Mr. KANE. There is no question about it. In every State where there is an FEPC law they found they needed enforcement powers or no progress would be made whatsoever. In States such as Oregon, they had a statute without enforcement powers and found it necessary to amend it. In many States which now have effective laws they had for years tried to attack the subject on an educational basis and made no progress whatsoever.

Mr. BURKE. Usually the commission which was established made the recommendation itself and took the lead in asking for this type of legislation.

Mr. KANE. You are quite correct, sir.

Mr. POWELL. I think it is important to emphasize what Mr. Kane pointed out. In the city of Chicago, where years ago the Negro enjoyed more economic advantages than anywhere else, that no longer is true there. There the employers signed a sort of voluntary agreement, a voluntary FEPC, and the resudt is that the Negro in Chicago today has less job opportunities than Negroes elsewhere in the State of Illinois. In other words, if you have an enforcible FEPC the people will obey it, but people will just hide behind the FEPC philosophy with no powers.

Mr. KANE. We have yet to find any evidence of any voluntary plan being effective.

Mr. POWELL. Thank you, Mr. Kane.

Mr. KANE. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Sigal.

STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN C. SIGAL, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES

UNION

Mr. SIGAL. Congress has an obligation to insure that all citizens should have equal rights in employment in interstate commerce. This principle should apply to employers and associations of workers alike so that the protection of Federal law may be extended to the right to work on the basis of men's ability regardless of race and religion. The principle has been tested by the wartime Federal agency (FEPC) and by the experience of four States (New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey). The operation of the State statutes has won over to the side of fair employment practice some of its most vigorous opponents. Fears of coercive measures against employers have been shown to be unfounded. Such measures have not been necessary to secure compliance. General recognition of the justice of fair practice is in the spirit of the times. Even the fears of coercion in the South are unfounded in the light of the methods used both by the Federal Government in wartime and by the States. The chief objection to such a bill is apparently that an employer's relationship with his employees is a private matter not subject to regulation by the State in hiring or promotion. But Congress has already legislated in regard to private employment in many ways. It has regulated collective bargaining and the closed shop. It has barred employment in private industry under certain conditions to Communists and Fascists. It has assumed under the interstate commerce clause wide powers over employing policies.

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The bill would not compel any employer to hire any particular person. It would ban only the practice of racial or religious discrimination-by employers and labor unions alike.

The charge that the bill is an interference with States' rights is answered first, by the fact that the Supreme Court can be trusted to protect these States' rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and secondly by the fact that States' rights are protected by the bill's omission of employers not engaged in interstate commerce or in operations not affecting interstate commerce. Section (a) provides that the Commission may agree with any State or local FEPC to cede to it all jurisdiction over the cases before it, unless local law is inconsistent with Federal law. Thus, if a State desires to deal with discrimination, it may.

The charge that the compulsory features of the bill are unfair is without merit. The Commission must investigate charges of discrim ination, and if it finds probable cause it must then follow the methods of conference, conciliation, and persuasion. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that in the four States in which FEPC has already been in operation for a substantial length of time, there has been, we believe only one instance in which these informal methods have failed to remedy the complaint. Compulsion is necessary behind any law. If informal methods do not work, what form would compulsion take! A full hearing must be held before the Commission, in which the employer has the fullest opportunity. If the Commission deems the employer guilty of discrimination, it issues a cease and desist order, which may be enforced only upon petition to the courts, and the courts under certain conditions may order that additional evidence be taken. After such full and fair procedure, an employer's freedom to hire, but not to discriminate, could not be in the least impaired. If it is argued that it is difficult to determine discrimination the answer is that all courts and administrative agencies must and do determine more difficult factual questions. The very difficulty of proving discrimination would insure that no one will be unjustly held guilty by the Commission or by the courts.

The interest of the ACLU as a national agency of 30 years' record in supporting for everybody the principles of the Bill of Rights, is in the extension of those rights to industry. It is not enough to urge equality before the law in political rights regardless of race and religion; the principle is as valid for our democracy as applied to a man's right to equality in employment.

Federal law alone can fix fair standards for the Nation. Federal law alone will serve notice to the world that our democracy means in fact what we profess in principle.

Mr. POWELL. Thank you very much.

There will be a joint session of the Congress in a few minutes to welcome President Dutra, of Brazil, and because of that the committee cannot hear the next witness. The next witness can come back this afternoon.

The committe now stands adjourned until 1:15. We will meet at 1:15 to hear the CIO on a little dispute that has arisen, which we are not going to let get out of hand.

(Whereupon, at 12 m., the subcommittee recessed to 1: 15 p. m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(The subcommittee met at 1: 15 p. m., pursuant to the taking of the recess.)

Mr. POWELL. The committee will come to order. Our first order for the afternoon is the representatives from the CIO, Willard S. Townsend, member of the executive board, and secretary of the national CIO committee to abolish discrimination in employment; and also George L. B. Weaver.

I understand they have counsel with them.

Will you kindly give your name.

Mr. HARRIS. I am Thomas Harris. I am here as counsel to Mr. Townsend. I am assistant general counsel of the CIO and the United Steelworkers of America.

TESTIMONY OF WILLARD S. TOWNSEND, INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT, UNITED TRANSPORT SERVICE EMPLOYEES, MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE BOARD OF THE CIO, AND SECRETARY OF THEIR COMMITTEE TO ABOLISH DISCRIMINATION, ACCOMPANIED BY GEORGE L. P. WEAVER AND THOMAS HARRIS

Mr. TOWNSEND. My name is Willard S. Townsend, international president, United Transport Service Employees, member of the national executive board of the CIO, and secretary of their committee to abolish discrimination.

Mr. Chairman, before I begin my statement I would like to express my thanks for extending the courtesy to appear here this afternoon. This original statement was to be given by Mr. James B. Carey, who is chairman of our committee, and secretary-treasurer of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, but due to the fact that he was detained at a board meeting I have been asked to come in his place.

We appear here today in support of H. R. 4453, a bill designed to promote and secure fair employment practices by eliminating discrimination in employment because of race, creed, or color. This bill declares it to be the policy of the United States Government that the right to work and seek work shall be guaranteed without discrimination because of race, creed, color, national origin, or ancestry.

This is neither new or experimental legislation. Not only has an impressive body of experience been accumulated demonstrating the successful application of this principle, but it is successfully operating today in the States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. Similar legislation has been adopted recently by the legislatures of Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. The Congress of Industrial Organizations from its inception has attempted to meet foursquare the problems resulting from our American discriminatory patterns. The preamble of our constitution eloquently sets forth our creed in the following manner:

Since its formation in 1935, the CIO has grown strong because the service it has given to American workers has made ours a better America. We of the CIO are the sons and daughters of ancestors who came to America to escape absolutism in government, bigotry in religion, and economic exploitation. We of the CIO are proud of this American quest for liberty and the struggle for equality. We seek, today, to implement this great heritage. We are dedicated to the responsibility for further economic opportunity, religious freedom, and political participation.

Our constitution follows up this statement by setting forth as the first objective of our organization

To bring about the effective organization of the working men and women of America, regardless of race, creed, color, or nationality, and to unite them for economic action into labor unions for their mutual aid and protection.

From the time of the establishment of the first Committee on Fair Employment Practices, the CIO has given strong support to the passage of legislation, municipal, State, and Federal, which will serve to implement the principle of equal opportunity for all.

We vigorously supported the passage of ordinances providing for a Fair Employment Practice Commission in the cities of Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. Similarly, we vigorously supported the passage of like statutes in the States of New York, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. We have time and again set forth our views in favor of passage of an FEPC law at the Federal level.

This position of the CIO has been unanimously endorsed by every CIO convention since our Detroit convention in 1941. Unlike the past, the workers of America today are outspoken in their demand that they be freed of industry's traditional patterns of discrimination. We in the Congress of Industrial Organizations are acutely aware of the need for national legislation in this field.

The CIO realizes, however, that constitutional provisions, no matter how eloquent, are not enough. We therefore implemented our constitutional obligation to guarantee equal opportunity to all of our membership by the creation in 1942 of the ĈIO committee to abolish discrimination.

Many of our affiliated unions have created similar administrative structures to promote fair-employment-practice policies within the industries where they have jurisdiction. Through the machinery and the active efforts of our officers we have enjoyed a measure of success in fighting discrimination in employment.

Although we have made substantial progress, we have been very conscious of the fact that our attempts to solve this problem are limited, and we cannot complete the job in a satisfactory manner unless we are supported by governmental action. The problem is much more broad and much more difficult than a union can solve itself. We have been aided considerably by the passage of city and State fairemployment-practice legislation, but our efforts must be supplemented by the passage of comparable legislation on the part of the National Government.

The Congress of Industrial Organizations strongly supports H. R. 4453 because it translates into legislative reality the right to employment at a worker's highest skill, regardless of difference of race, or creed, anywhere in America. In addition, this bill insures that this principle will become more than a pious platitude through its enforcement machinery. The essential weakness of the President's Fair Employment Practice Committee, which operated during the recent war, was its lack of enforcement power. Having no power to enforce its orders, it operated effectively only where the main social forces of the community supported a fair treatment of minorities.

It must be remembered, in considering the application of this principle today, that many of the compulsions which aided the wartime

FEPC are removed. Today a fair-employment-practice statute patterned exactly on the model of the Executive order creating the wartime FEPC could only point up to the weak spots in our industrial life. This would be a source of frustration, because such a commission would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to change the discriminatory patterns of many communities without this enforcement power.

We support this principle for the more important reasons that to deny any person employment or economic opportunity because of race, creed, or color, is contrary to our basic ideals of democracy, is antisocial, and economically stupid. We fought a war against racial intolerance, and we must continue to extend the areas of human liberty and decency, if we are to win the peace.

America cannot assume leadership for the rest of the world and instill confidence in the peoples of the world with respect to democratic principles unless we are prepared to destroy intolerance and discrimination in employment opportunities right here at home. We believe that freedom, like peace, is indivisible; that unless everyone has freedom, each person's freedom is limited accordingly.

We are convinced that the passage of this bill is not only a matter of social justice to the individual, but a matter of grave economic concern to the Nation. If we deprive millions of people of the opportunity to make their maximum productive contribution, it means that we are robbing the American economy of the tremendous wealth that our total energy and capacity could produce. It is not only a matter of justice, but serious economic concern at a time when we are trying to achieve maximum production in order to gear our productive resources to meet the many challenges that the end of the shooting war produced. Racial intolerance in employment does not create wealth; to the contrary, it destroys potential wealth. At present, our task is to mobilize our forces to provide an increasingly higher standard of living in America, and still have enough left over to help in the job of rehabilitating the economies of the rest of the free world. That is the most important job that America has, and our economy and productive capacity is the greatest single asset that free men have in the world. If we continue to deny to millions of people, because of race, creed, or color, an opportunity to make their maximum contribution in our economy, we are denying to the economy the benefits of their energies, their skills, their efforts, which results in our penalizing the whole Nation and the whole world by not taking advantage of that tremendous reservoir of creative and productive effort that could be applied to our economy.

We are in agreement with this bill, for we believe that the right to work and to earn, thereby providing the best living for one's family, is a fundamental and basic right that must be protected by lawin the language of the bill, it is a "civil right of all the people of the United States." The statute books of our Nation are replete with laws that protect the property rights of great corporations; we believe that the right to a job on the part of a worker, at his highest skill, is a most valuable property right and therefore should be protected by law.

When H. R. 4453 is passed, it will be a new and clear-cut declaration of this principle; it will make clear that we believe that every