. . . EDITORIALS . . .
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THE OMAHA GUIDE
Published every Saturday at 24618-20 Grant Street.,
Omaha, Nebraska
Phone WEbster 1750
GAINES T BRADFORD, - - Editor and Manager
Entered as Second Class Matter March 15, 1927, at the Post Of
fice at Omaha, Neb., undertheActof Congress of March 3, 1879.
T£ 1 MS OF SUBSCRIPTION $2.00 PER YEAR
Race prejudice must go. The Fatherhood of God and
the Brotherhood of Man must prevail. These are the
only priciples whioh will stand the acid test of good
citizenship in time of peace, war and death.
GENERAL SHERRILL IS UNQUALIFIED
By his own words and activities Brig..General Chns. II.
Sherrill, American representative on Ihe International Olympic
Committee, reveals himself as unqualified to represent the Am
erican youth or the spirit of Democracy at the O'ympics.
He is an admirer of Mussolini and of fascism. On Nov. 26th,
1925, speaking before the Italian Chamber of Commerce in New
York City, he said, “1 am here to speak for a man whom I have
long known and admired.” In his books, “Bismarck and Mus
aolin.i be calls the fascist! “Gallant black shirts whom modern
civilizat’on will applaud and, if need In*, follow.”
He is contemptuous of democracy To Mussolini’s state
ment” ... LI necessary we will march olatnly over the decompos
ed corpse ot liberty” lu* adds his approval with, “For such talk
as this, there is everywhere ru ed today.”
He is an idolator of royalty: In his book “The I’urpV and
the Red ho says, “There is a magnificiane.o about a king . . .
that makes an appeal to public imagination impossible for u
politically elected president.”
11c is an advocate of militarization, of youth: Admiring the
BalLlla, military youth organization in Italy, lie suggested
1 hat a similar spirit of usefulness might la* developed in or
ganized groups of American youth.”
He is a supporter of imperialism: He defends Italy’s colonial
expansion in Africa.
Ho is a foe of labor unions: The Berkshire Fine Spinning
Associates, of which General Sherrill is president, does not rec
ognize any labor organizations.
FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE—TAXES
lien* are two stanzas Iroin a verse that has been making
the rounds recently:
“When you hght the evening lamp
' You pay a tax.
\\ hen you buy a postage stamp
You pay a tax.
When you buy the baby clothes,
When you read the morning news,
When you buy a pair of shoes,
You pay a tax.
I
“When you buy an ice cream cone
You pay a tax.
For the water that you drink
You pay a tax.
'When you buy a loaf of bread,
When the doctor says you're dead,
When the final prayers ore said,
You pay a tax.’’
It is doubtful if sadder or truer words were over penned.
Taxes begin with the cradle and end only in the grave. And
today we are taxed more heavily, and in more ways, than we
ever were before. Sit down some time and reflect on the taxes,
indirect and direct, that, you must pay in the course of any
day’s normal activities—and you’ll get some idea of how nec
essary real tax reduction is.
BREAD GOES UP
-—
The pound loaf of bread that cost you, on the average, 6.7
cents in 1932, costs 8.3 cents today—even though the baker’s
and retailer’s share of the f:nal selling price has shown a slight
decrease. Additional rises in bread prices are forecast.
One cause of the rise is the increased cost of wheat, which
was at a ridiculously low' price in 1932. Other ingredients
sugar, malt, etc.—arc likewise up.
Better prices for the farmer are desired by the whole coun
try- But as his prices increase, the consumer must, necessarily
stretch his budget. In some cases that is impossible. In many
cases it works a definite hardship on the family.
At least a partial solution to this high-cost-of-food problem
lies in the development of wholesaling and retailing systems
which give the farmer the adequate prices he deserves—and at
the same time keep down costs to the consumer, by eliminating
needless overhead and mddloman expenses. Such systems have
done fine work in the past—and their continued operation is
essential to the natinoal welfare.
AMERICAN FARMERS OPPOSE WAR
At the third annual congress of the Farmers’ organization.
Minnesota Farmers Holiday Association”, held in Madison,
Wisconsin, a unanimous resolution was passed against war
and fascism. The congress also resolved on the election of
delegates to the Third U S. Congress Against War and Fascism,
to take place in Cleveland, January, 1936. Similar resolutions
against war and fascism have been adopted by the farmers’
organizations of North and South Dakota.
THE WAY OUT
(By Loren Miller)
Georgia, There She Stands!
The story-tellers rave it that
God was out walking one fine
Christmas morning when he met
the Devil. Satan beat the Lord
to it and shouted “Christmas
gift.”
“O. K.,” said God, “you take
Georgia.” The Devil has had it
ever since, they say.
I had always intended to check
on this story with Ben Davis, Jr.,
but President Roosevelt has saved
me the trouble.
“I am proud of Georgia,” he
told an Atlanta audience recently.
That settles it. I am sure that
our president wouldn’t be proud
of the Devil’s own domain. Any
how, as my sainted grandmother
used to say, there’s no accounting
for tastes,
Georgia, as it stands today, isn’t
a place in which I could take a
great deal of pride. Jt’s chain
gangs are notorious for their bru
tality; thank Heaven the aroused
American people saved Herndon
from a chain gang death!
Georgia Negroes have no rights
that its planters are bound to re
spect. Lynching is an honored
tradition and a recent federal re- I
port indicated that only 10 out of j
95 families interviewed, uta three
meals a day. Mr. Roosevelt's pride
rises easily.
Politics and Pride.
At that, the probability is that
there was more politics than pride
in Mr. Roosevelt’s statement.
Governor Talmadge of Georgia is
one of the president’s opponents
and he must have been impressed
with the necessity of making a
plea to southern voters that will
insure re-nomination in 1936.
One of the surest ways to the
hearts of the men who control the
South is to flatter that section;
so great is sectional prejudice in
Dixie that anybody who is willing
to express admiration for it is
assured of a favorable hearing.
This sectional pride is the re
sult of what the psychologists call
an inferiority complex. Every
southerner, and every northerner,
knows that the South leads the
nation in illiteracy, poverty and
degration of the great majority of
its inhabitants. Its court system
is a scandal and its brand of jus
tice is a grim joke; everybody
knows that democracy has never
existed south of the Mason and
Dixon line.
Laughing Stock.
These facts have made the
South the laughing stock of the
nation and to salve their wounded
feelings, southerners like to pre
tend that theirs is a land of cul
ture and romance. Its colonels
and its planters, and their sub
servient editors, novelists and
poets, paint it as a paradise on
earth where the noblest human
emotions flourish. Outsiders who
accept that estimate are fawned
upon; critics who point to its
faults are cursed as fools and
knaves. Its faults are numerous.
But. the lack of educational
facilities, the absence of democ
racy and the legal and extra-leg
al violence have their uses; they
serve to bolster up an antiquated
system of land ownership and ga
riculture that condemns the mass
of southerners, black and white,
to the vilest kind of poverty. That
system of land-owning is really
the Devil to whom God is reputed
to have given Georgia.
Bad Company.
When President Roosevelt goes
to Georgia and says, without a
qualifying phrase, that he is proud
of the state he is giving his bless
ing to the social system there and
all of its evils. As president of
the United States he is sworn to
uphold the constitution and he is
remiss in his duty when he fawns
on a state that disfranchises al
most half of its voters. One mil
lion Americans, a governor, a half
dozen congressmen and a score of
state legislators condemned the
treatment of Aneglo Herndon;
what can be said for our presi
dent who can remain silent in the
face of what is one of the most
glaring examples of injustice in
American history?
“I am happy to be in Gerogia—
because of this moving reception I
which my friends, the senators
and representatives in the con
gress from this state have tend
ered me,” Mr. Roosevelt said. His
senatorial and representative
friends were elected because Ne
groes were disfranchised. The rec
ords show that they opposed the '
anti-lynch bill, the Lundeen un
employment insurance bill and j
every other measure that would
have helped poor Negroes, and
poor whites. A man, runs an old
saw, is known by the company he
keeps. The president is in bad
company.
Why I Would Live
By K. A. Adams
(For the Literary Service Bureau)
I still have a desire to live,
Yet not for selfish ends, I vow.
But that more fully I may give
Of what the Master may endow,
And this to do I verily
Renew iny pledge of fealty.
I have desire to live, indeed,
But not just to accumulate
More things, but Him to emu
late
Who sacrificed for human need,
And, as becometh, as I should, !
My all devote to human good.
I have desire to live, is true,
And truthfully would I confess,
Tis for the good that I can
do,—
That living, others I might bless; ■
I vow, and do not swear amiss,
For this I’d live, and ONLY miS!
English highway builders are
experimenting with concrete of
several colors to reduce sunlight
glare in daytime and headlight
razzle at night.
SERMONETTE
By Arthur B. Iihinow
The Cold Wave
(For the Literary Service Bureau)
Nothing impresses me as being
so cold as. a cold wave. That is
lot really so, for some of our arti
ficial ice is much colder, but a
cold stove feels so cold because
we expect it to radiate heat. That
s the purpose of a stove. When
we come into the house on a wint
jy day and approach the stove
only to find it cold, it seems to be
ten times as cold as it really is.
‘What are you here for,” we vent
our disappointment, “if you can
not furnish warmth for our com
fort?” And that is true of the
radiator in the modern apartment
as well as the stove in the old
fashioned farm house.
We experience similar disap
pointment when a lamp refuses to
give light, when an apparently
powerful motor is weak, when the
song bird does not sing, when
human beings are not human,
when the Mohammedan is without
the zeal of Mohammed, the Jew
has lost the light of Abraham, and
the Christian is a Christian ini
name only. “Why do you call
yourself a Christian if Christ
means so little to you?"
To recognize the purpose of life
clearly, so far as the mind can see
and the heart can feel, and earn
estly to strive to live according to
that purpose, that is success. We
may not reach the goal, but we
can be true to it, and in our hearts
we may cherish the hope that
some day we SHALL reach the
goal. But to live a low life when
we are destined to live a high life
is like an eagle floundering in a 1
swamp.
ALTAVESTA
By Videlta Ish
ALTA VESTA TO HER
FATHER—NO. 26
(For the Literary Service Bureau)
Dear Father:
When iT read your letter I had
a strange feeling. I was happy,
and yet I felt like crying. Do
people cry when they are happy?
I thought they cried when they
were sad, or something of that
kind. But it seems so funny to
cry when you are happy and
ought to laugh.
I was happy because you are
pleased with me and because you
think my conduct was right. Then
I got sorry for the girls that don’t
have any father, and suppose I
cried in sympathy with them. An
other thing, Father, and I sup
pose you will call it foolish, I had
a fear that I might sometime dis
please you and make you unhappy.
And that thought made me cry
too. O yes, I am so happy now at
the thought of helping those girls
that I am sure I shall be more
happy when I do give them their
presents. J am beginning to real
ize what you said, that it makes
you happier to give things to oth
er folk thnn for you to get things
from others.
Well, Daddy Dear, I am sleepy
and will close sending you a
whole world ful lof love.
Your loving daughter,
Alta Vesta
WIIAT A JOB! .
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KELLY MILLER
SAYS
GREETINGS FOR THE
NEW YEAR
'To the Negro race—greetings:
We face the new year of 1936
with an equivocal balance between
hopes and fears. As long as hope
i triumphs over fear there is prog
, ress but when fear triumphs over
hope the inevitible result is stag
nation and death. Although the
circumstances and conditions
which we have to confront are
deplorable and appaling, yet we
must face them with a heart for
any fate which will enable us to
pursue, to labor and to wait. The
race will never be conquered un
til it is conquered in its mind.
“The mind is its own place, and
of itself can make a Heaven of
Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” I would
say to the race, “keep your heart
and mind with all diligence; for
out of these are the issues of
life.”
The diagnosis must precede the
treatment. I will not proced to
give an analysis of the actual
conditions which we are up
against, not because I revel in ab
stract analysis, but in order that
an effective remedy may be forth
coming. It is folly to shut our
eyes in a blind, unreasoning faith,
that in some way or other the
Lord will provide. The Lord helps
those who help themselves. Sloth
ful reliance on faith writhout work
gets us nowhere.
The last six years of the de
pression have played havoc to the
roseate prospects which then
spread out before us. All our
programs of progress then pro
jected with so much enthusiasm
have been broken down or weak
ened. The Negro farmer is
abandoning or losing his farm.
The saddest chapter in the recent
history of the race is that during
tho last two decades the Negro
has lost ground. The city Negro
is losing his home to the sheriff
and the auctioneer, upon which he
has centered all of his accumu
lated savings. There has been lit
tle success in business enterprises
whereby the proprietor engaged
to employ members of his ow-n
race. We have thus been thrown
back upon the white exploiter and
extortioner for whatever oppor
tunity wo may gam in the indus
trial world. While ten million
white workmen are unemployed,
two million Negroes in the same
category stand a slim chance of
being absorbed in industry. The
general policy seems to be to give
the white man work, and put the
Negro on charity and dole, which
ultimately will reduce him to the
status of the red Indian, as a ward
of the nation, living on the white
man’s gratis, grace and goodness.
It is not so much race prejudice as
preference which shuts the Negro
out of industrial equation. The
wise virgins had no group pre
judice against the foolish ones,
but refused to share with them
their limited supply of oil “lest
there be not enough for you and
us.” If it were not for the de
termined purpose of the govern
ment to give the Negro at least
a semblance of a square deal un
der the “New Deal” the pitable
ness of his plight would be too sad j
to contemplate.
Our churches are not deepen
ing and strengthening the moral
and spiritual life of the race to re
sist the pressure of outward cir
cumstances. The moral and spir
itual energies lag for lack of
power. The Negro church is
stagnant, stationery, or retrograde. I
Unless there be a genuine revival
of religion we look in vain to the
pulpit to revive the drooping spir
it of the people.
Our schools have lost the in
centive and zest of initiative
which comes from self support
and self direction. We must de
pend upon the state and private
philanthropy to maintain our pub
lic schools and private institutions
whose policies and programs in
evitably fall under the direction
of those who supply the where
withal. Colleges and universities
under Negro foundation, support,
control and management are slow
ly dying of innutrition. Our edu
cational ideals, policies and pro
grams are not shaped by the Ne
gro himself, but by the whites
who accord to the Negro youth
only the type of instruction and
inspiration which they think they
should have. They, of course, em
ploy Negro instructors who are
pliable to their suggestions and
to their aims.
Our schools are failing lament
ably to produce industrial, social,
political, religious or practical
leadership for the masses. Alas,
there is no Booker T. Washing
ton to formulate ideals and fash
W.VAV.W.V.V.W/AVAV
t PROVERBS $
? AND $
I PARABLES £
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By A. B. Mann
The Right Will Win
(For the Literary Service Bureau)
While this proverb is true, its
acceptance depends upon ability
to differentiate between false and
real success, temporary and perm
anent success, and detrimental and
contributory success. Exceeding
fallacious is the oft quoted say
ing, “Nothing succeeds like suc
cess,” meaning accomplishing
one’s designs no matter what the
methods used. The cause of the
right may suffer; there may come
many humiliating defeats, victory
for the right may be delayed; but
Right will win. This is the force
of the poetic assurance:
“For Right is right, since God
is God,
And Right the day shall win,
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin.”
Increasing: Tolerance
By R. A. Adams
(For the Literary Service Bureau)
There is little doubt that we be
come more tolerant as we grow
older, and this change of senti
ment and attitude is due to sub
jective discoveries. This means
discovery of your own short com
ings and evil propensities.
In the “after years” parents
are more tolerant of the faults of
their children, because they rec
ognize their own traits inherent
ly a part of the nature of these
children. As ambitions fail and
errancies are revealed, we become
more sympathetic toward those
who are committing the same fol
lies which we committed and
which have left unpleasant im
pressions.
Disillusioned, we pity those ' ho
are following their will-o-wisps
and vainly seeking “the end of the
rainbow” as did we, in the days
of youth. Then as we become more
conscious of the weaknesses and
evil proclivities of our own na
tures we become less disposed to
deal severely with the errancies
of others.
flow, this spirit of tolerance is
a thing to be coveted, to be sought,
to be cultivated, and it is the
chief agency for preservation of
peace and amity.
ion a program which philanthrop
ists and statesmen will accept and
implement. The educated Negro
of this day and generation does
not seem to possess the ability or
the statesmanship to formulate a
practical ideal or the persuasive
power to so impress it upon the
rulers that might be so as to
shape it into a program of prac
tical action. The higher educa
tion of the Negro today is os far
divorced from the actualities of
the situation as the much derided
classical culture was a generation
ago.
Collective business enterprise
such as banks, insurance compan
ies, building associations, which
succeeded in weathering the storm,
aro proceeding feebly at a dim
inished l’ate of speed. The income
of our professional classes has
been so reduced that they can
scarcely maintain a livelihood
which will enable them to func
tion in their high callings. Fra
ternal and benevolent societies are
struggling for existence amidst
internal squabbles and scandals.
The NAACP, the Urban League,
and the Y. M. C. A., supported
wholly or in part by white phil
anthropists, are carrying on as
best they can and may, under re
duced circumstances. The poli
ticians are facing the coming
presidential election without any
statesman-like policy, plan o r
purpose, but are relying upon po
litical ballyhoo to swing the Ne
gro vote to one party or the oth
er, in blissful ignorance or indif
ference to the fact that the elec
tion of 1936 is calculated to
drastically effect the destiny of
the nation and of the Negro along
with it.
But space limits admonish me
that J must desist in this cata
logue of racial handicaps, short
comings, imperfections and im
becilities. I have not indulged in
the wail of the pessimist or the
despair of the hopeless, but have
merely pointed out that the race
must keep its eyes open in view
of the situation which it must
face during the coming year. In
my next week’s release I will
present a practical program for
racial betterment during the New
Year of 1936.
Kelly Miller.