154
Letter Accepting Resignation of the Chairman and Members of the Fair Employment Practice Committee.
June 30, 1946

Dear Mr. Ross:

I have your letter of June 28, containing the resignations of yourself and your fellow Committee members, together with recommendations made pursuant to Executive Order No. 9664.

The members of your Committee performed an important war service task of great difficulty and delicacy. They performed it capably, even under a continuous barrage of criticism and harassment.

The degree of effectiveness which the Fair Employment Practice Committee was able to attain has shown once and for all that it is possible to equalize job opportunity by governmental action, and thus eventually to eliminate the influence of prejudice in the field of employment.

Please convey to the members of the Committee my appreciation of the devotion they brought to this war-time task. I thank them for their service, and I accept their resignations with great regret.
Very sincerely yours,
HARRY S. TRUMAN

[Mr. Malcolm Ross, Chairman, Fair Employment practice Committee, Washington 25, D.C.]

NOTE: The Committee, in its letter of June 28, recommended that the President continue to urge upon the Congress the passage of legislation whichwould guarantee equal job opportunity to all workers without discrimination because of race, color, religious belief, or national origin; that the Federal Government take steps not only to promulgate its policy more widely, but to enforce it as well; and that the appropriate Government agencies be instructed to include statistics on employment and unemployment by race and by sex within industries and occupations.

The Committee’s letter was released with the President’s reply together with an excerpt, "Summary and Conclusions," from the Final Report of the Committee (Government Printing Office, 1947).