did have the great privilege and honor of attending the hearings that you conducted in Los Angeles and we were extremely impressed with the great service which you have rendered not only for EEOC, but for this Nation in revealing the blatant discrimination that had existed in the industry in that particular area.

As I recall at that particular hearing, your Commission brought out the fact that one particular employer had some 90 percent of its business with the Federal Government and yet this particular industry was in the aerospace industry and had no blacks, no MexicanAmericans, no Spanish-surnamed people in any of the upper echelon positions of that industry.

To your knowledge, has EEOC done anything at all about this kind of blatant discriminatory practice in this industry?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Well, to my knowledge I have not seen anything specific that has been done. I would throw in the caveat, however, that if an individual case has come up, that it would be handled by the Commission with confidentiality and, therefore, would perhaps be underway and not subject to public scrutiny.

To my knowledge, the Department of Labor which would have jurisdiction over the contracting power under the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, has not taken any action against any of the substantial contract holders on the west coast that had insignificant numbers of minority employees.

Mr. STOKES. Is total discretion lodged in the chairman of this committee with reference to whether public hearings shall or shall not be conducted?

Mr. ALEXANDER. No; it is not, sir. This is a decision that is made by the full commission and each of now four, then five, Commissioners take a vote and make a decision.

Mr. STOKES. It would have to be entertained by the Chair?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I made such a motion there be a hearing and it was ruled out of order and I made it again and I understand since I left the Commission in August, it has been made and not acted upon or ruled out of order. I think Commissioner Ximenes requested there be public hearings and again that was ruled out of order.

Mr. STOKES. Thank you very much.

Mr. ERLENBORN. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for 1 additional minute. I am not going to ask a question, but merely read a section that relates to the question that I asked the witness a minute ago and to which he gave an answer which was his interpretation.

I read from the administration bill, page 2, section (h):

(h) Attorneys appointed under this section may, at the direction of the Commission, appear for and represent the Commission in any case in court, provided that the Attorney General shall conduct all litigation to which the Commission is a party in the Supreme Court or in the courts of appeals of the United States pursuant to this title.

And let me underlie this next sentence:

All other litigation affecting the Commission, or to which it is a party, shall be conducted by the Commission.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mr. Alexander, we certainly want to thank you for coming and

presenting the testimony this morning and we assure you that the committee got quite a bit from your testimony.

Thank you.

Mr. HAWKINS. Again I would like to thank you for your very excellent presentation. I hope that one day you will return to Federal service. Possibly it won't be under this administration.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I seriously doubt it will be during this administration.

Mr. HAWKINS. The next witness is Dr. Hector Garcia, chairman of the American GI Forum. Dr. Garcia, it is a pleasure to have you before the committee.

STATEMENT OF HECTOR GARCIA, MEMBER, U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION; ACCOMPANIED BY DUUEN LUJAN

Mr. GARCIA. I would like to introduce Mr. Duuen Lujan, who is also here with me. He is the past chairman of the New Mexico American GI Forum.

First, let me state I wish to thank you for the opportunity to present my views on getting cease-and-desist enforcement for the Commission. Secondly, although I am a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and although we have approved the giving of cease-and-desist powers to the Commission I am here only as a representative of the American GI Forum for the United States, which is a national veterans family organization with branches in about 20 States throughout the Nation.

I am a doctor of medicine and I am deeply interested in the employment situation of all the groups, especially the Mexican-American groups throughout the Nation. We number over 7 million, most of us residing in the Southwest. Half of our people in Texas live in poverty. The rest of the people throughout the Nation, a great percentage of them, still live in poverty.

We, who have been involved in the civil rights of the MexicanAmerican, have coined a statement which is not too pleasing, but which is certainly factual and to the point. That is: "The only way which a Mexican-American family can effectively get out of poverty is by collecting the life insurance on their sons or fathers or brothers who are Vietnam casualties."

In several counties in the State of Texas, as we number the Vietnam casualties in some of them have 100 percent Mexican-Americans, in some of them 90 percent, and most of them where we do live over 50 percent casualties. Therefore, I am here to tell you gentlemen that there must be another way which the Mexican-Americans can get out of the poverty level. And this is the employment factor.

From personal experience and also dealing with people who come to see me, who voice a complaint, against discrimination and lack of equal employment opportunity, let me assure you present procedure is not working at all. We expect a man who has been denied an opportunity for advancement for a job to file a complaint.

It may take him months before he even gets an answer. By the time that he is finished, he has lost his job, he is looking for another and then months later we tell him to go ahead and hire an attorney to represent him in a court when by now he is broke.

Well in spite of the feeling of the legal profession in Texas, many of those attorneys are not going to take this man's case because they are going to run against the wishes or certainly the philosophy of the "predominant prejudiced employment class" in the State. So therefore I here state that I support cease-and-desist authority for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I have worked in the civil rights field for more than 20 years and find that affirmative-type programs without cease-and-desist enforcement powers for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission makes no sense at all.

The companies, unions, and employment agencies do not take affirmative action seriously and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and employees' action to secure justice become an exercise in frustration. I contend that as the Commission presently operates, that is, without enforcement powers, it generates more frustration than justice.

As chairman of the American GI Forum, I am constantly reminded by the minorities of the Nation-the Mexican Americans, the blacks, the Puerto Ricans, the Indians, and others-that they would rather express their employment discrimination complaints in the streets by way of demonstrations or through the news media or both and not through an agency that offers only a possibility of redress of their grievances.

I am aware of the excellent work done by the Commission within their meager resources and lack of power. The day, however, has come when the Commission must be allowed to operate effectively. There has been some argument as to the type of enforcement powers which would be the most effective. There is no question in my mind that cease and desist is the much better approach than power to go to court.

The primary arguments by proponents of lawsuits include:

1. It takes too long to gear up for cease and desist.

2. Cease and desist costs more than the present budget can stand.

3. Lawsuits could be started by the Commission immediately. The arguments are ambiguous and misleading. The Commission as constituted now has the mechanism to start the first case the day after a bill is signed into law.

Too much is made of the cases that may finally make it through the administrative process and end with a cease-and-desist order. The fact is that with cease-and-desist powers the first 100 complaints. after the law is signed would proceed as follows:

The point is that EEOC is ready today to accept a complaint and settle and, if necessary, receive the first eight of 100 cases that may eventually end in cease-and-desist orders.

In regard to budgetary consideration, as realists we know that necessary funds will be hard to come by. In 1964 when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was created, the first fiscal year budget was only $2 million. As it became evident that the amounts appropriated were far short of the need, the Congress pro

ceeded to increase EEOC appropriations. The matter of employment discrimination is too important for Congress to give it a low priority in allocating tax moneys.

But be that as it may, Congress will decide the priority and allocation of funds and for now it is important to focus on the need for cease-and-desist powers for the EEOC.

At this point, let me interject here that experience with the civil rights intention of the Attorney General in cases other than this, and I would say this, I publicly stated to them time and time again that they don't seem to be too much interested in the problems of the Mexican Americans, and it takes many months for them to do something and sometimes we never know whether they had anything or not. So I can't see again where the civil rights section has tried to help us in the problems affecting Mexican Americans.

Mr. Chairman, in all honesty we must repudiate such an approach. When a man files a sincere complaint of discrimination, it is the most important case in the world to him and his family. It matters little to him whether his case is the prosecutor's dream in terms of legal niceties or whether it is a muddy, obscure case.

Yet, under the lawsuit approach, EEOC would play God and through some subjective process decide that this man's case will be filed for court action and that man's case will hang on in limbo if it cannot be conciliated. To hope that there will be a ripple-like effect, even from pattern discrimination suits, is to close one's eyes, cross one's fingers, and try to leap across the chasm, hoping that one's prejudgment was accurate.

Mr. Chairman, the Mexican American people in general and the 'GI Forum in particular cannot subscribe to this hit-and-miss approach to job discrimination. At the present time, the Commission's percentage of complaints from Mexican Americans is small-not because they are not victims of the same degrading discrimination as the Negro, but because they are just now taking the steps toward claiming their full civil rights and they cannot chance losing all they have on a complaint for which there is no certainty of enforcement at the other end of the pipeline. Under cease-and-desist mechanism, each party would be personally assured of action if this case has merit.

The Mexican Americans and other minorities of this Nation have long awaited relief from job discrimination. Cease-and-desist authority is one answer to our problem for it would treat all segments, private and public, in a fair manner.

I wish to thank the chairman, and let me assure you again this situation is not working. You would have to get the EEOC the powers to issue cease-and-desist orders. I wish to thank you for your time.

Mr. HAWKINS. Dr. Garcia, I would like to thank you, too. I know that the American GI Forum in the Los Angeles area has done an excellent job and you, as a founder of that organization, I think, deserve a lot of the credit for that.

I think your statement is one of the clearest that has been presented before this committee and I certainly think that it is well directed to the real critical issues involved in this problem.

I want to thank you.

Mr. CLAY. I only have one question.

To your knowledge, were any Mexican-Americans consulted in the drafting of the administration bill?

Dr. GARCIA. No, sir. I happen to know Ximenes, who is a friend of mine. He has made a motion for open meetings. I know he feels frustrated and talking personally he felt like getting out because of the lack of ability of the Commission to settle the problems of the people and I have encouraged Ximenes to stay. This is not the first battle we have ever lost. We have to stay in there and fight it out. We have trust in Congress in that Congress will give us the "cease and desist" power to stop this discrimination of our people and other minority

groups.

Mr. CLAY. I might say that the open hearings in Los Angeles revealed there was blatant discrimination against Mexican-Americans in all of the industries that were brought before the Commission.

Dr. GARCIA. Congressman Clay, let me say this: At one time or another in the very beginning of the EEOC, I saw a list of companies along the Texas gulf coast of Mexico, that's Gulf of Mexico. At that time I read 10 companies with over 18,000 names employed by the eight companies and none of them had a Mexican-American. I think there was only one black.

If the committee would like to get to the factual statistical facts I would suggest that you request this list that I happened to see at one time. It is fantastic, out of 18,000 or 20,000, no Mexican-Americans and one or two blacks. And these were the most powerful companies, involving oil companies, insurance companies, transportation companies, steamship companies, and so forth.

Mr. CLAY. No further questions.

Mr. ERLENBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I, too, want to thank you, sir, for your testimony before this committee. I want to say that it has been given in all candor and honesty. It does honor to your cause and to your organization and it shows respect for his Congress. I wish that all witnesses who appeared before this committee would have the same candor and honesty with this committee and show the same respect for the Congress and our legislative process, and I thank you again for your testimony. Mr. STOKES. No questions.

Mr. HAWKINS. Thank your, Dr. Garcia.

Mr. HAWKINS. The next witness will consist of a panel of spokesmen representing the Federal Government employees from Maryland and the vicinity.

My understanding is that Mr. Albert Henderson-would these that I call please come to the witness stand? Mr. Albert Henderson, representing the Social Security Administration; Mr. Wardell Clark, U.S. Coast Guard Yard; Mr. Richard Williams, the Edgewood Arsenal; Mr. Italy Overton, Aberdeen Proving Ground; Mr. Theodore Newkirk, representing the Patuxent Naval Training Center.

Have you decided the order in which you would like to testify? Mr. Williams, you are the first witness.

Mr. MITCHELL. May I ask the indulgence of the committee? There has come from Maryland a group which is made up of very distinguished clergymen, Government employees, and others. I would appreciate it if you would allow them to stand in order that you and the committee might see that these employees are backed by the com