MONTHLY REPORT OF LABOR SECRETARY
January 31, 1950
National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization
The enormous turnout of delegates who attended the National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization in Washington has heavily underscored the importance of NAACP in Congress.1
The first concrete evidence of the effect of the Mobilization on the House was shown when that body voted 236 to 138 to retain the 21-day rule. The Association sent 150 night letters on the eve of the vote urging congressmen to retain the 21-day rule. Additional telegrams were also sent to the leadership of both parties as well as Speaker Rayburn urging that the House remain in session on Friday, January 20, and vote down the proposed rule change. Numerous letters have been sent to us from Republican Congressmen noting that they voted to retain the rule and intend to support FEPC.2
At the time this report is being prepared, other difficulties have arisen in the House which have made the handling of fair employment practice legislation more complicated than it should be. We are pinning some hope on the formation of bipartisan liaison committees of senators and congressmen who will work with the Association and other groups for FEPC.3
Before leaving the subject of mobilization, it is important to point out that the amount of support given by people in all walks of life in Washington was heartening. In looking over the letters of thanks we have sent to various cooperating groups and individuals, one notes labor organizations, community centers, churches, civic organizations, social clubs, government officials, and newspaper workers who gave valuable aid in arranging various details so necessary in a large conference of this kind.
Executive Order on Agriculture Workers
In the December meeting of the Advisory Council of the Bureau of Employment Security, the Labor Secretary joined with AFL and CIO representatives in passing a resolution urging that our Government refrain from recruiting foreign workers for agriculture until the available supply of American labor is adequately used. The Labor Secretary also introduced a resolution, which was passed, recommending that in the recruitment and placement of foreign labor the Employment Service make maximum use of bona fide labor organizations. We submitted considerable evidence to the group showing that this had not been done in the past.4
Secretary Maurice J. Tobin of the U.S. Department of Labor has advised us that, while he did not agree with the resolution restricting use of foreign labor, he would recommend to the President that a commission be appointed to study the economic and social problems of agricultural workers and to suggest to the President a corrective program. This is also an action that the Association has asked for and it is our understanding that the White House is now making plans to appoint such a commission.
San Francisco FEPC
It should be noted that the proposal to pass a municipal ordinance in San Francisco establishing a city FEPC was defeated this month. In the same field, the Baltimore Branch of the NAACP is working to have all city contracts for construction include non-discrimination clauses.5
End of Segregation at Mount Alto Veterans Hospital
Miss Thelma R. Johnson, who is a chemist at the Mount Alto Veterans Hospital in Washington, played an important part in ending segregation in the eating facilities in that institution. Miss Johnson asked our advice on the matter when the assistant manager of the hospital told her that colored people were not allowed to eat in the restaurant for professional hospital employees. We advised her that she should continue to eat there and that the Labor Secretary would join her in a test of whether the hospital would actively enforce segregation. She continued to eat in the restaurant without incident.
On joining her for lunch to test the arrangement, the Labor Secretary found that the restaurant was clean, brightly lighted with a number of windows adding to its general cheerfulness. Opposite it was a small windowless, somewhat untidy room which was the place in which the colored employees were asked to eat their meals.
When we discussed this matter with the assistant manager of the hospital he said that he had suggested that Miss Johnson eat on a segregated basis to avoid trouble and also because a previous rule required that colored employees be segregated. He said that when she insisted on eating in the restaurant he made an inquiry on whether the rule requiring segregation should be enforced. According to his statement, the Central Office of the Veterans Administration advised him that all employees should eat on the basis of non-segregation.6
A similar case at a hospital in Fort Howard, Maryland, is still pending.
MS: NAACP II: A-537, DLC.
[1] The mobilization, which actually began in November 1949, was climaxed in Washington by a three-day conference of 4,218 regularly accredited delegates from thirty-three states, from January 15 through January 17, 1950. It sought to obtain commitments from members of Congress to vote for FEPC and other legislation included in the president’s civil rights bill. Reports of the Secretary (Roy Wilkins, acting for Walter White, who was on a year’s leave of absence) for the 12/49 meeting and the 2/50 meeting of the board, EC. Participating organizations were the NAACP; CIO; American Jewish Congress; B’nai B’rith; National Baptist Convention; AFL; AME Zion and other church organizations; National Alliance of Postal Employees; veterans groups (JWV and AVC); National Council of Negro Women; National Council for a Permanent FEPC; Greek letter fraternities; Americans for Democratic Action, and Students for Democratic Action (SDA); Elks, Masons and other fraternal organizations; and Catholic Interracial Council. CRM Report, NAACP II: A-192, DLC. See other materials in NAACP II: A-192, as well as in A-193 and A-203, DLC; also see the editorial “The Civil Rights Mobilization,” Crisis 57 (February 1950): 100–101, noting that “the Mobilization, initiated by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in accordance with the mandate of the Association’s 40th annual convention, enjoyed the sponsorship of 60 national church, civic, labor, fraternal and minority group organizations.” For developments leading up to the mobilization, see Watson, Lion in the Lobby 176–78. See announcement on Wilkins’s new status, “Acting Secretary,” Crisis 56 (July 1949): 213; Watson, Lion in the Lobby 179. See the introduction to this volume for additional background.
[2] The rejection by the House on January 20, 1950, of a move to abolish the twenty-one-day rule affirmed the majority’s determination not to return to the Rules Committee its earlier power to bottle up legislation. For additional details on the parliamentary maneuvering, see CRM Report, NAACP II: A-192, DLC.
[3] The efforts to form the bipartisan committees were led in the Senate by Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and in the House by Jacob Javits of New York. They were central to the strategy FEPC supporters in and out of the Congress were developing to bring FEPC to a congressional vote at the earliest possible date. The difficulties to which Mitchell referred seemed to be the hesitancy of House Republicans to join a nonpartisan effort for the FEPC. Mitchell memorandum to Roy Wilkins, 2/10/50, NAACP II: A-657, DLC.
[4] See Mitcham, “Fair Employment Practice Legislation,” copy in NAACP II: A-264, DLC. See also, most immediately, 3/3 and 5/1/50; in appendix 1, vol. IV, 7/13/50. This issue received considerable public attention in April when it ran into political difficulties owing to cross-currents of interests. New York Times 4/4/50, 1.
[5] See, in appendix 1, vol. IV, 6/21/50, as well as the headnote on the Struggle for a Permanent FEPC.
[6] For the overall battle against segregated veterans’ hospitals, see, among others, 10/31/47, 6/4/51.
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NAACP II: A-537, DLC.