impose upon the time of the committee, for to me the question of fair practice in employment is fundamental and therefore not debatable. I stand squarely and uncompromisingly by the side of President Truman in support of the Democratic platform, and I assure the |