5 that 68 percent of the total were earning less than $20 per week, with a median weekly earning of $17.41 for the 12,505 Negro workers included in the study. It was not surprising, therefore, to learn from the records of the Department of Institutions and Agencies that during this same period, extending from 1935 through 1939, this minority group comprised 25 percent of the State's relief load, at an average cost during the period of $28,000,000 per year for this group alone. Thus the direct cost to society of the luxury of employment discrimination was disclosed by competent authority. The summary of findings of this study is presented as follows: I. Negro families are considerably over-represented on the relief rolls as compared to their ratio in the general population. II. Employment opportunities in industry, trade, commerce, utilities, and public service are very limited. for Negroes. III. Restricted opportunities for Negroes are reflected in an almost lack of difference in incomes of the various groups. Thus, many years of formal training in schools and colleges as well as years of practical experience and the acquiring of special skills go unrewarded in promotions and in increased incomes. IV. Employment opportunities are as disproportionate for the Negro as compared to his ratio in the general population as is his overrepresentation on the relief rolls. V. Employment opportunities in various types of industry vary from locality to locality. VI. Negroes are employed in some capacity in all of the broad divisions of enterprise as used by the Federal Bureau of Census. VII. Manufacturing and mechanical industry and domestic and personal service absorbed 79.7 percent of the Negroes gainfully employed in establishments touched by this survey. VIII. One thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven establishments were employing 334,180 persons when this survey was made. Of these 321,675 were white. IX. Eight hundred and thirty-eight of the establishments employed 12,505 Negroes, who constituted 3.7 percent of the employees in the 1,867 establishments, although 5.5 percent of the population. XI. 54.9 percent of all establishments contacted, numbering 1,018, were not employing Negroes. Of these more than 1,000 firms, 230 had employed Negroes at some time in the past, but 788 had never had Negroes in their employ. * XV. The Negro part of the community is not more nor less restless than the other parts. It has been subjected to the same influences, and though its environment is less attractive, often lacking essential facilities, yet it has reacted with as great fortitude under adversity as has the rest of the American population. The significance of these several studies rests in the fact that education, as the term usually is employed, had contributed little toward changing the status of this one minority during the period from 1903, through 1931, to 1935. EDUCATION UNDER THE LAW The educational potency of legislative act is too frequently underemphasized or completely ignored. New Jersey experience since passage of the antidiscrimination law clearly demonstrates that an area of study has been opened to businessmen, union leaders, educators, publicists, and the general public which hitherto had been neglected or rejected. What had been nobody's business has become everybody's subject of inquiry. Whether the motivating influences be self-protection or consciousness of and concern with the public weal, the results have been the same. The press, which in the past usually had failed to mention the subject, has been forthright in discussing the aims and purposes of and general philosophy behind the law. Educators have been induced to give greater thought to the need for a broader educational base on the subject of human relationships. Employment agencies have seen the necessity for examining their referral practices, and highschool counselors and principals for abandoning the former practice of screening out minority group graduates at the request of employers. Meantime, Rotary, Correspondence August 1, 1945, by Douglass H. MacNeil, Department of Institutions and Agencies, to Newark Sunday Call. Kiwanis, and the service clubs, representing the employer group, employment managers' associations, and labor groups and institutes, have utilized the services of division personnel for discussion of the problem of discrimination and the meaning of the law. Specialized education, demanded as a result of personal interest, and presented by competent experts, is being promoted on a wide scale in New Jersey since the enactment of the law, as never before. EDUCATION THROUGH AUTHORIZED ORGANIZATION Under the provisions of the New Jersey act, the nonsalaried, seven-man State council is authorized to create county councils whose function shall be to study the problems of discrimination, recommend programs for their correction, and through good will and conciliation, to repair the state of intergroup relations in the county community. Eight such county councils have been formed through the careful selection of no more than 25 well known, responsible, and broadly representative citizens in each of the counties. These groups, under the close supervision of the State council and with the technical advice and assistance of division personnel, are exploring the various areas of dissatisfaction and tension; are inaugurating such studies as conditions seem to indicate; and are initiating programs of goodwill education which their knowledge of home communities suggests as necessary or helpful. While the State council and division staff may deal directly and effectively with State government and departments, the county council provides personalized liaison in matters involving county and municipal affairs, and educational activities designed for local application among fellow townsmen. One such activity has been a series of studies of employment practices in businesses within the county area. Five councils have promoted such studies by securing cooperation of fellow citizens within the county in determining the amount and kind of discriminatory employment practices affecting various minority groups. The study is so designed that, while securing and assembling data from all larger firms in the area, business heads also receive first-hand interpretation of the total problem, features of the law, and methods by which the employer may observe the statute without damage to his production program. Direct education where it is most vitally needed is the end result of this one venture. It is gratifying to note, in attempting to summarize the effect of these educational efforts, that many more employers are voluntarily adjusting their employment policies than statistics of case intake and enforcement procedure would imply. The educational value of the law, in the setting forth of a code of ethics expected by the people of the State, is the most potent feature by which the majority of employers and labor unions are guided in their operations. The threat of legal reprisal was essential in rousing consciousness in the many. Actual use of this legal instrument may be required for the few. Experience thus far seems to indicate that litigation will be necessary in but very rare instances. CONCLUSION New Jersey has not eliminated the evil blight of employment discrimination as a result of the passage of the antidiscrimination law. It has, however, taken a long, intelligent, and pace-eating stride of progress by giving real hope to tens of thousands of its citizens for whom the rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness have not materialized. The great American dream, whose realization is the one complete answer to foreign ideologies, is coming true for thousands of minority group workers who, only a few months before, were experiencing rebuff, humiliation, and disillusionment. Federal enactment of a fair employment practices law will in no way hamper, retard, or interfere with State operations in New Jersey. Rather, such legislation will strengthen and support the work of the division through regulation of the practices of interstate corporations and national and international unions. On the other hand, the experiences and facilities of the New Jersey Division Against Discrimination will be available to the administrators of a Federal organization if the Congress will adopt the pending fair employment practices bill. EMPLOYMENT: A CIVIL RIGHT IN NEW JERSEY (By Harold A. Lett) [This article offers an analysis of the New Jersey law against discrimination in employment (the Hill law, ch. 169, Public Law 1945). Passed without fanfare and operating smoothly, the law is slowly correcting conditions by emphasizing education and conciliation, although as a last resort it has plenty of teeth for enforcement.] When the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt acceded to the suggestions of Negro and white progressives of the country and created the Fair Employment Practices Committee, he initiated what may become the most significant and effective approach to the problem of race relations ever undertaken by government. It was the expression of a new, dynamic philosophy of governmental functions-the need to implement the fine ideals expressed in our Federal and State constitutions by giving practical, day-to-day meaning to those high ideals. The FEPC, however, did its pioneering work during the feverish period of the war, when the destiny of the world depended upon America's ability to utilize all of her resources in the "war of production." What would happen during peace, prrticularly during the immediate postwar period let-down and reaction? Operating within the framework of this troublesome question were the proponents of State legislation for fair employment practice controls in a score of States, and there were also the opponents of such class legislation in those same States. Among those States were New York and New Jersey, whose 1945 legislatures were debating the issue of fair employment controls. In New York, the opposition was highly organized and articulate; in New Jersey, it was subdued, and active only behind the scenes. In March 1945 the New York State Legislature, to the accompaniment of Nation-wide publicity and much debate, passed the first State law in the Nation outlawing discrimination in employment. But 1 month later, without debate, acrimony, or publicity, the New Jersey Legislature passed the Hill bill, which was almost identical with the Ives-Quinn measure in New York. The almost simultaneous and comparable actions but contrasting experiences of the two States are a matter of such significance that a bit of historical background may be required. The State of New York has usually been in the vanguard of liberal racial atti tudes. As the port of entry for millions of immigrants for generations, New York has had to formulate a creed and a working plan, in its own interest. that would minimize intergroup tensions and conflict. Its polygot population has provided America's severest test of the democratic principle, and it has had to work diligently at the task of making democracy real and meaningful to all its people. Its position on the issue of human slavery was unequivocal and the State has been forthright and courageous in blazing new paths toward human freedom, insofar as practical, partisan politics has permitted. The history of New Jersey, on the other hand, has shown much greater influence of southern traditions and mores. New Jersey was a slave-holding State, even after the year 1850, when every other State north of the Mason and Dixon's line had outlawed the practice. During the period of reconstruction, New Jersey was so disturbed by the northward migration of freedom that for a period of 7 seven years its legislature made annual appropriations toward subsidization of the colonization program in Liberia. Not until 1875 was the franchise granted to Negro citizens in the State. SOUTHERN PATTERNS Even today, a large section of New Jersey adheres faithfully to the southern biracial pattern. Draw an imaginary line across the "waist" of the State and you have a State Mason and Dixon's line. Below this imaginary boundary is the State capital, and 10 of the 21 counties in the Commonwealth. In these 10 counties reside 25 percent of the State's population, and 41 percent of the total Negro population. Although the quarter of a million Negro citizens represent 5.4 percent of the State's population, they constitute 8.8 percent of the residents of these southern counties though but 4.4 percent of the population in the northern industrial counties. In New Jersey's "south" industry is concentrated in a very few centers such as the Trenton and Camden areas, while, in a general sense, agriculture and food processing have followed the pattern of the agrarian economy which characterizes our national South. Here, too, has been the almost universal picture of racial separation in residential areas, in occupational outlets for Negro workers, in use of restaurants, taverns, and other public facilities, and in the widespread policy of elementary-school segregation. A recent survey conducted by Miss Noma Jensen, of the NAACP national staff, disclosed that in a study of 58 communities of the State, various forms of racial segregation were being practiced in the elementary grades in at least 23 of these towns. Thus, New Jersey can be pictured as a small working model of the Nation in respect to its total economy and its racial patterns. One significant exception can now be made. As late as 1945, the State capital, Trenton, could be compared in almost every detail to the National Capital, Washington. Schools were segregated, public facilities discriminated against Negroes in open and flagrant violations of the State's civil-rights laws, Negro workers in State offices were few and confined to menial tasks, with some half-dozen exceptions, and the municipal government was coldly indifferent to the welfare of its Negro citizens. The progressive program of the Trenton Committee for Unity, organized through the joint efforts of an Irish-Catholic newspaper owner-editor, a Jewish jurist, and a Protestant churchman, and implemented by the full-time services of a Smith graduate and ex-Junior Leaguer, led to undreamed of changes in the local pattern, even to the complete elimination of the segregated school set-up. It was upon such a stage and before such a backdrop that New Jersey's antidiscrimination bill was presented to the lone Negro assemblyman, Dr. J. Otto Hill, who was a member of the Essex County delegation. Republican Governor Walter E. Edge, now voluntarily retired to private life, favored passage of the bill and assisted actively in the mobilization of support. His was a sincere recognition of the commitments made by the Republican Party in the formation of its national platform. It should be said that a second FEPC bill had been presented by a member of the Democratic minority in the assembly, but he later recalled his bill and marshaled Democratic support behind the Republican administration measure. Progressive forces in the State rallied to the support of the measure in anticipation of an organized opposition which never materialized openly. Toward the latter part of the legislative session, public bearings were scheduled and the assembly chambers were packed with FEPC adherents with myriads of suggestions designed to strengthen the bill, but they actually jeopardized its passage by delaying assembly action until near adjournment time. This threat was averted by speedy organization and coordination of activities and interests of all proponents. Not one voice was raised in open opposition to the measure, and it cleared both houses without debate or serious opposition. These little-known sidelights also were responsible for the widespread belief that the New Jersey statute lacked teeth. IVES-QUINN VERSUS HILL LAW Actually, there are but two minor differences between the New Jersey and the New York laws. Both bills class violation of the law as a misdemeanor. In New Jersey, a misdemeanor is an indictable offense requiring grand-jury action before prosecution. This is a feature of the State's basic legal structure which does not apply in New York, and is not a defect or weakness in the antidiscrimination law per se. Another feature which differentiates the New York law from that in New Jersey is that the administrative authority in New York is vested in a five-man commission stemming from the executive department, while in New Jersey, where all such commissions have been allocated to departments having cabinet representation, authority was assigned to a branch of the State department of education under the name of the division against discrimination. A discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each system is without the limits of this article. In New Jersey, therefore, the commissioner of education is the nominal head of the division. His authority is vested in an assistant commissioner of education, Joseph L. Bustard, who is one of six officials in the department carrying this title. The others, respectively, are assigned to elementary, secondary, higher, and vocational education, and to the business administration of the department. Under Commissioner Bustard are assistants in charge of compliance and of education, respectively, as authorized in the definition of the division's functions in the text of the act. The policy-making functions are not assigned to the |