were
overtaken by events that followed Pearl Harbor. The NAACP, viewing the
Navy's rejection of black volunteers in the midst of the intensive
recruiting campaign, again took the issue to the White House. The
President, in turn, asked the Fair Employment Practices Committee to
consider the case.[3-15] Committee chairman Mark Ethridge conferred with
Assistant Secretary Bard, pointing out that since Negroes had been
eligible for general duty in World War I, the Navy had actually taken
a step backward when it restricted them to the Messman's Branch. The
committee was even willing to pay the price of segregation to insure
the Negro's return to general duty. Ethridge recommended that the Navy
amend its policy and accept Negroes for use at Caribbean stations or
on harbor craft.[3-16] Criticism of Navy policy, hitherto emanating
almost exclusively from the civil rights organizations and a few (p. 063)
congressmen, now broadened to include another government agency. As
President Roosevelt no doubt expected, the Fair Employment Practices
Committee had come out in support of his compromise solution for the
Navy.

[Footnote 3-15: The FEPC was established 25 June 1941
to carry out Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802
against discrimination in employment in defense
industries and in the federal government.]

[Footnote 3-16: "BuPers Hist," pp. 4-5; Ltr, Mark
Ethridge to Lee Nichols. 14 Jul 53, in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]

But the committee had no jurisdiction over the armed services, and
Secretary Knox continued to assert that with a war to win he could not
risk "crews that are impaired in efficiency because of racial
prejudice." He admitted to his friend, conservationist Gifford
Pinchot, that the problem would have to be faced someday, but not
during a war. Seemingly in response to Walker and Ethridge, he
declared that segregated general service was impossible since enough
men with the skills necessary to operate a war vessel were unavailable
even "if you had the entire Negro population of the United States to
choose from." As for limiting Negroes to steward duties, he explained
that this policy avoided the chance that Negroes might rise to command
whites, "a thing which instantly provokes serious trouble."[3-17] Faced
in wartime with these arguments for efficiency, Assistant Secretary
Bard could o