Monthly Report of Labor Secretary, August 31, 1948

MONTHLY REPORT OF LABOR SECRETARY

August 31, 1948

The Executive Order Against Discrimination in Government Employment

After nearly two years of work by the NAACP, President Truman has issued an executive order against discrimination in Federal employment. A chronological statement on the Association’s efforts to obtain this order has been prepared and sent to members of the Board and Presidents of Branches.1

There were many people who cooperated with the Association on this matter. However, the success of the project was due to the consistent effort and continued interest of Mr. White who spent a great deal of time rallying support among Washington officials.

Non-Discrimination Clauses in Government Contracts

One of the objectives of the NAACP Labor Department is inclusion of nondiscrimination clauses in government contracts. Following an inquiry from South Carolina, the Labor Department obtained from the Veterans Administration a commitment that contracts in that state for the construction of hospital facilities would carry a clause forbidding discrimination. This commitment also covers all contracts of the Veterans Administration.2

In addition to taking steps to correct discriminatory practices affecting colored carpenters in Tennessee, at the request of the Labor Department, the Atomic Energy Commission has also given a commitment that all of its contracts will contain non-discrimination clauses. The Commission has important contracts with such major firms as the Carbide and Carbon Company, the Dupont Company, and the General Electric Company.3

The effectiveness of these clauses will depend on how alert NAACP branches are throughout the country in seeing to it that reports of discriminatory practices are promptly investigated locally and sent to the Labor Secretary for follow up if there is no adjustment. If properly checked by the Association, these clauses will be of tremendous importance in promoting fair employment standards in private industry.

Assault on Farm Labor Agent

Following complaints from Missouri involving a man who was forcibly restrained from recruiting colored farm workers, the NAACP urged intervention of the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor. A full report was submitted by the U. S. Department of Labor and we have asked residents in Missouri to supply additional information on this matter.4

We have informed the Department of Labor that such incidents show that labor shortages in farming are artificially created, and, therefore, the importation of foreign workers is frequently a device to keep pools of unused farm employees in certain areas, even though there is no work for them or where such work, as may be available, is at a low wage.5

Branch Requests for Assistance

The Labor Department is cooperating with the Cincinnati Branch in its effort to obtain employment for colored girls as telephone operators and the St. Louis Branch in its campaign to secure jobs for persons on public utilities.6

At the request of persons in Topeka, Kansas, we have asked the Rubber Workers of the CIO to aid in checking on charges that the Goodyear Plant in that city is dismissing colored employees and replacing them with whites.7

State Fair Employment Action

Following numerous complaints from Pennsylvania that New England and New York employers are recruiting workers on a discriminatory basis, we have requested the President of the New England Regional Conference and the President of the New York State Conference of Branches to urge fair employment practice officials in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York to warn employers against seeking to evade the fair employment practice law by out-of-state recruitment on a discriminatory basis.8

Discriminatory Notices in Post Offices

Beginning in New Orleans and including Washington as well as other cities, notices appeared on bulletin boards in post offices stating that persons could enlist in an army postal reserve which was for whites only.9

We have protested to the Post Office Department and the Department of the Army on these notices and we have received information from Washington and New Orleans that they have been taken down. The mere removal of the notices does not, however, solve the problem. Actually, this is part of a much broader program of the Army which has many serious implications. Under the present defense plans, reserve units are being created in many industrial areas. For example, there is a reserve unit for telephone workers.

If the Army recruits persons for these units on a racial basis, it will mean that on the one hand the national government is advocating fair employment in industry while on the other hand the Army is promoting unfair practices by establishing patterns of segregation among the workers. We are assembling additional information on this for further action.10

Death of Frank Fenton

During the summer, Mr. Frank Fenton, former Director of Organization for the AFL, and a member of the NAACP National Labor Committee, died in his office from a heart attack. Mr. Fenton was a conscientious member of the Labor Committee and attended meetings whenever his schedule permitted. He had recently been named International Labor Representative of the AFL, and, although his program required frequent trips outside of the country, he maintained his interest in the Labor Committee. We have extended sympathy to Mrs. Fenton on the loss of her husband.

Meetings Attended

As alternate for the Secretary, the Labor Secretary attended the meeting of the President’s Committee to Employ the Physically Handicapped on August 17. A number of distinguished persons were present including President Truman and Secretary Marshall.

During the summer, the Labor Secretary spoke at a meeting for students at Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. and, also, at William Jewell College in Missouri. The college is an institution which recently barred a colored minister. According to a member of the faculty, the president favored the admission of colored persons but was out-voted by members of the faculty. Letters of protest against the undemocratic action of the institution greatly outnumbered those favoring it, according to an official of the school who talked with the Labor Secretary.

MS: NAACP IX: 200, DLC.

[1] Truman issued two executive orders on July 26, 1948. The first, EO 9980, barred discrimination in federal employment and created the seven-member Fair Employment Board, to be formed from members and employees of the Civil Service Commission and charged with reviewing discrimination complaints by government employees; the second, EO 9981, created another seven-member body, the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. New York Times 7/27/48, 1, 4; MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces 312.

Leading the struggle for EO 9981 were A. Philip Randolph, national treasurer of the Committee against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training and president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and Grant Reynolds, chair of the Committee against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training. Randolph, 4/28/48, Hearings 685–94. See memorandum of 8/20/48 from Dr. Louis T. Wright, chairman of the NAACP National Board of Directors, in appendix 1, vol. IV, and 12/20/48 report. In the note at 2/5/48, Mitchell’s efforts to prevent the placement of the Fair Employment Board in the CSC is explained.

Although Mitchell was not involved in the struggle to get Truman to issue EO 9981, he accorded that development equal importance because subsequently, he was deeply involved in getting the order enforced. In addition to his later reports, see Mitchell, “Status of Racial Integration in the Armed Services,” 204; Watson, Lion in the Lobby 159–61; MacGregor, Integration of the Armed Forces 311–14.


[2] See also 5/28/48.


[3] See, among others, 11/1/47.


[4] This was another example of the problem about which Mitchell had complained to the Department of Agriculture in 1947. That complaint involved a group of farmers from Pocomoke City, Maryland, who would “sell the migratory Negro farm workers from the South who lived in these formerly U.S. government operated labor camps,” which had been loaned to private operators. The complaint charged that each morning groups of laborers were assigned to work at designated farms. Upon arrival, if the laborers determined that the wages were insufficient or the working conditions were unsuitable and requested to be returned home, they would be told that they would have to give up their house and find another place to live because they were depriving the labor bosses of the arranged fee of twenty-five cents per head. Furthermore, if farm laborers stayed home two or three days because of illness or the need to rest, they would be told that “the camp is no summer resort nor hospital.” Mitchell therefore requested that the Department of Agriculture inform him of the terms under which the formerly government operated camp was released to the farmers and whether the arrangement was permanent or subject to the new federal farm labor law.

The Department of Agriculture, however, simply responded that the government-owned buildings and equipment at the Pocomoke center had been loaned to a private farmers’ association pending their disposition under a new law requiring the sale of fity-two permanent and seventy temporary federal farm labor camps. As the complaint Mitchell forwarded to the Department of Agriculture showed, however, the new law had created a housing crisis for many migrant workers. Mitchell letter to C. E. Herdt, chief of operations, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 10/2/47, and Herdt’s response, 10/8/47; clippings, “Conditions of Migrant Labor to Return to Prewar States,” 10/6/47, WP, and “New Agency Established Here to Help Migrant Workers,” 10/24/47, WP all of which are in NAACP IX: 161, DLC. See also 6/26/47.


[5] See, among others, 4/30 and 12/20/48.


[6] In a telephone conference on August 27, 1948, with Lester P. Bailey, executive secretary of the Cincinnati NAACP branch, Mitchell discussed plans for a meeting he and Walter White would hold with AT&T management, possibly on September 14, 1948. They also discussed the branch’s plans to picket the telephone company in Cincinnati. Mitchell suggested to Bailey that the picketing “or some other definite step might make it easier to negotiate with the top officials of AT&T.” Mitchell memorandum to the files, 8/27/48, NAACP WB-5, DLC. Mitchell, accompanied by Madison Jones, administrative assistant of the NAACP, met with Kenneth L. Wilkinson, assistant vice president of AT&T, on October , , at the company’s New York headquarters in an attempt to get a satisfactory settlement of complaints and additionally in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. “We obtained no commitment from the company on this,” Mitchell recorded. Mitchell memorandum to the files, 10/13/48, NAACP WB-5, DLC. See 11/1/48 report for Mitchell’s subsequent plans for action.


[7] See especially Mitchell’s 3/24/48 statement to the Civil Service Commission in appendix 1, vol. IV.


[8] Mitchell’s work to establish nondiscrimination policies at the state and federal levels involved meetings with officials, such as with Colonel Fox, executive director of the New York State Commission against Discrimination, on June 15, 1948, when the official announced that SCAD had developed clear procedures for determining whether there had been discrimination in employment. Mitchell memorandum to the files, 6/21/48, MP.


[9] See, in appendix 1, vol. IV, 3/3/44.


[10] See 12/20/48 for a fuller report on this problem.