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World War II must have been fought for a purpose more than just the defeat of the Nazi army. It was fought also because we felt that there was a principle running riot which would lead to the whole degredation of civilization, and that principle was one which asserted the superiority of one group over another. We certainly did not win World War II-this observation has been made-if we are unable to pass a fair employment practices law, because the principles for which we fought will certainly not have become the law of the land, then we have not triumphed in that particular area.

With respect also to the political parties, both the Democratic and Republican Parties, of course, have an enormous responsibility, we might say whole responsibility for what is the law of the land, and what is the prevailing practice with respect to the rights of citizens in something as basic as employment. Of course, both the Republican and Democratic Parties have had in their national platforms planks on fair employment practices. These planks, of course, have not been put into practice. It seems to me that there ought to be some sense of responsibility, some sense of shame perhaps on the part of the parties that they use these planks to get people to vote for them. If there is not a strong enough feeling in the parties that those planks will be enacted into legislation, then somebody ought to say something about the fact that it is unjust, it is a form of misrepresentation to say that you are going to do this, to garner millions of votes, to get the confidence of the citizens who vote for you, and have no intention of enacting those planks into law.

I know, of course, that there are strong elements in both parties, and the chairman of the committee is representative of the best elements in his party, who are very much for the enactment of these planks, and who fight to have these planks in there. But I, of course, express the hope that his hand will be strengthened so that the same principle is accepted by the entire Democratic Party, and by the entire Republican Party as a platform, of course, implies.

As a minority group, we feel that national unity is unobtainable until the law of the land lends itself to wiping out the barriers of discrimination that separates us. We offer this testimony, Mr. Chairman, in behalf of a large section of the Jewish community, a large section of the labor movement, and we hope that the little contribution we make can do something to strengthen the hand of this committee which is doing a noble job in a very noble cause.

Senator HUMPHREY. Thank you, very much, Mr. Stern. We are very grateful to you for your testimony, and also for your patience this morning.

Mr. STERN. Thank you.

Senator HUMPHREY. Thank the Jewish Labor Committee for sending you to us.

Mr. STERN. Thank you.

Senator HUMPHREY. It is an excellent organization. I am familiar with the Workmen's Circle. We have one out our way.

Mr. STERN. I am an officer of the Workmen's Circle.

Senator HUMPIIREY. Mr. Edelsberg.

STATEMENT OF HERMAN EDELSBERG, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE, B'NAI B'RITH

Mr. EDELSBERG. My name is Herman Edelsberg. I am the Washington representative of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. B'nai B'rith, founded in 1843, is the oldest civic organization of American Jews. It represents a membership of over 350,000 men and women and their families. The Anti-Defamation League was organized in 1913, as a section of B'nai B'rith, in order to cope with racial and religious prejudice in the United States. The program developed by the league was designed to achieve the following objectives: the elimination and counteraction of defamation and discrimination against the various racial, religious, and ethnic groups which comprise our American people; the counteraction of un-American and anti-democratic activity; the advancement of good will and mutual understanding among American groups; the encouragement and translation into greater effectiveness of the ideals of American democracy.

I have a prepared paper that I wish only to insert in the record. Senator HUMPHREY. Mr. Edelsberg, at this time we will make note of your desire to have your prepared paper included in the record. It is ordered to be printed as if read.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY HERMAN EDELSBERG ON BEHALF OF ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE OF B'NAI B'RITH

B'nai B'rith, founded in 1843, is the oldest civic organization of American Jews. It represents a membership of over 350,000 men and women and their families. The ADL was organized in 1913, as a section of B'nai B'rith, in order to cope with racial and religious prejudice in the United States. The program developed by the league was designed to achieve the following objectives: The elimination and counteraction of defamation and discrimination against the various racial, religious, and ethnic groups which comprise our American people; the counteraction of un-American and antidemocratic activity; the achievement of good will and mutual understanding among American groups; the encouragement and translation into greater effectiveness of the ideals of American democracy.

I have been delegated by the Antidefamation League of B'nai B'rith to appear before you to testify in behalf of legislation to insure equality of job opportunity for all regardless of race or creed. B'nai B'rith has for a number of years recognized that its work for the fulfillment of the promise of equality of opportunity for all, implicit in our Ameriuan democracy, requires that it support all effective efforts to obtain such equality for all in every area of community activity essential to the happiness and well-being of everyone.

The campaign for democracy and against discrimination based on race or creed is one to which the Jew is no stranger. Our first participation in the struggle for the recognition of the essential dignity of every individual was when we successfully sought to burst the bonds of the European ghettos. The artificial constraints set up for Jews throughout Europe were intended to exclude them from the normal life of the community and to restrict them to a secondclass status in the state. We Jews succeeded-we thought, for all time-in breaking down the ghetto walls. But we found that the mere smashnng of the physical walls was only part of the job. In its stead, those who wished to restrict competition and those who could not overcome their bigoted background sought to achieve the same constraint by building economic and spiritual walls to replace the physical ones of the ghetto. Thus, for centuries, Jews found themselves excluded from certain industries and occupations. Large portions of the social life of the community were surrounded by bars erected against the Jew.

In our present-day dynamic society, there can be no standing still. The existence of economic, social, and spiritual ghetto walls operate not only to exclude

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the victim but also do harm to the oppressor.

He who seeks to wall off minority groups in economic, educational, or social ghettos is himself corrupted by such exclusionary devices. The end result of such policies of exclusion and denial of basic economic and educational opportunities can be seen in any totalitarianism. Ultimately, he who builds walls of exclusion is driven to grimmer methods. Unless we here in democratic America advance continually and consistently in our fight against racial and religious discrimination, we face the danger of turning backward to more brutal racist devices.

But before I address myself directly to the legislation now being considered by this committee for the creation of legal safeguards against discrimination based on race or creed in employment, I feel that I must first call this committee's attention to a fundamental road block currently making impossible the enactment of legislation such as is considered here. That is rule 22 of the present Senate rules, which has up to the present stood as an effective bar to the enactment of any kind of legislation aimed at elimination of discrimination against racial or religious minorities.

Under the Senate rules governng limitation of debate, a small group of willful men are granted an absolute power of veto against such legislation. This power they have exercised up to now to prevent the adoption of any kind of legislation seeking to eliminate racial discrimination.

A fundamental essential of democracy is majority rule. It is true, of course, that a second essential is protection of the fundamental rights of all minorities from destruction by temporary majorities. But this latter protection is, and can by no means be, absolute. If it were, it would enable minorities to prevent democratic majorities from carrying out the basic functions of government. Those minority rights which our country has considered so fundamental as to require protection at all times from majorities, have been spelled out and wellprotected forever in our Federal Constitution. Happily, the history of our democratic system has demonstrated again and again that whenever these rights have been attacked, our courts have stood strongly in their defense.

Defenders of the present Senate cloture rule who are by nomeans limited to those who use that rule to prevent the enactment of legislation such as that being considered by this committee here, have made much of the fact that in the United States Senate, debate is practically unlimited. They have argued that unlimited debate is an important aspect of a democracy. But a search of the record discloses that in every democratic country but our own, law-making bodies follow a policy of limiting debate so as to permit them to take action where it is vital and necessary. Imposing limitations on legislative debate has neither weakened nor subverted those democracies. Rather it has enabled the law-making bodies to take action when necessary to preserve, strengthen, and expand the privileges of democracy.

Free speech is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Freedom of speech is protected by our Constitution because those who wrote it believed that democracy can thrive only where there is adequate opportunity for all points of view on a particular issue to be presented fully to the voters before a decision is made. When free speech can be subverted to permit a stubborn minority to prevent a majority from taking action which is necessary to resolve a pressing issue, it becomes an evil. It is noteworthy that one of the frequent complaints made against totalitarian groups operating in democratic unions is that they use the device of unduly extending debate to wear out the majority opposition until it leaves the meeting and allows the issue to be stolen by the stubborn totalitarian minority.

Under the present cloture rule, a small group of Senators, possibly unmindful of the world-wide responsibilities we now carry as the model of democracy, could prevent us from taking action necessary to mend many breaches in the fortress walls and practices of democracy. From a failure to understand the international implications of our position, the small group of Senators which have been invoking cloture against FEPC and similar legislation are permitting totalitarianism to use our failure to protect equality of opportunity as a propaganda device to weaken and subvert our democratic allies.

Hence, my organization thinks it essential that any Senate committee considering legislation such as is now before this group must include in its report a call for a change in rule 22 so as to permit imposition of cloture by a majority of the Senate after there has been adequate debate of the substantive issue under consideration.

So much for democracy in the United States Senate. I return now to Federal FEPC legislation.

The essential basis of democracy is its affirmation of the worth and dignity of the individual. Democracy grants to every individual an equal voice in every important decision affecting the community. It affirms the right of each person to be judged by the community on the basis of his own behavior, not on the basis of such irrelevant factors as the color of his skin, his religious affiliation, his racial origin, or his ancestry.

As our understanding of democracy advanced, it became clear to us that a man who is hungry or unemployed cannot maintain his dignity. It was recognized that the right to equality of opportunity for employment was a necessary concomitant of the democratic way of life. The exclusion of members of any racial or religious group from the opportunity to obtain work for which they were qualified was seen to be a denial of the democratic rights of that group. And the denial of democratic rights in one area threatens the denial of those same rights in all areas. Those whose rights are denied lose their faith in democracy. They are easy prey for the groups which would subvert democracy. Similarly, those who participate in the denial of such rights become contemptuous of the democratic way of life, and are also more likely to listen to the siren song of totalitarianism.

It is also noteworthy that the doctrine of the equality of man before God is fundamental to our Judeo-Christian religious philosophy. Discrimination in employment based on race or creed is, by our religious concepts, immoral and ungodly.

From the point of view of the economic health of the community, racial and religious discrimination in employment is wasteful. Clearly, it is economically unwise to deny to the community the fullest possible use of productive skills of every individual in the community. To compel a person who has gone through long years of costly training to qualify as a lawyer or an economist or a teacher to go to work as an elevator operator or as a tailor is to destroy an investment. Nor does the foregoing exhaust the list of considerations of practical selfinterest which demonstrate the need for legislation to insure equality of opportunity in employment. It has been repeatedly shown by our experts in sociology that the poverty resulting from job discrimination breeds crime, disease, and slums. The victim of discrimination is frequently also the victim of malnutrition and hate which warps his mind and stunts his body. Racial and religious discrimination in employment has, we have seen, resulted in compelling people to live on relief because they could not get a job even in the face of a labor shortage. It has lowered the purchasing power of large portions of the popula tion and has thereby lowered the standard of living of the entire community. Hundreds of businessmen have recognized the validity of the point I have just made. Hence, may of them have indicated their support for FEP legislation. This is particularly true of the businessmen who have had experience in the operation of such legislation, both under the old Federal FEPC and under the few State FEP acts now on the books.

We are presently engaged in a world ideological conflict with totalitarianism. Our country has had to take the leadership of those forces in the world which are fighting for democracy. This battle cannot be won by guns or food. The magnificent effort embodied in the airlift to Berlin was but a stopgap. The battle is one of ideologies and we will win it only if we win the minds of people all over the world. So long as we permit a substantial discrepancy to exist between our preachments of democracy and our actual practices here in the United States, the people of the world will find it hard to trust us and to accept the doctrines we preach. So long as we continue to deny fair treatment to large portions of our population because of their race or religion, we cannot expect the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Europe to believe in our good faith.

Repeatedly, the opponents of fair employment practice legislation have denied the need for such legislation. They have argued that there is little or no discrimination in employment. They have pointed to the unexcelled standard of living of the working people of our country. It therefore behooves us to examine the facts. In presenting the facts that the Antidefamation League found, we shall, naturally, speak most frequently of instances of job discrimination against Jews, although we are mindful that discrimination against certain other groups is more intensive and pervasive.

On two Sundays some time ago, the ADL examined the employment advertisement sections of 404 leading newspapers in 40 States and the District of Columbia. The newspapers examined were those published in all cities of the country with a population of more than 100,000. The purpose of this examination was to ascertain the amount of employment discrimination evidenced by em

ployment advertisements for the particular dates. In all, 97,088 advertisements were read for these two Sundays. A total of 3,494 ads, or 3.6 percent of the total number published on these two Sundays carried language which was potentially discriminatory. Of the discriminatory phraseology of the ads, 90.7 percent dealt with questions of race; 3.9 percent with religions; 3.1 percent with nationality. A total of 2.3 percent were classified as discriminatory because they asked for miscellaneous information which was potentially discriminatory. It is not surprising that the highest instance of discriminatory advertisements was found in the South, where 8.3 percent of all ads examined requested data on either race, religion, or nationality. In the Midwest, 3.4 percent of all the ads. examined contained discriminatory phraseology. In the Northeast, 3.1 percent was found objectionable and in the far west only 2.8 percent contained discriminatory matter.

An earlier local study made by the Los Angeles office of the ADL revealed that of the total help-wanted ads which appeared in the five Los Angeles metropolitan dailies during that month, 480, or 3.5 percent specified the prospective employee's race, 274 or 2.3 percent asked for or specified his nationality, and 15, or 0.2 percent inquired about religion.

When it made the ad study, the ADL also made a study which showed that discriminatory job orders were accepted by private employment agencies in at least 55 large cities throughout the United States. Of 156 job orders which were placed for a white Protestant stenographer, 138 were accepted for placement without any comment. Eight of the thirteen refusals came from employment agencies in the northeast portions of the country. It is noteworthy that four of the States in that area have State FEPC laws barring employment discrimination.

ness.

For the most part, private employment agencies take the position that it is not their duty to change employment mores, and that it is their function to satisfy an employer so that he will continue to use their agency for future busiOne private employment agency interviewed put it thus: "I take colored and Jewish applications, but I do not send them out unless there is a specific request. I cannot place a colored girl and I have trouble enough placing a Jewish one." Another employment interviewer queried in the same investigation made the following statement of the rationale and the process of discrimination as usually employed in the agencies: "Employment agencies cater to the needs of employers he is the one who generally pays the fees and he is the one to be satisfied. While a person may have the various technical qualifications for filling a job, race, religion, and nationality are always taken into consideration before the person is even sent out for a job interview. When the person is Jewish, you go to another phone and call the employer, using a fictitious Jewish-sounding name (Goldberg, etc.,), thereby giving the employer an opportunity to say that they are not interested in seeing that person."

Another area in which Jews have been the victims of widespread employment discrimination is in the professions of accounting and engineering. During the past year, the B'nai B'rith Vocational Service Bureau made three studies of such discrimination with respect to students graduated from schools of accounting and engineering. The technique used was to obtain fairly complete interviews with administrators and professors in leading professional schools in each of these fields.

In the accounting study, 50 deans, directors, professors, or placement officers were interviewed at length. Nine out of ten accounting school administrators and professors reported the existence of some discrimination by employers in hiring young accounting graduates. Discrimination against Jews seems to be particularly noticeable in the field of public accounting. The hiring policies of the big, nationally known accounting firms is described in terms such as these: "I don't think there is much opportunity for a Jew to get a job with a national public accounting firm. There are a few mixed firms of national scope, but it is very tough for a Jew to make a career with a national accounting firm." Or again, "As far as Jewish students are concerned, it is an almost impossible task for them to get a job in a public accounting firm." The professors seek to explain the public accounting firms' discriminatory policy by blaming it on the prejudice of the firm's clients: "Since a public accountant is working most of the time in a client's office rather than his own, he has, they say, to be persona grata to businessmen in general."

These findings were confirmed in another study recently completed in Cincinnati by the Jewish Vocational Service. This revealed that, of 286 accountants employed by 15 large public accounting firms in that city, only 3 were Jewish.

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