To Mr. Tom C. Clark, Assistant Attorney General, From Alonso S. Perales, Director General, Committee of One Hundred, The League of Loyal Americans, Nov. 6, 1944.
Item
Dublin Core
Title
To Mr. Tom C. Clark, Assistant Attorney General, From Alonso S. Perales, Director General, Committee of One Hundred, The League of Loyal Americans, Nov. 6, 1944.
Subject
LETTERS
CLARK, Tom C. (Tom Campbell), 1899-1977
DEMOCRACY
PERALES, Alonso S., 1898-1960
UNITED States. Supreme Court.
CIVIL rights--Cases.
ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945
MILITARY Personnel
DISCRIMINATION against Mexican Americans
RACE discrimination - public establishments
MEXICAN American Soldiers
Description
Letter from Alonso S. Perales to Tom Clark regarding a law against discriminating on the basis of race, ethnicity, or nation origin.
Creator
PERALES, Alonso S.
Source
Date
1944-11-06
Rights
Content compilation of The Latino/Hispanic American Experience Leaders, Writers and Thinkers copyright 2012 by Arte Publico Historical Collections. All rights reserved.
Relation
Format
JPEG
Language
English
Type
Text
Identifier
pera0044
Scripto
Transcription
San Antonio, Texas, [Handwritten]
Nov. 6, 1944
The Attorney General,
Washington, D.C.
Attention Mr. Tom C. Clark,
Assistant Attorney General.
Gentlemen:
In reply to y our [your] letter of Oct. 31st 1944, your reference TCC:EB:EAM, 144-012-4, for which we thank you, please be advised that our honest belief is that if we now had a federal law forbidding discrimination on grounds of race or national origin by private individuals or private businesses, and a test case were to come up before the United States Supreme Court, that body would decide that the Federal Government has [Underlined] the power to legislate upon the subject. The cases you mention, to-wit: the [handwritten: C]ivil [Civil] Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, were [handwritten] decided in 1883, and conditions have changed considerably since then. Americans of all racial lineages and national origins fought one war over twenty five years ago, and Americans of all racial extractions and national origins are now fighting another war to make [handwritten: the] world, including the United States of America, safe for democracy. Consequently, when they return from this [handwritten: war ] these fighters will expect to find here a REAL DEMOCRACY, not only in theory but in practice as well. These men of all racial extractions and national origins, including over a quarter of a million Americans of Mexican descent, are not giving their [strikeout: ives] [handwritten] lives with line to location and their blood in order that some Tom, Dick or Harry remain free to humiliate them when they return merely because of their race or national origin. We believe the United States Supreme would take these very weighty facts into consideration, should such a case ever come b_fore [before] it again.
Kindly advise us, first, whether you are willing to contact the proprietors of the business establishments whose names we have given you, to ascertain what motive impels them to discriminate against Mexicans, including American soldiers of Mexican descent;
Secondly, whether you will furnish His Excellency Franklin Delano Roosevelt the evidence we have p_resented to you, inasmuch as we first asked him for an opportunity to [strikeout] [handwritten: submit] the [Handwritten letter e for evidence] to him personally, and he referred our letter to you;
Thirdly, whether you are willing to submit the [illegible] [Handwritten: same] evidence to our War Department for such action as it may deem appropriate, in view of the fact that American soldiers of Mexican descent are being humiliated in the numerous places we have reported to you, merely because of their racial lineage.
Awaiting your reply, for which we thank you in advance, we remain
Respectfully yours,
COMMITTEE OF ONE HUNDRED.
THE LEAGUE OF LOYAL AMERICANS.
BY [signed] Alonso S. Perales, Director General
Nov. 6, 1944
The Attorney General,
Washington, D.C.
Attention Mr. Tom C. Clark,
Assistant Attorney General.
Gentlemen:
In reply to y our [your] letter of Oct. 31st 1944, your reference TCC:EB:EAM, 144-012-4, for which we thank you, please be advised that our honest belief is that if we now had a federal law forbidding discrimination on grounds of race or national origin by private individuals or private businesses, and a test case were to come up before the United States Supreme Court, that body would decide that the Federal Government has [Underlined] the power to legislate upon the subject. The cases you mention, to-wit: the [handwritten: C]ivil [Civil] Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, were [handwritten] decided in 1883, and conditions have changed considerably since then. Americans of all racial lineages and national origins fought one war over twenty five years ago, and Americans of all racial extractions and national origins are now fighting another war to make [handwritten: the] world, including the United States of America, safe for democracy. Consequently, when they return from this [handwritten: war ] these fighters will expect to find here a REAL DEMOCRACY, not only in theory but in practice as well. These men of all racial extractions and national origins, including over a quarter of a million Americans of Mexican descent, are not giving their [strikeout: ives] [handwritten] lives with line to location and their blood in order that some Tom, Dick or Harry remain free to humiliate them when they return merely because of their race or national origin. We believe the United States Supreme would take these very weighty facts into consideration, should such a case ever come b_fore [before] it again.
Kindly advise us, first, whether you are willing to contact the proprietors of the business establishments whose names we have given you, to ascertain what motive impels them to discriminate against Mexicans, including American soldiers of Mexican descent;
Secondly, whether you will furnish His Excellency Franklin Delano Roosevelt the evidence we have p_resented to you, inasmuch as we first asked him for an opportunity to [strikeout] [handwritten: submit] the [Handwritten letter e for evidence] to him personally, and he referred our letter to you;
Thirdly, whether you are willing to submit the [illegible] [Handwritten: same] evidence to our War Department for such action as it may deem appropriate, in view of the fact that American soldiers of Mexican descent are being humiliated in the numerous places we have reported to you, merely because of their racial lineage.
Awaiting your reply, for which we thank you in advance, we remain
Respectfully yours,
COMMITTEE OF ONE HUNDRED.
THE LEAGUE OF LOYAL AMERICANS.
BY [signed] Alonso S. Perales, Director General
Collection
Citation
PERALES, Alonso S., “To Mr. Tom C. Clark, Assistant Attorney General, From Alonso S. Perales, Director General, Committee of One Hundred, The League of Loyal Americans, Nov. 6, 1944.,” Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Digital Collections, accessed April 29, 2024, http://usldhrecovery.uh.edu/items/show/250.