he will be. I know in the basic law that every time I sat down before the jury-under this you won't have any jury-every time I sat down before a jury, with an accused criminal, that defense over there under the Constitution of this country had two strikes on that jury to my one as representing the State and the prosecutor, the idea being that you must not convict the innocent.

In this, the innocent-I won't say "this"-the accused instead has to prove himself innocent. And always the burden of proof on any kind of crime was always on the State to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Here the accused has no jury, there is no strike on the jury, and the Attorney General, the prosecutor, can choose his judge anywhere he wants. If he does not like one he can get one some place else. What kind of business is that in American jurisprudence? After all, our Constitution was set out to protect the rights of people and here we are turning it right around, the statutory law, and if a man is accused, and all it takes is a written letter, it does not take a sworn complaint, it does not take any support of any kind to make the case against him, just write in to the Attorney General and the United States will pay for a free lawsuit against him, and the accused, as I read it, may not even know how is accusers are.

Now, that is some kind of legislation for this Congress to pass.

Mr. COLMER. Has the gentleman noticed that in practically every section and title of this bill, there is the word used repeatedly "expedite"? Every provision here of this law is to be given preference over all others.

Mr. RAINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. COLMER. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions?

Mr. ELLIOTT. I want to compliment my colleague from Alabama on his fine statement.

Mr. RAINS. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, next we have Mr. Sikes.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT L. F. SIKES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Mr. SIKES. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, in Panama recently and many other parts of the world previously, we have read of riots, demonstrations, strikes, other protest movements by which organized spontaneous groups have threatened those in authority to enact laws to their liking or decrees of their choosing. I see but little difference in what has been done in this country to seek to panic the Government and the Congress into supporting the civil rights legislation now proposed.

Now, Mr. Chairman, by contrast, I have had much mail from the people of my district. They are pretty active letterwriters. I get 200, 300 letters a day from every class of segment of society including Negroes. I like to think what I receive is generally an indication of their feeling. When I do this, I eliminate consideration of inspired or "write your Congressman" campaigns. I know about those, too.

I have had more mail on civil rights than any other issue before the Congress. It has been continuing from the time that this was first

proposed. I receive a few letters from people who advocate passage of the civil rights bill but I can safely say that 99.9 percent of my mail is against it.

There is no reason to believe other than that this is a genuine outpouring of the sentiment of the people whom I represent, and I do not think they are substantially different from other people in other

areas.

Now, of course, every American citizen should be equal under the law and have an equal opportunity to compete in our free enterprise system, but there are those who would have us go far beyond this. They would have us seek to guarantee everyone security and happiness regardless of individual qualifications or attitude. They would have us subordinate the rugged free enterprise system on which our economy rests to sociological precepts. They would even tamper with or set aside the Constitution if it would serve their purpose.

I do not believe that we should cripple the free enterprise system in a cure-all attempt to satisfy any group, minority or otherwise. But the civil rights bill now proposes to give to the executive branch of Government vast powers heretofore unknown in this country, to set aside the Constitution and the free enterprise system.

Now, I feel that any citizen, corporate or private, who through the opportunities afforded by this free enterprise system and despite the tax burdens, if he has amassed enough capital to own and operate a business, he should have the right to run that business. It is pure folly to abolish by laws or decrease traditional rights which have been the keystone of this country's greatness. We cannot gain one freedom by destroying another.

The individual's right to own and manage property is a human right inseparable from other basic human rights. Once these rights are eroded or destroyed, the basis of freedom is destroyed, and with it everything for which the United States has stood.

If the civil rights bill becomes law, it will destroy the American heritage of the right of possession of private property just as surely as Communist decrees have destroyed a similar right in other parts of the world.

Now, we know this vigorous agitation for its passage is a sustained agitation of the same kind which Communists use so effectively to promote their own interests in many parts of the world. It is the only kind of agitation which will permit minorities to take over rights from the majority in whatever country it is practiced. The public is entitled to a voice in this matter.

My people have expressed themselves to me on it. But I think the public generally quails before the noise and the agitation, does not know how to make its voice heard above the din, is afraid of the mob. Yet I will say that if this bill is passed to pacify the few who are noisy agitators, it will fail in its purpose. They can never be satisfied. They cannot afford to be satisfied. They must always agitate for more than they can possibly hope to achieve in order to maintain their status as leader in a cause and to insure a following.

I do not think we need delude ourselves about the real objectives of this legislation or the motives of the chief agitators back of it. I do not think it is the attainment of civil rights. That is a catch phrase. These are rallying words like "anticolonialism." They cover anything. They serve any objective that the user desires.

I think generally the use of the term "civil rights" in just as phony as the use of the term "anticolonialism." The word "discrimination" has been made the whipping boy.

Would it not be well to consider that this legislation would set up discrimination in reverse?

Is it democratic to discriminate for the 11 percent of the Nation who are Negroes?

Do the 89 percent have to give up rights which the Constitution guarantees just because their skins are white?

Is a man to be denied a government job for the same reason?

Finally, it is happening here in America. I think the real objective of those who agitate for the enactment of civil rights measures is social rights. Most people have civil rights. They can vote. They can be elected or appointed to office. We see it happening all over the country. They can own property. They can travel freely, and in most travel they use the same public accommodations. They are not denied an education. In fact, they can have the use of the power of the U.S. Army if necessary to insure that they get an education.

I think the real basis for complaint is the lack of social rights. Mr. Chairman, social rights are not conferred by statute. They have to be earned. If this bill becomes law, there will no longer be a constitutional guarantee of the rights of individuals as we have know them in this country. They will be set aside. In their place would be blanket power for the Federal Government through the Attorney General and the President to control the lives, property, and eventually the thoughts, Mr. Chairman-eventually the thoughts-of the people because they would be afraid to speak out, and to have thoughts other than those which are prescribed for them.

We can have for the first time the basis in law for a police state with all its connotations.

I remind you that in nations where police state powers are in effect, history shows there have been few instances where the people ever regain freedom.

The legislation before you, before the Congress, is contrary to the laws of my State. Some of those laws are of very recent enactment. Florida is a progressive State. It is a growing State, made up of people from the four corners of the land, recognized as more liberal than some of its southern neighbors.

The enactment of laws by any State legislature which are contrary to the proposals such as those contained in the civil rights bill is, in my opinion, a repudiation of the action which is proposed here.

Regardless of that, I am opposed to any legislation which becomes an infringement upon the rights of another to conduct his business, his private business, as he sees fit. Any government control upon a man's right to protect his investment is an infringement upon his basic rights as an American.

I am constrained to wonder whether the Government is going to guarantee protection against loss of income due to compliance with forced integration, and whether we are to have as a follow on legislation which subsidizes those deprived of a livelihood. It would be a logical next step in the march toward a socialized state.

People are not equal, Mr. Chairman. They are not created in the same mold. They cannot be recast by law to be exactly alike. In contrast, perhaps it would be well to recall that the rights of indi

viduals cease when they trespass on the rights of others, and this our Government seems to want to forget. Even the strongest civil rights proponents must admit that discrimination against majority is as bad as discrimination against the minority.

I fully believe that the situation which has arisen in this country through clamor for so-called civil rights means we are in danger of losing the image of freedom at home which we have sought for years to establish for people abroad.

In America, the bastion of freedom to which all the world looks for strength, race has been set against race by glory seekers or vote seekers. They are attempting to bring about through unwanted and unneeded legislation what can only be accomplished through the voluntary cooperation of people of good will, and all that is necessary could be accomplished in that way.

If ever there was a need for restoration of sanity, it is here. I look around and I see in this Nation dynamic progress. I see a sound economy. I see an opportunity for the people of this Nation to stand together and to work together for progress as never before. But instead there is division, there is discordance, primarily because there is constant agitation of the race question.

The Communist technique of creating problems to gain concessions as a solution to those problems was never used to better advantage than in the manner in which some racial demonstrations were promoted in this country to create trouble and to involve the participation of the United States. It has left bitterness instead of understanding, chaos instead of solution.

The problems between the races cannot be solved in this manner or by this legislation. If there is a need for civil rights, it won't be achieved by the enactment of legislation which destroys the rights it pretends to insure.

The proposed bill is probably the greatest single departure from constitutional government ever to advance this far in Congress.

Daniel Webster stated, 130 years ago, that God grants liberty only to those who love it and who are ready to guard or defent it.

I honestly believe that the security and the comfort which Americans have enjoyed for so many years is for the first time seriously threatened from within and I am convinced that the majority of the people of the United States are not demanding that this Nation be turned upside down, that constitutional government be set aside, that the interest of the majority be subordinated to the desires of the minority, that one-man rule be substituted for representative government.

I am certain that the majority of the people want none of this and do not want their tax money used for police-state purposes.

But all of this, Mr. Chairman, is dangerously close.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Sikes.

Mr. BROWN. I would like to ask Mr. Sikes one question. I have been sitting here wondering the last 2 or 3 days: Is this an administration measure or what is it?

Mr. SIKES. Sir, I do not think anybody really knows who is the parent of this.

Mr. BROWN. I thought it was written at the White House and the Department of Justice.

Mr. SIKES. We cannot find out what the parent of anything is. You know what that usually means about its status.

Mr. BROWN. I just wondered.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions?

Mr. DELANEY. I had hoped that some of those who would testify would go into specific examples. A great deal has been said about title VI. If we analyze that, it will not take but just a moment, and let us here carry it out to a concrete example. Reading section 601, at the top of title VI:

Notwithstanding any incinsistent provision of any other law, no person in the United States shall, on the grounds of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefit of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assist

ance.

That means where the people came from, it is elementary, but this discrimination is racial imbalance or national imbalance, and so forth. We have a housing project, say, going up in my area or any other area. Say an Arab comes in there. There would not be many Arabs, I would guess, in the building trades. He asks for a job. There are no Arabs. So we establish discrimination on racial imbalance. Now, the whole job would have to stop because you would be denying him benefits of such activity, and as you follow the next section:

Each Federal department and agency which is empowered to extend Federal financial assistance to any program or activity, by way of grant, contract, or loan, shall take action to effectuate the provisions of section 601 with respect to such program or activity.

Now, when you analyze some of these things, I think that some of them need amendment because, there, a man of any racial origin could tie up a job.

I do not think that is the intention of the civil rights law.

Mr. SIKES. It is extremely dangerous legislation. It is wide open legislation into which I think virtually anything could be read, and I think it would almost completely set aside any guarantees that we

have.

Mr. DELANEY. Now, if I am a contractor and this man applies for a job there, and there are no Arabs on the job, just what am I going to do?

Mr. SIKES. You have already stated it. The job can be shut down if this man feels that he has been discriminated against regardless of who he is, what his color is, where he came from, or what his qualifications are.

Mr. DELANEY. National origin would have every group saying, "Well, we are not represented here and therefore let us go and apply for a job."

Mr. SIKES. That is correct. It is dangerous.

Mr. DELANEY. I do not see how you are going to work this out. I was hoping that somebody would explain "national origin," from a practical standpoint, I am thinking now as a contractor on that job. Mr. SIKES. It is an impossible bill.

Mr. DELANEY. Just what are you going to do, stop the job?
Mr. SIKES. You can be stopped under this bill.

Mr. DELANEY. I think we had better dot a few "i's" and cross a few "t's" on this, because I do not know what that particular section will mean. That is all.