STATEMENT OF GEORGE WEAVER, CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION, CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS, WASHNGTON, D. C.

Mr. WEAVER. With the exception that I would like to make a few remarks.

The CHAIRMAN. I see it is a brief statement. Go ahead and read it. Mr. WEAVER. In behalf of the CIO, I wish to record vigorous opposition to the passage of Senate Joint Resolution 191, which would authorize interstate compacts allowing the establishment of segregated regional universities. This position is not based on a desire to curb the growth or the improvement of educational opportunities in the South, but is against the dishonest attempt, openly arrived at, to evade the mandate of the United States Supreme Court in the Gaines and Sipuel cases.

In the Gaines decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that

if a State furnishes higher education to white residents, it is bound to furnish within the State, substantially equal advantages to Negro students.

Clearly, the purpose of Senate Joint Resolution 191 is to substitute segregated regional schools for Negroes in the hope of avoiding the constitutional responsibilities of the States to provide equal educational opportunities to all of its citizens, regardless of race, color, or creed, within the confines of the State.

Study after study has conclusively demonstrated that educational facilities for Negroes in segregated areas are inferior to those provided for whites-whether one considers the physical facilities, enrollment, over-all costs for students, teachers' salaries, transportation facilities, availability of secondary schools, or opportunities for undergraduate study. The consequences of segregation are always the same, and always adverse to the Negro citizen.

The President's Committee on Civil Rights in considering segregation came to the conclusion that—

The separate but equal doctrine stands convicted on three grounds: it contravenes the equalitarian spirit of the American heritage; it has failed to operate, for history shows that inequality of service has been the omnipresent consequence of separation; it has institutionalized segregation and has kept groups apart despite indisputable evidence that normal contacts among these groups tend to promote social harmony.

The report of the President's Commission on Higher Education concluded

that there will be no fundamental correction of the total condition until segregation legislation is repealed.

In the face of this overwhelming evidence that segregation as a policy has failed, the effect of Resolution 191 is to ask the Congress to legalize the substitution of local and State educational segregation to the regional level, in violation of the constitutional responsibilities of the States.

The adoption by Congress of this measure would serve to lengthen the gap between our stated ideals and what we actually practice, instead of checking, as we should, the moral dry rot that is eating away at the emotional and rational basis of our democratic beliefs. The acceptance by the Congress of this subterfuge would hasten this process.

Segregation of the races in educational institutions requires the maintenance of a double school system. This greatly increases the total educational costs for those States which demand the luxury of segregation. Therefore, a double system means a lessening of educational opportunity and a diminution of the quality of education for all. The more advanced the field of endeavor, the more wasteful and futile become attempts to justify a double system. It is a tragic paradox that the communities and the States which are least able economically to afford a double system are the ones most vociferous and persistent in demanding its continuation. Moreover, the waste in human resources as a result of this system represents a tragic loss to all of America. We as a Nation-what we lose in production, invention, citizenship, and leadership is beyond estimate. The unfortunate victims of this vicious paradox, who are today citizens of Mississippi or Georgia, tomorrow are citizens of Nebraska or Rhode Island. The United States can no longer afford this heavy drain upon its human wealth.

For these and many additional reasons, the Congress of Industrial Organizations opposes Senate Joint Resolution 191.

I would like to comment, on behalf of the CIO, that we feel this is a very important issue facing the Congress. We take a very practical point of view with respect to it. We do not set ourselves up as experts in the field of education, or experts in the field of law. But we have to meet the questions inherent in this resolution on a much more practical level-a good deal similar to the level on which you must meet it. We have a policy that is pretty generally recognized in this country, of equality within our organization. And we are striving, I think more successfully than most organizations, to guarantee that type of equality to our membership.

One of the most difficult angles of eliminating many of the injustices that flow from our segregated system, particularly in the South, is the example of the Federal Government.

We believe very strongly that the passage by Congress of this legislation would be recognized as an endorsement, an official Federal endorsement, of the segregation policy in the South. And this is not based on theory. This is based on actual practice.

The CHAIRMAN. I have just been informed that a vote is expected on the floor.

Mr. WEAVER. I can conclude in less than a minute.

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead.

Mr. WEAVER. During the days of the war-and I might point, I think, with a good deal of pardonable pride to our achievements in the war-there were only two cases in the record of the Federal Fair Employment Practice Commission where a CIO union was cited in a public hearing. We were able to work out most of our difficulties in private hearings.

But in one of those two cases, the example that was cited was the policy of discrimination in the United States armed forces, and it was interpreted as a Federal Government sanction of the theory of segregation and separation of the races.

So this resolution represents a very practical matter to us, and we feel it would be highly dangerous in this period for the Congress to pass it and endorse it."

The CHAIRMAN. We want to thank all of the witnesses who have appeared for the proponents as well as for the opponents.

The Senator from Wisconsin has gotten a lot of information that he never had before.

You can be sure that the committee will give this matter earnest consideration. And for the time being, the meeting will be adjourned. (Whereupon, at 1:30 p. m., hearing on the above-entitled matter was adjourned.)

Subsequent to the hearings, the following statements were filed with the subcommittee and were ordered to be placed in the record:) WASHINGTON, D. C., March 16, 1948.

Senator ALEXANDER WILEY,

Senate Judiciary Committee,

Senate office Building, Washington, D. C.:

Since I was unable to appear on behalf of the National Farmers Union in the March 12 and 13 hearings of your committee due to transportation difficulties I should appreciate it very much if you would have this telegram appear in the record of those hearings on Senate Joint Resolution 191. Our organization is very much opposed to Federal encouragement of interstate compacts establishing segregated regional universities. Indeed we regard this proposal as unconstitutional and a direct evasion of clear ruling of the Supreme Court. We therefore hope that bill and its component H. R. 334 will be permanently tabled. RUSSELL SMITH,

Legislative Secretary, National Farmers Union.

STATEMENT FILED BY WALTER J. MASON, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR BEFORE JOINT JUDICIARY COMMITTEE OF THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF RERESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, ON MARCH 13, 1948

This statement will express briefly the views of the American Federation of Labor with respect to Senate Joint Resolution 191, giving the consent of Congress to the compact on regional education entered into between the Southern States at Tallahassee, Fla., on February 8, 1948.

The American Federation of Labor is firmly opposed to the enactment of Senate Joint Resolution 191, or any other legislative measure which would relieve the States of their responsibility to provide equal educational opportunities for all. The American Federation of Labor believes that our ideals and institutions require that every individual should have equal educational opportunity and to implement this right we have consistently sought to extend, improve, and enrich educational provisions available in tax-supported institutions, free alike to all children, irrespective of creed, race, or nationality. We believe, furthermore, that the establishment of institutions for higher education and training for the professions should be decided by the citizens of a State, with the obligation to provide equally for all individuals.

We believe justice requires equal educational opportunities for all youth because the consequences of educational disparities result in handicaps for life. Any proposal to shift from the community responsibility is an unwise move, as it takes decisions to more remote determination where moral responsibility, and the consequences of decisions are not directly related.

We believe that decisions on educational opportunities provided by public funds should be in the hands of citizens of the community. Special regional or national facilities may be desirable and highly beneficial, but should be supported by private funds.

While provision for regional institutions for professional training may now seem economical to southern statesmen, at the best it would be only temporary and unsatisfactory. It would involve higher travel and probably higher living expenses for students. As good educational opportunity below the college level becomes freely available to negro children of these States, demand for higher education will increase proportionately. Even should this regional policy be established, it will not be satisfactory or permanently adequate. There will be

no escape for any State from one of its primary duties-the provision of adequate educational opportunities satisfactory to its citizens. It is more economical as well as sounder policy for each State to accept its responsibility as developed under our institutions and affirmed by the United States Supreme Court-and plan to equalize educational opportunities for all.

STATEMENT OF THE FAIR PRACTICES AND ANTIDISCRIMINATION DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT, AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW-CIO) IN OPPOSITION TO SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 191 AND HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 334 SUBMITTED TO UNITED STATES SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

The Federal Government has a clear responsibility to aid education. But that responsibility cannot be met by perpetuating old and unjust patterns of segregation and denial of equal opportunity.

Senate Resolution 191 and House Resolution 334, which would authorize the collusion of the several Southern States in the establishment of a university for the segregated graduate training of Negro students, lend the authority and prestige of the Federal Government to a pattern of segregation and exclusion which has meant, for the whole Nation, an incalculable loss in human skills which might have been brought to bear on our common problems.

These resolutions serve no constructive educational purpose. They merely transfer the evil of segregated educational facilities from the State to the regional level. They are a clear defiance of the Fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, which declares that no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The United States Supreme Court has ruled in the Gaines case, that the State of Missouri, under the Fourteenth amendment, was obligated to provide—within its borders-graduate school facilities and instruction for qualified Negro applicants equal to those offered white students. Resolutions 191 and 334 fly in the face of that precedent.

These same resolutions are, moreover, in clear defiance of the findings and recommendations of the President's Committee on Civil Rights. That Committee has called for "the elimination of segregation based on race, color, creed, or national origin, from American life."

The Committee has also called for "enactment by the State legislatures of fair educational practice laws for public and private educational institutions, prohibiting discrimination in the admission and treatment of students based on race, color, creed or national origin."

The Committee found that "it is the South's segregated school system which most directly discriminates against the Negro," and it bluntly brands the "separate but equal" policy a failure.

"With respect to education," the Committee's report states, "the Committee believes that the 'separate but equal' rule has not been obeyed in practice. There is a marked difference in equality between the educational opportunities offered white children and Negro children in the separate schools."

"Whatever test is used," the report continues, "-expenditure per pupil, teachers' salaries, the number of pupils per teacher, transportation of students, adequacy of school buildings and educational equipment, length of school term, extent of curriculum-Negro students are invariably at a disadvantage."

"Opportunities for Negroes in public institutions of higher education in the South-particularly at the professional graduate school level-are severely limited," the report states.

The Committee presents a wealth of statistics to support these conclusions. The same conclusions are drawn in the report of the resident's Commission on Higher Education. The Commision report states: "Although segregation may not legally mean discrimination as to the quality of the facilities it usually does so in fact. The schools maintained for the Negroes are commonly much inferior to those for the whites. The Negro schools are financed at a pitifully low level, they are often housed in buildings wholly inadequate for the purpose, and many of the teachers are sorely in need of more education themselves. Library facilities are generally poor or lacking altogether, and professional supervision is more a name than a reality."

The Commission found further that "segregation lessens the quality of education for the whites as well."

"To maintain two school systems side by side," the report continues, "means that neither can be of the quality that would be possible if all the available resources were devoted to one system, especially not when the States least able financially to support an adequate educational program for their youth are the very ones that are trying to carry a double load."

And the Commission concludes that "there will be no fundamental correction of the total condition until segregation legislation is repealed."

Resolutions 191 and 334 do not take cognizance of that fact. They offer Federal sanction to a sectional effort to evade constitutional and moral responsibility, to the detriment of the entire national community.

The South's dilemma becomes more acute each day. With less wealth than other sections of the country and more children than in other areas, the South is attempting the impossible in maintaining two educational systems. It cannot even afford to maintain one at adequate levels of instruction and physical accommodations.

Meanwhile, pressures intensify within the South and throughout the nation for abandonment of segregation and discrimination. These discredited practices have become an intolerable burden; they keep us from economic health and social cohesion here at home; they give the lie to our professions of democratic leadership abroad. Both North and South, the American people are becoming aroused to the tragic consequences of continuing to tolerate this gap between our beliefs and our customs.

The South cannot extricate itself from this dilemma bv legal subterfuge. The separate but equal fallacy will continue to plague Southern education if Resolutions 191 and 334 are adopted, for these resolutions merely permit Southern States to flout Federal law and perpetuate regional abuses.

The real solution to the South's-and the Nation's-dilemma in this matter is twofold: (1) Qualified Negro applicants must be admitted to existing schools of higher learning on a basis of complete equality; (2) The Federal Government must initiate a comprehensive program for financial aid to education which will enable all States to maintain educational facilities adequate to the needs of all children, whatever their race, creed, color, sex, or national origin.

CHARLOTTE, N. C., March 25, 1948.

Hon. ALEXANDER WILEY,

Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: I am a graduate of Meharry Medical College in Nashville. I have practiced medicine in North Carolina for more than a quarter of a century. I have had the honor of serving as the president of the Old North State Medical Society. In 1945 I was a member of the North Carolina Commission on Hospital and Medical Care and chairman of its section on special health needs of the Negroes in North Carolina.

I am opposed to the bill, before your committee which, if made into law, would give a group of Southern States the right to cooperatively establish regional schools for Negroes, because this bill is only an attempt to circumnavigate the recent Supreme Court decisions requiring States to provide equal educational opportunities for all of their citizens. Furthermore, if regional schools are established for Negroes, segregation and its twin, evil discrimination, will be more firmly fastened upon the educational system of the South.

The record of the dual educational system in the South is a history of rank discrimination. Every community or State, which has established two educational facilities-one for Negroes and one for whites, has given the Negro an inferior facility. Check the dual system in any State, town, village, or hamlet in the South and this fact will stand out in bold relief. The facility provided for Negroes is always inferior.

Sir, this is why segregation and discrimination have come to mean one and the same to my people. Liberal people of all races in both the North and the South know that a segregated facility for Negroes means an inferior facility. Thus, today in the South the liberal thinkers favor removing segregation from education gradually. In January of this year the United States Supreme Court directed the State of Oklahoma to furnish equal law school facilities to a Negro -applicant on the same basis as they are provided for white students. On March