provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act and the traditional concepts of fair play.

Subpenas may be issued only by the commission or some member thereof. The bill is modeled on the New York "law against discrimination" enacted on March 12, 1945, and commonly known as the Ives-Quinn law.

That law was passed by the legislature overwhelmingly, as a nonpartisan measure. It gave the State of New York primacy in the enactment of an integrated program against racial and religious discrimination.

In signing the bill the Governor described it as a reaffirmation by the people of New York of their faith "in the simple principles of our free Republic"; and said:

"It expresses the rule that must be fundamental in any free society-that no man shall be deprived of the chance to earn his bread by reason of the circumstances of his birth."

The leadership thus taken by the State of New York in this social advance has stimulated the enactment of similar laws in the States of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Like legislation is pending in some other States. The bill was framed by a commission appointed in the previous year by the legislature and the Governor. The commission had extended public hearings on the subject and on the commission's preliminary draft in all the principal cities of the State. The law as proposed by the commission was enacted without any change. It can truly be described as the work of the people of the State of New York themselves.

While the phrasing of the new law constituted legislative pioneering, the principles which it applied to the betterment of human relations were as old as American democracy and as basic as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

H. R. 4453 sets forth these same principles and gives them embodiment in the national field, subject to the constitutional restrictions applicable to Federal legislation.

Opposition to the enactment of this bill, like the opposition to the enactment of like legislation in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut is largely on the ground that the law may unsettle tranquility of business, promote harassing and blackmailing suits, and divide employees into racial groups.

Even if this fear were well founded, it would not follow that the racial and religious minorities must pay with peonage, second-class citizenship and frustrated lives, the price of preventing such annoyances. But this legislation does not take such a pessimistic view of the American character or of democracy or of sound economics. Rather does it regard the business and industri consequences as much better measured by the profound words of Mr. Eric A. Johnson, when president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, when he said publicly in January 1945:

"Wherever we erect barriers on the grounds of race or religion, or of occupational or professional status, we hamper the fullest expression of our economic society. Intolerance is destructive. Prejudice produces no wealth. Discrimination is a fool's economy. * * * The withholding of jobs and business opportunities from some people does not make more jobs and business opportunities for others. Such a policy merely tends to drag down the whole economic level. Perpetuating poverty for some merely guarantees stagnation for all."

It is also Mr. Eric Johnson who reminds us of another vital aspect of this matter of discrimination, by quoting Walt Whitman's famous lines: "This is not a nation, but a teaming of nations." It is this all-American team, its unity strengthened by its diversity, that has victoriously brought the Ship of Liberty through the most evil wind that ever swept the world.

In New York, not one of the evil consequences that were feared by opponents of the legislation has materialized. The new law has fitted easily and smoothly into the economic structure. It has been wisely administered, in a spirit of statesmanship and with a view to the progressive accomplishment of sound and constructive results.

The constitutional bases on which the pending bill rests are clear. There is nothing new in Federal legislation eliminating racial and religious discrimination in employment relationships subject to Federal control. Since 1933 a score of different Federal statutes or appropriation acts have been adopted by the Congress forbidding racial or religious discrimination. Among these are the Selective Service Classification Act of 1940 (54 Stat. 1214), the Civilian Conservation Corps Act of 1937 (50 Stat. 320), the Lanham or Defense

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Housing Appropriation Act of 1941 (55 Stat. 363), the Nurses Training Act of 1933 (57 Stat. 153), and various appropriation acts (e. g., for the National Youth Administration and the Federal Security Agency). These and other statutes embody, as the Supreme Court has held, "a national policy against racial discrimination" (Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. Michigan, 333 U. S. 16, decided February 2, 1948).

There can be no question of congressional power to regulate the employment practices of Federal agencies and to prescribe the terms on which the Federal Government may contract with private parties.

As to private employment practices, the power of Congress to regulate intersate and foreign commerce has been repeatedly used to regulate employment relationships affecting those fields; and such use has been repeatedly upheld by the courts. Such statutes as the National Labor Relations Act, the Railway Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act and others are illustrations. The Supreme Court of the United States has upheld the constitutionality of such legislation (National Labor Relations Board, v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1; Texas & New Orleans Ry. v. Brotherhood, 281 U. S. 548; United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100; Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 299 U. S. 334; New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 U. S. 552; Railway Mail Association v. Corsi, 326 U. S. 88; Steele v. Louisville & N. R. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192; Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, 323 U. S. 210; Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U. S. 373; West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379, 391–392; Phelps-Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 177).

Furthermore, the treaty-making power constitutes a delegated power which is referred to in the bill and sustains its constitutionality.

Subdivision 2 of article VI of the Constitution of the United States declares that treaties lawfully made "shall be the supreme law of the land." The United Nations Charter constitutes such a treaty and article 55 thereof provides:

"With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect to the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the United Nations shall promote: * * (c) Universal respect for, and observance,

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of human rights and fundamental freedoms of all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion,"

This provision is given substance in article 56 which provides: "All Members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in cooperation with the Organization for the achievement of the purposes set forth in article 55." Only Federal legislation can fulfill this pedge; and the fufillment thereof is professed in section 2 (c) (iii) of the present bill.

The Supreme Court of the United States has held that the delegation of power to make treaties implicitly carries with it the power to enact legislation for their fulfillment, even though without the treaty such legislation would not otherwise be within the powers delegated to Congress (Missouri v. Holland, 252 U. S. 416, 433; Oyama v. California, 332 U. S. 633; 68 S. Ct. 269, 277, 288, decided January 19, 1948).

STATEMENT OF H. MCALLISTER GRIFFITH, VICE PRESIDENT, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, INC., NEW YORK, N. Y.

The National Economic Council is opposed to this bill, both in principle and in its historical setting, and is so opposed for the following reasons:

1. This legislation is Communist in origin.—While doubtless many sincere persons who abhor communism support this bill in good faith, the original inspiration of it is Communist, and it is a part of the Communist design to divide and weaken the American Republic.

In June 1935, the Workers' Library Publishers, a part of the Communist Party apparatus in the United States, published a pamphlet of 48 pages, entitled "The Negroes in a Soviet America." It purports to have been written by James W. Ford and James S. Allen. A photostatic reproduction of this pamphlet is attached hereto as part of the record of the case against this bill presented by the National Economic Council. A reading of this pamphlet will show clearly that FEPC-type legislation is a part of the Communist strategy to disrupt and disorganize the United States by causing friction between the colored and white races while pretending to be devoted to equalizing them.

Of a Soviet America the pamphlet says on page 37: "In the first place all hindrances, barriers, discriminations will be removed." On page 38, after de

claring that in a Soviet America Negroes will fare even better than whites, it goes on: "Any act of discrimination or prejudice against a Negro will become a crime under the revolutionary law." This must be understood in conjunction with the two other revealing bits of Communist technique. On page 47 readers are told: "We must begin now-begin by organizing by preparing our forces in our daily struggles to improve our conditions, by learning 'to take over.'" On page 14: "We believe in using elections and our representatives in elected bodies to rally the people against capitalism. As long as capitalism permits the rights of citizenship, the working class should use these rights against the capitalists." When these words are considered together with the repeated endorsement of FEPC legislation in the platforms of the Communist Party, the design becomes crystal clear.

2. This legislation is both wrong and harmful in principle.—It is not liberal in the true meaning of the word, but profoundly reactionary in that it represents a long step toward the totalitarian state. If enacted its effect will not be to preserve the rights of minorities, but to destroy them. It will increase racial irrigations rather than allay them.

All persons of intelligence and good will favor elimination of prejudices and bigotries which spring from ignorant hatred of others. That desire is not an issue. The issue is, how is such prejudice to be eliminated? Will enactment of this bill bring greater evils than those it hopes to cure?

Those who favor an objective, in this case the peaceful and harmonious relationships of citizens of different races or religions, but who oppose some particular means proposed to achieve the objective, cannot be justly charged with opposing the objective. If the means proposed are bad, the good objective may only be attained by rejecting them and finding some better means.

This legislation attempts to force that which in its nature is not susceptible to force. Unwilling compliance with a directive is one thing, but it will not lead to harmonious relationships. Understanding, tolerance, and warmth between person and person are natural, gradual growths. The substitution of force for the patient processes of time and history, while always attractive to those who hope to remake the world in a hurry, will be fatal. There are two kinds of contracts between persons. One is that kind of living together in which understanding is the fruit of mutual, unforced good will. The other is the contact of persons at variance with each other. Love cannot be enjoined by laws or courts, particularly when the injunction is accompanied by a penalty for disobedience. Legislation that permits such attempts to force good will will create new points of friction rather than eliminate those which now exist.

The true method of achieving understanding and tolerance mutually between diverse groups is not the continual emphasis of differences, but rather emphasis upon values which exist in common and interests which belong to both.

FEPC legislation is a threat to the freedom of religion so precious a portion of our American heritage. The purpose of the exercise of religion and the existence of churches is the building up of character. In exercising one's religion, and as an integral element in that exercise, one possesses an inalienable right, guaranteed by fundamental law but existing prior to and independent of any legislative enactment, to:

First. Include any man's religion in an estimate of his character. This applies to both prospective employer and prospective employee.

Second. Entrust matters of confidence and trust to a person of one's own religion if one believes that the practice of such religion actually builds up character and thus fits him to be a better employee or associate.

Since these rights are inalienable, and the proposed legislation is in conflict with them, the bill if enacted would be contrary to constitutional provisions as well as the natural law, which is the law of God. Consequently, no person who wishes to maintain his religious liberty will consider himself bound by such legislation. It is an attempt to dictate to the mind of the individual a course of thought and action which Government has no right to dictate.

It is also an inalienable right possessed by every freeman, to be able to choose his own associates and companions for reasons which seem cogent to him, although they may seem not sufficient or frivolous to others. Once such associa tions are not made freely but at the command of Government, the society which permits such interference with individual liberty becomes a prison, and ceases to be a free society. Without freedom of choice in association, there is no real freedom at all.

The bill is further destructive of liberty in that it destroys the free market for goods and services upon which our economic system as well as our social and political liberties depend for their exercise.

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In a free market for services, both employer and employee are free to bargain and need not agree unless mutually satisfied.

Government may make conditions of work involving health and safety. But it may not invade the freedom of decision of citizens in their bargaining as to employment. This bill, by bringing Government as a third party into the market, as a party which can say, "You must employ," destroys the free market for services. The only alternative to the free market, and the alternative toward which this legislation obviously tends, is a market in which Government exercises the controlling voice, not alone as to the compliance of an employer, but as to the compliance of the employee as well. Thus labor, instead of remaining as one of two free bargaining units, becomes a pool at the disposition and under the control of Government.

Nothing more destructive of the true rights and freedom of labor could possibly be devised. Bargaining units of workers, such as labor unions, which depend upon the free labor market and the competitive system for their very existence should be the last to submit to a Government labor monopoly. Political freedom cannot long remain when the free market goes. This legislation destroys the free market.

In any exchange, free choice departs when either party is no longer the owner of that he seeks to exchange. In the case of the market for services, the employer must be able to hold out the unconditional offer of employment and the applicant must be able to offer his services without reference to any other consent, and their free agreement is an exercise of their respective control over that which belongs to each.

FEPC legislation, however, assumes that any applicant, by the fact of applying, is invested with some kind of interest in that particular job, an interest enforceable at law. This is destructive of the free market entirely. It makes Government an interested party and, since the State must protect the rights of its citizen, Government must then become the final arbiter of all hiring.

If they once concede this right to Government, both employer and employee are bound by it and its inexorable consequences. The power that can say “you must hire," can also say "you must not hire." It may further say, since it is now

an interested party and sole arbiter, "you must apply," and "you must not apply."

Minorities which seek to gain social benefits by placing their destiny in the hands of Government-which is controlled by the majority-sign their own ultimate death warrants. For, having yielded up a part of their liberties to Government on condition that it confer upon them certain advantages derived by abridging the liberties of others, it loses the moral right to object when any subsequent majority takes any action it pleases concerning the minority. Minorities are protected from majorities only by the self-restraint of majorities. If those self-restraints are not founded upon inalienable principles respected by the majority as an act of morality, they will soon cease to exist.

If, therefore, Government assumes control of the pool of labor, that control must be extended to management as well, and the social and political freedoms enjoyed by all, both minority and majority, will cease to have moral meaning and sanction.

Finally, this proposed legislation attempts to accomplish something which is psychologically, factually, and morally impossible. The State itself assumes powers akin to those of Deity when, meeting by commission or court, it purports to enter into the mind of an employer and declare (against his denial) what went on within his own mind and what was the chief element in his choice in deciding not to hire an applicant for work. Since what really goes on within the employer's mind is known certainly only to himself and God, such legislation takes any man subjected to its provisions out of the rule of law and puts him at the mercy of any commission or court which imagines that it has the ability to declare what went on in an employer's mind during the act of bargaining.

Judicial decisions, or decisions of other bodies, based upon such findings, can be nothing other than arbitrary and capricious determinations based upon sheer guesswork or imagination. This is the end of government of laws and is distinctly only government by men.

This legislation should be not enacted because it destroys the very freedom which it professes to enhance. Any restraint whatsoever which impedes the choice either of employer or employee in bargaining is destructive of basic freedom. This bill as an open door into the vestibule of the totalitarian state prison.

STATEMENT BY JAMES MCLEISH, GENERAL VICE PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN OF FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES COMMITTEE, UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO, AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, CIO, IN SUPPORT OF FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES BILL (H. R. 4453) ON BEHALF OF 600,000 MEN AND WOMEN OF UE

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, CIO, presents this statement to the Labor Committee of the House of Representatives in the hope that our experience in the electric and machine industry, and the program and policy of our union will help give our elected representatives assistance in their determination to act on the proposed fair employment practices bill.

UE FIGHT AGAINST DISCRIMINATION

UE has always fought against discrimination and for the right of all groups to work and live in security as American citizens. Our record in the fight against discrimination extends over the full 13 years of our history as an organization.

UE has rejected discrimination because of the realization that only by uniting all workers in the industry "regardless of skill, age, sex, nationality, color, religion, or political belief or affiliation" was it possible to defend effectively the interests and improve working conditions of our members. This is a basic part of our union's foundation as set forth in the preamble to our constitution. And we have striven to carry out this principle in our conventions, our council meetings, in our shops, and in the community.

The UE has sought to incorporate this first principle of no discrimination into our collective-bargaining contracts. UE minimum contract requirements which have been unanimously adopted by our national conventions and incorporated by UE into 761 contracts covering 210,000 workers states that "every contract should provide that there be no discrimination by the employer against employees on account of sex, race, color, creed, or national origin."

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We have set up a national UE fair employment practices committee and each district organization of UE has set up a district committee to insure that our constitutional provisions and convention resolutions be carried out.

UE has fought side by side with community organizations to break down job barriers. Where official State FEPC committees were in existence we utilized their services.

We have conducted educational campaigns among our members not only on the necessity of working side by side with any American regardless of race, color, creed, or political belief, but also for the right of any American for training, upgrading and promotion within the plant.

We have needed to mobilize all our forces and to enlist Government and community aid wherever it was available to make even a dent in the discriminatory practices of employers in the electrical and machine industry.

For example, the Westinghouse Electric Corp. in 1945 and 1946 was going to western Pennsylvania and West Virginia to hire hundreds of white girls for its Trenton, N. J., plant, and would not even accept applications from the sizeable number of unemployed Negro girls in the community. The UE local and a community organization the "Trenton Committee on Unity" brought this to the attention of the company and charges were filed with the State FEPC. The plant management accepted applications but still did not hire Negroes and continued pressure was needed to the hiring of Negro girls. But then the foreman began to harass them with a view to driving them out of the plant and only after the filing of grievances and other union protests were the girls finally protected on their jobs.

The United States Cartridge Co. in 1942 was combing the South for thousands of white workers to meet war-production demands despite the fact that thousands of unemployed Negroes were available in St. Louis. It took the joint efforts of the St. Louis UE, the NAACP, and the War Manpower Commission backed by large demonstrations to get the company to hire Negro workers.

man.

The General Electric Co. would not take on Negro men in its Trenton plant in 1948, in spite of the fact that the company was hiring. It was necessary for the UE to bring in the State FEPC to get the company to hire a single Negro No sooner was he in the plant then the company began to criticize his ability in order to get rid of him. The UE district No. 4 fair employment practices committee and the local executive board protested the company's actions, filed a grievance and forced the company to keep this one lone Negro man in the plant.