Congressional Record, 78th Congress Second Session, Vol.

90 Part 5, June 15, 1944

PAGE 5972

The SPEAKER. The time of the gentleman from Pennsylvania has expired.

A DANGEROUS SITUATION

Mr. SUMNERS of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to call to the attention of the country and
the responsible administrative agencies of the Government a very important and very
dangerous situation developing in this country.

For several years now many influences have been at work to make the white people and
the colored people of this country, especially those in the Southern States, hate each
other. And now, when that result has been accomplished to an alarming degree, it is
being added to by a policy to force the people of these races to work together in close
proximity, with every occasion and opportunity for individual irritation and conflict
which easily could spread in this attitude as the flame of a match spreads in a dry
prairie.

I do not suppose anybody in this country has any doubt as to what has been done to
make these races antagonistic to each other, or the effect upon that antagonism of this
policy to force them to work all mixed up with each other.

Recently one of the leading newspapers in my section of the country wanted a colored
paper handler and advertised for such an employee. Why not, that was what they
wanted? The local agent of F. E. P. C., however, served notice on the paper that it must
not print such an advertisement, that it was discriminatory on account of color.

Yesterday I had a letter from a man who wrote me that it is being insisted that the F. E.
P. C. clause be included in all rental contracts made by the Government, regardless of
the character of activity.

The other day in Cleveland, so an Associated Press dispatch tells us, 7 colored people
were sent under armed guard into a plant producing war mate

PAGE 5973

rial where only white -people were at work. Between 12,000 and 15,000 white people
walked out. The fact that these colored people were sent in under armed guard shows
the racial attitude there, and that it was anticipated by those who sent these colored
people in that disorder and possible 1 disruption of plant activity would result. The plant
was paralyzed for 4 days. Six hundred strikers were discharged. They were told they
would not receive certificates of availability unless they could show extenuating
circumstances. The activities in the plant were renewed after this experience, but the
deep-seated antagonism which resulted is there yet, liable to explode at any time and
possibly a repetition of what happened in Detroit last year.

Of course, the situation is difficult at best, and dangerous at best, especially in the
Southern States. It should be a sobering fact that the experiment which we are trying in
this country of having two dissimilar races, each retaining its identity, live in large
numbers in the same communities, has never succeeded in the history of the world.
Considering how short a time in the life of a nation is the time which has intervened
since the War between the States, our interracial adjustment, which the white people of
the South have participated in—this improvement of the status of the colored people to
which both races have contributed—better schools, better facilities, better opportunities,
and the big fact that this all rests upon community approval and community interest, is
perhaps the outstanding achievement of its kind of all time. This is all being imperiled
by a combination of shortsighted outside interference, some doubtless well-meaning
people, and by a well-organized, shrewdly directed, abundantly financed, communistic
influence hungry for power, antagonistic to our form of government, and deeply
resentful toward the white people of the South because their communistic, alien political
philosophy has never been able to make any substantial headway.