Now, we are friends to the Negro because we know how to get along with him. When I refer to the movement behind this bill, I do not want you gentleman to think that I am referring to the author of the bill or that I have any reference whatsoever to intent or purpose for which he introduced the bill. Frankly, I think the wool has been pulled over his eyes and the eyes of a lot of Members of Congress by these un-American pressure groups, and I will go further and say if this bill came to the floor and we had an Australian ballot in the House, I do not believe it would get a half dozen votes.

Who is behind this movement? The FEPC, the civil rights recommendations which were forced upon the President? Minority groups. That must be admitted.

Who are these minority groups? You know that the antilynching bill is directed at the 13 Southern States where we do have a Negro problem. You do not have one. The gentleman from Arkansas knows what I mean. We do have a Negro problem down there and we know how to cope with it. We know how to get along with the Negro and the Negro knows how to get along with us; and I will say this, in the largest county in the State of Mississippi that has around 130,000 people in it, we have not had a lynching since I was born and insofar as I know, we have never had one in the history of that county.

Now, Mr. Rankin has already covered something that I wanted to go into with you and that is the proposition that this bill protects only criminals-those who are guilty of a crime or those who are charged with the crime. It does not purport to protect the innocent

man.

I hope that there is somebody here who can answer this question about this bill. Several years ago out in San Francisco, if you remember, they had a kidnaping. I do not recall the name of the case but it was a celebrated case. Two men were arrested and they were being carried to jail. They were to be tried by the Federal court, not the State court, because they had commited a Federal crime and these men were dragged out of the car by a mob and lynched on a bridge in San Francisco. Remember, they were accused of a Federal crime, not a State crime.

Now, in such a case, who is going to pay that bounty, that insurance to their people, the Federal Government? Are you going to protect the families of men who have committed crimes against the Federal Government as well as crimes against the State? The State of Mississippi and every State in the Union insofar as I know offers a statutory reward for the apprehension of felons. Furthermore, every State in the Union, insofar as I know-and correct me if I am wrong-authorizes one in attempting to apprehend a criminal to use such force as is necessary, even to the extent of killing that criminal-that is, a fleeing felon if he resists arrest. Are you going to pay a reward on the one hand to the man that gets him and on the other hand a reward to his family for his having committed the crime?

Gentlemen, I am a States' rights Democrat. I believe in recognizing the individual sovereignty of the States. We in Mississippi can run our courts without any trouble if you leave us alone. Who is going to try cases under this bill? Who is going to determine whether or not the sheriff or the law-enforcement officer was negligent or wanton

when he let this felon escape or when he let the mob get him? Who is going to determine that? There is nobody that can determine it except the jury in the Federal court. Your jury in the Federal courts is going to have to be made up of people who live in that immediate locality. You are still going to have southern juries, who will have to pay this bounty in case of conviction. Do you propose to change the venue of all cases under this act to north of the Mason-Dixon line? Will the bill do any good even if you pass it?

I am against trying to move our county courthouses to Washington. I am against having our court cases tried by bureaucrats. I am against Government regimentation because that it not characteristics of a free democracy.

Let's return to these pressure groups for a moment. Walter White, when testifying before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary the other day, stated that there was a very noticeable trend among the white veterans in the State of Mississippi toward favoring this kind of stuff.

Gentlemen, I am affiliated with every major veterans' organization in the State of Mississippi; that is, VFW, DAV, American Legion, AMVETS, Reserve Officers Association, Air Force Association, and several others. I was judge advocate of the Department of Mississippi of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1945. I think I know what the sentiment of the returned veteran in Mississippi is. The sentiment of the returned veteran in Mississippi is for Washington to leave us alone and we will handle this thing in our own way. We know how to handle it and we will take care of it. Ninety-nine percent of our white veterans feel the same way.

Walter White was either telling an outrageous lie or he was sadly misinformed and did not care what he said. He is capable of doing both.

Gentlemen, you talk about prejudice. You talk about people being prejudiced against the colored race. We are not prejudiced. We believe in going our way and letting them go theirs.

But if prejudice means that we do not want to see our children and our sisters, our daughters intermarry with the Negro race, we are prejudiced; and if there is a man on this committee that is willing to let his daughter or his sister marry a member of the Negro race, then he can say that he is not prejudiced. Otherwise he must confess to the same prejudices that we have. And until such time as in your mind you can free yourself from that prejudice, until you would be willing for your daughter to marry a Negro man, then you are prejudiced and there is no getting around it.

Gentlemen, I hope that you will not succumb to the will and the pressure of these minorities who do not have the interests of the United States or the Negro race at heart. I hope you will not be sucked in by Walter White and his bunch of racketeers, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who do not give a tinker's damn about the Negro in the South or anywhere else. hope that you will wait until you have Negroes from the South coming up here of their own free will before you pleading their cases, not getting these Negroes out of Harlem, these Negroes out of the North who do not know or care what conditions are in the South and do not speak from personal knowledge. Wait until you have volunteer

groups of Negroes coming up to you from the South, these Negroes who are allegedly being persecuted. Wait until they start saying something. We are getting along fine with them; they get along fine with us.

You do not hear from Negroes down there, do you? You do not hear of any riots down there? We know how to get along with them. No; we don't have any Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. So far as I know the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia is the only one we have in the South that I know of and insofar as I have been able to ascertain that does not amount to too much more than a group of publicity-hungry radicals just wanting to blow off steam every now and then. What have they ever done? Have they ever committed any crimes, any specific crimes? You hear a lot about them. I don't know of anything that they ever did except hold meetings and they have a right to do that.

Now, just to show you what the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People thinks, how much they have the interest of the Negro at heart, I want to tell you a little story before I close.

A young Negro girl came into my office when I first arrived here. along in February of last year. She came in which that attitude that you see on so many of them. She came in with the very apparent attitude that I was her Representative from Mississippi because the white people had elected me, but that she was still one of my constitutents and she was going to ask me to do something for her. She thought I was not going to do it, but she was going to ask anyway, even though she was colored. And if I did not do it, she was going straight to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She came in and said that the State of Mississippi did not have a graduate school that she could go to and she wanted to come to Howard University at Washington. But she did not have any money and she wanted me to try to get her a scholarship and I told her-I will call her Mary-I said, Mary, I will be glad to do the best I can. The State of Mississippi provides scholarships for those who want to go outside the State for schooling and we provide the difference in what it costs you to go to Howard University and what it might cost a person to go to the University of Mississippi. That is fair enough, isn't it?

So I got in touch with another Mississippian in one of the departments here and he got in touch with the State superintendent in Mississippi and we got to work and not only did we get her that scholarship, we also got her a little Government job to help carry her along in school.

She came to me later and she said, "Mr. Williams, I want to apologize to you. I have been in Washington 3 years now and I have been carrying on this fight trying to get some help." I said, "Where did you go, Mary?" She replied, "First I went to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People." I said, "What did you tell them?" She said, "I laid my story before them." I said, "What did they tell you?" They told her that all the funds that they had were to go to the political fight for the antilynching bill and the anti-poll-tax bill and all the rest of this nefarious legislation that you have before you, that they did not have any funds for her to go to school on.

Are they interested in the southern Negro? They have plenty of funds for political fights. What percentage of those funds are they using to send southern Negroes to school?

She said that she went to the Anti-Poll-Tax League which she thought was her friend. They told her the same thing. She went to the Civil Rights Congress that told her the same thing.

She said, "Mr. Williams, I want to tell you right now, I want you to know that the white people of the South are my friends and I have been fooled and hoodwinked all along." She said, "I went to every Negro organization that I knew to get help, and they did not offer me anything except excuses and they said they could not help me; but it took only 1 minute with my white Representative from my district in the State of Mississippi, and he not only promised to do the best he could for me, but did help me."

Now, the white people of the South are the friends of the Negro and I know the good white people of the North are the friends of the Negro.

Gentlemen, I ask you to leave these matters in the hands of the States that know how to take care of them.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to revise and extend my remarks.
Mr. CASE. Can you do it by Friday?

Mr. CRAVENS. I move that the hearings on this bill close subject to the right of anybody else to file a statement up until noon, Friday next. Mr. CASE. Would you amend that to include the right of the chairman to insert material in the record at this point?

Mr. CRAVENS. Certainly.

Mr. CASE. Is there anything anyone else in the room would like to testify? If not, the question is on the motion of the gentleman from Arkansas.

Hearing no objection, these hearings will be closed subject to the reservation of the right to file additional material as indicated, by Friday, and the chairman's right to put certain material in the record. (Thereupon, at 5: 45 p. m., the committee adjourned.) (The following material was presented for the record :)

APPENDIX

[H. Doc. No. 516, 80th Cong., 1st sess.]

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TRANSMITTING HIS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS PROGRAM

To the Congress of the United States:

In the state of the Union message on January 7, 1948, I spoke of five great goals toward which we should strive in our constant effort to strengthen our democracy and improve the welfare of our people. The first of these is to secure fully our essential human rights. I am now presenting to the Congress my recommendations for legislation to carry us forward toward that goal.

This Nation was founded by men and women who sought these shores that they might enjoy greater freedom and greater opportunity than they had known before. The founders of the United States proclaimed to the world the American belief that all men are created equal, and that governments are instituted to secure the inalienable rights with which all men are endowed. In the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States they eloquently expressed the aspirations of all mankind for equality and freedom.

These ideals inspired the peoples of other lands, and their practical fulfillment made the United States the hope of the oppressed everywhere. Throughout our history men and women of all colors and creeds, of all races and religions, have come to this country to escape tyranny and discrimination. Millions strong, they

have helped build this democratic Nation and have constantly reinforced our devotion to the great ideals of liberty and equality. With those who preceded them, they have helped to fashion and strengthen our American faith-a faith that can be simply stated:

We believe that all men are created equal and that they have the right to equal justice under law.

We believe that all men have the right to freedom of thought and of expression and the right to worship as they please.

We believe that all men are entitled to equal opportunities for jobs, for homes, for good health, and for education.

We believe that all men should have a voice in their government, and that government should protect, not usurp, the rights of the people.

These are the basic civil rights which are the source and the support of our democracy.

Today the American people enjoy more freedom and opportunity than ever before. Never in our history has there been better reason to hope for the complete realization of the ideals of liberty and equality.

We shall not, however, finally achieve the ideals for which this Nation was founded so long as any American suffers discrimination as a result of his race, or religion, or color, or the land of origin of his forefathers.

Unfortunately there still are examples-flagrant examples-of discrimination which are utterly contrary to our ideals. Not all groups of our population are free from the fear of violence. Not all groups are free to live and work where they please or to improve their conditions of life by their own efforts. Not all groups enjoy the full privileges of citizenship and participation in the Government under which they live.

We cannot be satisfied until all our people have equal opportunities for jobs, for homes, for education, for health, and for political expression, and until all our people have equal protection under the law.

One year ago I appointed a committee of 15 distinguished Americans, and asked them to appraise the condition of our civil rights and to recommend appropriate action by Federal, State, and local Governments.

The committee's appraisal has resulted in a frank and revealing report. This report emphasizes that our basic human freedoms are better cared for and more vigilantly defended than ever before, but it also makes clear that there is a serious gap between our ideals and some of our practices. This gap must be closed.

This will take the strong efforts of each of us individually, and all of us acting together through voluntary organizations and our governments.

The protection of civil rights begins with the mutual respect for the rights of others, which all of us should practice in our daily lives. Through organizations in every community-in all parts of the country-we must continue to develop practical, workable arrangements for achieving greater tolerance and brotherhood.

The protection of civil rights is the duty of every government which derives its powers from the consent of the people. This is equally true of local, State, and National Governments. There is much that the States can and should do at this time to extend their protection of civil rights. Wherever the law-enforcement measures of State and local governments are inadequate to discharge this primary function of government, these measures should be strengthened and improved. The Federal Government has a clear duty to see that constitutional guaranties of individual liberties and of equal protection under the laws are not denied or abridged anywhere in our Union. That duty is shared by all three branches of the Government, but it can be fulfilled only if the Congress enacts modern, comprehensive civil-rights laws, adequate to the needs of the day, and demonstrating our continuing faith in the free way of life.

I recommend, therefore, that the Congress enact legislation at this session directed toward the following specific objectives:

1. Establishing a permanent Commission on Civil Rights, a Joint Congressional Committee on Civil Rights, and a Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice.

2. Strengthening existing civil-rights statutes.

3. Providing Federal protection against lynching.

4. Protecting more adequately the right to vote.

5. Establishing a Fair Employment Practice Commission to prevent unfair discrimination in employment.

6. Prohibiting discrimination in interstate transportation facilities. 7. Providing home rule and suffrage in Presidential elections for the residents of the District of Columbia.