race or color is an abuse of the authority to administer the registration process. Hence, it is proper that Congress should attempt to protect the right to vote against widespread denial because of race or color by authorizing recourse to the courts.

By the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Congress authorized the Attorney General to initiate civil actions for injunctive relief of denial of the right to vote. By the Civil Rights Act of 1960, Congress enhanced the powers of the Federal courts to prevent discriminatory denial of the right to vote. It did so by authorizing them to appoint temporary voting referees to assist in issuing orders for the registration of persons rejected by local registrars on account of race after the courts had found a pattern or practice of such discrimination. It did so by providing that States as such may be joined as party defendants in voting rights cases.

But the efficacy of our system of divided authority is conditional upon the good-faith compliance of executive officials with court orders enjoining acts which constitute abuse of their authority. We must be able to expect general compliance and cooperation. Whereas, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, private hotel and restaurant proprietors and private employers are accorded the right to trial by jury for criminal contempt of court in regard to proceedings instituted under titles II or VII, registration officials, who are State officials, may be punished summarily by the courts for criminal contempt up to penalties of $300 fine or 45 days in jail for criminal contempt of court in regard to proceedings instituted under the 1957 Civil Rights Act or under title I of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The difference in jury trial provisions signifies what we have a right to expect of executive officials.

When executive officials as a whole refuse to comply with the courts, when they set themselves in concerted opposition to the courts, the courts are in no position to engage them in a power struggle in order to preserve threatened civil rights. The courts could not engage in such a power struggle with executive officials without attempting to take over the duties of public administration themselves. This the courts are in no position to do.

Continuing oversight of executive administration belongs in the first instance to heads of the executive branch itself, who have the responsibility to see that the laws are faithfully executed. It belongs in the second instance to the legislative branch. In order to protect the right to vote we have attempted to transfer the duty of oversight or actual execution of the laws to the courts. Let me cite two examples.

The 1960 Civil Rights Act authorized the courts to appoint voting referees whenever they find that a denial of the right to vote is pursuant to a pattern or practice of discrimination. These referees are to receive applications from other persons who claim to have been denied the right to vote because of race or color, to take evidence, and to report their findings to the courts which would then issue orders declaring such applicants as are found qualified to be so. This procedure means that the courts themselves actually undertake the duties of registration officials.

The Civil Rights Commission has found that litigation by the Attorney General to protect voting rights can be successful only if the court requires voting registrars to submit regular reports to the court stating the outcome of every application for registration and the reasons for every rejection. "The only way," the Commission said, "to eliminate the practices by litigation is to win comprehensive decrees with intensive reporting requirements so that literally every act of every registrar is known to the court" (1963 Report, p. 24). A Federal district court has ordered such reports month by month from registration officials in Macon, Montgomery, and Bullock Counties, Ala. This reporting system means that a court itself undertakes continuing oversight of executive administration.

To attempt to transfer to the courts duties which do not belong to the judicial process must end in futility.

Civil actions are instituted so that the court may determine the existence of a right, and may determine whether what is due a citizen has been withheld or denied. It requires time for the court to find through due process of law whether injustice has been done or not.

To attempt to convert this judicial process into a process of executive administration is anomalous, and must result in interruption in the execution of the laws and in delay which has the effect of denying any right, such as the right to vote, which must be exercised at a certain time or not at all.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 would relieve the courts of the duties of oversight and administration and would restore these duties to executive officials to whom they belong.

Title I of the 1964 Civil Rights Act established certain criteria for the appli cation of registration requirements in order to facilitate adjudication of voting rights cases by the courts. Section 3(a) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act abolishes such requirements altogether wherever they have been used to deny voting rights because of race or color.

The 1960 Civil Rights Act provides for appointment of voting referees as officers of the courts. The 1965 Voting Rights Act provides for appointment of Federal examiners who would assume the duty of actually registering voters without reference to the courts.

Article I, section 2 of the Constitution and the 17th amendment state that electors for U.S. representatives and Senators respectively shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the legislature in each of their States. Pursuant to these provisions of the Constitution, establishment of voter qualifications and registration of voters are functions which have been exercised by the States.

It cannot be argued in opposition to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that abolition of literacy and other tests and devices used by certain States as conditions of registration and that appointment of Federal examiners to register voters constitutes illicit transportation of authority from the States to the Federal Government.

The President and the Congress intend by this bill to protect the federally guaranteed right to vote of U.S. citizens within each of the several States which have denied that right. Every American citizen is at once a citizen of the United States and of the State in which he resides. As such, he is the subject both of rights under the Constitution and laws of the United States and of rights under his State constitution and laws. He carries with himself into his State guarantees of certain rights by the Federal Government.

The right to vote is that fundamental political and civil right which constitutes representative democracy.

The 15th amendment declares that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Our Constitution does not establish any right without at the same time giving the Federal Government authority for its implementation. Section 2 of the amendment provides that "The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

I urge that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is both necessary and appropriate to defend the most essential right of citizens of the United States.

I should like to turn Mr. Chairman, to my bill, H.R. 1568. This bill would ban all literacy and other performance tests as conditions for voter registration. I believe that the enactment of H.R. 1568 is demanded by the fact that there are 20 States of the Union which impose literacy tests of one kind or another. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 which you are considering would eliminate literacy tests, but only in those States where 50 percent of the voting-age population failed to register of failed to vote in 1964.

The 26 States imposing a literacy test are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missisippi, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oregon. South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. Some of the above mentioned States will be covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965; most of them will not. As for my own State of New York, I wish to point out that if the provisions of H.R. 1568 were to be included in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or enacted as a separate law, it would have the effect of enfranchising approximately 200,000 Puerto Ricans who are U.S. citizens and who are presently denied the right to vote by English language literacy tests imposed by the State of New York for registration.

Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican citizens are quite literate in Spanish but not in English. This should not be regarded as a disability with respect to the exercising of the duties and rights of citizenship. Practically every newsstand in New York City carries daily newspapers printed in Spanish which

give news and commentary on the affairs of government at every level; there are radio stations in New York that broadcast primarily in Spanish. In short, Mr. Chairman, there is no reason to assume that our Spanish speaking fellow citizens are not just as well informed as anybody else.

The amendment to the New York State constitution requiring English-language literacy tests was adopted in 1921. It was an unhappy piece of business and I don't think anybody today is proud of the reasons for it.

Language, Mr. Chairman, is considered an attribute of race. The New York law does not test literacy as such as a reasonable test of mental qualification to vote. It tests rather proficiency in the English language and thereby discriminates against U.S. citizens on an attributable racial basis.

The treaty of Paris in 1898 by which Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States provided that the Puerto Ricans themselves could adopt either Spanish or English as their official language. They chose Spanish. Since the treaty of Paris is the law of the land, the right to conduct their public affairs in Spanish is a right of Puerto Ricans under United States law. I suggest, therefore, Mr. Chairman, that to deny Puerto Rican citizens who are literate in Spanish the right to vote is a denial of the equal protection of the laws.

The abolition of literacy tests and other discriminatory means of denying the right to vote will enfranchise the Negro citizen in Selma and elsewhere and the Puerto Rican citizen in New York and elsewhere. It will, thereby, immeasurably enhance representative democracy.

STATEMENT OF HON. LEONARD FARBSTEIN FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK Mr. CHAIRMAN. Those farsighted men whom we salute as the fathers of our country did more than institute a new way of government. They passed on to our hands the conduct of one of the noblest experiments on earth; one which would determine whether freemen could decide of and by themselves the course of the Government to which they owe allegiance. We meet here today to confront a challenge to that experiment-a challenge which has denied that right of choice to a large segment of our population-a challenge which must be met here and now with forceful legislative measures.

We have before us for consideration legislation that the President has proposed to meet this challenge. I feel this legislation is strong, but that it could be improved in certain respects. Toward this end, I have introduced my own bill which incorporates those important improvements which I believe are necessary to achieve the voting equality which we seek.

First among these changes should be the complete abolition of literacy tests as a means of qualifying voters. Such tests have long been used as a pernicious means of discrimination at the polls, not only in the South where it has become so evident these past few weeks, but as far away as my own State of New York where countless Spanish-speaking citizens, who are perfectly literate in their own tongue, and who often have high school or college degrees, are denied this basic right because they are not literate in English.

The argument can be made that the sovereign States have the prerogative to set whatever qualifications they deem necessary, including literacy tests. This is true and one would deny it. But it is equally true that the 15th amendment empowers Congress to curtail any such State qualifications when they are used in a discriminatory manner. I feel that the literacy test has so long been used as such a means that we should act now to exercise our congressional obligation to strike it out.

This gives rise to the very serious question of whether or not our polls will be flooded by ignorant voters. I have given this careful consideration and can honestly say that it is my belief that with radio and TV news coverage at the advanced state it is today, the means of informing oneself of the issues at hand are just as adequate for a person who can neither read nor write as they are for a person who is literate.

The second change which I would seek would be an extension of the coverage of the bill to those counties where, although literacy tests are not given, less than 25 percent of the nonwhite population was registered in 1964. We would indeed be myopic if we thought that literacy tests were the only means of voter discrimination in the South or elsewhere. While the provision in the administration bill for the automatic appointment of registrars is good, it should be extended to those areas where literacy tests do not apply. For example, Arkansas has no literacy test, yet only 40.3 percent of the nonwhite eligible voting population was registered in 1964 as compared to 65.4 percent of the white population. The actual voting figures were much lower.

The third improvement I seek is the removal of the requirement that those who have been repeatedly harassed by local officials must, in some cases, apply to the same officials before they can register with a Federal examiner. The provision for Federal registrars works on the well-grounded presumption that discrimination already exists. Why must Negroes or Spanish-speaking citizens and others risk serious reprisals (reprisals which have in the past, as in Selma, reached the point of murder) to prove again what we have already assumed?

My bill would eliminate the provision that before registration by a Federal examiner, applicants must try to register with State officials within 90 days.

Lastly, I feel that the poll tax should be eliminated completely as a requirement for voting in State and local elections, as it has been by constitutional amendment for Federal elections. The right to vote is essential and should not be compromised by a person's financial situation. Moreover, I feel such abolition is demanded by the equal protection clause of the first section of the 14th amendment.

These are the ways in which I feel the voter rights bill should be strengthened. They do not deny H.R. 6400; they will just make it a much better bill-a bill which will more clearly defend the basic voting rights of the nonwhites in America and a bill which will enable us to proceed with our "experiment" in democracy.

STATEMENT BY THOMAS J. LLOYD AND PATRICK E. GORMAN, PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY-TREASURER, RESPECTIVELY, OF THE AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS AND BUTCHER WORKMEN (AFL-CIO)

MARCH 26, 1965.

Our names are Thomas J. Lloyd and Patrick E. Gorman, president and secre、 tary-treasurer, respectively, of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen (AFL-CIO).

The Amalgamated is a labor union with 375,000 members in about 500 local unions throughout the United States and Canada. The Amalgamated and its local unions have contracts with thousands of employers in the meat, retail, poultry, egg, canning, leather, fish processing, and fur industries.

1. VOTING IS SACRED RIGHT OF CITIZENSHIP

Our union had intended to appear before Subcommittee No. 5 of the Committee on Judiciary to present oral testimony concerning the voting rights bill. However, we realize the importance of expediting this legislation and we therefore have not asked for time before the subcommittee. Instead, we are expressing the views of the Amalgamated in this statement, which we are submitting to all members of the subcommittee. We also respectfully request that this statement be made a part of the subcommittee's record of the hearings.

Voting is one of the most sacred rights and obligations of American citizens, It is guaranteed in the Constitution. It is the most basic part of our political system. To deny this right to millions of Americans because of their race, color, or national origin is a stain on the quality and depth of our democracy.

As the President so ably pointed out in his speech to the joint session of Congress. the rights of no American are safe if the rights of some Americans are abridged. If some Americans are prevented from exercising their rights of franchise, then all of us are endangered. Just as this Nation could not exist half slave and half free, so it cannot exist part first-class citizens and part second-class citizens.

Our union has long recognized these facts. We have long called for legislation to end all legal discrimination and inequality, including concerning voting rights. We strongly supported voting legislation during the 1940's and 1950's. And we fought against the disastrous watering down of the voting bills which occurred in the congressional approval of the 1957 and 1960 legislation.

We regret that the nearly universal acceptance of the need for voting legislation comes at such a late date. However, we are, of course, delighted that this acceptance has come at last. We sincerely hope that in the very near future, all Americans will be able to exercise their birthright by participating in the decision as to who should govern them.

2. STRENGTHENING CHANGES SOUGHT IN H.R. 6100

The legislation proposed by the Johnson administration and introduced by the distinguished chairman of the committee, Representative Emanuel Celler (H.R,

6400) is a good bill. We wish to congratulate the President and Mr. Celler on this measure. However, we do believe that it needs strengthening in four particular areas. These are:

1. The bill should provide the end of all poll taxes and should not require the Federal registrars to collect this obnoxious tax, whose purpose is and has been to prevent Negroes from voting.

The men and women who have been deprived of the right to vote because of their race and color have also been deprived of economic opportunities. They are among the most poverty striken of the land. Yet this legislation would hold out the right to vote to them only if they could afford to pay the poll tax. We firmly believe this is wrong and inequitable. It would make the vote a class. matter.

2. Coverage of the bill should be broadened to include any political subdivision where voting discrimination exists.

Although H.R. 6400 would automatically affect Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Virginia and some subdivisions of North Carolina, it would not cover many hard-core discrimination areas in such States as Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas. For example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has reported on three counties in Florida where no Negroes were registered and another two counties in which fewer than 3 percent of the Negroes were registered. It would be ridiculous to pass a bill allegedly assuring the right to vote and leave out areas such as these.

3. INTIMIDATION MUST BE PREVENTED

3. The provision which requires citizens to apply first to State and local officials before they can register with the Federal registrars should be taken out of the bill.

The Nation has unfortunately witnessed an outpouring of violence in various Southern States against men and women who have dared to attempt to register and vote. To expose citizens to such violence even after this legislation is enacted would be unconscionable. The intimidation which this provision would make practicable could very well contravene the high purposes of the bill.

4. The protection of prospective voters against intimidation in the entire election process should be strengthened.

In their effort to register and to vote, American citizens have suffered the most shameful of intimidation in some southern areas. Threats of violence to themselves and their families and actual violence, itself, have frequently occurred. Equally common have been economic threats and economic reprisals, such as firing Negro workers or throwing Negro sharecroppers off the land they rented. Unless these and other means of intimidations are prohibited and punished by Federal law, this legislation could become a dead letter in many areas of the Nation where its provisions are needed the most.

4. SPEEDY APPROVAL URGED

We strongly urge the committee to make these changes in H.R. 6400. We believe these amendments are essential to accomplish the high purposes which the administration, the overwhelming majority of Congress and the overwhelming majority of the American people seek so earnestly. Without these amendments, we believe that the bill will not have the desired effect of truly providing universal suffrage, free of discrimination.

We also respectfully urge that the committee approve H.R. 6400, so amended, as quickly as possible and report it to the full House of Representatives.

SUBMITTED BY MARLIN EVANS, EDITOR IN CHIEF, BALL STATE NEWS, BALL STATE UNIVERSITY, MUNCIE, IND.

[From the Ball State News]

EDITORIAL: A MESSAGE TO INDIANA'S CONGRESSMEN

Senators: Birch E. Bayh and R. Vance Hartke; Representatives: Ray J. Madden, Charles A. Halleck, John Brademas. E. Ross Adair, J. Edward Roush, Richard L. Roudebush, William G. Bray, Winfield K. Denton, Lee H. Hamilton, Ralph Harvey, and Andrew Jacobs, Jr.

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