Mr. KOVNER. No; only among a certain small group of very orthodox Jews who still have very old customs and habits and prejudices, but certainly not among the Jews who have lived in this country or among those in this country. Just taking my experience; I am a first-generation in this country. Senator DONNELL. What is the number of Jews in this country; do you know? Mr. KOVNER. I do not happen to know, sir. Senator DONNELL. Do you know what percentage of them have intermarried with Christians? Mr. KOVNER. I do not know the statistics on that, either. Senator DONNELL. Do you know whether any have intermarried with colored? Mr. KOVNER. I do not happen to. Senator DONNELL. Have any intermarried with Chinese or Japanese? Mr. KOVNER. I do not happen to. I just want to say, I respect these very strong personal feelings when they come to me, in personal relations, but I think your question brings out a point that you do not have to pass a law to prevent people of different faiths and racial backgrounds from marrying each other. As a matter of fact, they will not. Senator DONNELL. You do not think so, if it is to preserve the race? Mr. KOVNER. No, sir, because if the instinct of the race is one which it is claimed to be, a deep biological instinct, then the instincts will be far more powerful than any law. Senator ELLENDER. You think so? Mr. KOVNER. If it is what it is said to be. Senator ELLENDER. You think after another century, that will apply in the South, let us say, where we have 75 percent of the Nation's colored population. Take my State, for example, in some parishes there, the ratio of colored to white is about 2 to 1. In Mississippi, it is as high as 3 to 2, in fact, in several of the Southern States there is practically the same proportion. Now, over a period of time, if you should permit all of the whites, and all of the colored, and all of the Chinese and all the Japanese, to go to the same social functions, churches, schools, theaters, swimming pools, be buried in the same cemeteries, what effect do you think that would have in encouraging at some future time the intermarriage of the different races? Mr. KOVNER. I would say that if all those conditions were present and the groups had reached such a state of social relations, marriage would probably be one of them, too. Senator ELLENDER. Exactly. And that is our problem in the South, but outsiders do not seem to understand it. Mr. KOVNER. But Senator, I have said before that I am not trying to force a change in law in those social relations. Senator ELLENDER. But you said you are against it? Mr. KOVNER. Personally. I respect your position on it as I expect you to respect mine. I am not trying to go down there and change you about it. I am talking with you about it and discussing it reasonably, as intelligent people can, but I will not pass a law to force you to associate with people you do not want to. This bill does not do that. Senator ELLENDER. But the law that you advocate is going to lead to that. It is the next step. Mr. KOVNER. It has always been said by people that one step leads to another, but politics is the art of taking one step at a time. Senator ELLENDER. There is no question about it. There is no stopping. I know the people of the colored race are going to keep going, advancing and advocating social equality until probably they will attain it through political alinements. Today we have in this country colored people, so the story goes, who hold the balance of power in seven or eight of our pivotal States. Under those conditions these pressure groups can make demands in Congress, and in other words, they can make Senators and Representatives who are politically ambitious dance to their music. Now, as I tried to point out yesterday, Brazil, located just to the south of us, is a country that is larger than the United States, as rich in natural resources. It was discovered before the United States was, and yet look how backward it is. Why? Mr. KOVNER. The weather might have something to do with it. Mr. KOVNER. It is a tropical country. Senator ELLENDER. No, sir. We have a tropical country here too, in the South. Our efforts are not far apart there, almost in the same zone. But the reason for its lack of progress is that the discoverers, those who came from Europe, instead of remaining a Caucasian race, as they did here in this country, intermarried with the Indians, Chinese, and with the colored there, who came after that as slaves and as a result of such a mixture produced a mongrel race, and with that handicap no progress. And I do not want that to occur in this country. Mr. KOVNER. I am impressed by the weather argument, because yesterday was an awfully hot day in Washington, and if I were living in weather like that constantly, I doubt whether I would have much getup-and-go in a steel mill, and to build railroads. All I can tell you, Senator, is that any attempt to try to explain the great developments of civilization upon such biological premises as those is a very risky business. Again it strikes me if the biological forces which you speak of are as strong as you say they are, then they would not need a law to protect them. Moreover, all those considerations are not in this bill. As to the argument that this is a statutory act, all I can say is that I do not know how you can take any action if you keep thinking of what it might lead to. I do not know any other way to meet your problem. We raise up a host of feelings that people have, notions about prejudices which they may think of as biological foundations but which may only be social prejudices. I do not know. I only know, individually, as a person who belongs to the American Civil Liberties Union-and I belong to no other organization except my professional association and the Civil Liberties Union and my neighborhood association. Senator DONNELL. What is your professional association? Mr. KOVNER. A lawyer. Senator DONNELL. What is your professional association? Mr. KOVNER. I have not practiced for some time but I did belong to the New York Bar Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union is the only organization I would belong to because I know that it is democratic and I do not know of any way to solve the problem the Senator is talking about except to try to solve it on basic principles of civil liberties and not upon emotional, prejudicial feelings that are based on hate, that are based upon feelings of superiority, that are based upon feelings that you have to smite the other fellow, that you are superior to him, and that you have some kind of right to be superior to another fellow. I cannot operate on these feelings. I just personally do not, or try not to. Senator ELLENDER. Why should an employer be forced to, as this bill provides, leave it to a commission to decide what the facts are, not appealable, and let the commission force the employer to take employees not at his choosing? Mr. KOVNER. First, the commission's findings of fact are not conclusive. They are subject to judicial review. The review is limited but nevertheless it is there and it is a check upon abuse of power. Senator DONNELL. To what extent do you think this has the power of review, as you interpret S. 984? Mr. KOVNER. I do not think there is any doubt about it. Mr. KOVNER. The courts have a right to review any commission finding built upon the law and upon whether or not there is substantial evidence. Senator DONNELL. Will you point out that particular portion of the statute to which you refer? Mr. KOVNER. Yes, sir. I am sorry. I know it is in here. It follows the Federal Procedures Act. Senator DONNELL. That is on page 2. Mr. KOVNER. Take page 11, for example. It says: (k) The proceedings held pursuant to this section shall be conducted in conformity with the standards and limitations of sections 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the Administrative Procedure Act, Public Law 404, Seventy-ninth Congress, June 11, 1946. And it is my understanding that the Administrative Procedure Act, those particular sections referred to, deal with uniform principles for the review by the courts of the action of any Federal administrative agencies, and those proceedings require detailed notice Senator DONNELL. Pardon me for just a second, Mr. Kovner. I think the section from which you are reading, section 7, is that which refers to procedure before commissions. Now, the section on judicial review is that set forth on pages 12 and following and I would like to know for the record and personally on what you base your judgment that the court may extend its review to the point that you have indicated? Mr. KOVNER. AS I understand it, my information is that that is under sections 8 (a) and 8 (h). Section 8 (a) of the bill, page 12, lines 21 to 23, provides that the court shall conduct further proceedings; that is, following the filing of a petition, in conformity with the standards of procedures and limitations established by sections 10 (c) and 10 (e) of the Admin istrative Procedure Act. And section 8 (h) of this bill, on page 15, lines 4 to 8, provides that when the petition is filed in the court by a person rather than by a commission, the procedure shall be governed by the sections of the Administrative Procedure Act, sections 10 (a) and 10 (b). Senator DONNELL. So that those are the two portions of this bill, S. 984, on which you rely for your opinion? Mr. KOVNER. Yes. Senator DONNELL. Go ahead. Mr. KOVNER. There is one point which I wanted further to make in connection with the present difference of the law between the treatment of unions and employers, and that is that unions are now also subject to, in an indirect way, but none the less quite effectively, to national legislation, because of the fact that there are FEPC laws in some States. Most unions are national organizations as distinguished from employers, and it is the requirement of State law, such as New York, for example, that a union cannot function in that State unless the union as a whole does not discriminate. And the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, for example, at its recent convention, had to amend its Constitution and strike out its constitutional exclusion, because it had to operate in the State of New York. Employers are not under that kind of effective law, because an employer may operate in many States and not operate in New York, or he can form subsidiaries who operate in the different States and will not be covered by it. But unions being unincorporated associations do not get that kind of separation and break-down. So I think really the difficulty with this law, and I think that this judicial decision of the Supreme Court and the courts has been in effect for 2 years, and it has not done anything more than what it does on its face. It simply requires no discrimination in employment. It has not led to any of the things the Senator fears, assuming that his fears are justifiable ones. Senator DONNELL. Mr. Kovner, I want to ask you just one or two questions. You have personally studied S. 984, I judge, from your comments? Mr. KOVNER. I have read it over a couple of times. Senator DONNELL. I wanted particularly to inquire whether you interpret it to authorize contempt proceedings against an employer who violates a decree of the court issued to enforce an order of the National Commission Against Discrimination in Employment? Mr. KOVNER. I recall the provision of that sort, sir. It would be my understanding that after the Commission has issued an order, after that order has been upheld by a court, that the penalty for violation of that order would be the contempt powers of the court, because at that point it becomes an order of the court and not an order of the Commission. Senator DONNELL. So that is your present interpretation of the act? Mr. KOVNER. Yes; that is my present interpretation. Senator DONNELL. I see. Thank you. Rabbi Wise. Senator ELLENDER. Mr. Chairman, yesterday I gave notice that I was going to present this morning for the record excerpts from an article appearing in the American magazine by William A. H. Birnie, in which he quotes at length from Randolph, who testified here yesterday, and I will ask that the clerk go over the article and prepare for the insertion in the record such portions as are attributable to Randolph, and that these be inserted in the record, and that copies of what have been placed in the record be sent to Randolph for his inspection and right to answer. (See p. 127.) Senator DONNELL. It is so ordered. Will the record show, please, the date of the magazine? Senator ELLENDER. January 1943. Senator DONNELL. Dr. Wise, will you be kind enough to state your full name for the record, and the connection in which you appear this morning? STATEMENT OF DR. STEPHEN S. WISE, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN JEWISH CONGRESS Dr. WISE. My name is Stephen S. Wise. I am the president of the American Jewish Congress, founded by Mr. Justice Brandeis just before he became a member of the United States Supreme Court in 1917. The American Jewish Congress has some 50 national affiliates and its personal membership and its affiliation membership together constitute, we believe, more than 1,000,000 Jews, members of the Jewish faith and race. Forgive me for answering a question which the gentleman who preceded me seemed to be unable to answer, Mr. Senator, namely, it is our estimate that the Jewish population in the United States is 5,000,000. Those are the figures that are accepted by us. Senator ELLENDER. That is 5,000,000. How many are there in the world; do you know? Dr. WISE. Yes; thanks to Mr. Hitler and the neutrality of the civilized nations of the earth, 6,200,000-and these are the figures of Mr. Justice Jackson, of the United States Supreme Court-were slain from 1938 to 1945, leaving not more than 10,500,000 Jews in the world, of whom half live in this country, nearly half, 45 percent. I thought I would answer the question because you seemed to be interested in it, Senator. Senator ELLENDER. Yes, sir; I wanted to get those figures. Senator DONNELL. Dr. Wise, I understand, therefore, that you are appearing on behalf of the American Jewish Congress. I want for our record to have you tell us, if you will, how the Ameriean Jewish Congress expresses itself, whether by resolution, in annual meeting, or meetings held from time to time or through its board of directors or trustees; how does it express itself? Dr. WISE. The American Jewish Congress expresses itself in all possible ways. It is a national organization, with a rather considerable administrative committee and executive committee, a smaller subcommittee, a steering committee of the executive committee. For example, I am empowered to present my testimony and my own thoughts and that of the Congress by virtue of a resolution adopted by the administrative committee of the Congress on May 1 at a regular meetting of the administrative committee. 65936-47-11 |