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Senator DONNELL. Senator Smith, do you wish to interrogate Mr. Stephens?

Senator SMITH. Mr. Stephens, I think you gathered from the discussion today that I am trying to find ways to create just that atmosphere of making this work, and the only question in my mind has just been whether we need at this early stage of our experimenting-and this is an early stage-to put on the sanctions of law, whether we cannot try with the educational processes and conciliation processes in those areas where public opinion may be against the legal sanction; I do not think the whole country would be against it or for it. I know there are lots of States like my State, the State of New Jersey, and the State of New York and others where the law is entirely satisfactory. It is to me. But in areas where there is a public opinion that needs to be educated, where the traditions are different, and where there have been long periods of certain conditions, we have a big job of education to do before we can say, if you do not do as we say, we are going to send the Federal Government down to make you do so.

Mr. STEPHENS. I would be very fearful, Senator Smith, of the effects of passing a Federal act, all the provisions of which save the enforcement would be applicable to all States and as to enforcement creating something in the nature of a State option.

Senator SMITH. I view the difficulty of it.

Mr. STEPHENS. I think that would be very dangerous. I think the truth is the application and effect of this law will not progress at the same rate of speed in all parts of the country, but I think you would be loading it with a terrible dead weight if you removed the enforcement features. I think that is essential to progress.

Senator SMITH. I would not remove it; only suggest where they felt it was impracticable or undesirable that they could say we will accept the law, we accept this wonderful preamble of the statement of the principle, and we are going to see this work out. We believe it can work effectively by the education and conciliation practices, more effectively than by immediately saying to all our people in the area who feel very bitterly on this subject that you have to do so because the Federal law says so.

Mr. STEPHENS. I think you would be weakening it where the strength. is most needed, and I think the sensible administration, application of the law, and the recognition of the law, as I say, that the same speed, progress would not be registered throughout the country, will be all the accommodation that will be necessary, and I think that process of a Federal act with enforcement provisions will tremendously speed up the day when there will be equality of employment opportunity, and I believe that is the test of good faith, and where persons are not willing that equality of opportunity shall exist, I think they are taking the position which disregards the guaranties of the Federal Constitution, and in my opinion the Congress and the people we send to Congress are here to administer, to pass legislation which will make our constitutional guaranties effective and real. Senator DONNELL. Are there any further questions, Senator? Senator IVES. I do not want to hold anything up here, but I would like to comment on Mr. Stephen's remarks.

He has taken time here voluntarily to testify before us. He is one of our leading businessmen in New York, of whom we have quite a number, who pitched in first to put this bill across. Mr. Stephens was among the leaders in that movement. He was very effective in the work which he did in helping us to have this bill of ours in New York enacted; and on top of it all he was even effective, if that were possible, in the work he did in enabling the administrators, those in charge of the commission, to make that law effective after it was enacted.

He did a great job there, and he has done a tremendous job in this field, and I want to thank him in my behalf and I know the rest of the committee feel the same way about his coming down here today.

Senator SMITH. I want to thank Mr. Stephens as you have and also for the fine talk I had with him at lunch time on the same subject, which I deeply appreciate.

We are all trying to get the same end, but we are discussing the most effective way.

As you have heard, the committee is very grateful to you; we appreciate your very interesting, helpful, and courteous presentation. (Mr. Stephens submitted the following brief.)

STATEMENT OF RODERICK STEPHENS BEFORE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ANTIDISCRIMINATION LEGISLATION, RE SENATE BILL 984

My name is Roderick Stephens. I am an enrolled Republican, as was my father before me. I reside in Westchester County, one of the strongest Republican counties of the East. My place of business, Bronx County, has been declared by no less a political authority than Mr. Edward J. Flynn to be the banner Democratic county north of the Mason and Dixon's line. Neither county is seriously tainted with communism or dominated by a radical or subversive ideology. Neither am I.

I am president of a retail fuel-distributing concern in New York City. It was founded by my grandfather in 1853. I am the third generation of Stephens to head this concern. We employ men and women, white and Negro, Gentile and Jew, "white collar" office and sales people, skilled and unskilled workers. Our staff, in effect, is a cross-section of the community. We choose our employees by their qualifications-their experience, their intelligence, their industry, and their character. We have not found that race, religion, or color bears any relationship to these qualifications.

Some years ago, Mr. Justice Hughes delivered a majority opinion for the United States Supreme Court, Mr. Justice McReynolds being the sole dissenter. in which the Court said, “It requires no argument to show that the right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that it was the purpose of the (fourteenth) amendment to secure" (Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, p. 41; 1915). That statement expresses better than could words of mine the basic reason for my advocacy of Senate bill S. 984, against discrimination in employment.

This fourteenth amendment which, until now, has been little more than a principle and a promise will, by the passage of Senate bill S. 984, become a living reality in the field of employment.

Think what that will mean in terms of self-respect, in terms of self-support, for millions of American men and women to whom our proclaimed principles of equality of opportunity have been a pretense and a sham.

The passage of Senate bill S. 984 will help those who most need help along the slow, uphill road toward civil liberty and equality of human rights and opportunities. It will be an inspiration to all who have a part in moving our Nation's standard forward.

To those who gloat, openly or secretly, whenever democracy fails or falters, it will be the Nation's ringing answer: Democracy will again be on the march. With the clash of ideologies which is apparent in all parts of the world, democracy and free enterprise will gain new adherents and renewed vitality by a demonstration that we have the ability and the courage to reinforce our principles with forceful and enforceable legislation.

None can claim, with truth, that this is a radical piece of legislation. It is no more radical than is our Federal Constitution. Its intent is in conformity with the constitutional provisions of most of our States. Only in the backward States does it really represent a step beyond their constitutional guaranties.

Fortunately, we have a background of experience by which we can be certain that Senate bill S. 984 is practicable and enforceable. As a businessman, in daily touch with business affairs, with businessmen, and men in all ranks of the labor movement, in my own State, I can assert that the bill upon which this legislation is modeled has been shown, beyond dispute, to be sound legislation.

It is also significant that this bill has biparty sponsorship and broad support within both parties.

The fears expressed by some businessmen and business organizations before the passage of the New York State act against discrimination in employment, simply have not been realized. That is something to be considered when you hear the same predictions of disorganization, disorder, and disaster, as being sure to follow the passage of this bill-and you will assuredly hear such testimony-from persons and organizations who will profess support for the principle of no discriminations on the basis of race, religion, or color, in the field of employment.

I propose to attach to each copy of my filed statement, a copy of a concise pamphlet in which are set forth, in one chapter, in a single column, all the arguments advanced against the Ives-Quinn bill in the course of a truly historic State legislative hearing at Albany, N. Y., in February 1945. You will hear those same arguments repeated here, word for word, by opponents of the Ives-Chavez bill.

In a parallel column, you will find opposite each such argument, the assertions made by the supporters of that bill, to controvert each objection raised by the opposition.

Add to that record, the experience of almost 2 years in New York State, reinforced by comparable experiences for shorter periods of time in several other States with similar legislation, and you will find conclusive evidence to justify my statement that those fears which were not actually fictitious have been shown to be fanciful. You will find, too, that the promises of measurable progress toward equality of employment opportunities to qualified persons, irrespective . of race, religion, or color have been fulfilled. The total achievement to date has run far beyond the expectations of reasonable persons who know that legislation alone is no more a cure-all than is education alone, but when legislation and education are combined, they create an effective force, bound to produce tangible results.

The experience has proved that when men and women work together, they achieve greater understanding and respect for each other-even when they disagree and do so more quickly and more completely than in any other way.

The experience has proved that the factory and office become the schoolrooms where ancient prejudices die.

Now, I want to return to the subject of business organizations. As a former president of the National Retail Code Merchants Association, ex-chairman of the National Code Authority for the Retail Solid Fuel Industry, ex-president of the Bronx Board of Trade, and with many other such affiliations, I can say with assurance that the representatives of big business organizations, with few exceptions, are seldom in the forefront of social progress. A notable exception was recorded during his last term of office as president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, by Mr. Eric A. Johnston, whose statement on the subject of discrimination is truly challenging. He said, * * Wherever we erect barriers on the grounds of race or religion, we hamper the fullest expression of our economic society. Intolerance is destructive. Prejudice produces no wealth. Discrimination is a fool's economy. 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. Perpetuating poverty for some merely guaranties stagnation for all."

While on the subject of business organizations, it is also important to remember how such organizations are conducted, and how easy it is and how frequently it happens that a large and important organization may be recorded in support of or in opposition to a legislative proposal by a vote of only a handful of members. Frequently, in fact, generally, the membership of the organization knows nothing about the position to which they have been committed unless the story gets into the newspapers and they happen to read about it. The process is sim

ple. A board of trade or chamber of commerce may have a membership of 1,500 firms and individuals. Its affairs are generally dominated by its executive director, if he has held the office for any length of time. On its board of directors are perhaps 40 members, many of them cronies of the executive director. A larger board would be unwieldy. A quorum is probably not more than 12 members. An annual dinner meeting in the spring and a fall membership rally, probably constitute the only occasions when rank and file meetings are held. Few such organizations have provisions to poll the membership at large on current issues. If such provisions exist, they are seldom invoked and, if resorted to, the participation, percentage-wise, is small.

Thus it was in the case of the Ives-Quinn bill, in the early part of 1945, that just such an organization, with more than 1,500 members, was committed, at a meeting of 12 directors, by a majority vote, to a position in opposition to discriminatory practices in employment, but opposed to the creation of a governmental commission to enforce a law against discrimination. Incidentally. for the record, I registered support for that commission on the part of a larger number of directors, individually than the number who attended the meeting in question and voted against the proposed law. The group supporting my position included three ex-presidents of the organization, two presidents of local banks, and the president of our largest department store. Yet, at the hearing, this organization opposed the bill. Another organization similarly recorded its "firm belief in the principles contained in the State and Federal Constitution, 'that no one should be denied rights and privileges guaranteed by Government because of race or color,'" but questions the desirability of, and, therefore, opposes the entire legislative program recommended by the Commission Against Discrimination. That was a beautiful straddle, wasn't it?

Still a third large organization supported the declarations of findings and principle contained in the Ives-Quinn bill and all its provisions for enforcement of the law, except that it opposed the creation of a State commission on the grounds of cost.

Hence, I urge the importance of determining the grounds of opposition, and bases for such action on the part of organizations who appear either in opposition to or in support of this or any other pending measure.

In the field of employment, it cannot be denied that the Negro is the minority group to suffer most from discriminatory conditions, in which connection I want to supplement Mr. Johnston's statement with two significant paragraphs from an excellent paper submitted May 23, 1947, to the department of economics and social institutions at Princeton University, by a World War II veteran in his junior year. His name is Donald H. Balleisen. He chose Negro Employment as his topic and he wrote:

"The Negro problem is one of the most pressing economic issues facing America today. True, it is certainly our leading social problem but its consequencies are definitely economic in nature. No fair-minded, thoughtful, observant person has to read a book or magazine article to be aware of this fact. A walk through any Negro district will impress on one's mind their low economic status. A glance at relief and charity figures throughout the Nation will find the Negro drawing far more on a per capita basis than his shares of expenditures made in these fields. In short we have a group constituting approximately one-tenth of our population, the vast majority of whom live in substandard conditions and must rely on the contributions of others to maintain them or worse yet, do not significantly contribute to the advancement and welfare of the general mass.

"As many have stated, the Negro problem will not be solved overnight, but this fact should not deter us from working toward its eventual solution. No one will deny the great advantage that would accrue from making a group that is today in many ways a drain on society, but a drain through no fault of its own, a contributor to society. Imagine the effect on the entire economy if each Negro family was able to raise its yearly income by $100 because it had been better prepared for its part in our national community."

To the above closing sentence, I would like to add the phrase, "and because it had been denied no employment opportunit: simply because of its dark skin." Four short but significant assertions made at the 1945 Albany hearing are as true now as they were when made, and seem to sum up concisely the case for the passage of Senate bill S. 984. by this Eightieth Congress.

The first: "It is regrettable, but true, that many veterans of World War II are seeking jobs, trying to put to use some of the new skills they learned while in the service of their country, and they are striving to make a normal adjust

ment to civilian life, but they, too, are confronted with the humiliating evils of discrimination, because of their race, their color, their creed, or their national origin. These veterans fought against the enemies' theory of a master race only to come home and find that similar theories of racial superiority are a barrier to employment in their native land."

The second: "The suppression of people of ability belonging to minority racial or religious groups does a profound disservice to society in general, as well as to the humiliated member of the minority group himself, and urgently requires remedial legislation."

The third: "The means and the end contemplated by the bill are not revolutionary. They are merely a fresh declaration of the American faith that the United States of America is one nation, with liberty and justice for all."

The fourth: "It is said that the legislation is too idealistic. It is not anywhere near as idealistic as the baptism of this Nation in the faith that all men are created free and equal. It is not anywhere near as idealistic as the sublime affirmation in the American Constitution that 'We, the people, given freedom and opportunity, are able to conduct government, establish justice, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and ov posterity'."

In conclusion, I ask permission to quote from an exchange of views between the distinguished Senator from Maine, Mr. Brewster, and the distinguished Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Hawkes. This colloquy occurred on the floor of the Senate on April 18 past. Senator Brewster had said he was in favor of a certain $400,000,000 loan “to buy time” and Senator Hawkes had suggested that "we could buy the time" by another means. This colloquy led to a succinct, timely, and significant expression of views concerning democracy. Mr. Brewster said, "I am not as much disturbed over that aspect as some others may be. Personally, I am not burning any bridges on this matter; I am not embarking on any world program of extending our culture or democracy to all the world. I do not think we can make democracies by outside force. I think they come from within and not from without." Mr. Hawkes said, "That is what I said yesterday. I said we could do a thousand times more by setting an example to show that democracy will work, and make the people of the world want it, than we could do with all the bullets, bayonets, and bombs in the world."

It is on that basis that I support Senate bill S. 984. I want to see progress toward realization of equality of employment opportunity come "from within," as Mr. Brewster so well said, and thus, we "will be setting an example to show that democracy will work," as was so well said by Mr. Hawkes.

The committee will be in recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning to meet again in this room.

(Whereupon, at 5:25 p. m., the committee adjourned subject to reconvening Thursday, June 19, 1947, at 9:30 a. m.)

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