Dennis Chavez Quotes

Most speakers try to be as circumspect as possible when handling a subject as delicate as racial discrimination. But the world situation today is so critical, the fate of western civilization is so precarious, and the future of our nation as a great power is so imperiled that we find circumspection out of order; it is time to speak out boldly let the chips fall where they may. Discrimination endangers our country, and a threat to our national safety is a matter which vitally concerns us all, and it behooves us as good citizens to study and understand the problem. And if we find that racial discrimination presents such a threat to our safety, then we should immediately, with every ounce of resolution and determination at our command, seek to eradicate it from our way of life.

The translation into law of the new concepts of religious and economic liberty was not easily achieved any more than the enactment of fair-employment legislation will be easily won. Rigid religious conformity was woven into the law of some of the separate colonies, and rebellious sects were driven forth to found new colonies where religious freedom could flourish. At one point, Catholics and Jews were not allowed to vote. For many years people without property were denied the franchise. But the ideal of freedom was not to be downed, and when the crisis which precipitated the American Revolution came about

Mr President, what about those promises? Were they supposed to be made but not to be kept

Is it fair Mr. President, to employ only those who happen to be of one racial extraction? I do not find anything in the Constitution which says that only those whose ancestors happened to be from the British Isles may be Americans. The Constitution says nothing at all like that. I have known some pretty good Americans who were not of British extraction, and when the country was in the midst of an emergency, when the shooting started, we found the Levines, the Gallaghers, the Negroes, the Assyrians, the Jews, and others doing their part in the war effort.

I wish that the congressional opponents of FEPC could ask the helpless hulks of men in New Mexico, the prisoners who survived the death march and the salt mines of Japan, if it was wise-not right, mind you-to keep the man-power represented by thirteen million Negroes and some two million Mexican-Americans out of the defense plants because of color or race.

These things are wrong. I know that there are many among us who refer to the Italians as "Wops," to the Mexicans as "Greasers," to the Jews as "Yids," and the Irish as "Harps," but if we stop to consider how important it is that we be united now, we would forget our differences, forget that we are of Irish, Spanish, English, or Italian extraction and concentrate on being Americans.

What we want most now is action. We know that practices growing out of discrimination and intolerance, which are thoroughly un-American, must not be allowed to continue.

Hitler believed in discrimination. We know what happened. He carried it to its finality. He believed in a superior race. He believed in a superior people and the power of might and dictatorship. I believe in the law. I prefer due process of law to paying tribute to any individual in this country.

And what about Latin America? We can't expect the nations of this hemisphere to break their necks to help us in the event of another war if we continue to mistreat their cousins in our own country.

Because I happen to have been rather fortunate, and when I go home I have a fairly good meal, or, at any rate, plenty to eat, it does not make me happy to reflect that possibly there are thousands and millions throughout the country who do not have anything to eat. Others may feel happy, others may be content when there are poor people in this country as a result of discrimination. I cannot be contented with such a condition. It is not American.

These senators, recognizing that the tide of human progress has out-paced them, would try to stem its onrush by the extreme tactic of filibustering the bill.

Imagine the feelings of the Japanese-American, who fought so valiantly in Italy-we had no better troops, not excepting the Marines-fighting for democracy and all the while his country was gathering up his father, mother, and sisters and herding them like cattle into concentration camps.

The implications of discrimination, however, are not always so well known or understood. That an American citizen of Mexican descent in Arizona or Colorado may not occupy public office is a national disgrace.

I do not know any Communists, but personally I am becoming tired of hearing men who are merely interested in human beings and in human rights accused of being Communists.

I am opposed to dividing them in times of peace into racial or religious groupings, as I am opposed to so dividing them in times of war.