from our several districts throughout the Nation urging that they use their good offices and suffrage to defeat the passage of this bill; and be it further "Resolved, That we request our people in every hamlet and town to make this appeal to their respective Senators and Congressmen."

Respectfully submitted.

Dr. A. C. WILLIAMS, Chairman.

Dr. O. M. LOCUST, Secretary.

Rev. J. W. P. COLLIER, Jr.
Bishop R. C. LAWSON.
Rev. J. R. PLUMMER.
Rev. J. W. HAWKINS.
Rev. A. BURTON.

Passed by unanimous vote Thursday, April 27, 1950, E. Franklin Jackson, Secretary.

This bill would bring concentration camps to America, and Negroes would be the first to fill them. Negroes will not give up the fight for full freedom, no matter how much terror is inflicted upon them. They will continue to fight today as they did during the days of slavery. However, they have the right to wage that struggle without the shackles of the Mundt-Nixon bill.

I say to you, gentlemen, with all gravity and sincerity that the Negro people, from long and bitter experience, know how to recognize a lynching. The MundtNixon bill is an attempt to lynch the Negro people with a political tar and feathers. We are as much threatened by this red tar as our people have been by the kind the Klan has used against us.

May God our Father in whom we live and move and have being, keep this Nation free from fetters that bind until it shall become indeed the "land of the free and the home of the brave."

STATEMENT OF LORAN TRANSUE, PRESIDENT OF FRIENDS OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION, ON H. R. 7595, BEFORE THE HOUSE UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES COM

MITTEE

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am Loran Transue, 1000 Askew Avenue, Kansas City 1, Mo.

As president I present this statement officially for the Friends of the American Constitution.

It is our purpose to see that our system of government is not destroyed for we do not want our Nation to be destroyed, or to perish, or to be weakened.

We oppose socialism, fascism, and communism for they are not in harmony with our constitutional system.

We do believe that the people who are classed as subversive are taking advantage of the American people and the freedom granted. They are stretching the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. Their doctrines, creeds, and philosophy are of such nature that these people would ultimately destroy our constitutional system by various means and methods. We are fully aware that these people have taken undue and unscrupulous means and devices to gain their point. They have even cried their constitutional rights are being denied them. In our judgment our Constitution does not grant them rights of protection and freedom while they work to destroy that same Constitution.

The only thing we would say in criticism of this bill-it covers only one class of people who would be happy to destroy our Constitution with its freedom and liberty is that it does not cover the socialistic and Fascist elements or groups. These could be included in this bill as they accomplish the same ultimate end. They work in a different manner.

We believe that if justice was meted out to them they could and would be classed as traitors of this Nation and due penalty accorded them as any other person or group who would be a destroyer of the Nation.

So far as this bill goes as stated above we agree with it. It being one class of legislation that should have top priority. It is urgent that something of this type be enacted into law at once.

I thank you.

(Statement of Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, National Association of Colored Women):

Hon. JOHN S. WOOD,

WASHINGTON 9, D. C., May 5, 1950.

Chairman, House Committee on Un-American Activities,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. WOOD: I have asked for an opportunity to testify against H. R. 7595 as a representative of the National Association of Colored Women in my capacity of honorary president and one of its founders. In accordance with your instructions, I am submitting my views in writing for inclusion in the committee's record of the hearings on this bill.

I am opposed to passage of this bill because I believe it violates the Constitution of the United States in that it proposes to establish a new basis on which citizens of this country may be considered loyal or disloyal to our Government.

The first amendment to our Constitution makes it clear that Congress shall pass no law that denies freedom of speech or assembly. This bill establishes its own standard of what constitutes subversion in this country and then proceeds to build up an elaborate set of rules and regulations by means of which the Government can have citizens arrested, jailed, and fined for membership in organizations which a Government board may deem to be subversive.

As a colored woman, with more than half a century of experience in national and international affairs, I am fully aware of the fact that nothing in this bill is said about the real subversives in this country-the Ku Klux Klan and the Gerald Smith gang-those who would destroy democracy by force and violence, those who have lynched, burned at the stake, who have more than once torn unborn babies from the bodies of colored women and struck terror among colored people as a means of denying them their constitutional rights.

Not content with utilizing every means, legal and illegal, the courts, State laws, and every known device, including mob violence, those who are determined to deny colored people their rights, now confront us with a bill that claims to be leveled against Communists, but in fact will deny my group the right to carry on their justified fight for freedom and full citizenship.

Under this bill colored people and their organizations can be arrested for fighting against Jim Crow because Communists are opposed to Jim Crow. They can be arrested and jailed for demanding that the Ku Klux Klan be outlawed, merely because Communists also make this demand. They can be arrested and jailed for joining with white people. I am glad to say there are many white people who also believe that all Americans regardless of race, creed, color, or sex have the right to full citizenship, in carrying on a vigorous campaign to outlaw Jim Crow laws where they now exist.

There are many white people in this country who understand full well that there can be no freedom and security for themselves unless colored people are also free. This bill would make it a crime for these people to join with colored people in carrying forward a joint campaign to change this situation, by calling such joint action subversive. The result of such legislation would be to keep the status quo, and in my opinion, that is just what the authors of this legislation want to do.

As a colored woman, I have two high, hard, heavy handicaps to hurdle, the handicap of race and the handicap of sex. Colored men have only one-that of race. I know something of the struggle for woman suffrage and what undemocratic actions were carried out to deny women the right to vote, all in the name of patriotism. We won that fight despite the fact that the courts, and the legis latures were used in an attempt to stop the march of women toward ciizenship and full equality.

As a colored woman, I am aware of the fact that despite the unrequited toil and suffering of my people for 300 years in the building of the South, we are still not accorded the decency and dignity of full citizenship. That is why I believe that no colored person can support the proposals contained in the Mundt-Nixon bill, which would have the effect of denying us the right to carry forward this struggle because many southern Representatives in Congress, many judges in the courts would characterize such struggle as subversive because it was supported by Communists or organizations which the Government claimed were dominated by Communists.

This minute there are four or five people in the world whose complexions are colored or dark to every one whose face is white. Passage of this bill will remind these people that Jim Crow, white supremacy, and other undemocratic guides to

living in America represent the answer to their please for democracy. Passage of this bill will represent another evidence to the millions of people in Asia and Africa and the Middle East that they need not look to the United States of America in their fight for full democracy. I do not see how anybody, black or white, who loves this country, can favor this legislation which will cause three-fourths of the people of the world who are colored to hate the United States. It is not impossible to imagine a situation where friendly relations with the colored people of the world instead of being hated by them might save this country from destruction.

Rather than pass this bill, I say to you gentlemen that it is high time that we passed legislation to guarantee that the Constitution will be upheld for all the citizens of this country. We need to pass legislation making it a crime to discriminate, lynch, and deny voting rights to millions of colored people living as subcitizens in this country which violates the Constitution and causes men illegally elected who misrepresent them, to be sent to the Halls of Congress, as is the case today. The real subversives in this country are the Ku Klux Klan and similar organizations which would rather murder my group than agree that they should have full citizenship.

Only by guaranteeing the right to political dissent, a right which is a part of our Bill of Rights, can colored people be assured of winning their long fight for freedom. This bill would put a road block in the path of that fight. That is why I am irrevocably opposed to it.

Mrs. MARY CHURCH TERRELL.

STATEMENT OF L. HAROLD DEWOLF, PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY, BOSTON, Mass.

STATEMENT ON THE MUNDT-FERGUSON BILL (S. 2311) AND THE NIXON BILL

(H. R. 7595)

There are two major threats to American liberty today, just as there were two major threats to German liberty in 1932. One is the threat of communism. The other is the threat of denials of Civil Liberties and other devices of totalitarian government undertaken out of fear of communism. Considering the small headway and later reverses which Communists have experienced in our country, the threat of anti-Communist tyranny seems at present to be much the more serious peril as far as internal affairs are concerned.

As a lover of American freedom and as a churchman, I view with the deepest misgivings such action as is contemplated in this bill. Nothing is more important in the legal defense of our liberties than the strict definition of acts for which a citizen may be prosecuted. Every tyranny is characterized by the substitution of the judgment and will of government officials for the strict and precise processes of law. This bill is a most alarming step in the direction of tyranny. The looseness of definition, the proscription of certain political organizations as such, the possibility of condemnation for mere association or even for the unintended identity of certain temporary purposes with similar purposes of outlawed organizations all make possible an almost unlimited discretionary power on the part of a government board to persecute at will citizens and groups taking stands not approved by the party in power.

Gentlemen, you cannot resist tyranny by legalizing tyranny. This bill would legalize tyranny and make all citizens dependent on the benevolent wisdom of officials endowed with such power as a healthy-minded democracy cannot tolerate. Such bills as this strike especially seriously at the American right of religious freedom. No church worthy of the name can regard itself as placing its faith and teaching under the control of a state. The church, if it is to be the church at all, must be free to formulate its faith and teach its doctrine without asking whether such formulation and teaching will please the political authorities. The most responsible Christian authorities in the world, including Pope Pius XII and the World Council of Churches, have published sharp criticisms of governmental policies and economic systems including capitalism and western democracy as well as the Communist despotism of the Soviet Union. Within the United States such a prominent churchman as Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen has in the name of religion made more radical criticisms of capitalism than have been made by many of the less-known persons and ecclesiastical agencies whose utterances have been interpreted by our Government agencies as subversive. In a democracy

it is intolerable when only the famous and politically well-organized can possess and use religious freedom.

Freedom is protected by being practiced and loved. There could be no more insidious preparation for communism or any other totalitarian despotism than to teach Americans the habit of forming their thought, determining their speech, and selecting their associations in an atmosphere of fearful inquiry whether Communists might be taking similar courses or whether present political authorities might disapprove. When men have once learned to submit to such abrogation of their liberties it is a simple thing to change masters. Great numbers of Hitler's storm troopers have illustrated this fact by easily changing to the uniform of the so-called people's police under the new master, Stalin.

If our liberties are to be secure they must be practiced, and we must have faith in them, from the Halls of Congress to every village, church, and home. The bill before you expresses faith in the principles and methods of the police state, not faith in freedom. In the name of all that we cherish as Americans I beg of you to defeat it.

STATEMENT OF THE METHODIST CHURCH, BOSTON AREA, BISHOP JOHN WESLEY LORD, BOSTON 16, MASS.

STATEMENT ON THE NIXON BILL (H. R. 7595) TO BE PRESENTED BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES

It needs to be remembered that the totalitarian has conquered when a democratic people abrogates its civil liberties and adopts totalitarian techinques to meet totalitarian threats.

I am opposed to the Nixon bill because it does just this and, if passed, would abrogate America's long-cherished freedom. I sincerely believe, as a churchman seeking to perpetuate the spiritual principles upon which this Nation is founded, that legislation of this pattern is more in accord with police-state governments than it is with democratic governments, and ultimately will destroy the rights of a free people.

There is an element of risk ever present in a democratic state. This risk, we must take if we are to maintain our faith in man and his essential dignity before God. To seek to remove this risk by destroying a political party is to jeopardize the rights of all political parties in our land. Our faith in present American institutions is such that we believe subversive elements can be contained and made ineffective, if we have the will to do so, by present existing legislation. I cannot believe that this proposed legislation could make our Government more secure than it is; for, ultimately, all security must reside in the free will and consent of those who are governed. To penalize those who may differ with us is to aggravate and not to remove the cause of discontent. Communism is an ideology that must be answered by a better ideology that demonstrates its ability to bring more of liberty, equality, and fraternity to mankind. A dynamic democracy in which the ethical ideals of religion are, within the conditions of freedom, translated into the realities of justice and brotherhood is impregnable to Communist infiltration, however virulent.

The Nixon bill, by setting up a "Subversive Activities Control Board" to prepare a list of "Communist-political" and "Communist-front" organizations, by granting the right to impose harsh penalties on members of such organizations, and by severly penalizing individuals who aid such proscribed organizations, does not strengthen but rather weakens democracy in America. Thus, I oppose it as un-American and contrary to the highest spiritual and political interests of our country. If this theory of government were accepted, it could led to, and make secure, a totalitarian dictatorship in this country.

STATEMENT ON H. R. 7595 BY MR. NIXON TO HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES BY BENJAMIN C. MARSH, SECRETARY, PEOPLE'S LOBBY, INC., WASHINGTON, D. C.

This bill is one of the most subversive and futile efforts to create a crime, instead of directly outlawing the Communist Party, since that seems to be the purpose.

It should be noted that the bill gives by inference, approval of a home-brew "totalitarian dictatorship," since it makes it illegal to work for such, "the direc

tion and control of which is to be vested in, or exercised by or under the domination or contol of, any foreign government, foreign organization, or foreign individual."

Mr. Nixon evidently believes in a protected market.

If the Communist Party is legal, it is subversive of both intelligence and of law to try to make scapegoats of those acting as or for a party, unless they commit a crime.

This committee should ask the Supreme Court, at once, for an advisory opinion on the constitutionality of the bill, and the Supreme Court might appropiately tell you what parts of the Constitution should be repealed or amended to make the bill constitutional.

The Court might also, in more judicial language than I can command, tell you that inflation is a greater threat to America's well-being, than the Communists, backs or fronts, and that if any government agency hasn't discovered employees who have betrayed their country, or attempted to, and prosecuted them, the chiefs of such agency should be relieved of office for inefficiency.

Just as we are learning that finesseing, to use a bridge term, is sometimes more effective in a cold war than force, we are also learning that ending internal conditions which produce believers in or advocates of extreme measures, is much more efficacious than increasing the list of acts or failure to act, punishable by incarceration, fine, or economic, or physical death.

There is a widespread feeling in America that much of the alarm over Communists is a cover up for alarm about economic conditions here, over which Communists have no control.

The greater the scare about Communists the easier it is to get billions for jobs producing armaments, which the people condone, while they would rebel against such expenditures for constructive domestic purposes.

The military hierarchy in America owe a great debt of gratitude to Communists here and abroad, whose activities keep them in power, while an efficient government would evolve policies which would greatly reduce the attempted justification for the military splurge.

Our inane foreign policies have also helped Communist activities, but suppressing Communist sympathizers will not end our domestic or foreign policies.

Your committee in the past has been markedly tolerant of subversive activities of American cartelists who doubtless are sizable contributors to both major parties.

In May 1947 we wrote the President asking whether Americans found guilty of the practices for which German industrialists were about to be tried could be punished, and July 29 of that year, Assistant Attorney General John F. Sinnott wrote us in reply to our question:

"The basic charges contained in the pending cartel indictments in Germany are not comprehended by existing legislation in the United States. "To that extent, therefore, the only recourse is to Congress."

We promptly sent copies of our correspondence on this kind of subversive activities, with the President, and the State and Justice Departments, to the then chairman of your committee, J. Parnell Thomas, asking the committee investigate and draft legislation to meet the conditions, and giving a list of informed witnesses.

Mr. Thomas replied that he had read the correspondence and would refer the matter to the committee, but repeated requests to your committee to act, have been bipartisanly ignored. It is notorious that your committee, so anxious to save America from control by a foreign state, has ignored the fact the Vatican has for centuries tried to dominate the world, not by armed forces, but by a cold war, capitalizing inherent fear of the unknown hereafter, to get obedience to its earthly reaction, and it is probably the most corrupt and reactionary state in the world.

Stalin doubtless borrowed the idea of the cold war from the Vatican, but he never sank so low, as to pretend to determine what would happen to people after death.

If Mr. Nixon is sincere in his fear of attempted overthrow of our Government by a foreign state, he would treat Catholics as he does Communists.

There should be parity of treatment in a country where all people are supposed to be equal before the law.

For full information your committee can call on Paul Blanshard, author of American Freedom and Catholic Power, and Avro Manhattan, author of The Vatican in World Politics.