these men to terms, but the fear of another hearing, the fear of an order does whip them into line in a very nice way. Those who say you can just have an educational law are wrong, because it just will not work. It is because it is in the law that we have had such a rare success in getting people to do things voluntarily, and without it we would not have succeeded.

Mr. BURKE. That is right. It does bring out very forcibly the most efficient and most effective way in dealing with human relations is by conciliation and negotiation.

Mr. PINTO. Of course. You cannot do it by a mere legislative act. Mr. POWELL. Thank you gentlemen for coming.

We have as our next witness Commissioner Elwood S. McKenney, of the Massachusetts Fair Employment Practice Commission, and we have then a delegation of miners from Bessemer, Ala., who just came up last night, or yesterday, to testify, and we will try to get one of the witnesses in before we adjourn for this afternoon.

Mr. McKenney of the Massachusetts State Commission will kindly come forward.

TESTIMONY OF ELWOOD S. McKENNEY, COMMISSIONER, MASSACHUSETTS FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE COMMISSION

Mr. MCKENNEY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to thank this committee in behalf of the Massachusetts Fair Employment Practice Commission for the privilege of being invited to come down here and testify in favor of H. R. 4453.

In 1942, 1944, and 1945, investigations were made by the legislative committees in Massachusetts with respect to the extent of employment discrimination in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Those investigations revealed, as late as the one in 1945, that there was without doubt considerable discrimination in utilities, most manufacturing concerns, retail stores, and other places of business.

The reasons that the employers gave were various. They said there were no qualified people in the so-called minority groups to employ. They said they did not have separate facilities for their use when they were employed. They gave many reasons. At any rate, in 1946, a Fair Employment Practice Act was passed in Massachusetts. It was modeled very closely on the statute passed the year before in New York State, with the exception that the commission in Massachusetts has been given the authority to initiate complaints on its own. This authority has been used very carefully, and it is only when the commission has had reason to believe discrimination has existed that it has filed complaints.

At the very beginning the commission determined that certain matters of policy are to be decided. One of them was that you could not force an employer to eliminate discrimination in employment unless he understood why he ought to do it. Unless you gave the employers the benefit of the experience of other men who had found out that if you employ people of all colors and all religions you do not have to be afraid of public reaction-you do not have to be afraid of bad employee relationships.

Another matter of policy was that all complaints should be very carefully screened before they should be permitted to be filed. In

that respect our field representatives question and requestion the complainants, to make sure their story is logical and reasonable, and after that is determined, the complaint must be notarized, which is very similar to the procedure in New York.

Another matter of policy was in the investigations. There should be a very careful analysis and survey of the factual situations. I think the fact that our statute provides before an employer can be found guilty of discrimination that there must be sufficient evidence on the record, has done a great deal to insure employers that they are not going to be troubled by nuisance complaints, or to be harassed or burdened by unfair charges.

There is a provision in our statute that provides for judicial review. Of course, you have to be extremely careful to see that what you are doing will receive the approval of the courts.

We in Massachusetts have examined the major arguments against restrictions of the exercise of employer's right to hire, promote, and discharge on the basis of race, color, and religion. The same arguments are raised wherever this type of legislation is proposed, and they were raised in Massachusetts.

I would like to examine our experience in the 3 years of this law in Massachusetts. Prior to the enactment of the statute in Massachusetts the representatives of industry said that the passage of FEPC legislation would create such a burden upon employers that the most damaging effect it would have would be to drive business out of the State. Well, the 1948 report of the Boston Chamber of Commerce speaks for itself. That report said that during 1948, the third year that the fair employment practice law was in effect, 36 new business organizations had been established in Metropolitan Boston, and further than that, 58 existing firms had begun new construction at a cost of $300,000,000.

I think the working people have prospered under FEPC in Massachusetts, and business has apparently prospered in its own way.

It is also significant that after 22 years of FEPC in Massachusetts, the Associated Industries in Massachusetts and the Boston Chamber of Commerce both issued statements that although they were not in favor of the law as a matter of principle, they were satisfied legislation of that type could be administered without causing a burden upon industry. That doesn't mean that the Commission has been remiss in its duties, it simply means it has won the confidence of business.

They said in Massachusetts that of course FEPC was an attempt to legislate against the mental attitudes and prejudices of employers. We have never taken the position that the act has prohibited anything but unfair practices. If the man still wanted to retain his prejudices while he was eliminating his unfair practices, that was his business. As a matter of fact, it is curious to note that after employers have eliminated unfair practices very frequently their attitudes change.

I remember one case where a young girl, who happened to be a clerk, had applied for employment in a big packing business and the personnel manager said he could not employ her because she was too well qualified.

Mr. POWELL. Too well qualified?

Mr. MCKENNEY. She was too well qualified. Well, at the informal conference we asked the personnel manager, "Why do you think she is

too well qualified?" He said, "Well, whereas most girls write their application blanks, this girl had printed hers," and, furthermore, he noted she studied piano when she was 4 or 5 years old, and, in addition to that, she had 2 years of night school. Of course, on investigation of the 200 employees of the company there were a considerable number of girls who had the same experience, the same schooling. The board of directors of that company had a meeting and decided that maybe they ought to do the right thing, and they hired this girl, and came to the conclusion, after she got along, that they had to hire every person, regardless of color or religion.

We have very old New England firms, some very old Massachusetts firms steeped in all the New England traditions about running businesses in Massachusetts. One of these was complained against and a finding of probable cause was made, and the first colored salesman was put to work in the company.

His experience was that for the first 2 weeks he was employed nobody spoke to him, and during the third week one or two employees spoke to him, and then they began to congregate around him while he had lunch and decided he was just another fellow like they were, and there was never any difficulty after that.

Similarly, in a big automobile plant in Massachusetts a complaint was filed charging a supervisor, who, incidentally, had been transferred from Atlanta, as having refused to employ a young colored fellow because he thought he could not work with the white employees.

The net result of that complaint was this fellow went to work and nobody spoke to him, nobody did anything else but stare at him for the first 2 weeks, but he stuck it out, he kept his chin up, he appeared in the shop on time every day, and he finally got along with everybody. That company has now employed over four dozen colored mechanics and assemblymen in its plant.

I think these examples represent a changing of the employer's attitude when his fears are broken down that the colored and other minority-group employees cannot work together.

I think that a national act against discrimination would broaden the base of our national economic enterprise. I do not think we could hope to broaden the base as long as millions of our people have not had the proper opportunity to be educated, as long as they have not had an equal chance to work in our offices, in our production line, and in our industries.

I think the passage of the FEPC law will have a marked effect on decreasing and eventually destroying that type of practice. I think the law will have this effect because the men respect the law just because it is the law of a State, or the law of the Nation.

In Massachusetts there were many, many businessmen, and there still are, who are not in favor of the principle of FEPC legislation, but because it is the law we have considerable evidence that they have given voluntary compliance to it.

As in New York, our telephone company is now employing without discrimination operators, draftsmen, clerks, and stenographers, they are employing without discrimination in every category of employment. Similarly with our street railway system, the Metropolitan Transit Authority. After the passage of the FEPC there were no

complaints filed against the railway company. They began to hire colored operators on busses and streetcars, and they began to hire persons in other capacities than porters, which was not the practice prior to the FEPC in Massachusetts.

Similarly, law firms are now employing colored girls as stenographers and clerks. The cab companies which never hired without discrimination previously, now are hiring on the basis of qualifications. That goes also for manufacturing companies, and also the banks. It is very important to the banks, because in the financial investment field there was considerable evidence over the years that unless you were of a particular religion or color you had no opportunity. The presidents of the banks in Boston have said they will hire without discrimination, provided they get qualified applicants. I think these evidently voluntary compliances show the effect of the law all by itself, without any complaint.

I think the businessmen realize the necessity of bringing their practices into compliance in order to avoid being charged with discriminatory practices.

There is little doubt that the experience in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut has convinced the legislatures, industries, and the people in these States that the FEPC can be effective.

In Massachusetts we have seen the effect of FEPC on many utilities, as I have mentioned, the public carriers, business organizations, in the field of insurance, retail marketing, and manufacturing, hotel management, and other fields.

From the beginning of its administration in the fall of 1946, the Massachusetts Fair Employment Practice Commission has processed over 500 complaints of economic discrimination involving business organizations employing over 400,000 persons, and just as has happened in New York, there has not yet been an occasion to conduct a single formal hearing, nor has there been occasion to have the matter referred to a court of law for further consideration.

The settlement of one case in a given field has opened up the door to job opportunities. This is particularly true in the departmentstore field. I think I can say this as a matter of fact, that in Boston now, as the result of complaints originally filed in this field against the large department stores, all the department stores are hiring without discrimination. I refer particularly to their employment of colored salesgirls and colored salesmen. This is a practice which has come into being in the last 3 years, since the FEPC was passed. The reason for the success of FÈPC in the Northern States—and I speak particularly for Massachusetts-I think is the recognition by the commissions which administer the law that discriminatory employment practices can be eliminated more effectively by reason instead of force. Additional reasons are the fair dealing of the commissions in respect to both complainants and respondents; an appeal to the sense of justice of the men who control employment policies, whether they are in industry or the organized labor movement.

I mentioned the organized labor movement. I would like to say a word about the effect of the FEPC on union policies in Massachusetts. Immediately after the passage of the Fair Employment Practices Act one of the railroad brotherhoods, which has organized the employees of the largest terminal in Boston, was forced to eliminate the restrictive clauses against the admission of any but Caucasian

workers, and thereupon admitted almost immediately its first colored members.

I think those members were the first in the United States to be admitted to one of the big brotherhoods.

The law has also effected further changes in the type of contracts which these brotherhoods are able to negotiate now with the railroad carriers. Provisions which restrict the promotion of men because of their color and which give preference to the members of the brotherhoods who are white are invalid under our statute, and they are opening up the door in that particular industry for promotional opportunities for colored persons who previously could be only baggage handlers and redcaps.

We had a great deal to do with the unions in one of our larger industries in Massachusetts, the fishing industry, and also with the unions in the hotel and restaurant industry. Immediately after the filing of complaints against the unions in the hotel industry they began to send out colored waiters to work with white waiters in the big hotels, and this is the practice which the hotelmen thought just could not come off successfully. It did, however, and without any objection from the patrons of those hotels, and later from the hotelmen themselves.

I think neither the Congress nor any section of the United States has any reason to fear the administration of a Federal FEPC. I think a Federal act, provided the persons who administer it are chosen intelligently, can be administered just as well as the acts in the States of Massachusetts and New York. I think the administration of these acts is just as important as the provisions of the act itself.

Mr. POWELL. Representative Nixon has to leave now and he wants to say something to you.

Mr. MCKENNEY. Yes.

Mr. NIXON. I regret that I have to go to another appointment, but I would like to say for the record that several weeks ago I was discussing with our colleague from Massachusetts, Mr. Herter, the operation of the fair employment practices law in Massachusetts, and he particularly singled out the witness who is on the stand today as being one of those who was primarily responsible for the great success of the law in Massachusetts, and in fact, was very high in his praise of the witness' background and his ability.

I would like to say for the record, after having read his statement, and having heard him on the stand, I am certainly in full agreement with his estimate of the witness from every standpoint.

Mr. MCKENNEY. I thank you.

I would like to say a word about administration and why I think administration is going to be very important in the success of any Federal act.

In Massachusetts we have had many cases, particularly some that we are handling now, where we deal with an entire industry. Of course, the employer has no choice as to whether he will comply with the law or not-he has got to comply with the law-but he raises the problems which are facing him, so he says, with respect to his emplovees, with respect to other employers in the same field.

One of the ways that we have successfully eliminated discrimination in some of these fields is by recognizing that there must be compliance. We recognize also that there are effective ways of bringing that about.