Memorandum on U.S. Postal System | Papers of Clarence Mitchell, Jr.

To: Mr. George M. Johnson

From: Clarence Mitchell

Subject: U.S. Postal System

Date: December 14, 1942

Following a conference with Dr. Landes on the general Post Office picture, I am suggesting that we adopt the following procedure in handling these complaints:¹

I believe that we should make an immediate effort to have a hearing on Mr. Rone Sidney’s case in Newport News, Virginia. I am suggesting that we have this hearing in Newport News in order to get at all of the important witnesses.
It is my opinion that if we recommend that Mr. Sidney be employed we can expect some reaction from the Postmaster. At that time we can suggest that we have other complaints against Philadelphia, Cleveland, New Orleans and St. Louis, Missouri. We can propose that the Committee would be satisfied if the Post Office will handle these internally in an expeditious manner. If our proposal is accepted, we can, of course, proceed to make a full presentation of all complaints. If it is not accepted, it seems we have no alternative but to continue hearings in these areas by the Staff Board of Review.

It is my understanding that Dr. Landes concurs with me in this procedure.²

MS: LH, DI, HqR38, Central Files. (entry 25) Memoranda, Mitchell, Clarence.

1. In 1913 President Woodrow Wilson officially implanted segregation in federal service. In reaction, the NAACP that year conducted its first study of the problem and learned that the Post Office Department had emulated practices of evicting African-American employees from its dining room that had been initiated by other departments. Official segregation, which included designating separate toilets for black and white employees in several departments, long outlasted the Wilson administration. “Flagrant discrimination” in employment, as the NAACP would subsequently charge, was the logical consequence of such practices and of those that left the selection of personnel solely to the discretion of the postmaster. Desmond S. King, Separate and Unequal: Black Americans and the U.S. Federal Government 29–30, 53.

2. The Rone Sidney case was an example of the systemic discrimination in the Post Office Department that the FEPC would battle throughout its existence. Launching an attack on this problem on 2/23/42 in a letter to Harry B. Mitchell, president of the United States Civil Service Commission, Malcolm S. MacLean, the FEPC chairman, explained that the Committee had for some time been studying proposals for strengthening the merit principle in the commission and made a series of recommendations for doing so. In a response on 5/18/42, Harry B. Mitchell told MacLean that the commission was “pleased” to concur with the FEPC’s recommendations and stated six steps it would take to implement them. Nevertheless, because the procedure Mitchell outlined did not work, the Committee in December 1943 held a hearing under the direction of Ernest G. Trimble and in February 1944 issued an order on behalf of Sidney. The department then initiated steps to correct discrimination at Newport News. See “Summary of the Evidence with Findings and Recommendation” and other materials on this case, including MacLean to Harry B. Mitchell, in HqR19, Records Relating to Hearings. Sidney, Rone; and the section on the Post Office Department in the headnote on Relationships with Federal Agencies. On the outcome of the case, see also the notes to Clarence M. Mitchell Jr.’s memorandum of 5/3/44.