creased from 46,763 to 24,982-a loss of 21,754. An additional loss in the enrollment of white children in the District public schools amounting to 2,702 has occurred since 1960. These figures do not explain the entire situation, for many District schools are still largely segregated as a result of residential patterns.

The facts indicate that people have moved out of the District largely or at least in part because they did not desire to have their children attend desegregated schools.

The percentage of white children in the schools of the District today is 15 percent; 85 percent are Negroes.

This desire of people to select as their neighbors and associates and as associates of their immature children people of their own race is a feeling that is shared by millions and millions of people of all races in all areas of this country.

The CHAIRMAN. It is true of all races; isn't it?
Senator ERVIN. Yes, of all races.

As I say, I think this is in obedience to natural law. And I think that the Federal Government is committing a grave error when it attributes this feeling to discrimination and race prejudice instead of the operation of natural law. I think the Federal Government is committing an offense against the American people in saying that they should be denied, by exercise of arbitrary power, the right to select their own neighbors and to sell their own homes.

There are millions and millions of other Americans who entertain views of this nature.

One of the great liberals of this country is Herbert Weschler, the Harlan Fisk Stone professor of constitutional law at Columbia University. In April 1959, he delivered the Oliver Wendell Holmes lecture at Harvard Law School on the subject, "Neutral Principles of Constitutional Law." He favors integration. He speaks of freedom of association, and points out that in some cases freedom of association is denied by segregation. But he says this in closing:

But if the freedom of association is denied by segregation, integration forces an association upon those for whom it is unpleasant or repugnant. Is not this the heart of the issue involved-conflict in human claims of high dimension, not unlike many others that involve the highest freedoms that Professor Sutherland has recently described? Given a situation where the State must presently choose between denying the association to those individuals who wish it, or imposing it on those who would avoid it, is there a basis in neutral principle for holding that the Constitution demands that the claims of association should prevail? I should like to think there is. But I confess that I have not yet written the opinion. To write it is for me to challenge the problem school segregation cases pose.

Some people say that a man who does not support this bill favors discrimination.

I don't think that is true. I think you have here a situation where, as Professor Weschler says, there is a conflict between two principles. You have a conflict here between so-called equality, coerced by law, and freedom of the individual. You have this in the school situation; you have it in public accommodations.

The 14th amendment applies to State action because those who drafted it wanted to leave the power to regulate relations among individuals to the States, subject only to the prohibitions it imposes on the States in respect to due process, the equal protection of our laws, and privileges and immunities of citizens. The bill constitutes a

drastic assault on the principle of local government, which the amendment preserves.

I want to keep as much government as near home as possible, because if I do not like the government I have near home, I can go and tell that government so. And if it does not mend its ways to suit me, I can do something effective to get rid of it. It is otherwise with respect to this gigantic bureaucracy we have up here on the banks of the Potomac River.

The people who drew our Constitution realized that liberty is inevitably imperiled by any government far removed from the people. For that reason they divided the powers of government between the Federal Government and the States.

Chief Justice Chase was absolutely correct in defining the purposes of the Constitution of the United States in a nutshell in the celebrated case of Texas v. White. He said the Constitution, in all of its provisions, looks to an indestructible union composed of indestructible States.

This bill would go a long ways toward destroying the States. When the States are destroyed, the Union created by the Constitution is also destroyed.

The values at issue here go far beyond the question of legal rights and matters of that kind. This is so because no truer thing was ever said than the statement which Judge Learned Hand_attributed to Justice Brandeis. According to Judge Hand, Justice Brandeis said this about the desirability of preserving the States:

The States are the only breakwater against the ever-pounding surf which threatens to submerge the individual and destroy the only society in which personality can exist.

If Congress, the courts, and the President continue to concentrate and centralize the powers of Government in Washington, they will destroy the rights of our people and make them serfs of the Federal Government, not freemen. This bill ought to be defeated because it is inconsistent with the system of government our Constitution was drawn to establish. Moreover, it undertakes to substitute socalled equality coerced by law for liberty.

I want to read again from Judge Harlan's opinion in Peterson v. The City of Greenville, pages 2 and 3:

The ultimate substantive question is whether there has been State action of a particular character, whether the character of the States' involvement in an arbitrary discrimination is such that it should be held responsible for the discrimination. This limitation on the scope of the prohibitions of the 14th amendment serves several vital functions in our system underlying the cases involving an alleged denial of equal protection by ostensibly private actions of a clash of competing constitutional claims of a higher order-liberty and equality.

Freedom of the individual to choose his associates or his neighbors, to use and dispose of his property as he sees fit, to be irrational, arbitrary, capricious, even unjust in his personal relations are things all entitled to a large measure of protection from governmental interference.

This liberty would be overridden in the name of equality if the strictures of the amendment were applied to governmental and private action without distinction. Also inherent in the concept of State action are values of federalism, a recognition that there are areas of private rights upon which Federal Government should not lay a heavy hand, and which should properly be left to the more precise instruments of local authority.

I respectfully submit that those who seek to have public accommodations open to persons of all races should seek to obtain that object by persuasion.

Much has been done by persuasion in this country in that area. In my own State of North Carolina, we have had a great opening of doors in places of public accommodation. Similar action is occurring throughout the United States. That is the way problems of this nature ought to be solved.

We ought to rely solely upon persuasion. But if we are going to rely on law, we ought to rely upon law enacted by the only authority under our constitutional system which can exercise such power, and that is the State legislatures and the councils of municipalities. They have police power which the Federal Government lacks. They have the power to pass laws to regulate public accommodations, if they desire to do so. Their laws would be much more desirable, because they can tailor them to suit local conditions. This cannot be done in legislation on the national level.

Many racial problems arise out of economics, and efforts should be made to assist members of minority groups in obtaining suitable jobs. These efforts should be voluntary, however, rather than coercive. I do not believe that you can promote good racial relations or good economics by the Government going in and grabbing an employer by the throat and saying, "You have to hire this man whether you want to or not." That would be the destruction of another freedom.

I think that people who invest their money in a business have the right to determine whom they shall hire and whom they shall promote, and whom they shall discharge.

Whenever there is a conflict between supposed equality coerced by law and the freedom of the individual, I am going to take my stand for the freedom of the individual. This country was made great by men who were granted freedom to strive and to achievenot by men who were robbed of basic economic, legal, and personal rights through the coercive power of law.

If government robs our people of their economic freedom to manage their own property in their own way, it will be denying in the long run to so-called minorities one of the most precious rights they can ever seek or attain.

If a man wants to drink cool water out of a spring on the top of a mountain, he ought to climb to the top of the mountain to get it. If he is unwilling to do that, he can, if he can bring enough pressure on government, induce the government to pipe that water from the top of the mountain, through governmental pipes, down to the valley where he is. But he will discover when he receives that water at the end of the governmental pipe that it has not only lost its coolness, but it has lost its taste, and become stale and flat, and is no longer desirable. Racial problems are like all human problems. They can be solved in a satisfactory manner only by cooperation, good will, and understanding on the local level where people live.

No men of any race can law or legislate their way to the more abundant life. They must achieve such life by their own exertions and by their own sacrifices. And anybody who maintains the contrary is either fooling himself or trying to fool somebody else.

Racial problems should be solved by voluntary action. Certainly Congress ought not to pass a bill which not only constitutes an attack upon the principle of local self-government, but which constitutes an attack upon some of the basic economic, legal, and personal rights of all Americans.

I thank the committee for its long indulgence. That finishes my statement.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to congratulate the Senator. He madethis has been one of the ablest discussions I have ever heard. It certainly put the guts of this thing before the American people. And the Chair is in full agreement with your views.

Senator Hart.

STATEMENT OF HON. PHILIP A. HART, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Senator HART. Mr. Chairman, Senator Ervin, I feel that I am fortunate to have been able to be present throughout the presentation in a scholarly tone, tempered in expression; by the distinguished Senator from North Carolina.

This has not characterized some of the hearings I have recently participated in. And I think the record has been benefited enormously. I would make only this one specific comment. Not many minutes ago, Senator Ervin, you said that the theory behind all this administration proposal is that it is evil to want to select one's neighbors, to enjoy one's property.

I just flatly disagree, respectfully disagree, that this is an accurate characterization of the theory behind the administration proposal. It is contained in six or seven titles fully.

You make the point that there are tools in the Department of Justice' hands now that should be acted upon. I have read some of the testimony that was intended to be offered yesterday by the Attorney General that persuades me, and I was persuaded before, that the tools are not adequate. It doesn't have anything to do with freedom to select your neighbor or enjoy your property.

I introduced the identical bill, which is not title I of this bill. Clearly, I am on record as believing it is sound.

The second title, "Public Accommodations." Here again I introduced a bill based upon the commerce clause only some several months ago. I feel that where the public is invited, the public should in fact be admitted-that color is not a legitimate factor for excluding.

And I suppose this is the area where you would insist most strongly that the right of private property is invaded.

I can only reply that Congress many times has regulated private business enterprises so as to remove burdens on the economy.

And then there is the effort to desegregate schools. That is title III. Here I simply feel that the rights that the Supreme Court carved out in the Brown against the School Board case 9 or 10 years ago have been long overdue in delivery. They are present rights that the court in the last month or so reminded us, and this is an effort to make good. The Civil Rights Commission, extension and expansion of authority you permitted me to testify before your subcommittee in hearings on this. I know that you know that you know my views on it. I introduced this identical bill in February.

I am glad your subcommittee voted to report this section favorably I note that Senator Ervin to the full committee a week or so ago. voted against it.

The sixth title is the nondiscrimination in Federal assistance. I don't see this has to do with inhibiting one's right to select a neighbor or enjoying one's property. It is just an effort to stop the Federal Government subsidizing discrimination. If you would take the money from everbody, but inhibit the use by some, you are just not making sense, as I see it.

And it is not correct. Employment opportunities in Federal Government should be open to all—indeed that should be true of all employment.

This morning, in another committee, we heard the commissioner of baseball and the commissioner of both football leagues describe the basis of employment there--which man can play the game most effectively.

I like to think that is the way each of us is judged, whether it is employment, as good neighbors, or anything else.

Senator ERVIN. If the Senator will pardon me, I would say I agree on that point.

But I think that the power to select the man who is going to play baseball or do anything else should belong to the man who is operating the baseball team, and not to the Government.

That is where the Senator and I would disagree, I think.

Senator HART. I think when you talk about the obligation on the men and women of America to climb to the top of the hill to get fresh water, you have got to recognize opportunities such as equality of employment are essential if that climb is to be made. You cannot ask them to climb the hill if you throw roadblocks on the trip. This is the way I feel about this inhibition of employment opportunity.

So in summary I did enjoy, and I am sure the record benefits by the testimony which you, as I say, was extremely able.

I support fully each of these titles recommended by the administration, and hope that this committee will act promptly on the legislation that has been presented to us.

We must remember we have yet to hear the offerer of the legislation, the Attorney General, who I am sure will make specific response to many of the things that have been raised.

Having done that, I hope the committee will take up the business of voting up or down each of these titles so that Congress may respond to what I think is the most urgent need across the country. This legislation is needed. It moves in areas long overdue. And it does so within the structure of our Constitution, as I see it.

Senator ERVIN. I would say to the Senator from Michigan that I know many members of the Negro race who have climbed to the top of the mountain.

In my State of North Carolina we have many successful businesses carried on by members of that race. These people do not accept the theory that there is some duty on the part of the Government to deprive all of their fellow citizens of their rights as a condition precedent to their succeeding in life.

I am very proud of the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Co. of Durham, N.C., which is owned and controlled by members of the Negro race, and which, I am informed, is the strongest financial institution so owned and operated on the face of the earth.