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About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (March 3, 1934)
GUIDE OMAHA ___ The eye of a Master will TZ 77 , , ,, .. “No Man was ever do more work than his . , hanH - - Glorious who was not __ ___"_ ' i ' ' ' - ju3* *• y ^ <v.;■ " March of Events Cityy ana hat l Life ___ Omaha Nebraska Saturday March 3, 1934 Fageb TH E OMAHA GUIDE Published Every Saturday at 2418-20 Grant Street by THE OMAHA GUIDE PUBL. CO., Incorporated All News Copy mu^t be.in our office not later than , Monday aU 5 p, m.,and all Advertising Copy, or Paid Articles, not later than Wednesday a: Noon. Entered as ■ .,ad class mail matter, March 15, 192' at the Poet office at Omr. a, Nebraska, under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879. SUSCAIPTION RATES (Strictly in Advance) 0 O'V Yea.- ..82.011 Six Months.... $1.21. Throe M >n'hs $3.00 TERM- OF SUBSCRIPTiON—The Omaha Guid- h issued weekly and will be rent to any part of the Uni. : <.tes for $2.00 per year in advance. Foreign '• b- rip; ions (including postage) $3.09 in advance. T o! -ix months’ subscriptions. $1.25. Trial Three y. o"‘ ub-cription $l.Cd, Single copy, 5 cents. RENEWALS -In renewing, give the name just as it r ’w o. ~ on the label unless it be incorrect, in which cast- please call our attention to the mistake; and al ways g.ve the full address to which your paper has beer sent. '"H ' NCE OF ADDRESS -In ordering a change of a t id re - s. always give both old and new addresses. If the paper does not reach you regularly, please notify us at once. N ADVERTISING RATES-—Given upon application. REMITTANCES—Send payment by postal or express mom order, cash in registered letter, bank check or stamps. OUR ADDRESS—Send all communications to The Omaha Guide Publishing Company. Incorporated, :M Grant St., Omaha, Nebr. EDITORIAL THjywyMMmmBiHBtja-B ■' ■'WiW——— NEGRO CRIME AND EDUCATION By Kenneth E. Barnhart (From The Opportunity) is mere a crime wave'—President Hoover s re f . . i committee on Social Trends, which has just pub is,. b its findings in two volumer under this title, states tlu t they can find no evidence of a crime wave sweeping ov ; the country. They found that the number of arrests an; of court cases per 100,000 population has increased ivy d- rately from 1900 to 1931, with about the same rate of crime for both major and minor offenses between 1900 am 1920. It then began to rise considerably until 1926; it fell somewhat in 1927; then rose to a new high peak in 1929, and has been falling since 1929. Since 1920 a large part of the increase n crime was d,ue to traffic class which have increased at about the same rate as auto re gistrations, and to increases in violations of the liquor law since it went into effect. However, the arrests and prosecutions for major crimes, such as homicde, robbery burglary, and aggravated assault have not increased as drunkenness and other violations of the liquor laws, drug laws, traffic and motor vehicle laws. The increase in crim inal laws between 1900 and 1930 was at the average an nual rate of from one to two per cent. The number of crim inal laws will undoubtedly increase, but with a tendency toward a decreased rate, partly because of a growing pub lic sentiment against regulations, and also because of the substituton of flexible administrative regclations for rigid criminal laws. Do Negroes Commit More Crimes than Whites:— It is often pointed out that Negroes commit more crime than white people in proportion to the number of Negro es in the total population. A Negro writer, Ira De A. Reid, has recently shown that the per cent of Negroes in Sing Sing has grown from 6 per cent in 1875, to 14 per cent in 1920, and 24 per cent in 1931. Negroes are often commit ted to penal institutions for a larger percentage of cer tain crimes than whites, such as homicide, assault, carry ing concealed weapons, and layceny, but commit a smaller percentage of such crimes as drunkenness, violating li quor laws and drug laws, and robbery. However, accord ing to Dr. Glenn Andrews, State Prison Inspector of Ala bama, the number of persons sent to jails in this state be tween 1915 and 1927 showed a net increase of 12,368 wrhite persons, or 196 per cent, and for the same period a net de crease of 391 Negroes, or 2 per cent. In 1928-29 we still find an increase for whites and a decrease for Negroes. Why So Many Negroes Are Sent to Jail—The fact that more Negroes are often committed to jail than white persons does not mean that more Negroes commit crime than white persons. It must be remembered that usually Negroes are less able to employ expert lawyers than the white race. It is also true that the Negro is given the lar- j cgest percentage of his imprisonment for crimes which call for a fine which he is often unable to pay. This is es pecially true during the depression. Furthermore, it will hardly be questioned that the Negro is more likely to be convicted in many courts than the white race. Often, too, the police are more suspicious of the Negro than the white man, and hence arrest him more frequently. In some cases innocent Negroes are actually “framed.” In his study of “500 Criminal Careers, Dr. CiuecK Says “Even if they (Negroes) are more criminal, which is open to doubt, the causes lie in the social structure for which the white American is primarily responsible.” Wc are coming to realize more and more that it is not race, primarily, which explains criminal behavior, but rather economic,’ political, social, educational and other environ mental factors. We do not know positively yet to what ex tent mental factors play a part in the commission of crime but we do know that mental tests given to all prisoners in Sing Sing in 1930 showed that only 25 per cent of them were of normal mentality. Unfortunately, such tests are not given in all penal institutions. " More Crime Committed by Ignorant—Most crime is committed by illiterate or poorly educated persons. The records of all penal institutions show that few prisoners have received more than a fifth grade education, and many have received none at all. The opportunities for making a comfortable living are small for the illiterate perrons and the one who has only a fifth grade educa tion Hence the temptation to commit crime is greater for such persons. Then, too, the ignorant person is more in clined to take the law into his own hands than the educat ed person who usually relies on the courts. Much of the Negro crime in Alabama, and in the South, can be traced to the 51 per cent (1920) who are illiterate in Alabama, and to that large portion of the race which has less than a fifth grade education. The fact that Negro crime in New York State is proportionately less than in Alabama may no doubt be explained in part, if not in a large mea sure, to the fact that only 2.9 per cent (1920) of the Ne groes in New York State are illiterate, compared with the 31 per cent (1920) in Alabama. Only one State in the Union has a larger percentage of illiterate Negroes than Alabama, namely, Louisiana, which ranks first with 38.5 per cent (1920) of the Negro population illiterate. A careful study of all lynchings in 1930 by the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching revealed the fact that lynching invariably takes place in the most illiterate counties of each state, where facilities for school ing are poorest, and where the greatest poverty in the ru ral parts of the state prevail. Usually the persons lynched are very ignorant, and also those who do the lynching. lne author s study oi homicides m Birmingham reveals the same situation. All but a very few of the mur ders were found to be by the illiterate, or the poorly edu cated. The fact that the Negro homicide rate is nearly eight times that of the white race may not be due to race, primarily, but to lack of education. It is not only the illi terate or poorly educated Negro who commits murder, but also the illiterate or poorly educated white person, in most instances. Until we reduce materially the number of illiterate whites in Birmingham, some 1,200' persons ac cording to the 1930 Census, and the 12,000 illiterate *Ne groes, we may expect the rate of homicide in Birmingham to continue high, even though it may not be each year the highest of any city in the world as was the case in 1931. When one discovers that the rate of homicide in Birming ham was 83 per 100,000 population in 1910, when 10.4 per cent of the total population was illiterate, and that it has dropped to 48.9 per 100,000 population in 1930, when the percentage of the illiterate population had been reduced to 6.2 per cent, there is some ground for belief that the homicide rate may continue to fall as the amount of illi teracy continues to drop. At least there is considerable evidence to show that there is a positive correlation be tween the amount of education and th amount of crime. It is likely that other crimes besides homicide will dim inish as education becomes more generally diffused throughout the population. The Educational Handicap of the Negro—The Ne gro still suffers from several kinds of educational inequal ities. The expenditure per child of school age in the South varies considerably between the two races. In 16 south ern states and the District of Columbia, the yearly ex penditure per child of school age for the white race is $45, 63; in the Negro race it is $14.95. In Alabama, the expendi ture is $37.50 per white child, and $7.16 per Negro child. In one county in Alabama the expenditure is $57.00 per white child, and $1.51 per Negro child. In Jefferson Coun ty, Alabama, the amount spent is $41.95 per white child, and $15.57 per Negro child. In Birmingham, Alabama, it is $66.74 per white child, and $25.25 per Negro child. As long as the white child has about three times as much money spent on his education as the colored child, we must expect Negro education to suffer considerably. Negro children also suffer from a shorter school term than white children. In 17 states and the District of Columbia the average length of school term for whites is 164 days, or about 8 months; for the Negro it is 144 days, or about 7 months. In Alabama, the white child goes to school 159 days, or nearly 8 months; the Negro child can go only 129 days, or about &/2 months. Negro teachers have more pupils than white teach ers. In 17 states and the District of Columbia the number of pupils per white teacher is 31; but it is 44 pupils per Negro teacher. In Alabama it is worse than the general average for the South; it is 33 pupils per white teacher, and 48 pupils per Negro teacher. The average annual salary oi white teachers m 17 states and the District of Columbia during the peak year of prosperity, 1929, was $1,020; for Negro teacherr only half as much, or $524. Alabama salaries for school teach ers has always ranked below the average for all the south ern states; in 1929 it was $832 per white teacher, and $354 per Negro tacher, or less than half that of the white teacher. WHERE FREIGHT RATES ARE HIGH How do you, Mr. Taxpayer, like to contribute the neat sum of $7,900 for every ton of cattle, corn, hogs and mules moved a transportation system which is owned by the government and, consequently, must be supported by you and your fellows ? Seven-thousand nine hundred dollars per ton is precisely what it cost the Treasury to move freight on the Missouri River branch of the Inland Waterways Corpora tion in 1929. The fact is brought out by George Creel in an article in Collier’s. It’s easy enough to figure. Taking four per cent as being a fair rate of interest on the govern ment’s investment in the river, and adding the $2,000,000 bill run up annually for maintenance, the taxpayers paid more than $6,000,000 to keep the waterway going in 1929. Outside of materials used in the government’s own con struction work, but 779 tons were carried. Ergo: A bill of $7,900 per ton! This, of course, is an extreme example, but it shows the way the wind blows. It has been duplicated to a lesser extent in waterways in all parts of the country. In the case of the New York Barge Canal, there are 66 canal term inals, which cost $26,000,000—and at 49 of them no freight whatsoever has been handled in recent years. It has Been | cheaper for the state if it had junked its canal, put all the freight in railroad cars and paid the bill itself! Now, with proposals for bigger and better canals i and waterways being considered, is an excellent time to re- i member these lessons of the past and present. 1 STILLING FEARS C* FN^La7t0N A very important phase of the President’s decision to monetize and stabilize silver, is mat 11 nas done mucn to still the fear that we would have inflation by the printing ! press route. It will bring more money into circulation, if | i he economists are'right, will provide funds for foreign : and domestic commerce— arid the money will have some-! ! thing of established and definite value behind it. Thus, the silver proclamation will serve two ends— it will restore the confidence of a large part of the public in the United States monetary policies, and it will help re surrect one of the greatest and most essential of our indus tries. Results of the latter are being felt now—in jobs, in buying power, in hopes for the future. And, if the expect ed happens and other major nations adopt similar mea sures, a long step toward general world recovery will have been taken. ‘•Demagoguery is strictly entertainment. It uses a minimum of information, with a maximum of appeal to the emotions.”—James H. Collins. And it should be added that the public always pays scalper’s prices for the show. FOR YOUR SAFETY The Fifth Annual New York Safety Conference, to be held March 6th and 7th, is an example of activity which desrves the widest possible notice. A large number of organizations—such as the Nat ional Board of Casualty and Surety Underwriters, Amer ican Standards Association, American Red Cross, Society of Automotive Engineers and similar bodies—will cooper ate. Topics concerning every phase of safety work—from handling material, to fire prevention and falls — will be discussed by experts. The object of the conference is to make life safer, healthier and happier for workers, and to bring American industry a step nearer to the ideal of ab solute safety. Similar conferences should be held in other sections of the country at regular intervals, to back up the work of the various organizations which carry on nation-wide safety programs. In the last decade wre have made tremen dous progress in promoting safety, especially in the field of industry. Safeguarding of machinery has been immense ly improved, but more important, the average worker has been given a new idea of what safe-conduct on his job real ly means. The result is a growing list of “no accident” in dustries, and a general decline in both the severity and fre quency of accidents in other industries. Much remains to be done—in industry, in the home, and on public highways, wrhere the death and injuny toll is disgraceful. Safety activities must be expanded. “CRACKING DOWN” ON PAYROLLS Albert Johnson, publisher of Grays Harbor Wash ingtonian, Hoquiam, Washington, established in 1889, makes editorial New Year’s observations wmrth reading. After pointing out that his paper has been pleased to receive advertisements from various public service cor porations in the regular course of business, just as it ac cepted any other advertising, and after remarking that corporations art1 hard pressed for money for capital in vestments today, Editor Johnson says: “We are moved to these few’ remarks by the action of this state’s (Washington) Department of Public Works, wrhich has ordered the public service corporations to cut their advertising appropriations drastically, and has or dered book accounts of such expenditures opened for ex amination. “The first thing we knowT these corporations will be forbidden to advertise at all, and then it will be too late for i us to kick.” Speaking of the telephone advertising in his paper, Editor Johnson said, we are glad to take the “company’s money, right over our counter, over which many thou sands of dollars pass every single month, and are paid out to men, women and boys who get out this sheet, and do fine commercial printing as a side line. “By the way, we are in corporated, and it is not pleasant for us to see all the other corporations that do business around here ‘cracked down’ on to the breaking point. When they are done to death, we will go broke; so will you. And this little city is likely to fade from the map. “As long as the state takes their tax money and our tax money,... we hope to see a Square Deal, which is just as important as a New Deal... “The public, through its governmental agencies can ‘crack down’ so hard on those who make the wheels go round, that the public may get an awful crack itself. “What we are trying to say is that business begets business. We, ail of us, live with, by and for each other ... “How many people realize that the pendulum of hue and cry is swinging very hard just now against the cor porations? ... Those who lead the hue and cry forget that these corporations pay salaries, provide payrolls, keep up the steam and art the sole excuse for the existence of more than one city and town. “These corporations ... are loaded with general and special taxes, fees and federal and state regulations, which are costly and often necessary ... “To make matters still worse, the state governments and the United States government are going still more in to business in opposition to corporations. Our state legisia ture, at this very minute, is putting the state into the po wer business without the slightest regard as to who will j take care of the inevitable smash-up. “We would not be surprised at all to see the govern ment in the newspaper business. It is already in the print ing business and the now’s bulletin business ... “Believe it or not, we lie aw'ake nights wandering if the people of the United States realize that they are really willfully or sleepily standing by and permitting a situation to arise where the state will have to do it all—run every thing, from railroads to weekly newspapers. Then, a lot of is who are either owmers, salaried people, or persons on he payrolls, will learn something.” Turn *n 'DIGESTING File NEWS" | BROADCASTS 5 Every Week from this Column } By CLIFFORD C. MITCHELL \ The only reason that the above title is used is because I surposely delayed the writing of this column last night in order to get up early this morning (February 22nd) and hear the High Mass and Funeral of the late King Albert of Belgium. Al though the program, from New York City, has been on tl}e a:r for nearly half an hour already we have not heard from Brussells as the en gineers claim atmospheric distur ances over the Atlantic. At this point wo hear from Brussells and 1 am now sitting in a little “studio” on South Parkway in Chicago, at five thirty iii the morning listening to a choir away over in Belgium- What a world this is? And what a pleasure it is to be free to enjoy man’s ac hievements- (I only wish I under stood Latin so I could understand the Priest now talking.) The Baltimore Afrc-American are putting on a journalistic feat not of ten observed in the colored field Their special feature writer, Ralph Matthews, is making a thirty day tour around the entire United States and writing many interesting col umns of experiences, observations, and news matter gathered on his | jaunt The Scott Newspaper Syndicate, mentioned in last week's column be cause of the death of its founder, the , late W- A. Scott, is stili progressing under its new managership, C- A. Scott, brother to the deceased. Their latest achievements being an admit tance into the A- B C- (Audit Bu reau of Circulations) class, making their Atlanta Daily World one of the five or six colored publications so admitted. Then, too, they have start ed a new weekly paper, the Glob& ! Dispatch, at Shreveport, La- And ; I am glad to see this new publication I making use of my service The National Medical Association scores another victory for the race. Dr. M. O. Bousfield, the president of the N- M- A-, and vice-president and medical director of the Supreme Lib erty Life Insurance Company, has just returned from a trip through the east and southeast as far as the Carolinas and reports that while in Durham, North Carolina, definite arrangements were made with the officials of Duke University there to spend considerable money in provid ing for increased medical services for the race. Another local Chicago company who have weathered the financial storm with clear sailing and im proved business is the Protective Mutual Life Insurance Company, who have but recently enlarged their working quarters and sales staff when they moved into their new headquarters in the Warwick Build ing, 543 East 47th Street. I recently wrote a special featuhe article de tailing the activities of this company and the successful experience of their president, Mr. C- W- Hadnott, which a few of the outstate publica tions carried, and I am glad, in this brief manner, to bring their success to the attention of readers through out the entire country. Apparently classes in journalism, studying Negro papers, etc., are now being taught in the public schools throughout the country. At least I am in receipt of a letter from the business manager, and a sample issue of their paper, the Moore High Banner, which is edited and publish 'd by the journalism class of the Moore School, in Waco, Texas. KID CHOCOLATE LOSES FEATH ER-WEIGHT TITLE IN NEW YORK STATE NEW YORK CITY, February 27— (CNS)— Kid Chocolate has been shorn of his world feather-weight crown by the New York State Ath letic Commission because of his fail ure to arrange for a title defense within 30 days of the commission’s edict last month. Chocolate was recognized as title holder by the New York commission when he stopped Lev/ Feldman two years ago, in the final of an elimina tion tourney- He was not recognized by the NRA The commission is planning an eli mination tourney to determine Cko- ^ colate’s successor. Chocolate defend ed his title only once—against Seman Watson of England. He is Havana.