went through. They were poor. There was a discrimination against them. I can remember when the Polish people came in large numbers. They were poor. It has been the same with all groups. At first they resided largely in their own communities, in a sense segregated, and then as conditions improved that broke up, and I think those are the conditions you have to meet and the changes you may expect.

In my young manhood the only place that a Negro family could find for residence in Chicago was the territory adjacent to the then notorious 22d Street, and a Negro mother had to bring up her children on the fringe of an area of brothels.

It is a marvelous progress that has been made. I think that we are making progress because good people of both races are working together in a spirit of brotherhood and with respect for the rules of dencency and the concepts of religion.

My position is, always has been, and always will be to the end that discrimination of any sort on the lines of color, race, religion, or station is destructive of the individual and of the State. In my last campaign the people of my district upheld my position that as a Member of Congress it was my duty to represent all my constituents without any taint of discrimination or of special favor. I am glad that I have the honor of representing a constituency whose watchward is decency.

I think you have made a valuable contribution to these hearings by giving us the results of your studies, your observations, and your suggestions.

Mr. MITCHELL. I wish I could have said it that simply and briefly. I guess other people here wish I had been as brief, too, but in any event I want to thank you for what you have said.

I remember what happened in your campaign. I am not a person who is identified with any political party. I happen to be a voter in Maryland. I am an independent, and I vote for people on the basis of merit rather than party. Our organization takes a similar stand. I think the people of Chicago ought to be congratulated that they did not pay any attention to those appeals to bigotry that were raised in your campaign. I am glad that those who raised them found that it didn't pay off politically.

I think that one of the terrible things about the city of Chicago is that this movement of the Negro population is not a spontaneous thing. What happens in Chicago, or what happens in a great many other urban communities, is that certain real-estate interests decide that they are going to convert an area to a Negro area, or white area, or Jewish area, or some other kind of area. Then they begin selling a few homes in the area to people who are in need of housing, who happen to be identified with a group they say must have that area. Thereafter representatives of those real-estate people go around from house to house and say "You know Negroes are moving in this area, you had better get out," or some other kind of nationality is moving in, you had better get out. In fact, a curious thing is happening in Chicago right now. At one time the cry was Negroes are moving into the area, you had better get out. A lot of colored did move in and whites moved out. Now, they go and say Puerto Ricans are coming in. You had better get out to some other place.

Mr. O'HARA. When the Irish came, they said get out, and the same for the Jewish people and others. We have all gone through it. What

we want is that there shall not be any place in our wonderful America a taint of discrimination.

Mr. MITCHELL. Except, Mr. O'Hara, in this case there is a difference between the day that it was happening to the Irish and now at it is happening to other groups. In those days there wasn't the vast resource of the Federal Government behind those who wanted to discriminate. Today there is. In Chicago, in New York, Washington, or whatever other city this program operates in, the credit, resources, and full faith of the Federal Government, by the policies of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, are placed behind those who want to discriminate. That is a fearful weapon for achieving the segregation.

Mr. O'HARA. That is why I think it is helpful for you to be here today as a spokesman on phases of our housing program that otherwise might not have been brought out.

Mr. MITCHELL. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there further questions?
Mr. MULTER. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Multer.

Mr. MULTER. Mr. Mitchell, I think you know what my position has been with reference to legislation of this kind, and I don't think it is necessary for me to explain that position, but in view of the discourse between you and Mr. O'Hara I think maybe I ought to say a thing or two, and then point this out to you.

New York State is one of the few States where we have a fair employment practice act which prohibits discrimination in employment. The first job I got just after high school was in a bank. I was told by my bank manager, who took a liking to me, if I wanted to stay in banking and make it my career I had better change my first name, and I asked "Why should I change my first name?" He said it is distinctly Jewish and there is no place in the banking field for a Jew.

I took his advice and changed my career. I entered law school. The first job I applied for in a law office was by answering a blind ad and a letter came back to me saying you may call for an interview Monday morning, if you are not Jewish.

It was a large Wall Street law firm wrote me that letter in 1918. Now, we have an FEPC law, a very strong, compulsory, good law. Yet there are still law firms and banks in the city of New York who won't take a lawyer who is a colored man or a Jew, nor is a person given an important post in a bank who is colored or a Jew. I can't recall a big bank in the city of New York where there is a colored man in a high place in a bank or for that matter in a large law firm.

Mr. MITCHELL. The chairman of our board, Dr. Tobias, is a member of the board of directors of one of the banks in New York.

Mr. MULTER. I am glad to hear it. It is the only instance I know of. I know many good lawyers who are colored men, some very fine judges, and they are among the best of the lawyers on the bench in New York. None of them were placed by any large law firm in New York in a responsible position. Yes, most of them will say they are not discriminating. Here and there they will take on a Jew or colored man and keep him on for a while, and then find some excuse to get rid of him. Instead of moving him on up because of his ability they move him on out.

The point I make is despite that law they still discriminate in the State of New York, and they will elsewhere, too, and they will do it in the housing field, too.

Now, if we have got that kind of situation in New York-and you have got it throughout the country against minority groups-you have got it in officialdom, who while complaining about how nondiscriminatory they are they have their own means and tests of finding out who you are and what you are, and what they will do with you, and whether they will take you on as a blind for a little while and then let you go. With the United States Supreme Court decision in the school situation, you need no legislation. I know there are those who say, well, that applies to schools-but I think that lays down the principle as enunciated in our Constitution, a principle that must be followed nationwide in employment and education and schools and in housing. You recall the other day we were considering an important bill, the Reserve bill-the military forces Reserve bill-and a provision was written into the bill on the floor against discrimination. I think you will agree with me there is less discrimination in the Armed Forces today than there has ever been. We have done a pretty good job of integration in the Armed Forces. You will find an officer here or there who is going to kick around the minority man he doesn't like, but by and large they are doing a pretty good job.

They wrote into the bill on the floor a provision against segregation in the Armed Forces, and the bill died.

Now, the point I am leading up to is, will the same thing happen here? We need the housing. If we don't extend the law the whole program comes to an end. I would like to see this provision written into it. You remember when I offered the provision, not only to the committee but on the floor? Are we going to gain more by continuing the housing program and trying to weed out the officials in charge of the program who will discriminate. Even if we write it into the law as I pointed out, just as we have discrimination in employment, despite the finest law you can put on the books, both in law, banking, housing, and everywhere else we just amended the housing law in the State of New York against discrimination, and made it apply even to FHA housing--we won't eliminate all discrimination. If there is any executive support to the program everywhere along the line there will be no discrimination.

You and I as practical men know that if you don't get the right people to administer that program they are going to get around it. They will evade it and avoid it. Shouldn't we extend this law without this provision, rely on the Supreme Court's enunciation of the principle, and work to get better men and women in charge of these programs who won't discriminate?

Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. Multer, I would like to answer you and I hope that I can.

First, I certainly would not agree that the New York fair employment practice law has not been effective. Anybody who thinks that it has not been effective has only to go to Macy's Department Store. I do it every time I go to New York. Whether I am going to buy anything or not, I just walk through the store and see democracy in action: all of those people of different races and creeds working side by side in harmony. When you pick up the telephone in New York to make a

call it no longer may be that you would just get a white person answering that phone. You would get an American, regardless of race or religion. It is true that in the banks even there are people working. A young man who used to work for me is now on Wall Street working because of the fair employment practice law. So the first thing I would say with reference to the FEPC law is I think it has been effective. Of course there will be some people who will violate it. Eventually they will be caught up with and eventually it will be completely successful.

The next thing I would like to point out is with reference to what you said about the Supreme Court decision on the school cases. It is true the Court gave a decision in the school case but the Court has given other decisions on housing. There was a time in the history of this country when, in Louisville, Ky., Richmond, Va., Baltimore, Md., there were city ordinances which said that a colored man would have to live in a certain section of town. The Lee Street Methodist Church in Richmond, Va., has two entrances. The only reason why they have two entrances in that church is because when Negroes first bought it there was a city ordinance which said they couldn't go in the door that was on that street. So they had to tear out part of the wall and build another entrance to the church in order to get around that ordinance. A Baltimore judge ruled that a white man had as much right to a Negro living next door to him as he had to have a horse stable beside him. The courts have struck down such ordinances on the ground that the States may not have that kind of regulation. Today, those regulations do not exist except in areas where the tax resources of the Federal Government under the housing program are used for the purpose of building segregated housing.

In other words, the Court ruling has been completely successful except where the Government under the present program steps in and tries to tear it down.

We have had the problem of restrictive covenants. Again and again we have had the difficulty of Negroes buying homes. There was a young friend of mine right here in Washington, a schoolteacher, who bought a home prior to the war. His wife, two children, were fine respectable people. They could not live in that home because there was a restrictive covenant on it which said that even though a Negro owned it he couldn't live in it.

The courts have struck that down by saying that you can put a restrictive covenant on property, but you can't enforce it in court. The result is that colored people are able to buy in any neighborhood where there is existing housing, if there is a willing seller, and if they have the money to buy. The Federal Government has done the thing which the courts, we believe, prohibit, and that it, as an arm of government, has said that it will promote and extend racial segregation. The Court has said you can't enforce segregation through the courts, and it is not being enforced through the courts. It said that the legislatures may not have segregation, and the legislatures do not have segregation in the laws, but the Federal Government contends that as an administrative arm of Government it is not reached by these court decisions and, therefore, they continue to segregate.

Now, Mr. Betts, you raised a question a while ago about whether we brought this problem up before the Democrats. We certainly have.

I am glad Mr. Multer mentioned it, because it gives me an opportunity to tell you what happened when we did.

Mr. Multer was on the floor, and I believe Mr. Javits, the present attorney general of the State of New York, a great liberal, offered an amendment which would have accomplished the purpose that we seek here. Mr. Multer read into the record some correspondence from Mr. Bovard, who was the counsel for the FHA. The burden of that correspondence was that "we don't need this amendment because we can handle it by administrative procedure."

This was the time when the Democrats were in power.

Then after the amendment was defeated on the floor, because FHA said that they could handle it by administrative regulations, we went to FHA. FHA said "There is nothing we can do about it because if we do Congress will cut our appropriations and make it tough for us." In other words, it is just a vicious circle.

Mr. MULTER. I offered that amendment on the floor the next year. Mr. MITCHELL. It was also attacked on that same ground by those who didn't want it, Mr. Bovard and the others, as I remember it.

You also mentioned the matter about the Reserve training program. I think one of the most awful things that anybody could mention is the fact that young men and young women are asked to go to defend their country and at the same time are asked to do it on a segregated basis. It is impossible for any reasonable person to believe that we are in such great danger, and we need all this big Reserve program, if there are going to be selfish people who will defeat it simply because it contains an amendment which says that all people may serve with dignity and honor. I would say, in answer to that question about this legislation, if attaching an amendment which says that the credit and the faith and the resources of the United States may not be used to advance segregation is the reason for killing a housing bill, then it is apparent that the housing program is not necessary in this country. Because if it really is necessary the local prejudices, the local opposition, will be subordinated to the larger interests of the country.

Mr. MULTER. I will agree with you they should be subordinated. I think it was pointed out on the floor the other day that no colored person has ever been court-martialed for treasonable activity while in the services of our country. I believe that is true. Yet there are still some people who would give up the necessity for reserve forces for this country if they can't have their way with reference to the colored people.

I agree with you that they should put national interest and national security and their own security and that of their children first when it comes to the defense of the country, when it comes to the welfare of the country, and housing is part of the welfare of the country. Without decent housing you can't have a decent country.

Unfortunately that is not the thinking of some Members, at least on the House side. I don't know what happened on the other side. That is what happened here.

I am wondering whether or not we should take the risk and let the housing program die, or rely on ousting from government office anyone who will not go along with the clear intent of the Constitution as declared by the Supreme Court from time to time, and as declared by our Presidents from time to time?