We're ready to go.
Meeting will please come to order.
In opening this meeting, I desire first to make a short statement.
We are starting a very exciting job in our assignment to draft the Republican Party's 1956 victory platform.
As your temporary chairman, I have held preliminary discussions with many leaders of our party, with President Eisenhower, with former President Hoover, and with members of the House and the Senate, Cabinet officers, and heads of independent agencies in the executive branch of the government.
And I've also talked with many individual members of the party not holding public office, and have received the views of many people throughout the nation in all walks of life.
We have invited the widest possible public participation preparatory for this meeting.
Many valuable suggestions have come from all of these sources, but perhaps the most important one has been this recurring suggestion.
Be brief.
Be forthright.
Be honest with the American people.
President Eisenhower and President Hoover.
The American people are tired of lengthy, wordy political platforms full of denunciation and bombast.
They want to know what we stand for and what we've done since they entrusted us with our national government four years ago.
And what we plan for the future.
So let's give them the answers in plain, straightforward language, shunning double talk, and evasion.
We should not only be brief, but I suggest that we should divide our platform and our program for tomorrow.
I'd like to make one more general observation.
Many of you were offended and incensed, as was I, by the brutal keynote speech filled with falsehoods and demagoguery at the Democrat National Convention.
If that speech sets the tone for their campaign, we may expect from them further unprincipled attacks so typical of the Pendergrass and the Old Tammany Hall School of Politics.
However, let us avoid in this committee the mistakes of our opponents, who will find that the American people resent the smearing of any man, and they particularly resent the unjustified personal abuse directed from Chicago at our beloved President Dwight D.
Eisenhower.
So my friends, I say let's keep our platform on an affirmative tone, on an affirmative plane.
If we were to rake up all the old scandals of the Truman administration, the record of rot and decay from within, we would never achieve our goal of brevity.
A platform of that kind could be honest, but never brief.
So I say again, let us strive for an affirmative platform, a constructive platform recognizing the basic human needs and aspirations of the American people, a platform in a new and exciting form, and a platform which will enable us to elect a Republican Congress, thus to ensure the forward progress of the dynamic program of our magnificent President Dwight D.
Eisenhower.
That concludes my statement, ladies and gentlemen of the committee.
I can assure you that I have a very deep sense of responsibility in this effort, and I hope it will be reflected in the ultimate result of our deliberations.
The next order of business is the election of a secretary for this committee.
For that purpose, to nominate...
The record of the Republican Party on civil rights and immigration is quite clear.
As a matter of fact, it goes back to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which was proposed several months before Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
And of course, the 14th Amendment came just a year later.
The 14th Amendment, as you know, is all -inclusive and it's provisions of the law of the land.
And I might add that likewise the Supreme Court's interpretation of this amendment to the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, and therefore is not subject to any modification by any statute that is enacted by Congress.
Now, from that time to this, the Republican Party has unfailingly placed itself on the side of the guarantees carried in the 14th Amendment, namely that there is but one law for all races and all creeds and all colors, and that all citizens, by virtue of their citizenship, not only in the state where they reside, but as citizens of the United States are entitled to the equal protection of the law.
Now, with this in mind, I'm sure we'll have no difficulty in fashioning an acceptable statement on civil rights that will be at once sound and fundamental.
Are you ready? This session of the subcommittee will come to order.
For the information of everybody, this is a subcommittee on civil rights and immigration, and it'll embrace all the items that are connoted by those two terms.
I should introduce the members of the subcommittee here.
Mrs.
Wilcox of New Jersey.
There are quite a number that I'm sure have not yet been listed on the sheets by the Secretary to the House as experts.
I don't want to capriciously chop off anybody, but I'm sure you'll be mindful of the fact.
Our first witness this afternoon will be Mr.
A.
Phillips Randolph, President of the Sleeping Car Porters, and Mr.
M.
P.
Webster of Chicago.
So, gentlemen, if you'll come forward and sit at this end of the table where you have the advantage of a microphone.
Mr.
Randolph, I presume you do have a prepared statement, do you? Is it very long? Mr.
Chairman and members of the platform committee of the Republican Party, first of all, permit me to express appreciation for this opportunity to appear here to present recommendations for inclusion in the platform.
Among which were first the implementation of the Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954, and two, to manifest unity back of the fight of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the struggle to achieve civil rights, and three, to wage a nationwide campaign to get the Negroes to register and vote, believing that it is important in the interest of making their voice heard to have actual political strength.
Now, the and will fool nobody.
We believe in our public schools.
We urge and recommend the complete images of the Republican Party made in 1952.
It is generally known that the United States is facing a situation that has reached the following conclusions.
We feel that it will abolish the unjust, obsolete, and illogical system of the national origin quota should be eliminated from the immigration laws in favor of a system of selection based on individual worth and merit, that is, on standards of health, security, literacy, honesty, and ability to earn a living.
B, the aliens at defense.
It is the considered judgment of the membership of the Order Sons of Italy in America that a strong plank for the revision and liberalization of our government's immigration policy be adopted in the platform of the Republican Party at the forthcoming Republican National Convention.
Such a plank would be welcome.
Thank you, Mr.
Vigilante.
Thank you very much.
We have also attached herewith, for your careful consideration, a copy of our official statement presented at the hearings of the U .S.
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration held in Washington on November 28, 1955.
This statement exposed the attitude of our legislators in reference to this very important problem.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
