the leaders of both major parties and the Supreme Court have all said over and over again and in every conceivable way that the 14th amendment of the Constitution guarantees equal protection of the laws to every citizen of this land.

If the 14th amendment really and truly means what the advocates of this amendment say today that it does, why was it necessary in 1920 to amend the Constitution of the United States to allow the lady folks to vote?

Clearly, this bill is designed to accomplish exactly the opposite of equal protection of the law. It will set up 1 set of standards in 6 States that do not apply in the other 44.

This discrimination, this favoritism, cannot be squared with the much-quoted 14th amendment. Nor can it be squared with section 2 of article IV which states that the "citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

This proposal, at the whim and caprice of someone in authority, has singled out those States which on the arbitrary date of November 1, 1964, happened to have registered less than 50 percent of the persons of voting age residing in the State or in any political subdivision, or in which less than 50 percent of such residents voted in the presidential election last November.

Is there supposedly some magic to the number 50? What States would have been brought under the force of this proposal, had the magic number been 60? Or 70?

Is there supposedly some magic in last November's election? Why not the presidential election of 1960? Or 1956?

If this proposal becomes law, what happens to the American tradition of a man being innocent until he is proved guilty? Under the provisions of this bill, a governmental body not only would have to prove that it was not guilty of an act of discrimination on a specific, arbitrary date, but also that of any other such act on any other date in the preceding 10 years.

This does total violence to the precept of presumed innocence. It must not be permitted.

This bill is riddled with obvious discrimination; the same discrimination that this administration and others which have preceded it have preached against and legislated against. This bill recognizes no reluctance to discriminate against these six Southern States and make them the whipping boys for the Nation.

It is an old adage, gentlemen, but two wrongs don't make a right. Every citizen has the right to be treated alike when the franchise privilege is at question. If he meets the age, literacy, residence, or any other qualifications laid down by the State in which he resides, he has been given the privilege of voting.

It is hyprocrisy to pretend that whether 99 or 20 percent of his neighbors vote has anything to do with his individual privilege.

The entire duty of the Congress is to see to it that every man can equally exercise his privilege when he wants to and if wants to. Forced registration and forced voting are both wrong. We have no other duty. We have no duty to lay a slide rule alongside voting statistics. We have no duty to abridge the right of the States to set voter qualifications. We have no duty to enact discriminatory legislation of any kind.

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It is beneath the dignity of this body. It is beneath the moral sense of this body.

It is time for reasonable men to reason together. A solution can be found to this nationwide problem that is constitutional, that treats each State in exacly the same way and that achieves what all reasonable men want: The privilege of every qualified man to vote.

What can be done to insure every qualified man the privilege of voting?

Enforce the provisions of the 15th and 19th amendments of the Constitution and the 16 Federal laws already in force. Strengthen them, if necessary. Double the penalties. Speed up the process of hearing and deciding cases. There are any number of reasonable means of enforcing these laws. There is no necessity to tear up the Constitution to enforce these laws.

We seem to be able to enforce laws against kidnaping, murder, rape, and arson without tearing up the Constitution to do it and each of these crimes must be judged as being worse than any case of voter discrimination. If we can enforce these laws, it is reasonable to believe we can enforce any other this Congress decides to enact.

Too many people, too many Members of the Congress, too many members of the clergy, and the news media, have been stampeded by the hysteria of impassioned groups of citizens. We are on the verge of enacting a law that is being decried in private, and in public as unwise legislation.

This committee must not, and this Congress must not pass a bill that is riddled with flaws, faulty reasoning, and unvarnished hate. To do so is to invite back the violent days of the Reconstruction, drive the races further apart and, in the end, fail to accomplish the goal every reasonable man can support: The privilege of every qualified

man to vote.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Waggonner, you draw attention to New York and your remarks were well taken in that regard. As far as literacy tests in New York are concerned, I can assure you that I have spoken against that literacy test time and time again. It is very unfair that many of our citizens who are literate cannot vote because they do not speak the English language or write the English language. That is not right and we hope to correct that situation.

Now to get back to your own State of Louisiana, in the county of Bienville we have this situation in the record supplied us by the Civil Rights Commission apparently in that county with reference to the percentage of those who are registered, 89.1 percent whites registered, only 14.3 percent of nonwhites are registered.

The county of Bossier, 63 percent whites registered, only 8.7 nonwhites registered.

In Caddo County, 71 percent whites registered and 11.9 percent Negroes registered.

In the county of Claiborne, 81.5 percent of the whites are registered, only 1.9 percent nonwhites are registered.

In De Soto County, 89.1 percent whites registered; nonwhites registered, 12.6 percent.

In the county of Red River, 100 percent whites are registered, only 4.4 percent nonwhites registered.

Those counties are all in your home district, are they not?

Mr. WAGGONNER. And I have one additional, Webster, which you have not quoted.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have any comment to make on those?

Mr. WAGGONNER. Yes, sir. Sometime ago, prior to my running for Congress, a complaint was filed in one of these parishes, the first one you referred to, Bienville Parish, that there had been voter discrimination. There had been a number of Negroes removed from the voter registration rolls in Bienville Parish. Judge Ben Dawkins, Jr., of the western district of Louisiana, went immediately in and conducted hearings about this alleged discrimination and he determined for himself that indeed, there was a pattern of discrimination and he ordered immediately that these people be restored to the rolls.

This all took place in only a matter of a few days and these people, some 500, were restored to the rolls and they were allowed to vote in an election which was underway at that time. It was an election in which I sought election to the Congress. We are very fortunate in the western district of Louisiana and the other districts of Louisiana to have eminently qualified gentlemen to serve on the bench. Judge Dawkins has in other cases in Louisiana in recent months and in recent years, following the due process of the law when complaints have been filed, gone in to determine for himself under existing Federal law whether or not a pattern of discrimination could be uncovered.

He has determined in isolated cases in Louisiana, outside my congressional district, that there has been patterns of discrimination. He has seen to it in these isolated cases that qualified applicants were registered and he has had a great deal to do in determining who was qualified by setting forth criteria which are just.

Only recently, within the last month, he has handed down a decision involving Ouachita Parish in Louisiana, a parish in north Louisiana, but outside my congressional district. Here he has said that he has not been able to uncover a pattern of discrimination, that the voting qualifications which have been prescribed by State law have been followed by the registrar without discrimination, and this is commendable.

I might point out that present law is working. People are being allowed to vote and those who are seeking registration are being registered without discrimination.

I do not deny, because the facts prove otherwise, that, in times gone by, there has been some discrimination, but, Mr. Chairman, I make this one point: That which is water under the bridge cannot be recovered. A vote lost in an election which has gone, can never be cast again. We must look to the future.

The only thing I ask this committee and this Congress to do is to see to it that whatever law is passed has equal application to every registrar in every segment of this Nation without discrimination. Any thing less would involve discrimination.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rogers?

Mr. ROGERS. No questions.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Corman?

Mr. CORMAN. One question, Mr. Chairman.

I notice in Louisiana there have been findings of pattern and practice of discrimination. As I recall, there have not been such findings in Mississippi. Is that because the people of Louisiana are worse

about the discrimination because of race or not getting evenhanded justice among the Federal judges in that part of the country?

Mr. WAGGONNER. Well, to answer that question in any way would be like answering a question whether I still whip my wife so I can't quite answer it that way.

I can speak authoritatively for only the State of Louisiana. We d have men who are beyond reproach on the bench in Louisiana and where complaints are filed and patterns of discrimination are shown to exist, this discrimination is immediately erased as it should be, and present laws are working.

Mr. CORMAN. Assuming the gentleman is correct; we ought to treat everybody equally when we legislate in Washington. It would appear that there is some evidence that the people of Mississippi are just as bad as the people in Louisiana about discriminating against people because of race but they have not been able to get any remedy in Mississippi in the Federal court because of their inability to establish this.

Now, what we concern ourselves with is that as far as Mississippians are concerned, that they will get the same protection that Negro voters in Louisiana have got in their local Federal courts.

Mr. WAGGONNER. Mr. Corman, it has been my philosophy since I have been of an accountable age that too many of us do what we do, not so much because we love the Lord but because we are afraid of hell. We can write sufficient penalties into the existing provisions of the 15th amendment which will put the fear of hell in people and will bring about the enforcement of this voting privilege without discrimination. You will find that when people really know that they, as individuals, are going to bear the brunt of some discrimination, the vast majority of discrimination is going to cease.

Mr. CORMAN. Yes.

Mr. WAGGONNER. That is right, Mr. Corman. If you feel that any sort of registration law here as to the voting qualifications of a national scope is going to completely end discrimination, then you are inde more naive than I believe you to be.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cramer?

Mr. CRAMER. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Waggonner.

We

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire since the gentlemanThe CHAIRMAN. You are not a member of the subcommittee. have several witnesses from Virginia and we want to conclude. As I said, we are going to be brief.

Mr. CONYERS. I ask the gentleman if he agrees with the previous two gentlemen about the triggering devices that would provide relief to every section of the country.

Mr. WAGGONNER. I believe in triggering devices to implement any law where discrimination exists and the pattern is uncovered to exist, but I do not believe that you can ignore due process and start from the base that you only apply this proposed legislation to 1 State, 2 States, or 49 States. Everybody must start off on the same foot. When you start a foot race or you start a horse race, everybody starts from the same mark.

With this legislation, everybody should start from the same beginning.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. WAGGONNER. Mr. Chairman, may I again express my appreciation to you for the courtesy you have extended me. I have been before your full committee and your subcommittee on many occasions, and I have always been treated in a manner that I can find no objection to, and I appreciate it, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You reciprocated on your own part, sir.

Mr. WAGGONNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is the Honorable Richard S. Schweiker of Pennsylvania.

I hope you will be brief.

Mr. SCHWEIKER. About 10 or 12 minutes, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Can you summarize your statement rather than read it all?

Mr. SCHWEIKER. Yes, sir.

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD S. SCHWEIKER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. SCHWEIKER. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I thank you for this opportunity to testify in strong support of civil rights legislation which would provide for the appointment of Federal voting registrars in order to protect the constitutional right to vote.

On February 17, I introduced with Congressman Lindsay and a number of our colleagues, legislation with the same aim as the administration bill, but legislation which would avoid some of the weaknesses inherent in H.R. 6400, the administration bill.

Many centuries ago, a wise Greek philosopher, Epicurus, offered a working definition of "justice" which I find an appropriate guide for our present efforts to fashion a forthright and comprehensive voting rights bill.

Speaking in the third century, Epicurus stated:

Justice is never anything in itself, but in the dealings of men with one another in any place whatever, at any time, it is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

This definition should be our guide as we work to complete an unfinished compact with all our citizens, so that their constitutional right to vote may be protected.

The compact we fashion must deal directly not only with the present "hard core" problem of massive discrimination, but also must be adequate to avoid the development of new devices and stratagems of oppression in the future.

Teite, for example, the possibility of an increased State poll tax which might be used to discriminate against the poor. If this is to be the year of the war on poverty, let us stamp out the poll tax which can keep the poor from voting in State and local elections.

The first glaring weakness of the administration measure, H.R. 6400, is its failure to protect against voter discrimination except in those few places with literacy tests where less than 50 percent of the voting age population was registered or voted last year.

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