The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19??, August 30, 1941, City Edition, Page 5, Image 5
» « opinions March of Events comments m mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmt mmmmmm ^_ _ _ .. ....—————jmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmrnmmmmmm THE OMAHA GUIDE A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER Published Every Saturday at 2418*20 Grant St OMAHA, NEBRASKA PHONE WEbster 1517 Entered as Second Class Matter Manch 15. 1927, at the Post Office at Omaha, Nebraska, under Act of 'Congress of March 3, 1879. S. J. Ford, — — — Pres. Mrs. Flurna Coo pel, — — Vice Pres. C. C. Galloway, — Publisher and Acting Editor Boyd V. Galloway, —. Sec’v and Treas. SUBSCRIPTION RATE IN OMAHA One Year — — — — S2.C0 Six Months — — — $1.25 Three Months — — — .75 One Month — — — — .25 SUBSCRIPTION RATE OUT OF TOWN One Year — — — — $2 50 Six Months — — — — $1.50 Three Months — — — $1.00 One Month — — -- — .40 All News Copy of Churches and all organizat ions must be in our office not later than 1:00 p. m. Monday for current issue. All Advertising Copy or Paid Articles not later than Wednesday noon, pro ceeding date of issue, to insure publication. 1—^————« AFTER THE WAR, WHAT? The United States, Great Britain and Russia are committed to the task of ridding the world of Nazi tyranny. How? Certainly not by conferences at sea, nor by speeches or any other means than force. That the war should be won by the three great powers, we all agree. And we think they will win it. And after the war has been won by them, how will they settle the myriad problems which will follow in the train of war. Thus far these powers are comm itted to restore national boundaries changed by aggression, without any of the powers seeking territorial gains. They are agreed, too, on the proposit ion of improvement of the condition of all workers so as to prvide social sec urity for all men everywhere. Our hope is that whatever solu tion may be arrived at, it will be inclu sive and just for all men of all races and creeds and colors, and that exploit ation of men and women will cease, and that all men will be aided in their aspiration to reach a higher standard of living. If these things come to all men after the war, no matter what price has been paid for them in blood and treasure and tears, all sacrifices will not have been made in vain. DR. VALURAZ B. SPRATLIN Dr. Valuraz B. Spratlin, Head of the Department of Romance Languag es at Howard University, is one of the most remarkable men of our time. When a child he was stricken with in fantile paralysis. His physican gave him but a few years to live. He was forbidden to read, but to satisfy him, he was permitted to attend grade school classes and listen to other pu pils recite. He finished grade and high school with honors at the head of his class. From the University of Denver he was graduated with the highest honors. And at Middleberry Univers ity in Vermont, where he received his degree of Doctor of Modern Languag es, and at the University of Madrid, Spain, where he studied for several years, ha won distinction. Three years ago, he spent a year in South Amer ica studying the Spanish background there. He has written and published two books one dealing with a Spanish Negro scholar and the other with a Spanish Negro Painter, whose works of art rival those of Valesquez. It is not too much to say that Dr. Spratlin is the foremost student the race has produced here in America in the Spanish field. His has been an example of well nigh sublime courage through which he rose from the brink of the grave to the heights in a special field. We submit that relatively, Dr. Spratlin has travelled further than has President Franklin D. Roosevelt, John M. Langston, former Virgin ia Congressman, was the grand uncle of Langston Hughes, the poet and au thor. * whose illness overtook him long after he had reached his majority. We present Dr. Spratlin as Amer ica’s finest example of courage. THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY BULLETIN Howard University has recently published a pictorial bulletin illustrat ing the scope of the work being done at that institution as it enters upon its 75th year of racial and national serv ice. Among the more important things listed are facts showing 65 mem bers of the faculty possess their doc torates. Compared with the whole number of men and women in the coun try who hold such degrees, there is nothing remarkable about it, but when one recalls that fifty years ago, we had but two or three Negroes who had doctorates, the fact becomes important One other fact was noteworthy;— 95 per cent of all the Negro lawyers in the United States are graduates of Howard University. The physical equipment under the presidency of Dr. Mordercai Johnson, has grown tremendously. Howard University is the only university am ong Negroes in this country. There are many excellent colleges, but none meets the requirements of a univers ity, save Howard. It is not an expensive school to attend. Tuition is $150.00 per year, room rent about $10.00 per month and board in the cafeteria is $18.00 per month. For 9 months at the Univers ity, the expense for bare necessities averages, not including clothes, travel expenses and extras, about $405.00 per year. This does not include books and working equipment. The total requir ed for all purposes would not exceed $S00.00 annually. Negroes should send as many of their children as possible to Howard University. It is not only a great seat of learning, but it is the center of as piration to all Negro youth who would enter upon the pathway of service which leads to the heights of human en deavor. The Howard University Bulletin has rendered a splendid service thru its last pictorial number. • _ Fritz Thyssen Denounces Hitler Fritz Thyssen, former German Industrialist, who backed Hitler on his rise to power, now laments his contri bution to Hitler. And for good reas on. Thyssen was deprived of his es tates in Germany and all his wealth an industries and would have been depriv ed of his head, if Hitler’s Gestapo could have laid hold of him. Mr. Thyssen presents his case a gamst Hitler in Liberty Magazine. It is a good story. **** Employment has grown apace in defense industries since the March on Washington was organized by Rand olph and others. * * * * Watch onr paper, it will soon have good news for you about one of our own. ***♦ PREPARE YOUR LAWNS Prepare your lawns now for Spring Sow your grass seed next month and next year your lawn will be alright. Help your neighbor. **** A shortage on information often results in a “longage” of argument. LABOR & INDUSTRY (by George F. McCray for ANP) THE LABOR-SOUTH CIVIL WAR NOT A WHITE FOLKS FIGHT. UNION NEGRO CO OPERATION FOR DEMOC RACY 111 the congress of the United States last week, the CIO and the AFL. won another impressive vic tory in the long civil war between the south and the ©rganzed labor movement. The fight centered a round a house vote on a conference report approving the revised am endment to the Selective Service act. This amendment as passed by the senate and very slightly modified in conference would, in the opinion of Bill Green, of the AFL. “Impose a condition of in voluntary servitude upon labor”. Phil Murray of CIO. charged the legislation: “is not intended to exercise any compulsion upon man agement, but only against labor. Thus the AFL. and the CIO. at tained an effective degree of unity on a matter affecting their mut ual interests. After various representatives had been properly “button holed” by labor spokesmen, the house smashed the attack on the unions by a vote of 255 to 114. Republi cans, Democrats voted against the measure. When the results of the con test were announced, Rep. Martin Dies stated “Now that the Republi cans have gone over to the CIO. maybe I better start investigating 'em”. NOT JUST A WHITE FOLKS FIGHT To many Negroes, north and south, the struggle over the re vised Connally amendment to the Selective Service act will seem like a “white folks” fight in which the darker brother has little interest. But as a matter of fact, the fight strikes at the very root of our pol itical and economic problems in the south An analysis of the vote revealed that 72 of 78 representatives from Southern states having poll tax restrictions on the right to vote, were in favor of the legislation to place labor “in involuntary serv itude”. It is not mere coincidence that in Jthe states which sent these men to congress, Negroes enjoy, as a matter of right, few of the privileges and immunities of Am erican citizenship. UNIONS AND NEGROES IN SAME BOAT These men and the industrial, commercial and plantation powers they represent are bitterly oppos ed to unions for the same reason! they disfranchise Negro and poor white labor in the south. They want an almost absolute control over the labor force in their dis tricts These same men and the unions know that this control is safe so long as workers in these areas are not able to vote. Likewise every Negro in the south with the brain of an ant knows that the fight for civil liberties, better education, public sanitation, health facilities housing and the very security of life and property depend upon our winning the right to vote. THE CHURHILL- STALIN GET TOGETHER Our right to vote will come only when the American people with our help insist upon equality of suffrage in the United States. The trade unions, particularly the CIO are in the forefront of this fight. It should be no more difficult to make common cause with the CIO and the AFL. than it was for a Tory government in England to make common cause with Comm unist Russia. We too are fighting for our lives. TICKET FOR THE CHARIOT (by A. H. WEILER) (from The N. Y. Timeh) In this year of stress the chanc es are that Broadway’s movie go ers are not likely to see “Mystery In Swing”. Nor is it likely that they will care, for that matter. But tonight, some four miles nortn of Times quare, a representative quota of Harlem’s citizens, seat ed in the Odeon and Renaissance Theatres and at the Harlem Opera House, are probably enjoying the House, are probably enjoying the seventy minutes of this all-Negrot mystery-musical. And, it is the especial mdtier of Jack Goldberg to keep that gentry’s interest un flagging, for it is under the Gold berg aegis that a vast portion of the all-Negro film production has been nurtured. Mr. Goldberg, whose fifty-one years sit lightly on a lanky frame, which is topped by a wavy, black pompadour, was volubly enthusi ast about the past, present and future of his field, when visited the other forenoon. A native Ne . Yorker, in whose speech the local idiom and inflection are unmistak able, Mr. Goldberg became a figur ative handmaiden to the Negro Thespis some fifteen years ago when he ended a long association with the Loew’s Circuit and began to book and manage Negro legiti mate^ burlesque apd vaudqville ftalent and also to film silent Negro movies. On Poverty Row Until recently his pictures have been producted in studios in New Jersey, Florida or on any available lot in Hollywood’s “poverty row,” he explained. The six to eight fea tures released each year through. International Roadsshows. Inc., the Goldberg distributing company, cost about $20,000 and usually gross twice that amount. These films, he estimates, play to a weekly audience of 400.000 in ap proximately 500 theatres in the East, South, California and, lately. Latin and South America. Shoot ing of the films generally takes about seven days with a full crew of white camera men, directors and technical oassistants. Rarely are name stars used, al though Mr. Goldberg has produced some films with Bill Robinson, Clarence Muse and Flourney Mil ler of the team of Miller and Lyles. Principal earns in the vicinity of $100 per week, while supporting players leverage- about $60 per week. But for entrepreneur Gold berg, Whose producing problems run tthe gamut from script to fin ancing, /year—round availability of studio, casts and technicians, has been, up to now, his prime bugaboo. “Take the past season, ken Strings for instance,” he said. *’ ‘Double Deal,’ ‘Mystery In Swing’ and ‘Broken Strings’ I made in Holly wood; ‘Sunday Sinners’ and ‘Mur der on Lenox Avenue’ were done in Florida, and ‘Paradise in Har lem’ was filmed at Fort Lee, New Jersey.” Hope Springs Eternal Now, it seems, he has cause for more roseate hopes. Whjen Mr. Goldberg begins production in Sep tember on “America’s Tenth Man" and a fifteen-Chapter all-Negro serial, “The Crimson Claw,” they will mark his first productions in hfs new petrmanent quarters in Miami—a two-block square erst while Negro amusement park, com plete with a swimming pool, which already has been transformed into the Liberty Citty Motion Picture Studios, Inc., of which he is pres ident. Concurrent with the acquisition of his studio has been the charter ing in Florida last month of the Lincoln Motion Picture Association which will eventually serve as a creative center for the develop ment of Negro films and screen talent through a scholarship fund to be raised by local Negro organ izations. Working hand in hand with professionals should not only d velop native professional tech nical talents, of which there are practically none, but the studio al so would serve as a direct outlet for those talents when they mat ured. Further explaining the innate contentment derived from his task Mr. Goldberg declared that Negro actors were highly amendable to suggestion. “In fifteen years I’ve never needed a contract with any of them and I’ve never had a mis understanding or loud word with them. That’s my record and thats history,” he added. And, it seems too, that if he continues to avoid the dice, watermelon and razor cliches (vclhSch his audiences em phatically dislike) that inevitable Sweet Chariot will have to provide room eventually for an honorary passenger. AGRICULTURAL NOTES (Selected From Reports of Negro Extension Workers) Negro business and professional men of Macon, Georgia, have been assisting 4-H Club members in Bibb County to start and operate poultry projects. These men ad vance funds to the Club members and receive two-fifths of the chicks when they reach the fryer stage. May Belle Tomas, member of the Huffsmith 4-H Club in Harris County, Texas, was awarded the Gold Medal for being the best all around 4-H girl in the State for the year. Preserttation was made at Prairie View College during the annual 4-H Encampment and Short Course. Miss Thomas sel ected Bedroom Improvement as her project for the year. Emery C. Thomas, Negro Coun ty Agent at Dublin, Georgia, con ducts each Fall after harvest time, an Annual Harness Repair Day. Last year over 200 bridles, which had been tied up with wire and strings, were properly repaired and a new skill added for fthe far mers vfho participated. Two hundred Negro farmers from 10 counties of the Northern District of Texas recently atend ed a Cotton Insect Control Dem onstration. Arrangements for the demonstration were made by H- S. Estelle, District Agent for Exten sion work among Negroes and of ficials of the East Texas Chamber of Commerce. During a recent meeting of white Texas farmers held at the State A&M College at College Station, John H. Williams, Negro District Extension Agent at Prai rie View College was invited ti give a demonsitration in meat cutt ing. Also an expert in leather work, Mr. Williams taught the subject during the 1941 Summer School at Tuskegee nstitute. In reporting on the Cotton Mat tress making pregram in Macon County! Alabama, for 1940, Mrs. Laura R. Daly, Home Demonstra tion Agen|t says that 1967 famil ies received cotton and ticking for making a matress. “Of that num ber” says she, “only 77 families had income during the year of $300 or over and 11 percent were own ers, 42 percent and 47 percent sharecroppers or wage hands”. aced with the uncertainty of having sufficient funds to continue his education, Leroy Wilson, a stu dent at Beach High School in Sav annah, Georgia, borrowed $10 in 1939 and started a poultry pro ject. The Principal of the school turned over his own garage to the energetic youngster who in turn, built for his use a brooder with v old bricks and clay. Wilson is now1 pursuing his education at Georgia State College and con tinues to raise chicks for sale. Latest reports show that he main tains an average flock of over 400 birds and receives a steady income to defray his expenses. FATALITY RECORD DEPENDS UPON US ALL The Omaha Guide, 2418 Grant Omaha, Nebraska, Dear Editor: Highway crashes in July left Nebraska’s road strewn with the lives of 36 people. Not since Oct ober of 1937—forty-five months a go—have we suffered the disas trous effects of losing that many lives. Then 41 died! More than a life a day was sac rificed in those July accidents. Unfortunately our record must show that 25 Nebraska counties, including Dougl&s County, were affected by those experiences. Six persons had died by July 13. 28 other names' were added to the death list in the last nineteen days. Certainly there must be some thought or effort given to stem the tide. We have all been cau tioned against the expected in crease in accident frequency dur ing this season. In view of the record which lies ahead as a chal lenge, we again call upon every one to travel safely. We cannot by any means replace the lives of the 129 who have died. But we can all do our share to prevent fur ther accident losses. The Nebras ka motor vehicle fatality record depends on all of us. Yours very truly, Department of Law Enforce ment and Public Safety, R. T. Schrein, Capt. Nebr. Safety Patro. Dark Laughter .... by ol harrington ^ v * if, •" Js'S * ' ■ - ***&* “Them chicks over there are as sharp as a tack, Boots, but dig the lunch box them beat chicks is got over here.” %