feel that not nearly enough compassion was exercised with respect to those feelings and those attitudes; that in the section of the country where I am privileged to live, the final result of this bill, with all these extremely harsh provisions that go so much beyond what the 1957 act and what the 1960 act did, will be to create tenser and tenser conditions with which we will have to live. You were here and, as I recall, you helped devise the 1957 act. At that time I think you perhaps never dreamed of writing in the FEPC provisions. You helped devise the 1960 act, and I do not recall any effort at that time to put in the FEPC provisions. Here, as I understand, you held no hearings on the FEPC phase of this whatsoever. Is that correct? Mr. McCULLOCH. Let me answer your whole statement, which I, of course, am glad to do. I did not propose an FEPC title in 1957. I did not propose an FEPC title in 1960. I did not originally propose an FEPC title in 1963. There are many reasons which impelled me to that decision, not the least of which was that I felt at those times that an FEPC title conceivably could be the difference between passing legislation and not passing legislation. I think that was the feeling of a number of people about civil rights legislation and why there wasn't an FEPC title in the administration bill and in some 50 or 60 or 70 other bills. You asked a specific question about hearings on the FEPC title. Of course, you know and all the members of this committee know that that title came from the House Committee on Education and Labor, to which was referred a title covering only this subject and which, in accordance with the Reorganization Act of 1946, properly went to the Committee on Education and Labor. I understand they had lengthy hearings on this FEPC title, and they finally approved an FEPC title. Through the leadership of the majority, that bill, which was approved by the Committee on Education and Labor, was referred to the Judiciary Committee because th then President of the United States had desired an omnibus bill to come to the Judiciary Commitee and be there considered. An FEPC title was considered at some length, if not considerable length, and I think at considerable length, in the subcommittee which had such lengthy hearings on this legislation. It was considered to the extent that my good friend and able colleague on the Judiciary Subcommittee offered the Griffin amendment, which insured to employers a day or a hearing in a trial court of the United States. I regret to say that Mr. Meader's amendment was not accepted in the subcommittee. That is one of the reasons that many of us strongly opposed the subcommittee bill. I am very happy to say in part of this bill-drafting that my good friend Allen Smith asked me about, we wrote into this final bill the Griffin amendment which insured an employer his day in Federal court. I take that long a time to give you the answer to: Was there any hearing on the FEPC title? That was the hearing. The Attorney General testified about it, as I recall, which can be determined from the material that is before you, in executive session. I guess it has been heard many times. I guess it was reported out early in the time that I was in the House. Some of you people who have been here longer remember about that, I am sure. Mr. ELLIOTT. You do not have to answer this question now unless you want to, to use the phrase I borrow from my colleague Allen Smith, here. Does the gentleman feel that there is a limit as to how fast one of the large sections of our country can digest legislation in the field in which we are legislating today? Has the gentleman any appreciation of that fact? Mr. McCULLOCH. I hope I do have some appreciation of that fact. I say this with modesty. I have done a bit of studying of this important and troublesome problem from both north of the MasonDixon line and south of it. A very interesting part of my life when I was at an impressionable age, just after I had been graduated from law school, I spent in the South. I am a member of the bar of the State of Florida, and have had some pleasant experiences there. So, my entire watching, reading, and thinking about this problem has not been from the "ivory tower" in my district, where 98 percent or more of the people are native-born white and where I do not have any political problems from either side of the fence. I have tried to be as objective as I know how, and I think that I look at this problem about as objectively as any of my colleagues in the House. I apologize again for the self-praise. Mr. ELLIOTT. In title III, which we are talking about here, it seems to me you have gone pretty far in encouraging the starting of lawsuits. To read on here, you say if the Attorney General certifies that the signer or signers of such complaint are unable, in his judgment, to initiate and maintain appropriate legal proceedings for relief and that the institution of an action will materially further the public policy of the United States favoring the orderly progress of desegregation in public facilities, the Attorney General is authorized to institute for or in the name of the United States a civil action in any appropriate district court of the United States against such parties and for such relief as may be appropriate, and such court shall have and shall exercise jurisdiction of proceedings instituted pursuant to this section. The Attorney General may implead as defendants such additional parties as are or become necessary to the grant of effective relief hereunder. Section 301 (b) takes the other side, and section 302, as I read it, in the same way makes much easier the bringing of a multitude of lawsuits to stir up or to keep stirred up this question. Contrary to the gentleman, I live in the midst of this problem every day, and have for 50 years. We are making it easier and easier by each of these provisions to make the problem grow worse. My record in Congress has not been one and I do not want it ever to be one of a race baiter or anything of that nature, but I do recognize facts as I see them from day to day in the area where I live. I know the troubles that we have had in Birmingham, which is just outside by home county. I know the general distraught, upset, stirred-up situation that exists all over my State today. I thoroughly believe that if those in the majority understood what I understand about it, the tendency would be to slow down a bit and to give people of good will and good intelligence time to make the adjustments that need to be made. Our situation is different from yours, Mr. McCulloch. It is completely different. Forty percent of our people are colored. Their previous status has been referred to. The attitudes fixed over centuries just must be considered as representing an actuality, not a matter of mere theory. That is all, Mr. Chairman. Mr. MCCULLOCH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say this. I am sure that all who have heard me speak or have watched my actions know that I have no desire to stir up any racial controversies in this country. My interest in civil rights legislation is to give a governmental urge and help to a thing that is necessary if we are not indefinitely to have two classes of citizens in this country. Title III, to which you refer, refers to public facilities. I have strong feelings or would have strong feelings as a taxpayer if, by reason of my red hair, my darling daughter could not go to the municipal swimming pool in my town if she wanted to. I have great feelings, strong feelings, against any system which would prohibit my son from playing softball, basketball, or skiing in the public park which is financed by me as a Negro, being one of the successful businessmen in that town, if I were that. I think that it is my bounden duty as a citizen of the country and as a Member of Congress, with all or even more deliberate speed, to implement the day when my darling daughter, figuratively speaking, shall have the same access as anyone else to that public facility which is financed by the taxes that come from the darling daughter's family. The sooner we can adjust ourselves to those facts of life, the better we will be getting on in this country. It will take time and it will not be done even in large part by law. It must be in the minds and hearts of people of good will everywhere in the 50 States. Mr. ELLIOTT. Would the gentleman think it desirable to have a little cooling-off period here to let the minds and hearts of the people have a chance to settle themselves into a pattern that he might desire? If we took a little cooling off from legislation, that might develop faster than it will if we try to do it by the force and the fiat of a law such as H.R. 7152 will be, if it becomes law, with all these provisions in it. Mr. McCULLOCH. I am of the opinion that it is necessary for the Congress of the United States to move in this session of Congress in the field of the enactment of some effective, comprehensive, yet moderate civil rights legislation. I think we have waited Mr. ELLIOTT. In 1960 you would not have called this moderate. That is 3 years ago. You would not have called FEPC a moderate approach 3 years ago. You would not have called this public accommodations section moderate 3 years ago. Now, with all the wrenching around that we have been doing in these last years, how does it suddenly become such a moderate approach to a problem that is much worse now than it was in 1960 in the area of the country that I referred to? Mr. McCULLOCH. It is in part true that I would not have called certain titles of this legislation moderate in 1957 and perhaps even in 1960, or perhaps even in January of 1963, if I had been the sole person responsible for legislation in this important field; but there have been monumental changes in conditions in this country, and our perspec tives in many fields are different than they were in 1957 or in 1960. What is the appropriate quotation? The older order changeth, yielding place to new. One good custom should corrupt the world. I am sorry I cannot give it to you with accuracy, but it is a quotation to which I frequently repair because I note that I am described so often as a "conservative," if not a "reactionary." The CHAIRMAN. The committee will meet tomorrow morning at 10:30, and Mr. Willis will be the witness. (Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the committee recessed.) CIVIL RIGHTS THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1964 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10:30 a.m., in room H-313, the U.S. Capitol Building, Hon. Howard W. Smith (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. We shall hear this morning the honorable Edwin E. Willis, on H.R. 7152. STATEMENT OF HON. EDWIN E. WILLIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA Mr. WILLIS. Mr. Chairman, I express my appreciation of the privilege to appear before your distinguished committee to discuss our side of this proposal. May I say at the outset that I have never before, before a committee or on the floor, read from a paper, but I think I will do so today, both to assure exactness and in the interest of time. With your permission, I would like to proceed. I will have something to say about many parts of the bill before you, but I have been assigned the task of discussing titles I and II in particular. Other members of the Committee on the Judiciary, opposed to this legislation, will in turn undertake to discuss titles III to X in greater detail. If that is your wish, I will be glad to answer questions as we go along, but I think it would be better to give my views first. In that way I think we could save time, because I suspect I might anticipate many of your questions in my general statement. Before proceeding, however, I would like to say this. We live in an age of polls, labels, and slogans. In these polls, however, you and I are always the ratees and we are never given an opportunity to rate our raters. I assure you, however, that I don't mind this at all because I regard it as a small price to pay for the rewards that come with public service. Every year we must be rated by various and sundry groups and organizations such as ADA, ACA, AFL-CIO, NAM, AMA, PTA, NEA, Farm Bureau, and so on and on. And the strange thing is that on identical bills one group might rate us as conservatives, while another might rate us as liberals, each according to their peculiar and rigid notions of the meaning of these relative terms. I take the ratings as they come and can only draw some consolation from Robert Burns' lament: Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel's as others see us! |