their position and they built up and made possible the growth of the CIO to the detriment of the AFL, and as a witness I can cite the testimony of William Green.

Mr. POWELL. That may be true. But what about the Interstate Commerce Commission?

Mr. HOFFMAN. I do not know so much about that. I cannot speak from personal knowledge. I followed the other very closely.

Mr. POWELL. There are other commissions operating for the Government that are fair. I think the ICC

Mr. HOFFMAN. For instance, take the Committee on Agriculture. Who seeks places on that committee? Those who are interested in agriculture. And so it is in all. There is no way of changing it, and perhaps that is right. We know the Committee on Agriculture looks after the farmers' interests, and the Labor Committee looks after the interests of labor. I find no fault with that. Naturally we find it that way.

Mr. POWELL. Let me get that straight. The Committee on Labor looks after what?

Mr. HOFFMAN. Looks after the interests of labor.
Mr. POWELL. I hope so.

Mr. HOFFMAN. As distinguished
There is not any argument about it.
Department of Labor was created.
better than I do, probably.

from the interests of the employer. We all know that that is why the You know that as well as I do

Mr. POWELL. The vote does not show that, however.
Mr. HOFFMAN. How is that?

Mr. POWELL. I said the vote does not show that the Committee on Labor looks after the laboring man only.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Not only. I did not say "only." I said especially. You have a predominance. There were two or three of us on there who were opposed to the present demands of the labor leaders. Rightly or wrongly, I contend that my views are more to the interests of the average worker than are the views of some announced prolabor leaders. And if I would be permitted, and not be too presumptuous, I would say if you do want to end discrimination, why don't you include in this bill, as I did in one of my bills, discrimination because of membership or nonmembership in a labor union? You are in favor of that discrimination, I assume. When I say "you" I do not mean you individually. But there are individuals who are opposed to employing anyone who does not belong to the union, which, of course, is the reverse of the yellow dog contract. And the amendments the other day were intended to bring back the prohibition of the closed shop. I am speaking to you now personally. I cannot see how you can be consistent and say there should be no discrimination because of race, creed, color, and so on, but there shall be discrimination because of membership in or nonmembership in a union. Why not extend it to fraternal organizations, and say you have to be a Mason or an Odd Fellow? That is what you get to when you go into this subject.

Mr. POWELL. Have the gentlemen from the subcommittee any questions? Mr. Perkins?

Mr. PERKINS. I understood you to say that you believe in the State fair employment practice acts that have been set by several States. Mr. HOFFMAN. No; I did not express any opinion about State legislation.

Mr. PERKINS. Do you have a statute to that effect in Michigan? Mr. HOFFMAN. No; in Michigan we have a statute, as I recall, which prevents discrimination in certain cases. It is the Civil Rights Act

so called-chapter XXI of title 28 (Mich. Stat. Ann.). That statute was held to be valid in 333 U. S. 28.

Mr. PERKINS. It is just a limited statute in scope.

Mr. HOFFMAN. That is right.

Mr. PERKINS. And I believe that you also stated that you had noticed very little discrimination in Michigan.

Mr. HOFFMAN. That is right. Of course, I do not live in Detroit. I live in the western side of the State.

Mr. PERKINS. You do not know the extent of the discrimination in Detroit and over the Nation, do you? Are you acquainted with it? Mr. HOFFMAN. No; I am not a traveled citizen.

Mr. PERKINS. Do you believe in legislation that would eliminate discrimination between races?

Mr. HOFFMAN. Primarily, no; I do not. I do not think that legislation of that kind is workable. I do not think it will end discrimination. I think it will lead to trouble. The only purpose I had in mind in introducing the bill was to lessen what I thought would be the evils of legislation along that line.

Mr. PERKINS. If discrimination does exist in this country, how can we alleviate that discrimination, other than by legislation?

Mr. HOFFMAN. Only by changing human nature. And how are you going to eliminate stealing and drunkenness? You have laws against it, true; but it does not eliminate it.

Mr. PERKINS. That is right. I agree with you that education is perhaps the best way. But the laws against drunkenness, and things of that nature, put them on a minimum basis. Do you not thing legislation of this type would also put discrimination on a minimum basis? Mr. HOFFMAN. No more than prohibition convinced people they should not drink. It just did not work. I might say to you as I said to Mr. Powell that I cannot determine where the line of preference is. You practice discrimination, I practice discrimination every day in what we eat or drink, or in our associates. Now, where does that line of preference, which is your right and mine, end and illegal discrimination begin?

Mr. PERKINS. I think this subject is far deeper. It is based on the theory that people should not be discriminated against on account of race, creed, or color. And if those conditions exist, and especially where the people are put on the same level of efficiency, and discrimination exists, do you not think that some legislation should be enacted to take care of conditions of that type?

Mr. HOFFMAN. That depends upon what your theory or philosophy of life is. Your argument rests upon the assumption

Mr. PERKINS. In employment practices.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Your argument rests upon the assumption that a man is entitled to a job if he is qualified, does it not, and should not be discriminated against because of his race or color?

Mr. PERKINS. That is right.

Mr. HOFFMAN. All right. Now, who creates the job? You create the job. You go out and work. Maybe you start at the beginning on the soil, and finally you want to hire somebody. Is that your job or

my job? Have I the right to come along and say to you, "Listen. I want that job. I am qualified, and under the law you must give it to me, instead of to Mr. Powell."

Mr. PERKINS. This bill does not do that.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Yes, this bill says, as I understand it—perhaps I do not understand it-that if there are equal qualifications

Mr. PERKINS. That is right-that there shall be no discrimination. That is all it provides.

Mr. HOFFMAN. All right. You having created the job

Mr. PERKINS. With equal qualifications

Mr. HOFFMAN. You having created the job and being forced to pay the employee, shouldn't you have the right to say to whom you shall give it?

Mr. PERKINS. Let me ask you this question. If the qualifications are equal, is the employer making any sacrifice if the Commission is set up to see that fair employment practices are carried out?

Mr. HOFFMAN. He is injured to this extent, that his right to use his own property and spend his own money is interfered with, and if you are going to have an agency selecting between two equally qualified people as to which one shall have the job and draw the employer's pay check, then certainly you are discriminating against the employer. Mr. PERKINS. I think the purpose of this bill is to put it on a little higher plane that you speak about, Mr. Hoffman. I believe that legislation of this type would expedite the educational features to which you refer, and I agree with you that this problem has to be also approached from an educational standpoint. But I think we have to have legislation to go along with it, so that there will be some inducement from the people who are discriminated against, and they will feel that they have some protection.

Mr. HOFFMAN. In what field do you mean?

Mr. PERKINS. If they are qualified to hold certain positions, as stenographers, or qualified to render any other service.

Mr. HOFFMAN. With respect to a stenographer in your office or my office, how are you going to determine equality of qualifications—a word, a look, the manner of thinking?

Mr. PERKINS. Efficiency.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Oh, well; some can take dictation so fast, and they can put it back on the typewriter. You would give them equal rating. Well, now

Mr. PERKINS. That is all.

Mr. POWELL. Mr. Burke, of Ohio?

Mr. BURKE. My theory of this is that one of the foundation stones of our Nation as a nation is the principle that all men are created equal, and as far as the setting up of any artificial barriers by reason of race, creed, color, national origin, or whatever it might be, we are declaring that, in this legislation, to be abhorrent to our constitutional set-up. For instance, I would like to cite some of my ancestral experience. My grandfather came to this country, and his first job was in the Union Army. When he was discharged from the Army and went to find a job, he would go to the employment agencies, or whatever was provided for at that date for distribution of jobs, and he would find a list of jobs, but at the bottom was this information: "No Irish need apply.'

Mr. HOFFMAN. That was not building railroads, nor policemen.

Mr. BURKE. Well, he pushed westward and finally wound up in Ohio. But as I understand this type of legislation, it is to prevent that sort of artificial barrier to employment opportunities, and it is only for that purpose. As Mr. Perkins says, it will be an incentive to accelerate the educational process.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Do not misunderstand me. This is because the Negroes have not progressed as far as others. There is no such thing as discrimination against the Jews. In this country, if I understand the situation correctly, the Jews have the world by the tail. They are on top. So I do not think it applies to them. And as far as the Negro goes, because he has not made as much progress, perhaps educationally and financially as other races, my own thought would be to give him the best end of it. I can illustrate that this way: In Benton Harbor we have many colored folks who come from Chicago. They are not Negroes; they are colored people. And over there on the beach, the mayor at one time-for what reason I do not know—asked my advice about this indiscriminate bathing on the beach. He said, "What are we going to do? If this keeps on, we may have trouble.' They did not have any trouble, but I said I would call in the ministers and the leaders of the Negro race; I would divide that beach half and half. They are only a comparatively small part of the population. And then I would say to those Negro leaders, "Now, you folks take whichever half you want." I would give them the best end of it. I would give them school facilities equal to or better than I gave the whites. But I would not force them to mix.

Mr. BURKE. That would be discrimination in their favor, then; would it not?

Mr. HOFFMAN. All right. We can take it. That is the American attitude: Give the fellow that you might term the underdog in any way the better end of it. That is your practice. I have never heard of an Irishman complaining about discrimination against him. I have heard people say that an Irishman was a fighting, drunken Irishnan, and the Irishman would jump up and click his heels together and say, "Come on, buddy, if you think you can get the best of me." Mr. BURKE. That is about right.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Yes. And you are here in Congress. Was it your father or your grandfather that you thought was discriminated against?

Mr. BURKE. I did not say he was discriminated against, but that is the condition he found.

Mr. HOFFMAN. But he came through all right?

Mr. BURKE. Oh, yes.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURKE. That is all.

Mr. POWELL. I would just like to interrupt to say that this bill does not outlaw segregation. It just outlaws discrimination.

Mr. HOFFMAN. I was bitterly criticized by an editor in my district because on the floor one day I said I would give one car on our trains in Michigan to whites, I would give one car to the colored, and I would give one car to the mixed, where everybody could get in it if they wanted to.

Mr. POWELL. That is when you and I were having some discussion one day.

MAN.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Yes. And they said I was unfair in that.

Mr. PERKINS. Mr. Hoffman, I would like to ask you one more question. When you say that your figures show that the wartime FEPC made no effort except to end discrimination, are you saying that the Commission turned down the application of qualified whites? Mr. HOFFMAN. I know nothing about it. I only know the result, as given in their report.

Mr. PERKINS. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. POWELL. Mr. Nixon?

Mr. NIXON. I have no questions.

Mr. POWELL. There are no further questions.

Mr. HOFFMAN. Thank you very, very much.

Mr. PowELL. Thank you ever so much, Mr. Hoffman.
Representative Laurie Battle.

TESTIMONY OF HON. LAURIE C. BATTLE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA

Mr. BATTLE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I have prepared a statement based on H. R. 21. May I ask before I start if this new bill, H. R. 4453, is practically identical, at least in purpose?

Mr. POWELL. It is practically identical, except for a couple of minor things, such as the shifting around of some of the sections in different places and raising the salary of the Commission members from $10,000 to $17,500, and the chairman gets $20,000.

Mr. BATTLE. With the committee's indulgence, I will testify against both of them.

Mr. Chairman, the enactment of H. R. 21 or H. R. 4453 would be a serious mistake, in my opinion. Such legislation is unconstitutional, unenforceable, and unwise. This is clearly a proposal for too much government.

Discrimination of itself is a bad practice, of course. I am not here to defend it. I would like to say why I feel this bill is not the way to attack discrimination in employment.

In the first place, H. R. 21, or H. R. 4453, is unconstitutional. Quoting from H. R. 21, on page 16, line 14, we read:

No person shall be excused from attending and testifying or from producing documentary or other evidence in obedience to the subpena of the Commission on the ground that the testimony or evidence required of him may tend to incriminate him or subject him to a penalty of forfeiture.

I am wondering since when we have undertaken to rewrite the Constitution in this manner. It would seem to me that it would be much more appropriate to pass such a law against the Communists rather than against our loyal American unions and businesses.

What part of the Constitution gives the Government the right to establish a Federal agency that can bypass the State government, that can bypass the local government, and that can go into a restaurant in Birmingham, Ala., or Seattle, Wash., and judge whether or not a Negro or Japanese waitress has been discriminated against? The bill would invade the realm of human activity which is not subject. to legislation. Why not enact laws requiring all people to be kind, or to like everybody else? They would be just as sensible.

How can an agent of the Government peer into a man's soul and tell whether he acted through discrimination or for a dozen other rea