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About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1945)
Free Speech By Ruth Taylor Free speech is the life blood' of the Republic of the United States. From the Bill of Rights to the Four Freedoms, it has been a symbol of democracy, so completely accepted as a right, that we have come to take it for granted. Without free speech no man knows the ambitions or ideals motivating his neighbor. The abolition of free speech precedes by only a moment the enslavement of man. But how may we preserve free speech? If free speech is to be desired enough to fight for it and if its loss is one of the greatest a nation can suffer, we must cherish it and use it wisely—for free speech is a responsibility as well as a right. Free speech must be true speech. Free speech must be rail- speech. Free speech means the right to disagree and to state the reason for dissent, without recourse to slanderous abuse. While we fight to protect freedom of speech, we should not employ that freedom to destroy unity or to snip at one another. No one group, whether it be f class, employment, race, national origin or reli gion, should carry free speech to extremes. If one side abuses the right df free speech, the other side is not justified in following suit. Liberty must never degenerate into license; free dom of assembly must never end in mob rule; and free speech must never lower itself to vituperative slander of those with whom we are not in accord or against any group of our population. Free speech can only be exercised by a free ]1eo ple—free to study the facts, to weigh th source and to state its own position clearly and calmly. Free men must be ready to listen as well as to speak, and to be tolerant of every argument, every point of view—except the argument and point of view of in tolerance. Editorial: “Which - - Will It Be?” I fife -- VICTORY FOND AND COMMUNITY CM BIT I QUOTES I OF THE WEEK “His mouth does not always carry out the functions of his brain.” — Gen. Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, re. Gen. Geo. Pat ton. “The Japanese people will nat urally get used to the way of democracy.” — Prince Taka matsu, Hirohito’s brother, to U. S. press. “It is doubtful if any foresee able degree of mass production could absorb a 30% increase in wages.” — Mark Sullivan, col umnist. * ________ “There isn’t enough to talk about on the air.” — Raymond Moley, quitting as radio com mentator. “Government, industry and la bor must pull together if the un employment period is to be short ened to an irreducible minimum.” —The American Machinist. | _ “Apparently fleas, like birds, smell their food before they eat.” — Dr. H. L. Eder, Santa Bar bara, Califs after experimenting. "" i ■ ^ OVERTONES _(BY AL HENINGBURG)_ THE D. A. R. AGAIN: You might have thought that the unfavorable publicity given to the Daughters of the American Revolution when they refused to permit Marian Anderson to sing in Constitution Hall in Washing ton would have changed the good ladies' minds, or that the war would have brought a new outlook. But that isn’t the case at all, as witness the fact that the same issue is raised about Hazel Scott; well-known pianist. You remember that Marian Anderson sang to a record-breaking crowd at the foot of the Lincoln Monument, and that Mrs. Roosevelt resigned from the DAR in protest against their reactionary attitude. Hazel Scott is by no means the great artist that Marian Anderson is, but she doesn’t deserve the raw deal the Daughters in sist on cooking-up. e FIGHT ON USES: On of the big gains made during the War was to establish a United States Employment Service, thus, ending the spotty, jim-crow direction of employ ment b}' the several states. In the face of a con certed drive to re-establish state direction, Senators Wagner and Murray are introducing a bill to make permanent the federal service instituted during the War. The new bill stinulates that there is to be “no discrimination.” If you have any worthwhile contacts in Washington, now is the time to work on them, for a return to state control of this important service will mean that millions of Negroes will again be by-passed on the job question, and won’t even have a chance at referral in the better-paying jobs. THE STRIKE PICTURE: You don’t need to spend two hours on a bus crawl mg up Fifth Avenue in New York City to realize that strikes are increasing daily, and that many more are on the way. As this is written, 61,000 striking longshoremen have tied up practically ev ery ship in New York Harbor. A good guess is that Mr. Truman will soon ask for an all-round in crease of ten to fifteen percent in wages, and then put it up to workers to stay on the job until recon version is at least w.ell under way! THE WORLD ABROAD NEW YORK, N. Y.—A behind-the-scenes strug gle over United States policy with regard to Japan is beginning to come out into the open. The Japan ese Premiere, Prince Higashi-Kuni, drew a sharp retort from Acting Secretary of State Aclieson, when he asked the people of the United States “to forget Pearl Harbor and bury hate.” Aclieson said that this request showed how little the Japanese people as yet understood “the nature of their own conduct or the mind of the American people.” He pointed out that Pearl Harbor was “not a symbol of American hatred for Japan, but a symbol of Jap anese perfidy.” The Japanese Government, he said, “will be judged by its deeds, not its words.” Simultaneously, General Mac Arthur, stung by criticism of alleged “soft treatment” of the Japan ese, began to crack down on war criminals, clapped censorship on the Japanese press and radio, and ex plained that the terms of the Potsdam ultimatum were far from “soft” and would be earned out to the letter. As against these developments on the “tough” side, various American officers commented favor ably upon the cooperative spirit shown by the Jap anese. General Eichelberger, Commander' of the Eighth U. S. Army, went so far as to say that if things went on as smoothly as they are now going, “we ought to have this thing cleaned up in a year.” And General Mac Arthur himself made the startling statement that not over 200,000 troops would be needed for the occupation of Japan. It became clear that some of our high-ranking military men hold the view that the occupation of Japan can and should be terminated in a very short time. The reason given is that an island nation, having lost its sea and air power, its merchant ship ping and its overseas empire, cannot again become a menace to the peace. In Germany the plans apparently call for a long occupation and a long period of probation during which there will be no German Government or rec ognition of German sovereignty. In Japan, on the other hand, the Allies are appar ently not only willing but anxious to preserve a continuity of Japanese soverigntv, provided the surrender terms are carried out. Quite possibly the occupation will be shorter than that of Germany While it is too soon to reach any conclusions, it is not too soon to become aware of certain dangers. One such danger is that we may repeat in Japan some of the fatal mistakes we made in Germany 25 years ago, even though we appear to be avoiding a repetition of those mistakes in Germany itself. In Germany today the whole Junker class is being uprooted by land reform, the General Staff is des troyed, and the industrial barons have been shorn of much of their power by the partial dismember ment and de-industrialization of Germany. The soil and climate have been changed. There* is at least a chance for an eventual domeocratic Ger many. There is a very real danger that our present j course in Japan may lead to the continuation of the feudal oligarchy of Emperor, nobility and industr ial monopolists. A particular military clique may perhaps be destroyed but the soil and climate in which it grew and flourished may remain unchang ed. That is what happened in Germanv after World War I. That the recently reorganized State Department is not unaware of danger was made clear by Mr. Acheson’s comment upon General Mac Arthur’s statement. Mr. Acheson said: “I have no comments to make on the military as pects of what General MasArthur stated ... I think I can say that I am surprised that anybody can fore tell at this time the number of forces which will be necessary in Japan. ‘‘The occupation forces are the instruments of policy and not the determinants of policy, and the policy is and has been that the surrender of Japan will be carried out, that Japan will be put in a posi tion where it cannot renew aggressive warfare, and that the present economice social system of Japan, which makes for a will to war, will be changed, so that will to war will not continue. ---— GROWING THUNDER CLOUDS: It’s a very long way from here to Java or to Indo China, and you can bet we’re not getting nearly all the news, but what we do get shows clearly that the thunderclouds are growing darker by the day. The French, too weak for the moment to re-establish their stranglehold on Indo-China, have persuaded the British to hold things together for them. It now looks as if the Japanese have been asked by the British to help keep the “natives” in line. And it must be a strange sight to see Indians, officered by white men, shooting down Annamites who want to be free. Censorship is tighter than ever in India, and now it is almost impossible to get any straight news. It seems clear though that the British plan to continue the old game of imperialism, while they tiy to per suade the world to believe that Hindu-Moslem dif ferences make it almost imperative that the English stay on for another hundred years or so. Sooner or later, and the advent of the atomic bomb helps to hasten the day, subjugated and ex ploited peoples all over the earth will provoke such a blood-letting as cannot now be imaigned. It’s hard to imagine how western nations can be stupid enough to go on trying to take everything away from the “natives”, giving nothing in return, and expect the exploited races to go on liking it. There is by far too much fascism in this country, but you’ve got to admit that America is the only major power to voluntarily give up a colonial pos WASHINGTON R. F. D. I ASHING TON, D. C.—President Truman is faced with his first critical test of domestic leader ship by the labor unrest in the industrial Middle west. This has been expected. Labor and management pulled their punches during the war. Both have accepted postwar industrial strife as inevitable. Now they are getting ready to slug it out. The apparent concession of automobile worker unions to settle for less than a 30 percent increase j in payrolls is only temporary. Labor has been! building its case for higher payrolls for months. It has accepted as fact that management would be out to break the unions, as after World War I. Labor feels that now’s the time for a showdown on the issue of wage scales. Its strategy is to meet1 management head on while the unions have funds. Here are the high points of labor’s casee: (1) Wage rates increased 32.4 percent during the war; cost of living, 45 percent. Cutting work ers’ pay envelopes, through elimination of over time pay and other wartime extras, will so^ drastic ally curtail labor income that markets can’t possibly be found to support a full production-full employ ment program. (2) Without overtime wage rates must be in creased 25 percent or more to keep the economy rolling at full speed. Unions are asking for the same pay for a 40-hour week as they got in wartime for a 48-hour week. (3) )Corporations have the money to boost wages out of profits without increasing prices. CIO pla** A re You Keeping Up with theTimes? Read the Greater Omaha Guide! session, and help the people concerned to establish their independence. That happened in the Phillip ines, and that one fact alone shows that the great majority of Americans actually believe in the dem ocratic process. Our big job is to try to increase tnat number, and at the same time out-plan and out fight the native fascists. SKULLDUGGERY AT WORK: The fashion in which adults in Chicago, Gary and New York have egged on conflict between white and Negro students in these three cities shows that the hatemongers of America will hesitate at noth ing. It is almost unbelievable that men and women in a free country would strike thus ajf; the schools, the very center of reparation, but that is exactly what is now happening. DO’S AND DON’TS: Do tach him to be tidy in his youth and he will be come an asset to the race and the community as an adult. ^-ir=z.=: i. itz ii ... =11- ===n^_:^_^-—— es corporate profits before taxes in 1944 at $25,000 000,000. CIO argues that to carry them through reconver sion, corporations have: War savings equal to one year of average prewar profits; a government “in surance fund” to draw on in event of low earnings —or losses equal to eight years of average prewar profits. If the average wage earner had proportionate funds to draw on, CIO argues, he would have a tot al backlog of $10,000. Actually he has little or no backlog. While unions advance the case of corporate prof its as an argument for high wage scales, economists here say the basic justification for higher wages is found in technological advancement. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the index of factory payrolls was about the same in 1940 as in 1920, while the labor cost of nrodtie/r.g a unit of goods was cut in half. Output per mail hour of work is on the increase. By 1950, BLS es timate it r ill be up by one-third over the pre*.1 t. In otter words, higher-wages do not necessirlv call for ar increase in prices. Management argues: (1) )That meeting labor’s demands will delay re conversion. (2) That raising wages means raising prices. (3) That labor threatens any chance to achieve full employment. (4) )That now is an unfair time to negotiate wage scales because the industry doesn’t know what new car ceilings will be. or whether they will be ration ed. Secretary of Labor Schwellenbaeh, just armed with new powers in the hurried Presidential reor ganization of labor agencies, is on a hot spot since settlement of wage disputes is now in his hands. President Truman’s promise of a more liberal pollicy on shipping feed to Europe, even though it may mean continued ration controls, is due in part to terrific pressure put on the Administration bv women’s and civic groups. After an exhaustive study, the National Plann ing Association concludes that war veterans are getting nowhere in acquiring wanted farms—and won t until more adequate credit facilities are pro vided. The Association recommends putting rural* credit for vets in the hands of Farm Security Ad ministration.
