There is no attempt in the proposed bills to legislate prejudice out of existence. But what we can do is to legislate the manifestations of this prejudice out of existence. We are not attempting herein to outlaw prejudice; we are attempting to outlaw lawlessness. There is not a provision in H. R. 4682 which can be called unreasonable or arbitrary. It creates no new rights; it only secures existing ones. It closes gaps and cuts into the heart of the relevant statutes to reveal fully the congressional intent. For example, in the establishment within the FBI of a special unit of investigators trained in civil rights work and in the reorganization of the civil rights section of the Department of Justice, no radical departure is made. The FBI is already charged with the responsibility of enforcing Federal law which includes the already existing civil rights statutes. A civil rights section of the Department of Justice already exists. If these functions are to exist, why should they not be performed in the most effective way? The outlines exist and if we found the outlines a pertinent part of our national machine, why do we not give them substance?

And so it is with the existing statutes, sections 241 and 242 of title 18 of the United States Code, and with the amendment to section 594 of title 18 and section 2004 of he Revised Statutes. If reason at all exists for their being on our books, then sufficient reason exists for giving them meaning and strength.

And finally, I ask this committee to remember we are concerned with human beings, and that nobody, no group, no faction, no sect, has the moral right to play God and arrogate unto himself or themselves the meting out of the reward, privileges, or immunities based on color, race, creed, or national origin.

You have before you, as well, gentlemen, the consideration of H. R. 4683, a bill to provide protection of persons from lynching and for other purposes. This proposed antilynching act defines that a lynching may be committed by an assemblage of two or more persons. It is directed against two general types of lynch mob violence, namely, that committed or attempted because of the race, color, religion, or national origin of the intended victim, or that attempted or committed by way of correction of punishment of the victim who is either in the custody of a peace officer or suspected of or charged with or convicted of a criminal offense.

The bill provides for the punishment of any member of a lynch mob, as well as a person who instigates, incites, organizes, or abets in the commission of a lynching. The penalties provided are graded according to the seriousness of the offense and range from a fine of $1,000 to $10,000 or imprisonment from 1 year to 20 years, or both. It also provides for the punishment of peace officers who neglect, refuse, or willfully fail to make diligent efforts to prevent a lynching or to protect a person from a lynching mob. It also provides punishment for the peace officer who willfully fails to make diligent efforts to apprehend and to retain in custody the members of a lynching mob. The coverage of this particular section extends both to State and municipal peace officers, as well as Federal peace officers where the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction. Another section amends the present kidnaping law so as to make punishable the transportation, in interstate or foreign commerce, of persons abducted or held because of race, color, religion, or national origin, or for the

purposes of punishment, correction, or intimidation. In 1937 and again in 1940, an antilynching bill passed the House and was reported in the Senate. In the Eightieth Congress, H. R. 5673 was reported by this committee.

No year since 1882 has been free of lynching; 1949 was no different. The flagrant incident at Irwinton, Ga., where a Negro was taken out of jail and shot to death, is only too familiar in detail. Yes, it has been said that lynchings have decreased, but it is still possible for a mob to abduct and murder a person in some sections of the country with almost certain assurance of escaping punishment for the crime. The decade from 1936 to 1946 saw at least 43 lynchings. No person received the death penalty, and the majority of the guilty persons were not even punished. The reasons for this are quite obvious. The State and local governments refuse to punish lynchers. Participation by State officials, actively or passively is not uncommon. Local government and citizens refuse to cooperate. There were over 200 attempted lynchings in the past decade, which is a clear indication of how far this idea of lawlessness has spread. There is no moral will in these communities to view these lynchings as violations of the law. It is a terrorist device and, as such, clearly against the Constitution of the United States: Article 4, section 4 of the Constitution states, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of government * * "A lynching is government by mob and not government by law; it invalidates the courts, the very cornerstone of government, and nullifies the law. Those who hold a Federal antilynching law is unconstitutional are using the veil of the Constitution to protect and uphold unconstitutionality.

This bill is within the ambit of the fourteenth amendment which reads:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I draw attention to the fact that the antilynching bill as heretofore passed by the Congress was far more drastic than the bill I offered and which is before you. You may remember among the drastic provisions contained in those former antilynching bills passed by the House there were provisions which bore heavily against the various counties and municipalities where a lynching occurred. The people of those communities were made responsible for money damages. I think that was rather harsh and I opposed those provisions at the time the various antilynching bills came before this committee because it is like visiting the sins of a few upon the many.

The bill before you contains no such drastic provisions.

Mr. KEATING. You are opposed to any provisions allowing compensation to the victims of lynching or to their families?

Mr. CELLER. No; I am not opposed to that. I am opposed to the compensation being drawn from persons who may be utterly innocent. In other words, I am opposed to having the county made responsible in the sense that the county must pay because that means that money must be obtained by taxation and innocent people have to suffer. Mr. KEATING. If the officials of the county, due to their failure to act, bring about or cause the lynching or permit it to occur, why should there not be liability upon that community for their action?

Mr. CELLER. I make the individuals who are negligent, who are guilty of malfeasance, suffer

Mr. KEATING. In most cases that would be no recompense to the injured or his family.

Mr. CELLER. Not necessarily. However, I feel the guilt must always be personal. I do not think guilt of the few should be visited on the many. I think from a practical, realistic angle, we would have a better chance of getting some action on a bill of this character than on a bill heretofore reported out by this committee and which passed the House, which involved collective or community sanctions.

Mr. KEATING. All of those bills, as I recall it, including the one favorably reported by the committee last year, did contain a provision for compensation to the victims of lynching or their families. Am I mistaken?

Mr. CELLER. That is true. This is a departure from that procedure and the bill I have offered follows recommendations made by the administration. It follows to the letter. The administration feels that those provisions which punish a whole political unit and which were contained in those bills passed by us heretofore should be deleted. Mr. JENNINGS. You say this is the administration bill?

Mr. CELLER. Yes, sir; this is offered by myself here and by Senator McGrath in the Senate and an exact bill was offered by Senator Ferguson which already has the approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mr. KEATING. The Ferguson bill in the Senate is a duplicate of your antilynching bill here?

Mr. CELLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KEATING. In just this form it has been favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee?

Mr. CELLER. Substantially so. There may be some slight variance. In his message to Congress on February 2, 1948, the President stated the case most clearly:

The Federal Government has a clear duty to see that constitutional guaranties of individual liberties and of equal protection under the laws are not denied or abridged anywhere in our Union. That duty is shared by all three branches of the Government, but it can be fulfilled only if the Congress enacts modern, comprehensive civil-rights laws, adequate to the needs of the day, and demonstrating our continuing faith in the free way of life.

H. R. 4682 and H. R. 4683 are administration bills, but they are by no means partisan. I ask your most favorable consideration of these measures, gentlemen, and to exercise justly your responsibility to enact such legislation as will really and truly make this country as free and as fearless as are the words of the preamble to our Constitution.

Mr. BYRNE. We are very thankful for your contribution.

Mr. KEATING. May I ask, Mr. Chairman, whether in the Senate there has been any hearing or other action taken on the parallel measure to H. R. 4682?

Mr. CELLER. H. R. 4682 is what we call the basket civil-rights bill. That has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee but, as far as I know, no action has been taken. I do not know that any hearings have been scheduled. I cannot answer that.

Mr. BYRNE. I will ask Congressman Keating to make his contribution to the committee.

STATEMENT OF HON. KENNETH B. KEATING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appear in support of antilynch legislation generally and specifically H. R. 443, which I introduced on the opening day of this session. This measure is identical with one which I offered in the last Congress. Mr. CELLER. May I interrupt you? To make assurance doubly sure, that what I said was accurate, I am having a check made as to Senator Ferguson's bill being exactly identical with mine. There may be some small deviations and, if there are, I will correct the record. Mr. BYRNE. That will be all right.

Mr. KEATING. This bill recites the undoubted fact and makes it a finding of the Congress that, notwithstanding the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, citizens of the United States and other persons have been denied the equal protection of the laws through mob violence, in many instances as the result of acts of omission on the part of State or local officials. The bill recites that these omissions on the part of State and local officials are not only contrary to the fourteenth amendment, but also to the law of Nations, which requires that every person be secure against violence to himself or his property by reason of his race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, language, or religion, and specifically contrary to article 55 of the Charter of the United Nations, which pledges the United States to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms.

This bill provides a punishment by fine of $10,000 or imprisonment not exceeding 20 years, or both, upon conviction of participation in a lynching, and goes on to prescribe a fine of $5,000 or imprisonment not exceding 5 years, or both, for any official found guilty of having wilfully failed to protect a person in his custody from lynching or to apprehend or prosecute the members of a lynch mob.

The measure further provides for compensation to the victim of a lynching or, if it results in his death, to his next of kin in an amount not less than $2,000 and not more than $10,000, to be determined in a court of law. To make this provision effective, it is stipulated that upon proper certification by the Attorney General of the United States the amount of such a judgment may be paid out of unapportioned funds in the Treasury of the United States and be deducted from the amounts payable to the State, where the violation occurred by reason of any of the many Federal grant-in-aid programs. It is believed that this provision will have a salutary effect in bringing the pressure of sovereign States to bear on local officials to wipe out this dark plot on the fair name of our great country.

Of the dozen bills which we have under consideration, H. R. 443 is the only one containing this provision to put real teeth into the legislative enactment granting monetary recompense to those who suffer at the hands of lynch mobs, or to their next of kin. Unless there is embodied in the legislation some such provision, I feel its purposes may be frustrated and rendered negatory.

The measure introduced by the chairman was designated as the administration's, and that bill is silent on that point. Most of the other bills which we are considering have provisions-in fact, I believe all of

them, except the administration measure-have provisions for compensation to victims of lynching. They provide, in general-H. R. 443 and the others which have been introduced-for the payment of usually a sum not less than $2,000 or not more than $10,000 as monetary compensation for injury or death to a victim of a lynch mob and provide that the governmental subdivision which is sought to be held liable may prove by a preponderance of the evidence as an affirmative defense that the officers charged with the duty of preserving the peace and the citizens of that community, when called by the officer, used all due diligence and all powers vested in them for the protection of the person lynched. If they are able to establish that, then they have a complete defense to the action. And they also contain this additional protective provision that the satisfaction of a judgment against one governmental subdivision shall bear any further proceedings against other governmental subdivisions.

In other words, it is the concensus of those who have introduced legislation that there should be some provision granting such monetary compensation under circumstances showing as they would appear to me to show, a complete lack of action on the part of a particular subdivision.

Now, I not only feel that any bill which we report favorably should contain such a provision, but I feel further that it should contain the precise provision contained in H. R. 443 and which is unique so far as this particular item is concerned.

My bill provides that upon proper certification by the Attorney General, that a judgment has been obtained against a particular municipality or county for failure to perform its duties, the amount of such a judgment may be paid out of unappropriated funds in the Treasury and be deducted from the amounts payable to the State where the violation occurred by reason of any of the many Federal grant-inaid programs. It is believed that this provision would have a salutary effect in bringing the pressure of sovereign States, the States themselves to bear on local officials to wipe out this blot on the fair name of our country.

In other words, that if such a provision were contained in legislation, it would mean that the State which would be liable to have a deduction from its grant-in-aid program would bring pressure upon the local officials to do their duty, the failure to do which had resulted in the incident giving rise to the liability.

It is well-known to lawyers that in any jurisdiction technical difficulties exist to the collection of a money judgment against a municipality or the State itself which are not present in the case of an established liability against an individual. Thus, oftentimes, in fact, so far as I am aware, without exception, it is necessary to bring a separate action in the nature of a mandamus proceeding to compel the legislative authorities of a city, town, or county to levy a tax to collect a judgment, unless they take such a step on their own initiative. In addition, I entertain the fear that those States which might be unsympathetic to this Federal legislation might pass laws or take administrative action which would render it even more difficult than it now is to turn the piece of paper which we call a judgment into cash in hand for the unfortunate victims of lynch mobs.

It is submitted that this provision to which I have referred will serve the useful purpose of insuring that the legislation is effective