ords, the employer agreed to reinterview the complainants, two of whom were employed at completion of the interview. The third complainant declined to reappear. Since the satisfactory closing of these cases, several more colored workers have been engaged voluntarily by this corporation. VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE New Jersey experiences in the administration of antidiscrimination legislation throws into sharp focus that which often is overlooked in discussions of the efficacy of such controls. Practically all regulatory laws were enacted to restrain the few whose practices interfere with the safety or freedom of the many. Such laws in no way interfere with the majority which already has been guided by moral and ethical principles, or which is willing to or desirous of following such principles if protected from any resulting disadvantages. With the enactment of the New Jersey law many concerns and corporations broadened their employment policies to include minorities who had been neglected for no other reason than indifference or thoughtlessness. Others who had employed minorities in limited capacities inaugurated programs of upgrading with merit as the sole consideration. Still others appealed to the division to assist in analyzing employee reaction and to advise the concern as to methods of selection and induction of minority workers. It was the natural expression of the majority wishing to live within the law and of others finding that the law enabled and supported them in initiating that which they had desired but had feared to do. One of the largest corporations in the State and several large financial institutions, all of whom had excluded workers of one or more minority groups, voluntarily changed their policies and now recruit workers on the basis of qualifications only. In not one single instance, after nearly 2 years of experience under the new policy, has there been any incident that would cause the concerns to question the wisdom of the course pursued. EDUCATION AS A PANACEA The most frequently employed argument designed to dispose of legislative approach to the problem of discrimination and disunity in the United States is that "prejudice cannot be eliminated by laws-it will yield only to education." There are two major fallacies in this argument: 1. The statement implies that prejudice and discrimination are synonomous terms; and 2. The statement implies that education as offered in the public schools of the Nation presents a dynamic approach to the problem of intergroup relations. Discrimina Prejudice, per se, cannot be eliminated by legislative act or edict. tion, the outward, social manifestation of prejudice, can be corrected by legislation and only by legislation. The individual who develops a prejudice against yellow neckties and refuses to wear one is entitled to his prejudice. When his prejudice develops to the point of obsession that he decides to destroy yellow neckties wherever seen, he becomes a social menace and must be restrained by society, through laws designed to control such acts of invasion. It is ironic in American life that an individual may be arrested, fined, and jailed for the simple act of tearing off a stranger's necktie, but the same individual, by direct action or by inciting or coercing others, may deprive that same individual and hundreds like him of the right to earn a livelihood, and the law is blind to the significance of this great social injustice. As to the second fallacy, official records of the State of New Jersey bear out the claim that education as now recognized and accepted has made but little contribution toward the elimination of either prejudice or discrimination. The annual report of the New Jersey Commissioner of Labor for the year 1903 devotes a large section to analysis of a study conducted by the department. Inquiries directed to 475 industries employing over 128,000 people, and to 300 labor unions in the State, disclosed that only 963 Negro workers were employed in 83 of the plants, and that membership was not available to these workers in the vast majority of unions. In commenting upon the significance of the study and its findings, the commissioner said: "To inspire an individual or a race with the ambition that leads to high achievement there must be an incentive in the form of prospective rewards and a clear The Negro in Manufacturing Industries, Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1903. course open in the path that leads upward. If these are wanting, hope and ambition die and effort ceases to be directed to anything higher or more far-reaching than obtaining merely the things necessary to sustain life on the lowest animal plane. * "The Negro race forms a very important constituent group in the Nation, and what they are able to make of themselves is a matter of profound importance to all. If they are to advance to the level of the general citizenship of the country it is necessary that they should first of all earn a living; to do this they must have the ability and will to labor effectively, and should receive enough for that labor to live decently and rear their children. "The question is one of the highest importance not only to the Negro race, but to the entire Nation. If the blacks are incapable of advancement, and cannot take a place in the currents which flow through an industrial and social life of the Nation, if so large an element of our population is destined to remain permanently in the lowest strata of labor without hope that the lot of the son will ever be better than that of the father, we shall be confronted with a problem in social and political economy far more difficult of solution than any that has thus far confronted us since the beginning of our national life. "If the Negro is capable of advancement it is in the highest degree a matter of interest to both races that no impediment be placed in his way. The workingmen should be especially concerned in seeing that he be given a free field and fair play; for the depth to which he may descend or be forced downward must ultimately become the same for the white laborer who competes with him." In 1931 inquiry was inaugurated by the New Jersey Conference of Social Work in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies.' This study was designed to provide authentic data of the social and economic status of this one minority group in New Jersey, the Negro, as an educational venture. The findings of this intensive study indicate the degree to which employment discrimination, practically unchanged in extent and nature, has affected every phase of living for the minority, as well as coloring the relationships between racial groups in New Jersey communities. The recommendations of the survey committee as they relate specifically to employment were as follows: "I. EARNING A LIVING "To employers and labor organizations "1. We recommend that employers in all industrial and business concerns enlarge the now limited field of employment for Negroes, permitting them an equal chance with whites to enter all positions for which they might qualify by efficiency and merit. "2. We urge that, as a measure of justice, Negroes be advanced and promoted on the jobs according to their individual capacities and merits. "3. To labor unions we urge the admission of Negroes to full membership whenever they apply for it, and possess the trade qualifications required. "To emergency relief organizations "4. Where emergency work programs are being administered, it is urged that Negroes be given employment in proportion to their needs rather than in proportion to their ratio in the population. "To white workers "5. We recommend an increasing tolerance toward Negro workers that they may not only secure better employment but also the benefit of labor organizations and training facilities.” A further study of the employment experiences of Negro workers in New Jersey was instituted in 1934. Over 1,800 concerns employing 334,000 workers were embraced in the study. Fifty-five percent of these firms excluded Negro workers who were 5.5 percent of the State population but only 3.7 percent of the gainfully employed. Among those Negroes who were gainfully employed, discriminatory policies, manifested through the fixing of job ceilings, operated to the extent 3 The Negro in New Jersey, December 1932, Ira DeA. Reid. 4 The Negro in Industry, Utilities. Commerce, and Public Service in New Jersey, 1934. New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies, in cooperation with the New Jersey Conference of Social Work and the New Jersey Urban League. 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. |