Letter from A. Philip Randolph to President Harry S. Truman

FILED BY MR. HOPKINS 531 A. PHILIP RANDOLPH ASHLEY L. TOTTEN International President International Secretary-Treasurer JUL 9 1952 C. L. DELLUMS MILTON P. WEBSTER 3rd International Vice-President First International Vice-President 1716 Seventh Street 3947 Drexel Boulevard Oakland, California Chicago 15, Illinois of T. D. McNEAL 4th International Vice-President BENNIE SMITH 11 North Jefferson Street 2nd International Vice-President St. Louis 3, Missouri 1308 Broadway, Room 305 Train, Chair Car, Coach Porters and Attendants THOMAS PATTERSON Detroit, Michigan AN INTERNATIONAL UNION Eastern Zone Supervisor Affiliated with the A. F. of L. 217 WEST 125th STREET (Room 301) NEW YORK 27, N. Y. MO 2-5080-I 440 May 29, 1952 133 con Honorable Harry S. Truman, President B United States of America The White House TRUE Washington, D. C. BATIONAL RECHIVES AND Dear Mr. President: gonzaness In the name of the officers and members of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters distributed throughout the United States from coast to coast, a membership comprising peoples of color born in the United States and Carribean islands, Filipinos, Mexicans and white Canadians, I want to request and urge that you veto the McCarran bill S-2550. on the grounds that it violates and nullifies all of the principles your Civil Rights Committee set forth in its report in the interest of the abolition of discrimination and segregation in various areas of our national life, because of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry. A brief and cursory glance at this bill will reveal that under a vicious and subtle quota system, it reflects a compound of virulent racist policies by forestalling immigration from colonial areas, thereby bluntly and unjustifiably insulting all colored races and peoples, specifically, establishing rigid statutory limits on immigration from Jamaica, Trinidad, and other colonies of the British West Indies, such as the Guianas and Honduras. Having recently travelled through Asia where I met and conferred with leaders of labor, Socialist and intellectual groups, I can assure you that the McCarran immigration bill will be considered as a definite affront and slap in the face of Asiatic peoples. Interestingly enough, while posing to eliminate discrimination, this McCarran bill, by basing the quota system on the census of 1920 instead of 1950 and abolishing the intolerable exclusion of American Negroes from