I referred to some specific situations in my own State, specific situations involving discrimination, of which I am very unhappy.

I think that the uncertainty with which a Negro undertakes to go around the corner and get a milkshake, whether he will be welcome or whether he will be thrown out of that eating facility, that uncertainty exists in his heart whether he lives in New York City or he lives in Birmingham, Ala. And it is this uncertainty that this bill aims to remove.

Senator PASTORE. Are there any further questions?

(No response).

Senator PASTORE. It is now 12 o'clock. We will recess on civil rights until 9:15 tomorrow morning in this room.

We will hold an executive session of the members of this committee in room 5112 to discuss the matter of the procedure with reference to the legislation that was referred to this committee yesterday, with reference to the broadening of the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission. In this room at 2 o'clock we will commence the hearings by having before us Secretary Wirtz.

(At 12 noon the committee adjourned.)

CIVIL RIGHTS-PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS

WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 1963

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
Washington, D.C.

The committee reconvened at 9:20 a.m. in room 318 (caucus room), Old Senate Office Building, Hon. A. S. Mike Monroney presiding. Senator MONRONEY. The Commerce Committee will come to order. We are honored today to have the distinguished dean of Harvard University Law School and the Chairman of the Civil Rights Commission, the Honorable Erwin N. Griswold as our witness. This committee appreciates deeply your coming down here and interrupting your busy schedule. We would be most delighted to have you proceed in your own way.

STATEMENT OF ERWIN N. GRISWOLD, COMMISSIONER, CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION, AND DEAN OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL

Mr. GRISWOLD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I believe the chairman introduced me as Chairman of the Civil Rights Committee, which I cannot claim to be, as Mr. Hannah is the Chairman. I am the junior member of the Committee. But I do appear as a member of the Committee, and after consideration by all the members of the Committee, and with the unanimous authority of the Committee to speak for them.

The public accommodations bill you are now considering is clearly the most important part of any program for protecting the civil rights of American citizens and indeed, in my judgment, the most important issue facing this Congress.

Its importance lies in the fact that the continued denial to one group of American citizens of access to restaurants, hotels, and other places of public accommodation has plunged many communities in our Nation into turmoil and has challenged our ability to govern ourselves through the peaceful and orderly processes of law. But there is an even greater meaning to your deliberations. The courts of our Nation have established beyond any doubt that all citizens are entitled to equal treatment at the hands of Government. This matter is settled, although we are having great difficulties in translating this legal principle into practice. There remains, however, the issue of the right of citizens to equal treatment in their public dealings with other important segments of society. This is the principle to which Congress is addressing itself in the public accommodations bill. It goes to the

heart of the matter-the dignity of each individual and his right to decent and equitable treatment at the hands of society.

It is clear that the denial of access to public places is a problem of national, rather than regional or sectional dimensions. This is reflected in the accounts of our advisory committees to the Civil Rights Commission throughout the country of their own difficulties in conducting business in segregated communities. Last year, for example, our Nevada committee reported that when the committee held a public meeting in Hawthorne, its members along with a representative of the Governor of Nevada, were refused service at the city's leading restaurant because of the racial composition of the group. Two weeks ago, our Louisiana committee reported a similar incident in connection with a public meeting it was holding in New Orleans. The Commission itself, in conducting hearings and other Government business throughout the Nation, has found on more than one occasion that the only facilities which could be secured on an unsegregated basis were those available at military installations.

If these are the minor tribulations of Government officials trying to conduct their business, how much more devastating is the impact of racial discrimination on the daily lives of Negro citizens. The average white person takes for granted the recreational, cultural, and entertainment offerings of his community-the restaurants, department stores, theaters, concert halls, sports arenas, bowling alleys, and skating rinks. But the Negro in a segregated city is entirely excluded from the mainstream of community life; he must build his own minority society or have none at all. For the white man traveling from State to State, the road is a series of familiar landmarks and frequently his most difficult problem is to make a choice among the array of establishments offering him food, lodging, and respite. But for the Negro traveler, the road may be more like a desert and each inviting sign a mirage or, worse yet, a humiliating rebuff to him, his family, or companions.

The problem can also be seen in the plight of the Negro who is a member of the Armed Forces. He travels wherever ordered to serve his country-but once there he may be excluded from the surrounding community and virtually restricted to the base. This has created a delicate problem for one Air Force installation in Alabama which trains foreign nationals as well as Americans. The military authorities have solved it by issuing "passports" to colored foreigners to enable them to travel unmolested in the community. For the American serviceman, to our shame, neither his uniform nor his birthright is enough.

The existence of this kind of situation should be of vital concern to the government of a democracy whether or not it gives rise to protests and demonstrations. In my judgment, Congress has authority under the Constitution to provide a complete remedy for the discriminatory denial of access to places of public accommodations. This power can be exercised pursuant to the commerce clause, the 14th amendment or a combination of both provisions, and I might add other provisions of the Constitution.

First, as to the commerce clause, there is no question that acts of racial discrimination which affect interstate commerce are an appropriate subject for regulation. Congress has in fact prohibited

certain acts of racial discrimination in passing the Aviation and Interstate Commerce Acts. It has, for example, forbidden restaurants which are an integral part of interstate bus transportation to discriminate against customers on the basis of race. Even in the absence of statute, the Supreme Court has held that racial discrimination constitutes a burden upon interstate commerce in violation of the Constitution.

Since Congress and the courts have already dealt with discrimination under the commerce power, it is not necessary to reason from analogy to prove that the legislation before you would be an appropriate exercise of authority under article I, section 8. But if analogies were needed, they are plentiful. The Government has regulated the businessman in his dealings with customers and the public as well as with his employees and other businessmen and employers. Congress in exercising the commerce power has sought to protect the public from impure food, drugs and water, from unsafe appliances, from criminal or immoral acts, from price fixing, and other restraints of trade. In doing so, it has prescribed the shape of oleomargarine served in restaurants and the labeling of bottles of aspirin in drugstores. Surely, then, we are not dealing with an exercise of authority which in any respect would be unique or peculiar in its application.

It is equally clear that when Congress is dealing with a subject appropriate for legislation it has plenary authority to achieve its objectives. Congressional authority is not limited to the regulation of commerce among the States. It extends, as the Supreme Court said in United States v. Darby:

to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce or the exercise of power of the Congress over it as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the exercise of the granted power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

In practice this has meant the regulation of intrastate transactions when they are—

so comingled with or related to interstate commerce that all must be regulated if interstate commerce is to be effectively controlled.

It has meant that amusement activities such as motion pictures, professional boxing, and football are subject to the antitrust laws even though the showing or exhibition is a local affair; that employees of a window cleaning company may be covered by fair labor standards if the greater part of their work is done on the windows of industrial plants of producers of goods in interstate commerce; that agricultural production quotas may be applied to wheat grown by a farmer only for his own consumption where it is determined that price is affected by the whole supply and not merely the quantity offered for sale.

In the United States of 1963, it does not require any fiction to see the relationship of places of public accommodation to interstate commerce. In 1961, commercial airlines flew more than 18 billion revenue passenger miles in the Nation during the first half of the year. More than 350 million passengers traveled on the 218,000 miles of railroad routes in 1958. Intercity buslines in 1959 carried 170 million passengers over 208,000 miles of route. The 41,000-mile Interstate Highway System, which reaches into every corner of the land, crosses the boundaries of 673 cities and passes close to many hundreds of others. With the growth of metropolitan complexes, many thousands of