THE OlnftttA GUIDE
Published Every- Saturday art 2318-20 Grant St.
' .Omaha, Nebraska
Phone WEbster 1517
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insure publication. ... . ... . __
Race prejudice must go. TM Fatherhood of ?.
’ ' "G«d and ihe lirOtl'fthood’r.r Man mu*t. prevail. ..
These are the only principles whil will stand .
the arid test of good, .
V ■ ■ .. • ' "V “*■— ■ " " ---
EDITORIALS
THREE FOURTHS OF A CENTURY
“Bitter the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod
Feb; in days when hone unborn had
died.”—James Weldon Johnson
TODAY MARKS another milestone
in the march of a struggling people to
ward that goal attained by leading
races of the earth. It was decreed in the
early event of the republic that the na
tion could not long endure half slave
and half free. It must be said in keep
ing the records straight, some of the
qtfonies were opposed to slavery. South
Carolina, and Virginia passed laws a
fainst the evils in their provinces.
It was a great commercial venture
for the ship builders of Liverpool, Eng
land and' the crown vetoed the efforts
of South Carolina and Virginia in
tfeer struggle for keeping slavery out
of their confines.
It was the brave Frederick Doug
lass who taught the spirit of Sr Wil
liam Wilberforce and his school in the
old world and carried on with brilliant
success in making the sentiment which
gave us Harriet Beecher Stowe, Wen
dell Phillips and Abraham Lincoln.
After that bitter struggle between
the states Which ceased hostilities in
1865 the group has steadily made pro
gress. Often friendless, forgotten and
denied the opportunities of decent ex
istence and educational facilities, we
have not given up the struggle in deep
despair.
The hard school that followed im
mediately upon the heels of slavery
tempered the souls of the weary tra
velers to the extent no race on the face
of the earth has ever been able to wea
ther the tempest and endure the hard
ships with such marked success.
The great tory of “Up From Sla
very,” reads like a novel and not only
the South, the country at large but the
world should feel proud of the contri
bution of the colored race. It has made
bricks without straw and on every
hand has insisted in spite of the out
rages, and lawlessness practiced' upon
it, an ‘unparralleled devotion’ and an
instinctive loyalty’ to the flag and the
government of the United States.
We pause today in thanksgiving
for the freedom that has come to us
in celebration for the victories achiev
ed. The dawn of a new day is upon us
and on every hand are the evidences
of faith, struggle and untiring effort.
We have made our mistakes as other
people.
We have been outlawed and held
down by those who possess lesser moral
and poorer vision, but through it all
we have not fallen by the way.
Atlanta World —
_iiDa_
SEVENTY-SIX ANNIVERSARY
Two men stand out in American
history as symbolic of the lofty prin
ciples of the Emancipation Proclama
tion, the historic document which came
into being 76 yars ago, on Jan. 1, 1863.
They are Abraham Lincoln, the
‘“Great Eni*incpat)or,” and Frederick
Douglass, the heroic Negro Aboli
tionist.
Working together, they gave the
first world-sounding blows to the
reactionary forces which would drive
the Negro and white in order to op
press the Negro and at the same time,
keep the whole of America in darkness.
The 76th Anniversary of this truly
American document recalls not alone
the emancipation of the Negro people
but also the collaboration of the Negro
and white people tow ard further demo
cracy and progress.
Lincoln affixed his immortal sign
ature to. this, document as President
of the United’ States. But as leader of
all progressive American he realized
that the ending of slavery was essen
tial to the upward development of the
country.
Frederick Douglass was a co work
er Lincoln, rallying his people to united
struggle with the progressive white
people of his day as the effective means
of bursting the bonds of inhuman
slavery.
Out of this unity, forged in the
fires of the Civil War, came the 13th,
14th and 15th Amendments, wTiich
supposedly guaranteed the equality and
full citizenship of the Negro people in
every phase of American life. But as
noble as was the Emancipation, there
remains to be cleaned' up those nests
of reaction which have not yet accept
eel it.
There are the Southern “unrecon
structed rebel” reactionaries and their
allies in the North. There are lynch
ings, Scottsboro cases, discrimination,
jim crowism, segregation and various
kinds oi vicious oppression against
the Negro people.
This 76 Anniversary requires a
re-dedication of the American people
to the fight to end this oppression once
and for all. Most important, it neces
sitates the passage at this session of
Congress, opening tomorrow, of the
anti-lynching bill, symbolic of the
whole fight for Negro rights.
Thus, as in 1863, will the cause of
progress and democracy be advanced
for all Americans.
-0O0
NEW LIGHT
Congressman Maverick of Texas
throws some light on the “general wel
fare” problems of the South and the
nation in the current Virginia Quar
terly Review. In an article “Let’s Join
the United States,” he makes such as
tonishing frank (for a Southern Con
gressman) statements as:
“Of Southern universities, I know
«f only one which teaches much truth
about the South: the University of
North Carolina. There may be others
but travel and diligent search have not
convinced me there is another.”
“Possibly I should have known it,
but not until recently did I learn that
somewhere around five sixths of the
Southern whites were not slaves own
ers at the outbreak of the Civil War.
In Congress just these last four years,
and being or at least born Southerner,
I was shocked to learn he overwhelm
ing sentiment of the white South was
against secession in 1861.”
“But before we appraise the pre
sent day situation, let us take a look
at history. Let us get the background.
For ndeed, from the historical and the
present day point of view, facts will
prove that the South owes its desperate
status principally to the Negro. It is
either the Negro in actuality, lor in
symbol.”
“The Confederate Constitution also
provided that the powers of the Con
federate states were merely delegated
Congress, and not granted, as in the
Constitution of the United States. Sla
very was everywhere protected and to
be made perpetual.”
Sharecropping and land tenancy
hold from fifty to eighty per cent of
the agricultural population, whereas
there was little or none of either be
fore the Civil War. What is worse, the
landowners today are slaves to the
same system. It is a system holding the
whole South down."
“The effect that tfhe Negro has on
political thinking runs from the naive
and comic to the bitter and tragic. Once
I was talking to a very intelligent
Southern colleague in the House of Re
presentatives about slum clearance.
That Negroes should be in slums had
never occured to him."
“From all this we can gather that "
the Negro stands like a Black Colossus ...
in the middle of every Southern, and
hence every American, problem. He'
is both a symbol and an excuse for
reactionary voting.”
“It is a simple proposition: the
Negro should have a right to make a
living; let us say not altogether for
his own sake, but to keep him from be
ing a drain and drag on the community.
If the Negro’s economic status is im
proved it will solve many other serious
and complicated problems concerning
the races. For the sake of the South
and the nation the problem of the Ne
gro must be approached with more
light and less heat. And the life of the
Negro must be protected, and he should
be allowed to feel secure.”
This new understanding of the
problems of all the people of the South
by a Southern lawmaker is certainly
appreciated by those who are interest
ed in the promoton of the general wel
fare of our country.
—Calvin’s Digest by Floyd Calvin
---0O0-—
NEGROES PROTESTS
WOODRING’S LIBEL
• •
We wish to vigorously protest the
libel on the Negro group, voiced by
the Secretary of War, Harry H. Wood
ring, in a letter to Walter White, secre
tary of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People,
when says: “Following a well establish
ed principle wrhich is endorsed by your
people, it is necessary to set up specific
unit to which colored persons may
be assigned, aiict these organizations
must have a definite and proper place
in the balanced force organization of
the Army as a whole.”
Of course, it is common experience
of Negroes that both the Army and
Navy and all but contemptous of the
existence of Negroes, except when the
country is facing possible disaster and
the unqualified support of every man,
woman and child is needed to assure
victory for the Stars and Stripes. It
it notoriously true that when the Stars
and Stripes fac no immediate foe, the
Army and Navy treat Negroes more
as wards or as subjects than as citizens.
But when Secretary of War Wood
ring comes out pointedly and says to
Negroes that Negroes themselves ap
prove the principle of segregation, he
needs to be set aright, even though he
knows, and th record of the battle of
Negroes for civil rights shows, that
the race does not approve this princi- ,
pie. —Washington Tribune.
-o()o
SCIENCE AND BETTER LIVING
The annual convention of Ameri
can scientists, which just concluded its
sessions a Richmond, Virginia, was an
outstanding event not only for science
but for all Amercian citizens.
More than at any previous session
of these leading specalists in biology,
medicine, chemistry, phjysics, and allied
sciences, the idea that Science and De
mocracy must march forward hand in
hand was stresser again and again.
When the medical men spoke of
curing disease, they also showed that
their scientific work involved a Gov
ernmental program of housing, slum
clearance, and economic security.
When the chemists spoke of better
food for the home, of purer milk and
better bread, they shouedyth'&tvfchSir
scientific werrk involved the. whole • :-o- ’.
gressive fight for better liying stan
dards, ,
American science — all science
worthy of the name—lives and grows
as a response to the needs and problems
of the communtiy. And for the com
munity to benefit as well as for sciehce’
to develop a democratic community is
necessary.
Thus, the American Association
for the Advancement of Science takes '
' place, ip the .army, of progress. Side. .
by side with people, helping to solve
their problems, American science _0ahr'
best keep clear the path of iv -free,
sciehce. t
-oOo
IN THE INTEREST OF LABOR
“In the next session of Congress
the Administration can either attempt
to prevent any revision," says the New
York Times editorially. “What is more
important than such a revision con
sidered by itself is a comprehensive and
well balanced labor program designed
as far as possible to promote indus
trial peace. Is is unlikely that Congress
could form a balanced program in the
heat of its own debates unless some
authoritatievly study had already been
made of its own problem. The president
could perform no more useful service
in this cause than by the appointment
of a commission, similar in its general
make up to the commission that gave
us such fine objective reports on labor
conditions in England and Sweden to
prepare a set of well considered recom
mendations. If such a commisson’s re
port were balanced and non partisan,
the resulting discussions and legislation
in Congress would almost certainly
be governed by its spirit."
-0O0
Jones: My career is promising.
Louise: Really? What do you do?
Jones: I make political speeches.
-0O0
THE RADIO MART
• #
*■' —'■ ■ ■ • i
In 1937 the rado industry sold
some 8,065,000 radio sets for the sum
of $450,000,000. In the same year the
sale of replacement parts and brought
this amount up to $537,000,000.
There are 30,000,000 families in the
United States and 26,000,000 of them
now have home radios, which means a
market saturation of 87 percent. Con
sidered against the fact that twenty
years ago here were virtually no home
with sets, this level of saturation be
comes perhaps the most impressive sta
tistic in recent United States business
history. It means of course, that radio
now depends enormously “on its re
placement market. Rado like the auto
mobile industry is dong a good job of
making its past sold products look ob
solete.
Colored people are apparently over
looking this field of enterprise. In 1935
thre were only 12 2-adios and music
stores owned and operated by Negroes
in the United States. These 12 stores
had a total annual sale of $27,000 their
total annual payroll was $10,000.
According to figures from the bu
reau of Census only 7.5 percent of all
Negro families had a rado set in 1930.
More than 14 per cent of the Urban
families had a radio set as compared
with 0.3 percent for rural families and
3 percent for rural non-farm families.
Negro families in the North and West
owned a much larger per cent of radios
than Negro families in the south. While
there has been an appreciable increase
in the number of radios owned by Ne
groes since 1930 there are still many
Colred families particularly in the
south without a radio.
For greater economic security,
read our Colored papers and buy their
adverised products.
BUYER’S GUIDE by Clarence H.
Peacock.