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About The voice. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1946-195? | View Entire Issue (June 3, 1948)
Tlfa® W®ii<g<g PUBLISHED WEEKLY “Dedicated to the promotion of the cultural, social and spiritual life of a great people ” •_ ,_ Rev. Melvin L. Shakespeare Publisher and Editor Business Address 2225 S Street Phone 5-639) li No Answer Call 5-7508 Rubie W. Shakespeare. . .Advertising and Business Manager Lynnwood Parker_Associate Editor, U. N. Dorm-B, 2-7651 Charles Goolsby__Contributing Editor, U. N. Dorm-B, 2-7651 Roberta Molden._Associate Editor 1966 U Street, 2-1407 Mrs. Joe Green._Circulation Manager Member oi the Associated Negro Press and Nebraska Press Association Entered as Second Class Matter, June 9, 1947 at the Post OlUce at Lincoln, Nebraska under the Act of March 3, 1879. NATIONAL €DITORIAI_ SSOCIATION — BETWEEN THE LINES Affairs in &nd about this world are badly muddled to say the least. Whether here at home in the Uni ted States or in the uttermost parts of the earth, we are con fronted with muddled situations that are depressing in their im plications. Little hapless Palestine is having its baptism of blood. Russia and the United States are still looking threatingly at each other and do not find any basis of rapproche - ment, not because they cannot, but because they will not. The cold war is proceeding according to plan, evidently, and nobody can tell what a day may bring forth. There can be no doubt that com munist must be contained; but whether United States dollars alone will do this remains to be seen. It is greatly to be feared that dollars when divested of moral accompaniments may utter ly fail at last to stem the tide of communism. It remains to be demonstrated that dollars can defeat ideologies. Unless our boasted democracy will set its house in order and make practical its boasted tenets, there are reasons to believe that sooner or later we are going to have a rude awakening. We are at the bat now; but if we strike out, woes will betide the world. Even more badly than they need our dollars the nations of the earth need a major example of great living on the part of some great nation, chiefly our own. The political situation in this country is badly muddled. Now as in times past the Republicans and Democrats have gone into a huddle on the civil rights legisla tion. Truman has done his part and made recommendations by which he is standing gallantly, even though the threat of.political death is hanging over him like the sword of Damocles. But neither Democrats nor Republicans are dead in earnest about civil rights as they pertain to Negroes in the United States. There seems to be somehow an understanding be Robinson’s Book Featured and Sold In Grocery Chain BROOKLYN. (ANP). It coul<J only happen in Brooklyn and to a famous Brooklyn baseball player at that. Dodger Jackie Rohinson is having his just-published auto biography Jackie Robinson—My Own Story—sold in 10 Waldbaum grocery stores throughout the bor ough. Posters arid books are prominently displayed in each of the stores and customers are be ing urged to add Jackie’s book to their grocery shopping list. This is the first time a large grocery chain has decided to feature and sell a book. Until Harvard college was founded in 1636, there was no university in what is now the United States. tween Republicans and Democrats, that the color question is to be let alone, and left drift. Professional buck-passing, polit ically speaking, seems to be at its best when the rights and advan tages of Negroes are at stake. Things do not look different from other times when congress stalled on the ariti-lynch bill until the last moments when a filibuster would complete the dirty work of letting the bill go by default. Un less this picture of matters is again taking shape this writer is badly mistaken. The pattern of evasion in this matter is so clear it can hardly be mistaken. And so the affairs are muddled as we go muddling along! But whether we are going to muddle through is still another matter. With the northern and southern Democrats and Republicans enter ing into a compact not to offend each other on the color question, the Negro not only can see but can feel the muddling that is afoot in this country. We have a plethora of leaders vying in subtle ways for power and for place. For lo these many years Philip Randolph has held a kind of trump card in his “March On Washington” threat. Randolph was proposing thereby to bring about a certain amount of embar rassment of the powers that be before the world where our pres tige was based upon our proffers of democracy. My recent mail brings an an nouncement that another group is not going to threaten to “march on Washington” but actually are going to march. Are they stealing Philip Randolph’s stuff, or should they? It has come about that Neg roes are confused in their three way endeavors to be on the safe side and so they cry, some for Wallace, some for Truman and the “incurable” Negro Republicans for one or more of the Republican candidates. The world, the nation and the race, Just muddling along! _ —A.N.P. [Magazine Lauds 5 Negro Authors NEW YORK — An article in the current issue of Salute magazine lauds the achievements of five Ne gro writers who in prestige and sales are among America’s most influential authors. The writers discussed are Wil lard Motley, Langston Hughes, Frank Yerby, Richard Wright arid Ann Petry. With the exception of Wright these writers have turned from purely Negro themes to the main stream of American life. Meetings of 25 Negro organiza tions in 17 states were attended in 1947 by the National Founda tion’s Director of Interracial Ac tivities to advise groups and indi viduals of services available from the organization and how to ob tain them. Wage Ceiling Raised for G.I. Trainees Nebraska World War II veter ans engaged in Veterans Admin istration education and training programs who are eligible for increased subsistence benefits under the new federal "ceiling” law, will receive the higher pay rates for the first time in July allowances which are payable August 1, the VA said today. Ashley Westmoreland, manager of the Lincoln VA regional office, urged veterans not to write or contact the VA about the new law, because the higher rates will be paid automatically to G.I. Bill trainees whose existing records with VA contain the information needed. When additional informa tion is needed, the VA will send the veteran a form requesting the necessary data. The VA official said all increas es will be retroactive to April 1 if eligible veteran-traineers return their completed forms prior to next September 1. The new ceiling law, signed by President Truman May 4, increas es benefits to GI Bill trainees by raising pay ceilings, establishing new criteria for computing in come for productive labor, and increasing subsistence allowances for part-time school training and for combination school and job training programs, including insti tutional on-the-farm training. In creased benefits also are provided for disabled veterans taking com bination types of training under Public Law 16. Ceiling provisions of the new law provide that earned income plus government subsistence pay shall not exceed $210 a month for a trainee-veteran without depen dents; $270 for a veterans with one dependent, and $290 for a veteran with more than one de pendent. Previous ceilings were $175 for a veteran without depen dents, and $200 for a veteran with one or more dependents. Westmoreland emphasized that the new higher monthly ceilings on earned income plus govern ment subsistence will not increase VA pay allowances to all of the more than 5,000 veterans in Ne braska now taking on-the-job training. In the case of job train ing only, he said, the new law does not change the maximum subsistence payable by VA of $65 a month to a veteran without dependents, and $90 to a veteran with one or more dependents. This means, he added, that the new ceilings will not benefit the many job trainees who already receive the maximum allowance, nor still others who are training for jobs that never will pay as much as the ceiling limits. WE DO ALL types of heating and j air conditioning. No job too large or too small. Estimates free. Prices reasonable. Pillard Heat ing Co., Tel. 5-1316. , Phone 2-7611 i * 13th and N V Out of Old Nebraska By James C. Olson Superintendent, State Historical Society One of the best illustrations of the pluck and resourcefulness of the pioneers is the story of the steam wagon. The discovery of gold in the mountains brought with it a tremendous demand for goods from the east. Prior to the coin ing of the railroad this demand could be satisfied only by means of heavily loaded wagons drawn slowly overland by unwilling oxen. This was not satisfactory and-the people longed for a rail road. The railroad, however, was slow in coming. Then one summer morning in 1862 a solution to the problem suddenly appeared when the steamer, “West Wind” unloaded a “prairie motor” at Nebraska City. The owner, Gen. J. R. Brown of Minnesota, claimed that it would haul ten tons of freight across the ungraded prairie at the rate of five miles an hour. The steam was propelled by four wood-burning engines whose fuel consumption was a cord of wood per hour. An en gineer, fireman and pilot were required to operate the machine. It could carry only enough fuel for a four hour run. The steam wagon was fairly successful on its trial run. It ran through a freshly plowed garden going up Kearney Heights and was almost stopped, but once through, it forded table creek and ran easily over the unbro ken sod. When the steam wagon pulled out of Nebraska City on its mai- ; den trip to Denver it was drag- | ging three heavy wagons each loaded with 5,000 pounds of freight. Everything was going smoothing when a few miles out j a crank shaft broke and the trip had to be abandoned. The owner had to go all the way back to New York in order to get re pairs. The steam wagon never moved again under its own power. Sometime in the late ’60s it was dragged to the farm of J. Ster ling Morton and about a decade later was sold for junk. It looked like a good idea though, and you can’t blame those pioneer Nebraskans for trying. ' I1 1 " 11 ~Ti . - At Carnegie Hall As Carnegie “Pops” artist, June McMechen, brilliant young lyric soprano, sang again the immortal melodies from “Porgy and Bess’* to a New York audience when she appeared Wednesday evening, May 19, at Carnegie Hall. Sing ing with Miss McMechen w^as James Young, star of the Broad way hit “Call Me Mister.” The Carnegie “Pops’* symphony or chestra was conducted by Rich ard Korn. # Miss McMechen has filled a series of radio and concert en gagements since her outstandingly successful New York debut last summer at Lewisohn Stadium on the Gershwin evening of music when she sang with Todd Dun can. New York critics praised her highly, acclaiming her a “find” and a “discovery.” FREADRICH BROS. • ••• Since 1902 Master Grocers The Qe»t Place to Trade After All—1316 N Street 9th & L Super Market Huskerville at Air Base ... i When You Buy a New Gas Range * There is no special and costly installa tion job to add to the price, it is as sim ple to install as it is to use. Sh2.%ls3i)Gompanifm > ✓ 1 -