Truman Appeals to Congress for Federal Legislation to Halt Bias in Employment

President Truman today sent to Congress a special message on civil rights in which he emphasized the need for legislation to create a Fair Employment Practices Commission, and urged raising of the Justice Department’s section on civil rights to a division headed by an Assistant Attorney-General

The President also called on Congress to equalize the opportunities for residents of the United States to become naturalized citizens.

Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation are being given specialized training so that they may render more effective service in the investigation of federal Civil Bights abuses, Mr. Truman revealed.

PRESIDENTIAL COMMITTEE ASKS TUITION-FREE SCHOOLING “REGARDLESS OF BASE”

Tuition-free education through high school to all Americans “regardless of race, creed, color, sex, or economic and social status,” is recommended by the President’s Commission on Higher Education. In the fifth of six reports on “Higher Education for American Democracy,” the Commission recommends Federal aid for higher education beginning with an appropriation of $53,000,000 in 1948-49 for current operating costs of higher education and increasing annually by the same amount through 1952-53, to help the states maintain and expand publicly-controlled higher educational institutions.

As a basic principle, the Commission declares that the Federal Government in its relationship to higher education “should recognize the national importance of a will-rounded and well-integrated program of education for all citizens, regardless of age, sex, race, creed, or economic and social status,” Adequate regulatory powers should be vested in the Federal Government, the report adds, “to permit withholding of appropriations whenever it is established that racial or minority grouper are being discriminated against by the disbursement of such funds.”