Mr. MITCHELL. It is still true that it is impossible to get a divorce in the State of Carolina.

The abolition of discriminations in the matter of economic opportunity, of course, is basic. This committee is charged in that field alone. But that would be going a long distance toward erecting our Negro minority into full political and cultural citizenship, for much of the prejudice against Negroes, and the South is convinced, is founded on the low economic standards which Negroes are bound to suffer so long as they are systematically excluded from work opportunities, more particularly in the higher paid skilled employments. Senator CHAVEZ. Mr. Mitchell, doesn't that in addition affect the economic welfare of the white man's economy?

Mr. MITCHELL. Precisely. We are cutting off our noses to spite our faces when we perpetuate these discriminations against Negroes. Senator CHAVEZ. Wouldn't this be a correct assumption? The white merchant can certainly sell the Negro purchaser more if the Negro purchaser has something to buy with?

Mr. MITCHELL. Precisely.

And the point you mentioned earlier, Senator, should be recalled here; that is, that there is much prejudice in other parts of the country. For example, Negroes may not buy in the best department stores in Baltimore, Md., but a few miles to the South, in Richmond, Va.. there is no such distinction. Why? Because Negroes form so large a part of the population of Richmond that if the best department stores did not welcome these customers those stores could not exist. So, the South is really ahead of the rest of the country in some of these matters. Baltimore was battling to get Negro policemen appointed to its force long after certain southern sections had already employed Negroes on their police forces.

Now if we could remove this greatest disability under which Negroes live by national compulsion, it would do more than any one thing that I can think of to step forward not only the Negro population of the South, but the whole population of the South. It would do more than any other one thing to make us what we have not been completely since the Civil War parted America.

Senator CHAVEZ. That is what I had in mind a little while ago in reference to the national political picture prejudices that have no meaning but do exist. I have heard it stated by people of my own party that we can't elect a southerner below the Mason-Dixon line. I can't justify that myself if he is a good American or good citizen.

Mr. MITCHELL. I would like to mention one other feature and then I am through. One excuse for continuing the present discriminations is that the Negro is not adapted to skilled industrial work. Now, I happen to have made studies some years ago of our largest single industry in the South, that of textiles. At the same time the textile factories were first built in the Southern States, it was freely said in the north in the textile districts, which were then primarily in New England and in the sections around Philadelphia, that you could not teach a southern hillbilly to operate textile machinery. The finest count of yarn we had been able to spin was about 20s which is coarse sewing cotton, let us say.

Well, the hillbillies came to the mills, and the share croppers came to the mills, and the result was that in the period of years we developed some of the most skilled textile operators in the world.

The finest count of yarn that is spun anywhere is spun in Switzerland and that is No. 400. We spin in Gastonia, N. C., 180, I am told, which is a measure of the progress we have made.

Precisely the same things were said about the clumsiness, the inattention, the stupidity of the white workers in the South that are now said about Negroes, and in each instance they are said by people in part who are ignorant, in part who are repeating things they have heard from others, and in which they have no experience, and in large part by persons who have other motives for excluding those men and women from work opportunities.

Senator CHAVEZ. Yes; but as a practical proposition doesn't it happen in this instance like it would in everyday affairs of life? A man might be a very fine lawyer, he might have been prepared for that business, but unless he gets some law cases he does not have an opportunity to illustrate. A man may be a good banker, but if there is not a bank what is he going to do about it? A man may be a fihe legislator, but unless he gets an opportunity to go there, how is he going to show? One of your hillbillies from North Carolina, as you say, might have the aptitude to become a good textile worker, but unless you give her the chance, can she become that?

Senator AIKEN. Wasn't the reason the textile mills didn't start operating in the South earlier due principally because they couldn't control the humidity of the factories rather than inability of the people to learn to weave and spin skillfully?

Mr. MITCHELL. Senator, that was stated at the time the textile interests in New England did not want to see the industry migrate, but wanted to keep us supplying them with raw cotton. It was stated that we didn't have spinning climate such as you have in New Bedford, or we didn't have finishing processes because our rivers were so muddy, or that we didn't have the capital, or that we didn't have the skilled superintendence that would be necessary and, most of all, as I have said, we didn't have the labor.

Well, we overcame one of those difficulties after another, and the lateness with which the textile industry was started in the South, I think, was not due, Senator, to the absence of these mechanical appliances to which yiou refer.

Now, as you know, we are the great center of the spinning industry and of the weaving, with the exception of the very finest fabrics.

Senator AIKEN. How does the wage scale in the South compare today with the wage scale in the North?

Mr. MITCHELL. It is still lower than in the North, but strenuous efforts are being made, as you know, now through the Textile Workers Union to raise them. The Fair Labor Standards Act, of course, has done a great deal to put a floor under our southern wages, so that the differential, which used to be very great, has tended to lessen, and as more and more of the industry drifts to the South, and there is a greater demand for textile workers, that gap closes still further.

I might say that attempts have been made to introduce Negroes into the textile mills with success. In Durham, N. C., they are now making hosiery, very large orders, I understand, for the Army and Navy, entirely by Negro workers. It is not altogether the coarser hose by any means. And so in other instances Negroes have been upgraded with success. That is true in Birmingham in the iron and steel industry, and it hads been done without objection on the part of. workers or management.

What we need, then, is this little push that will get us over the remaining hump. It would not be received as an offense by the South, but I think in the majority of the Southern States it would be accepted as a proper requirement, and one with which the South would comply gratefully and swiftly.

I thank you very much indeed for your attention.

Senator CHAVEZ. You made a very fine statement, Mr. Mitchell, and I want to thank you.

STATEMENT OF MARY MCLEOD BETHUNE, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF NEGRO WOMEN, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Senator CHAVEZ. Will you state your name for the record and indentify yourself?

Miss BETHUNE. My name is Mary McLeod Bethune. I was born in South Carolina. I was educated at the Women's College at Scotia, and the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago.

I am president emeritus of Bethune Cookman College, Daytona Beach, Fla., and today represent officially the National Council of Negro Women with headquarters in Washington, D. C.

As president of the National Council of Negro Women, I speak in the interest of 800,000 women and 29 national organizations.

These women feel a particular responsibility for their men serving in the armed forces of the United States. These are the women who daily face the problems of discrimination which have been faced by their men. These women know that their men count on them to help develop a more democratic America-an America which will give to all of her citizens the same fundamental liberty for which our Army of Liberation stands. These women are also concerned that their children live in a post-war world where they may have an opportunity for training, for advancement, and for work on the basis of their ability and potentialities. As I testify here today I represent, not only the women of my race, but all of those Negro soldiers on far-flung battlefields and all of the children who must have their opportunity.

The Executive order, creating the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice, has been of great significance during this wartime period. It has opened to public view the disgraceful discrimination in employment. It has given hope, not only to Negroes, but to all of the other minorities who have found difficulty in securing employment, training, and upgrading.

America made this great step in war time. This week, through the great General Eisenhower, America has made a pronouncement which will liberate minorities in the newly released European areas. We are proud of this fact. America then must also give full opportunity to all of her people at home if she is to maintain the respect created through her efforts toward liberation in Europe. The right to work is after all the right to live. The bill for a permanent Fair Employment Practice Commission, which is being considered by your committee, Senator Chavez, is one of the most important of the reconversion bills, for, as we shift from war production to peacetime production, our minorities must not find themselves again handicapped by race, religion, color, or national origin. The experience of the President's committee has taught us that we need a permanent, congressionally constituted agency with enforcement powers. I know that some people have questioned whether

such an agency should have enforcement powers. I remind these people that penalties in any law are there only for those people who are unwilling to give the opportunity to all Americans which American pronouncements have always emphasized. They ought to be penal

ized.

The National Council of Negro Women with its deep concern, not only for the problems of Negroes, but for problems faced by Spanishspeaking people, by Jewish people, and by every other minority group, urges your committee to report Senate bill 2048 favorably, believing that such legislation must be quickly enacted if we are to keep faith with our fighting men, with great liberty-loving Americans of the past and the present, and with our international statements with regard to new world collaboration. We promise to aid you in every way in your effort to secure the early passage of this legislation. The Congress of the United States must take the lead in abolishing discrimination in employment because of race, creed, and color, or national origin.

Senator CHAVEZ. That is a very fine statement and I want to express our appreciation.

I believe this will close the hearings as far as the intention of the committee goes for the moment. We will have to consult the chairman of the full committee in the future.

I am sorry. My attention has been called to Mrs. Hedgeman who wants to make a statement to the committee, and I neglected to think about it. The meeting will be reconvened.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ANNA ARNOLD HEDGEMAN, NATIONAL EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR A PERMANENT FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE COMMISSION

Mrs. HEDGEMAN. Senator Chavez and members of the committee, if I may, I should like to outline briefly the conditions which led to Executive Order 8802, forbidding discrimination in Government and in war industries and establishing the President's Fair Employment Practice Committee to insure compliance; the growth of the feeling that if this could be done in wartime it could and should also be done in peacetime; and the establishment, nature and program of the National Council for a permanent F. E. P. C.

Even before Pearl Harbor-in the early days of the lend-lease period when first we dedicated ourselves to becoming the arsenal of democracy-it became apparent that certain industrial habits would have to be changed if we were to produce the guns and the tanks and the planes needed by the United Nations.

Giant want ads appeared. Through press, radio, and platform, leaders of industry, labor, and Government appealed to the patriotic spirit of our men, women, and even youth, to man our machines. Special training centers were set up by boards of education and by industry.

Of course our people responded and production began to step up, but still the barriers of prejudice stood between great segments of our workers and idle machines.

The group which faced the most discrimination was, as is usual in America, the Negro group. Frustration and resentment mounted in

the hearts of a people denied participation in the greatest war effort of history.

Aware of the potentialities for war production of this great pool of willing labor, and sensing the full implication of the growing resentment, Mr. A. Philip Randolph, international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, called a conference of Negro leadership to devise means of channeling constructively this frustrated energy. And at this point, Mr. Senator, I should like to say to those individuals who have charged that the F. E. P. C. has fomented strikes that the few strikes which have occurred because of governmental insistence that all manpower be used regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin-that these incidents are child's play compared to the rioting we would have had if these Americans had been denied the opportunity to serve their country in this time of world crisis.

Among those who responded to Mr. Randolph's call in those days of frustration and inadequate productions, were such great Negro Americans as Mr. Walter White, of the N. A. A. C. P; Dr. Channing Tobias, senior secretary of the National Council of the Y. M. C. A.; Mrs. Mary McCleod Bethune, president of the National Council of Negro Women; Dr. George Edmund Haynes of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America and Mr. Lester Granger, executive director of the National Urban League.

These leaders, having exhausted all other democratic means of obtaining action from government and industry, decided to call a March on Washington to call dramatically to the attention of the people of this country the problem of discrimination in employment of the Negro. The response to this call was instantaneous. From all over the country Negroes prepared for this great demonstration.

But there was no need to march, for after a historic conference at the White Houes the President issued the now famous Executive Order 8802.

Witness after witness has testified here to the beneficial effect of this historic act on morale and on war productiion. Despite the inadequacy of its funds, its small staff, its lack of enforcement authority, the President's Committee has made an astounding record of compliance and has earned the confidence and respect of the Nation.

But early in the days of its operation, it became apparent that it could not be completely effective because it lacked the authority and stability of a congressionally constituted agency of government. Moved about from one agency or authority to another, subject to the whim of governmental officials not directly answerable to Congress, the F. E. P. C. could not be expected to live up to its full potentialities. Too many, as a result, refused to take it seriously.

Had the F. E. P. C. had the status and authority contemplated in the bill now before the committee, the Philadelphia transit workers would not have dared to strike. There was nothing in the history of the President's Committee to indicate to those strikers that they could be forced to comply with its directives. The public was shocked and aroused by the strike. But it was only intervention of the President in his role of wartime Commander in Chief which sent those strikers back to work and kept the Negro motormen at their jobs.

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