ing machines-and all the other goods produced on our farms and in our factories.

But workers who are subject to job discrimination do not have the money to buy. And when this happens to large numbers of our population, production is bound to suffer. Slums, crime, and disease increase. Diseases that start in slums often spread to other neighborhoods; fires in dingy tenements have burned down whole blocks. The costs of relief, police and health services in slum and tension areas are borne by the whole community in the form of rising taxes.

American business has long realized that improved standards of living in far-off countries create new markets for American goods. Yet, we have been permitting a practice which reduces the demand for our goods and services right here at home.

There are psychological costs of job discrimination which must also be taken into account. Children and adults whose vistas must be bound, not by their hopes of attainment, but by their race or religion, cannot do their utmost for the nation which permits such frustration.

Add to this the squandered skills and talents which society needs so badly-the youngsters who might grow to be great doctors, artists, scientists, social leaders, if the door to opportunity were not closedand it becomes clear that when discrimination calls the tune, all of us pay the piper.

Most forward-looking American businessmen are coming to the conclusion that Federal legislation for fair employment practices is needed.

On February 15, 1948, a telegram was sent to the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate, signed by such well known men as William L. Batt, president SKF industries; Paul G. Hoffman, then president, Studebaker Corp., and now head of ECA; Henry R. Luce, Time, Inc.; Dwight G. Palmer, president, General Cable Corp.; Beardsley Ruml, then chairman of the board, R. H. Macy & Co., and others.

The telegram urged passage of a fair employment bill, declaring: Discrimination is uneconomic, in that it results in an unsound use of manpower and retards the development of purchasing power.

It stated further

We do not believe that passage of this bill will eliminate prejudice from America, but it will be an effective step along the road.

Many other Americans share this view, convinced that discrimination in employment promotes industrial strife and increases resentment and tensions which can only hurt the cause of American unity. As Mr. Ben Herzberg declared in his statement on behalf of the American Jewish Committee 2 years ago:

The practice of discrimination in employment aimed at by this act has the strong tendency to keep alive antagonisms that would be ameliorated if the restrictive practice disappeared.

This occurred in the hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, Eightieth Congress, on S. 984; page 220.

Nor can we overlook the detrimental effect which the continued existence of job discrimination in this country has upon our international relations. In the words of Wendell Willkie:

The equitable treatment of racial minorities in America is basic to our chance for a just and lasting peace. We, as Americans, cannot be on one side abroad and on the other at home. We cannot expect the small nations and men of other races and colors to credit the good faith of our professed purposes and to join us in international cooperation for future peace if we continue to practice an ugly discrimination at home against our own minorities.

This appears in Collier's October 7, 1944.

Mr. Willkie wrote that statement in a national magazine almost 5 years ago, when the freedom-loving nations of the world were united by the exigencies of war. Today, the United States is even more sharply the focus of attention abroad. We have it from no less an authority than Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who has declared: The existence of discrimination against minority groups in this country has an adverse effect on our relations with other countries. An atmosphere has suspicion and resentment over the way a minority is being treated in the United States is a formidable obstacle to the development of mutual understanding and trust. We will have better international relations when the reasons for suspicion and resentment have been removed. The Department of State, therefore, has good reason to hope for the continued and increased effectiveness of public and private efforts to do away with these discriminations. This is in a letter to the Fair Employment Practice Committee, May 8, 1946.

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Thus it is clear that our international prestige and our national interest are at stake.

Unfortunately there are still some opponents of Federal fair employment practice legislation who discuss such action as though it were an untried experiment with all sorts of dangerous implications. It is no such thing. The effectiveness of the wartime Fair Employment Practice Committee stands out as a shining example.

In its final report to President Truman dated June 28, 1946, the committee stated::

FEPC during its 5 years satisfactorily settled nearly 5,000 cases by peaceful negotiations, including 40 strikes caused by racial differences. During the last year of the war FEPC held 15 public hearings and docketed a total of 3,485 cases, settling 1,191 of them. These settlements were not publicized and generally escaped attention. The contrary impression that FEPC normally met with unyielding opposition, was created by the comparatively few difficult cases which received emphasis through public hearings and public expressions of defiance by some recalcitrant employers and unions.

In fact, the bulk of FEPC's useful work was accomplished by the quiet persuasion of its regional representatives assigned to 15 regional and subregional offices located in many industrial centers.

A detailed study of wartime FEPC achievements is indeed impressive. Largely as a result of the Executive order establishing FEPC, and the activities of the committee, there was an increase in the employment of Negroes in industry from less than 3 percent of the labor force in 1942, to 8.3 percent 2 years later.

Negroes held 9.8 percent of the civil-service jobs in 1938 and 12 percent in 1944. Of the earlier figure, 40 percent were custodial help in 1938, whereas only 12 percent held similar jobs in 1944. The number of Negroes working as skilled and semiskilled laborers jumped from half a million to 1,000,000.

These results made themselves felt throughout the country. At Lockheed Aircraft, for example, prior to an FEPC hearing in October 1941 there were 39 Negro workers among 48,000 employees.

By August 1944, 3,000 Negroes had been hired, with good race relations prevailing at the Lockheed plants. Lockheed's experience encouraged the entire aircraft industry to hire Mexican-Americans and Negroes. This was an industry which had virtually excluded nonwhites from its employment rolls before the war.

FEPC intervened, late in 1943, in the hiring policy of the Chicago transit lines, where Negroes had previously held only service and laboring jobs. As a result of conferences among transit companies, unions, and regional FEPC representatives, Negroes were hired for operating jobs. By the end of 1944 there were over 500 Negroes employed by these concerns.

At the plant of General Cable Corp. in St. Louis, employees resisted plans for white and Negro women to work together. Dwight Palmer, president of the concern, met with FEPC and Army officials and later addressed three shifts of women workers at his plant. General Cable proceeded to hire Negro workers and has continued to do so. According to a 1948 plan report:

Negroes * * * have proved their ability and have advanced through the ranks to top jobs. * * * Their absentee records are excellent. They are willing and steady workers, and have never asked for special privileges or special consideration because of their color. * * White and colored workers are very congenial; in fact, no thought was ever given toward a Negro being a Negro.

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The Delta Ship Building Co. in New Orleans and the Alabama Drydock & Shipping Co. in Mobile, both originally worried about labor disturbances if they hired and up-graded Negro workers, did so under FEPC guidance, with no ensuing difficulties.

The record is too full of similar examples to cite them here. It is the undeniable answer to doubters and pessimists who still maintain that Federal fair employment legislation can't work.

With the end of wartime FEPC a number of the States have passed their own fair employment practice laws in order to retain as many of the wartime gains as possible through local action.

The experience of these States corroborate the Federal record. In New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts over 1,200 cases a year are settled by direct and friendly relations, thus far without a single report to a public hearing.

In all four States the administrators of the FEPC laws, as well as businessmen and labor unions affected by them, are enthusiastic in their support.

In New York State, which was the first to pass FEPC legislation in 1945, the work of the State commission against discrimination has won the endorsement of numerous business groups originally opposed to the Ives-Quinn law creating the commission.

The Bronx Chamber of Commerce, an early objector to the proposed legislation, 2 years later endorsed, without a dissenting vote, the following proposition recommended by its board of directors:

That the organization support Federal legislation similar to the New York State law having to do with discrimination practices in employment. It is reasoned that in the interests of society the people of other States are entitled to the same protection as those seeking employment in this and any other State that may have antidiscrimination laws.

This appears in a news release by the National Council for a Permanent FEPC, November 10, 1947.

In announcing the membership's approval, its president, George F. Mand, declared:

This is testimony out of experience. It shows that Bronx employers have learned to live with fair employment and like it. * * * Officials of employers' organizations in Massachusetts have expressed satisfaction with the working of the Massachusetts law, similar in essentials to the New York law.

This appears in a news release by the National Council for a Permanent FEPC, November 10, 1947.

The New York State council of retail merchants, in one of its reports, stated:

When the law was first enacted there was a feeling that our State was attempting to legislate virtue, tolerance, et cetera, which was not the fact, as has been proven again and again in the administration of the statute.

Following the action of New York in 1945, New Jersey also legislated against discrimination in employment that year. In 1946, one State, Massachusetts, followed suit; in 1947, one more, Connecticut. There were no additions to this roster in 1948; but this year, 1949, records four more-Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Rhode Island-evidence of a growing realization that FEPC belongs on the American scene as part of the ever-expanding concept of our democratic rights.

To make this progress by the State completely effective, Federal legislation is needed at this time. Resting the case with State legislation would leave the job only partly done. Federal law is essential to reach large employers and labor unions active in interstate commerce. The State commissions have found it difficult, if not impossible, to deal with persons in interstate commerce, unless all the States in which such persons conduct business have fair employment practice laws.

Two examples serve to illustrate this point.

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio, prints application forms for all of its plants, asking "race, religion, parent's birthplace, and lineage," and citing as examples, Scotch, German, Hebrew, English, et cetera.

These forms bear the following legend: "This application blank is not to be used in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts or Connecticut"—the only four States, which, prior to 1949, had fair employment practice laws.

On the other hand, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad passes through three States which do have such laws. When complaint was made that the railroad discriminated by refusing to employ Negroes in its grill cars, the three State commissions acted in unison to effect a settlement, without resorting to any publicity. Only a Federal law can assure workers of all States the same safeguards which those of a few States already enjoy.

The Fair Employment Practice Commissioners from New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, testifying before a committee of the Eightieth Congress, agreed that "The full fruition of any State law against discrimination will not be completely attainable until uniformity and support are supplied by like national legislation."

Experience indicates that the greatest opposition to fair employment practice legislation stems from a misunderstanding of what FEPC does and how it operates.

No proposed law, either State or Federal, suggests that any employer is compelled to hire Negroes, Mexicans, Italians, Catholics.

Jews or members of any other racial, religious or national group. Nor does it require any employer to hire a certain percentage of any group, for there is no quota plan attached to any FEPC legislation.

An employer may hire whomever he pleases, so long as he does not reject an otherwise qualified applicant because of his race, religion or national origin. The same freedom and the same single limitation applies to training,. promotion and discharge. FEPC grants no special privilege to any group; it merely safeguards workers against discrimination.

It is sometimes contended that FEPC creates labor difficulties. Here, again, the facts prove otherwise. The overwhelming majority of labor unions stand strongly behind legislation for fair employment practices. Furthermore, legislation placing the weight of government behind the extension of equality, helps to educate workers and reduce bigotry. Almost always, when difficulty was anticipated in adding members of minority groups to the labor force, such difficulty failed to materialize.

The same experience has been true of stores, hotels and places of public accommodation, many of which feared they would lose customers upon introducing colored workers to their staffs. Almost without exception, such fears proved unfounded.

Americans have always guarded zealously their freedom from government interference, viewing with suspicion-and rightly so-anything which they felt might represent an encroachment. But government interference is not involved here. Fair employment practice legislation puts a few, reasonable limitations upon us, in order to insure greater freedom, greater equality and greater prosperity for all. It was John Foster Dulles who summed up this position so well when he stated:

Most of us in the United States believe strongly in free enterprise but sometimes we forget that freedom and duty always go hand in hand, and that if the free do not accept social responsibility, they will not remain free. The right of our enterprise to be free will in the long run depend upon whether free enterprise recognizes a duty to provide men with equal opportunities. Industrial freedom cannot indefinitely survive as license to discriminate against men because of their race, color or religion.

That was in an address by John Foster Dulles, New York, March 6, 1948.

I have here a summary of the pending congressional bills for fair employment practices, outlining their basic provisions as the American Jewish Committee understands them. I should like to include this summary in the record, with the statement that, of the bills thus far drafted, the American Jewish Committee considers the Powell bill, H. R. 4453, and its companion in the Senate, the McGrath bill, S. 1728, as preferable. We would, however, like to see these bills amended to include "ancestry" among the grounds of discrimination covered by the statute.

Mr. POWELL. The summary of pending FEPC bills will be included in the record.

(The summary is as follows:)

SUMMARY OF PENDING FEPC BILLS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES The proposed “Federal Fair Employment Practice Act," H. R. 4453, introduced by Mr. Powell of New York, declares that it shall be "an unlawful employment practice for an empoyer" who is engaged in interstate or foreign commerce and