STATEMENT OF DR. PAUL COOKE, NATIONAL CHAIRMAN, AMERICAN VETERANS COMMITTEE

Dr. COOKE. Mr. Chairman.

Senator ERVIN. Dr. Cooke, we are delighted to have you with us. Have a seat, please. You may proceed.

Dr. COOKE. Mr. Chairman, the American Veterans Committee (AVC) is an organization of veterans primarily of World War II and the Korean conflict. My name is Paul Cooke, national chairman of AVC and acting dean of the District of Columbia Teachers College here in Washington, D.C.

From the preamble of the constitution of the American Veterans Committee is the following passage, which further identifies AVC:

We, as veterans of the Second World War, the Korean conflict, and World War I, associate ourselves regardless of national origin, creed, or color * *

I would like to add here, Mr. Chairman, that we are pleased to include among our membership the Honorable Senators of the U.S. Senate, Senators Javits and Douglas, Mr. Justice Goldberg of the Supreme Court, Mr. Secretary Udall, and I am most sorrowing to say, that a member of our national board, murdered last night, Medgar Evers of Jackson, Miss., was a member of AVC.

AVC has as its guiding principle, "Citizens first, veterans second." Thus guided, we resolved at the 20th anniversary convention of the AVC the first day of the month in Washington the following:

AVC AND CIVIL RIGHTS-RESOLUTION ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND INTEGRATION Twenty years ago, when AVC was founded, the achievement of equality in every aspect of life-legal, cultural, economic and social-for all Americans regardless of color, creed, race or national origin, became one of the main goals of our organization. In particular, our first platform adopted at Des Moines in 1946, the revision of our platform in 1953 in Atlantic City and numerous resolutions and actions of AVC have spelled out over more than 15 years the meaning and scope of integration and of the equality of rights guaranteed under our Constitution.

Twenty years have passed and much progress has been made in the attainment of our goal, but the progress has been often painfully slow and we cannot in truth say that our goal of an integrated American society which treats equally all of its members without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin has been attained. AVC notes with sympathy the ever-increasing intensity, militancy, and scope of the struggle for equal rights and an integrated society. AVC will continue to participate in this struggle and do all within its means to bring about its victorious conclusion.

I might say that not only do we take positions, but our members picketed at the Glen Echo Amusement Park in this area year before last, protesting the fact that the Glen Echo Amusement Park refused to admit Negroes. We were glad to see our effort of direct action as well as platform and resolution come to fruition with the opening of the Glen Echo Amusement Park in Maryland to all people and without conflict thereafter.

I return to the resolution.

On this its 20th anniversary, AVC zealously rededicates itself to the task of integration of American society so that all its members can equally enjoy life. liberty, and pursuit of happiness which the Constitution promises to all without regard to race, creed, color or national origin.

Only total integration of our society will overcome the poison of racism and religious prejudice which still threatens injury to the well-being of the American people. AVC sharply condemns the acts of violence which are constantly com

mitted against those seeking to bring about racial integration and equality in our society.

We include the murder last night of Medgar Evers in this condemnation of acts of violence and the murder of William Moore in Alabama and these acts of violence which are constantly committed against those seeking to bring about racial integration and equality in our society.

AVC calls upon all citizens and upon the governments of the States, counties, and municipalities to cease their persecution, wherever they exist, whether by the abuse of the police power or of the judicial process. It calls upon the Federal and State Governments to protect the rights of protest and free speech effectively. It calls upon the Federal Government to use its Armed Forces as well as its power over the purse, if and where necessary, to assure the constitutional rights of every American.

Now, since that resolution and just this morning telegrams went out from our national office to Gov. Ross Barnett, calling on him to request his Mississipppi Bureau of Investigation to very carefully and thoroughly investigate this murder of Medgar Evers. A telegram went to the Justice Department, calling on them to instruct the FBI in its Federal assignment to make equally careful this investigation of this murder, and a telegram to the Speaker of the House and to the President of the Senate urging again strongly the need for legislation, and of course before this subcommittee this morning is a request for legislation on the Civil Rights Commission. But of course we realize that together with legislation and enforcement and prosecution and judicial acts that the citizens themselves must act, so we urged the mayor of Jackson, Miss., in a telegram this morning to bring together the leaders of the community, white and Negro, to seek comity, to seek amity, but at the same time to seek the rights of the Negroes in Jackson, Miss., and elsewhere in the State of Mississippi.

The position of the American Veterans Committee is that to achieve integration of American society-and we come now to consideration of the bills before this committee-the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights can and does make a major contribution. Our position further is that the Civil Rights Commission should by all means be given additional years of existence to continue the effective work that it has carried out since the 1957 legislation. In fact, the Congress of the United States and I changed my testimony from the statement "might well give serious consideration," after last night's act, to say that we urge you vigorously and unequivocally to establish the U.S.. Civil Rights Commission on a permanent basis.

Thus we support S. 1219 to make the Civil Rights Commission a permanent agency, while recognizing, of course, that S. 1117 makes a strong contribution also to the work of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, even if it were given only 4 years of existence. But, departing from the prepared statement, in view of last night's act, Mr. Chairman, we are recommending vigorously and unequivocally the permanent establishment of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

We in the American Veterans Committee through the years have had occasion to send statements to the Commission, testify before the Commission, and review carefully its documents. We heartily support its conclusions in "Civil Rights," the 1961 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report; also the findings, conclusions, and recommendations known as the "Fifty States Report." We strongly support the

recent recommendation of the Commission that Federal funds be withheld from States and other political subdivisions which continue to require by law racial segregation.

I might add to the statement that the recent report of the District of Columbia Advisory Committee on Employment to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission is a further effective document showing what the Commission can produce in the way of factfinding and investigation.

In my testimony, showing further interest in the withholding of Federal funds, before the General Subcommittee on Education of the House Committee on Education and Labor, April 23, 1963, I urged that the committee include in the bill before it a passage in harmony with our own AVC platform plank, reaffirmed at the 1963 convention, as follows:

We urge inclusion in all Federal legislation making loans and grants to States, municipalities or private institutions, of a provision requiring these loans or grants to be used without discrimination on the basis or race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or sex

The world reacts to U.S. racism: I wanted to make certain observations, Mr. Chairman, with respect to the world's reactions to U.S. racism.

While I was representing the American Veterans Committee and the United States Council of the World Veterans Federation in Copenhagen, Denmark, only last month, the month of May, I had to face the continuing questions of the good citizens of Denmark, as well as all the delegates from Africa.

The questions include the following:

Doesn't the United States realize that the actions of the people in Birmingham adversely affect the status and standing of the United States in the United Nations?

Another question, this time from the United Arab Republic:

Why do you continue to discriminate against Negroes in the United States? Please let them know that they are welcome in the United Arab Republic where they would face no discrimination on account of their race or their color.

While we American veterans were in Denmark, we could read fully of Birmingham policemen setting their dogs on Negroes. When we went to Berlin to lay a wreath at the Brandenburg Gate at the wall to protest Soviet aggression in Berlin and Germany, we could read the New York Herald Tribune European edition about the racial strife in Alabama and the defiant position of Governor Wallace.

We read the account in LeMonde, a Paris newspaper-I brought the clipping back-reporting the efforts to reach accord, Mr. Chairman, between white and Negro citizens in Birmingham, Ala. In Paris Match, the magazine somewhat comparable to our Life, here are the pictures of the police dogs being set upon the Negro citizens in Birmingham for all Paris and all France to see; particularly the coverage of dogs set on Negroes seems to be widespread. Here are several pages of coverage in Paris Match, in the Paris LeMonde. A day or so later when I was in London, here is the London Daily Telegraph, the story of the U.S. Army moving 3,000 troops in Alabama on Mr. Kennedy's orders, Tuesday, May 14, edition of the Daily Telegraph.

About 40 miles from London is a very small town, Banbury. We know it from the nursery rhyme, Mr. Chairman, "ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross."

The Banbury edition of the Oxford Mail, on the front page here for the good citizens of Banbury to learn of the U.S. trouble "U.S. Race Trouble Spreads"-and here is an account of the U.S. race trouble in Cambridge, Md. The implication is that it spread from Birmingham to Cambridge. I don't know whether that is an accurate implication on the part of the headline writer, but at any rate, the headline says, "U.S. Race Trouble Spreads," and the account is the shift from Birmingham to Cambridge.

The next day, the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, again London paper-this is Thursday, May 16-"Police State Conditions in Alabama." "Our Risks of Journalists"-and here is an account of a journalist, Mabel Elliott, Daily Telegraph special correspondent, arrested, and the headline, "Police State Conditions in Alabama."

I say that we are hurt considerably by the racism in the United States, and the world papers carry it immediately.

I happened to be out Tuesday night, May 12, and the Herald Tribune was already out for the next day, May 13, carrying in its oversea edition these accounts of the conditions in Alabama.

On my return to the United States after the World Veterans convention, I represented the American Veterans Committee at the foreign policy conference for nongovernmental organizations, and there heard Secretary of State Dean Rusk forcefully advise the conferees of the great damage that racial strife and the reports that I had read in Danish, German, French, and English newspapers do to our foreign policy and to our efforts to persuade the leadership in the world for them to follow.

Now, I return to the Civil Rights Commission and the legislation thereon. The American Veterans Committee believes that the U.S. Civil Rights Commission has made a major contribution. Of course, Commission action alone by no means can solve the complex problems in the field of race conflict. Further laws by the U.S. Congress knocking out segregation in public accommodations, hospitals, schools, housing, and employment are an absolute necessity, and I would add here, Mr. Chairman, that the Congress might well look at the enforcement of the 14th amendment and that provision which has to do with reducing the political representation from States which have limited the vote in those States.

Far more effective action by the President of the United Statesalthough I think he is to be commended for his firm statement last night and for his placement of the race problem on its moral basis, which is where it belongs, along with these economic and political considerations, but further and more effective action by the President and by the executive agencies would also be a major contribution. As an aside, I would say that if political administrations ever were to fulfill completely political pledges and party promise, the country would be considerably better off.

But before this committee today is the consideration of the Civil Rights Commission's life. I conclude by urging the subcommittee to extend the life of the Commission and in fact to consider favorably a permanent existence that it might cope within its authority with racial conflict that is bound to exist in the United States in the foreseeable future. We in AVC see no advantage in reaching the moon if we cannot solve our problems on earth.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to express the views of the American Veterans Committee on this most vital subject.

Mr. CREECH. Dr. Cooke, in 1957 the Congress was asked to establish the Civil Rights Commission to perform certain functions. Among these were authority to investigate allegations that citizens were being denied the right to vote, to collect information, and to prepare a comprehensive report on these matters by September 9, 1959.

At the same time the Congress established the Civil Rights Commission to undertake this 2-year study and to submit a report, it established the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice. Dr. COOKE. That's right, sir.

Mr. CREECH. In addition to enforcing civil rights statutes, the Civil Rights Division consults with officials of the States in order to promote understanding of civil rights problems, and collects information and seeks effective guarantees and action from local officials and civic leaders.

My question, sir, is: What functions does the Civil Rights Commission render at this time which are not performed by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice?

Dr. COOKE. The holding of the regional hearings and meetings, Mr. Counsel, around the country

Mr. CREECH. By that do you mean the hearings of the Commission itself?

Dr. COOKE. That's right.

Mr. CREECH. Or the State advisory committees?

Dr. COOKE. I mean the Commission itself and the State advisory committees. For example, in Washington we have had both. We have had the State advisory committee, recognizing, of course, that Washington, D.C., is not a State, but there has been a District of Columbia Advisory Committee, and then the Commission itself held a hearing on housing in April of 1962. Now, I think those two functions that the Commission performed are valuable functions and they are functions which the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department does not perform.

Now, I think there are valuable functions performed by the Civil Rights Division. I notice in this Paris paper, LeMonde, the report of what Burke Marshall, Mr. Burke Marshall here, the Deputy Assistant-no, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division, performed in Birmingham, Ala. This is reported faithfully in the Paris paper, and I think that is an effective function; but in answer to your question, I think they are clear-cut jobs, the assembling of information, the holding of hearings by the advisory committees, by the Commission itself, the assembly of reports of these factfinding hearings those are valuable services, Mr. Counsel.

Mr. CREECH. Of course the State advisory committees serve without compensation, and of course could be rendering the same service as an adjunct to the Justice Department, inasmuch as they are not employees of the Commission, is that correct? Is that your understanding?

Dr. COOKE. You are asking me whether they could?

Mr. CREECH. Is it your understanding that they could?

Dr. COOKE. I suppose that any Federal agency ought to be able to call on the citizens of the United States to perform certain functions