Mr. COLMER. I want to congratulate the gentleman on a very able

statement.

Mr. WATSON. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Watson, we have had a good many statements here. I find, as I listen to all of them, that every witness who comes here has a different facet to this problem that we had not observed before. I am so happy to have had you here to make the statements which you did, and I am so sorry that most of the members who are expected to vote this bill out have not seen fit to stay here and listen to your testimony. As a matter of fact, I think if a vote was called on this bill right now, and, of course, I am strongly tempted, that it would be defeated in this committee by those members who have sat here and taken the trouble to try to inform themselves on what it is all about.

Thank you very much.

Mr. WATSON. Thank you.

Mr. ELLIOTT. I want to compliment the gentleman, too, Mr. Chairman, on this very fine statement.

Mr. COLMER. Mr. Chairman, I am almost tempted to move that we vote on this bill, but I shall not do it.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we do not want to discriminate.

The hearing will be recessed until 2 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the hearing recessed until 2 p.m. this same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, we will proceed, still without a quorum.

Mr. Andrews, I believe you have an engagement, so we will hear you first.

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE ANDREWS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

I have no prepared statement. I am sure I could not add anything to what has been said by the witnesses who have preceded me. I doubt that a man with the wisdom of Solomon and oratory of Daniel Webster, Mr. Chairman, could keep this bill from going to the floor of the House and become the law of the land, passing the House and the Senate. I have studied the bill. I am opposed to it in its entirety. I think the day that this bill or any part thereof becomes the law of the land will be a sad day in the history of this country. In my opinion, it will begin the ending of our system of constitutional law. I wish this committee could realize the opposition that is growing rapidly in this country to this so-called civil rights bill.

In my opinion, it is about 10-percent civil rights and 90-percent Government control. If this bill becomes law, it will project the Federal Government into every facet of the business life of this country. The American people don't know, in my opinion, at this time what this bill will really do to them. They are learning, and they don't like it. The Governor of my State made a trip through the northeastern section of this country and visited most of the colleges

in the so-called Ivy League section of America, and he made a terrific impression. Within the last 2 weeks he has visited five Western States, speaking at universities, to big crowds of enthusiastic people, and the only thing he has talked about has been this pending civil rights bill.

I have not seen anything in the Washington papers about my Governor's trip to the west coast, so that makes me think his trip was a success. I have read AP stories from the States of Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and Colorado, and uniformly those stories describing each of the speeches that he made in which he discussed at length the pending civil rights bill reported that the enthusiasm was terrific. In the last 2 weeks, I have had letters from many people out on the west coast asking me to send them a copy of the civil rights bill. The Governor had said if they wrote an Alabama Congressman, he would send them a copy of that bill. I think, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that the opposition to this bill is widespread. I am sure you members of the committee received a letter, as I did, from the American Motor Hotel Association; the headquarters of this organization is in Kansas City, Mo. The letter was dated November 5, 1963. I would like to read, with the permission of the chairman and members of the committee, this letter, to refresh your recollection.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the date of it?

Mr. ANDREWS. November 5, 1963.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN ANDREWS: The American Motor Hotel Association, the trade organization of the motel industry of America, believes that title II of the President's proposed Civil Rights Act of 1963 is a violation of amendments 10 and 14 of the Constitution and should be defeated as a matter of protecting the personal constitutional rights of all Americans.

Title II represents an unwarranted extension of the Commerce Clause. Since the Congress has no power to legislate in a matter which is purely intrastate, such legislation would violate amendment 10 of the Constitution, which provides that the powers not delegated to the Federal Government by the Constitution are reserved to the States or to the people. We believe that Congress has no power to so legislate under the 14th amendment, since the 14th amendment has been interpreted as clearly applying to State action. The actions of an individual proprietor in his decision to serve or not to serve, are not State actions, but the exercise of a private business decision by the individual operator. (Civil Rights Case 1883, with citation.)

The American Motor Hotel Association is opposed to this legislation, which puts more power into the hands of the Government, enabling it to exercise more control over individual rights and private businesses.

Signed by S. Cooper Dawson, Jr., chairman, Governmental Affairs of the American Motor Hotel Association.

Mr. ELLIOTT. May I ask my friend from Alabama, was that prior to the report of the bill from the House Judiciary Committee or subsequent?

Mr. ANDREWS. I don't know, but the record would indicate, because this letter was dated November 5, 1963, and he is clearly referring to the so-called public accommodations section of both civil rights bills. So, I can say to you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that the members of the American Motor Hotel Association, which is composed of thousands upon thousands of people in America, are unalterably opposed to this pending civil rights bill.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean the title?

Mr. ANDREWs. Title II of the bill.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the one where the shoe pinches them. They are not worrying so much about where somebody else is getting pinched.

Mr. ANDREWS. Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, selfishness is responsible for people being against or for most bills that come before Con

gress.

I received a letter dated November 1, 1963, from the National Restaurant Association of America, whose headquarters are here in Washington, D.C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN ANDREWs: On September 23, 1963, the board of directors of the National Restaurant Association met and adopted a strong policy of opposition to title II, the public accommodations section of H.R. 7152, amended, and to title VII, the section which establishes a Fair Employment Practices Commission.

These proposals provide an unprecedented and undesirable extension of Federal control over private business. The National Restaurant Association has no desire to impede or restrain the rights of any citizen. On the contrary, it is the association's firm belief that the realization of these rights will come only through voluntary cooperation on the local level. Indeed, through a policy of encouraging voluntary integration, the National Restaurant Association has rapidly achieved widespread success in this area.

The public accommodations feature of the bill and the establishment of a Fair Employment Practices Commission provide no meaningful guarantee of constitutional rights. Instead, by subjecting private business to unnecessary harassment and by enabling the Federal Government to exert more control over individual rights and over private business, the proposals, if enacted, can only result in the elimination of free enterprise and of the rights and freedoms of all citizens.

For these reasons, the National Restaurant Association is opposed to the public accommodations and the Fair Employment Practices Commission provisions of the bill H.R. 7952 as amended.

Signed by Ira H. Nunn, Washington counsel of the National Restaurant Association.

I am sure you gentlemen, members of this committee, have received, as I have, thousands upon thousands of letters expressing disapproval of this pending civil rights bill. I could have brought a basketful of them over here; I just picked a few of them at random. But I would like to read one to you from the pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church, Roswell, N. Mex., addressed to the Honorable Clinton P. Anderson-he sent me a copy of it.

I have obtained and read a document called "The Civil Rights Act of 1963." This letter is dated November 27, 1963.

May I state that I am strongly in favor of civil rights for everyone, regardless of race, color, or creed. I do not believe that the document mentioned above provides such rights. It seems to me that what it would really accomplish is to promote Federal executive power to the denial of the real civil rights of the vast majority of the American people. It would do so by establishing Federal control over nearly every function or interest of the average American citizen. I am opposed to this act or any bill with similar intent.

Now, Mr. Chairman, these two sections, the so-called public accommodations and the FEPC sections, will, in my opinion, destroy our system of free enterprise in America. The average businessman has a hard enough time trying to build up goodwill and make a living for himself and his employees and pay his taxes without additional Government interference. We might as well have socialism or even communism in this country, if we pass a bill which permits any government, whether Federal, State, or local, the power to go into a man's

business and tell him whom he can employ, whom he can fire, whom he can promote. It is bad enough for the Federal Government to tell him now how much he can pay him or what he has to pay him.

I am sure if this bill becomes law with these two obnoxious sections in it, that there will be many businesses that will close. I don't think this bill is anything on earth except a political bill sponsored by the leadership of both parties with only one thing in mind, and that is to get the vote of a minority group in this country.

I do not know whether you could bring out a rule that provided for a secret vote on the passage of this bill or not. I hope you can, and I feel confident if any such rule were granted this bill would be defeated, because I have heard, and I am sure you have heard, many Members of this Congress say, "It is a bad bill but I have to vote for it."

Now, I was born and reared in a county that has a ratio of 80 percent colored to 20 percent whites. And some of the finest friends I have on this earth are members of this minority race that we are talking about. I love them. I want them to have the best educational advantages possible. And the finest school building in my little home county of Alabama is the Negro high school in my hometown of Union Springs. Why, there is no comparison between that building and the building occupied by the whites.

Mr. COLMER. Do you mean it is worse or better?

Mr. ANDREWS. Better. It is brand new, 5 years old. You know who pays the bill for the operation of that school and who paid the bill for the construction of that school.

Now, having grown up in a State that has a topsided ratio of population, certain counties, and having been a friend of the colored people all my life, I have tried to help them since I have been in Congress. When the racial clouds of unrest began gathering 10, 12 years ago, I drafted a bill and introduced it in all sincerity in an effort to help these people. I introduced it, and reintroduced, and reintroduced it over a period of 10 years, and never was given a hearing by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to which my bill was referred.

My bill would have created a new Commission in Government to be known as the "Human Resettlement Commission," with offices to be set up wherever needed, and it provided that Negroes who could satisfy the Commission, first, that he was a worker, that he would carry his weight and not become an economic charge on the community into which he moved; and, secondly, that he was unhappy with local customs, laws, and traditions that prevailed in the State where he then resided, would be eligible for a long-term, low-interest-rate Government loan in an amount sufficient to permit him to move himself and the members of his family and his furniture wherever he decided to go. And it would be the duty, further, of the commission to assist him in making that relocation and finding the utopia that he hoped for. It is a good bill, Mr. Chairman. And when the civil rights bill of 1957 was on the floor of the House I offered my bill as an amendment to the pending civil rights bill, and the chairman made the point of order that it was not germane to the pending bill and the point of order was sustained. I am going to reintroduce that bill in the present Congress, and I would hope that this committee could find ways and means of rendering some kind of rule that would make my

human resettlement bill germane to the civil rights bill that goes to the floor.

I serve on the subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee that handles the appropriations for the foreign aid bill. Last year I checked into the refugee program that this country has financed over the period of the last 10 or 15 years and was amazed to learn that we have spent over $330 million relocating people, resettling people, and the Director of the program told our committee that the main reason those people were relocated and resettled was because of the fact that they were unhappy with local laws, customs, and traditions that prevailed in the country from whence they moved. That is all my bill ever attempted to do. Let us take, for instance, if you found a colored man down in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, who was unhappy because he could not go in a restaurant under local laws and break bread with members of the other race, or could not send his children to the school that was designated a white school under the law of the land, and the man was unhappy because of those local laws and customs and traditions, why not make it possible, why not give him the ways and means of moving out to Oregon, where less than one-half of 1 percent of the people are colored? Or let him go to California where less than 6 or 7 percent are colored? Let us share these people with others.

I told the chairman of that committee, when I went over to try to beg him to take up my bill, that I never would forget when I ran for circuit solicitor back in 1930 an old man asked me, "Son, how long has your opponent had that office?" I said "16 years," and I bore down with the same degree of emphasis on that "16 years" that Tennessee Ernie does on 16 tons. He said, "I am going to vote for you. If it is a good job, it ought to be passed around. If it is a bad job, we should not burden one man with it too long."

Mr. MADDEN. Are you talking about Congress?

Mr. ANDREWS. This was a prosecutor's job. I agreed with him then, I might not now. I told the chairman, "Listen, if it is a good thing to have some of these people in your State, we have too many in Alabama, and they don't have enough in Oregon," so that I do hope that you can find ways and means, Mr. Chairman, of having my bill, H.R. 11201, made germane to the pending civil rights bill. I say again, Mr. Chairman, that in my opinion the day this bill becomes the law of the land, unless drastically amended, will be the beginning of the end of constitutional law in our system of free enterprise.

Of course, many people in America will be happy, because there are many people, far too many people, who don't believe in our system of free enterprise. But I can't conceive of anything worse, Mr. Chairman, than to have any law prohibit the owner of a business from operating that business in the manner that he so desires, so long as he does not operate an illegal place of business. I was told recently about two colored brothers down in Goldsboro, N.C. I wish, if you are interested, you would check on these two brothers. They operate a restaurant there and they cater to the white trade. Through the years, they built up a wonderful business, specializing in good wholesome food, and it is colored owned all the way through. The head of the NAACP went down and called on those two brothers and said,