munity have been brought to bear against the union campaign. Workers see their infant labor organization strangled without Federal intervention. The Labor Board's findings that the employer violated the law comes after the union has died and withered away. The decision against the employer is a postmortem. The Darlington (S. C.) case

The law's inability to cope with the southern textile situation is illustrated by the following very recent event:

On September 6, 1956, we managed to win our first NLRB election in southern textiles in more than a year of intensive organizing efforts. Involved were the approximately 530 employees of the Darlington Manufacturing Co., Darlington, S. C., one of the plants in the Deering, Milliken & Co., Inc., chain. This is a profitable mill which was in the midst of an extensive modernization program at the time of the election. Six days later the board of directors of the company, headed by Roger Milliken, president of Deering, Milliken & Co., Inc., passed a resolution to close and liquidate the plant. During the course of the meeting, Mr. Milliken stated that he would not operate the mill as long as there was a hard core of union sympathizers in the plant. The mill was closed and its machinery and equipment sold on December 12 and 13, 1956.

We filed charges with the NLRB and appealed to the General Counsel of the NLRB to obtain an injunction preventing the company from selling the plant and executing its illegal plans to a point where it would be impossible to fashion effective relief. The General Counsel refused. Thereafter, he issued a complaint against the Darlington Manufacturing Co. The case is now being heard by an NLRB trial examiner. The General Counsel is asking only that the Darlington Manufacturing Co. pay back pay to its workers from the date of discharge to the actual sale of the plant, a matter of a few months, at best. No attempt was made or is being made to compel the employer to undo the disastrous effects of his patently illegal behavior. We asked the General Counsel to proceed against Deering, Milliken & Co., Inc., so that an order might issue compelling Deering, Milliken & Co., Inc., to offer reinstatement or preferential hiring to the Darlington workers at its neighboring plants in South Carolina. This, the General Counsel of the NLRB refused to do.

The Darlington case is but a single example of many similar tragedies throughout the South. These situations are eloquent proof of the inability of the TaftHartley Act to fulfill its declared purpose to encourage collective bargaining.

III. OTHER INSTANCES OF SUPPRESSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES

The southern textile employer also uses less violent but equally effective means of suppressing civil liberties. These include passage of unconstitutional local laws prohibiting or severely restricting union activities, surveillance of union activities, and denial to the union of means of communication.

A. Restrictive local laws

Our efforts to organize the Limestone Mills of M. Lowenstein & Sons, Inc., also included an attempt to organize another Lowenstein mill a short distance away in Lyman, S. C. On June 7, 1956, a number of union organizers parked their car on a public highway a short distance from the gates of the Lyman, S. C., division of M. Lowenstein & Sons, Inc. They planned to distribute leaflets to workers coming out of the plant. No sooner had they alighted from their cars than they were met by town policemen who threatened them with arrest and prosecution if they distributed leaflets. The policemen relied on a recently enacted town ordinance which absolutely prohibited the distribution of literature in public places or door-to-door solicitation.

The union appealed to the Department of Justice and pointed out that the wrongdoers were public officials and that this type of ordinance had been declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. The Justice Department refused to act. It assigned as its reason the fact that this very ordinance had not been declared unconstitutional and that in accordance with the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Screws v. United States (325 U. S. 91), it could not, under existing law, successfully prosecute either the town officials who enacted the ordinance or the policemen who attempted to enforce it. A further unconstitutional impediment to organizing is municipal ordinances which require union representatives to secure a license from local officials and pay prohibitive fees before they can organize employees. Failure to comply

with these ordinances is made a criminal offense.

The unions have attacked the constitutionality of these ordinances in court and, after years of protracted litigation, have succeeded in having some of them declared unconstitutional. While these attacks are in progress, however, union organization is frustrated and constitutional rights denied. We describe below two such recent cases.

An ordinance of the city of Carrollton, Ga., required union organizers to pay $1,000 to obtain a license and $100 for each day that union activity was carried on. An organizer of the International Union of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, sought to organize the employees of two local concerns. He did not secure a license before beginning the organizational activity. As a result, a criminal action was brought against him which he sought to have enjoined in a Federal court (Denton v. City of Carrollton, 132 F. Supp. 302).

The ordinance was attacked as an unconstitutional deprivation of the right of free speech, public assembly, and dissemination of lawful information as well as on other grounds. The action sought a stay of the criminal proceedings in the State court. The Federal district court found that it had jurisdiction but it declined to exercise its jurisdiction for two reasons: First, because of its interpretation of a Federal statute which prevents a court of the United States from granting an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court; and second, because the case was wanting in equity for failure to show great and immediate danger of irreparable injury. The court did not consider a denial of freedom of speech, press, and assembly sufficient ground for equitable relief.

The union appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. A majority of this court reversed the district court's decision. It examined the "exaction euphemistically called a license tax, but which in its cumulative effect is exorbitant and punitive." It held that the license tax of $1,000, while large, would not alone, even if its legality were doubtful, present a case for equitable relief, but that when the additional sum of $100 for each day's activity by a "labor union organizer" is added, the payment of such a sum as a condition to testing the validity of the exaction presents a heavy burden and that to decline equitable relief in this instance would be to deny judicial review altogether (Denton v. City of Carrollton, 235 F. 2d 481). Needless to say, the organizing campaign suffered irreparable harm during the pending of this litigation.

The city of Baxley, Ga., is another southern town which has a union licensing ordinance. Its ordinance requires union organizers to pay $2,000 for a license and $500 for each member obtained. In 1954, two women organizers employed by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, AFL-CIO, attempted to organize some of the workers in the city of Baxley. They did not apply for a license and were convicted of violation of the ordinance and sentenced to 30 days or a $300 fine. After the organizers were served with a summons for violating the ordinance, they instituted an action in the State court requesting that the ordinance be declared unconstitutional and that the enforcement of the ordinance be stayed. The lower State court dismissed the action and the dismissal was affirmed by the Georgia supreme court. The upper court held that the unconstitutionality of the ordinance could be asserted as a defense to the criminal proceeding. Said the court: "If the ordinance is invalid, by reason of its unconstitutionality, or for any other cause, such invalidity would be a complete defense to any prosecution that may be instituted for its violation" (Staub v. Mayor of Barley, 211 Ga. 1, 838, S. E. 2d 606, 608).

As directed by the court, the organizers raised the constitutional question before the criminal court. Their plea was denied. The Federal questions were again raised on appeal from the judgment of conviction. The appeals court dismissed the appeal without considering the merits. It held that the appeal was improper because the appeal bond had been filed with the wrong city official. It so held despite a clear showing that this had been brought about by knowing misrepresentations of the city's officials. On appeal from this determination, the Georgia Court of Appeals held that the bond had been "properly approved and certified" and directed that the case "be returned to the superior court for decision on its merits" (Staub v. Baxley, 91 Ga. App. 650, 86 S. E. 2d 712, 715). On retrial on the merits, the Supreme Court of Georgia held the ordinance valid and affirmed the conviction. On the second appeal to the Georgia Court of Appeals, that court declined to consider the merits, holding that the constitutional attack had been improperly framed because only specific sections of the ordinance had been attacked and not the ordinance as a whole and because the organizers were required to make an effort to secure a license before they could attack the ordinance (Staub v. City of Barley, 94 Ga. App. 18, 935, E. 2d 375). No con

tention of this character had been advanced by the city at any time. The case has been appealed to the United States Supreme Court (probable jurisdiction noted January 14, 1957, 1 L. ed. 2d 319).

The union has been compelled to suspend organizing until the decision of the United States Supreme Court. It is highly unlikely that prounion sentiment among the workers will survive the legal contest.

IV. CIVIL RIGHTS STATUTES INADEQUATE

The existing Federal civil rights statutes fail to provide any relief against the civil rights fiasco engineered by southern textile employers. If the exercise and enjoyment of constitutional rights, privileges, and immunities are to be secured, it is necessary that additional legislation embodying both substantive and procedural changes in the existing statutes be enacted. These statutory additions should effect both the civil and criminal rights and remedies presently available. It is not enough to broaden enforcement of existing statutes by equitable intervention as the Dirksen bill, S. 83, appears to do. This is not to say that provisions for injunctive relief are undesirable. On the contrary, such relief provides a singularly proficient means of overcoming the almost insurmountable prejudice of local juries. Moreover, it introduces a preventive remedy in an area where locking the door after the horse has escaped is clearly unavailing.

However, additional powers of enforcement must be linked to additional rights to enforce in order for desirable results to be achieved. The Dirksen bill seeks to amend title 42, United States Code, section 1985, which provides, among other things, for a civil suit for damages for conspiracy to interfere with the right to equal protection of the laws. The United States Supreme Court has held this section inapplicable to interference by a person or group of persons with the constitutional rights of speech or assembly (Hardyman v. Collins, 341 U. S. 651). The Dirksen bill would not amend this statute to provide this protection. Instead, it provides for injunctive relief to redress the violation of presently inadequate statutory rights. It thus fails to afford relief for the fundamental constitutional rights of speech, press, and assembly. In this respect we support title XII of the Humphrey bill, S. 510, which provides this added substantive protection together with necessary remedial powers of enforcement. However, even the Humphrey bill fails to hold accountable persons who have knowledge that an interference with civil rights will occur and the power to prevent its occurrence, but who fail to exercise that power. This is a significant loophole, which, as has been demonstrated above, encourages and is directly responsible in many instances for civil rights infractions. We suggest that this bill be amended by adding thereto the following:

"Any person or persons who fail to prevent or to aid in preventing any of the wrongs described in this section which he or they had knowledge were about to occur and power to prevent it, shall be legally responsible to the same extent as the actual perpetrators."

Insofar as the remedy of injunction is concerned, we think that both the Dirksen and Humphrey bills could be strengthened. Both bills make permissive rather than mandatory an application by the Attorney General for injunctive relief. The preservation and protection of constitutional rights should be mandatory. In this respect, we call this committee's attention to the provisions of the Celler bill introduced in the House of Representatives which makes it the duty of the Attorney General to apply for such relief.

The Humphrey bill seeks also to strengthen the criminal side of the civil rights statutes (18 U. S. C. 241, 242). The Dirksen bill does not. These statutes are no less deficient than their civil counterparts and are in equal need of reinforcement.

However, the Humphrey bill appears to impose greater penalties for a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights than for an actual interference. There is no apparent reason for this distinction and both should be treated with equal severity. In addition, the criminal sanctions in Senator Humphrey's bill should be amended as described above to hold criminally accountable persons who have knowledge that an interference with civil rights will occur and the power to prevent its occurrence, but who fail to exercise that power.

The Humphrey bill also defines certain classes of civil rights that are protected by criminal penalties. We are in agreement with the listing but would add thereto specific protection for the rights of freedom of speech, press, and assembly. Thus, subsection 3 of the proposed section 242A of title 18, United States Code, should be amended to read as follows:

"The right to be immune from physical violence or the threat thereof applied to exact testimony or to compel confession of crime or alleged offenses or to interfere with or prevent the dissemination of views, ideas or opinions or the solicitation or recruitment of membership or support in a lawful organization or cause." We would also add a subsection 7 to read as follows:

"The right to freedom of speech, press, and assembly."

It is not enough to improve the wording of civil rights statutes. The effective administration and enforcement of such statutes is equally necessary. We, the efore, support the establishment of a separate Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice, staffed by an increased number of competent and experienced attorneys and headed by an attorney of outstanding ability who has demonstrated not only technical expertise but also an impartial and nonpartisan devotion to the protection of civil rights. We also support the establishment of a Commission on Civil Rights, adequately staffed and equipped to exercise a continuous and effective surveillance of this problem.

CONCLUSION

The evidence summarized herein, illuminates a field where collective bargaining has not been accepted, where unions are struggling to emerge or maintain life, where employers utilize any means, including violence, to stamp out the early fragile unions and to crush those unions which have taken the first steps towards maturity, where whole communities are mobilized against the right to organize and to exercise the constitutional freedoms of speech, press, and assembly, where employers play hide and seek with a hesitant Federal administrative agency charged with the responsibility of clearing away obstructions to the rights of employees to organize and maintain unions.

Southern textiles represent an outrageously clear example of the need for corrective legislation to secure constitutionally guaranteed civil rights.

STATEMENT BY EARL W. JIMERSON AND PATRICK E. GORMAN, PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY-TREASURER, AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS AND BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH AMERICA (AFL-CIO)

The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL-CIO, has a membership of more than 325,000 men and women of many races, religions, creeds, and national origins. They reside in every State of the Union, Alaska, and Canada. The AMCBW has more than 500 affiliated local unions. It and the locals have contracts with thousands of employers in the meat, retail, poultry, egg, canning, leather, fish processing, and fur industries. Since the AMCBW was first organized in 1896, members have sworn “to keep inviolate the traditions of the trade union movement, namely, never to discriminate against a fellow worker because of creed, color, or nationality." This is part of the membership oath of our union. The swearing to this is the very first action a man or woman takes as a member.

The oath, Mr. Chairman, is symbolic of our union's concern about bigotry. To us, racial and religious intolerance and discrimination are not only an abominable evil. They are also a meaningful practical danger to our union and to its goal of improving the welfare of the workers in its industries.

Throughout our history, as throughout the history of all labor organizations, attempts have been made to create bitter racial and religious tensions in order to sap the strength or break the union. Today is no exception. The White Citizens' Councils, which attempt to incite white workers against their Negro fellow workers, are often led by men who are in the forefront of the drives to do harm to the living standards of both.

We mention this to show that organized bigotry is not a means of defending a tradition and a way of life, as we are told, but often a cruel, unhuman means toward a very selfish and materialistic end. Intolerance and bigotry are used to drive down the wages and other economic gains, not only of the group discriminated against but almost equally of the group which has been incited to do and is doing the discriminating.

In our many industries we have found that the harmony which comes from the recognition of the equal worth and dignity of all men is beneficial to the individuals, their groups, the union, the industry, and the community. An example of this is Seabrook Farm, a giant corporation farm and food-processing firm in New Jersey, which our union has had organized for over 15 years. Here a poten

tial tinderbox of hatreds once existed, but today 3 races and some 19 nationalities work harmoniously together. The meat-packing industry is another example. There bigotry was in past decades incited for selfish ends, but that terrible page of history is irrevocably turned to the immense benefit of all.

In these instances the work against bigotry were largely nongovernmental actions. It was the work of the union, community leaders, and sometimes management. Such activity is good and lasting. Many argue it accomplishes more than legislation. Perhaps so, but just as legislation and governmental actions have their limits so has the activity of individuals and nongovernmental groups. For example, organizations, including ours, can do nothing or very little to guarantee a man the right to vote, or to assure the protection of his person and property, or to guarantee that his race or religion will not deny him a job, or to assure he will not suffer the indignity of a Jim Crow school, bus, or train. That requires governmental action.

Because we recognize the need for both approaches, we appeal to this committee to further the cause of human right and dignity by approving legisla tion which will permit the Federal Government to play its rightful and necessary role in civil rights. The AMCBW strongly urges that this committee speedily approve the President's recommendations contained in S. 83.

We believe, as other groups have stated they believe, that the President's proposals are a basic minimum. They are good as far as they go, but they, unfortunately, do not do enough.

We believe other bills, S. 427, S. 428, S. 429, and S. 468, will meet a much larger need in the civil-rights field. We urge this subcommittee to consider at its earliest opportunity the additional protections provided by these measures.

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST
IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

New York, N. Y.

To the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights: My name is Ralph M. Arkush. I am the recording secretary of the general board of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. The council is constituted by 30 Protestant, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox communions, with a total membership of 35 million. The general board is the governing body of the national council between the triennial meetings of the assembly.

On October 5, 1955, the general board adopted the following statement of policy:

"Religious liberty and, indeed, religious faith are basic both historically and philosophically to all our liberties.

"The National Council of Churches holds the first clause of the first amend ment to the Constitution of the United States to mean that church and state shall be separate and independent as institutions, but to imply neither that the state is indifferent to religious interests nor that the church is indifferent to civic and political issues.

"The National Council of Churches defends the rights and liberties of cultural, racial, and religious minorities. The insecurity of one menaces the security of all. Christians must be especially sensitive to the oppression of minorities. "The exercise of both rights and liberties is subject to considerations of morality and to the maintenance of public order and of individual and collective security. "Religious and civil liberties are interdependent and therefore indivisible. "The National Council of Churches urges the churches, because of their concern for all human welfare, to resist every threat to freedom."

The third paragraph, pledging the council to the defense of the rights and liberties of minorities, is relevant in the Senate's consideration of proposed civil-rights legislation, and the entire pronouncement is my warrant for calling it to the attention of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights.

Let me quote also a relevant paragraph from a series of resolutions adopted by the general board on December 1, 1955:

"The national welfare and the effectiveness of America's witness for freedom in the world community are so critically influenced and conditioned by our behavior in the race situation that we urge all agencies of government-local, State, and Federal-to resist the temptation to allow possible partisan political advantage to inhibit them from the responsible and courageous maintenance of human rights and the furtherance of justice."