American respect for equal treatment and for fair play would be strengthened and stimulated by such an attitude on the part of Government itself. These are but a few quotations from the great volume of testimony which has accumulated from businessmen as to the workability, effectiveness, and salutary influence of fair-employment-practices law. Many businessmen have remarked upon the manner in which the various commissions and other administrative bodies have pursued their responsibilities under fair-employment laws. They are impressed with the fact that no punitive actions have been undertaken in any of the eight States in which laws are now in the statute books, even though all of them provide for public hearings and judicial proceedings. This has been seized upon by some as a demonstration that enforcement provisions in fair-employment-practice laws are superfluous. Indeed, opposition to fair-employment-practices legislation has all but dwindled away except perhaps on this single point of enforcement. For example, the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, which has been in the forefront of opposition to an effective FEPC law in Ohio, in January 1949 issued a booklet titled "How To Apply Cooperative Employment Practices," in which a number of fears about FEPC are, perhaps inadvertently, allayed. For example, the booklet, issued by the chamber of commerce, an opponent of FEPC, assures the businessmen to whom it is addressed that apprehensions that an employer's business may be injured by hiring minority-group workers because customers will be driven away are not well founded. Experience in other cities demonstrates the booklet says that customer reaction to employment of minority groups has been generally favorable and there has been no noticeable decline in business. The Cleveland Chamber of Commerce also reassures its readers that the introduction of minority groups will not result in degrading of jobs or in decline of health standards; that the doubts and misgivings of relatives and personal friends as to mixed employment are largely theoretical * * * and disappear in a short time as minority group employees are not a novelty and have come to be recognized through school and civic associations, as individuals— that apprehensions about the use of common sanitary and eating facilities by mixed groups of employees "is imaginative rather than real"; and that "untoward incidents at social affairs attended only by employees rarely develop." When such arguments in favor of fair employment practices are advanced by the opposition, I think we may assume that the opposition to fair-employment-practices legislation is-to borrow a phrase from the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce "imaginative rather than real." The sole remaining objection is to enforcement. But without exception the commissioners of State fair-employment laws have testified that enforcement provisions are absolutely necessary; that, as Mildred Mahoney, chairman of the Massachusetts FEPC testified the very fact that it [legal sanction] is part of the procedure has had its effect and helped make possible the really remarkable record of cases settled through conciliation alone. The Library of Congress Legislative Reference Service report already referred to quotes an account by Kings Ransom, writer for the London Economist and the Des Moines Register and Tribune, of a 2-week survey of the workings of antidiscrimination laws in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Ransom says of all four States: In company after company, in spite of theoretical willingness to employ Negroes, it took the law to get employers past the hump of dreading what customers and other employees might say. Those who are prejudiced are particularly likely to be deferential to authority. So the mere passage of a law with teeth in it, before any actual attempt to enforce it, brings some changes in employment practices in order to conform. This general observation is borne out by experience with the employment practices of some large corporations. At the top of a 1948 application form of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. appears the warning, "This form not to be used in the States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey." The form includes questions about religion and lineage and demands that a photograph be attached. Although there were fair-employment-practice laws in seven States in 1948, the corporation warned against the use of this discriminatory form only in the four States whose laws contained enforcement provisions. Similar evidence of the ineffectiveness of laws without enforcement powers comes from Chicago, which has a fair-employment-practices ordinance under which all contractors to the city are obligated not to discriminate in employment because of race, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry. The Illinois Interracial Commission, in its survey to which I have referred, found that in the absence of any agency to check on compliance, 85 percent of the firns which contract to the city use discriminatory application forms, even more discriminatory than in Illinois industry as a whole. With few exceptionscomments the report— * * the 91 firms analyzed which supply goods and services to the city of Chicago on a contract basis, violate their signed pledges to adhere to fair-employment practices. As a group they provide substantially less over-all employment to nonwhite workers than does Illinois industry as a whole, substantially less than the proportionate population of nonwhites in Chicago would indicate. * It is apparent that 9 out of 10 nonwhites employed are at the very lowest occupational levels, and that white-collar jobs for nonwhites are not available in these firms. Businessmen understand the function of the enforcement provisions of the proposed Federal fair employment practices bill as that of assuring compliance, not of punishing infractions. The 15 prominent businessmen who signed the telegram to which I referred earlier, urging enactment of a Federal bill, said in that message: We like the reliance which the bill puts upon education and conciliation. On the other hand, we recognize the necessity of governmental sanctions when conciliation breaks down. It is significant in this connection, that Oregon, which formerly had a fair employment practices law without enforcement provisions, just this year adopted an amended law, providing enforcement powers. It also is significant that the States of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut all had interracial good-will commissions, seeking to secure voluntary compliance with fair employment practices, before adopting their present effective FEPC laws. Had those commissions been found adequate there would have been no reason for the adoption of statutes. The influence of effective enforcement provisions is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in a comparison of the accomplishments of the State Commission Against Discrimination in New York with that of the wartime President's Committee on Fair Employment Practices in dealing with certain railroad brotherhoods. These brotherhoods had resisted all the powers of persuasion and pressure which the wartime FEPC had been able to bring to bear upon them to abandon or modify their policies of complete Negro exclusion. But under the New York law, they have been led to amend their constitutions in order to correct this inequity. Commissioners of the New York State Commission Against Discrimination are convinced that without the enforcement provisions of the New York law, they never could have accomplished this. It seems to me highly relevant, in connection with this discussion of the effective and smooth workings of State fair employment practices laws, that H. R. 4453, in section 7 (a), empowers the Federal Commission which it would create by agreement with any agency of any State, Territory, possession, or local government, to cede to such agency jurisdiction over any cases even though such cases may involve charges of unlawful employment practices within the scope of this act, unless the provision of the statute or ordinance applicable to the determination of such cases by such agency is inconsistent with the corresponding provision of this act or has received a construction inconsistent therewith. This clause should put a quietus on that part of the opposition to Federal fair employment legislation which raises the cry that such legislation would infringe upon States rights. It clearly bespeaks the intent of the framers of this legislation to permit the enforcement of fair employment practices to be turned over to the States wherever and whenever the States adopt effective legislation to protect the rights of minority groups to equality of employment opportunity. Bills for the enactment of a Federal fair employment practices law have been before the Congress continuously since 1944. Extensive hearings have been conducted before committees of both the House and the Senate. Countless studies have been made and data accumulated showing discrimination in employment to be widespread and growing. Volumes of testimony have been taken recording support for FEPC legislation by major religious, labor, and civic bodies throughout the country. "The testimony of these witnesses," says the majority report of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee, "representing more than 60,000,000 of our citizens, demonstrates the desire of the overwhelming majority of our citizenry that this bill be enacted into law." A permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission has been pledged by both major parties. On no less than four separate occasions, congressional committees have reported favorably on such legislation with the recommendation that "it do pass." Nevertheless, no FEPC bill has ever been brought to a vote. I realize that there are other civil-rights measures before the Congress, measures to abolish the poll tax as a prerequisite to voting in Federal elections, measures to make the heinous crime of lynching a Federal offense, measures which the organization I represent favors and hopes will be passed. But it is the considered judgment of the organizations represented in the National Community Relations Advisory Council that of all the measures comprising the civil-rights program, FEPC is the most vital. The victims of discrimination in employment are not the subjects of brutal physical assault by enraged mobs; they are the victims of a quiet, unspectacular, even "respectable," but nonetheless vicious deprivation of the equal right to work. The victims of discrimination in employment are not confined to the seven Southern States, as are those who are deprived of their franchise by the poll-tax laws. They are not the residents of any particular geographic area, nor the members of any one particular group, nor of any single segment of our economy. Discrimination in employment, as I have shown, affects workers in the industrial Northeast, and in the agricultural West, as well as in the South. It falls upon every minority group in our population-and the minorities taken together comprise a major portion of our citizenry. Deprivation of any citizen of any of his civil rights is reprehensible and should be corrected. But no other right is so fundamental as the right to work, to seek and hold employment, and to enjoy the opportunities for advancement, on a basis of equality. For the right to work is in our economic order the right to survive as an independent, selfrespecting person. And to this right all other rights are subordinate; without this right, no other right has meaning or purpose. Therefore, while we heartily favor the early realization of the entire civil-rights program, we hold strongly that the prohibition of discrimination in employment because of race, color, or nationality should take precedence over other parts of that program. There are no genuine parliamentary barriers to the enactment of such legislation. The opposition cannot muster a sufficient majority to defeat a fair-employment-practices bill, and spokesmen for both political parties have asserted, without convincing contradiction, that such parliamentary maneuvers as the filibuster can be overcome by determined and skillfully conducted support of the measure. We have shown, I think, that the need for Federal fair-employmentpractices legislation is serious and growing; that the public demands it; and that on every ground of morality, economic self-interest, and national self-respect such legislation is long overdue. This Congress has the responsibility-yes, and the extraordinary opportunity-to meet this need, to satisfy this public demand, to take this wise and courageous action, by passing H. R. 4453. I urge you to report favorably this bill which is before you and to throw all your influence to its support, to the end that it may promptly be enacted into law. Thank you very much. Mr. POWELL. That is an excellent presentation. I want to thank the organization for its steadfastness to this policy and philosophy that you have outlined. Mr. Burke. Mr. BURKE. I just have one question. You mentioned the good will of the community in relation to the commissions that have been set up, and although their work has been valuable, as far as spade work is concerned, it is true that more effective measures, such as this bill before us, had been found necessary. Isn't it also true that the commissions themselves have generally made these recommendations? 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. 90748-49- -22 |