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About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 1946)
The Omaha Guide 4r A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ^ Published Every Saturday at 2420 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‘ Gallow ly,— 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 Copy on Paid Articles, not later than Wednesday noon, proceeding date of issue, to insure public ation SUBSCRIPTION RATE IN OMAHA ONE YEAR . $3.00 SIX MONTHS .$1.75 THREE MONTHS .$1-25 SUBSCRIPTION RATE OUT OF TOWN i ONE YEAR . $3.50 SIX MONTHS . $2 00 National Advertising Representatives— INTERSTATE UNITED NEWSPAPERS, Inc 545 Fifth Avenue, New York City, Phone:— MUrray Hill 2-5452, Ray Peck, Manager AN HONEST PEOPLE w ■■"xwwwwww* mowwwgwMwmjiiJu by Ruth Taylor “The people of our country have got to be honest or America is all washed up.” The editors who wrote this, was right—the only way we can justify ourselves as a people or as a nation, the only way we can demonstrate the enduring quality of the democratic way of life is by building a firm found ation of honesty. Honesty is more than merely being candid. It means being fair, just and upright as well. It means not being AS honest as the next person—but being COMPLETELY honest. If we do only as much as our neighbor, we have our mind off our own job, while we watch him—and the chances are he is clolng the same thing. As Marcus Aurelius wrote—“A man should BE upright, not be KEPT ■> upright.” Unless we are honest with ourselves, with each other, with those for whom we work, or with those who work for us, we have no real basis for self-gov ernment. Honesty breeds honesty and a cooper ative spirit develops cooperation. Honesty begins with the individual. We cannot have an honest nation without honest citizens. The tragedy of the wars of the past has been that there w as no concerted honest aim on the part of the peo ple wiio made up the nation—just a glib mouthing of high sounding phrases. If we are to build a world of UNITED Nations we must be honest about our aims as a nation. We must be honest in dealing with those whom we accept as allies—understand ing not only why it is that we fight shoulder to shoulder but also why and where our paths separate We have to be honest with those with whom we disagree. WE have to disagree with them honestly and openly. We must never fall into pitfalls of prejudice and hatred under the stress of circum stances. The American form of government was founded upon an ideal of honesty, of fair and equitable treat ment of all. The best evidence we can give of our allegiance is honesty, decency and understanding in our work, our thoughts and in all our actions. OVERTONES —(by A1 Heningburg AT BENNETT COLLEGE: o When you approach Greensboro, North Carolina from the neighboring city of Durham, almost the first view to be had is that of the graceful spire on the chapel of Bennett College. Here are found girls and young women from the best families in the country, who come to learn something of the art of living gracefully. For those who would mis understand, these ‘‘best families” are not to be con fused with those who have money at their disposit ion. They are rather the mothers and fathers who want for their daughters the best possible education and often they have no money at all. Many years ago, Bennett was co-educational, and one still comes across men who gently admit that they are Bennett alumni. There is at least one person who has never understood this reluctance, for attending Bennett o could be both exciting and informing. Back of the splendid work done at the college by Mr. and Mrs. David D. Jones and their associates has been the friendly interest and financial support of one of America’s best-known philanthropists: Mrs. Annie Merner Pfeiffer. Mrs. Pfeiffer died a few days ago, and with her death came the announce -ment that she and her husband had contributed some five million dollars to institutions of one kind or another. Bennett owes much of its present beauty and modern construction to the interest which he Pfeiffer family had in its program. The Bennett family will not soon forget this great woman, for her kind helps us to remember that not all of our generation are bent on, the exploitation of their fellows. Knowing people like Mrs. Pfeiffer MARCH OF DIMES c JANUARY 14-31 Editorial: A Democratic America For ’46. 4_* ^ YOU fellows * ^GOVERN HEHT>,] helps us to recognize the fact that kindness is still a powerful force in a world which is off-balance and out of focus. MAIL FRAUD INCREASE: The crooks who use the mails to defraud their vic tims had a field day in America in 1945. With some amazingly simple schemes, they extracted ex actly twice the expected amount from the American gullible. Simple minds with loose change should be more Careful. Years ago, one slickster guaran teed that he could make “slow horses fast, and fast horses faster/’ My Dad was one of many who re ceived this advice for their money: “Tie him to a post.” PHILLIPINE FIGHTING: The war is over according to the books, but there is still much more fighting than anyone wants to see. Great is the good news coming from China that' after many weary, heart-breaking years the two dominant factions in that suffering country are agreeing to act like intelligent Chinese. But not so good is the news from Manila, where bad feeling be tween American Negro soldiers and Filipino guer illas has broken into open conflict in at least two oc casions. In each case, the Americans were service troops, which means that they were without arms with which to defend themselves. It didn’t take too long to overcome this handicap, however, and these boys from the United States gave as good an account of themselves fighting guerillas as they had already given fighting Nazis and Japanese. But the entire business is very stupid. What prompts Filipinos to hate Negroes, who have gone thousands of miles from home to help the Phillipin recover from the Japanese invasion. The answer is both simple and unlovely. Filipinos over there have been taught to hate Negroes. That's why foreigners who come to this country are frequently such hatemongers: they hasten to take on all the appearances of being good Americans, and hating Negroes is one easy way to do just that. ON THE STRIKE FRONT: One day spent recently by this writer in Detroit and one in Flint showed a remarkable difference be tween present conditions in those cities and those which maintained in 1937, when the sit-down strik es were well known. The big difference is one of advance. Almost entirely lacking are the tensions and the fights which marked the strikes of nine years ago. This means two things: organized labor has made great strides in its total program, and the general public is much better informed as to the conditions which make strikes almost inevitable in 1946. AUSTIN CURTIS-GENIUS: You haven’t heard enough about the young man, now living and marketing his products in Detroit, who served for years as assistant to the late great George W. Carver. As modest as he is keen, Aus tin Curtis probably won’t like being called a genius, and that is exactly as it should be. Plain Talk... (BY DAN GARDNER) SAYS SELF-GOVERNMENT IS BEST WAY TO IMPROVE NEGRO’S CONDITION; WOULD PROFIT ON OUR POPULATION STRENGTH There is a theory of our problem that concerns it self with self-government, only, and provides for the future by allowing it to take care of itself. Since most of the means advanced for solving the race problem are mianly theoretical in that they have not and may never be put into complete practice, self improvement looms as basic, but it is an uncommon approach since it has not been taken up by a suf ficiently large number of people nor placed in the proper perspective where it could be regarded as a common denominator in ascertaining a remedy. The very term-self improvement—suggests relig ious activity and puritannical regard for personal and group morals, so much so that most persons, - I «c *•' b ERIC HASS Cdit~*iu« WEEKLY PEOPLE Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing “rev olutionary” about the United Auto Workers’ de mand that General Motors open its books. “Fact j finding,” and its implication that wages should be 1 based on “ability to pay,” isn’t even unique. The j records show that employers have opened their I books to union leaders many tunes. Moreover, [ they have done so, not reluctantly, but eagerly—in order to ‘“prove” their inability to pay going wages. There is, for example, the fairly recent case of 20 small steel companies whose output in 1943 was 5.8 percent of the total output of the industry. These companies were rather more anxious than otherwise to show their books and submit to “fact-finding” 4 y even the highly intelligent, are inclined to shy away from it and most cretainly to decline advocating self improvement as a means of adjusting delicate race relations and also in bringing about changes in economic and political positions. Self-improvement also has nothing in common with the militancy of certain groups of our leaders who demand frontal attacks, physical if necessary, to force through such standard remedies as anti lynching bills, anti-poll tax measures, fair employ ment practice legislation, etc. They would, these militant ones, studiously shun any suggestion that open advocacy of self-improvement among Negroes would have any wholesome effect in the erasure of restrictive covenants and lily-white spheres in hous ing and in real estate transactions. That the con duct of one Negro is of such effect as to influence whole communities of whites for or against the en tire race, is a point not sufficiently stressed where n wuid do tne most good. It is accepted that the panaceas upon which we have been so busily concentrating over the years are still in a nebulous state or fading on paper hid den away in the dusty files of Presidents, congress men. senators, war department officials, mayors and governors. There seems that little can be done to get action on what has already been proposed. To suggest more or to seek to make changes is repit itious nad boresome to those whom we have sub inited our ideas of proper solutions. They already know how to solve the problem, be cause they, themselves (the whites), created most of the problems and must have known how to re solve it, otherwise there would have been no need of maknig a problem in the first place. The white man knows the answer—don't worry about that; he knows. Our best bet, then, seems to lay with self improvement—bettering our own position with what we have and what we want. Our conduct, personla and group habits of cleanliness, sobriety, good manners, respect for one another, and thrift, should be the crux upon which we operate. We should get the most out of our numerical strength. If the Jews with 6,000,000 in the U. S. can dominate financially, control such vital propa ganda institutions as the moving picture industry, the theatre, radio and make themselves felt in real estate, the food industry and in politics, Negroes should be able to do something as intelligent and vitally necessary with the 15,000,000 of us born and bred in this country. Denied entrance into the normal stream of Amer ican life because of race and religion, the Jew start ed to work on self-improvement and thereby better ed his position until now he is indispensable and yet able to control his contribution and at the same time get paid for it. Until we grasp the unplumbed depths of the power we have through self-improve ment, we will still be waiting for a theory to become a practice and the world will have gone further a head of us. for the reason that their books revealed a sad com petitive state of affairs, so sad indeed, that they could not operate unless the union agreed t» wages below the prevailing scale. Now, ordinarily, the swivel-chair union officials say a company that can’t pay the prevailing scale ought to be out of business. However, when the prospect of losing dues payers through business failures actually arises, they change their tunes. Thus, when the twenty “impoverished” steel com panies revealed their coupetitive plight, Philip Mur ray and his lieutenants in the United Steel Workers of America (CIO.) accepted an hourly wage scale 8 cents under the average for the industry. Accord ing to a statement Murray made before the War Production Board, as reported by Steel Labor, March 31, 1944, the annual “wage subsidy” thus granted amounted to $4,348,000. This example illumines one of the falls in the path the present conservative unions seem bent on tak ing. The moment workers base their demand for a wage increase on “ability to pay,” profits go down. If corporation books told the real story of the rooking that the workingmen and women of this country are getting at the hands of a tiny propertied and privileged class, I might agree that to open them to inspection by union representatives would have revolutionary implications. But the books do not tell the story. They tell only a small part of it, And this is the reason: The profits pocketed by the industrial capitalist represent only a fraction of the total wealth the workers produce over and above their wages. These are the profits .revealed by “‘opening the books.” But before the industrial capitalist can pocket his own profits, he must divvy his plunder with politic ians, bankers, landlords, lawyers, nisurance com panies, advertising agencies, and a whole horde of parasites on parasites. He must pay taxes, inter est, rent, legal fees, premiums, royalties, etc., etc., and he must pay all of these out of the wealth labor produces over and above wages, Actually, wages are not, and cannot, be based on “ability to pay” even though the majority of the people think that they should be. Wages are noth ing more nor less than the price the capitalist pays for the only commodity the worker has to sell, his ability to labor. This price is determined by the same economic laws that govern the price of all other commodities. As Abraham Lincoln put it:— “Labor is like any other commodity in the market; increase the demand for it and you increase the price of it.” By the same token, if the demand falls off and the supply of jobless workers rises, the price (wages) goes down. “Fact-finding” cannot alter this, and since the true facts are never reveal ed by the books it does not even enlighten the work ers on the degree to which they are exploited. To those who argue that it is wrong and immoral for the employer to refuse to pay higher wages when he has the ability to pay, I would answer that the wrongness and the immorality does not lie in his refusal but in the wages system itself. And I would add that those who would purge society of tins wringness and immorality must, if they are to get anywhere, set about changing our social system Industrial Labor Review (by George E. DeMar, Industrial Secretary, X. Y. Urban League for CXTS) The miners, living and dead, in Bell County, Ken tucky, call attention again to the sad plight of the men and their families who go inside the earth to obtain coal for American homes and industries. Visit the mining areas of West Virginia, Ohio, Ten nessee, Pennsylvania and Kentucky; listen to the plain talk of the miners, and you, too, will realize that not oftly do these communities need more social services, but the only improvements which have come through the years is a direct or indirect re sult of union organization. The public should not be misguided by news-reels which show the excep tion rather than the rule. It should never forget the poor living conditions of the miner since it en joys the fruits of his labor. It should urge that the government do something for each community, as well as safeguard the life of the miner. The operators have long shown a careless disre gard, not only for the housing of the miner’s family but for the protection of the miner. A hazardous job should requier extreme care in the correction of discovered danger spots. In Kentucky, the feder al government unearthed the danger. The law which shows a deference to states’ rights required that the state should have the company correct the dangerous conditions. Persons in charge of safety regulations look to the company for better paying jobs, theii* eyes closed to the findings of the federal inspectors. Pennsylvania avoids this by placing state safety enforcement under Civil Service. Dislike John L. Lewis is you wish—his bushy eye brows, his jockeying for position in politics, his ef forts to dominate the labor scene, his flying Into the face of majority opinion. He still represents to most of the miners increased wages, shorter hours in the dinginess of the mines, fairer employment, less discrimination, plus community benefits as a result of the United Mine Workers Union. Men and women who deplore inhuman loss of life and realize that the loss of a miner’s productive power is a real economic loss to the nation have a job to do on behalf of the mining community. The federal mine inspection act of 1941 should be re vised. The Congress should see to it that no miner in any state goes into a mine after it has been de clared unsafe by federal inspectors. • FOR GREATER COVERAGE—Advertise in THE GREATER OMAHA GUIDE
