In our work in our communities, we of the council have seen the results of discrimination in employment. We know that the slum areas of our towns and cities generally contain large numbers of people who belong to a racial or national minority. We know that their children do not have adequate medical care, recreational facilities, or educational opportunities. We know that if their living conditions were improved, our whole community would be healthier and more prosperous.

We are working hard within our own organization to promote better racial and religious understanding. Our sections join with other community groups in the common consideration of their joint problems. They provide welfare services such as nurseries or neighborhood centers on a nonsectarian basis. But while we, and the many other organizations with which we work, are making definite progress, we know that we can never succeed completely until the economic roots of prejudice are eliminated.

As individuals, also, our members are well aware of employment discrimination. Most council members have children who want to make their contribution to American life to the utmost of their capabilities. We all know that today certain avenues of education and employment are closed to young Jewish men and women. We feel, as do other so-called minority groups, that discrimination of this kind is not only unfair to us, but also that it deprives the Nation of talents and abilities it cannot afford to lose.

We, in the National Council of Jewish Women, have followed the work of the present Committee on Fair Employment Practice very closely. With a very small staff and without coercive power, the Committee has succeeded in reversing discriminatory practices in employment agencies, business, and industrial firms and unions. But the present Committee has been set up to deal only with war industries. Discrimination is not only a problem of the war emergency. By depriving the Nation of needed manpower, employment discrimination is as much a hindrance to post-war reconstruction as to the war effort.

Aided by an expanding labor market and the need for manpower, the F. E. P. C. has made an important beginning in the fight against employment discrimination. If, in the post-war period, job opportunities are no longer so plentiful, there is danger of a revival of discriminatory policies. Now is the time to establish a permanent commission on F. E. P. C., prepared to maintain the gains of the war period and to establish the principle of equal opportunity as an integral part of American life.

The war that we are now engaged in is being fought by freedomloving people all over the world. No one asks their race, their religion, or their nationality. The men in our own armed forces are fighting for the chance to build a better world and a better America. Their job will not be over when the last shot is fired. They will return home to work in factories or on farms or in offices to bring greater security to their families and greater prosperity to the Nation. They must not find doors closed to them because of their color or their beliefs. The men of all races, creeds, and colors who fought side by side to keep America free, must be allowed to work side by side to build its strength.

The National Council of Jewish Women has 50 years of experience of working in communities. Our members know that the problem of any one group in a community is the problem of all. The question of discrimination is not a minority problem. Although the most serious discrimination is against Negroes, that does not make it a Negro problem. We, of the council, are most closely touched by discrimination against Jews, but we do not believe it to be a Jewish problem. We hope that America will never have a minority problem. The tradition of America as a "melting pot" for the people of all nations is one that we are proud of. The opportunity to earn a living must be held the right of all, regardless of race, religion, or national origin.

We hope that one day discrimination and prejudice will be totally eliminated through education and understanding. But until that day comes, the only way to assure freedom of economic opportunity to all is by setting up a Government agency to enforce fair employment practice.

Senator CHAVEZ. Is that your statement, Miss Raebeck?

Miss RAEBECK. Yes; it is.

Senator CHAVEZ. Do you care to express any other opinion?
Miss RAEBECK. No, sir.

Senator CHAVEZ. Thank you very much.

STATEMENT OF DR. EMILY HICKMAN, CHAIRMAN, PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL BOARD OF THE YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION

Senator CHAVEZ. Be seated, Dr. Hickman. Will you kindly identify yourself for the record and name the group that you represent before this committee?

Dr. HICKMAN. I am Emily Hickman, chairman of the public affairs committee of the national board of the Y. W. C. A

Senator CHAVEZ. Where are the headquarters of your board?
Dr. HICKMAN. In New York City.

Senator CHAVEZ. Can you tell us more or less, or give us an estimate of, the number of persons who comprise the Y. W. C. A. throughout the Nation?

Dr. HICKMAN. The membership runs over 2,000,000. The constituency runs to over 5,000,000.

Senator CHAVEZ. Thank you, Doctor. Do you care to make a statement before the committee?

Dr. HICKMAN. I do.

Senator CHAVEZ. You may proceed.

Dr. HICKMAN. The Young Women's Christian Association includes all kinds of people within its constituency. Large numbers of its women and girls stem from the dominant native and religious groups in this country; that is, they are native-born or second generation white people, and Protestants. Our latest national reports show that, in addition, our membership includes 7,443 foreign-born white people, 49,202 Negroes, 4,505 Indians and orientals

Senator CHAVEZ. May I interrupt you? When you say "Indians," do you mean American Indians?

Dr. HICKMAN. We mean American Indians.

Senator CHAVEZ. And then you differentiate and go to the orientals, which might be from some place in Asia?

Dr. HICKMAN. Yes, sir; largely Japanese.

Religiously we number 5,219 Jews and 60,000 Roman Catholics. These membership figures represent only a small part of our total constituency; within our groups of volunteers and participants in Y. W. C. A. service, education, and recreation programs throughout the country are numbered many other women and girls, many of them from the minority groups.

The concerns of these people are, and must be, the concerns of the Young Women's Christian Association. Therefore, our interest in the bills to "prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, or ancestry" is no academic interest. It is a living, vital interest which roots in the daily lives of thousands of the people for whom and through whom we exist. We are concerned about all the facets of a full, abundant life for every individual we touch. We are at base a Christian organization with deep concern for the spiritual welfare of our constituents; but we realize that just as man cannot live by bread alone, neither can he live without bread. For many years the public affairs program adopted by our national conventions has included a section on economic welfare, which has given our national movement a charter to support proposals for the solution of our Nation's basic economic problems, and to secure for Negroes and other minority groups an equitable share in economic opportunities.

We know from actual experience that there are many among the participants in our program today who are denied employment because of their race, religion, or nationality. Employment policies which limit opportunities to "white Christians" deny a fundamental right to many of our own members. Chief Justice Hughes in 1915, in a case involving immigrants, said:

The right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opoprtunity that it was the purpose of the fourteenth amendment to secure. * * * [The contrary] would be tantamount to the assertion of the right to deny them entrance and abode, for in ordinary cases they cannot live where they cannot work.

We call this to your attention in connection with the bill your committee now has under consideration (S. 2048, introduced by Senators Chavez, Downey, Wagner, Murray, Capper, and Langer) because we are convinced that a Committee on Fair Employment Practice, given legislative sanction and set up on a permanent basis, is one of the surest safeguards to the personal freedom and opportunity for which the United States of America traditionally has stood. We believe that without such a safeguard, our country is all too sure to return, when the hostilities between nations have ceased, to a system which hires last and fires first the people of minority groups; and we shall have lost on our home front the struggle to make all the men in all the lands free people.

In addition to our desires to see our democracy maintain equal economic opportunities for all of our people, we are anxious to avoid the disastrous consequences of not doing so. To refuse economic opportunities to any group is to compel that group to remain at a low standard of living, and to perpetuate for them bad housing conditions, high sickness and death rates, inadequate food, clothing, and

education which sooner or later result in delinquency, and even criminal conditions and the possibility of race riots.

There is no need for the continuance of such conditions in our American life for our American citizens. They can be made largely to cure themselves if we will secure for the people involved adequate economic opportunities. In our opinion these bills will go far to insuring that members of minority groups shall find economic opportunities and we shall be enabled to improve their standards of living. Furthermore, the bills would help to remove from our democracy the practice of economic discrimination against our own citizens.

I would like to add that another type of work which the National Y. W. C. A. is interested in is education, and we are trying to educate along the lines of what we consider both the lines of democracy and Christianity, and at present we cannot carry conviction to young people who are aware of the serious discriminations in ordinary American life.

Senator CHAVEZ. I understand education is absolutely necessary, but you do feel that basic law is just as essential?

Dr. HICKMAN. Essential immediately. Education is a slower process.

Senator CHAVEZ. Is there any further statement you care to make? Dr. HICKMAN. Nothing more.

Senator CHAVEZ. We thank you very much.

STATEMENT OF MILLY BRANDT, NATIONAL CHAIRMAN, LEGISLATIVE ACTION COMMITTEE, WOMEN'S DIVISION, ALSO EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, COMMISSION ON LAW AND LEGISLATION, AMERICAN JEWISH CONGRESS

Senator CHAVEZ. Miss Brandt, will you kindly identify yourself for the record?

Miss BRANDT. Mr. Chairman, I am Milly Brandt, the national chairman of the legislative action committee of the women's division of the American Jewish Congress, and also the executive secretary of its commission on law and legislation.

Dr. Stephen S. Wise is the president of our organization and Judge Nathan D. Perlman, a former Congressman, is now the chairman of the committee on law and legislation.

Senator CHAVEZ. Are you familiar with the proposed legislation being considered by the committee?

Miss BRANDT. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Senator CHAVEZ. Do you care to make a statement?

Miss BRANDT. The women's division

Senator CHAVEZ. Is it confined to any particular region or the entire country?

Miss BRANDT. Mr. Chairman, we have branches throughout the country. Our organization, both the women's and the men's divisions, wishes to go on record as fully endorsing the Chavez bill S. 2048 to provide for a Fair Employment Practice Commission.

The women of our organization are Jewish women and have met with this problem face to face in their homes and everyday life. They have taken much care in the upbringing of their children, have made great sacrifices in order to give them a good education.

I know my own parents were poor people and they worked very hard to give me the education which I received. I am a graduate of Columbia University and have a B. A. and M. A. degree in the teaching of English, and when I made an attempt to register myself at teachers' agencies in New York City I was invariably met with the answer: "We do not register Jews."

It is part of my work to go through the country speaking on minority problems

Senator CHAVEZ. May I interrupt you there? Do such conditions prevail now in New York City? Is there discrimination?

Miss BRANDT. To my mind the condition is even worse than it has been in New York City.

Senator CHAVEZ. You mean in officialdom?

Miss BRANDT. Not in officialdom.

Senator CHAVEZ. For instance, the school board?

Miss BRANDT. Not the school board. They do not discriminate, apparently.

Senator CHAVEZ. What kind of schools do discriminate?

Miss BRANDT. The small schools of the State and also private schools.

Our organization does not only work for the rights of the Jewish people, but it works for the rights of Negroes and other minorities. We feel when one minority is oppressed, so are all minorities oppressed. And when I speak on the question of discrimination on account of race, color, or religion or national origin and ancestry, I notice an eager interest on the part of the listeners, and when I am through speaking the women get up and testify out of the depths of their own experience as to discrimination they or their families have been met with. Their families frequently are engineers or do airplane work, and so forth, and when they seek employment they are met with great discrimination.

Some people say, "Well, we must educate the people. If we educate the people to the wrongness of this situation, I am sure that they will improve."

But we know very well, gentlemen, that the people who discriminate largely are well-educated people. The man who asked me what the name of my mother and father was in order to find out whether or not I was Jewish was a very well educated person and I think most of the people who discriminate in America are well educated.

Perhaps, shall we say, they are wrongly educated, and I think education is very necessary but, as the previous speaker said, it is a very long-range problem and a painful process, and here we are in this country in the midst of a crisis and we are putting forth all our efforts to win this war, and when the war is over we expect that racial troubles will arise and discrimination in employment will be on the increase, however much we hope that it will not be.

And we feel something must be done as quickly as possible in order to help the future of our country.

And the American Jewish Congress, both men and women, believe that law is necessary.

Most people in our country are well-behaved people, not criminals. Yet we do need law for certain people who murder or rob and commit other crimes. And I consider that to discriminate against a person