of Aviation. None of them-not a single one-was able to secure employment.

As chairman of a joint committee interested in the promotion of intergroup relations, I visited some of these airplane factories. I personally was told by those in charge of employment (1) they did need skilled workers; (2) they admitted that our committee could supply workers that were qualified; (3) they frankly admitted, however, that they would not hire them because they were Negroes.

One does not have to be an expert in the field of psychosocial analysis to appreciate the force of the emotional trauma of such crass injustice on a child whose father is in such enforced idleness, or the 18 youths who left the portals of their alma mater with enthusiastic anticipation. Is it strange that such youngsters might develop a hostility to society? Is it not quite understandable that such young people might become, in its literal sense, antisocial against society? An antisocial attitude, when translated into overt, specific acts, is less euphemistically characterized as crime and delinquency. Ironically enough, many of those who decry the so-called crime waves among Negroes are probably among the foremost in opposition to this very bill.

The reason given by these personnel people at the airplane plants was that they were afraid that if Negroes were employed the white workers would object. There would be strife. There would be even possibly a slowing down or a shut-down in the production-I might add for the purpose of making the tools of war being fought for equal rights of the individual. This is the same argument that was advanced 4 years ago when I had the privilege of speaking before the New York legislative bodies in favor of the State legislation for the establishment of a commission against discrimination.

Now, herein lies a secondary benefit that will be derived from the enactment of this bill; secondary, however, only in that it is not the immediate objective of the legislation, but in the long-range results perhaps even more beneficial. This secondary benefit is the dissipation of this bugaboo of the dangers of persons or different races or different national origins working together. This is best effected by actually working together.

A short time ago I was engaged for a special assignment in one of the larger offices of the Government agencies. In this huge office building there are hundreds of workers, a large number of whom are Negro, in what is known as the white-collar group. Almost daily, as I stand in line in the large cafeteria, I see a goodly sprinkling of Negroes along with the whites. Indeed, there are some instances of Negro and white people chatting at the tables together. Far from embarrassment, strife, or violence, it is an entirely normal picture of a group of people eating their noonday meal. The fact is, the best proof that this can be done is in the doing of it.

And so I urge you gentlemen, and your distinguished colleagues in the Congress of the United States, to give an impressive and resounding approval of this important legislation. I respectfully urge that all of you weigh well your responsibility to the youth of this country in 'considering this particular measure. Nor is it exclusively the Negro youth. For we need only recall appalling instances of intergroup strife and violence that have taken place in widespread places among the different youth groups.

I respectfully submit that a vote against this bill, or a number of votes sufficient to defeat it, will give aid and succor to the enemies of our democratic way of life. The youth of our country are the special object of the Communist propagandist. He would gleefully carry the news of the defeat of this measure to resentful youth minority groups, because it is his purpose to promote friction, hostility, and even violence among these groups.

I urge that the United States Congress by the passage of this bill send back the message that it, the representative of society, has done much to guarantee to their parents and to our American youth, as they look forward to the working out of their eternal destiny, a fair opportunity to market their services, to secure jobs according to their capabilities, and to maintain a standard reasonably commensurate with their dignity as human beings.

Mr. POWELL. Thank you, Justice Jackson.

Before you leave, I would like to say that we worked together in Harlem about 10 years, and one of the trustees of my church was your chief assistant.

Mr. JACKSON. That is right.

Mr. POWELL. That is why I think your testimony is so valuable, because on the basis of your training and first-hand experience there is a correlation between crime and unemployment that is definite and aside from all the other aspects that have been expressed by the other witnesses, and this aspect you have expressed this morning is the most important: That we have a crime situation where there is unemployment, and the same thing is true when you go to the Southwest, where there are a number of Catholics. You are a Catholic?

Mr. JACKSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. POWELL. As I started to say, when you go down into the Southwest, where you have so many Spanish-speaking Catholics, there is widespread crime because of unemployment. It is not a question of whether a man is a Negro or a Catholic, but wherever there is discrimination and resulting unemployment there is a crime wave.

Mr. JACKSON. I am familiar with that situation. I was living in Los Angeles for a year and a half when I was with the motion-picture industry, and it follows the same pattern where you have got, as you have there with this group, as you mentioned, widespread discrimination. It engenders the stuff that crime is made of, the resentments, the frustrations, and the antipathies that are built up in the minds of those discriminated against; and, with a retaliatory stiffness by the other group, it sets the stage for that sort of lawlessness.

Mr. POWELL. This committee must adjourn at 12 o'clock sharp due to the memorial services to be held today. However, we have one witness we can hear in the remaining 20 minutes, and at this time I would like to call on Mr. Julius A. Thomas, director, department of industrial relations, National Urban League.

After hearing Mr. Thomas, the committee will adjourn until 2 o'clock, at which time the Honorable Brooks Hays, of Arkansas, will testify. We will close our hearings tomorrow when Hon. Henry Wallace will testify, as well as representatives of the Jewish Labor Committee; Mr. Charles H. Tuttle: Rev. Samuel McCrea Cavert, of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America; Marjorie McKenzie Lawson; John A. Davis; Hon. Vito Marcantonio, and at 2 p. m. our Secretary of Labor, Mr. Tobin.

Mr. Thomas, will you proceed?

TESTIMONY OF JULIUS A. THOMAS, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE, NEW YORK, N. Y.

Mr. THOMAS. I would like at the outset, Mr. Powell, to say that we appreciate the invitation to make this statement with respect to the bill and the legislation to abolish discrimination in employment.

My name is Julius A. Thomas. I am employed by the National Urban League, whose offices are at 1133 Broadway, New York City. My position is director of the department of industrial relations. I have been employed in the work of the Urban League for 25 years, having served as executive secretary of local branches in Atlanta, Ga.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Louisville, Ky. I was appointed to my present position in 1943.

The National Urban League is an interracial agency established in 1910 to advance, through interracial cooperation, the economic and social welfare needs of the Nation's Negro population. The national office in New York is the coordinating unit for a network of local autonomous branches in 57 cities in every section of the Nation. The national organization and its local branches employ 357 professional and nonprofessional workers. The affairs of the league are managed and directed by boards of Negro and white persons representing many religious, racial, and political interests.

The National Urban League functions as a promotional, service, and educational agency. It seeks to organize the leadership of the community behind its program to secure better housing, better health services, better training and educational opportunities, and better employment opportunities for Negroes. Since its organization in 1910, the urban league has concentrated much of its efforts on the employment problems of Negro wage earners. For many years it was the only agency in the Nation engaged in this effort.

In my capacity as director of industrial relations, I am directly responsible for the league's program in this field. Specifically, my work includes establishing contacts with industrial and commercial concerns, large and small, in every section of the Nation, in order to influence favorably the employment policies of these concerns; working with heads of international, national, and local unions to encourage better labor-union practices where the interests of Negro members and job seekers are involved; collecting and interpreting information about the labor market, particularly as it affects Negro workers; and working with Government agencies, such as the USES, the Veterans' Administration, the Civil Service Commission, and other agencies concerned with problems of employment and economic security.

I have gone into considerable detail to acquaint you with the nature and extent of the urban league's participation in activities associated with the problem of employment for Negroes. I have done this because I propose to speak primarily from that background of experience.

We believe Federal legislation should be adopted to prohibit racial and religious discrimination in employment. We believe this legislation should include the best features of the laws now in force in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts. Connecticut, and the States which have recently enacted similar legislation. Specifically, we believe that Federal legislation should contain the following features:

(1) It should establish an implementing agency independent of any existing Federal agency concerned with the problem of racial and religious discrimination.

(2) It should provide for the use of negotiation and conciliation in all instances of alleged racial or religious discrimination in employment.

(3) It should provide for sanctions or penalties in any instance where the aforementioned procedures have failed to correct the discriminatory employment practices.

(4) It should provide for the acceptance of bona fide complaints of discriminatory employment practices when filed by reputable agencies, public and private, who may wish to file on behalf of the person or persons discriminated against.

Briefly, then, I want to tell you why we believe Federal legislation is necessary to eliminate racial and religious discrimination in employment.

First, it is absolutely essential, we believe, that a man's right to a job for which he is qualified be firmly established in law. Despite some notable instances in which employers and labor unions are beginning to respect this right, there are employment patterns in every community that virtually eliminate workers of certain racial or religious characteristics. Many of these patterns have stubbornly resisted every effort to change them except by law. Let me cite just one examplethe merchandising field. Prior to the enactment of antidiscrimination legislation in New York State there was only one major department store that offered employment opportunities to qualified Negroes beyond the customary menial jobs. Today there are scores of competent Negroes working as sales people, assistant buyers, accountants, and junior executives, in many of New York's best-known stores.

This progressive pattern will be found in stores in Boston, Mass.; Hartford, Conn.; Newark, N. J.; and on a much smaller scale in Philadelphia, Pa.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Minneapolis, Minn., and a few other cities. The Urban League has devoted a great deal of time and energy to a program of education and persuasion designed to duplicate this employment practice in other States and cities with practically no success worth mentioning. We are convinced that legislative action will be necessary before any substantial change in this and other similar employment patterns can be accomplished.

Second, we are convinced that the enactment and enforcement of antidiscrimination legislation imposes no further hardship on either employers or labor unions. Since the enactment of the Ives-Quinn law in New York State and similar laws in other States on the eastern seaboard, the national office and our local branches in those States have served as advisors and consultants to more than 100 large industrial and commercial establishments. In that role we have worked with industrial plants, banks, department stores, and other enterprises to assist them in setting up procedures through which Negro and other minority-group workers could be employed.

We have visited their places of business to observe the results of these efforts. We have not encountered a single situation in which the introduction of these new workers has produced a difficult problem. In other words, we believe that any employer, if he elects to do so, can operate his industry or business successfully and profitably, and at the same time employ workers on a democratic basis. The

chief need, as we see it, is motivation. We believe a clear-cut Federal law backed up by State and local legislation where it is needed will provide that motivation.

Third, we believe Federal legislation is necessary to assure the continued employment of Negro workers in many of the occupations and jobs they obtained for the first time during the war. More than 700,000 Negro workers went into industrial employment between 1942 and 1946. Until recently the vast majority of these workers were able to remain in industry. In the past 6 months, however, thousands of Negroes have lost these jobs along with thousands of other workers. In two larger corporations with which we are presently working, recent cut-backs have all but wiped out the jobs held by Negroes, most of whom had job seniority of 5 and 7 years. From practically every local league, we are receiving reports that the present temporary recession has displaced a disproportionate number of Negro workers. Within a few weeks we hope, and I am sure you do, that many of these workers will be recalled to their jobs. But we face that possibility with the uncertainty and skepticism which have long attended the job-finding efforts of Negroes. We have only to recall the early days of the war effort when Negroes were denied a chance to work even when the labor supply was all but exhausted. We believe, therefore, that the enactment of sound legislation to assure Negroes and other minority group workers a fair chance at an available job is a necessary step which the Congress should take.

Fourth, we believe, finally, that the enactment of antidiscrimination legislation will do more to discredit the critics of the American system than any single thing that the Congress can do. We are no longer an isolated Nation free to conduct its affairs as we see fit. We stand today as a model to freedom-loving people all over the world.

Our industrial genius and know-how have been important factors in raising our Nation to this enviable position in world affairs, I am certain, and I believe you will agree with me that in spite of our unprecedented, economical development, there are areas in our national society from which many capable citizens are almost completely excluded. Equality of opportunity in our economy is one of these areas. As a result of the inequalities in training and employment, a significant proportion of our population is forced to live at a standard far below an acceptable minimum consistent with our productive capacities. This situation we must remedy not only because it has serious international implications but because we must find a way to use the creative and productive resources of all Americans in order to safeguard the Nation's economic welfare.

We urge you, gentlemen, in the name of the National Urban League to enact legislation that will prohibit those un-American practices which deprive part of our citizenry of the opportunity to make its maximum contribution to the growth and prosperity of this Nation. We urge you to open wide the doors of opportunity to every American regardless of his race, religion or national origin.

Mr. POWELL. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. I want to congratulate the Urban League and you personally on the excellent work you have done in the industrial field.

I want to ask you if the unemployment which is rising now is affecting the Negro worker much more than the white worker? Is that true? Mr. THOMAS. Very definitely so.