Mr. BURKE. That is without recourse to the civil service?

Mr. RICHARDSON. The experience we had is when agencies make request of civil service with regard to personnel, in terms of promotions, and so forth, the Civil Service goes along with the agency, because the agency knows best what it wants in the operation of the agency. I don't think the Civil Service Commission is the problem here; the problem is a decisive handling of the personnel problem with regard to the races there.

I would like to point out also, Mr. Chairman, that the problem of the skilled employees is one which, while it is complicated, is also a very simple one. Mr. Hall did not know how many Negroes were employed as skilled craftsmen in the Bureau.

Well, we can say that there are no Negroes.

Mr. POWELL. Absolutely none?

Mr. RICHARDSON. No Negroes. Is that correct, Mrs. Gilmore?
Mrs. GILMORE. That is correct.

Mr. POWELL. They get from the civil-service register the skilled employees?

Mr. RICHARDSON. Congressman, to perhaps elaborate a little bit on this question of the Civil Service Commission and its recruiting, I would like to ask Mrs. Gilmore some more questions.

Mrs. Gilmore, will you tell the committee how many of the plate printers have been brought into the Bureau?

Mrs. GILMORE. Within the last year, when this step-up in production had taken place, there have been about three or four hundred printers brought in at intervals from the American Bank Note Co. in New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission in Philadelphia, and printers were brought in from retirement in order to take care of this step-up in production, or in an emergency. It has not been proven, but I understand one white man was brought in from a printer's assistant register and trained as an apprentice. He became a full-fledged printer.

Mr. RICHARDSON. I may just say, Mr. Chairman, that in the Bureau, whether Mr. Hall knows it or not, there is a working cooperation between management and the printer's union, the plate printers union. This is not the typographical printers union but the plate printers union. There is a working arrangement whereby that union supplies the Bureau with skilled personnel. That union is a lilywhite union.

Mr. POWELL. Do those workers from the plate printers union come through the civil service at all?

Mr. RICHARDSON. They come simply by filling out a form.
Mr. POWELL. Through a civil-service test?

Mr. RICHARDSON. No test, no examination. The trade sends them in, they fill out a form, and that is all; they are hired.

Mr. POWELL. Are there any Negroes who have had enough experience to take those kind of examinations?

Mr. RICHARDSON. We think we have a number of Negroes who have had enough experience to take those examinations.

Mr. POWELL. Have they made any applications?

Mr. RICHARDSON. I don't know if there were recently any applications directly for a plate printer's job, but I will make this comment with regard to the apprenticeship for a plate printing job:

When the examination was announced last August, a number of Negro veterans applied. It was restricted to veterans and to permanent employees. About 35 Negro veterans applied for the examination, and then there was a long period of waiting and a long period of discussion, and a long period of doing nothing about the examination, when we were reliably informed that the printers' union was opposed to the holding of this apprenticeship examination, because for the first time in the history of this agency Negroes had applied and qualified to take the apprenticeship examination, and there was no doubt that some would pass the examination and become apprentices in the Bureau.

The logical outcome would be that over a period of time there would have been Negroes coming from this apprenticeship into the Bureau as plate printers.

Mr. POWELL. Then they decided not to hold the examination?
Mr. RICHARDSON. They decided not to hold the examination.

Mr. POWELL. Since they decided not to hold the examination, have they appointed any printers' apprentices?

Mr. RICHARDSON. No; they have not appointed any printers' apprentices, but they have brought in all sorts of printers. I would like to say that they have brought in men from retirement. The plant went on a 54-hour week, with 12 hours a week overtime at time and a half for the printers. They have gone as far west as Iowa to bring men here to serve as plate printers, but when they got here they were found to be plate polishers. They are blanketed in, they fill out a form and the Civil Service says, "O. K.," and these people are hired. On the one hand, they say they are canceling the examination because there is no shortage of plate printers because of modernization, and, on the other hand, they go down and bring men back out of retirement, they go as far west as Iowa and bring in not only plate printers but plate polishers, and then they still maintain there is a shortage of printers.

There is something else I want to say on this question. I had some correspondence with Madam Perkins in the Civil Service Commission on another matter, and she inadvertently pointed out to me that the Bureau had been confronted with a shortage of plate printers for several years, and she had authorized the appointment of a plate printer only a few weeks ago that the Bureau was lucky enough to find. Mr. POWELL. How long ago was this?

Mr. RICHARDSON. I received the letter about 6 weeks ago from Madam Perkins.

Mr. POWELL. Mr. Hall says, however, they will not hire any for years.

Mr. RICHARDSON. They are hiring them, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. BURKE. May I ask you this: We will take the American Banknote Co., for instance, and that is one of the biggest reservoirs for apprentices in this particular trade, is it not?

Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes; I would say that.

Mr. BURKE. New York State has now had an FEPC law in operation for some 4 years. Do you know if there are any apprentices in the American Banknote Co.?

Mr. RICHARDSON. I don't know, Mr. Burke. We could find that out, we could look into that.

This is sort of a tangent to your question, but I just want to point out that, when Mr. Truman issued his fair employment order for the Federal service, our members at the Bureau of Engraving our Negro members-looked forward to the elimination of discrimination at the Bureau of Engraving, and it was on the basis of their instructions that their union began to raise with the management point after point of discriminatory practices, with the hope that the custom would be stopped. All we have been confronted with over the past 10 months has been evasions. We feel certainly when the chief administrator announces his policy on this question through an Executive order and has called for compliance and cooperation by the agencies, that the agencies ought to spend their time not in finding ways to evade the application of the order but in finding ways to make the order work. Mr. Powell, I would like very much for you Congressmen to know the kind of men who applied for this examination and who were turned down, men who are being discriminated against now on this question.

You have heard the letter I read in regard to Mr. Fred Wiggins, and I would like to ask Mr. Wiggins some questions.

Mr. Wiggins, how long have you been employed at the Bureau? Mr. WIGGINS. Since 1936.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Have you had any experience in any printing trade?

Mr. WIGGINS. I have.

Mr. RICHARDSON. How much?

Mr. WIGGINS. Fifteen years.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Does that mean you work in your spare time as a printer?

Mr. WIGGINS. Yes; in my spare time.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Were you trained in any school as a printer? Mr. WIGGINS. Yes; I was trained at Shaw and Armstrong Technical High School.

Mr. RICHARDSON. As a printer?

Mr. WIGGINS. Yes.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Have you ever had an efficiency rating less than "good," Mr. Wiggins?

Mr. WIGGINS. I have not.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Have you noticed anything about the printers who have been hired at the Bureau during the past 6 months?

Mr. WIGGINS. Yes; I saw the group that came in from the American Banknote Co. on the morning they were hired.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Did you notice anything else?

Mr. WIGGINS. I noticed one of the fellows who was recalled from retirement who was so old he has to stay in the locker room most of the time.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Wiggins, do you have any other comments about the situation at the Bureau ?

Mr. WIGGINS. Well, I really would like to enjoy some of this democracy that I fought for, that I was told I would receive after the war

was over.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman, that is the statement of Fred Wiggins. From 1942 to 1945 he was in the Pacific and he is one of the group of 35 Negro veterans who have been given this run-around on this question of getting training for a skilled trade.

Mr. BURKE. May I ask Mr. Wiggins a question?

Mr. POWELL. Yes.

Mr. BURKE. I think this applies to you. This is case No. 1, Frederick Wiggins. It states you have had extensive training outside of your own trade in linotype work and composing room and printing operations.

Mr. Hall testified they used only about six people in that type of work in the Bureau. Is that right?

Mr. WIGGINS. That is not true. I have had the experience of being a messenger there, in the Bureau, before I was promoted. I had occasion to go through all of the sections, the composing room and the other sections-there are more than six. When I was promoted to CM-1 I was permitted to work on the press by the pressman, and when he was not there I operated the press.

Mr. POWELL. You have operated the press?

Mr. WIGGINS. Yes. In the school I ran a cylinder press. This is the flat-bed press. I worked for 3 years on the offset press. That is the type they use in the Post and Star buildings.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Then you feel you were qualified as a full journeyman in that type of work?

Mr. WIGGINS. Yes, I do.

Mr. BURKE. You were willing to take this examination for apprenticeship in the other trade?

Mr. WIGGINS. Yes. I have also a trade in brick masonry. They also have that craft down there.

Mr. POWELL. They have the brick masonry craft in the Bureau of Engraving?

Mr. WIGGINS. Yes.

Mr. POWELL. They engrave bricks and throw them at you?

Mr. WIGGINS. They have something rougher than bricks to throw

at you.

Mr. BURKE. That is probably in the maintenance division; is that not true?

Mr. WIGGINS. Yes.

Mr. POWELL. What about the maintenance division? How does one get employed in that maintenance division?

Mrs. GILMORE. The Bureau has a policy of taking people from the production division, the division I work in as a skilled helper. I came from the printer's assistant appointment to an examiner. The Bureau has the policy of consulting with the supervisors and telling them there are so many openings in another division and they may pick their choice, and of course they take white. In all of the divisions there, every division, even in the clerical division, it is the same policy. They require you to file a blank stating your qualifications, and after you file it it is up to the supervisor as to just how well he likes you, as to whether he wants to select you to that particular job.

Mr. POWELL. The key to the whole problem is the supervisor.
Mr. RICHARDSON. A large part of the key.

Mr. POWELL. There is your whole story.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman, I noticed a question that was being asked, I believed it was of Mr. Hard. I think the Congressman here asked about the question of reprisals when you try to appeal to your immediate supervisor on the question of discrimination.

I think the clearest example of the kind of reprisals that can be taken, has been taken and that will be taken is the reprisal which was taken on Graham Burrell.

He was being discriminated against because he was a Negro. He went to the immediate supervisor and the upshot of the thing was he was taken off of the job. He was told it was a woman's job. On this question of there being no reprisals there, there are reprisals.

I would like to bring to your attention, because of the fact that such emphasis was placed on the responsibility of the Civil Service Commission, the case of Mrs. Ethel C. Perritt, who is a printer's assistant in the Bureau.

Mrs. Perritt, I would like to ask you, with the chairman's permission, just one or two questions.

How long have you been employed at the Bureau?

Mrs. PERRITT. Approximately 8 years.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Were you appointed to the job from a civil service examination?

Mrs. PERRITT. From the printer's assistant register. I took the examination in 1941.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Why is it that you are a war-service appointee still?

Mrs. PERRITT. I am still a war-service appointee because I was hired at the Bureau just a few days after March 15.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mrs. Perritt, do you feel that you learned any special skills during your period of 8 years employment at the Bureau as a printer's assistant?

Mrs. PERRITT. Yes; I believe I have been able to learn how to perform my duties in such a way that I can avoid the spoilage of money. That is definitely because I have had the training. You can only get this experience at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, since there is no other place in the country that does comparable work.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mrs. Perritt, would you tell the Congressmen a little bit more about the kind of work you do? When you are at the press, what happens at the press? There is a printer and two printer's assistants, is that right?

Mrs. PERRITT. That is right.

Mr. RICHARDSON. What do you do?

Mrs. PERRITT. At the press, as you stated, there is a printer and two printer's assistants. One has to lay the money on and the other take the money off. We do that in terms of, say, 600 sheets of paper.

First we have to get the paper that we need to print, and we have to be extremely accurate in placing the money on lines on these plates, and if that money is the least bit off, it is spoiled and naturally it is thrown out. You can see it takes months of experience, and it takes a certain amount of skill to be able to do that in the allotted minute that you have so many sheets of paper to go through.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Mrs. Perritt, does the printer depend upon the printer's assistant in the performance of the job of printing the money? In other words, I mean when a new printer comes in is he able to take that press and just go on and start printing the money?

Mrs. PERRITT. Definitely not. He is hardly acquainted with the mechanisms of the plate printing process. As I say, the printing of money is not done anywhere but in the Bureau of Engraving and