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PUBLISHED WEEKLY
“Dedicated to the promotion of the cultural, social and spiritual
life of a great people
Rev. Melvin L. Shakespeare
Publisher ana Editor
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it No Answer Call 5-7508
Ruble W Shakespeare--—Advertising and Business Manager
Charles Goolsby_Associate Editor, Y.M.C.A.
Lynwood Parker___Associate Editor, on Leave
Mrs. joe Green__,_Circulation Manager
Member oi the Associated Negro Press and Nebraska Press Association
Entered as becona Class Matter, June 9. 1947 at the Post Othca at LmcohT
Nebraska under the Ret ot March 3, 1879.
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NATIONAL €DITORIAL_
' iSSOCIATION
EDITORIALS
The views expressed in these columns are those of the writer and not necessarily
a tellection ot the policy of Toe Voice.—Pub.
ANTI-DISCRIMINATION GETS
RESULTS
A Study of New Fair Employ- i
ment Laws’ Operation in Four
Eastern States:
BY KINGS RANSOM.
• Mr. Ranxim. a writer for •‘The
Moines Register and Tribune" and "The
Economist.' 'of London. England, recently
passed two weeks in New York, New Jer
sey. Connecticut and Massachusetts look
ing Into the anti-discrimination laws.)
Four eastern states and the
cities of Chicago, Minneapolis,
Milwaukee, Cincinnati and
Philadelphia have adopted laws
against racial or religious dis
crimination in employment based
on the New York Ives commis
sion report of 1945. Last year 28
other bills based on the New
York law (not counting five
toothless ones) were introduced
in 18 northern state legislatures.
(It normally takes two or three
sessions to pass such a law.)
New York’s leadership is rec
ognized almost blindly out over
the country, where such slight
deviations from the New York
pattern as substituting a single
administrator for a commission
are taken by zealots as sabotage.
Yet zealots in New York, equally
blind, regard Governor Dewey as
a late and unreliable convert be
cause he postponed passage from
1944 to 1945 and strengthened
the law in the process. He has
since supported it with able ap
pointments, substantial funds
and full co-operation from other
state departments.
How are the new laws working
after three years’ experience in
New York and New Jersey, two
years in Massachusetts, one year
in Connecticut?
Negroes are the chief benefi
ciaries but by no means the only
ones: Jews, foreign-born and
Catholics are often discriminated
against, for example.
Opponents of the law feared a
• deluge of complaints. So far that
has not happened. Instead, it is
often difficult for state agencies
(and even minority pressure
groups) to get informants to file
formal complaints, and the worst
violations of the spirit of the law
occur in firms where minority
members know the policy and
avoid rebuffs by never applying.
Enforcements staffs are not the
“hordes of bureaucrats” oppo
nents predicted. There are fewer
than 35 complaint investigators
in all four states combined, and
100-odd anti-discrimination em
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ployees of all kinds (roughly 70
of them in New York state),
from switchboard operators to
commissioners, in investigating,
educational and research subdi
visions.
That is not enough to be a no
ticeable burden on taxpayers,
nor to turn employment practices
*‘f^ir” overnight. But it has been
enough to reverse the ominous
trend which had been squeezing
Negroes out of skilled crafts,
denying them entry into many of
the newer industries and occupa
tions, confining their leaders to
serving “colored only.”
The wartime labor shortage
had reversed the trend momen
tarily. Since then, the fair em
ployment practice states have
been working out new methods
for holding wartime gains and
winning new ones—slowly and
gently, with prospects for more
permanence than those won by
northern bayonets in the 1860s
and ’70s had.
New York state's is the largest
operation in terms of budget,
staff or number of cases handled.
New York has the prestige of
primacy and the national spot
light. But Connecticut has the
latest and most sweeping law. It
covers employees of non-profit
concerns as none of the other
state laws do; and the Connecti
cut law specifically says that the
word “discrimination” shall in
clude segregation and separation.
The Massachusetts and Connec
ticut laws permit the commission
itself to initiate a complaint.
Connecticut excels in use of
psychological research. Small
ness, of the state makes it pos
sible also for its compact unit to
settle a case in one w'eek, where
New York’s may take fourteen.
In proportion to population, how
ever, Massachusetts and New
Jersey have the largest staffs and
settle the most complaints.
All four states do a great deal
of social survey and educational
work organizing unpaid local
councils in New York, New
Jersey and Massachusetts to help
SMITH BROTHERS
Good Coed and Everything
to Build with.
2241 Tim. 42 Phone 6-2527
(feel*%-$£**'
10c-25«-45c
Lincoln's Favorito Potato Ckip
with this and with getting the
word around. In Connecticut
they prefer not to start new or
ganizations. but confine them
selves to giving training courses
to interested people from key ex
isting organizations.
^ New Jersey and Connecticut
have single administrators in
stead of the clumsy commission
form of administration, which
New York and Massachusetts
took over from the Federal Fair
Employment Practices Commis
sion. It should be said that in
New York the chairman of the
commission, on the basis of a
single phrase in the law. plus
sion into a working department.
; The size of the operation in New
i York makes division of labor be
tween the staff field investigator
(who probes the facts) and the
“invest igating commissioner7’
(who negotiates a settlement) a
useful administrative device.
* Nevertheless, there is a logical
inconsistency in having the com
missioners simultaneously be
representative of the various ra
cial and religious strains (as they
have been in practice in all four
states by appointing at least one
Negro, one Jew. one son of the
new immigration, etc.) and ad
ministrators representing the
whole state. The New' Jersey
Connecticut system of a part
time representative commission
giving advice and making studies,
and in Connecticut actually ap
pointing the administrator and
making policy for him. is better
political science.
Commissions an^ staffs in the
four states keep in close touch
with one another, learning from
one another and from the criti
cisms of the public. Social scien- :
tists of the universities and the
voluntary associations have been
following their work w'ith crit
ical sympathy and solid research
of their own. The campaign
against discrimination is being
handled as a conscious adventure
in social pioneering: modestly,
discreetly, yet with soaring
hopes.
—N, T. HeraM Tribun*
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“Trust your furs with a furrier"
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OntofOldNebraska
BY JAMES C. OLSON
Siiperintrndfit. Stale Historical
Society.
Ogallala. gateway to the upper
plains and northern terminus of
the Texas cattle trails, was Ne
braska's cowboy capital during
? the 10 years from 1075 to 18&5—
i 10 years that form an epoch in
; the town's history as colorful as
- any period in the annals of old
Nebraska.
According to the town's his
. tori an. Dr. Norbert R. Mahnken,
Professor of History at Oklahoma
; A. & M. College, "gold flowed
freely across the tables, liquor
across the - bar, and occasionally
blood across the door. ' as Wyom
ing and Nebraska cattlemen met
with Texas cattle kings in Ogal
lala's hotel and saloons to haggle
over the prices to be paid for
longhorns driven up the trail.
Ogallala's career as a cowtown
was a by-product of the Union
Pacific railroad. It began in 1874,
when the railroad officials con
structed a cattle pen and loading
chute just west of town, hoping
to recapture here the profitable
trade they had enjoyed at Kear
ney and Schuyler and other Ne
braska shipping points for Texas
cattle.
The trade was brisk, and dur
ing the summer of 1875 more than
60.000 head of Texas cattle were
driven to Ogallala. At almost any
time during the next few sum
mers, upward of 35.000 head
could be counted on the plains
south of town. During the last
years of the decade, more than
100.000 Texas cattle made their
way through the Nebraska cow- *
town each season.
In addition to shipments east. 1
a solid basis for the Ogallala trade
was the development of the cattle
industry in western Nebraska and
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eastern Wyoming. Many of the
early herds in this area got their &
start from the Texas cattle driven
into Og allala.
The town's terrific cattle busi
ness was carried on only during
the summer months. As a result, it
found itself filled to overflowing
with population during part of
the year, and almost deserted dur
ing the remainder. This naturally
didn't make for steady growth.
In the summer of 1*84. a seri
ous epidemic of cattle fever
brought into the state from Texas ^
devastated large areas in western
Nebraska As a result, Nebraska
cattlemen, who had begun by this
time to build up their herds
through introduction of blooded
stock, demanded that Texas cat
tle be excluded.
The quarantine, added to other
burdens on the trail drivers,
brought an end to Ogallala's ca
reer as a market for Texas cattle.
Og allala. the boisterous cowtown,
began to be replaced by Ogallala,
the modem seat of Keith county.
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