Policies and Practices of Discrimination Commissions
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625630400110 |
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| Author | Elmer A. Carter |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
62
Policies
and
Practices
of
Discrimination
Commissions
IT
was
in
the
spring
of
1945,
when
the
war
to
preserve
democracy
was
draw-
ing
to
a
close,
that
the
Committee
on
Fair
Employment
Practice,
created
by
Executive
Order
8802
of
President
Roosevelt
on
June
25,
1941,
to
end
dis-
crimination
in
defense
industries
because
of
race,
creed,
and
color,
received
its
death
blow.
The
first
significant
inter-
vention
of
the
federal
government
in
dis-
crimination
in
employment
came
to
an
official
end
the
following
year,
but
ac-
tually
it
was
destroyed
by
the
savage
eloquence
of
Democratic
senatorial
lead-
ers
on
the
floor
of
the
Senate
during
de-
bate
on
its
proposed
appropriation
for
the
fiscal
year
1945-46.
With
deliberate
intent
the
budget
of
the
Committee,
already
reeling
from
repeated
attacks,
was
cut
by
the
Congress
so
that
only
skeletal
operation
was
possible
and
its
final
demise
inevitable.
Discrimination
in
employment
be-
cause
of
race,
religion,
and
national
an-
cestry
has
been
experienced
to
some
degree
by
segments
of
the
American
population
throughout
our
history.
The
Irish
Catholic
was
compelled
to
endure
contemptuous
treatment
in
his
search
for
employment
following
the
great
Irish
migrations
and
years
afterward;
the
Italian,
the
Slav,
the
Pole,
the
Scandinavian,
and
the
Magyar
have,
in
their
turn,
had
to
face
resistance
to
their
efforts
to
gain
a
foothold
in
American
commerce
and
industry
and
to
acquire
skills
which would
ensure
adequate
in-
come
and
the
opportunity
of
acquiring
a
competence.
But
discrimination
against
the
Negro
has
dwarfed
its
manifestation
against
any
other
racial
or
national
group.
He
is
the
perfect
example
of
what
has
been
termed
dy-
namic
causation.
Caught
in
a
vicious
circle,
he
is
at
once
the
victim
and
the
excuse
for
racial
discrimination.
The
identity
of
color
of
the
subject
group
with
that
of
the
dominant
majority
has
served
to
ameliorate
and
soften
and
fi-
nally
to
overcome
in
large
measure
the
handicaps
and
restrictions
which
served
to
deprive
other
groups
of
their
share
in
the
nation’s
economy.
Color
differ-
ence,
the
slave
tradition,
and
fear
of
the
competition
of
Negro
workers
are
the
principal
links
in
the
chain
which
has
bound
the
Negro
to
the
periphery
of
American
industrial
development
and
condemned
the
great
majority
to
a
standard
of
living
measurably
lower
than
that
of
most
of
his
fellow
citizens.
Mounting
agitation,
increasing
in
vol-
ume
and
bitterness
and
culminating
in
a
threat
of
a
march
of
blacks
on
Wash-
ington,
finally
wrung
the
executive
order
from
the
reluctant
hands
of
the
Presi-
dent.
The
entrance
of
the
federal
gov-
ernment
as
an
active
participant
in
the
struggle
against
discrimination
gave
that
struggle
new
impetus
and
a
new
dimen-
sion.
By
the
Presidential
order
the
struggle
was
lifted
out
of
the
context
of
social
welfare
and
became
identified
with
the
historic
struggle
for
civil
rights.
Intimations
of
the
increased
respon-
sibility
which
the
national
government
might
assume
were
apparent
in
the
earlier
provisions
for
a
minimum
allo-
cation
of
wages
to
Negro
workmen
in
contracts
for
_building
construction.’
There
can
be
no
question
that
the
ex-
1
Robert
C.
Weaver,
Negro
Labor—A
Na-
tional
Problem
(New
York:
Harcourt
Brace
&
Co.,
1946),
p.
11.
63
ecutive
order
of
President
Roosevelt
was
a
powerful
stimulant
to
the
Negro’s
loyalty
during
World
War
II.
Nor
can
it
be
doubted
that
the
work
of
the
FEPC
allayed
heightening
racial
ten-
sions.
Its
total
record,
judged
by
the
conditions
it
faced-inadequate
staff,
entrenched
prejudices,
calculated
indif-
ference
in
high
places-was
impressive
if
not
spectacular.2
2
With
the
collapse
of
the
FEPC,
mo-
mentary
despair
gripped
those
who
had
hoped
and
fought
for
its
retention.
They
could
anticipate
no
other
conse-
quence
save
a
reversion
to
the
conditions
which
had
characterized
the
treatment
of
the
Negro
in
American
industry
prior
to
the
Presidential
action.
They
en-
visioned
widespread
disturbances
and
racial
resentment
as
the
nation
returned
to
peacetime
economy.
These
appre-
hensions
had
sound
bases
in
history,
in
the
events
following
the
close
of
World
War
I
when
the
phrase
&dquo;last
to
be
hired
and
first
to
be
fired&dquo;
received,
with
few
exceptions,
dramatic,
nation-
wide,
and
cruel
confirmation
in
the
great
industrial
centers
of
America
where
Ne-
groes,
by
reason
of
defense
requirements,
had
gained
an
uncertain
foothold
in
industry.
The
brief
and
limited
assumption
by
the
federal
government
of
the
responsi-
bility
for
dealing
with
racial
discrimi-
nation
in
industry
marked
the
begin-
ning
of
the
third
phase
of
the
struggle
to
bring
the
Negro
within
the
compass
of
the
American
democracy.
The
first
phase
of
this
struggle
was
climaxed
by
the
issuance
of
the
Emancipation
Proc-
lamation
of
President
Lincoln
ending
chattel
slavery,
a
strategic
measure
dictated
by
the
waning
fortunes
of
the
Union
armies
in
the
field.
The
second
phase
was,
undoubtedly,
the
enactment
of
the
Thirteenth,
Fourteenth,
and
Fifteenth
Amendments,
which
formally
ended
the
system
of
slave
labor
and
clothed
the
new
freedmen
with
the
sanctity
of
citizenship.
The
third
phase,
the
outline
of
which
began
to
emerge
with
President
Roosevelt’s
ex-
ecutive
order,
seemed
to
be aborted
when
Congress
refused
to
cast
into
per-
manent
mold
a
government-supported
agency
charged
with
the
responsibility
of
ending
discrimination
in
employment
and
thus
left
the
Negro
still
hobbled
in
the
labor
market.
As
victory
over
na-
zism
and
fascism
neared,
all
the
signs
pointed
to
the
probability
that
the
struggle
of
the
Negro
in
America
to
become
a
first-class
citizen
had
suffered
a
major
setback
in
the
field
of
employ-
ment
by
congressional
rejection
of
a
permanent
FEPC.
FIRST
STATE
FAIR
EMPLOYMENT
PRACTICES
LAW
But
the
movement
to
end
discrimi-
nation
in
employment by
government
action
initiated
by
the
executive
order
was
not
to
be
halted
by
the
defeat
of
the
efforts
to
give
permanence
to
the
FEPC.
Almost
unnoticed
at
the
time
in
the
heat
of
the
fierce
conflict
raging
on
the
floor
of
the
House
and
the
Sen-
ate
was
the
shift
of
the
terrain
of
the
major
struggle
from
the
national
con-
gress
to
the
state
legislatures.
While
the
FEPC
was
being
done
to
death
in
Washington,
Governor
Thomas
E.
Dewey
of
New
York
signed
the
first
so-called
fair
employment
practices
law
ever
enacted
in
America.
This
law,
known
as
the
Ives-Quinn
Bill,
was
a
bi-
partisan
measure
sponsored
in
the
New
York
State
Assembly
by
Irving
M.
Ives,
Republican
majority
leader
of
the
As-
sembly,
and
in
the
Senate
by
the
late
Elmer
F.
Quinn,
Democrat,
minority
leader
of
the
Senate.
There
was
no
equivocation
in
the
language
of
this
statute,
the
preamble
of
which
declared:
It
shall
be
deemed
an
exercise
of
the
po-
lice
power
of
the
state
for
the
protection
of
2
Malcolm
Ross,
All
Manner
of
Men
(New
York:
Reynal
&
Hitchcock,
1948),
pp.
257-60.
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