agencies outside of these two cities include questions concerning religion, and two-thirds of these same agencies reported that it was more difficult to place Jewish workers. In Chicago an actual statistical analysis of discriminatory job orders was made by a large commercial agency showing that 60 percent of the executive jobs, 50 percent of the sales jobs, 41 percent of the male clerical, and 24 percent of the female clerical opportunities were closed to Jewish applicants, and 83 percent of all orders placed carried discriminatory specifications. It is understandable that the data which has been submitted with my formal statement refers exclusively to discrimination against Jews because the agencies which are the constituent members of the organization I represent have been dealing at first hand directly only with that aspect of the problem as concerns their own people. We know, however, that in more aggravated form these discriminatory rebuffs are being shared by millions of Americans whose color or national origin also act as disqualifying causes. Now, a suggestion has been made, as reported in the press, by Senator Smith that States should be permitted after the enactment of such a bill, should it be enacted by the Congress, to withdraw from the enforcement provisions or sanctions of the measure, leaving only the educational provisions available. Senator SMITH. Only the legal sanctions; the compulsion of having the hearings will be there. Mr. EPSTEIN. That is what I mean, the compulsion. Senator SMITH. That still does not quite state it correctly because I would still leave in the bill Mr. EPSTEIN. Conciliation, persuasion. Senator SMITH. Yes; and discrimination would be punishable. What I am getting at is whether the decision of the Commission should be enforced by the arm of the law, whether we could not get further with the educational processes. Mr. EPSTEIN. You will observe in this law a step by step Senator SMITH. I helped to draft it; I am quite familiar with it. Mr. EPSTEIN. Before you get to the actual enforcement of the legal sanctions Senator SMITH. That is right. Mr. EPSTEIN. There are innumerable steps in the course of which you may and we hope will probably reach the desired end. Senator SMITH. Right, and you have the power of subpena and all those things so that the hearings cannot be bypassed. Mr. EPSTEIN. As Daniel Webster said, a bill without the actual possibility of ultimate enforcement-I paraphrase his language—is just perfectly good advice. I merely want to point out what I consider to be basic legal objections to the Senator's discussion. Aside from moral and social lack of justification, it would seem to run squarely afoul of the provision of the United States Constitution. One can reach this conclusion very readily by applying the same reasoning to such measures as the pending Taft-Hartley bill dealing with labor problems, if States were to be permitted to withdraw from its sanction provisions leaving others to which it might be applicable. Aside from the economic chaos which would ensue, the fact that the United States Government, the United States Congress itself, could not enact a measure which would deny equal protection of the law to employers and employees alike throughout the 48 States of this Nation, should delegate to the States or the power to States to create such an act in the enforcement of the law, it seems to me an objection that overrides all of what I would consider possibly a conciliatory gesture for those States who may wish to escape the provisions of this law; and it is within the ultimate power of exercising the legal sanction that lies the great educational force in all such laws. Senator DONNELL. We will have to stop right here. We will have a 5-minute recess. You may continue, Mr. Epstein, when we are back in session. (At this point a short recess was taken in the hearing.) Senator DONNELL. Very well, Mr. Epstein, proceed. Mr. EPSTEIN. I have heretofore referred to the application of the theory that Senator Smith has suggested as a possible amendment to this bill if it were applied to the Taft-Hartley labor bill and what complete chaos would result economically in addition to which it would indicate how clearly it would run afoul of the equal protection of the Constitution of the United States. I might add that the same reasoning applied to the Fair Labor Standards Practices Act which established minimum wages and maximum hours and would exemplify the complete illogic as well as the unsoundness of the proposal. One of the great philosophers of history, Dr. Arnold Toynbee, has concluded that no great nation ever succumbed to the pressure of competing ideologies or forces unless it first weakened itself by selfinflicted wounds. By the enactment of this bill, S. 984, the Congress of the United States can do much to heal the wounds of our democracy which have been and are continually being inflicted by racial and religious discrimination in all forms of opportunity, and particularly in the opportunity of earning a livelihood and thus enable this great Nation to move forward with unimpaired strength in the vanguard of a world seeking peace. I would ask, Senator, that the full statement which I have heretofore filed in addition to these remarks be made a part of the record of this committee. Senator DONNELL. Without objection, it is so ordered. (Mr. Epstein submitted the following brief:) STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY HENRY EPSTEIN, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS ADVISORY COUNCIL, JUNE 19, 1947 The National Community Relations Advisory Council is a coordinating body of national and local Jewish community relations agencies. Its national member organizations are: The American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Also affiliated with it are 24 regional, State, and local community councils throughout the country. These are: Akron Jewish Community Council Baltimore Jewish Council Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Boston Jewish Community Council, Bridgeport, Conn. Brooklyn Jewish Community Council Cincinnati Jewish Comunity Council Jewish Community Council, Cleveland, Ohio Detroit Jewish Community Council Public Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Indianapolis Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee Milwaukee Jewish Council Minnesota Jewish Council Jewish Community Council of Essex County, N. Y. New Haven Jewish Community Council Jewish Public Relations Council for Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, Philadelphia Jewish Community Relations council Jewish Survey and B'nai B'rith Community Committee of San Francisco Jewish organizations are agreed on this issue of equality of job opportunity. Meeting in plenary session last March, delegates from the communities affiliated with the NCRAC, embracing approximately 90 percent of the Jews in this country, by unanimous resolution called for the speedy enactment of Federal legislation to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, religion, color, national origin, or ancestry. And, believing with Daniel Webster that “a law without a penalty is simply good advice," they called for a law with adequate enforcement powers. Discrimination is no new phenomenon to the Jew. For centuries he has found the doors of certain industries and occupations closed to him, and the present distribution of Jewish workers reflects in large measure the history of past exclusions. Every so-called minority knows the meaning of discrimination. Only recently, however, has the world learned the lesson that racism blights the oppressor no less than its victims. For the rise and fall of Hitler has vividly demonstrated that a national policy of discrimination is a certain road to ruin. In calling upon this Congress to eliminate discrimination from the factories and workshops of our Nation, therefore, we are urging that you eliminate a threat not only to the security of our country's racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, but that you take steps to safeguard the security of America itself. ence. Religious leaders of all persuasions have appeared here to denounce discrimination as immoral and unjust and as an affront to the innate dignity of man, Civic leaders have testified that discrimination is un-American and undemocratic, a denial of those self-evident truths proclaimed in the Declaration of IndependLeading jurists have ruled that discrimination deprives minorities "of their constitutional right to earn a livelihood" (Carrol v. Local 269, 133 N. J. Eq. 144, 147); and the United States Supreme Court itself, noting that laws prohibiting discrimination against labor union members had quite properly been sustained, has held that "Race discrimination by an employer may reasonably be deemed more unfair and less excusable than discrimination against workers on the ground of union affiliation" (New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 U. S. 552, p. 561). To these expressions of conscience and idealism have been added the considerations of practical self-interest. Sociologists have shown how the poverty born of discrimination breeds disease and slums and crime, how it stunts the body and warps the mind, and they have counseled its prohibition as a matter of elemental self-interest., Economists have advised that we must focus our sights on achieving maximum purchasing power if we are to maintain a healthy economy, pointing out that the States with the lowest per capita income are those in which discrimination is most severe and widespread, as evidence that when large numbers of persons are prevented from working on jobs for which they are fitted by education, training, and skill, the purchasing power and standard of living of the total community sinks accordingly. Labor leaders have united in demanding an end to discrimination in employment because they know full well that it depresses wages and creates divisions inimical to the trade-union movement. Businessmen, too, have come increasingly to recognize that discrimination does not pay; that it is uneconomical, cutting down the size of markets, increasing the cost of production, and raising the burden of taxation. Eric Johnston, former chairman of the United States Chamber of Commerce, succinctly stated this point of view when he said: "The withholding of jobs and business opportunities from some people does not make more jobs and business opportunities for others. Such a policy merely tends to drag down the whole economic level. You can't sell an electric re rigerator to a family that can't afford electricity. Perpetuating poverty for some merely guarantees stagnation for all. True economic progress demands that the whole Nation move forward at the same time. It demands that all artificial barriers erected by ignorance and intolerance 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." And finally, our diplomats remind us that "the existence of discrimination is a handicap in our relations with other countries." Government action to prohibit discrimination was indispensable for the miracle of production which made possible the winning of the war. It is a no less inescapable imperative for winning the peace. We are engaged in a vast global conflict-a conflict not of planes, guns, ships, and tanks, but a conflict of ideas and moral values, in which the tenets of our democratic civilization are opposed to the philosophy of totalitarianism. In that conflict, discrimination may well turn out to be our Achilles' heel. For to the extent that we permit, men to be denied the right to work solely because of their race, religion, color, national origin, or ancestry, to that extent our position as the exemplar of democracy is rendered suspect-especially in the eyes of that two-thirds or possibly three-fourths of humanity who happen to be nonwhite. In our foreign policy, we stand committed to a policy of nondiscrimination. In signing the Charter of the United Nations at San Francisco, and in the subsequent ratification of that Charter by the United States Senate, we undertook to promote "universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion." At the recent Conference of Foreign Ministers in Moscow, Secretary of State Marshall defined democracy. He said: * * "To the American Government and citizens, democracy has a basic meaning. We believe that human beings have certain inalienable rights-that is, rights which may not be given or taken away *. 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." In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, however, the peoples of the world cannot hear what we say because what we do keeps dinning in their ears. Thus, the problem of discrimination has, so to speak, moved around from a backyard domestic issue to a front-porch exposure for all the world to see. We can no longer isolate ourselves from our own moral ideas. We can no longer appease and tolerate among ourselves the self-same practices we denounce so strongly in others. Democracy must become a driving force revealed in our domestic behavior be fore we can make a united effort in behalf of democracy. The elimination of discrimination is not a side issue. It is, rather, the test of our democratic integrity. By enacting this legislation, the Congress can make of that test a triumphant vindication and a passport to world confidence and world respect. In all the array of witnesses who have appeared at these hearings, as well as those who appeared at both the Senate and House hearings last year, witnesses who Senator Chavez estimated represented some 60,000,000 Americans, there was not one who rose to defend the practice of discrimination, not one who challenged the fact that it is an unmitigated evil. Why, then, in the face of this expression of national sentiment is there the slightest hesitation about enacting the legislation here before us into law? Is it because the practice of discrimination is in reality not sufficiently widespread to necessitate such action[ A brief look at the record should suffice to dispel that illusion. Within the past year, our office, with the cooperation of our member agencies, completed a survey of trends in discriminatory employment practices against Jews. Since it was not possible to make an over-all statistical analysis, the survey concerned itself with those overt practices by which discrimination against Jews is usually manifested. For every such instance, however, there were many, many more in which discrimination was more subtly but no less definitely practiced. Evidence was assembled along the following four lines: 1. A comparison of discriminatory newspaper advertisements during corresponding periods in 1945 and 1946. 2. A comparison of the volume of complaints filed with Jewish agencies during the comparable periods in 1945 and 1946. 3. A study of registration and referral practices of private employment agencies. 4. A study of job-seeking experiences of workers registered with Jewish placement agencies, supplemented by a sample study of the experiences of Jewish veterans in their efforts to secure employment. Reports were obtained from the following 15 cities which include approximately 80 percent of all the Jews in the United States: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and St. Louis. I should like a copy of that survey to be incorporated into the record, and I shall confine my remarks to a few of the more significant findings. Studies of help-wanted ads during corresponding weeks in 1946 and 1945 were conducted in eight cities (Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Newark, Philadelphia). Despite a marked decline in the total volume of help-wanted advertising, there was an over-all increase of 195 percent in discriminatory ads for 1946 over 1945. Although complaints of discrimination received by Jewish agencies represent but a small fraction of the instances in which Jews are discriminated against, the volume of such complaints is a valuable index. Moreover, in contrast to the common assumption that minorities tend to become overly sensitive and to complain of discrimination when it is in fact not practiced, almost as many instances of discrimination were uncovered during 3 weeks of the study as had been reported through existing channels in 6 months. Reports were received from agencies in seven cities (Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, New York, and Philadelphia) comparing the volume of complaints received for comparable periods in 1946 and 1945. The complaints received during the post-VJ-day period showed an increase of 37 percent over the preceding year. A further analysis of these figures, however, reveals some striking contrasts between New York City, where a State law against discrimination is in operation, and all other cities. Whereas New York reported 6 percent fewer complaints in the postwar period, every other city reported an increase of 77 percent or more, with an over-all increase in complaints of 93 percent for the six cities, excluding New York. Two hundred and forty-one private employment agencies in 12 cities (Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, 'Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and San Francisco) were visited. Of these, 220 were commercial agencies charging fees. New York and Newark, N. J., where State antidiscrimination laws are in effect, accounted for 107 agencies, with the remaining 134 distributed among 10 cities. Only 2 of the 107 agencies in New York and Newark included any reference to religion on their registration forms, and both of these gave assurances that the reference would be deleted in conformity with the State law. On the other hand, 89 percent of the agencies outside of New York and Newark included questions about religion on their registration forms, and two-thirds of these same agencies reported that it was more difficult to place Jewish workers. In Milwaukee five of the six agencies interviwed still retained questions on religion despite the Wisconsin FEPC law. The marked contrast between this practice and that in New York and Newark suggests that the lack of enforcement powers in the Wisconsin statute has in large measure nullified the intent of the law. In Chicago an actual statistical count of discriminatory job orders was made by one of the largest commercial agencies in the city. This survey showed that 60 percent of the executive jobs, 50 percent of the sales-executive jobs, 41 percent of the male clerical openings, and 24 percent of the female clerical openings were closed to Jews, and fully 83 percent of all orders placed with the agency carried discriminatory specifications. Statements made by all of the agency heads made clear, moreover, that employers do not need to issue discriminatory orders in order to practice discrimination. They need express their policy only once or reject all Jewish applicants to obtain the kind of referrals wanted. Information about current practices in industry was assembled from 12 cities (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis). Applicants registering for work with Jewish guidance and placement agencies were questioned about their job-seeking experiences during the 6 months following VJ-day. Supplementary data were obtained from a sampling of World |