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are you going to go right at the start? I'm going to go into him as quickly as I can. I just hope I don't get tongue tied. I'm say it. One. Take 13 69. Smathers. Ladies and gentlemen, I was privileged to have as my guest a few weeks ago the leader of the anti civil rights forces, Senator Russell of Georgia.

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And it's now my very great privilege to have as my guest today, the leader of the Civil Rights Forces, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. Senator, I'd like to start off by asking you why do you feel that this particular civil rights bill has to be passed?

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Why is it so important? Well, Senator, I want to answer your question. I shall. But first, let me thank you for permitting me to appear on your television program and radio program. And may I say that, too appear after having after you're having Senator Russell on here puts quite a challenge up to me because he's one of the truly outstanding men of the Senate, because there are patterns of discrimination throughout the nation and by the way, it's not sexual.

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It's a national problem. in a national matter patterns of discrimination that call for new legislation. I am not one that believes that legislation alone solves these problems. As a matter of fact, I look upon the civil rights bill before us as providing a modest and reasonable framework of law in which men of goodwill men of conviction and of reason can work out some of these difficulties and problems that have faced us so many years.

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I believe that we need this legislation in order to bring into full reality the promises of the American Constitution, particularly to bring into effect the 14th and 15th Amendment. These are the key amendments in terms of the basic rights of our people. That is, the political rights, the voting rights, the rights of citizenship.

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I think the facts justify the passage of the legislation. Might I say to Senator Smathers that this isn't any type of radical proposal? The bill was passed in the House of Representatives 290 to 130. As I recall, there were 152 Democrats and 100 38 Republicans. I simply can't believe that with that overwhelming majority better than 2 to 1 that the legislation represents any vast departure from what one would call a good sound practice of American law.

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In fact, it is good law. It's reasonable. It's fair. It's a very limited piece of legislation, as I see it now, Hubert, as you know, there are those of us who believe that this particular law, if passed, would intrude into the right of people to run their own business.

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Take away that right from how do you answer that? Well, of course, public policy and public law always affects a private interests. We have laws, for example, that regulate closing of businesses you open at a certain time and close. We have laws that regulate places of entertainment, movie theaters and taverns and clubs.

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There isn't any absolute freedom, so to speak, in private enterprise. Now I believe in private enterprise, and I don't believe there ought to be any large amount of governmental interference. But I know that you're referring to what we call the Fair Employment Practices section. In particular, the only purpose of that section of the bill is to see to it that the factor of race or religion or national origin is not one that is used in hiring or in denying people jobs, hiring people for a job or denying people a job.

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It means that you shall hire on merit. It means that you shall hire on the basis of ability and training and capacity, rather than to discriminate on the basis of race or national origin or religion. Now, having said that, of course, we have to have a procedure for it and a title seven of this Bill George does not permit the Fair Employment Practices Commission to punish.

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It does not permit the Fair Employment Practices Commission to even initiate investigation. There must be a charge brought to the commission, the or a complaint, and the commission must investigate it if it finds it has some merit. Then the commission made by an affirmative vote take this matter to a court and asked the court to look into it and to give a cease and desist order or a restraining order if there is discrimination.

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So I don't consider that undue interference. It seems to me that it isn't much more than what we've done under wage an hour in the National Labor Relations Act. Well, thank you very much Hubert for those observations. Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see in capsule form, there's what Senator Humphrey believes.

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Certainly, it's food for thought. That's what's making this great debate. And I am proud and pleased to have him as my guest today, explaining his point of view. Thank you very much for looking in. I hope you'll look in again at the same time next week.

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Well, Senator, how many states of the union today have F PC laws of fair Employment Employment practices? Law? I believe the number is 25 those 25 states, of course, in the main represent the large industrial states. And, as I have said, and it may be sheer coincidence.

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But it's a fact that the states that have laws or fair employment practices laws also have the highest per capita income and the most rapid rate of economic growth Of one or two exceptions, I believe your own state Florida has one of the high rates of economic growth today, and many of the states in the South are showing very substantial economic growth because we don't have an f you know, that's what I mean.

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I was saying that with the exceptions of two or three other states, most of the states that have FTP have high economic income have rather fast economic growth, and they're highly industrialized. And these experiences with these state laws, I think, have given us a pretty good framework of of experience to guide us in terms of a federal statute.

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Now, the federal statute that we're talking about, however, does not usurp the power of the state where the state has an operative FTP that state will be able to continue its activities. And indeed, the federal commission will cede power by contractual arrangements to the state authority.

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Furthermore, as I've indicated the only enforcement procedure, he is not administrative. The enforcement procedure is through a court of law. I believe this is desirable. I must say, quite frankly, that, uh, this isn't nearly as strong NFP as many senators have advocated. That is, from the North.

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It's a good deal stronger than some have advocated. It's a combination of voluntary because it insists upon using voluntary procedures up until the very last instance where it would be necessary to go to a court of law. There is a provision that requires the use of voluntary procedures.

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There's a provision that requires the use of state law. And then only then do you go to the federal court. Do you think that this, uh, FTP practice will eventually lead to sort of a quota system where a man who's running a factory or some kind of a business in order to avoid any claim that he's discriminating, he will just per se higher?

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So many Negro citizens and so many people of the Catholic faith, so many people, the Jewish faith and things of that nature. Well, I know there's been a concern about that Senator George and I recognize that there that some people might feel that that could happen.

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I will say that insofar as the bill is concerned, it does not provide for that, and I would be opposed to it if it did. I am not for busing Children back and forth, For example, I am for neighborhood schools. I am not for the quota system.

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I don't I think a quota system is as evil as it is to have discrimination, because then you're hiring people on the basis of race or religion, and we ought to get away from that. We ought to hire people on the basis of competence and experience and education and training and whether or not they're qualified for a particular type of job.

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But I would like to be very frank with my friends about this. There is always a danger of some abuse, and we would have to make very sure that in the beginnings of this program that we had men and women on the Fair Employment Practices Commission that gave it some good guidelines and some good starts.

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I mean on the right way, Just like in the early days of our Supreme Court, we had a John Marshall, for example, that gave us the kind of solid tradition and heritage for our courts that have stood as well through the years. Now let's talk just a minute about the public accommodation section of this bill.

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Do you have the feeling that that's going to deprive man of the use of his property and the manner in which he would like to use it? In other words, by requiring him to serve people that he might not want to serve? Do you think that's any violation of his constitutional right to force him to serve a group of folks that he may not want to or work with them or cut their hair or whatever it might be for.

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Well, Senator, when you have laws that impose segregation, you may very well be interfering with the private rights of business. In fact, you do, because some people that are compelled to abide by a segregation law maybe don't want to have segregation. Maybe they feel it hurts their business.

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Or at least it offends them. In terms of their attitudes. I would say that the public accommodations provisions merely merely outlaws, so to speak, the factor of race in terms of access to public places, people, places of business that solicit business from the public. And in the bill, we limit those places and we spell them out, like motels, hotels, restaurants and so forth.

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30 states have such laws already. Senator and the District of Columbia. I don't think they've injured business, are deprived private rights. All right, well, thank you very much. Senator Hubert Humphrey, for these views, you're the leader of the civil rights fight. It looks like it's going on rather enthusiastically.

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I hope not bitterly for some time to come, but we do appreciate avenue on the program and giving to the listeners of Florida this opportunity to hear you firsthand. Thank you. Very grateful to you, sir. Thank you. Say it would take 13 84 Smathers spot. I think the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate itself will.

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I think the livestock producer needs to be protected. And I think the Senate Finance Committee, which is now holding hearings on setting quotas for the importation of livestock and meets of all descriptions I think we should pass that quota bill and it will. It should become the law of these United States when we stop to think that price of beef, for example, as far as the farmer is concerned the ranch is concerned has dropped 20% in the last three years when we stop to think that the importations from foreign countries have grown almost doubled in the last three years, when we stopped to remember that in Florida alone.

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Since January 1st of 1964 there have been 42 £742,000,700 of beef brought in from foreign countries There's no wonder that the livestock producer is suffering a very severe curtailment of his income, and he needs to be protected in his time. The Congress of the United States stop these foreign imports.