We recommend that our affiliates set up internal Civil Rights Committees and machinery for effective administration of a meaningful civil rights program within their ranks, working in close cooperation with the Civil Rights Committee and the Civil Rights Department of the AFL-CIO.

We recommend that our affiliates insist on nondiscrimination by employers in hire, tenure and conditions of employment, and in advancement of their employees. We urge our unions to include a nondiscrimination clause in every collective bargaining agreement they negotiate and to provide for effective administration of such a clause.

We recommend that our affiliates take the initiative in assuring equal opportunity in all apprenticeship training and vocational training programs.

We recommend that the President's Committee on Government Contracts withdraw Government contracts from those companies consistently guilty of violating the Federal Government's policy of nondiscrimination. We pledge our continued cooperation with the President's Committee on Government Contracts and ask our affiliates to make sure that employers with whom they deal holding Federal contracts, adhere to the letter and spirit of the nondiscrimination clause required in each Government contract.

We renew our support for the passage of an enforceable Federal fair employment practices act. We also call for enactment of enforceable fair employment practice laws by all States and cities not having such laws and for strengthening of such existing laws where necessary to insure their effectiveness.

We again urge that, in order to assure full and fair consideration by Congress of proper civil rights and fair employment practice legislation, Senate rule 22 be changed to permit a majority of Senators present and voting to limit and close debate.

We renew our support of the decisions of the Supreme Court outlawing segregation in the public schools, in public transportation and in places of public accommodation. These decisions represent a heartwarming reaffirmation of the democratic American principles that are embodied in the Constitution of the United States. We call upon President Eisenhower to recommend and the Congress to enact legislation that will endorse and support, by implementing, constitutional guarantees of civil rights, including those affirmed by the Supreme Court decisions. We call upon the executive branch to make use of its full authority to effect implementation of these decisions.

We urge the National Labor Relations Board to adopt the policy that the use of race-hate propaganda during union organization campaigns is deemed to be interference with, and coercion of, employees and constitutes an unfair labor practice; and, further, that the use of such propaganda will be sufficient ground for setting aside an election upon request of the union.

We call upon President Eisenhower and the Department of Justice to launch an immediate and full-scale investigation into the activities of the so-called citizens councils now operating in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida, or anywhere else they may be operating, to determine if their activities and methods violate any Federal statute or the Constitution.

ATTACHMENT No. 2

STATEMENT OF THE AFL-CIO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL ON CIVIL RIGHTS, SAN JUAN, P.R., FEBRUARY 24, 1959

At its last meeting in November of 1958, the AFL-CIO Executive Council declared:

"We look to the incoming 86th Congress to broaden the civil rights law of 1957 so as to extend effective protection to every constitutionally guaranteed civil right of our citizens. Congress must assume basic responsibility for safeguarding freedom and for assuring equality before the law in our land."

In the period since the 86th Congress convened, there has been cause both for discouragement and for hope. On the one hand the threat of filibuster continues to affect Senate consideration of effective civil rights legislation. On the other hand, so general and determined is the insistence that the Congress must act this year that a wide variety of civil rights bills have been introduced by powerful elements in both political parties.

Three principal "packages" of civil rights proposals have been introduced this year, in addition to many bills dealing with specific aspects of the problem,

S. 810, the Douglas-Javits-Humphrey-Case bill (the Celler bill in the House) is essentially the same bill that was introduced last year and received the endorsement of the AFL-CIO. It represents the clearest and timeliest of the major proposals. While clearly upholding the Supreme Court decisions on school desegregation, it stresses positive, peaceful, and cooperative solutions. It deserves and will have the support of all who truly believe in reinforcing our cherished constitutional freedoms.

The Johnson "package" contains several items which are essentially noncontroversial and should be part of any final action. These deal with the criminal bombings that have taken place, the extension of the Civil Rights Commission, and subpena powers in voting cases. The proposals for a Community Relations Service remains to be fully explained. The bill contains no proposals that deal directly with the crucial school issue.

The administration proposals constitute some steps forward in the area of desegregation. The proposed Federal grants to assist those school districts where desegregation causes financial hardship is sound and sensible and we have long urged its adoption.

Conspicuously missing, however, from both the Johnson and the administration bills, is the vital part III which was deleted from the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and which is contained in the Douglas-Javits bill.

Except for the small minority of prosegregationist diehards in the 86th Congress, there is almost universal agreement on the need for additional civil rights legislation. There is reason to hope that the Congress will hammer out a bill that will constitute real progress. If a filibuster threatens to kill or cripple such legislation, it will then be necessary for men of good faith, without partisan considerations, to unite and kill the filibuster. It will not be easy with the present rule 22, but it can and must be done.

The year 1959 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. During this year may the Congress and the American people heed Lincoln's call: "Let reverence for the law become the political religion of the Nation."

Senator Ervin. The committee will stand recessed until 10 o'clock tomorrow, when it will meet in room 312 in the Old Senate Office Building.

(Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m. the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Friday, May 22, 1959.)

CIVIL RIGHTS-1959

FRIDAY, MAY 22, 1959

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICARY,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:20 a.m. in room 312, Old Senate Office Building, Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., acting chairman, presiding.

Present: Senator Ervin.

Also present: Charles H. Slayman, Jr., chief counsel and staff director.

Senator ERVIN. The subcommittee will come to order.

The chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Thomas C. Hennings, Jr., has a conflict in engagements, and at his request I will preside over the subcommittee until he is able to get here if he can complete his work on another committee and come to the meeting.

Yesterday, I received a telegram from Attorney General Gallion, of Alabama, advising me that due to some emergency matter that had arisen in Alabama, he and his chief deputy, Livingston, would not be able to come before the committee today. He requested that he and his chief deputy be allowed to enter statements of their positions in the record in lieu of a personal appearance. I advised him that that action would be taken.

Then, Mr. Slayman, will you call any other witnesses who are present to testify?

Mr. SLAYMAN. Mr. Chairman, as you indicated, we had Donald Gallion and Willard Livingston, the State attorney general and State assistant attorney general of Alabama, respectively, scheduled as witnesses, and also Mr. Jerome Hafter, of Greenville, Miss. Mr. Hafter is present.

Senator ERVIN. The committee is delighted to have you come before it to express your views on these pending bills. I note that you have a written statement.

Mr. HAFTER. Yes, sir.

Senator ERVIN. You may either read your written statement, or you may read such portions as you see fit, and we will insert the entire statement in the record, or you may testify orally or you can testify partially orally and partially in writing, just as you see fit. We allow the witness to proceed in his own way.

Mr. HAFTER. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate being here and I appreciate permission to insert the entire statement into the record. It being in the record, I may not read it verbatim. I will refer to the major parts of it. I will do that in the interest of time.

Mr. SLAYMAN. Mr. Hafter, you may stand, if you choose, or you may sit, while you testify.

Mr. HAFTER. Thank you.

Senator ERVIN. In other words, this committee is very liberal in allowing the witness to assume such position and take such course as he sees fit.

STATEMENT OF JEROME HAFTER, GREENVILLE, MISS.

Mr. HAFTER. Mr. chairman and members of the committee, I am a Mississippian. I was born in Greenville, Miss., almost 65 years ago and have practiced law continuously in Mississippi since 1915 with the exception of the time that I spent away from Greenville serving as a second lieutenant in the field artillery in World War I and serving as a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force during World War II. I am a member of the American Bar Association and I am a past president of the Mississippi Bar Association.

I am a member of a minority religious group and have lived a very happy and satisfactory life in Mississippi. It has been my experience that religious prejudice is a rarity and that harmony and mutual respect have existed between all religious groups in my State.

During my lifetime I have visited every State in the Union one or more times, and I am convinced that nowhere in our Nation has there been a more sympathetic, understanding, and helpful attitude displayed by the members of the white race toward the members of the Negro race than in my locality.

Prior to the Supreme Court decision in 1954, the community in which I live had made great strides in equalizing the school systems for both the Negro and white children. I have with me two group pictures showing the physical properties of the Negro schools and the physical properties of the white schools in the city of Greenville, Miss. These pictures speak for themselves and no conclusion can be drawn other than that the Negro schools are equal to or superior to the white schools. The teachers in the Negro schools are paid the same salaries as the teachers in the white schools and the best available teachers are hired. The same situation exists generally throughout the State of Mississippi where our Governors and legislators have made every effort to equalize the school systems between the white and Negro.

I realized when I left my home to appear before this committee that as a native Mississippian and a Mississippi lawyer, I would be subjected to examination with respect to occurrences at Poplarville in my beloved State. The attitude of the vast majority of the Mississippians is well expressed in the language of Mr. Justice Field contained in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States (Ex parte Wall, 107 U.S. 265). Mr. Field stated:

There is no language of reprobation too severe for such conduct; for, however great the offense of the prisoner, the law prescribed its punishment and appointed the officers by whom it was to be executed. The usurpation of their duties, and the infliction of another punishment, were themselves the greatest of crimes, for which the actors should be held amenable to the violated laws of the State.

I cannot better express myself than by using the words of Judge Field in analyzing this similar situation.