Take Montgomery, Ala., as an example. Montgomery, Ala., before the advent of Martin Luther King, was probably one of the best cities in the South for Negro opportunity. This has long since gone by the board. The same goon squads as referred to earlier have operated in Montgomery for well over a year. I am told this by not only local Negroes, but one well-known Negro that doesn't live in that area. Of the 50,000 Negroes in Montgomery, I am told that at least 45,000 of these Negroes do not want integration in any form whatever, but merely want economic and educational advantages separately-but in the main to be left alone. These 45,000 Negroes have no leadership and live in fear of reprisals by their own race. Montgomery, Ala., has been receiving worldwide publicity due to the bus boycott and other forms of agitation. Let me say this, that Montgomery is probably the most lied-about city in the whole United States. There has been no breakdown of law and order there; in fact, the alleged participants in the recent disorder there have been caught and have been indicted by grand juries and are awaiting trial in May. The Police Department of Montgomery has employed additional officers to preserve law and order, and when Montgomery is referred to as a city without law and order, a city of violence, that is absolutely untrue. In previous testimony before the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights, and also the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, reference was made to the voting situation in my home county of Macon. Let me say that the person or persons testifying before these committees were in error when they made the statement that we had no board of registrars. We had a board of registrars operating. This board was composed of Grady Rodgers, of Tuskegee, and Herman Bently, of Notasulga. If this statement is doubted, it can be proved without question. If the inhabitants of other sections of the country feel that we are mistreating our colored friends, we feel that they should do two things: Come South and actually see for themselves, and then if they find that we are mistreating these same colored friends, we would like to recommend to them that they make arrangements to move all those that are dissatisfied out of the South into other areas of the country. I venture to say that in my own county of Macon, that is 86 percent colored, not over 500 of them would be willing to move. I will also make this prediction: If a Civil Rights Commission is set up as prescribed by this bill, within 5 years there will be a determined effort made by Congressmen from outside the South to repeal this act. I hope for the good of the South and the entire United States that these bills will not be enacted. UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, March 2, 1957. Senator THOMAS C. HENNINGS, Chairman, Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Senate Judiciary Committee, United States Senate, Washington 25, D. C. DEAR TOM: I am enclosing a letter which I have received from Hon. T. C. Callison, attorney general, State of South Carolina, listing the names of the persons who will testify before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights. I wish to add the following names to the list of those who will testify: Hon. Thomas H. Pope, representing the South Carolina Bar Association; Hon. Robert McNair, State house of representatives; Hon. James Spruill, State house of representatives. I shall bring these gentlemen to the hearings on Monday, and I am looking forward to introducing them. With warm personal regards and best wishes, I am, OLIN D. JOHNSTON. STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, HON. OLIN D. JOHNSTON, Senate Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR JOHNSTON: I wish to thank you for your kindness in arranging for South Carolina to be heard before the Special Committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the matter of Civil Rights. I also thank you for your offer to assist the South Carolina delegation while in Washington, especially as to the matter of transportation. I will not personally attend this hearing but Mr. D. R. McLeod, assistant attorney general, will be present and represent this office. I understand that Mr. Joseph 0. Rogers, Jr., a member of the house from Clarendon County, and Senator John West of Kershaw County, will be present but will not have anything to say unless something should arise which would prompt them to participate. In addition to those above named, I assume that Senator Tom Wofford as well as Mr. C. T. Graydon of Columbia will appear for the hearing. I will appreciate it if you will look after the introductions of these gentlemen, and especially Mr. McLeod from this office. With kind personal regards, I am, T. C. CALLISON, Attorney General. TUSKEGEE, ALA., February 19, 1957. Congressman ADAM C. POWELL, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. No board of registrar appointed as of this date for Macon County, Ala. DANIEL L. BEASLEY, INFORMATION ABOUT MACON COUNTY, TUSKEGEE, ALA. Macon County has been without a board of registrars for more than 365 days; in fact, since January 16, 1956. The Governor stated on March 22, 1956, that he was unable to get anyone to serve (meaning white persons), but since that time he has received signed statements from Henry F. Faucett, Charles M. Keever, and Bernard Kohn that they were willing to serve if appointed. All of these men are white. Macon County has a population of over 27,500 Negroes and less than 5,000 white people. There are approximately 3,000 whites on the voters' list and 1,000 Negroes. There are many well-trained citizens here in this county who desire to register and vote, but we have no board of registrars. Mr. D. L. BEASLEY, Tuskegee Institute, Ala. DANIEL L. BEASLEY, A Citizen of Macon County. STATE OF ALABAMA, GOVERNOR'S OFFICE, Montgomery, February 6, 1957. DEAR MR. BEASLEY: I have received your letter of February 4, regarding the Macon County Board of Registrars. I have been working on this diligently for some time now and I hope in the very near future to have a functioning board in operation. Sincerely, JAMES E. FOLSOM, Governor. SUBMITTED BY CONGRESSMAN POWELL [From the Birmingham Post-Herald, February 8, 1957) (Extract from the Post-Herald account of testimony given by McDonald Gallion, chief assistant to Attorney General John Patterson of Alabama before the House Judiciary Subcommittee.) ** Gallion was asked whether vacancies existed on the Macon County Board of Registrars for a year as charged by the NAACP. He replied that vacancies did exist but only for a short time and registration now is taking place. STATEMENT PRESENTED BY WALTER P. REUTHER, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS, AIRCRAFT AND AGRICULTURE IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA INTERNATIONAL UNION This statement is in support and supplementation of the statement that was presented to your committee by Roy Wilkins for his organization and 25 other organizations participating in the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Because of our desire to cooperate with Chairman Hennings and other members of the committee in expediting hearings on civil-rights bills for the purpose of getting the earliest possible action on such legislation in both Houses, I am asking that this statement simply be presented and filed as part of the record of your hearings, together with the comprehensive UAW statement describing the vast and tragic need for FEPC and other civil-rights legislation which we presented to a House Committee on July 27, 1955. The statement we presented then is substantially accurate and valid today. For that reason we request that it be made part of the record of the present hearings. To it we would add the following to bring the record, as we see it, up to date: Since July 1955 some States, cities and towns, and many unions, including our own, have continued to make progress in establishing civil rights for all Americans, regardless of race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry. But, as was stated in our 1955 testimony, most progress has been made where the extent and severity of the discrimination have been less; least progress has been made where injustice is greatest. State and local governments have acted. The courts have acted in historic pioneering advances; the Federal executive branch has acted within limits that, in our opinion, are narrower than need be, namely, through work of the Federal Committee on Contract Compliance and in instituting or supporting court actions, though not in administrative actions that might have been taken to support the courts. Only Congress has failed to act. The do-nothing record is 2 years longer than it was when we presented our 1955 statement. Discrimination in employment, that had been reduced by President Roosevelt's wartime FEPC, has been evaded by Congress ever since the wartime FEPC was put to death in 1945 by the Russell rider on an appropriation bill. This rider was never voted upon on its merits by either House, but was forced through under the usual threat of filibuster against an entire bill. However, progress has been made in the sense that the American people have a keener and more widespread understanding of the reason for congressional inaction. They know the roadblock to civil-rights legislation is the filibuster, the denial of majority rule. Because they have a better understanding of how and why majority rule is blocked in the Senate, the prospect for meaningful civil-rights legislation being passed by both the House and Senate and signed by the President seems better than in previous years-provided anti-civil-rights forces in both Houses can be defeated in their efforts to delay action again until late in the session when the filibuster can be used most effectively to kill legislation. While we continue to support and to underline the need for a permanent Federal FEPC with power of enforcement through the courts, we recognize the hard political fact that, because President Eisenhower and the Republican Party are on record in opposition to an effective Federal FEPC, enactment of such legislation at this time would be extremely difficult. A majority in each House, we believe, will vote for such a bill if given an opportunity to do so. However, the filibuster has to date blocked such a vote in the Senate. If only 33 of the 28 Republican and 27 Democratic Senators who voted January 4, 1957, to readopt the rule requiring 64 votes to break a filibuster either vote to continue a filibuster against an effective FEPC bill or, by being absent, in effect vote to keep the filibuster going, they will thereby veto the will the majority of the Senate and of the House. On the other hand, because the stripped-down civil-rights bill, H. R. 627, was passed by a bipartisan 2 to 1 majority in the House on July 23, 1956, and again has bipartisan support and has been endorsed by President Eisenhower, it would seem to have the best prospect of passage in both Houses. If Republicans will wholeheartedly support President Eisenhower on this issue, they can supply the votes in the Judiciary Committee to get this bill reported to the Senate calendar early enough to have a chance of passage. Republicans can, if they will, combine with liberal Democrats to get the 64 votes necessary to break a certain filibuster against that bill or any other civil-rights bill that carries any practical meaning for the millions of Americans who now suffer tragic and costly discrimination because of race, religion, color, national origin or ancestry. Because it shows how hard the fight has been and will be, we briefly review the chronology since the 1955 House Judiciary Committee hearing: Following the July 27, 1955 hearing, the civil-rights bills remained dormant for 8 months both in the House and Senate, partly because of southern opposition and partly because President Eisenhower and his Attorney General did not send to Congress their recommendations for civil-rights legislation. On April 9, 1956, 3 years, 3 month and 6 days after the convening of the 83d Congress, President Eisenhower and his Attorney General made their recommendations to the Congress. Committee action was stepped up in the House and Senate. In the ensuing weeks and months, civil-rights supporters in and out of Congress worked hard to get action on the stripped-down civil-rights bill in time for final passage before adjournment. But enemies of civil rights fought skillfully and successfully. In the House, despite a bipartisan group striving for early action, enemies of civil-rights legislation fought delaying actions at every step within the committee before the Rules Committee and after the bill was brought to the floor 2 weeks before adjournment. Although the final House vote on H. R. 627 had been set for July 20, opponents managed to delay that vote until the following Monday, July 23, 4 days before the adjournment of Congress. In the Senate, heroic efforts by a small bipartisan group, led by Senators Douglas, Lehman, and Hennings, to bring H. R. 627 to the Senate floor for vote before adjournment, were blocked by the threat of filibuster. This threat was cited by Majority Leader Johnson and Minority Leader Knowland. They said the threat was not merely against H. R. 627. It was pictured as a threat to filibuster that bill and other items of legislation, including the addition of disability coverage to the old-age and survivors' insurance title of the Social Security Act and the ap propriation of funds for the mutual security program. They were supported by a bipartisan vote of 76 to 6 against Douglas' effort to bring H. R. 627 to the Senate floor. Result: The stripped-down civil-rights bill, which had been passed by a 2 to 1 majority in the House and which certainly would have been passed by an overwhelming majority in the Senate, had it been allowed to come to a vote, died in a Senate Judiciary Committee pigeonhole with the adjournment of the 84th Congress at midnight, July 27. Civil rights supporters took the issue to both party conventions. The Democratic convention repeated earlier pledges to enact civil-rights legislation and to establish a majority rule in the Congress. The Republican Party repeated more limited pledges on civil-rights legislation, omitting FEPC, and refused to pledge action to establish majority rule at the start of the 85th Congress, holding that determining rules was the exclusive concern of Members of each House. At the opening of the 85th Congress, a strong bipartisan movement succeeded in increasing the number of Senators committed to the establishment of majority rule in the Senate at the start of the new Congress. The number nearly doubled, rising from the 1953 total of 21 to 41, seven votes less than the majority needed to adopt rules, including a new rule 22 that would break the veto power of the filibuster and substitute majority rule (38 Senators so voting; 3 others who were absent were so committed); a tle 48-48 vote could and would have been broken by Vice President Nixon's ruling, in line with his opinion that section 8 of rule 22 is unconstitutional. This recapitulation, we submit, is relevant to this hearing. It supports the recommendation that your committee speedily report out a bill identical with the bill reported to the House in 1956, assuming that early in 1957 it will again be reported to and passed by the House. The four essential features of such & bill were specifically enumerated and endorsed by President Eisenhower in his 1957 state of the Union message: (1) Creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate asserted violations of civil rights and to make recommendations; (2) Creation of a Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice in charge of an Assistant Attorney General; (3) Enactment by the Congress of new laws to aid in the enforcement of voting rights; and : (4) Amendment of the laws so as to permit the Federal Government to seek from the civil courts preventive relief in civil rights cases. If civil rights supporters in the House are successful in getting an early rule for floor consideration of such a bill, the House will pass the bill and get it to the Senate at an early date, and if your subcommittee will favorably report the same bill you and other Members of the 85th Congress who support this legislation will have done a great work in the cause of civil rights. You will have put the responsibility upon the Senate early enough in the session to provide the best possible set of circumstances for early and successful efforts to run the obstacle course erected by bitter enemies of civil rights in the Senate, both in committee and on the floor. Only final action by both Houses, transmission to the President, and his signature on a real civil rights bill along the lines of H. R. 627 will have genuine meaning in the daily lives of the many millions of Negroes and members of other minority groups who continue to suffer daily the discriminations based on race, religion, color, national origin, or ancestry. Ten long years ago, President Truman's Committee on Civil Rights published its findings in a report entitled "To Secure These Rights." That report concluded with a challenge: "The time for action is now." This challenge is still unmet by Congress. We believe the American people expect the 85th Congress to meet that challenge now, early in 1957, with civil rights legislation at least as meaningful as the stripped-down bill passed by the House and killed by Senate filibuster last year and now supported by bipartisan forces within and outside the Congress. The cost of another failure would be incalculably worse, economically and politically, both within our country and in its effect upon our standing among the nations of the world. The reward for success will be vast, inside and outside our country. The time for action is now. STATEMENT BY FRANCIS C. SHANE, EXECUTIVE SECREtary, CommiTTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS, UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA The speedy consideration which the 85th Congress has given to civil rights legislation has made possible the early enactment of legislation in this area for the first time in over 80 years. Bipartisan action by the members of both House and Senate Judiciary Committees has made the current hearings possible and it is conclusive proof that the members of the legislative branch of the Federal Government are fully aware of the intense public feeling which has developed in support of the enactment of legislative guaranties which will protect the civil rights of all the people who live within the boundaries of our country. The United Steelworkers of America takes this opportunity to add its testimony to that of other groups and individuals who are genuinely concerned with the protection of our constitutional rights and the strengthening of the democratic processes which have carried us to our position of leadership among the free nations of the world. We believe that it is the immediate business of the 85th Congress to enact civil rights legislation which will make meaningful not only the decisions of the United States Supreme Court outlawing segregation but all of the basic rights which are guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. There is no justification for further delay. Both great political parties pledged themselves in the 1956 campaign to work for the elimination and discrimination of all kinds and to provide for the fair and equal treatment of all regardless of their race, color, religion, or nationality. The President of the United States has reaffirmed his campaign pledges by urging Congress to enact a four-part civil rights program, which at best represents only a minimum of what is actually needed. While we fully endorse each part of the President's program, our endorsement is not to be construed as accepting this "minimum program" as a substitute for the comprehensive civil rights program which we believe must be enacted if all our preachments about democracy and freedom are to become meaningful to all Americans. But, the passage of this program, inadequate though it is, will clear the way for the consideration of other measures which will extend our basic civil rights. |