Constitution. We highly commend President Truman for his courageous stand on the issue of civil rights. We call upon the Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental rights:

(1) The right of full and equal political participation.

(2) The right to equal opportunity of employment.

(3) The right of security of person.

(4) The right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our Nation. This bill carries out one of the provisions of that plank, and I sincerely hope it will be supported by all the members of my party. Likewise, the Republican platform in 1948 called for a strong civilrights program, and I believe the members of the minorities should likewise support the pending bill.

If we are to take seriously the religious and political principles to which most of us pay lip service, then certainly there should be no discrimination in employment because of race, creed, or color. During most of the war, I was a special assistant to the vice chairman for labor of the War Production Board. My work took me, from time to time, close to the activities of the wartime FEPC. I believe the FEPC did immeasurable good, both by increasing the morale of minorities and in stimulating production.

I vividly recall the time I presided over a conference of management, labor, and Government officials in the Kaiser shipyards early in the war, when demands were made that Negroes be barred from that yard. As a result of that conference, Negroes were given full employment rights, and they made an admirable efficiency_record in that shipyard, as in all other plants where they worked. Numerous management officials have so testified.

In my own city, certain corporations would not employ Negroes at the beginning of the war. As a result of prodding by the FEPC, these policies were dropped, and today Negroes are employed on the basis of ability in many plants in which they previously could not find employment. I am proud that both my city and State have passed FEPC legislation. I regret that these laws are not as strong as I should like to see them, but the convictions about people have been put into legislation.

The question of equality of opportunity in employment is not peculiar to any one section of the country. Discrimination has reared its ugly head everywhere, right in our own back yard as well as in distant States. None of us can dodge the responsibility to translate democracy and Christian principles into legislative enactment.

Modern industrial society, more and more dominated by great aggregations of capital, which pay no attention to State lines, requires National as well as State and local action.

May I also briefly remind the committee of the impact of this question upon our international relations? The great majority of the peoples of the world are colored. We are attempting to persuade them of the superiority of our democratic system over the dictatorship of the Soviets. The whole world watches America as no nation has ever been watched in history. Actions are needed as well as words.

The passage of FEPC legislation would be a clarion call to the people of the entire world that we mean what we say and that our land truly is the land of freedom of opportunity for all, regardless of race, creed, or color.

Mr. Chairman, I hope your subcommittee will recommend this legislation and the full committee will bring it to the floor and that we

will have an opportunity to pass this bill during the Eighty-first Congress.

Mr. POWELL. Mr. Nixon?

Mr. NIXON. I do not have any questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. POWELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Biemiller.

Mr. BIEMILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. POWELL. Representative Javits.

TESTIMONY OF HON. JACOB K. JAVITS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. JAVITS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to join first with my colleague, Mr. Biemiller, in expressing deep gratification that the Air Force took the action which it did today. I think that is really suiting action to words in the sense that there has been a nonsegregation policy announced by the President and, indeed, announced by the Secretary of Defense. But here the Air Force by the deactivation of the fighter wing composed of Negro pilots and specialists and their redistribution among all-white units, will actually be carrying out a nonsegregation policy.

I think all of us who advocate this legislation feel that it will be very successful, that the service will be helped, that the individuals will perform better than they did before, and, of course, that will be an eloquent argument for this bill, too, and for similar legislation.

I introduced a bill myself very early in the session, H. R. 192, as a cosponsor of FEPC legislation. It is essentially in the same form as the bill before the committee.

I would like, Mr. Chairman, to submit my statement for the record with respect to the essential points I wanted to emphasize before the committee and refer to them very briefly and then go on to another matter which I think is of extreme importance to us in this legislation.

I made two points in my statement, first, that the great pressure with respect to this kind of legislation would come in the event of a depression, and I pointed, as a matter of real importance, to the experience in Great Britain, where the people took a very austere food regimen for themselves because every one shared equally. The genius of Lord Woolton, the food administrator during the war in Great Britain, was that he saw to it that everyone, rich and poor, those in Government, those in every kind of occupation, shared the same privation. If there is the tension in a domestic depression, there may be an effort to find scapegoats, and the effort may be directed along the lines of seeking scapegoats among minorities. By taking time by the forelock, as we would be doing in passing this legislation now, we are giving ourselves additional insulation against the grave strains with respect to minorities which are strains on the whole fabric of our constitutional system which we may have if we do get a depression. We devoutly pray we do not. But it is one of the same reasons that we have an Army and Navy. We pray there will not be a war, but we prepare ourselves because there may be.

The second point that I have made, which I reiterate here and which I would like to underline, because I a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is with relation to the attitude toward us of the great majority of nations of the world on this subject. Of

course, the point has been made clear that a great part of the world. is inhabited by colored races. I had the Brookings Institution check the figures for me, and they came up with a figure of 60 percent of the world's population which is colored, and hence is conscious of this problem. Certainly the situation in Asia and in Indonesia is a grave indication to us that this problem means a lot to the world.

I want to emphasize one other thing in that respect, and that is that this problem is actually being used as propaganda. The Soviet propaganda line daily uses as the biggest single argument against the validity of American democracy, the discrimination and segragation which is practiced in wide areas of the United States, and some witnesses have said practically throughout the United States. I would hope that that it not so. But still it is wide enough so that it can be taken as a national problem.

The Soviet is constantly able to use that argument. Whenever it gets into a really bad jam and it or its statellites have done something that is completely inexcusable-a Mindszenty trial, let us say; or the trial of the Prostestant ministers in Bulgaria, or Berlin blockade, or some other action that is just beyond understanding by western democratic standards-Soviet broadcasters can always get on the air and just blast us on this question of inequality, discrimination, and segregation in our country, and charge that our protestations of democracy and equality and the decency of man to man is insincere and cynical because we do not practice it at least with respect to 10 percent of our population.

We have there not only a psychological argument but something that is being used against us every day, and very potently, because it is hard to refute. You have to juxtapose to it the 95 percent of the things about America which are sound and good and consistent and entirely sincere, but that percent, whatever it is, which represents this area, we are just wrong about, and this legislation is desgined to seek to right that wrong.

I would now like to address myself to a point which was made by my colleague, Mr. Nixon, a member of this committee, and that is, can we get an FEPC bill passed?

I think, if I may say so to my colleague, that it is a very astute question and one properly asked of Congressional witnesses. The other things that we talk about, many witnesses can testify to. But here is one subject that we ought to be best posted on. And I think it is a very useful thing to take counsel with each other. We have diverse parties and diverse views politically, yet we agree upon this subject.

I think an FEPC bill can be passed, and I think it can be passed in both the House and the Senate. But I think it needs yet another coalition. We have heard-and I do not say this invidiously-a lot about coalitions of ultraconservative Republicans and Democrats. And I say, I am not commenting on or speaking of the truth or untruth of that statement, but it is a fact that coalitions do take form on the floor of the House and on the floor of the Senate for legislation in which such members believe.

Now, civil rights legislation can be effected by a liberal and progressive coalition. I am using the term which describes men of the same mind on one subject, this subject, but it is more frequently used with respect to Democrats in terms of liberals and with respect to Re

publicans in terms of progressives, and I am not delineating any wings of any party.

The point is that you need a coalition of men of like mind. I think votes on the House floor have shown that such coalitions are very effective. For example, the vote on the Rankin pension bill I think showed that a coalition of liberals and progressives can muster more votes than a coalition on the other side. Now, what can such a coalition do?

In the first place, the members should be motivated to enter into such a coalition because the judgment of their districts on their actions will come as individuals on this issue.

As has been said here before, I think yesterday, it does not make any difference what party you are from. If your district is behind FEPC legislation, it is going to back you on this issue, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican.

There is an opportunity here. There is an inducement for coalition between people in both parties of like mind.

Now, in the House, where debate can be controlled, such a coalition can insure passage of FEPC legislation. Debate in the House can be controlled by a majority. And if the rules will not permit the legislation to brought out on the floor, in any other way, although the rules have certainly been very much amended now on that point, the bill can be brought out to the floor on a petition, if there is a coalition.

The Senate can be kept in session continuously, day and night, and even if necessary, to have a special session. If that is the only way in which action on an FEPC bill can be obtained in the Senate, a coalition, a majority of the Senate-not enough to bring on a cloture according to the rules, but a majority-can keep the Senate in session. In the Senate, such a coalition might also conceivably make the new Senate cloture rule work. However, if it cannot make it work, a majority of the Senate can keep the Senate in session.

We have now had experience on this issue when it has been very much before us, when the country has been vitally interested, with two Congresses-one with a Republican majority, the other with a Democratic majority. And it seems clear by now that although the rank and file of members may want this legislation, somehow or other the leadership, whether it is Republican or Democratic, cannot seem to work it out so that it gets through, or even is heard to a final conclusion for a vote.

The leadership have a lot of pitfalls. They have a lot of other bills. They have national politics that they have to pay a great deal of attention to. And again I am not being critical of them; I am only describing a clinical fact. Somehow or other in this legislation, the leadership, either Republican or Democratic, cannot get it through. So it has to be a rank-and-file movement, and I think in both the House and in the Senate, for the reasons I have described, a determined rank-and-file movement, a coalition between Democratic liberals and Republicans who have a progressive point of view on national legislation-again, I emphasize that this is without delineating wings of any party, but just for the purpose of this particular legislation such a coalition can get it passed in both Houses.

And that the President will sign it, there is no question because he said time and again that he is for FEPC, and he is so definitely com

mitted on it that I do not think there could be any question about Presidential approval.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. POWELL. Thank you.
Mr. Perkins?

Mr. PERKINS. No questions.

Mr. POWELL. Mr. Nixon?

Mr. NIXON. Mr. Javits, I was interested in your comments on the practical problem of passage of this legislation. I wonder if you would agree with me in the statement to the effect that in the past there probably has been too much concern on the part of both parties in the civil-rights field to pay more attention to what political advantage might be obtained by getting credit for passing this legislation, rather than the concern over the practical problem of getting the votes to put it through in both the House and Senate. I mean by that that in the party platforms, for example, in 1944 and 1948, and in the House and Senate at the present time and also in times past, there has obviously been what you might call competition between the political parties on strictly a political basis in the civil-rights field for the purpose of obtaining support in elections of so-called minority groups.

Now, what I understand you to suggest is that what we need to do is for both parties to sublimate any thought of political advantage by getting the credit, shall we say, for passage of civil-rights legislation, and for the members of both parties who favor the passage of such legislation to join together in a bipartisan or nonpartisan coalition for the purpose of action, rather than political advantage to either? Mr. JAVITS. You understand me exactly. And I would like to use a word which I think is very much in point here. The British use “ad hoc." It means something for a particular purpose which is temporary. And what we need here is an ad hoc coalition. I think that is the best way to express it. We need a coalition for this purpose and this purpose alone. I emphasize that, because I do not think we want to get into any question of fractionalizing parties. That is very much opposed to our two-party system and to our whole philosophy. Regardless of how much we may disagree within a party, as Governor Stassen, I think, has so well said, and as Wayne Morse has said, it is still our party; we have to stay in it. And I think that is the essence of the American system. But we can have for this legislation an ad hoc coalition.

Now, I would like to make this one other point, if I may. I do not go along all the way with the fact that the reason for failure in the past has been the effort to get political capital, because you had a Republican leadership, and for some reason or other, it got frustrated in getting the political capital through FEPC which was in its hands. Now you have a Democratic leadership which again is frustrated in getting the political capital which at least theoretically is in its hands. I think what we face here is a sectional tugging and holding. In other words, when we get to the point where you might get this bill through, trading begins, which is what the leadership suffers from. They begin to trade off lots of things with respect to southern Democrats or some other group that is particularly interested in this legislation, and it is that trading that prevails.