◆ SpookStack

WY Wariversar RESPECT FOR, and observ- ance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.” That’s what we're committed to, by Article 55 of the Charter of the United Nations. To carry out our international obli ga- tions, and to rid America of the eca- nomic wastage and the “moral dty rot” caused by prejudice, discrimina- tion and violation of our civil liberties, the President's Committee on Civil Rights proposed that America move forward on three fronts, legislative executive and judicial, to secure our rights, The committee proposed a broad program for civil rights. A part of this Program was forwarded by President Truman to Congress, with recommen- dation for action during the 194g session. The President’s program is national, It calls for home rule for the District of Columbia; statehood for Hawaii and Alaska; settlement of the claims of Japanese Americans on the West 4, Coast; and enfranchisement of 100,000 Indians in New Mexico and Arizona. But five key measures strike at con- ditions in the South which Thomas Sancton, in this issue, describes as un- changed since the days of John C. Cal- - CIVIL RIGHTS: The 1948 Objectives houn. And, as Helen Fuller shows, Calhoun’s 1948 counterparts are ready to break up the Democratic Party in order to stop these measures, which would guarantee protection against lynching, abolition of the poll tax, the Prevention of disctimination in em- ployment and in transportation, and the strengthening of the terms and the enforcement of existing civil-rights statutes, . These measures most Southern ‘Democrats will fight by threats and DRAWING BY LYND WARD filibusters. In the past, Republicans worked in an undercover alliance with Southern conservatives, paying lip- service to civil-rights legislation, nomi- nally opposing the filibusters, always making certain that just enough Re- publicans would join the Southernets to defeat any motion for cloture that threatened to bring the legislation to a vote. This time the Republican Policy Committee is firmly committed to pas- sage of civil-rights legislation. If the Republicans and the Administration ate in earnest, then in the four remain- ing months of this session Congress can pass the civil-rights Program as well as ERP, a housing bill and other necessary legislation. The background, the nature and the Prospects for the five measures follow. “Lynching,” says the President’s committee, “is the ultimate threat by which his inferior status is driven home to the Negro. As a terrorist de- vice it reinforces all the other disabili- ties placed upon him.”