We live with this problem of discrimination in housing: we struggle with it daily; and acting under the mandate of a concerned and far-sighted legislature we try to do something about it.

In Massachusetts we have a strong law, drafted by our Legislature to really solve the problem of discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. Our Legislators did not toy with this age-old problem; they recognized it. And in practice, the statute has worked out well. Even though it is stronger than the proposed Federal statute, our citizens seem satisfied with it. Encouraged by such public support, our Legislature has strengthened it steadily to do a better job and has vigorously fought off all efforts to weaken it.

But even though it might be termed a "strong" law, it is tempered by administrative discretion-it is neither punitive nor anemic.

Our Legislature took note of the restricted housing market nearly ten years ago. It showed its understanding of the personal hardships and social evils inherent in a housing market poisoned by discrimination, as Congress is being asked to do today.

Today, Massachusetts prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion and national origin, in public or publicly assisted housing, in multiple dwellings and contiguously located housing, and even in single dwellings, and in the sale of land for any of these purposes. We have made certain that our statute applies to owners, lessees, sub-lessees, real estate brokers, assignees and managing agents. And we have made provisions to deal with patterns of discrimination.

Our statute contains only two exemptions: (a) the two-family dwelling which is owner occupied, and (b) that property which is sold privately.

Our Legislature in its wisdom drafted our law not just to curb the bigot who sells or rents housing, but to protect the mortgage lender, real estate broker and other businessmen who evidence their social concern, and who do their best to engage in business according to the Golden Rule. If they are on the side of justice, they find our law right behind them giving strong and full support to their good and kindly deeds to their fellow men.

Those businessmen who obey our law receive statutory protection from petty competitors who coerce them to engage in prohibited acts of discrimination.

Our law also protects the complainant from reprisals by landlords, tenants, house owners or neighbors. And it protects homeowners and landlords from false complaints, proper punishment being duly provided.

In creating the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, our Legislature felt wisely that what was needed was not just an all-powerful tribunal, armed with a stern law, but also an administrative agency with broad powers to achieve just results through conciliation as well as education.

The Commission can create advisory agencies and conciliation councils on the local, regional or state level. It can use its best efforts in many ways to foster good will, cooperation and conciliation among the diverse population of our Commonwealth.

The Commission is empowered to undertake investigations, to engage in research and to publish its findings. It has a remarkably free hand to engage in almost any lawful and constructive activity designed to eliminate discrimination.

Inherent in the statute is the sense of the Legislature that housing problems might best be solved by conciliation and good will, by education and enlightenment, that judicial fiat in individual cases would not do the job. The passage of the years is proving the wisdom of this approach.

Our statute requires an attempt at conciliation and good will first. Only when efforts in this vein fail does the Commission move to public hearings and judicial enforcement.

If there is a weakness in Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1966, it is in this area of enforcement. I would prefer to see the Federal Government adopt the tested approach which has worked so well in Massachusetts.

This system has two special virtues :

1. A governmental body can initiate action, thereby coming to the immediate aid of the citizen victimized by discrimination, and

2. It eliminates quickly those unsubstantiated claims based upon error and misunderstanding.

The people of our country have no reason to fear fair-housing legislation. It will not create chaos in the housing market, as some charge, but will create order and justice-where they do not now exist.

The Congress and the country need only look to Massachusetts to see how this system works. Our Commission has summarized its statistics for the period from 1958 to 1965, as follows:

Out of 586 complaints of housing discrimination filed with the Commission during those eight years, 345 were settled by conciliation and 177 were dismissed. Of the 177 dismissed, 126 were not substantiated, 35 were not covered by our law and 15 were dropped by the moving party.

Out of these hundreds of cases over eight years, only 19 ever reached the public hearing stage. And only 6 of those ever went to judicial review. The statute has been judged to be constitutional by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Those are the cold statistics, but you may well ask what happened to the complainants-what of the people who sought admission to better housing only to find the bars of discrimination lowered against them?

Out of 345 conciliated cases, 250 persons were satisfied or could have been satisfied. The other 96 either found the premises unavailable to them and were promised consideration in the future, were satisfied with various types of voluntary agreements, or had found other acceptable quarters or indicated no further interest in the premises.

How have non-whites fared who have tried to move from the ghettos of our big cities? Only the 1960 Federal census figures are available to help provide an answer, but even those six-year old figures are interesting.

During the ten-year period from 1950 to 1960, with our Commission having only limited powers during that period, some 1,000 non-white persons succeeded in settling out of the ghetto of the Roxbury section of Boston for the suburbs. The non-white population of these suburbs increased 25% while the growth of metropolitan suburban population was increasing by 7%. Many newcomers to the State were able to by-pass the ghetto entirely for the suburbs.

The job has not been done, because 70,000 non-white persons remain locked in our ghettos, but a healthy beginning has been made.

Your Committee has heard a lot of talk about "rights" that may be impinged upon by this legislation. But these "rights" should be seen for what they are the "right" to act arbitrarily, the "right" to be irrational, the "right" to act with prejudice, the "right" to control a neighborhood according to the dictates of one's personal bigotry, the "right" to determine who is an acceptable neighbor and who is not, and the "right" to make such judgments based on color of skin rother than on character and responsibility.

Those in the business of providing shelter must be told now by this Congress that no such rights can be invoked to maintain discrimination by race, color, religion or national origin, in housing. In building a free society, we must make good housing available to every American citizen-on a fair and equal basis.

Most housing transactions are impersonal matters of business. The seller seeks only a willing buyer able to purchase; the buyer seeks only a willing seller. Many homeowners never see their buyer; many landlords never see their tenants. The fundamental components are the willing buyer and the willing seller, and they should be permitted to operate in the marketplace without the restraints of their neighbor's prejudices and unfounded fears.

The United States Commission on Civil Rights recognized the uniqueness of the housing market as far back as 1959, when it wrote: Housing seems to be the one commodity in the American market that is not fully available on equal terms to everyone who can afford it.

Congress has enacted legislation to guarantee a worker equal access to a job. This legislation is presumed to be constitutional. Yet, it is a shallow quarantee if the worker cannot accept a job for which he is qualified, because he cannot buy or rent housing near his employment opportunity.

The trained Negro, the educated and industrious Negro, who adopts all the accepted virtues of the white community, is still denied the privilege of buying a house where he pleases to live. Congress should act to make the color of a man's skin, the place where he worships, and the birthplace of his ancestors the least important credentials which a man carries.

Your Committee has heard emotionally directed appeals to the effect that a property owner's rights are invalidated if he has to sell to a Negro because the integration of a neighborhood "drives prices down." The records in Massachusetts do not bear this out. Instead, they show properties adjoining homes of Negroes sold and resold at increased prices over the years. These are not merely opinions; the records at our Registries of Deeds bear this out.

A sound public policy has been established in Massachusetts, and the evidence is clear that it is working. And it is working peacefully and constructively, as our Legislature intended, with a minimum of litigation... Litigation is rarely needed to do this job.

I am hopeful that this Committee will see the wisdom and the success of this Massachusetts policy and establish it as a national public policy. Federal public policy, reinforcing the success of our state public policy, can achieve a healthy transformation that is long overdue.

Respectfully submitted.

EDWARD W. BROOKE,

Attorney General, By GLENDORA MCILWAIN PUTNAM,

Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Senator ERVIN. What percentage of complaints which the Massachusetts commission has received have originated from nonwhites? Mr. WEBBER. About 95 percent.

Senator ERVIN. Is not the white population of Massachusetts substantially over 5 million people?

Mr. WEBBER. Yes, sir.

Mr. ERVIN. And is not the nonwhite population of Massachusetts approximately 120,000 or 125,000?

Mrs. PUTNAM. About that; yes.

Senator ERVIN. So the Massachusetts problem is very much smaller in this respect than it is in States where the nonwhite population bears a far higher ratio to the white population, is it not?

Mrs. PUTNAM. Well, in the proportion to the number of Negroes it is not. We are talking in terms of proportion.

Senator ERVIN. But the percentage of people in Massachusetts who are compelled by this law to sell property against their will is negligible as compared to what the percentage would be in a State where the nonwhite population is a million or a million and a quarter?

Mr. WEBBER. It is my belief, sir, that even though the Massachusetts nonwhite population is less than that of some other States, that the problems are the same. We have the same ghettoization, and the same slums. It is my belief that we have a smaller population, so that we can clearly see the problem. But it is also my opinion that because of the fact that we have been able to clearly see this problem even though it does not have the magnitude of the others it can point a way toward aiding this problem.

Senator ERVIN. Will you not concede that there is a great deal less difficulty in enforcing the law where only 50 complaints are made a year on account of the small nonwhite population than where the nonwhite population, instead of being just an infinitesimal percentage, is a very substantial percentage and where there are hundreds of complaints?

Mrs. PUTNAM. No, because I think it is the vigor that is applied behind the enforcement that we are dealing with. But we are here this morning to discuss a matter of policy. And our State has adopted a policy, and has set up a means of dealing with the problem. And we are offering this to the Congress as a suggested way of dealing with a problem with which we have met some success.

Senator ERVIN. It seems to me you have an infinitesimal problem as compared, for example, to the problem in the District of Columbia. Mrs. PUTNAM. It does not seem that way to the Massachusetts commission.

Mr. WEBBER. We have 160,000 people, sir. And I do not think the welfare of this 160,000 people is an infinitesimal problem.

Senator ERVIN. What percentage of 5.5 million is 160,000?

Mr. WEBBER. We are running about 2 percent, 214 percent. But where we have the major problems it is the same, we have 70,000 people in the Greater Boston area. We are running 10 percent nonwhites in three metropolitan areas of the State.

Senator ERVIN. I used to be fairly familiar with Massachusetts. I have visited it many times. In many sections of Massachusetts, like Gloucester, for example, I have spent days and not seen a single nonwhite.

Mr. WEBBER. The population in the city of Springfield and Boston is now running 20 percent nonwhite. We do not believe the problem is infinitesimal.

Senator ERVIN. But the nonwhite population in Massachusetts is largely concentrated in and around Boston and Springfield, is it not? Mr. WEBBER. Yes.

Senator ERVIN. How many people have been compelled by this law to sell or rent property to persons that they did not wish to sell or rent to? Can you give me some statistics on this?

Mrs. PUTNAM. I did not say that they were compelled to sell, the six that went to the Justice review did not believe that they had discriminated. It was not a question of their desire not to sell. They wanted to prove the point that they were not discriminating on account of race, color, or religion.

Senator ERVIN. How long have you had this law?

Mrs. PUTNAM. Since 1957.

Senator ERVIN. Yet every week when I pick up the newspaper I see more complaints from the Boston area because of segregated neighborhoods and segregated schools.

Mrs. PUTNAM. I do not understand the point you are making.

Senator ERVIN. I say, notwithstanding the fact that you have had this law for 10 years, the newspapers frequently carry articles indicating that there is a great deal of complaint among the nonwhites in the Boston area that the residential areas remain largely segregated, and as a result they have segregated schools.

Mrs. PUTNAM. This is the reason we urge upon not only Congress but all States of the Union and the entire United States a policy of fair housing legislation. If we did not have a problem we would not need any legislation.

Senator ERVIN. It would seem to me, though, that you should solve the problem in Massachusetts more effectively than you have before you attempt to solve the problem in other States.

Mr. WEBBER. I have a very short statement in which I allude to that, and I can leave a map with you or partial movement, which shows that we are beginning to meet the problem.

Senator ERVIN. Yes, sir.

It is true in Massachusetts, as it is in every other State in the Union, that a person of any race can purchase or rent property in any residential community if they can find a willing seller or a willing renter, is that not true?

Mrs. PUTMAN. That is true, yes.

Senator ERVIN. And it is not reasonable to assume that a large part of the 3,000 people who have moved from one area to another have

moved because they have been able to find a willing seller or a willing renter?

Mrs. PUTMAN. That is true and probably because we have such legislation.

Senator ERVIN. I was very much intrigued with your statement that it is slavery if A cannot compel B to sell him his home. Is it not slavery to say that B is compelled to sell A his home?

Mrs. PUTMAN. Well, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that it is not so.

Senator ERVIN. I am talking about what you said. You said it was slavery.

Mrs. PUTMAN. Yes.

Senator ERVIN. Is it slavery for a colored person not to be able to compel a white person to sell him his home?

Mrs. PUTMAN. I submit, Senator, that actions based on a person's race and color were as a result of a system of slavery which was perpetuated in this country. These were done away with by amendments to the Constitution, that is, it was intended that they be done away with. To have acts performed on the basis of a man's race and color is one of the incidents of slavery with which this Congress intended to deal when it passed the Civil War amendments. And this is the reason I submit that to make judgments based on a person's race and color is still inflicting upon him a form of slavery.

Senator ERVIN. Well, is it not a form of slavery to compel one person to sell his property to another? I cannot see the logic in that argument. If it is slavery for A not to have the power to compel B to sell to A, B's property, then by the same token it is slavery for B to be compelled to sell his property to A.

Mrs. PUTMAN. He can sell his property to whom he pleases, just so he does not make his judgments based on race and color. And in the first place, we have a willing seller who puts his house on the market for sale. So we begin with a willing seller.

Senator ERVIN. If the seller is not willing to sell to A, though, he is not a willing seller as far as A is concerned.

Mrs. PUTMAN. To us he is a willing seller.

Senator ERVIN. But we cannot escape this fact, that if A can compel B to sell A his property against B's will, B's rights are in subordination to those of A, and B is not a freeman. And no amount of argument can wipe out that plain fact.

Mrs. PUTMAN. Well, Senator, there are many areas in which A cannot do with his property as he chooses. This is well settled in our law. And these do not make him a slave. He cannot put a pig farm in the middle of a city. He cannot build a high-rise apartment where he wants to, even though it is his land. There are many things he cannot do with his land, and these do not make him a slave.

Senator ERVIN. That is true. There are many restrictions on American citizens. But I do not think that is a very valid argument for imposing more restrictions on him and robbing him of more liberties.

Mrs. PUTNAM. It would seem to me that Congress' duty is to deal with the general welfare. And Congress has seen this in many other areas. And we have seen it in Massachusetts as a duty incumbent upon our legislature, after investigating the question of necessity of

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