Nebraska Newspapers

    COMMENTS EDITORIAL PAGE opinions I
Published Every Saturday at 2418-20 Grant Street,
Omaha, Nebraska
Phones: WEbster 1517 or 1518
Entered as Second (’lass Matter March 15, 1027. at the Postoffice at
Omaha, Neb., underAct of Congress of March 8, 1870.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION 82.00 PER YEAR
Race prejudice must go. I be Fatherhood of God and the Brother
hood of Man must prevail. These are the only principles which will
ttai-d the arid tc-t of pood.
All Nmvs Copy of Churches and all Organizations must he in otn
sffice t t Inter man 6:00 p. nt, Monday t'oi current issue. All Adver
Using <’(i|iv o' l aid Articles not later than Wednesday noon, prececd
mg date of i--•!<•. to insure publication.
..EDITORIALS..
i
, | ]
ECHOES OF VUE NEWS
tty H. J. FORD, Washington, D C.
AT THE CROSSROAD—The future of the Negro worker
■ is at ihi* n f.i'i and those who should he most concerned
are npoareu.ly aslep nt 1 hW snviteh. Organized labor lms never
been any 1- friendly to this minority group, although very re
laeUmtlv ,i ,i ill iiv a few of them into it« folds, here and there.
Every passible device, prompted by pr '.judie'j and nun. ha!red,
ha A he. 'ti used to keep iliem from coming into their own. And
Him in spite of the loyalty thev have shown that has no para
lell among o H«r races, lugrnliltide, you might say, hut wait. To
add insult to injury the present Congress has before it for pas
sage a bill to legalize these in jus ityia the rn<*<» now suffers—
tip. wave * I i i * .ft-n t i a ] of tlm Mark-Connery Win ere Hour hill.
Negroes have normally been supporters of the Republican
parly in polities, but in the- past two national ivnnipnigns hav'e
gotic in surprisingly large numbers into the fold of the Demo
crats. Can the Negro depend upon tine party of his adoption,
now that they eon rol, overwhelmingly, both branches of Con
gre ' Will th,. interest of the race be eared for, or will the
dominant parly pass the wage-hour bill in spi.e of those fea
tures objectionalde to tho Negro! And then- will the Negro
still support a party that will insist upon such objectionable
legislation in Kpite of the probes^ of the Negro? We are truly
at the crossroad and much depends upon ^he course of events
during thP nest few weeks.
CHAMPIONSHIPS—The refreshing news flh&t Spelling
Bee rlinmpWitiNilups are falling right and left to young Negro
contestants convinces us that the field of championships will
moou he overrun with Negroes. And, why not! A Black boy
must be 100 percent better ihau all other contestants for it
chance to compete, and tluen must win with all odds against
him. So when Hip news comes that there Bs n new hlfcck cham
pion we know ho is a champion indeed. One columnist has said
recently that Negroes ltjavo won all the championships except,
tennis, and then nsks in disgust “who wants to be tcnmis cham
pion,” We wish to commend all who have entered the various
contests and won championships. We wish also to encourage
those who did not win the prize and advise them to not give
up until they too are victors.
W0 recall a city where a few years ago annual field days
were held in which members of all races took part. A year came
when every event was won by a Negro, add the spinsors found
an excuse to discontinue the field (leys. Lowering the bars of
race prejudice and showing a little moro sportsmanship in all
lines of sport, including the big base ball longue may add a few
surprises to the list of eluwnpions.
Borah—What Does He Stand For?
By Louis L. Redding—Reprint from The Crisis, March 1936
It would seem from this analysis of the senator from
Idaho, that Negro citizens can place little dependence
in him as a statesman and none at all in him as h man
having any conception of the hopes, ambitions and rights
of Negro Americans
Sometime before the Idaho legislature catapulted him into
the United States Senate in 1907, at the age of 42, William Ed
gar Borah must have adopted as his personal credo a perver
sion of Emerson's epigram, “A foolish consistency is the hob
of little minds.” This is not to say that Senator Borah has been
cognizant that the record he has been building up for himself
is one in which inconsthancv is the only constant trait. It may
be that he lacks a clear-cut fundamental political philosophy.
There are observers who ascribe the Senator's characteristic te
tering between opposite poles of a question to ignorance, which
might arise from just such a lack. They think Mr. Borah is ns
baffling a puzzle to himself as to others—that he ns little knows
whiat he wants to do as others know. In her “Revelations of
a Woman Lobbyist” Maude Younger has this to say of Senator
Borah: “You talk with hitn, and think he is with you through
and through.™.But. you never quite know..Sometimes you
wonder if h0 knows ” To the superficial observer Borah doubt
less appears to be a consistent admirer of the Federal Consti
tution. Throughout his utterances, on the floor of the Senate
pand elsewhere, recur protestations of revei’ence for the sub
servience to the Constitution as framed by the Founding Fh
tliers in the Convention of 1787, lie professes to believe “Our
fathers understood the science of government as no other sin
gle group of men has ever understood it” and the Constitution
jthev built “the greatest instrument of government ever de
vised by the w*it of man.” Of the fathers, it is Hamilton who
most snares his admiration, and Borah has termed him “In
many respects the greatest constructive genius who ever dealt
>■ «■ —■■>■■■■ III I .1 1 i m jr r .. , ■■ 7 T-—; . ■ - ...—
I Sicaidqilts ¥u?&
RIT)MA>4
MAX B>I-StVN iUDiNG
VVfc* HOKSI^XCN ANX'
VlOKNING IN CINTPvM. PMUU
WHIN HI IS IN NtW XOILK-..
E.O 2>
, HAVE5
•’ NEW& COMMENTATOR. AND
\ SKOVV CMTIC.HAS BUN
/ WAITING TCHA NEVWAKIU5
? fOA MOJU THAN fOUV
V VEAAS.HIS UADHA CAU
) UIM'UNCU bOB'^
^»k,.
I T T >**«*»• ,
I t>eUoy-D s
/ N/^Y-NY \ ^. . .
/ (NllH.NMlONM IV KNOWN " •-.*- •
r INN I ST, HNS HtrK UKNT3S INSULT)
TOO. <,50,000. (.^viot i'mts.)
© 'ini IwniM-nttkl Sr’PO ~RVV1 ,,,lt Hul
.- - .■ —..—..
| An Echo j
I From iMy Den
Ry S. E. Gilbert
As I sit here in my DEN with
pen in hand, meditating ns it were,
there comes to mind that age old
subject of “Inferitory Complex-’’
If you conduct yourself proper
ly why thq inferiority complex?
,1 ii:’t because your parents arc not
college bred, are not wealthy and
do not hold a high place in so
eiciy is, not a good and sufficient
reason why you should feel Inferior
to those who possess such advant
ages.
If you and your famly arc hon
est and respoe table, clean in mind
end thought, and you take care of
whnt you have, you need not fear
the other man. , «v
It is n false idea that one human
being is on a higher plane than
the rest of humanity, because he
or .she has more in material things.
Those who would have you think
them superior are not, really. Espe
cially if by manner or word, they
show arrogance or snobbishness
then you know their veneer is only
diin deep.
So why be afraid of veneer put
on to cover up real inferiority?
An inferiority complex is some
thing that grows rapidly. It unfits
the one who has it for carrying on
fia be otherwise should. A feeling of
mediocrity is a grent stumbling
block to progress. Don’t admit, ev
il to yourself, that you are not on
the same plana with those who try
to impress you with their impor
tance. Rut instead, say to yourself
that if one individual can accom
plish a certain feat in life, so can
I.
: KELLY MILLER
wno IS A NEGRO
The dMcision of the Supreme
Court of New York, upholding the
eonvenant forbidding Negroes from
I owning, renting or occupying pro
perty brings to n focus an issue
which is bound to figure in local
tote and national litigation.
The defendants is this ease base
their contention squarely on the
ground that they ‘wore not Negroes
according to any established seien
1 He or legal definition.
The Court, side-stepping the
frontal issim, accepted the working
definition in general practice and'
lctried that the ease in litigation
violated any provision of the Con
stitution of the United States ac
cording to a decision of (he Su
premo Court in a case of this spe
eific character.
Arthur Garfield Hays, the well
known mil if ant attorney of radical
causes, declared his intention in
advance of appealing the case to
the Supreme Court of the United
States and force from that final
tribunal a legal definition of the
term “Negro."
The fact that the National As
sociation for the Advancement of
Colored People and the Civil Liber
ties joined in the suit indicates
dearly that this issue, will be forced
to final judicial determinnation.
When Mr, Hays announced his
intention of appealing the ease to
| the United States Supreme Court,
1 was in the midst of preparing an
article for the May issue of Oppor
tunity on a suitable racial designa
tion for the so-called “Negro” or
“Colored” group of the United
States.
I then predicted the outcome of
the pending suit and prophesied
that both the local and Supreme
Court would side-step a judicial
with the science of government.”
Yet to that concept in the constitutional framework so
highly valued by Hamilton and his associates in the Constitu
tional Convention Senator Borah was a greater instrument of
violence than any other individual. He was chagrined because
m 1903, the first time lie was a candidate for the United States
Senate, a bloc in the Idaho legislature defeated him by four
votes. When he did reach the Senate, he steered through it the
Seventeenth Amendment, transferring the election of Senators
fiom tlie state legislatures to the whole electorate. No chnaige ^
wrought in the Constitution has had a more devasting effect,
on the original plan than this Amendment. The framers believed
that the success of the bicameral legislative system depended
upon each chamber's owing its election to a different elector
ate. Moreover, they thought a highly limited electorate for the
upper chamber would send to that body a superior rank of
statesmen. Borah's chief hero, Hamilton, set forth in the “Fed
eralist,” the idea of flic framers: _
Through the medium of the State legislatures—which
are select bodies of men, and who are to appoint the mem
bers of the National Senate—there is reason to expect that
this branch will generally be composed with peculiar care
and judgment. /
Whether Mr. Borah reached the conclusion that he and
other individuals selected by state legislatures for the Senate
fell short, of the high expectations of the founders is not known.
It. more nearly appears that to avenge a personal grievance he
let himself contribute mightily to the demolition of a cherished
concept of the framers whose 'wisdom and genius he professed
to revere.
(Continued Next Week))
definition. Whatever I said thei
was so pertinent to the issue ir
volved that I cannot do ben.tr tha
| repeat it here.
“Prior to 1890 the Census 01
11 fice sought to subdivide the Negr
; group into, blacks, mulatto^::, qua
t' oons and octoroons. Subsequcr
I to that date it found it impossibl
to make such sharp discrimination'
since these division ran impercept
ibly one into the other, and als
since there was no definite do
eriminant or oriter’on by whic
1 the one could be separated fror
the other.
“There are 29 states in whicl
legal distinction exists on aceoun
of race, such as separate cars, so
pitrftte schools, and bans on inter
■acini marriage. It would be seen
hereforc, how important it is tha
here should be a federal defini
ior, of “nice” if law's are to la
based on such distinctionn. Hitle:
•■■ill soon be confronted with thi
-imr.aity of a legal definition o:
Aryan and the Jew, since be ha;
placed the latter under political an<
civil disabilities.
“The Southern states have adopt
j eel a workable <!. finition of a‘Ne
gro’ or ‘colored parson,’ whicl
roughly answers all of their praoti
cal purposes. The usual definitior
of a ‘Negro’ or a ‘colored parson’ is
based upon tho proportion of Ne
gro and white blood, but since nc
scientific l^f>od Xesi| >r has boar
discovered, these states have had
to fall back upon observation and
Common judgment.
‘Of the 29 states which have en
acted laws based on race distinc
tion, no one of them has an ulti
mate or adequate definition ot
“race.” Individuals of the twc
races tire forbidden to intermarry
upon superficial evidence, satisfas
tory to the clerk of the court, Chil
dren are assigned to white or color
ed schools wholly on superficial ap
, poaranec. Every train and street
car conductor of the south is set
up as judge of abstruce science ot
anthropology and ethnology.
“Tlie nearest approach we lmvt
to a federal definition of “Negro’
o • “colored person” was set up by
the Supreme Court of the District
of Columbia, where white ant
colored schools operate under the
paws of Congress. The judge de
cided that a “colored person” is
one who, by contact and associa
tion abides in the racial status.
“When ttils question reaches the
Supremo Court, if it ever does, it
is easy to predict this learned tri
bunal will side-step a technical and
ultimate definition, and will fall
back upon the resourcefulness of
observation and common sense.
“This august tribunal has passed
on laws excluding Japanese, Chin
ese and Filipinos from becoming
citizens by naturalization. In no
instance did it set up a definition of
what constitutes a Japanese, or a
Chinese, or a Filipino, but took the
definition for granted.
“Should the Supreme Court un
dertake a technical definition of
' race it must first define a white
man, and the exact point where, on
account of inter-mixture of blood,
the white man ends and the colored
man begins. This would require
more wisdom than the “nine wise
old men possess. The Supreme
Court will in all likelihood fall back
upon the existing definition, based
upon heresay and telltale evidence,
as long as it is workable.”
However the pending case may
turn out, it is inevitable that some
where down the road the Federal
judiciary will have to face an ulti
mate definition
This nation must either abolish
all distinction and discrimination
based on blood composition or es
tablish a scientific and legal de
finition of “race.”
- ■ n
MAKES NOTABLE RECORD
COLORED RED CROSS
Cincinnati, June 24 (ANP)— The
colored advisory board of the Red
Cross which had supervision of the
disaster awards made to sufferers
who sustained losses in the princi
pal colored districts during the re
cent flood, has completed its work.
6,433 cases were handled and
awards In that office amounted to
$74,983.82.
B. W. Overton, secretary of the
YMCA was chairman of the com
mittee upon which some of the
city’s most prominent ctizens saw
service. The case work was han
dled m,' Miss Eileen Yarbrough,
supervisor, who had under her su
pervision 21 case workers and nine
stenographic and clerical workers.
Miss Yarbrough was enthusiastic
in describing the fine working re
lationship between her office and
that of the district Red Cross.
e The Works Program
n National Youth Administration
Wash ngton I>. C.—More than
0 35,000 colored high senool and col
• l<‘ge students received aid in eon
t tinuing their studies from the Na
tional Youth Administration dur
ng the past school year, Mrs. Mary
• McLeod Bethune, director of the
J Division of Negro Affairs of the
• NYA, reports. This figure repre
1 sents an increase ef more than
1 0,000 over last year’s total, and is
vet incomplete because of lack of
i data from states making no racial
t breakdown in their reports.
Practically every' Negro college in
■ the country participated in the
, program, acrording to Mrs. Be
th tine. Parttime jobs were furn
ished for 6,082 undergraduates and
■ 430 graduate students, many of the
■ latter group benefiting from the
i special fund set aside for colored
; students seeking higher degrees'
who could not be cared for under
! regular graduate-aid quota. The re
maining 28,000 receiving student
aid were enrolled in high schools.
All were between 16 and 25 years
of age.
rs uc oniy ims i"e 1 immcmi as
sir*v nee given by the NYA made
it possible for these young me.n !
and women to remain in college,
Mrs- Ilelhune pointed out, but in
addition the socially useful work
to which these students were as
signed contributed definitely to
their job-training and guidance.
This work included book-b'ndinp, j
nu king studies in health and sani
tation, tutoring, research assist
ance in classrooms and laboratories, |
preparation of bibliographies, and I
recreational leadership. It is be-I
Sieved that through this program
the NYA is serving as a spearhead
of attack upon the problems of
masses of underprivileged Negro
youths in ail sections of the coun
try who are economically unable
to get training at a time when
trained hands and minds are most
needed.
With the close of the school year
Youth Administration officials the
country over are calling upon pri
vate industry to open the gates of
employment to the young people
who are currently being dropped
from th NYA payroll, ns ho pro
visions are made for continuing
Student Aid benefts into summer
sessions and budgetary limitations
preclude the absorption of any but
a negligible flew into the NYA i
assistance came from low-income
families, the need for either full ;
or part-time employment for such i
youth is acute. <
“We hope that employei-s every
where will scrutinize their person- •
nel needs to the end that as many 1
of these young people as possible i
will be placed," Aubrey Williams, :
NYA Executive director, declared, j
“Their need for employment is de- I
monstrated by the fact that they I
MATT HTNSON CITED
BY MOSCOW PAPERS
Moscow, USSR., June 24 (ANP)
“In connection with the brilliant
achievement of the Soviet airmen
in landing at the North Pole, news
papers here make note of the
greetings and praise of Matt Hen
son, only living person who has
been at the North Pole, over the
heroic feat. Henson is called an ex
plorer by Moscow newspapers.
“Matt Henson, Negro explorer,
who accompanied Robert Peary to
th? North Pole in 1909, highly
praised the Soviet airmen who
landed on the North Pole,” says
one newspaper.
Again one reads:
“From scientists, explorers, fly
ers—from men like Richard Byrd
and Larsen, who themselves have
flown over the Pole— J'r m Matt
Henson, the Negro explorer who
stood with Peary when the North
Pole was first discovered—all alike
are quick to point out the unique
character of the Soviet Polar ex
pedition.”
have been forced to work part
time during the last nine months in
order to attend school or college.
If they are cast adrift now without
any source of income, many will
suffer seriously.
“The—National Youth Adminis
tration has always recognized that
there arc certain types of begin
ners’ jobs which rightfully belong
to the young, inexperienced worker
Such jobs as these can be filled by
youth without seriously affecting
the employment of experienced,
adult workers with families to sup
port.
“A co-operative and sympathe
tic attitude on the part of employ
ers, large and salil, is needed now
in order to uncover as many of
these jobs as possible. The sudden
Iropping of of a $3,000,000 monthly
payroll for a particularly needy
• < up of people cannot be effected
without serious concquenees. The
oss can be mitigated only through
ncreased opportuniti s in private
employment-”
Young people dropped from the
student Aid rolls with the eessa
:ion of the school term in June will
iind it difficult to transfer to the
lYork Projects program in their
Wme communities, Mr, Williams
jointed out, as these two phases of
he NYA program are set up un
k*r sepnratet budgets, one extend
ng over the nine months of the ac
ademic year, and the other twelve
months. In almost every community
inotas for out-of-sehool youth on
he Work jects Program ape
ilready filled, with long waitfKjr
i'-ts in reserve. Young people for
nerly receiving Student Aid who
eok certification to the Work Pro
ects Program naturally must take
heir places at the botton of the
ist.
Celebrates Anniversary
m- This. m. e. potter
Manager of the Tampa Bullentin
1416 Orange street, Tampa, Fla.,
whose paper celebrated its 23rd
anniversary last week- The Bulletin
produced by colored men and wo
men “from A to Z,” was started in
If,14 as a “one-n an” shop, and is
today an “eleven-man” 3hop. Editor
M. D. Potter, Mrs. Potter’s pro
claims that the paper is the oldest
and most widely read news
paper of his group in Florida- The
Bulletn is in its own building and
has modem equipment. Mrs. Pot
ter is a director of the Tampa
Urban League, a member of the
Advisory Committee of the colored
City Hospital, and recently was
elected a trustee of Allen Temple
AME church. She is a graduate of
Scotia Seminary, now Barber
Scotia Junior college, Concord, N.
C- (C)