weak women who need protection and strong men who need none will both be guaranteed the right to work long hours in dangerous, unhealthful types of occupations and to support themselves in their old age or with their little children on the empty doctrine of equality.

From that sham program and that evil success, I hope that this Congress will have the good sense to protect us.

Mr. CHADWICK. Mr. Harrison, who was it that said that "The law in its majestic equality guarantees both to the rich and the poor alike the right to sleep under bridges"?

Mr. HARRISON. Anatole France. He said, and that is a superb illustration, "The law in its majestic equality guarantees to rich and poor alike the right to sleep under bridges and to beg their bread in the streets."

Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Harrison.

[Applause.]

Mrs. Stone. The next witness will be Mrs. Kathryn Stone, first vice president of the League of Women Voters of the United States.

STATEMENT OF KATHRYN H. STONE, FIRST VICE PRESIDENT. LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF THE UNITED STATES

Mrs. KATHRYN STONE. It seems to that it has been made abundantly clear this afternoon through the testimony of the witnesses and through what Mr. Chadwick has said that the first part of the status-of-women bill is very gravely needed, and, therefore, I should like to quote from the bill, thinking of it in terms of the general policy enunciated that is, that

in the United States law and its administration, no distinctions on the basis of sex shall be made except such as are reasonably justified by differences in physical structure, biological or social function

and then call your attention to section 4:

Insofar as may be authorized by existing law, every department, independent agency or establishment, and all other agencies of the United States in the executive branch of the Government, shall cause all regulations and rules issued or practices engaged in by them to conform to the policy set forth in section 1 of this act; and shall modify, amend, repeal, or eliminate such regulations, rules, or practices not in conformity with the policy set forth in section 1 of this act.

I do this to emphasize how clearly, how positively, how immediately this legislation would become effective in this matter of discrimination and also I would like to call your attention to how well it would cover some of the problems brought up this afternoon.

You gentlemen know, I know, that our civil-service laws are not supposed to discriminate between the sexes, but we also know that there are discriminations: some of them exist in the administration of the laws; some of them exist in the regulations and practices that are set up in our executive agencies; some of them are subtle that it is very difficult to describe them and it will take a commission digging into the facts and getting all of the facts before it to really bring out the discriminations which exist in Federal law today, or which are possible, shall we say, under Federal law today.

Note also how nicely it covers the point just brought out by Mr. Harrison with regard to service in the armed forces.

It seems to me that Mr. Chadwick in the suggestion he made a little bit earlier this afternoon is really suggesting that at least the first point of the status-of-women bill has his support.

Mr. CHADWICK. And incidentally does not imply that the other sections may not.

Mrs. KATHRYN STONE. I hope not.

The League of Women Voters helped to initiate and is deeply interested in the enactment of H. R. 2007, a bill to create a commission on the status of women and to remedy any remaining discriminations in Federal law and administration. We urge this bill against a background of historic interest in the welfare of women. The league grew out of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association, the organization which saw the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution through to adoption. The suffrage amendment established a great principle that women have the intelligence and competence to be fully responsible citizens. It provided the means of working to remove the many other legal discriminations against women, and much progress has been made toward this end.

Women in the United States today occupy a high place. Legally and politically they have gained most of the important privileges and responsibilities men possess. They are making progress, point by point, against remaining discriminations. The League of Women Voters has always held that this is the only thorough and satisfactory method. To declare discrimination illegal will not automatically remove the discrimination in law or custom. In the case of laws, specific enabling legislation is essential in order to meet each problem.

A case in point is the alien husband, the bill that was referred to earlier today, and in this hearing Mr. Robsion asked if this legislation would be necessary if we had the equal-rights amendment and the response was, yes; and he himself admitted that it would be necessary to enact that specific law. That is, that the equal-rights amendment would not be self-executing. Now, I do not wish to argue about the term, but I am saying that each case must have its specific statutory law.

Believing this, the League of Women Voters has consistently opposed the so-called equal rights amendment which would attempt with a single constitutional formula to end discrimination based on sex. We believe that men and women are different in biological make-up and in some degree in their social and economic roles. We believe that distinctions based upon sex are not necessarily discriminations. Our position may be better explained in terms of our American philosophy that each individual should have the fullest possible opportunity for development, within the necessary framework of common rules. We cherish and nurture individuality and believe that it enriches our lives. One need not be a deep student of history to note that the relationships between men and women have varied greatly from place to place and time to time. Equal opportunities take into account what differences there may be.

Just a century ago, changing ideas of the relationship of men and women touched off a train of events which gathered momentum and came eventually to be known as the "woman's movement." As I see it, it was a struggle to provide opportunities for women to participate more fully in a wider range of activities. The League of Women

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Voters is the direct inheritor of the organized woman's movement. We believe that in the movement women sought their share of the great American ideal of opportunity for self-development-for broader, richer lives, based on their own decisions.

What is "equal"? In the early years of the movement for women's rights discriminations were so obvious that the demand for equal rights which had been voiced at Seneca Falls in 1848 was readily understood. Women wanted an opportunity for education, for choice of work, for the management of their own affairs. Gradually the problem became complicated by the interpretation of the word "equal." Since men and women are not identical (not "fungible" as the Supreme Court has said) the question arose: "What is equal?" How can men and women, in some respects similar, in some respects dissimilar be treated equally? To treat them identically is not necessarily to treat them equally.

The problem could only be solved by treating men and women alike in whatever respects they were alike and by allowing for differences where they differed.

The root of our problem, then, seems to the League of Women Voters to be this problem of allowing for differences. Laws favoring women as members of a family have always been held justified by society as a whole. The husband is, for example, primarily responsible for family support. Such laws seem to us logical as long as there is a real difference-as long as the role of wife and mother in our society interrupts or impedes the woman's opportunity to develop or maintain her earning power. And no one would deny that it does that. In physical structure, in biological and social functions, women differ from men. Society has always considered these differences in the making of laws and its application, and must, we believe, continue to do so.

The League of Women Voters, recognizing the differences in points of view among women and women's groups, believes that our common cause of fuller opportunity for women would be best served by a thorough and scientific review of the whole problem. The heart of our proposal, embodied in H. R. 2007, is the establishment of a representative commission on the status of women. This Commission would not only review our Federal laws and administration as they affect opportunities for women. It would go further it would dig into the facts, scientific and social-on the whole broad problem.

Hopefully, it would make a catalog of distinctions based upon sex before attempting to evaluate those distinctions as either advantages or disadvantages, as discriminations or preferential treatment. Hopefully, it would consider the role of the family in our national life and the respective responsibilities men and women have toward the family. In the light of all the facts it would acquire, it would certainly recommend the proper laws to eliminate the remaining legal discriminations based on sex.

In summary, the League of Women voters believes that the enactment of H. R. 2007 and the work of the Commission would furnish, for the first time, national leadership and guidance to the States, where, in our opinion, most of the remaining legal discriminations linger. Its findings would constitute the first official and complete body of facts ever assembled on the subject of discrimination. Its recommendations based upon these facts will carry great weight with

the President, Congress, and the respective States. In short, the bill on the status of women provides a reasonable method of accomplishing an end which all enlightened citizens desire.

I should like to add just a word as a professional educator. I spent 10 years as a teacher and I have done a good deal of research in education. I am familiar with the so-called growth studies of authorities at Yale, the University of Michigan, and the University of Iowa. Those studies have revealed in the last two decades that there are very real differences between boys and girls; and therefore educators today are reviewing their policies and practices and taking them into account as they plan future educational programs. That is true from the preschool level right up through college. It is especially true in some of the thinking which is going on in planning for the education of young women at the present time.

Now, I am commenting on this particular aspect to emphasize the fact that we do have a very large body of scientific findings which have never been looked at calmly and objectively to shed light on this problem. If it is true, and we have scientific evidence that young men do not mature until 3 years later, on an average-2 to 3 years later than young women-there is something that you can review your laws in terms of.

Mr. Bernays, the publicist, went into this problem a year or so ago. He sent out letters to thousands of anthropologists, teachers, doctors, clergymen, social workers, scientists of all kinds, and in summarizing their answers he emphasizes these sex differences in this way:

From birth through life, the physical mechanism of females is quite different from that of males, even aside from the primary sex characteristics. The male skeleton has a larger frame in relation to the tissues which it must support, the male has a larger lung space, proportionately, and he is of course more heavily muscled. But women's stomachs are larger than men's. In proportion to total bodily weight, their brains are larger.

The functions of nearly all glands, the rate of metabolism, and the behavior of elements in the blood stream are quite different. Indeed, the trite phrase "red blooded he man" is fact rather than flattery since the male has billions more red corpuscles in his blood and even his hemoglobin content is about 10 percent higher than the female's. On the other hand, the bodies of women adjust themselves much more efficiently to changes in temperature: They are cooler in hot weather and warmer in cold weather.

Although women live longer than men, they are sick much more often. From this it is reasonable to conclude that the female mechanism is more susceptible to the initial contraction of disease but has the greater capacity to fight it and recover without fatal consequences.

And I quote this simply to point out that a great body of scientific fact does exist and that it behooves us to sit down calmly and objectively and look at our laws and look at our practices in the light of the facts.

Now, there is an impressive body of data from the sociologists. All that has been said about the family this afternoon has very great bearing upon our civilization; and just as we called a White House conference on the development of children after the last World War, one is now being planned on the improvement of family living. We know that family instability is at the root of many of our problems of social disintegration, juvenile delinquency, and all the rest.

You see why I have stressed these points, I hope; that this can only be done by a representative cross section of men and women sitting down to take a look at the problem. What this Commission comes

out with will become a point of reference which will be vastly helpful to legislators here in Washington, in the several States, and to social workers and teachers and others.

I should like to underscore the broad significance of the work which could be done by a commission on the status of women, and no one except persons who might fear what the facts would reveal could but welcome such a study.

I should like to ask permission, if I may, to enter in the record a publication. The Status of Women-Need for a National Policy, a publication of my organization.

Mr. REED. It may be entered as part of the record. (The publication referred to is as follows:)

[From the Brief for Action of the League of Women Voters]

What place should women occupy in our Nation and the World? Almost a century ago at Seneca Falls, N. Y., a small but determined group of women held a woman's rights convention which proved to be the beginning of a great social movement. Lucretia Mott, a quiet-spoken Quakeress with a penetrating intelligence; her sister, Martha C. Wright; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; and Mary Ann McClintock called the convention and presented, in a manner of the Declaration of Independence, a “declaration of sentiments."

The Seneca Falls convention outlined the objectives these women and those leaders who followed them wished to achieve. Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, and Carrie Chapman Catt were spokesmen for women who wanted an opportunity equal to that of men in education, religion, professions. They wanted laws permitting them to manage their own business affairs. They wanted equal guardianship over their children. They wanted to be citizens on an equal footing with men.

The achievements of women in the hundred years of American history since 1848 have been great. Partly, women have improved their position through gaining improvements in laws and through gaining and exercising citizenship. Partly, they have gained new opportunity and stature as persons through a gradual increase of enlightenment.

Women in the United States today occupy a high place. Legally and politically they have gained most of the important privileges and responsibilities men possess. They are making progress point by point against remaining discriminations. Sixteen States still do not permit women to serve on juries. A few States deny to women the right of domicile if that State is not the legal residence of her husband. Some States deny to women the guardianship of their children. In a few States husbands exercise certain controls over their wives' earnings. Such readily recognized remnants of discrimination need to be removed.

Socially and economically women have still a long way to go to equal man's position. On the whole, boys receive more education and are accorded more vocational concern. Men still receive higher pay for similar work. The family's place of residence and, in large part, the character of family living are determined by the father's objectives. It is not easy to change these social and economic habits by laws.

In a few respects women enjoy a position superior to that of men. Widows' pensions, alimony following divorce, and various laws protecting a wife's property are examples of legal assets to women. That women are still to some extent provided for and protected by men is a social and economic fact which most women admit, although some women disagree as to its desirability.

Most thoughtful people today believe that individuals, both men and women, should be valued for their total personality, of which sex is only one, albeit an important part.

WHAT IS "EQUAL”?

In the early years of the movement for women's rights discriminations were so obvious that the demand for “equal rights" which had been voiced at Seneca Falls was readily understood. Women wanted an opportunity for education, for