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Mr. BLOCH. That would suit me fine.

(Whereupon, at 12: 40 p. m., the committee was recessed, to reconvene at 2: 30 p. m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(The hearing was resumed in room 424, Senate Office Building, at 2:30 p.m.)

Senator HRUSKA (presiding). The hearings will resume on the several bills which are ordinarily referred to as civil-rights legislation. Mr. Bloch has very kindly consented to deferring to Senator Dirksen so that the Senator may proceed to another meeting as soon as he has completed his testimony.

Senator DIRKSEN. This should not take more than 15 minutes, perhaps not that long.

STATEMENT OF HON. EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

Senator DIRKSEN. Mr. Chairman, S. 83, which I sponsored along with 37 other Members of the Senate, is the minimum which we should seek to accomplish at the present session of Congress. This is a fluid issue. I know that others would like to go further. But as the old Chinese saying goes, "The longest journey begins with a single step.” It is fair to assume that the whole civil-rights journal may be long, but I trust we can take this first step now.

TITLE I-COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS

There can scarcely be objection to the first title of S. 83, which provides for the establishment of a bipartisan Commission of six members to be appointed by the President. I say there can be no valid objection because in all the years of service here I have seen no resolution to create a fact finding commission which has been so carefully drafted to guard against possible abuses.

It is fair to assume that the President will appoint members possessed of restraint, sound judgment, probity, and a sense of objectivity. It is bipartisan. Members must be confirmed by the Senate. If a name is presented to which there is valid objection, it can be rejected. Hearings, investigations, and the appointment of subcommittees all require majority approval. Both parties must be represented on any subcommittee. The subpena power is restricted and safeguarded. Witnesses are adequately protected and so are those against whom complaint might be made. Such a group should be able to do an excellent, impartial, objective job in this controversial field.

TITLE II--ADDITIONAL ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL

This title would create one additional Assistant Attorney General. He must be confirmed by the Senate. It is unnecessary to create by law a Civil Rights Division and to so designate him. Section 295 of title 5 of the United States Code, as amended, creates seven Assistant Attorneys General. It does not create and assign them to special divisions. This can be done administratively. The testimony of the

Attorney General on this point is clear enough that a Civil Rights Division will be created and the assistant created by this bill placed in charge. The creation of this additional position is fully consonant with the growth of the country and with new problems which arise.

TITLE III-TO STRENGTHEN CIVIL RIGHTS STATUTES

This title seeks to enlarge the authority of the Attorney General in the enforcement of civil rights and to provide additional instruments for that purpose.

The whole title is but an amendment to statutes which have been in effect for many years. In fact, as far back as 1871, certain provisions were enacted to safeguard civil rights. Section 1985, of title 42 of the United States Code, bears the caption "Conspiracy to Interfere with Civil Rights."

This section, as it reads now, contains three subsections.

The first subsection seeks to protect persons holding office under the United States against conspiracy, force, threat, or intimidation in the discharge of their duties.

The second subsection seeks to provide similar protection for witnesses, grand and petit jurors, in bringing about the equal protection

of the law.

The third subsection also deals with safeguarding the equal protection of the law, and particularly undertakes to protect the right to vote and, in all these cases, gives to the party injured or deprived of his rights, a cause of action for damages against any and all who may have so conspired.

That is the law. That is the law today. That has been the law for 86 years in one form or another. Its intent is perfectly clear. Whether it has been carried out or obstructed is quite another matter. It recognizes a fact which is too often forgotten; namely, the first clause in the 14th amendment to the Constitution, which makes every person born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, a citizen of the United States as well as of the State where he resides.

These statutes, enacted long ago, properly undertake to protect a person in his rights, be he an officer of the United States, a witness, a juror, or a person seeking to exercise his right to vote in a Federal election.

Title III of S. 83 merely adds to these provisions which have long been the law.

First, it sets forth that if a cause of action arises under the provisions which have been so long on the statute books the Attorney General may go into a United States district court and, in the name of the United States or in the name of the aggrieved person, institute a civil action for redress of the wrong and for relief. Such action might include an application for an injunction or restraining order, or other order.

This is not unusual. In the statute which prohibits the shipment of goods in interstate commerce produced with child labor, the Secrectary of Labor, under the direction and control of the Attorney General, brings the action to enjoin such a practice.

How else shall it be effectively done? In the long interrogation of the Attorney General it was quite obvious that the principal con

cern of the interrogator was not the person aggrieved or offended, but the person who might give the offense.

To withhold this authority from the Attorney General makes a mockery of the guaranties which have so long been carried on the statute books.

TITLE IV-PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Eighty-seven years ago the Congress by statute provided that a citizen of the United States who was qualified by law to vote shall be entitled and allowed to vote in any election without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, notwithstanding any constitution, law, usage, custom, or regulation to the contrary.

Here again we deal with a citizen of the United States. Moreover, he must be qualified by law to vote.

This title amends that statute and seeks to safeguard that right to vote against coercion, threat, or intimidation.

In the case of any election where a Federal official is to be nominated or elected, and it appears that a person is to be deprived of this right to vote, the Attorney General, in the name of the United States or in behalf of the aggrieved party, is authorized to institute civil

action.

If the United States will not by every reasonable means protect the rights of a United States citizen, who will? If the Attorney General, as the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States, is not clothed with necessary powers to protect a United States citizen, how shall he be protected?

If the rights of a citizen of the United States are not adequately enforced, of what value are they?

To object to such a grant of authority is virtually to assert that these rights should not be enforced. And this makes a grim jest of the rights which we have so freely proclaimed to all the world and which we prize so highly.

I do not ask that at this time we do more than what is proposed in S. 83. The administration does not ask that we presently do more. But this much we must do, or else we become the target for effective propaganda by a brutal and godless ideology which can in truth proclaim to all the world that with one hand we seek to bring the benefits of freedom to a whole area of the world, while with the other those freedoms are snatched away at home.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HRUSKA. Senator Dirksen, there is some considerable concern on the part of some folks that the deprivation of trial by jury under the proceedings which are set forth in part 3 of S. 83 represents a very serious defect in this legislation.

Would you care to comment on that at greater length than you did in vour statement?

Senator DIRKSEN. Not particularly, because the Attorney General has commented on it at great length, and I was present at the committee meeting the other morning when he was interrogated for nearly 3 hours by Senator Ervin. So that matter, I think, has been thoroughly explored by the Attorney General of the United States, so there is no particular purpose in my making any elaborate comment at this time because I believe there is enough on the record to cover that point.

Senator HRUSKA. And you, likewise, agree with the Attorney General that it would not be wise to specify that the additional Assistant Attorney General be assigned to certain specific duties and responsibilities?

Senator DIRKSEN. Well, I simply go back to the earlier statute I recited here, Mr. Chairman, where seven Assistant Attorneys General were created, and they were not designated to head up divisions, that was handled on an administrative basis, and I think it can be similarly done now.

Senator HRUSKA. So if it were handled in that manner in this instance, it would be a departure from what we have already done? Senator DIRKSEN. Yes.

Senator HRUSKA. Thank you very much, Senator.

We will resume with the testimony of Mr. Bloch. Let the record show that Mr. Bloch has been previously sworn and is resuming his testimony.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES J. BLOCH, ATTORNEY AT LAW,

MACON, GA.-Resumed

Mr. BLOCH. Mr. Chairman, in order to give the connection or the setting before the hearing recessed for lunch, I had just completed that part of my statement which dealt with pronouncements from the judiciary decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and also two talks which had been made by President Eisenhower on the subject of States rights during the 1952 campaign, one of them being a talk at New Orleans, La., and the other at Houston, Tex.

With that background, I will resume with my prepared statement. In the light of these pronouncements from the two coordinate branches of our Government, we ask the legislative branch to analyze these bills.

Do the bills respect the proper balance between the States and the Federal Government in law enforcement?

Do they not constitute unconstitutional, unwarranted encroachment by the Federal Government upon the rights and affairs of the States?

Do they not represent another step in the growth of a power-hungry movement threatening the States and the people?

Do they not deal with matters which are primarily affairs for local administration?

Do they not tend to create an all-powerful Washington bureaucracy? Do they preserve and protect the matchless system of States united? The bill which is identified as subcommittee print, January 31, 1957, is entitled "A bill to secure, protect, and strengthen the civil rights accruing to individuals under the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Title I is "to protect the rights to political participation."

Section 101 amends title 18, United States Code, section 594, so as to read as rewritten in the bill.

That section is based on old title 18 (1940 edition), United States Code, section 61, 61q. Section 61 was derived from the act of August 2, 1939 (ch. 410, sec. 1; 53 Stat. 1147 (U. S. C. A., 1927 edition, title 18, pocket pt., p. 26)).

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The amended section includes "primaries" as well as "elections" in its coverage. The Congress will perhaps deem that justified by the cases of United States v. Classic (313 U. S. 299), and Terry v. Adams (345 U. S. 461), despite the earlier Newberry case (256 U. S. 232) and despite the fact that Classic was decided by only four judges. It should be noted that even in Terry v. Adams, the second headnote (73 S. Ct. 810) is:

The 15th amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct however discriminatory or wrongful.

Section 102 amends section 2004 of the Revised Statutes (42 U. S. C. 1971) to read as rewritten in the bill. This was title 8, United States Code Annotated, section 31, derived from act of May 31, 1870. There seem to be four salient changes.

(a) The section would protect the right to qualify to vote (regiter), as well as actual voting;

(b) The section is extended to cover primaries;

(e) The section would protect against discrimination based on "religion or national origin" as well as race or color;

(d) In the new last sentence, the bill attempts to make the right to qualify and vote, as set forth therein, a right within the meaning of title 18, United States Code, section 242, and title 42, United States Code, section 1983. So, the bill attempts by legislative fiat to make a constitutional right out of something which is not.

There is no constitutional provision dealing with discriminations in voting arising out of "religion or national origin." The 15th amendment provides:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The Supreme Court has several times held that the power of Congress over the right to vote in the several States is confined to the enforcement of the 15th amendment by preventing discrimination on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude (Neal v. Delaware (103 U. S. 370); Pope v. Williams (193 U. S. 621); Williams v. Mississippi (170 U. S. 213); Ex Parte Yarbrough (110 U. S. 651); U. S. v. Reese (92 U. S. 214); U. S. v. Cruikshank (92 U. S. 542)).

Senator WATKINS. Pardon the interruption, but would you be willing in support of the amendment to strike out this reference to any of those other situations rather than what is contained in the 15th amendment?

Mr. BLOCH. Senator, of course, I have no right, I am a layman; I mean by that that I am not

Senator WATKINS. I would not let that influence me one way or the other; we would just want you to give your views.

Mr. BLOCH. You mean, would I be willing, perfectly content with the legislation

Senator WATKINS. No. No. I said, would you be willing to have taken out of this particular section that you have taken exception to, the references to the place of origin and religion?

Mr. BLOCH. I think that it would tend to make them more in line with the Constitution.

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