the right of an executive, whether in a city government or State government or the Federal Government, to submit to the Congress, as has been the custom in this country, and the historical pattern, the desires as he sees them for the good of the Nation.

However, the responsibility for passing this legislation will rest solely upon the Members of the Congress of the United States. If and when we do our duty, and the President then decides to take an action other than that with regard to which he has made a promise not only to himself and to the people, but to the country as a whole, and the Congress, then will be the time to make political speeches. The worst thing we can do, in the interest of this legislation, is to start off now with an attack upon what might be termed the past performance or nonperformance of an individual, whether it be the President, the party leaders, or the individual Members of Congress. Therefore, I did not quite agree with your inclusion in your statement, Mr. Hill, of the comment that Negroes throughout the country will be very carefully watching what Mr. McCormack, the Speaker, and Mr. Halleck, and the rest, do. Not only the Negroes; the people of this country will be watching it.

There is much more at stake here than the question of discrimination against Negroes, because it goes into the question of discrimination in other matters. And I think we ought to take a little heat off this particular thing and put more light into it.

Mr. GOODELL. I agree that this is going to have to be bipartisan, and I think the tenor of Mr. Hill's testimony, as I read it and from what I heard, is to the effect that we are not going to get the legislation, however, unless the President uses his authority. If he is going to sit back and wait for all the various conflicting elements in the Congress to come to some sort of a resolution on civil rights, if he is going to place getting along with the various chairmen in the Congress for other legislation ahead of the civil rights program, then he is not going to get civil rights.

We would not have had a civil rights bill in 1957 or in 1960 without strong Presidential leadership, rallying the public opinion behind that legislation. And we are not going to have it here, if we are going to sit back and just permit the President to do nothing on it but give us some lipservice.

Mr. DENT. Mr. Goodell, we will wait until the time comes for the President to act. However, I remember very distinctly the charges made by your party that when the President does use the so-called influence that you are baiting him to use in this instance, on other pieces of legislation, he is accused of using Presidential power and pressure to get legislation through.

Is that power only to be used in the matter where it might be politically expedient for the Republican Party to have an embarrassing situation grow? Or is that power to be used on all legislation? Mr. GOODELL. He wouldn't have to take any dams away from anybody or pull anything except a little bit of statesmanlike leadership in this issue. The votes are here, and we will get it through. He is not going to have to use the kind of pressure tactics that a few people were bewailing on the Republican side last year.

Mr. DENT. I think we will wait until the time comes. Let us do our duty in this subcommittee and present it to the floor, if we can, for full

77736-62-pt. 2——3

action of the committee, and then await good results I know in good conscience I will stand for. I can't speak for anybody else, including the President.

Mr. SMITH. It is interesting to me to know the President has such influence with the Republicans in the Senate who act as shock troops to prevent a change in the rules.

Mr. DENT. Let's stay with the question. I think we could discuss this matter. That is one of the problems we are going to run into. There will be issues invoked in this thing which take away from the question of the main debate itself. I would like to see us discuss the necessity and the requirement for this kind of law, and let it stand on that.

Now, at this point I would like to call on Mr. Pucinski for any questions that he may have.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Chairman, I am very much interested in this colloquy between yourself and the gentleman from New York. But I wonder if the witness would be willing to comment on the fact that the best way to assure passage of this type of legislation in the other body is to have some real bipartisan action for the change of the rule in the other body.

They talk about lipservice over here. I think that is where the lipservice has been. Would you care to comment on that?

Mr. HILL. There is no question, sir, that we are not going to get passage of fair employment practices legislation or any other kind of civil rights legislation unless we have some changes in the rules, and here the basic responsibility, of course, is in the Senate, and this represents the great stumbling block to all civil rights legislation.

However, in this matter it seems to me that both Chambers and both political parties do have a fundamental responsibility to speak out, and that includes the President.

This is not a new matter. The first FEPC bill was presented in 1944. It has been a long time, gentlemen. This has been debated and argued. There have been books upon books and volumes upon volumes; studies, theses, monographs, arguments, and debates. We have had almost 20 years of national debate, now, on FEPC. And the fact of the matter is that we have not had any really meaningful support for FEPC from either political party.

I would like to comment that the meeting that Mr. Goodell referred to in Los Angeles was a meeting sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, where the President was quoted. Your quote was quite accurate. And everybody in that hall, white and colored, cheered their heads off when the President gave us a clear commitment that one of the first orders of business of his new administration would be that he would provide leadership in the fight for a national FEPC.

And we take that to be a serious commitment and a pledge. Not only Negroes-you are right, Mr. Chairman-but all advocates of civil rights in America look to Mr. Kennedy to redeem that pledge he made during the campaign, at that meeting and many other meetings across this country when he was asked what was his position on FEPC.

He made a speech in front of the Hotel Theresa in New York City at the height of the campaign before a cheering throng of people, and

he said, "I am not ashamed of the fact that when I was a Congressman I voted for FEPC, and I do not conceal my votes, and I will support FEPC, and I give you my leadership for the passage of such legislation.

وو

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I have a good many more important things to do than to listen to political harangues all morning.

Mr. DENT. I think the policy has been set by the chairman, Mr. Roosevelt, and I would like to keep it in the area that he has set the policy. We are discussing the need for this legislation at the moment. Mr. PUCINSKI. This is true, but as to the statement the gentleman is making, and the statement in his own prepared testimony--I do not think we ought to let the record stand on that.

I would like to ask this witness if he can cite me another President in recent years who has done as much at all levels of Government through his administrative powers and otherwise to help improve the situation of minority groups in this country, particularly the Negro group.

Mr. HILL. Well, if I am going to be asked political questions, I will be happy to do so, but they will have to be political answers.

Mr. PUCINSKI. You opened the door, my friend. You were citing the promises made, and you infer that the promise was not kept. I want to ask you whether or not you can cite me a better record of activity to help the minority groups, and in particular the Negro community, than has been made by Mr. Kennedy since he assumed office 12 months ago.

Mr. GOODELL. Point of order, Mr. Chairman. If he is going to be asked that question, I think he has to be given the time to answer it. He is asked a political question.

Mr. HILL. I shall be very glad to answer this if I am given an opportunity.

Mr. DENT. The witness will have an opportunity to answer that and any other questions at the proper time. There are two other witnesses, and if you care to remain or come back later and take up the political phase of this matter on whether or not someone has made a promise or broken it, such may be done. I do not particularly think that we ought to hold these other witnesses up for that purpose.

I would suggest that in the interest of getting this legislation through, we do not open up areas of argument that will only becloud the issue; and instead of working toward the main purpose of the issue itself, we will be working toward side currents, trying to prove someone is a little darker than somebody else in their promises and keeping their promises.

I think that is entirely out of order at this time, and I would like to keep the questions, if we can, in line with the testimony given here regarding the necessity for the legislation.

Mr. PUCINSKI. I will proceed to my next question, but I would like to register my own personal protest here that after listening for 1 hour and 10 minutes to all sorts of statements by the other members of the committee, accusing the President of lip service and various other things, this witness is not now permitted to answer the question I asked him, if he can tell me of anyone who has done more to help the minority groups, and in particular the Negro community of this

country, than Mr. Kennedy. If he is not permitted to answer that question, I will proceed to my next question.

Mr. DENT. Can he answer it yes or no, or do you want him to go into a discussion going back 20 years?

Mr. PUCINSKI. I did not open this door. The witness in his own prepared statement opened it, and then you fellows, the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the gentleman from New York, went through a half hour colloquy here on this subject.

Mr. DENT. My dear sir, if you will read the record, you will note that my remarks were only trying to bring the discussion back on the track. I am trying to do that now. If you are going to question on the legislation, I will yield. If you are going to go into a political question, I will not.

Mr. AYRES. I am not going to make any political question out of it. Everybody with an ounce of commonsense knows it is filled with politics. This door was not opened today. This door was opened 20 years ago, maybe 40 years ago. When somebody leaves the door open, somebody is going to walk into it.

Mr. DENT. I would suggest it was opened up at the days of the Founding Fathers of our Nation.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Now, Mr. Chairman, I have a question to ask of this witness.

We in Illinois have recently passed an FEPC bill, and there was a rather extensive analysis of the results and the problems involved in trying to administer the bill in one of the Chicago papers last Sunday. And many of the large corporations have been quoted, I assume correctly, as pointing out that while they have gone to great pains to hire members of various minority groups to comply with the laws, so that there would be no charge, and they would not be subjected to discrimination, they have been unable to find skilled people to fill these jobs.

Now, would you care to comment on what has been your experience in this field?

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Pucinski.

This last August I had the privilege of presenting testimony to this same subcommittee on the question of discrimination in apprenticeship training programs and related technical training programs, and there is no doubt that in some parts of the country there is currently a lack of Negroes and members of other minority groups who have certain industrial and technical skills, especially craft skills, and that this does represent a problem.

Now, a very good part of the reason for this is that Negroes have been excluded from apprenticeship and other training programs in industry and in the skilled craft occupations.

There is a direct relationship between discrimination, between racial discrimination, and the fact that there are a limited number of skilled craftsmen in the Negro community. In the electrical industry, in the printing industry, in electronics, in other crafts many of the apprenticeship training programs are closed to Negroes. Thus Negroes are barred from developing these skills; so that you have a vicious circle. On the one hand you have discrimination which prevents Negroes from developing these skills. Then industry can rationalize the exclusion of Negroes by saying, "You see, there aren't any qualified Negro

persons." And so the pattern just continues. The vicious circle feeds on itself.

On the other hand, there are many situations where there are competent, highly qualified Negro technicians, Negro professionals, and here, too, we have many problems in getting them employed.

Mr. PUCINSKI. Would you be good enough to present to this committee some specific examples, not at this moment, but in a supplemental statement? I would like to see, merely because this is a question that is being asked, where there have been cases of skilled, qualified Negro workers who have been denied an opportunity at a job. Now, I am sure they are there, because this question has come up, and I think we ought to have it in the record, if we are going to discuss this question intelligently.

Now to my other question. And I do not mind telling you that 1 am very disappointed in the position that you have taken here regarding the inclusion of the age factor in this legislation. I completely do not accept your statement that the question of age discrimination is a specialized matter, because while we can make the point, and you have admitted yourself right now, that you have had discrimination in certain areas because these people did not have the skills, did not qualify for the jobs, in those very same areas today you have thousands of Americans who have the skill, who have had the experience, who have worked at the job as highly skilled workers for many years, and merely because of a chronological age barrier they are being denied employment in America today.

I would estimate that of the 412 million people now unemployed in this country, at least half of them are unemployable simply because of the policies of not hiring people beyond 40. The Department of Commerce tells me that a man past 40 today has only a six to one chance of getting another job as good once he has lost his original job.

And this is a purely arbitrary rule. There is no logic behind it. Nobody can prove to me, at least he has not yet, why we have this rule. But it is no mystery today that a man past 40 many times cannot get a job.

Do you not feel, then, that we are dealing with the whole question of discrimination in hiring practices? This is not only legislation being written for the American Negro; this is legislation being written for all Americans.

Mr. HILL. I understand that.

Mr. PUCINSKI. This is legislation to deal with discrimination based on religious and ethnic backgrounds. I think you will agree that I know something about discrimination because of ethnic backgrounds. And therefore I was very disappointed when you took the position that your organization does not support inclusion of age in this bill. How can we honestly deal with the question of discrimination in hiring practices by excluding age and sex? Would you be good enough to tell me?

Mr. HILL. First, I should like to clarify our position, sir. NAACP does support legislation to end discrimination because of age. We do support it. I want to make this absolutely clear.

of this. I think it is vitally necessary.

I am in favor