BUYERS’ GUIDE by Clarence H. Peacock |
This month, thousands if Cololed
youths will return to schools and col
leger to prepare themselves for busi
ness, protessional careers. A recent
survey shows that 3,079 Colored per
sons graduated from mixed and segre
gated institutions of higher learneng
in the United States during the acade
mic year 1937—1938, according to the
seventh annual education edition of the
Crisis magazine.
Many of these people will seek
employment opportunities in the in
dustrial and business world. Seeming
ly, the New York Negroes have found
one answer to the general search for
jobs. Their outstanding victory in
forcing merchants to agree to give
Negroes one-third of all the white col
lar jobs in the Harlem area, was
i brought about by the mass action.
Mr. James A. Jackson, Negro bu
siness expert and Special Representa
tive of the Standard Oil Company, re
ports that an increase of 130 traveling
sales people, representing seventy
firms, and more than 1200 salespeople
in neighborhood stores, had been not
ed.
These firms depend upon adver
tising and publicity, to sell their goods
or services, of course, it is important
to sell goods and services, for only thus
are the resources acquired by indus
try, for the employment of labor. These
firms are seeking your patrpnage, by
employing Colored representatives and
by advertising their products in your
paper.
Your support of the Colored pa
pers and their advertised products,
will determine whether these new 130
traveling sales people, and the 1200
clerks will keep their new jobs, and
Whether these companies will continue
to spend money advertising in the Ne
gro press. If all the Colored people
throughout the country, gave their full
support to the advertisements in their
papers, they could increase by ten
times, the present number of Colored
sales representatives and sales people.
Economic security for the Negro
races lies in the every day buying and
spending of each and every Negro.
Even in so small purchase as a pack of
chewing gum, it is important that Ne
groes buy only those brands that seek
and want their patronage. Last year,
Colored Americans spent over $2,000,
000 for chewing gum.
There are many unscrupulous
confectioners selling inferior gum to
school children in Colored neighbor
hoods. These companies do not only
sell an inferior product, they do not
employ Negroes, nor seek their patron
age by advertising in the Colored pa
pers.
The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company,
manufacturers of chewing gum, is
making a special promotional effort to
invite our patronage, by using special
Colored copy, and by advertising in
our papers. The Beech-Nut Packing
Company, manufacturers of Beech
Nut Gum, employs Colored girls to
give out samples of their product from
door to door.
For economic security, read our
Colored papers, and buy their advertis
ed products.
THE OMAHA GUIDE
Published Every Saturday at 2418-20 Grant St.
Omaha, Nebraska
Phone WEbster 1517 __ _
^Entered as Second Class Matter Mareh 15, 1927,
at the Post Office at Omaha, Nebr., under
Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. _
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION $2.00 PER YEAR
' All News Copy of Chrurches and add Organi
zations must be in our office not later than
5 00 p. m. Monday for curren issue. All Adver
tising Copy or Paid Articles not later than
Wednesday noon, preceeding date of issue, to
insure publication. __._—
~ Race prejudice must go. The Fatherhood of
God and the Brotherhood of Man must prevai.
These are the only principles whil will stand
the acid test of good.__
editorials
ARE YOU A HYPOCRITE?
-oOo
The average motorist is an uncon
scious hypocrite. That’s a strong char
acterization—but a little impersonal
analysis will substantiate it.
How often have you roundly cri
ticized some driver for an offense
which you commit periodically your
self? How often have you taken com
fort in the thought that accidents are
caused by some reckless breed of moto
rists with whom you have nothing in
common, thus dodging the tact that
only pure fool’s luck has saved you
from a crash on a dozen occasions?
Have you ever attempted to get a
ticket “fixed”—even though you pay
lip service to the cause of aggressive,
impartial law enforcement?
It is a fact that a large proportion
of accidents are caused by the reckless
ten percent, but the other ninety per
cent periodically take chances and are
responsible for many of our annual au
to deaths.
Who, for example, doesn t some
times pass a car when the stretch of
empty road that can be seen is too
short for safety? Wrho doesn’t occa
sionally succumb to the lure of exces
sive speed—even though he has little
or nothing to do when destination is
reached? Who doesn’t periodically neg
lect necessary repairs to brakes, lights
or steering mechanisms, on the theory
that he will get around to it when more
convenient?
We’ll go a good wa|y toward reduc
ing accidents when the average driver
begirt asking himself such questions
and returning honest answer. Accident
prevention, so far as it concerns the
human element, is a personal, indivi
dual matter—and each individuals has
to really want to drive safely at all
times before he can analyze his driving
errors and correct them.
THE HYDROELECTRIC MYTH
If you listen to the politicians,
you’ll come to the conclusion that the
rapid development of America’s hydro
electric resources by the government,
is the solution for just about all of our
national problems. So far, the govern
ment has spent hundreds of millions
on hyro projects scattered about the
country, and it plans to spend hundreds
of millions more ,in competing with
private enterprise.
Yet, according to the engineers,
the value of hydro power has been tre
mendously exagerated. And you don’t
have to take any lone individual’s word
for this. This National Resources Com
mittee, for instance, which was ap
pointed by the President with Secre
tary Ickes- as chairman, reported in one
of its surveys that “water power lacks
reliability, as it is affected by metero
logical conditions, dry season, floods,
ice in the watcx supply, and mechanical
interferences with transmission lines
connecting me power with distant mar
kets.
Even that isn’t the whole story. In
many hydro plants, maximum possible
output is reached in the summer—while
maximum demand comes in the winter.
Far more important than this, the
great bulk of undeveloped hydro re
sources in this country are situated
west of the Mississippi—while the
great bulk of the population and al
most all big industry is situated in the
East. And it is not economic or feasi
ble to transport power from the plant
except for a moderate distance. The ex
perts place the maximum practical dis
tance at two or three hundred miles.
To sum up, hydro power is econo
mic when, and only when large con
suming centers happen to exist near
large water resources. That means
that most of the country will continue
to be served by steam and other fuel
electric plants, in spite of the hydro
myth the politicians have been so busy
creating.
-0O0
JOHNNY S BREAKFAST
This may seem to be a trifling sub
ject on which to write, but Napoleon
said that “an army travels on its belly.”
Likewise, some wizard said, “Tell me
what you eat and I’ll tell you what you
are.” Thus Johnny’s breakfast becomes
an important matter.
Johnny goes to school and he
ought to go with the proper food to
sustain him and to bolster him up so
that he will do a perfect job on his re
citation and on his behavior.
Sometimes Johnny does not behave
well in school because his mother has
not behaved very well toward him at
home. She w-as out the night before
and “did not feel like” getting up to
see that Johnny had a good breakfast.
Results: he grabbed a wiener at the
corner and “started something” by
eating it all the way into his seat at
school.
But Johnny’s breakfast” is sim
ply our excuse for calling for better
parental care of these children. They
did not bring themselves into the world
and if they did, we are sure a large
percentage wTould have been careful to
select better parents.
School it not reformatory. Not all
schools are nursery schools wrhere lazy
parents may dump their children while
they breathe sweetly in bed in the fore
noon of the morning after.
School is a place where Johnny
partly prepares for life—not a panacea
for all the ills of parents of develop
ing children.
-0O0
A DRAG ON THE COUNTRY
-0O0
A short time ago the Interstate
Commerce Commission increased the
freight rates charged by motor trucks
in New" England and the East Central
states.In an editorial praising this as a
constructive step in dealing with the
general transportation situation, the
New York Times said: “The problem
of rail-motor competition is far from
peculiar to the United States, and most
of the countries of the world are hav
ing to contend with it. The problem is
not one of favoring one form of trans
portation at the cost of another, but
rather of preserving the advantages of
each in a national transportation sys
tem in w'hich each is an integrated and
coordinated part.”
During the past eighteen or
twenty years the motor carriers have j
been in the nature of “teachers’s pets”
so far as our transportation policy is
concerned.Until comparatively recent
ly, they were subjected to no central
regulation, and even today they are
not regulated as stringently or tho
roughly as the railroads. While they
pay considerable in taxes, their rights
0f way_the public highways—are pro
vided by government, for which all the
taxpayers help pay. Railroads, on the
other hand, buy and build their rights
of way another track, and are then
heavily taxed on them in addition to
taxes on equipment earnings, etc.
-0O0
AMONG THOSE PRESENT
-0O0
Approximately 13,000 persons,
enough to populate a small city, who
would otherwise have died in auto acci
dents during 1938, will probably live to
to welcome the New Year next Janu
ary, thanks largely, to the tireless ef
forts of such agencies as the (National
Institute for Traffic Safety, The Na
tional Safety Council, The Automo
tive Safety Foundation, thousands of
newspapers editors, and the casualty
insurance industry.
The men and women who are di
rectly responsible for saving these 13,
000 human lives will receive little or
no recognition for their tireless ser
vices. Their only solace will be found
in dry statistics. They will not even
receive the gratitude they so justly
deserve from those whose very lives
they have saved, bcause providence ne
ver labels victims in advance.
-oOo
SYPHILIS CONTROL
A project to stimulate development
of health activities among 40,000 stu
dents in 104 Negro colleges through
out the country will constitute a first
step in the national campaign in syph
ilis control and social hygiene to reach
an ultimate 35,000,000 young men and
women, it was announced by Dr. Wal
ter Clarke, executive director of the
American Social Hygiene Association.
Action on the proposal was taken
today hy a committee comprising Dr.
Kendall Emerson, managing director
of the National Tuberculosis Associa
tion; Dr. C. St. Clair Guild, field rep
resentative of the NTA; Dr. Paul B.
Comely, associate professor of pre
ventative medicine, Howard Univers
ity ; and Dr. Clarke.
-oOo
Any one who has ever played
chess knows how each move in a game
interlocks with the other. You may
lose a semmingly unimportant pawn at
the fifth move, and finds that it has
lost you your king and the game at the
fortieth.
Chess players take their game ser
iouly and study its underlying theory,
although chess is only a game—a con
test of wits in which the stakes are
trivial. The social struggle is no such
game. The stakes are too high; the
stakes are the life, fortune and happin
ess of each of us. Yet there are leaders
in the struggle—leaders of the people
leaders that have our lives in their
hands—who cannot see further than
the next move, who have less theory &
knowledge o'f what the struggle is all
about than the most amateurish stu
i dent beginner in the game of chess.