Mr. ROONEY. Is that what you do? Mr. COLLINS. Yes, sir. CONSULTANTS Mr. ROONEY. How much is in this budget for that? Mr. COLLINS. $247,000 is in here for per diem compensation and expenses of consultants. Mr. KLOTZ. That is personal services. The $247,000, Mr. Chairman, is for personal services on an intermittent basis. Mr. ROONEY. What are the fees? Mr. KLOTZ. Not to exceed $75 a day. Mr. ROONEY. And how much for travel? Mr. KLOTZ. We set up $109,000 for consultant travel. Mr. KLOTZ. We had to make an estimate, of course, Mr. Chairman, as to the number of cases and the number of trips these consultants would have to make. Mr. ROONEY. You might tell us why you are here for this amount of money as compared to the amount of money requested by the most important agency of all, the Department of Justice. The request of the Department of Justice, which we heard awhile ago, is in the amount of $1,093,000, and that is less than what you are asking by $7,000. Mr. COLLINS. I would like to try to answer that. There is a very limited extension of their existing staff. Mr. ROONEY. Limited? It is a 100-percent increase. Mr. COLLINS. But they have a specific confined area of service. They are involved in bringing suits and defending suits and prosecuting suits and so on. Mr. ROONEY. Whereas if you are successful they will not need to get into the picture, is that what you are trying to say? Mr. COLLINS. No; but our area is a broader one and not as delineated as theirs. I thought ours was a very modest total in comparison with its importance, what we hope will be its importance. This is new in the American scene. I grant you. CONCILIATION ASSISTANCE Mr. ROONEY. You referred to that interesting incident in connection with X case where you enlisted the services of that college professor who originally came from that area. How successful was he and how long was he involved? Mr. COLLINS. Well, there are some things I am not allowed to divulge here under the confidentiality requirements of this law. Mr. ROONEY. Are you required to put a top secret classification on any of this business? Mr. COLLINS. All I can do is interpret what the Congress has put in here. Mr. ROONEY. Where is this top secret area? Mr. IMHOFF. Title X. Mr. ROONEY. What language are you referring to? Mr. IMHOFF. Section 1003(b), Mr. Chairman, reads in part: The activities of all officers and employees of the Service in providing conciliation assistance shall be conducted in confidence * * *. Mr. ROONEY. And would you say that refers to the tribunal you are now before? Mr. IMHOFF. No, sir, Mr. Chairman. I think any of this could be supplied the committee, but probably should be off the record. Of course, this is not a security classification. Mr. ROONEY. No, I would expect the drafters of the law might have thought it well that all this be done as quietly as possible but not exactly secretly. You may proceed off the record, Governor. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. COLLINS. This can be put on the record: In this case our people went in, they made a study of the facts and conditions in the community, they opened discussions with the plaintiffs through their counsel and also with the defendants, who were the members of the school board there, and conciliation processes were underway but before that conciliation was completed or any consensus was arrived at, the judge, at a very late hour of the night, entered an order which obviated any further service on our part. Mr. ROONEY. What do you mean by that? Mr. COLLINS. Well, he just entered an order and he referred to the fact we had the matter under study but the order was his own judgment and his own decision as to how settlement should be arrived at. Mr. ROONEY. And was the matter settled? Mr. COLLINS. The order is standing and will be enforced. But I am not holding this out as a demonstration of our effectiveness. I brought it up to show you how we approached this problem and what we were undertaking to do. We were not able to get the job done here but it was due, I think, to the fact we were precluded from completing our effort by the fact the judge, on his own motion, entered this order which obviated any further service on our part. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. ROONEY. Was this in a Federal court? Mr. COLLINS. Yes, sir. Mr. ROONEY. Did the Department of Justice ask for the order? Mr. COLLINS. I do not know what the technical position of the Justice Department was. Mr. HEILBRON. Circuit court of appeals had mandamused the district court to promulgate the order of desegregation if the school board did not come up with an order, and there was a time limitation on this. It had to be done by the fall term which was set for August 12. We were called in late, Mr. Chairman, and just did not have time enough. As the Governor said, we were in the conciliation process when the court, on its own motion, ordered the schools to desegregate as he saw fit. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. ROONEY. Mr. Smith? Mr. SMITH. Do you anticipate setting up field offices? Mr. COLLINS. Not at the present time, sir. COORDINATION WITH CITIZENS COMMITTEE Mr. SMITH. Do you have any coordination with the Advisory Committee headed by Arthur Dean? 36-723-64-pt. 1--5 Mr. COLLINS. Yes, that is our offspring, in a sense. The President appointed this Committee to advise and counsel and assist us. Mr. ROONEY. Is that the group Mr. Arthur Dean is connected with? Mr. COLLINS. Yes, sir. Also Rabbi Kleitner, whom I think you know, is a member of the group. There are 350 others. Mr. SMITH. How will that function in relation to you? Mr. COLLINS. We will bring them together for an original meeting in Washington next week. Mr. SMITH. The Advisory Committee has been selected? Mr. COLLINS. Yes, they have been selected, notified, invited to come here. They will be here next week. At that time we will explain our Community Relations Service in detail to them. We will set up a division of their ranks into smaller groups so they can discuss and make their own plans about what they may do in their own States and communities. We anticipate that the President will speak to them, too, at the end of their labors here. They will go back home. They will constitute a great mass of manpower and womanpower who will be available to help us in whatever ways they can in the different communities. Mr. SMITH. How many are there? Mr. COLLINS. 400. We could have 4,000. These are fine citizens from every State in the Nation who are interested and who want to be helpful. Mr. SMITH. Do they come here at their own expense? Mr. COLLINS. Yes; we have tried to find a way to pay for their lunch but have not found it yet. They can be called upon for any job that we have that they will have special expertise to discharge. But, more importantly, they are going back to their communities to stimulate good will and interest in complying with the law and to try to help in a broad way to develop environments in these communities that will be conducive to the elimination of disputes and disagreements. Mr. SMITH. Are you saying there is no money in this budget for that advisory group? Mr. COLLINS. There is $15,000 in the budget to finance Mr. SMITH. That says trips of the citizens committee. Is that the advisory committee? Mr. COLLINS. Yes, sir. Mr. SMITH. That does not cover trips of the individuals. That would be for Mr. Dean, perhaps? Mr. COLLINS. That would be just what that would be for. It would be trips we would call on individual members to make not just Chairman Dean. It would not cover their expense for coming together to the national meeting. Mr. SMITH. A special trip for a special circumstance? Mr. COLLINS. Yes, sir. For example, we have one of the Nation's leading hotel men who is an active member of that committee. In "X" State the motel people were seriously disturbed about how they could comply with this law. We have already called on this man because we knew of his competence to go to a meeting of their State association. He went down and talked with them and explained, as a hotel man, a man experienced in all aspects of this problem, how this law could work, how he had made it work himself in his own experience. He went away from there leaving a group from a whole State in a very vital industry feeling very warm and enthusiastically cooperating to help this work and help it work well. We could take another situation where a man from a different calling would be sent for another purpose. This is just a great pool out there of dedicated and competent people who would be available to us without compensation. However, we should pay their expenses when we call on them to make a trip for some individual purpose. Mr. SMITH. That is all, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ROONEY. Mr. Bow? SALARY INCREASES UNDER PAY ACT Mr. Bow. These figures on employment are based on the present pay rates, Mr. Klotz? Mr. KLOTZ. Yes, sir. Mr. Bow. Will you for the record make up a statement on each one as to what they will be under the new pay bill? Mr. KLOTZ. Yes, sir, we will submit that. (The information to be supplied follows:) Salaries and expenses-Comparison of annual salaries by grade and title CONFIDENTIAL STATUS OF CONCILIATION SERVICES Mr. Bow. Governor, I am concerned about this confidential aspect, not so much right now as when you come back here after a year of work and we will be called upon to again appropriate. It seems to me we will have to appropriate rather blindly if this policy is continued that we do not have the information. How are we going to judge from our side of the table whether this is successful, whether the money is necessary, what is going on? It seems to me we are at an impasse. Mr. COLLINS. I share that same concern. What I think we should do is present it squarely to the Attorney General and ask for as liberal a ruling as he can give us with respect to it. Mr. Bow. Mr. Hoover comes up here and gives us a great deal of very important information; some off the record. In my 12 years on this committee this is the first time I have found the situation where people have said to us that they cannot testify before us. Mr. COLLINS. We can tell you the places we have been and what was involved in a broad way, what was accomplished or not accomplished; but we cannot divulge, in my interpretation of this law, anything that was said around a conciliation table, any projection of what we might do or some other people's objections to that or agreement with this, that sort of thing. Mr. Bow. You cannot detail cases to us? Mr. COLLINS. I do not think we can detail what was said and efforts made reaching toward a conciliation decision. So far as our going there, how many we went to, the end result of what was achieved, I think we are free there. I share your same concern about it because we would like the Congress to know everything that it wants to know and that it will allow us to divulge. We are required to file this annual report, but there again it states that precisely what is said around a conciliation table will not be included in it. You may not even want to know that. Mr. Bow. That is all, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ROONEY. Thank you, Governor, and gentlemen. We shall now recess until 2:10 this afternoon. (The following was submitted later for the record :) SUPPLEMENTARY STATEMENT-HIGHLIGHTS OF FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS SERVICE, SUBMITTED BY DIRECTOR LEROY COL LINS The Community Relations Service has a threefold function assigned to it under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 : 1. Offers of conciliation services, either upon request or upon its own motion Under the Statute, the Service may offer its services in cases of disputes, disagreements, or difficulties whenever, in its judgment, peaceful relations among the citizens of the community involved are threatened, and it may offer its service either upon its own motion or upon the request of an appropriate State or local official or other interested person. When disputes have erupted into overt conflicts, the efforts of the Service must be of a "firefighting" nature-trying to help the community extinguish its racial conflagration. When the Service enters a community on such a mission, it will seek to bring all interested parties together, by conciliation and negotiation, to effect a plan of community action. |