would have provided specifically in the Constitution for additional exceptions.

As a matter of fact, in the last days of the Continental Congress when they were beginning to bring together the framework of our Constitution, there were 2 other efforts made to include 2 other specific areas of constitutional authority in this list of exceptions.

There was an effort made to limit the national authority with respect to interstate and international commerce. That failed, and there was a further effort made to limit the national authority with respect to navigation. That also failed.

And the Founding Fathers did not include these two additional exceptions in the five exceptions which are set forth in the Constitution. Now, the meaning of the Constitution is clear. It means that, with the exception of these five specific matters as set forth in the Constitution, it is the intent of the Constitution to provide for majority rule. And no student of the Constitution of these United States can challenge the conclusion that the Founding Fathers, with the exception of these five issues set forth, intended that majority rule shall prevail,. and rule XXII negates and undermines and destroys that basic concept of majority rule.

Now, we believe that majority rule is not only constitutionally proper. We think it is morally right because you cannot have a situation where a minority can abuse its rights and its privileges in order to block the will of the majority.

Now, we all know that rule XXII has had its greatest impact in the field of legislative responsibility as it relates to the rights of minority groups in the broad field of civil rights and in the broad field of civil liberties. Everyone who has studied rule XXII has recognized the fact that rule XXII has been the gravedigger of civil rights legislation.

But I think we need to understand that it goes beyond that.

We are motivated in our desire to bring about the abolition of ruleXXII and the establishment of majority rule in the procedures of the United States Senate because of civil rights and because of many other legislative problems. But I would like to take a moment to stress the importance of civil rights.

I think that there is no other aspect of American life in which there is such a serious moral gap between American democracy's noble promises and its ugly practices as we find in the field of civil rights.

The American labor movement has supported efforts to get civil rights legislation, first, because we think it is a matter of simple justice and a matter of simple human decency. We happen to believe that every person in the world, regardless of race or creed or color, is created in the image of God, and we believe that every man should be given the same rights and same privileges and that we ought to write the laws of our land in such a way that the laws of God can operate. When we have laws on the statute books of America that challenge the concept that every citizen is made in the image of God, then we are immoral. We maintain that civil rights are a matter of human decency and a matter of simple justice in man's relationship to man. Secondly, we also believe that human freedom is essentially an indivisible value. Hitler taught us that when the freedom of the smallest country of the world was being threatened, the freedom of America was in jeopardy.

Human freedom is not something you can have unto yourself. Human freedom is a value you must share with other people if you are to enjoy it yourself, and when Negro Americans and minority groups are denied their full measure of freedom in America, that means that the freedom of everyone is in jeopardy.

And finally, we are for civil rights in America because we think it is a matter of national survival in terms of the struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of Communist tyranny.

Last year I had an opportunity to be in Asia, in India, in North Africa. I had a chance to talk to tens of thousands of people in big mass meetings in Calcutta, in Bombay, in the big industrial centers all over the world, and I had a chance to visit people in the small mountain villages, trying to help interpret American democracy to these people in the fight against Communist tyranny. And I say to you, Mr. Chairman and the member of your committee, that this moral gap between what American democracy preaches and what it practices in the area of civil rights can be American democracy's Achilles' heel in the struggle between freedom and tyranny because our immorality in this area of civil rights gives the Communists a psychological weapon in the world in the struggle for the hearts and the minds of people which is devastating to our position in those areas of the world where most of the human family lives.

The thing that we need to understand is that civil rights in America are not a purely domestic matter; that civil rights in America are a worldwide issue.

I went up into a little mountain village in northern India, in the foothills of the Himalayas, only 300 people in the village, and I talked about America. I tried to give them an understanding of really what were the motivations of America. What did we really want to do? And I talked about that we wanted to build a world of peace, a world of human brotherhood, a world in which we could harness the tools of economic abundance, and instead of using the know-how of science and technology to forge the weapons of war and destruction, we wanted to fashion the tools of peace so that we could build a better tomorrow in which people could live in peace and friendship and human understanding.

I tried to make them understand that these were the basic human and moral and spiritual values that motivated America. And when I finished, in village after village, in factory after factory, in city after city, they always got around to talking about this moral gap between the noble promises of American democracy and its ugly practices in the field of civil rights.

Why? Because they are dark of skin. Half of the people of the world are dark of skin. And this is the weak link in the chain that binds American democracy to the free world.

When we unconsciously give the Communists this kind of a psychological weapon, we are giving them a weapon that they are not entitled to have in the struggle for the hearts and minds of people all over the world. And I believe that aside from the question of human decency, aside from the question that human freedom is an indivisible value, we ought to recognize that in the struggle against the ugly and immoral forces of Communist tyranny, we cannot lead the free world unless we get the right kind of moral symbols on our banner. Other

peoples are not going to judge America by how many new shiny bright Chevrolets that General Motors Corp. turns out. It is very impressive. They are very impressed with our economic statistics. They are very impressed by the condition of our plumbing and the fact that we have a lot of television sets in America, but they are not going to judge us by those standards.

They are going to judge us by how we meet our basic moral problems as they relate to the relationship of man to man in our free society. I happen to believe that power without morality is power without purpose. And you can't flex your economic muscles and say, "Look how strong we are. Look how wealthy we are. Look how rich we are," and expect them to follow your leadership just because you are materially wealthy.

They are going to ask us about these basic human, moral and spiritual values. And this is where we are in trouble. And this is why we believe civil rights ought to be one of the top priority jobs of American democracy.

Now, there is no question about it; we have failed to meet the challenge on the civil rights front primarily because of rule XXII in the United States Senate.

The House of Representatives time after time has passed a civil rights bill.

Senator Javits, you were in the House. You voted for many civil rights bills. A majority of the House did that on a number of occasions. But each time the House of Representatives adopted a civilrights bill, its grave was dug in the United States Senate by the filibuster rule XXII.

You know, the auto workers are criticized for having had sitdown strikes some 21 years ago in the automotive industry, and we have had a lot of criticism directed at our union and its leadership. Well, we did have sitdown strikes but they were of relatively short duration. I contend, Mr. Chairman, that the United States Senate has been on the longest sit down strike in the field of civil rights in the history of the world.

Eighty long years this Senate has failed to take action in the civil rights field, and the reason has been that the minority under the rules could always block the will of the majority.

There have been many times

Senator JAVITS. Mr. Reuther, would you yield a minute for a correction of fact?

Mr. REUTHER. Sure.

Senator JAVITS. I think it buttresses rather than hurts the fact you just stated to point out the first civil-rights bill was killed in the Senate by a filibuster in 1922, 35 years ago. That is an actual bill, not just the subject.

Thank you.

Mr. REUTHER. We believe that there have been many occasions when a majority of the United States Senate was prepared to adopt legislation comparable to the legislation which already had been passed in the House by majority vote. But the use of the filibuster technique. made possible under rule XXII enabled the minority to thwart the will of the majority.

Now, I think we have got to recognize the fact that the Supreme Court is living in the 20th century. But the United States Senate

in the field of civil rights is still living in the 19th century and it is about time the United States Senate catches up with the march of history and begins to translate its majority will into practical and tangible civil rights legislation.

Rule XXII is the roadblock and rule XXII we believe must be removed; in its place we need to substitute a rule that provides for adequate debate, but at the end of adequate debate, for the ability and the right of the majority to translate its will into specific legislative decision.

Now, I think that everybody who knows anything about the problems of America will have to agree that there is serious and ugly and immoral discrimination taking place in America against minority groups in many phases of our national life.

Minority groups, Negroes in particular, are denied equal educational opportunities for their children and here again the American labor movement shares the point of view with many other people in America that every child created in the image of God has the right to that kind of educational opportunity that will enable that child to grow intellectually, and culturally, and spiritually, limited not by a discriminatory educational system but given in the right of each child to grow as God gave it that capacity to grow, limited by no arbitrary decision by man.

Yet millions of Americans are being denied that educational opportunity. They are denied equal citizenship rights. They are denied equal job opportunities. They are denied many other things that every American citizen, regardless of race or creed or color, is entitled to; entitled to in terms of the Constitution and the laws of man, entitled to it in terms of the spiritual laws of God, and yet they are being denied these equal rights.

Now, you don't have to do very intensive research to get plenty of data. You can just dig through the reports of Congress. Here is a report of the Subcommittee on Labor and Public Welfare, the United States Senate, in 1952, the hearings. Just one little paragraph I would like to read on page 18 which indicates in a limited way the impact of these discriminatory policies upon Negroes in American life as it relates to their job opportunities.

Everyone knows we have fought hard in our union to give every American the right to a job based upon his qualifications. We think you should measure a person who applies for a job on whether he is able to do that job, whether he is able to make a contribution in earning not only a living for his family but a contribution to the economic well-being of our whole free society, and whether he can do the job or can't ought to be the basis for the decision, not the color of his skin or the church he belongs to.

But we know that Negroes and Jews and members of other minority groups in America are denied their equal job opportunities based upon the color of their skins or based upon their religious faith, and we think that is wrong. We think it is immoral. And here is this quote from this report. It deals with work-life expectancy:

A study of the length of working life for men shows that under 1940 conditions, the average life expectancy for nonwhite workers, age 20, was about 8 years less than that for white workers of the same age.

Now, the impact upon nonwhite workers based upon this study, using data of 1940-and that is not ancient history-meant that a

nonwhite worker because he was denied justice, because he was denied what every human being is entitled to because he is a human being, regardless of his color or his creed, a nonwhite worker lived 8 years less on the average.

I say America cannot live with its own conscience and it is unworthy of leading the free world as long as it is guilty of that kind of immorality of man against man. That is why we feel strongly about this, because we think that this is a matter of justice. It is a matter of morality. And we think America cannot lead the free world in the struggle against the immorality of Communist tyranny unless we get the right symbols on our world banners, and rule XXII is the road block.

But rule XXII not only has an impact upon civil-rights legislation. It has an impact upon the broad legislative problem.

Senator Anderson put it very ably back on January 18, 1954. I want to say that Senator Anderson made a great contribution to American democracy when he on several occasions assumed the major leadership for leading the fight in the struggle to abolish rule XXII and to substitute in its place majority rule in the procedures of the United States Senate.

On January 18, 1954, Senator Anderson in discussing the impact of rule XXII upon the broad legislative processes had the following to say, and I quote:

However infrequently the hammer on the filibuster gun is drawn back and cocked, this veto power of the minority over the will of the majority is, as all of us well know, a factor never overlooked in legislative drafting, appropriations, strategy, and tactics in the Senate of the United States.

In other words, when you sit down to draft a bill, you have got a pistol against your head. You have got always to think about the filibuster, about the possibility of a minority blocking the will of the majority. When you discuss and give consideration to any legislative matter, there is this threat that is there ever present and, therefore, it is taken into recognition; it goes into the formulation of the bill, the strategy, and the whole procedure related to getting that bill enacted into the laws of this country. And I say that this is wrong.

Now, if anyone were saying, well, the majority ought to just be able to walk in Monday morning and arbitrarily impose its will upon the minority, and deny the minority the right to debate, the right of free expression, then that would be wrong. But no one has ever proposed that we have a set of rules in the United States Senate or in the House of Representatives that will not facilitate free debate. But, having facilitated full and free debate, there has to be an end to debate, and a beginning of action. And this is what rule XXII does not permit. It empowers the minority, not to enlighten, not to shed more facts upon the issues before the Congress, not to facilitate a more rational, intelligent decision, but to engage in unlimited debate for the sole purpose of obstructing democratic rule. That is immoral, that is undemocratic. That is un-American. And this is precisely what rule XXII has done.

The Senate has made progress in the fight to abolish rule XXII but we haven't quite made enough progress. We recognize that, once the rules of the Senate are nailed down, it is very difficult to try to