In fact, experience has shown that one of the principal services performed by a fair employment practice commission is to protect employers and unions against unjustified charges of discrimination. The records of both the Federal FEPC and the New York State Commission Against Discrimination show that more complaints are dismissed than are accepted as valid. During the first year's operation of the New York State law, 58 percent of all cases were dismissed or withdrawn and the remaining 42 percent were successfully adjusted. Likewise, by screening out cases which were not well-founded, which were outside the jurisdiction of the committee, or which could not be proved, the Federal FEPC eliminated 64 percent of all complaints and accepted only 36 percent for adjustment. The existence of a responsible public agency to investigate and adjust complaints also serves to clear up doubts in the minds of minority workers who have reason to suspect that certain job situations are discriminatory although in fact they are not. The clearing up of these doubts, and the satisfactory adjustment of valid complaints, serve to reduce tensions and to improve intergroup good will. The selection of properly qualified personnel for the Commission and staff holds the key to fair and effective administration of the law. In Minneapolis we have been extremely fortunate in securing five outstanding leaders in different phases of community life to serve as members of the commission. The chairman, Mr. George M. Jensen, is regional manager of the Nash-Kelvinator Corp., Protestant cochairman of.the National Conference of Christians and Jews, recently headed the civic fund campaign which provides the budget for the chamber of commerce and related agencies, and is a valuable member of the mayor's council on human relations. Another member is Mr. Raymond Cannon, prominent Negro attorney and one of the founders of the Minneapolis Urban League. A third member is Mr. Jack Jorgenson, president of the Teamsters' Joint Council and vice president of the Minneapolis Central Labor Union. A fourth member is Mr. Amos Deinard, another distinguished attorney and the Jewish cochairman of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The fifth and final member of the commission is Mr. Lawrence E. Kelley, who is circulation manager of the Minneapolis Daily Times and retiring president of the Minneapolis Junior Chamber of Commerce. I have indicated the caliber and the community status of these members of the Minneapolis commission because I want to emphasize the importance of securing individuals of similar qualifications and corresponding national status to administer the national fair employment practice legislation. Such individuals must have the full confidence of the community in terms of their soundness of judgment, their fairness and integrity, and their forthright resolve to make effective the principle of nondiscrimination in employment. They should be broadly representative of those groups in the community who are most directly concerned with the proper administration of this legislation-namely, employers, labor organizations, and the members of minority racial, religious, and nationality groups. It is just as important to have the commission's negative decisions on unjustified complaints accepted as fair by the members of minority groups in the community as it is to have its positive action on valid complaints accepted as proper by employers and labor unions.

In spite of the very successful record that has been established by some State laws against discrimination in employment, and although we are making an effective start on the administration of our municipal ordinance in Minneapolis, local action can never be sufficient or adequate to solve this serious national problem. First of all, this is a problem of national morality. The denial of employment opportunities to our citizens because of their race, religion, or national origin is a flagrant violation of our democratic principles and of our traditional statements of public policy. We cannot hold up our heads as self-respecting American citizens, and we certainly cannot successfully aspire to leadership in world affairs, so long as we make mockery of our high-sounding talk about justice and democracy by practices of discrimination which destroy the dignity and deny the rights of millions of our fellow citizens. It is high time that we correct this weakness in our public character by taking such forthright action against it that there can be no question of our sincerity and good faith. The enactment of Federal fair employment practice legislation with provisions for vigorous enforcement power and with a sufficient appropriation of funds to assure effective national administration would go a long way toward lifting this burden from our national conscience.

It should be noted here that even the bitterest opponents of this legislation have never publicly opposed the principle that all of our citizens should have the opportunity to work in accordance with their qualifications and skills. This principle is not controversial. Therefore, there is no excuse for leaving the question

of making it effective to local option. We need Federal legislation with broad enforcement powers and adequate administrative provisions as an unequivocal statement of sound national policy.

There is plenty of room for State and municipal action in addition to the Federal law. For example, our Minneapolis ordinance applies to all employers of two or more workers. We believe that we can properly administer this provision of the law in our local situation. However, such a broad coverage may not be administratively feasible on a national scale. Federal legislation should set the basic national pattern, and local laws may be enacted to apply this pattern to groups of employers, labor organizations, and workers which cannot be appropriately covered by national legislation. We might say that the Federal Government should get the minimum standards and that State and local governments may raise the standards for their areas as far above these minimums as their social development permits.

In economic terms, the entire Nation is a single unit. The effective use of our human resources throughout the Nation is essential to our general welfare. The increased productivity which comes from the full use of our potential skills is vital to our social health. It will help us to overcome poverty and disease and delinquency and crime. Those areas in which discrimination in employment is most serious are the ones in which the use of our human resources is most wasteful. The public welfare clearly demands Federal action against discrimination in employment in order to prevent these wastes, to raise the standards of living of minority workers, to give the entire Nation the benefit of their increased productive power, and thus to preserve and strengthen the social health of the Nation. Through action setting up a board of economic advisers to the President and providing for recommendations by this board to the Congress, the Federal Government has finally recognized its responsibility for creating conditions which will assure continued high levels of production and employment. If full em ployment is to be meaningful, it must provide not only that all workers shall be employed at some job, but that they shall be placed in the job in which they can produce most effectively the goods and services that meet the Nation's needs. This cannot be accomplished if artificial barriers are raised to prevent workers from filling the jobs for which they are best qualified. Therefore, if the Federal Government is to achieve the objective of continued full employment, it must act on its responsibility to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or ancestry.

Finally, I want to emphasize the intimate interdependence between the solution of our human-relations problems in our own communities, and within our own national boundaries, and our major human task of building sane and decent and peaceful relations between the peoples of the world. If we are going to export democracy, we better get tooled up for mass production of it here at home. We must deal with justice and mutual respect and good will with our neighbors, if we are to qualify as decent citizens of the world.

STATEMENT OF HENRY EPSTEIN, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS ADVISORY COUNCIL, NEW YORK, N. Y.

Mr. EPSTEIN. Do you want me to recite my background, Senator? Senator DONNELL. If you will, please.

Mr. EPSTEIN. The organization which I represent here, Senator, is the National Community Relations Advisory Council, which is not a New York organization. It is, as its name indicates, a representative organization national in scope. It is a policy-making and coordinating body whose constituent members are the national and local Jewish oganizations, including the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, the Jewish War Veterans, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and the Jewish Labor Committee.

It also represents on its body 24 councils of cities, regions, and States in this country.

Of my own background may I state briefly, I was born in South Carolina; I attended, in my early years, the public schools of Charleston, S. C. and Savannah, Ga.

I taught high school in Arlington, Mass., along the road that Paul Revere rode. I was also for 2 years on the faculty in the department of history at Harvard College.

I am a graduate of the public high schools of New York City, of Harvard College, and the Harvard Law School.

I, for 10 years, occupied the post of solicitor general of the city of New York; I have been for 2 years now the chairman of the national community relations advisory council and also the chairman of the commission on community interrelations, which is sponsored by the American Jewish Congress.

I was at one time for a very brief period the counsel designated to the President's Fair Employment Practices Committee to conduct the railroad hearings on discrimination in the employment of Negroes on the railroads in the United States.

In January of 1943 when those hearings were to be commenced, after we had prepared the evidence, and after the President had gone to Casablanca, Mr. McNutt canceled the hearings. I thereupon resigned in protest against what I considered to be an unwarranted action on his part.

Senator DONNELL. I just want to make a statement here for the record, and also that all may know, that at 12 o'clock that same buzzer goes on again indicating that the session of the Senate has begun and for about 3 to 5 minutes we will have to stand in recess until permission is granted for us to continue.

Proceed, please.

Mr. EPSTEIN. Subsequently, when Mr. Bush succeeded Mr. Ethridge as chairman of that commission, he asked me whether I would resume the conduct of those hearings in the fall of 1943, and I declined to do so unless they could have some assurance that the findings would be made effective under the Presidential order.

No such assurance was forthcoming; I did not resume my position as counsel to conduct those hearings.

Senator DONNELL, I see.

Senator ELLENDER. Could it have been done under the Presidential order?

Mr. EPSTEIN. The hearings could be conducted.

Senator ELLENDER. I am not talking about enforcing anything. Mr. EPSTEIN. The order could be issued under the Presidential directive at that time. There was another way in which that particular order could have been enforced. Because the discriminatory provisions which we were inveighing against are embodied in contracts between southern roads chiefly and the railway unions such contracts were subject to and approved by a governmental agency, that governmental agency, in my humble judgment, was thereby overstepping the bounds of its constitutional authority in actually placing its imprimatur upon a discriminatory contract.

Senator ELLENDER. You mean the ICC?

Mr. EPSTEIN. That was the National Railway Mediation Board. Senator ELLENDER. So you would have used the same facilities that were used by the Government in Government contracts?

I

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Mr. EPSTEIN. Oh, definitely the same way; there was no direct law on the subject but it would have been done in an indirect way. It could have been accomplished that way.

Senator, I have not more than 7 or 8 minutes here in which to focus all of the statements which I have here, and I would be glad to discuss any of the questions and their backgrounds.

The range geographically of the organization which I represent here and its regional and State councils and municipal councils, is from Boston to Los Angeles and San Francisco, and from Minnesota to the southwest Jewish Community Relations Council, which includes Texas and, I should like to advise the Senator, Louisiana.

The delegates from these local, State, regional, and national agencies in their plenary session of this organization held last March and representing approximately 90 percent of the Jewish people in this country unanimously resolved in favor of the speedy enactment of Federal legislation designed to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, religion, color, national origin, or ancestry, and the framework of the Constitution itself. We believe that in calling upon the Congress of the United States to eliminate discrimination among employees or those seeking employment in the factories and workshops of the Nation, we are urging the elimination of a threat not. only to the security of the Nation's minority groups, but also to safeguard the very security of America itself.

We have noted the apparent unanimity with which religious leaders of all faiths have appeared here to denounce discrimination in employment as an immoral affront to the innate dignity of man. Civic leaders have joined with them in testifying to the undemocratic and unAmerican character of such discrimination, a repudiation of the truths which are distinctive in the immortal Declaration of Independence and in the framework of the Constitution itself. The United States Supreme Court itself, even when the so-called nine old men were still there was not unaware of this encroachment upon the tradition and heritage of American freedom, because in the case of New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Company (303 U. S. 552, at p. 561), speaking through Mr. Justice Roberts, the Court held:

Race discrimination by an employer may reasonably be deemed more unfair and less excusable than discrimination against workers on the ground of union affiliation.

And in that case may I state, Senators, that the Supreme Court reversed a lower court and sustained the right of free speech by Negro groups in a community where they were, the dominant purchasers, to picket a grocery store in order to compel the employment of Negroes, and I suggest that perhaps in those States of which Senator Ellender speaks this bill may provide a much more salutary domestic peace than what might ensue in the rapid enlightenment of such a large body in their population.

It may not seem surprising, and yet it is gratifying, that labor leaders have also united in demanding an end to employment discrimination, and we find particular satisfaction in noting that a former chairman of the United States Chamber of Commerce and the present head of an organization having great weight in the mass media of the motion pictures, Mr. Eric Johnston, saying:

True economic progress demands that the whole Nation move forward at the same time. It demands that all artificial barriers erected by ignorance and in

tolerance be removed. To put it in the simplest terms, we are all in business together. Intolerance is a species of boycott and any business or job boycott is a cancer in the economic body of the Nation. I repeat, intolerance is destructive; prejudice produces no wealth; discrimination is a fool's economy.

Our statesmen also remind us that in our relations with other countries, discrimination is a handicap; that the tenets of our democratic civilization are in clear conflict with the philosophy of totalitarianism, and that in that conflict the discrimination which may be practiced in a so-called democratic civilization may well become the Achilles heel in the choice between these two conflicting ideologies where in desperation peoples in other lands may look for guidance in making their choice.

I ask the Senators not to forget that between two-thirds and threefourths of humanity is either black or brown or yellow and not white and that the meanings of education and progress are marching with amazing rapidity.

In becoming a signatory to the Charter of the United Nations, and in the ratification of that Charter by the United States Senate, we have undertaken a solemn obligation to promote without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion the respect for and the observance of fundamental freedoms.

Indeed, our Secretary of State recently in Moscow and to an audience attuned to other concepts than ours, said:

To us a society is not free if law-abiding citizens live in fear of being denied the right to work or deprived of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Discrimination and particularly discrimination in employment has moved around from its position as a back yard domestic issue into the full exposure of a front porch problem where the world observes. It is not without significance also that last year at the hearings before both Senate and House committees, among the witnesses estimated to represent some 60,000,000 Americans there was not one who rose to defend this practice and who did not challenge the fact that it was an unmitigated evil.

I should like to point out a few instances, detailed analysis of which is contained within the statement which I have heretofore, pursuant to the rules of your committee, filed, evidencing a growth of discriminatory practices in the communities in the United States since the war. Reports were obtained in a survey of trends and discriminatory employment as practiced against Jews from 15 cities, including approximately 80 percent of all the Jewish people in the United States. These included cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Kansas City, San Francisco, and so forth.

A copy of that survey has, I believe, been presented for incorporation into the record, together with the formal statement.

Help-wanted advertisements during corresponding weeks in 1946 and 1945 were studied in eight cities and evidenced an increase of 195 percent in discriminatory advertisements for 1946 over 1945, despite a decline in the total volume of help-wanted advertising. Two hundred forty-one private employment agencies in twelve of the largest cities were visited. Out of 107 agencies in New York City and in Newark, N. J., where State laws were in effect, only 2 included any reference to religion in registration forms. On the other hand, 89 percent of the