and won a new trial on the very ground which had been ruled out by the highest court of Pennsylvania. I felt very happy about this Federal "Samaritanism," not because my position had been vindicated, but because the U.S. Government, through its judiciary, had prevented a denial of due process.

I rejoice that Senate bill 3296 empowers the U.S. courts to intervene when the State courts deny to a U.S. citizen his right to serve on a grand or petit jury on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, or economic status. The cause of justice in America will also be advanced by section 501 which makes it a Federal offense for anyone to injure or interfere with any person "because of his race, color, religion, or national origin while he is *** participating in or enjoying any benefit, service, privilege or activity provided or administered by the United States or by any State or subdivision thereof."

***

If this provision had been law in 1927, one of the most appalling miscarriages of justice in the history of the American courts would have been prevented. It was my privilege to have been associated with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, then professor at Harvard Law School, in the defense of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in the latter phase of that tragic case. It was proved that the foreman of the jury, Harry H. Ripley, entertained hostility to Sacco and Vanzetti because of their Italian origin, and stated that if he had his way, Italians would not be allowed to enter the country. Before he even heard a word of testimony Ripley remarked to a friend: "Damn them (Sacco and Vanzetti) they ought to hang anyway."

Sacco and Vanzetti were participating in a privilege, the right of trial by jury guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and the State of Massachusetts. Ripley's declared hostility interfered with that right and contributed to the execution of two innocent men.

To prevent any misunderstanding at this point, let me state at once that, as much as I applaud the efficacy of the provisions of this proposed legislation, I do not want you to think that I am claiming for it retroactive jurisdiction or resurrectional powers. Sacco and Vanzetti are dead, and nothing will recall them to the land of the living, but this bill, when acted into law, would impel State officals into doing their duty and not neglecting, as certain Massachusetts officials did, their bounden and sacred obligation to the law and elementary justice, to say nothing of fundamental humanity, decency, and American fair play.

If the provisions of this bill had been in effect 2 months ago, I doubt that James Meredith would have been shot down while he was walking on a public highway, armed only with a walking stick and the Holy Bible under his arm. James Meredith was participating in a program provided and administered by the State because he was seeking to have Negro American citizens register under the voting laws of the State. I am absolutely certain that any person or persons charged with having wounded James Meredith will be properly tried in accordance with law, and I do not mean by my reference to that case to suggest anything to the contrary.

The colloquialism "Don't make a Federal case out of it," is intended to indicate the gravity, solemnity, and importance that attach to a

Federal prosecution, and properly so. Had this present bill been law in early June, James Meredith would have walked the highways in a continuing protective aura of U.S. law, and it is probable that the great fear that any intending assailant would have felt in becoming involved with the sovereignty and austerity of U.S. law might have been enough to stay aggression. Indeed, had this bill been law prior to June 5, 1966, it may well be that James Meredith would not have started on his fateful journey.

No one can question the majesty and the greatness of the United States. Whether we see the words "United States" on a spaceship orbiting the earth, on a document of history, or stamped on the haversack of an infantryman, we thrill to the image it evokes of unsurmountable power, superb dignity, and undeviating impartiality in the administration of justice. The U.S. Government is the greatest Government in the world, as the country for which it speaks is indubitably the most wonderful of nations that ever existed, flourished and progressed in the tide of times.

The right to appeal to an authority beyond local sovereignty has basis in Biblical history. When Saint Paul was hailed before Festus, Governor of Caesaria, to give answer for alleged transgressions of the law, and he feared justice might not come from the provincial judgment seat, he asked to be judged by the central authority in Rome, he asked to be sent to Augustus, and as a Roman citizen, he was accorded that right.

Senate bill 3296 would assure to every American citizen the right to appeal to the central authority of the land. The Constitution of the United States, to which we turn not only for inspiration, encouragement and strength, but also for authority and power to transform into reality the dreams and the aspirations of America, declares in its preamble:

We, The People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure Domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The people, and not the individual States, ordained the Constitution and so the first responsibility is to the people. Pardon me, Mr. Chairman, for this reference to the obvious, and apparent emphasis on the patent, but so much has been said about the alleged unconstitutionality of this proposed legislation that I allow myself simply to point to a mountain range when so many see only marshes and a desert. One need go no further than the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution of the United States to find not only justification for this legislation, but indeed a mandate for it. More than that, these three amendments were forged in the fires of the Civil War, sanctified by the blood of those who were wounded and killed in that conflict, and adopted by the people when the emancipation of the Negro population was the immediate subject of consideration and not simply an academic topic for discussion or governmental experimentation. It could well be that the laws already on the statute books and the decisions of the highest Court of the land already embossed on the pages of our books of jurisprudence are adequate for the authoritative projection

of the principles enunciated in this legislation and that all that is required now is the detailed planning for effectuating in practice the constitutional ends to be accomplished. In 1866, after the adoption of the 13th amendment but before the 14th amendment was attached to the organic instrument of the land, Congress enacted the first Civil Rights Act which provided that:

Citizens of every race and color shall have the same right to purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property as is enjoyed by white citizens. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 provided that:

No citizen, possessing all other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law, shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

One of the magnificent virtues of Senate bill 3296 is that it is primarily preventive rather than retaliatory in operation. It places in the hands of Government a weapon, wholly painless in performance and yet far more effective than the punitive provisions of the past. Criminal sanctions step in after the constitutional right has been denied. Equity locks the stable door before the horse is stolen.

Section 202 declares that when it appears that a citizen of the United States is about to be deprived of his right to serve as a juror, the Attorney General may institute equity proceedings to prevent the threatened deprivation.

Had Senate Bill 3296 been law in 1925, the tragedy of the famous Sweet case in Detroit would never have stained the social fabric of our Nation. In June of that year, Dr. Ossian Sweet, a young, talented, Negro physician in Detroit purchased a house in a foreign-born workingman's section of Detroit. An organization which became known as the Waterworks Park Improvement Association formed to keep Dr. Sweet out of his home. The first night that Dr. Sweet andhis wife, with friends, stayed in the house, a mob formed and pelted it with stones and its occupants with threats. No serious disturbance occurred but the conduct, cries and agitation of the restless throng was as prophetic of what was to follow as the rumble of thunder, a high wind carrying dust into the air and an occasional flash of lightning proclaims the coming of a storm. The next night the storm broke. Five hundred mobsters rushed the house calling out, with opprobrious epithets: "Get them! Get them!" In the ensuing tumult a shot was fired and one of the invaders, Leon Breiner, was killed. The 11 occupants of the house were charged with murder. Two trials followed. I heard Clarence Darrow deliver his masterful oration in the second trial.

I say that had this bill been law in 1925, Leon Breiner, would not have lost his life and this sorrowful chapter in the social history of our Nation would not have been written. Section 405 of the bill provides:

No person shall intimidate, threaten, coerce, or interfere with any person in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his having aided or encouraged any other person in the exercise or enjoyment of any right granted by section 403 or 404.

On the first or second day of Dr. Sweet's occupancy of the house he had purchased, the Department of Justice would have filed an action

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in the U.S. district court to enjoin the Waterworks Park Improvement Association from gathering to accomplish its diabolic deed, and any mob which might have followed would have found itself attacking not poor Dr. Sweet, but confronting the might and power of the indomitable United States.

It is not enough to have a right: there must be a way to have it respected. Thus it is that while civil rights are guaranteed by the Constitution, by statute and court decisions, their enjoyment is often curtailed and even made impossible by harassment, subterfuge, subtle threat, and outright defiance. Hence the necessity for the supervision, the control, and the machinery so well described in this excellent bill.

Mr. Chairman, I may say here that in 1955 our Pennsylvania Legislature established a Human Relations Commission to carry into effect the legislatively declared policy of our Commonwealth "to foster the employment of all individuals in accordance with their fullest capacities*** and to secure commercial housing regardless of race, color, religious creed, ancestry, or national origin.

Mr. Chairman, I would not abuse your kindness in honoring me with the opportunity to appear here to speak on this vital legislation, by repeating arguments, reasons and statistics with which you are already familiar. Our President, in urging enactment of this legislation, already has delivered an informative, stirring and eloquent appeal to the mind, heart, and conscience of the Nation. The Attorney General presented you with a masterful analysis of this bill in all its particulars, leaving hardly anything to doubt or surmise.

And now it is in the hands of Congress. It is a matter of infinite com fort to me that the Congress of the United States, in this new era of American history, has here on Capitol Hill been transforming legislative Sermons on the Mount for the poor, the sick, hungry, aged, economically disabled, oppressed, overburdened, and underprivileged into bread, medicine, hospital beds, schoolhouses, jobs, pensions, suffrage, human dignity, and all the rest. Government is no longer cold and aloof. It is warm, it throbs with understanding and compassion. This particular legislation calls for physical security, for peaceful participation in the administration of justice, for unhampered education and for freedom of the home for all people.

I have no fear that the enactment of this legislation will undermine, as opponents say, our dual form of government and make the Federal authority too powerful. Federal authority cannot be too powerful in advancing the interests, the freedoms, and the destiny of American citizens. Each time I look at this transcendentally beautiful Capitol I see in it the Declaration of Independence in imperishable stone, the Constitution of the United States in perpetual marble, and, in its graceful dome soaring in the skies, I see the assurance that the representatives of the people assembled thereunder are dedicated to obtaining for them the rights, to which, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "the laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them."

Senator ERVIN. Judge, I have enjoyed very much the eloquent presentation of your views. I wish I shared your optimism about the passage of the law. You venture several conjectures to the effect that certain crimes would never have been committed if this bill had been

law. As a matter of fact, is it not true that we have more laws today than we have ever had before in the history of the world?

Justice MUSMANNO. That is true.

Senator ERVIN. And are not more crimes being committed today than ever in the history of the world? And are they not increasing? Justice MUSMANNO. I am optimistic.

Senator ERVIN. And we have had the Ten Commandments for several thousand years and we still have violations of them.

Justice MUSMANNO. Yes.

Senator ERVIN. I wish I shared your optimism that the passage of the law would accomplish these good results.

Do you have no concern with the fact that title IV of this bill would rob all Americans of the right to lease and sell their property to whom they please?

Justice MUSMANNO. I do not believe, Mr. Chairman, it would rob them of their rights, because they can always appeal to the courts. When the courts hear the evidence presented under the Constitution and the laws, no one will be robbed of his rights.

Senator ERVIN. This bill would deprive them of the right that they now have, would it not? Is it not true that under the laws of virtually every State in this Union, a person who owns a residence can sell that residence to whom he pleases or rent it to whom he pleases?

Justice MUSMANNO. We have in Pennsylvania the Human Relations Commission which prohibits discrimination in the sale of property to any person because of race, color, religion, or economic status. It operates. We had a case in Pittsburgh, my home city, not long ago, where a real estate development association refused to sell a lot to a Negro and the only argument that the plaintiff, this development association, offered was that he was a zealot. He was a Negro, but he was a zealot. Why should he not be zealous about his rights? And our court ruled that they had to sell the property to him.

Senator ERVIN. Why should a man who has acquired a home not have the right to rent a room in that house to anybody he pleases without government interference?

Justice MUSMANNO. He has the right to sell it to whom he pleases, but he cannot deny a prospective purchaser his rights guaranteed to him under the Constitution of the United States. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, specifically declare that a citizen may not be denied his rights because of the color of his skin.

Senator ERVIN. But do I have a right to compel you to sell me your house if you do not want to?

Justice MUSMANNO. Senator, I do not happen to own a house. I am a bachelor, so I do not have to confront that problem.

Senator ERVIN. There is nothing in those amendments that says that anyone has the right to compel another man to sell him his house when he does not want to.

Justice MUSMANNO. I do not understand this law that the owner of property can be compelled to sell. The intent of the law is to prevent him from discriminating because of race or color.

Senator ERVIN. The bill says that if he sells it to a man because he prefers him on account of his race or religion, he can be amerced in unlimited damages.