These investigations have resulted in reports concerning voting deprivation and the withholding of equal legal protection in housing, employment practices, schools, and the administration of justice. These reports have elicited a great number of recommendations, many of which have received action by the President, the Department of Justice, and Congress.

In 1959 the Commission recommended the establishment of a system of Federal registrars, empowered to register voters after an Executive determination that citizens had been denied their franchise on racial grounds.

In 1961 the Commission recommended that Congress enact legislation eliminating literacy tests for those with 6 years of formal education.

This year the Commission is preparing reports concerning discrimination in the Armed Forces; the access of minority groups to hospitals constructed under the Hill-Burton Act; on the civil rights of Spanish-speaking citizens; and on the condition of constitutional rights in Mississippi.

Recently the Commission issued an interim report recommending that the President and Congress

consider seriously whether legislation is appropriate and desirable to assure that Federal funds contributed by citizens of all States not be made available to any State which continues to refuse to abide by the Constitution and laws of the United States; and, further, that the President explore the legal authority he possesses as Chief Executive to withhold Federal funds from the State of Mississippi, until the State of Mississippi demonstrates it compliance with the Constitution and laws of the United States.

In pointing out such weaknesses and failures in carrying out national policy the Commission has performed useful purposes. What must now be determined is the nature of the Commission's factfinding role and whether or not it can be reinterpreted in a way which will enable it to render service of maximum benefit to the country. President Kennedy has pointed out the need for information concerning techniques employed in past solutions of civil rights problems, for a communication forum between contending parties, and for an agency capable of providing advice which will result in peaceful, permanent solutions. This need the Commission is working to meet. Specifically: 1. The Commission's annual education conferences have convened educators throughout the country in an atmosphere where they have been able to share their experiences with desegregation and draw on each other's information and counsel.

2. Throughout the country, State and local authorities, schools and colleges, and the public generally have received Commission reports. 3. The Commission has answered many requests for information from the Congress as well as from agencies and individuals professionally concerned with civil rights. It has participated in governmental and private meetings on civil rights.

4. The Commission has advised the executive branch, as the President indicated in his civil rights message, not only about desirable policy but also administrative techniques needed to make these changes effective. In response to the White House and several Federal agencies the Commission has attempted to provide advice on the substance and administration of civil rights programs.

It is becoming increasingly necessary to permanently assign to some Federal agency these responsibilities. In the North demands are growing for Federal action to deal with school segregation and discrimination in housing and employment. Similar developments are occurring in the southern and border States. A growing number of unions and employers are seeking to implement hiring and training programs based on merit alone. The continued and vocal protest against the exclusion of Negroes from public accommodations suggests the wisdom of a forum in which representatives of business, Government, the clergy, and civil rights organizations may seek means for implementing policies of equal access to such facilities. This type of forum the Commission provides. As Senator Clifford Case of New Jersey has said, it is

a vital conduit in communication between our citizens. In some cases, our Negro citizens have nowhere else to turn ***. It is a useful and necessary prod to the executive and the legislative branches, to the conscience of the Nation as a whole.

Thus it seems there is a clear Federal interest in all of these matters and an obvious need that a Federal agency serve as a clearinghouse for information, advice, and assistance on civil rights problems. A strengthened and permanent Commission would have the opportunity to deal with the symptoms of prejudice and tackle its causes rather than limiting itself to its manifestations. Ideally, the league would like to see the Commission become a regulatory agency, empowered to enforce the results of its recommendations with the right of judicial appeal.

This agency should be placed, as the President has suggested, on a fairly stable and permanent basis. Its operation would be stronger and more effective if given longer life. As long as its future remains doubtful the Commission will have trouble recruiting and maintaining the services of high caliber people. The cutback in office operations, necessary in an agency scheduled to end its activities is indeed wasteful if subsequently continued, that agency must reconvene and obtain new staff. The Civil Rights Commission should have sufficient continuity to enable it to perform its services effectively-services which would constitute an affirmative and constructive contribution toward the goal of justice and equal opportunity under law.

Finally, caution should be voiced concerning one argument against a permanent Commission-the reasoning being that permanence yields to pessimism-that it is defaulting to a doomsday philosophy concerning civil rights. It is one thing to hope that we will not need this Commission. The fact remains that during the past 100 years many civil rights problems have not achieved solution. Indeed, the rising expectations of this country's traditionally deprived peoples are increasing and intensifying group tensions. Even if legislation is passed, considerable effort will still be needed to create all the conditions that would make a Civil Rights Commission unnecessary. Its end at this crucial time would gravely impede both Government and private agencies in their work for resolution of racial controversy. Its continuance offers a forum outside partisan politics and the heated emotions of racial conflict for calm, considered discussion and resolution of the difficulties at hand.

In 1960 both Democratic and Republican parties made specific pledges in their platforms to make the Civil Rights Commission a

permanent body. It is imperative that this be done if we are to be sincere in our wishes for equal rights.

We hope that your committee will see fit to consider this legislation favorably, report it out promptly, and work vigorously for its enactment in this session of Congress. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to present our views on this important legislation, and to your subcommittee which has carried on such extensive work in this field.

Senator ERVIN. We appreciate very much your coming and giving us the benefit of your organization.

That is all. Thank you very much.

Did you have anything Mrs. Stewart to add to what Miss Ramsay said?

Mrs. STEWART. No, I think not. I thought I would come in case any questions were asked about the organization which she might not be able to answer, since she has only recently joined our staff.

We appreciate the opportunity to come before the committee, as this has been a major priority of our organization since its inception. Senator ERVIN. Thank you.

Mr. CREECH. Mr. Chairman, the next witness is Dr. Pollak.

STATEMENT OF PROF. LOUIS H. POLLACK, CHAIRMAN, CONNECTICUT ADVISORY COMMITTEE TO THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS

Senator ERVIN. Dr. Pollak, I wish to welcome you to the committee, and to express our appreciation of your taking the trouble and time to come and give us the benefit of your views on the bills now pending before us.

Mr. POLLAK. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Ervin. I hope you will allow me to disclaim that elegant "Doctor" which Mr. Creech has conferred on me. That is a degree that, as you know, Judge, most poor lawyers are not entitled to claim.

Mr. Chairman, my name is Louis H. Pollak. I come from New Haven, where I teach law at Yale. My field of special interest is constitutional law. Also, I am Chairman of the Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

It is a great privilege for me, I greatly appreciate this opportunity to appear before you, sir, to express my support for S. 1117, Senator Hart's bill to extend the life of the Commission on Civil Rights.

I do want to make it entirely clear at the outset, however, that the views I am expressing here today are solely my own. My views are certainly partly shaped by the work I have had the privilege of participating in as chairman of the Connecticut Advisory Committee, but I am not speaking for my colleagues on the committee, nor, indeed, am I speaking for anyone else.

I would like to say before I address myself to the bill, Mr. Chairman, that I would like to pay my small measure of tribute to the work which this committee does day in and day out in inquiring into the status of constitutional rights in this country. Those who, like myself, are, as it were, laborers in the vineyards of constitutional law have found the hearings and reports of this subcommittee to be of inestimable value. They are essential equipment for all of us, all

Americans, who are concerned with the preservation and advancement of our fundamental rights.

I have long been familiar on paper with the work of the subcommittee. This is the first time I have had a chance to see the subcommittee in person. I am particularly pleased to see that it has, as an addition to its staff, a very able and decorative alumna of my law school, Miss Rosenberg, who I am sure, has added strength to your

Senator ERVIN. And she is doing a superb job with us.
Mr. POLLAK. I have no doubt of it.

The importance of this subcommittee's day-to-day work makes it in my judgment particularly appropriate that this is the subcommittee which is considering S. 1117 for its seems to me that the achievements of the Commission are really a logical extension within the particular domain of the equal protection of the laws, of the subcommittee's regular pioneering inquiries on so many constitutional frontiers.

I think, just offhand, of the subcommittee's work on the rights of the mentally ill, the rights of the Indian and so forth.

Since its establishment, the Commission on Civil Rights has done really monumental work in exploring and educating the Nation about the areas in which we have thus far failed to fulfill our constitutional commitment to eliminate racial discrimination sustained by law. I think it is not too much to say that the Commission's studies on racial discrimination in voting, housing, education, employment, and justice, now collectively constitute the standard source material which must be the point of departure for any responsible governmental efforts― local as well as national-to alleviate what is surely America's paramount domestic problem.

I need not labor the merits of the Commission's powerful studies— they surely speak for themselves. But I would add one point. The Commission's studies are, in my judgment, a genuinely national product. This seems to me one of their most important characteristics. They are studies that make it plain that racial discrimination is in no sense a regional problem. The forms racial discrimination takes may vary from city to city and State to State, but the phenomenon is nationwide. All must acknowledge that the demonstrations in Birmingham and Jackson have implications which go far beyond the boundaries of Alabama and of Mississippi.

New York, which is the city where I was born, and New Haven, where I now live these cities have cognate problems; so, too, do Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Tallahassee, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit, and many, many other cities in our beleaguered land.

If New Haven's problems are less intense than those of Jackson and less massive than those of Chicago and New York, there is no reason for smugness on our part.

Rather, I think it is reason for sober recognition by those of us who live in the city of New Haven that we have a relatively favorable opportunity to solve these pressing problems, provided that we challenge them directly and responsively, and provided we start no later than now. And I may say at this point, Mr. Chairman, that the citizens of New Haven are particularly proud that their mayor, Richard C. Lee, spoke so forcefully as he did just 2 days ago to the conference of U.S. mayors in Honolulu on just exactly this problem that confronts us today, the problem of the obligation of every American community to move and move thoughtfully and responsibly in the

field of civil rights. This is the kind of leadership that we are accustomed to from Mayor Lee in New Haven.

A principal reason why the Commission on Civil Rights has had such great success in demonstrating the national dimensions of racial discrimination is that the Commission is itself a genuinely national agency. I think it is fair to say that its work has never been allowed to become the vehicle of purely sectional, let alone purely partisan, interests. Both under President Eisenhower and today under President Kennedy, the Commission has been comprised of men of marked ability, vision, objectivity, and independence. Surely the Nation has been enormously fortunate to have been able to draw upon the talents of Americans as distinguished-and I mention at the moment only the incumbent Commissioners-as distinguished as President Hannah, Dean Storey, Father Hesburgh, Dean Griswold, Dean Robinson, and Professor Rankin.

Now, the central purpose of S. 1117 is, of course, the extension of the Commission's existence for 4 years more. That the Commission has more than justified its existence thus far seems to me really wholly beyond argument. Equally beyond argument is the proposition that in 1963, in this centennial year of the Emancipation Proclamation, we are only at the threshold of insuring the civil rights of all Americans. The Commission has helped all of us to recognize the urgency and the complexity of the problems which lie ahead. Recognition of these problems is surely the essential first step in their solution. But it is only the first step, Mr. Chairman, and so I think we will need the Commission in being for a long, long time to come.

For my own part, I would have no hesitation in recommending to this subcommittee that the Commission on Civil Rights be established as a permanent agency.

But, in any event, extension of the Commission for a period of 4 years seems to me an absolute minimum. I would stress the administrative difficulties under which an executive agency must labor when it operates as this agency has operated on a series of 2-year terms. It is an extraordinary fact that this Commission has, notwithstanding this really crippling limitation, been able to recruit and hold a skilled dedicated and productive staff. This is, I think, a relevant index of the level of administrative leadership provided by the Commissioners and by Berl Bernhard, the very able staff director. And when I speak of the ability of the Commission staff, I want to make it clear, Mr. Chairman, that I am speaking not just at large, but on the basis of my own experience as a chairman of a State advisory committeemy own experience with the very able, thoughtful, courteous, dedicated, outstanding, and full of judgment, if you will, members of the staff of the Commission. But I submit, Mr. Chairman, that to put the Commission on a further 2-year basis could be a mistake in many ways.

It is enormously wasteful, I submit, of the energies of the staff and of the Commission, for these people to have to come as supplicants to Congress at each term of Congress, asking a new lease on life. If Congress really wants the Commission to continue to move forward in these areas of vital responsibility, Congress must give the Commission a tenure which at least approximates the importance of its mandate.