THE OMAHA GUIDE
Published Every Saturday at 2418-20 Grant St.
Omaha, Nebraska
Phone WEhster 1617
Entered as Second Class Matter March 16, 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 nt>t later than
5:00 p. m. Monday for curren issue. All Adver
tising Capy or Paid Articles not later than
Wednesday noon, preceeding date of issue, to
insure publication. _ .
Race prejudice must go. The Fatherhood ®f
God and tha Brotherhood of Man must prevail.
These are the only principle* whil will stand
the acid test of good.
EDITORIALS
THE WAGE AND HOUR BILL
The New Federal Wage and Hour
Law, which went into effect last week
is potentially of great benefit to the Ne
gro but whether it will be so practi
cally is another question. From reports
coming in from various section of the
country the first reaction to the bill
has been the laying off of many work
ers by manufacturers and other em
ployers. This was especially true in the
South, where employers of colored la
boi' are reported to have closed down
rather than comply with the law inso
far as their employees are concerned.
The law m^kjs jnandatory the 44
hour week throughout the nation and
p minimum wage of $11 per week
for unskilled labor, with set minimums
for semi-skilled trades, applying to all
workers regardless of race or creed.
We believe that the action of some
employers in cutting down of their
number of employees in order to keep
♦heir payrolls on the present basis is a
bluff to embarass the present adminis
Wtion and to prevent the enforce
ment of the strict law. The idea is to
put the administration in a quandry,
so that if the new law is strictly enforc
ed the relief rolls will be increased by
those thrown out of a job, whereas if
exceptions are made as in the case of
Negro employees, these exceptions will
defeat the purposes of the law.
The New Deal faces its most se
vere test in the administration of the
law. And we shall watch with interest
to see that no exception is made in the
enforcement of the law in so far as the
Negro is concerned. However, we
realize that some time will be needed
to perfect the machinery for the pro
per enforcement of the law and there
is need for patience on the part of both
employer and employee.
-0O0
The Puritans used to go out and
get their turkeys on the wing. Nowa
days, we go out and get them on the
cuff.
BACK TO BARBARISM
Only a state with low standards
could send a child to prison for life, and
only a Negro child would be so treated
so. Louisiana is the state which is
guilty of this monstrous crime against
childhood and itself when it imprisons
an 11 year old boy charged with mur
der.
Prejudice is a taskmaster. It makes
its victimr. harm themselves for the
slim consolation they get out of the
wreck they make of other. Lousisiana
saddles itself with an expense year af
ter year in feeding housing and guard
ing this boy. Even if it makes him
work while in prison, to whatever de
gree he is productive he interferes with
regular industry that much. It will
spend a sum on him which, if put in
to schooling would prepare a dozen
like him for useful living.
This dollar loss is only the small
part of the evil done. The human val
ues destroyed are to be reckoned. The
boy might have the making of a use
ful citizen. His one act should not
damn him body and sould. A multitude
of children go about pointing their in
dex finger and saying, “I shoot you.’”
Other carried out the threat, Only he
is held responsible. In the other case
the community says a child cannot
know what he is doing. Fewr of lis who
have reached man’s standards for what
we did as children. Our misdeeds were
treated as pranks, and pranks is all
they were even where the conse
ouences were grave. A child cannot
have evil motives, within in the mean
ing of the lawr and therefore cannot
be guilty of crime.
If Louisian? were wiser, even if it
continued to be prejudiced, it would
see that it is cheaper to educate and
prepare Negroes than to penalize them.
But Louisiana is not wise. Prejudice
olinds it to its own interest. No won
der it does not see what is good for
Negroes. It does not see what is good
for itself, None is so blind as he who
refuser to see.
—The Call.
-0O0
IN WAREHOUSES
-0O0
It is three weeks now since Secre
tary Wallace proposed that the Gov
ernment take action to turn over the
farm “surplus crops” to the millions
of unemployed and needy families
A sensible and pratical proposition.
But' thsu far, not much has been done
about it, except getting the press has
been getting purple in the face at the
idea, and hurling all kinds of “argu
ments” against it.
Last week Secretary Wallace re
turned to the idea in a speech over the
radio, and urged its adoption. It is
indeed time to act, Let the people con
sider the tacts—
8.000. 000 bales of cotton are lying
unused in Government warehouses,
bought and paid for with Federal
funds.
100.000. 000 bushels of “surplus
wheat are now available, but unused.
This situation is true also of fruits
butter, milk and corn.
Why not permit the Farm Surplus
Corporation to turn into clothes for
the facilies which cannt buy? Why not
give them, at very cheap prices, or as
a relief benfit, the unused food?
GHOSTS TOWNS
When resources wither, cities die,
When dust blown acres supplant the
lands of fertile green, when once rich
oil strikes dry up, when sweeping tim
ber stands have been ruthlessely slash
ed to earth, they leave behind them on
ly ghost towns, ghost communities, and
poignant memories of the days when
natural rescources in full prime made
them thrive in a hum of prosperity.
It has remained for the last two
or three years to show that good will,
co-operation between managements
and workers for the common, as well
as their own good, is also one of the
most prescious resources any commun
ity can boast. And when this resource
is exhausted, the threat of a ghost city
becomes all too imminent
Last week, 0 M. Morris a promi
nent Arkon, 0., hotelman, who knows
whereof he speaks, portrayed’ a mo
dern industrial tragedy in these words:
“Arkon is now dubbed the ghost city.
It is still shrinking. The few remaining
industries are in the process of join
ing the exodus to avoid Arkon’s in
cessant labor difficulties. We tried
everything in order to survive, and at
last we found the answer— Public
opinion. *
“But public opinion didn’t turn back
to sanity in time.”
News from the business front is
almost uniformly good. Typical com
ment came recently from Alfred B.
Sloan, head of General Motors, who
said, “I feel encouraged for the first
time in many years that American
business and industry are headed for
a long uphill pull.” Inasmuch as Mr,
Sloan has often tended to be very pes
simistic in the past, this is regarded as
being of exceptional significance.
Four about ten successive weeks,
the business indicators have shown
steady advances. This is largely due
to major improvement shown by the
automobile industry, whose new mo
dels are now coming on the market lit
one late week, car output jumped 50
pr cent. Monthly shipment rate, it is
expected, will soon be at the 250,000
point.
Construction figures continue to be
another bright spot in the picture, with
both residential and non-residential
building far above the levels of last
year. Still more substantial increases
in all kinds of building, including pub
lic works, are anticipated for this win
ter and spring.
Retail trade, which hung behind in
dustrial production during most of the
the summer months, is on the wise
now, with Christmas prospects in most
parts of the country good.
It is an interesting fact that the
wage-hour came into effect without
causing much of a ripple in business.
One reason is that most large busines
ses are unaffected by the law's mini
mums, inasmuch as they have long
exceeded them. Another is that most
business men believe that moderate re
forms of this nature are inevitable and
desirable.
THE WORLD’S BEST MILK
A health specialist recently point
ed out that the United States, on a
whole, has the best and purest milk
supply in the. world.
A considerable part of the credit
lor this immensely important achieve
ment must be given to the large dairy
markets of America. Part of their
work has been to show farmers how
to improve both the health and produc
tivity of their herds-^and also how to
handle milk in the safest possible man
ner. These lessons have been widely
followed—and our pure milk is the re
sult.
-0O0-—
•v
Table Talk
At a dinner rectntly, a man sitting
next to a lady was, to say the least ine
briated: He leered at her and commen
ted: “Say you are the homeliest woman
Pve ever seen.’
With a show spirit she replied,
“Well, you are the drunkest man I’ve
ever seen!”
“I know, madam,” the souse an
swered, “But I will get over that in the
morning.”
Young Housewife: Honey, since
you have already eaten three helpings
of my first batch of biscuits, I’m going
to bake some more for you tomorrow.
Won’t that be lovely? Won’t that be—
_speak to me, darling, speak to me!
BUYERS’ GUIDE by Clarence H. Peacock |
There is pifobably no other type
of retailing today in which the race
business man faces more complete and
drastic competion than the retailing of
grocery products. It was in this field
that the chain system of retailing first
achievded real success bringing with it
the economies of scientific manage
ment and large scale operation. In
spite of this fact, however more Color
ed people are engaged in the retailing
of proceries in the United States than
in the retailing of any other type of
consumer merchandise. «
There are 6,364 Negro owned and
operated grocery stores throughout
the country. They reported total sales
amounting to $13,621,000 or an aver
age of $2,140 per store. These stores
give employment to over 15,0000 Ne
groes, their total payrolls amount to
$545,000 a year.
How many of these 6,364 Colored
retail grocery stores will take advan
tage of this opportunty to create in
terest in their business by advertising
their products in our papers? Here is
a chance for Negro business men to
spread’ constructive propaganda of a
sort that will increase their sales and
build up good will for future business.
In Harlem there are 1,200 retail
procery stores that serve the 260,000
Colored people in that section. At least
half of these retail stores are units of
seven of eight chains and of the others
not over 50 are owned and operated by
Negroes. What is true of Harlem is re
latively true of every city where there
is considerable Negro population.
Colored youth need education and
training that will lead them into those
channels of business whre they can
meet and' compete on an equal footing
with all other Americans. They must
be taught not only to use their hands
but they must sharpen their wits and
advance their thinking so as to meet
the shifting requirements of a chang
ing world. Fortunately a new genera
tion is rising a generation more articu
late, more agressive and more consci
ous of its economic rights, generation
that will fight collectively for the
opening of those doors that have been
closed to them.
Colored people spend approximate
ly $4,000,000 a year with the 608 Color
ed' owned and operated drug stores in
the country. These stores give employ
ment to approximately 862 people and
pay them over $431,000 a year in sal
aries.
Negro drug stores are one of the
few Negro enterprises whose number
did not suffer greatly in the failures
during the depression; The reason
for this is the law requires that a grad
udate pharmicist be in charge of the
prescription department, which makes
it less easy for the uneducated to en
| ter this field of enterprise.
Recently a certain brand of nose
drops that were highly advertised,
were put off on the public as sure fire
for colds. On investigation it was
found that these drops were actively
detrimental and had in many cases of
children’s colds, led to lipoid pneumo
nia and death.
For economic security read yoiur
newspapers and buy their advertised
products.