Jewish Groups Testify Before Senate Committee on Fair Employment

Testifying today at hearings on the Ives-Humphrey fair employment bill, a representative of 30 Jewish community councils and six national Jewish organizations called on the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare “to complete its deliberations on the bill with dispatch, to report it favorably to the Senate, and to take every possible measure to bring it directly to the floor.”

The Representative–Albert E. Arent, a member of the NCRAC executive committee–presented the joint views of the American Jewish Congress, the Jewish Labor Committee, the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S., the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the United Synagogue of America and numerous local Jewish community councils. All are affiliated with the National Community Relations Advisory Council.

In their testimony, the Jewish organizations said that the advocates of federal fair employment legislation had shown their readiness to compromise in order to meet the objections of critics of such legislation. It was now time, they declared, for the opponents to show their good faith by allowing the measure to come to a vote.

“The entire fair employment movement is a non-partisan movement,” they said. “State fair employment laws have been passed by both Republican and Democratic legislatures and signed by Republican and Democratic governors. Our organizations were glad to advocate enactment of the bill now before you in the last Congress, when it was known as the Humphrey-Ives Bill, and we are equally glad to urge now the adoption of the Ives-Humphrey Bill. We are very pleased to note that this bill is sponsored by nine Republicans, nine Democrats and the one independent in the Senate.”

Citing the great volume of evidence of the extent and serious consequences of the problem of employment discrimination that had been incorporated in the official reports of earlier hearings on fair employment bills, the testimony declared:

“Even if our economy were not weakened; even if our foreign relations were not impaired; even if no harmful effects could be shown to flow directly from employment discrimination, we would still be constrained to urge enactment of the legislation now before you. We would do so because to discriminate against human beings in their access to basic means of livelihood is to betray the heritage of religion, morality and ethic upon which our nation rests and to make a mockery of our protestations of devotion to the principles of democratic equality.”

The only real issue, the statement said, “is whether the Federal Government should act against this evil” and whether federal action should include provisions for effective enforcement. Opponents of fair employment legislation, the Jewish organizations continued, frame their opposition to effective enforcement provisions in terms of “compulsion.” They termed this “plainly a false issue.”