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About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (Jan. 12, 1946)
h ■ grPT| » ! The Omaha Guide | + A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ^ fj [,Published Every Saturday at 2!fi0 Grant Street OMAHA, NEBRASKA—PHONE HA- 0800 [Entered as Second Class Matter March 15. 1927 at the Post Office at Omaha, Nebraska, under Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. !C- C- Gallowjy, Publisher and Acting Editor All News Copy of Churches and all organiz ations must be in our office not later than 1:00 p. m. Monday for current issue. All Advertising ICopy on Paid Articles, not later than Wednesday noon, proceeding date of issue, to insure public ation SUBSCRIPTION RATE IN OMAHA U ONE YEAR . SIX MONTHS .$l.75a| THREE MONTHS .$1-25 W SUBSCRIPTION RATE OU1 CP TOWN M ONE YEAR . $3,501 SIX MONTHS . $2.°0|jj National Adz’ertismg Representatives— » INTERSTATE UNITED NEWSPAPERS, Inc A 545 Fifth Avenue, New York City, Phone:— M \ MUrray Hill 2-5452, Ray Pick, Manager _4-1 , *'»■*'> THAT THEY MIGHT WALK TOGETHER Freedom has Ao ‘buts ’ The wonder of 1945 was that so much could hap pen in so few months. Staggering head lines be came commonplace. There was the death of Presi dent Roosevelt; the war ended; the United Nations Organization became a hopeful fact; and, most cat aclysmic of all, was the thunderous dawn of the at omic age. These were but a few of the headlines. The events they portray have left a turbulence in the human mind such as has never been experienced before. That turbulence is shaking the postwar world to its very foundations. The peace and plenty which so many had hoped for when the guns fell silent, ial nowhere to be found. Whether it will materialize in the reasonably near future depends upon the fortitude and common sense of millions. An indication of the temper of the times is evi dent in the words of one veteran, a college graduate who lost a leg at El Alamein: “There is evidence a mong us of a growing distaste for orations. We will tend to judge parties and proposals by results, not by protestations of high purpose. We know free dom doesn’t mean much without groceries—how can a man enjoy free speech on an empty stomach %' ’ Appealing as these words sound on the surface, they reveal the terrible weakness in thought that today threatens the future of the American repub lic and he hope of democratic government through out the world more seriously than any dictator or combination of dictators ever has. First, this vet eran—and his reasoning is paralleled by millions of civilians—is assuming that freedom is somehow to blame if there is a grocery shortage. Second, he infers that a little less freedom can result in a few more groceries. Third, he makes the potentially fatal blunder of inviting a strong man or group to take action, in the same breath, mind you, that he questions the validity of freedom unless it is ac companied by a three-decker sandwich. This bread and butter philosophy leaves the way wide open for the demagogue to step in with a hatful of promises —impossible promises that will result in less free dom and fewer, not more, groceries. General Carl A. Spaatz, former Commanding General of the United States Strategical and Tact ical Air Forces in the Atllantic and Pacific Thea ters, says: “Discontented youth makes for troubled waters in which the unscrupulous politician loves to fish. When the ‘Man on a White Horse’ comes forward in such a situation, things begin to happen, as they happened in Germany. Hitler rose to pow er on the back of youth.” The most important issue before the American people today is how to get the price -tag off free doin. In other words, freedom, our form of gov ernment, our religious beliefs, should not be con sidered in the same breath with material fortunes. The former are things of the spirit that must sur vive in lean years as well as years of plenty. The Jatter. in spite of our best efforts, will fluctuate. * he old saying of shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations used to prettv well express the American’s philosophic approach to the ups and downs of economic life. f ndoubtedly as time goes on, greater protection against the hazards of poverty and illness can be evoh-ed. Greta steps have already been taken in ns ( ireetion. The United States is so far ahead of ie i< of the world in the achievement bf human MARCH OF DIMES c JANUARY 14-31 Editorial: “Shall This Happen Here!” L. ■ - — — _ • ' /•' itarian ideals and attainment of material comfort, that comparison has become impossible. We have gotten ahead because heretofore our faith in free dom, in representative government, in the right of a man to keep the rewards of hard work, has been complete. Heretofore we have never, in effect, said: “Freedom is okay, but—.” In commenting on the present socialistic policy* of Great Britain, which a powerful faction in our country seems bent on copying, opposition leader Winston Churchill said: “I foresee with sorrow but without fear that in the next few years we shall come to fundamental quarrels in this country. It seems impossible to escape the fact that events are moving and will move toward this issue: ‘The Peo ple vs. the Socialists.’ ” If there is one thing our country should keep in mind above everything else during the coming year and in all the years to follow* it is that freedom has no “huts.” You either believe in it or you don’t, and socialism isn’t freedom. Released by Calvin's New* Service Capitalism’s perennial housing problem has be come a housing crisis—and capitalism is tackling its crisis in a typically capitalist way. The President has re-established building mater ial priorities for houses costing $10,000 or less. The “or less” is meaningless in a situation where the cream of “middle class” demand is waiting to be skimmed. In effect, the order gives new housing priorities to those who can afford $10,000 homes. For the millions of demobilized worker-veterans, war worekrs, and other proletarians, Negro and white, whose families are living “doubled up” or who face the calamity of eviction, “high-minded” housing committees and spotlight-hogging politic ians offer a variety of “temporary solutions” rang ing from “remodeled” old-law tenements to con verted military barracks and “Quonsetvilles”— , acres of those monotonous monstrosities called the Quonset hut, such as sheltered G. I.’s from the Al eutians to the New Hebrides. (In New York City, Governor Dewey, who claims the dubious honor for having military barracks con verted, deftly passed the buck to local authorities when the question of jim-crowing Negroes was raised.) Commenting on the makeshift “solutions,” the NewYork Times, with characteristic bourgeois pi ety, observed: “None of the temporary solutions to the housing problems are very palatable; the critic al situation demands concessions everywhere, and in our ideals as well. ’ ’ But the sacrifice of “our ideals” is by no means a unique experience for the class that rules our pres ent society. For a hundred years, capitalist re formers, faced with the poverty-breeding, hence slum-breeding, economic laws inherent in the sys tem, have had no other recourse than to deliver moral sermons whose emotional effects immediate ly evaporate under the influence of private inter ests. Today, in the face of the most severe housing ciisis this nation has known, the parasitic vultures for whom a housing shortage is a condition for high profits—the bank-realtor-contractor combination— conspire, not to solve, but to prolong the crisis. This has always been their policy toward Negro housing which reached the crisis stage long ago. Simulating civic-mindedness, this element is for eevr projecting grandiose schemes for “slum-clear ance.” But they are schemes which, when finally undertaken on a trifling scale and after years of delay—and to the accompaniment of loud-self praise—, simply result in forcing slum dwellers into ' other run-down areas while the new and elaborate buildings that arise are turned over to the “better class.” It is with the problem of low-rent housing as it is with unemployment. The capitalists and their a pologists moralize against unemployment, but their system requires a surplus army of jobless workers. As the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce put it: ‘ ‘Pri vate competitive capitalism requires a floating number of unemployed.” What the capitalists fear, is not unemployment in itself, but the possi bility thta unemployment may grow to unmanage able proportions. Similarly with their dismay o ver the housing crisis. In the case of Negroes, they have successfully pursued a do-nothing policy for years, and their political State is only now compel led to palliate the situation because the crisis has spread to involve the working population of the whole nation. In the capitalist’s inept and heartless handling of the housing problem, the system’s callous cruelty lies exposed, and bourgeid piety fails utterly to con ceal its ugliness. There are no real shortages of materials, machines or men to prevent the rapid construction, not of “temporary,” but of sturdy, ef ficient housing for every family in the nation. Such housing could be constructed in a trice, so to speak, as the stupendous atom bomb factories and whole cities were built for war, were it not for the mater ial interests of a venal ruling class. Let no one kid himself. The present flurry of government activity does not mean the housing problem is being solved. In time, a lot of houses will be built, and many will h$ve “for sale” and “for rent” signs on them as in the “thirties”. But they will be too expensive for workingmen to live in There can be no real solution to the housing prob lem until society is reorganized and private inter ests give way to Socialist collectivism. Socialism opens the way for a rtaional utilization of our re sources and an intelligent assault on the conse quences of capitalist poverty. The ‘housing prob lem” in a Socialist Commonwealth would be noth ing but ai building problem, the kind of problem, in other words, that workers can easily and speedily overcome. OVERTONES —(by A1 Heningburg FREEDOM OF OPINION: One of the greatest things in America today, and for which Americans will always fight, is the free dom to form one’s opinion without outside direction or coercion. In the Alabama town in which I lived as a boy, Negroes were taught to have a high opin ion of all whites, and a correspondingly low one of themselves. The Negro who ventured to think of lmnself as “being good as a white man” was to be avoided. He was anti-social, and would get every body into trouble. That town still leads the entire section in illiter acy and poverty. For it was impossible to stifle expression among black folks without including the greater number of whites. Ten men ruled the town, including the sheriff and the money lender who charged twenty-five cents on the dollar per week. When some reckless individual failed to pay off, the sheriff did. When we can bring freedom of opinion to towns like that, and thus permit them to share in the secret of American greatness, both ig norance and poverty will be well on the wav out HEALTH AT HOME: Hundreds of thousands of under-nourished men, women, and children will die in Europe this winter. The statisticians have already chalekd up a huge number, and each day’s deaths reach toward that awful total. No human being anywhere can be happy over these mass deaths. But we aren’t hap py either over some of the terrible conditions in this country. In one American city, Negro physic ians seem to have entered a conspiracy with the ♦ I Board of Health. As a pav-off to keep Negro pa tients from clamoring to enter well-established pub lic and private hospitals, Negro physicians are per mitted to operate so-called hospitals which are a disgrace to the community and to the medical pro fpccinn CUTTING RED TAPE: Although provisions for the educating and gener al re-orientation of veterans have been liberalized, there is still an amazing amount of red tape to be cut through before the individual GI can obtain benefits to which he is entitled. “The mills of the Gods grind slowly”, and at times they seem to stop altogether. But don’t let your veteran become dis couraged. Keep on cutting away at the red tape until you get desirable action. Better patience now than disappointment later. PLEASE TO REMEMBER: My seven-year old son came to me while I was shaving this morning, and/ shaving time is the mo ment at which most men would prefer to be left un disturbed. Especially by small sons. Holding out his report card from grade 2A, seta three, section 4, he said: “I only fell down in two things this time, reading and spelling.” Since these comprise two thirds of his academic endeavor, 1 was prompted to take on the righteous indignation of a father, and talk very sharply indeed. But then something stopped me, something by the way which never seemed to have stopped my dad. And T realized that I too had brought in some not-too-good cards in my day, and that even now I fail much more often than I succeed. So we finished our shaving in com parative peace, with both of us deciding to do bet ter in both reading reading and spelling. POLITICS ABROAD: The cultured voice of our Secretary of State troubled me much a few nights ago. Mr. Byrnes is disturbed, and understandably so, over the failure of the peoples of Rumania and Bulgaria to take on the ways of democracy. Of course, I agreed with Mr. Byrnes, only he said just half enough. The Secretary of State could understand Rumania and Bulgaria better if he took the time to understand South Carolina at all. Democracy is not a com modity which can be sold like wheat or oil, it is a way of life which must be experienced before it can be explained. The people in Bucharest aren’t stupid, and they realize how weak is the argument of a man who has never been able to practice at home what he preaches abroad. THE SOUTH IS GROWING UP: More and more intelligent southerners of both races are coming to realize that regionla prosperity demands an end to racial segregation and discrim ination. We don’t need both those words, for in this ca.se they mean the same thing. An increasing number of the South’s best editors are trying to educate their readers to the point at which comm unities will try to make the best possible use of all resources, both natural and human. This means that eventually Negroes in the South will sound and act like men. At that time, and not before, whites in the same region' will also begin to think and to act liek men. INDUSTRIAL LABOR RELATIONS (by George E. DeMar for CNS) The clock is ticking away the first hours and minutes of 1946. The gains and losses of Negroes in the industrial field is the subject of discussion by many. Has the Negro assured himself by his per formance of an advanced position in the industrial life of America? What can he now do to get more respect from management and from his fellow white workers? The answers to these questions are pretty clear, but only the activity of Negroes in the year just began, will make secure the advances of the past. White America has revised its thinking with ref erence to the Negro. Management in good con science no longer says that the Negro is not mech anically inclined; that Negroes are not punctual; thta Negroes are not reliable, efficient and capable workers. Trade union leadership now knows that Negroes are not strike-breakers, but make just as good trade unionists as any other workers. The public itself recognizes that Negroes are just as goodl soldiers in all branches of service as his white brothers. wnne tne rnytns with reference to the Negro have been as thoroughly exploded as if hit by an at om bomb, the failure of democratic America to pass a permanent fair employment bill remains a plague on both houses of Congress. The greatest single task of the Negro in 1946 is to see to it that Congress passes fair employment legislation. The right to work is the right to live. Negro soldiers along with their white brothers bled and died on foreign fields in order to protect this right. Let us resolve that this nation spell out its policies in employment for all the world to see. W e have the right of free speech. Let us resolve to use it by writing each month to the President, the leaders of the House and of the Senate. Our particular Congressmen and Senators—let us tell them that in the name of the men who died on the battlefields to protect America they cannot destroy America by failure to pass permanent fair employ ment legislation. This is the activity we must en gage in if our gains are to be made secure. fine Quality-Personalized PRINTING CARDS, LETTER HEADS, PERSONAL STATIONERY, HAND BILLS — ANYTHING PRINTABLE. JUST CALL HA-0800 or better still Come to 2420 Grant Street ]