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About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 1946)
i The Omaha Guide f I <+> A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ^ JJ tl'urihshrn bvery Saturday a, g }2fl C.rant Street OMAHA, NEBRASKA—PHONE HA. 0800 Entered as Second Class Matter March 15. 1027 at the Post Office at c^auha, Nebraska under i Act of Congress of Mat db 3, 1870. C- C* Gallowty,.... Publisher and Acting Ectuo* All News Copy of Churches and all otganiz ations must be >n our office not later than 1 :0tl p. m. Monday for current issue. All Advertising Copy on Paid Articles, not later than Wednesday f noon, proceeding date of issu|, to insure pubne i it ion- 1 SUBSCRIPTION RATE IN OMAHA W ONE YEAR . $3.0urn SIX MONTHS .$1.75■! THREE MONTHS .$l-25« SUBSCRIPTION RATE OUT OF TOWN M ONE YEAR .. $3.50 5 SIX MONTHS . $2-00VN National Advertising Representatives— « INTERSTATE UNITED NEWSPAPERS, IncM 543 Fifth Avenue, New York City, Thone:— , ML’rray Hill 2-5452, Rav P?ck, Manager WHY NOT CHANGE? i: H Ife^ I by Ruth Taylor The other day an old friend was urging me to cut my hair. 1 said, ‘‘Oh, no. I wouldn’t look like me’ He replied with some heat: “Nonsense, Ruth, the trouble with you is you’ve looked at your own face the way it is too long!” You know, there’s a lot of horse sense in that re mark! We’re afraid to change even our expression for fear we won’t be recognizable to ourselves. What if we aren’t7 There’s always room for improve ment. w e are the same way about our ideas. Just lie cause an idea was right once, doesn’t mean it is al ways going to be right. Circumstances aiter, and our ideas must keep pace with them. If we keep to the right IDEALS, we can afford to change our IDEAS—our methods for bringing into being our ideals. We have arrived at an hour which requires initi ative and adaptability from all of us. We must porve that we can keep up with the times for noth ing will eevr be quite the same as it was. As after every war we must again be pioneers. We must develop new work and new skills. We can’t even wear our faces the same way again. Don’t be afraid of what is new. You’ve seen your own face the way it is too long. There’s ad venture in the untried—you may like the new bet ter than he old. Why always assume change is for the worst. It never has been—for long. Our fears for the future can he dispelled if we meet these fears boldly, with high hearts, with un faltering faith in the principles of freedom, and with the courage that is given to those who are true followers of the democratic ideal. What applies to the individual also applies to the nation. Recently*I heard this phrased in a homely metaphor: ‘‘Each country must not only keep its house in order, but must be willing to change the furniture.” It may take a little while to get used to the new arrangement, but there is no reason why it can’t be more comfortable the new way. We surely have/ learned what to avoid. Our outmoded isolationism; our careless indiffer ence to bonfires abroad until they threatened our own house; the prejudices and hatreds towards those who differ from us in class, creed or color — —which prejudices are a heritage of the days when 21 stranger was an enemy before the annihilation of time a nr space drew the world together; our witli drawol from our neighbor’s problems, our self-ab soption—all are the things we must leave behind us. We must revamp our thoughts as readily as we must revamp ourselves. Don’t wear your face the same way too long! OVERTONES —(by A1 Heningburg FEPC FILIBUSTER: With more than 150 years as a nation, we do not yet know how to handle the gentlemen of the Sen ate who are bent on filibustering. As soon as any legislation which seems remotely favorable to Ne groes, or which suggests freeing millions of blacks and whites who live in poll-tax states, a block of southern senators takes the floor with one voice and one intention: to talk about everything and any thing under the sun—except the legislation in ques tion. That is, what the FEPC is up against just now. Senator Dennis Chavez, who has first hand knowledge of existing inequalities in America, is maikng a desperate attempt to put SB 101 on the calendar THIS WEEK. Letters to the national leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties will help. When you write t-> Senators and Con gressmen, please use the friendly style of persuas iveness, rather than the ‘“I demand” style. You may not be able to start a filibuster in vour back yard, I i cJANUARY 14-31 Editorial: “Tha Rude jSwakening!” ■Bk Am. A » , V'W** fTIi, ,«/ r"~ - _ j » UNITED ^ r NATIONS = ^..ORGANiZATlG^ ifh but even one letter will help. FAITH IN YOUTH: That is the expression used last Tuesday by Dr. Daniel E. Poling in his widely read column'“Amer icans All”. He calls attention to recent conferenc es held in New York, in which high school students tried to determine some of the present causes of juvenile delinquency. What the youngsters stress ed was a better chance for wholesome recreation, and more friendliness with their parents and other adults. “We want folks to have faith in us”, one teen-ager said. Many parents fail to realize that the family must supply more affection and faith in underprivileged communities than would otherwise be the case. It s worth rememebring that telling young folks how wild they are doesn’t help much one way or the other. We do need more faith in our youth, who often understnad the complexities of life much more clearly than their parents suspect. A WHISPERING CAMPAIGN: The cause of organized labor is not fully won in the South, and a whispering campaign is now being waged against it. As you would suspect, the color! question is the sum and substance of the campaign. Trouble makers know that ii you can play strongly enough upon the color prejudices of many southern ers, you can always win the argument. But the striking thing is that organized labor is making steady gains, in spite of the scurrilous tactics used to keep black and white workers at dagger points. Thinking men all over the South are realizing at a rapid rate the people who work, no matter to wha1 race they belong, have many more points in common than they have differences which keep them apart. A FIVE YEAR PLAN: There were eight veterans in the group, all of them seeking the advice of Howard Nash of the Cleveland Urban League. Nash, Industrial Rela tions Secretary, makes a specialty of developing job openings, and then finding Negroes who can fill these jobs. Out of a discussion in which factory jobs were balanced against buliding construction opportunities came this suggestion: “Build a five-year plan around yourself and your job. Put in the necessray 4000 hours as an appren tice, then move on as a journeyman at prevailing rates.” Most of these eight will make the necessary sac rifices to develop a skill, and all will probably try to plan for five years or so instead of five weeks. MEET LEM FOSTER: To millions of shoppers, Macy’s Department Store in New York is simply the place in which you may count on a wide variety of merchandise at fa vorable prices, with escalators which the kids call zipper staircases moving majestically up and down through a profusion of wonders. To many others, it is an American institution which is pioneering in its personnel department. Lem Foster, once of the Atlanta Urban League, more recently of the War Department, smooth and soft-spoken, is now on the personnel staff of Macy’s. And he's not there, as Lem himself points out, to do a jolt in race relations,] but to do job in personnel. They like Lem Foster] at Macy’s, and it won’t be long before another well known department store in New York will adopt a similar policy. Industrial Labor and Relations (by George E. DeMar for (’NS) Humane relations in industry is industrial and labor relations. Strikes are but evidence that the humane side of work is not satisfactory. Mass pro duction techniques have out-run the humane prob lems involved. After the turn of the century var ious speed-up measures were employed by industry. M e have had the Bedeaux system, the Mannitt sys tem and time and motion ^studies, each overlooking the fact that mon is a human being. Attention had to be called to safety and health measures as indus try demanded more and more units of production. i Only when industry realized that there is a point of deminishinig return, did industrial relations take on a considertaion of man as a human being. “How to create job satisfaction,” “How to handle grievances,” “How to correct workers,” “Qualities of a good boss,” “Make safety the style,” “Collec tive bargaining,” “Fair employment practices,” “Making the community a better place to live in”— these titles in leading industrial relations magazin es and pamphlets serve to show that progressive management is giving consideration to the humane side. More consideration would mean fewer strik es. Henry Ford 2nd, president of the Ford Motor Co. said recently, “If we can solve the problem of hu mane relations and industrial production, I believe we can make as much progress toward lower costs during the next ten years as we made during the past quarter century through the development of the machinery of mass production.” The solution of problems in human relations must be found in a closer understanding between manage ment and labor. Straight-forward dealings instead of sparring for position; federal fair employment legislation to eliminate the underlying causes of economic strife and strikes; voluntary arbitration with the cards face up will aid understanding. Truth in all of our dealings is the real way to; industrial peace and peace of mind. is co ^ ERIC HASS CJJo+'ltU WEEKLY !>EOfLZ I by Calviu't News Service , There is a curiously, almost weirdly, anesthetic < aspect about the period through which we are now passing. A great mass of the people are, in a sense in a sort of social twilight sleep made fitful by in dustrial turbulence and disquieting fears. Negro and white march together on the picket lines in an atmosphere utterly devoid of racial tension. Fright ening forecasts of race riots have thus far failed to materialize. Unemployment, though considerable and growing, is well below popular expectations. The almost complete absence of police violence has tended to minimize the strikes and given them an air of unreality. Everywhere there is the hope, fathered by a wish, that out of this turmoil and strife may come something approximating racial and social harmony. Then there is the great wish to forget. To for get that we are living over an economic time bomb. To forget that no basic problem has been solved, that what is called “pent up demand” merely post pones, but does not avert an economic smash-up. To forget that race prejudice is unreasoning and that it flourishes as economic desperation arises. To forget that, once production catches up with the market, we face an unemployment crisis that holds every promise of making the prewar crisis seem a picnic by comparison. Russell Porter, an economic writer for the pluto cratic New York Times, asks: “But what is to pre vent another depression a few years from now, after the pent-up demand is worked off-—.. ?” He merely asks the question. He doesn’t try to answer it. He says it is a “challenge” to the capitalist system, and that “the problem of distribution remains to haunt the dreams of those who remember 1929 and the depression that follows”. But the capitalist system cannot accept the “dial bulge.” During the war its spokesmen told us that after reconversion the “average American” would have to consume a lot more than' lie ever did before. But the “average American” is a wage worker. And instead of letting him consume more of his product, employers from one end of the coun- , try to the other are slashing his wages and bitterly contesting his demands. There is irony in the fact that the more success DO’S AND DON’TS:_ I I * l k 11 U 1 Hli I II i iiit* . . • %—■.I, i kitmi'T—_^WIU-1 \ ‘Si. 9 '*^1 fff | Whenyou are in a library or study hall don't need a QUIET sign to remind yon to consi ler ethei s. ful the employers are in holding wages down, all the quciker will tiie smash-up come. Lor, what the workers can't buy back, and what the capitalists can t export or waste or consume in opulent living, will pjile up in the warehouses and precipitate in dustrial stagnation. And there’s the rub! The employers are under the commusion or competitive laws to hold wages down. Labor is like any other commodity, like cot tn or beef. When its supply goes up, its price goes down. And the employer who doesn’t take ruth less advantage of the overstocked labor market is soon crushed in the competitive struggle. The present w ave of strikes is an attempt to find the market price of labor. Of cdurse, it has much more signifieane than that. The struggle itself af fects our thinking. In the sphere of race relations, for example, the fact that Negro and white workers are “in the same boat’’ has brought them closer to gether. Strikes are, in this sense, a sort of centri petal force; thev unite. But the Negro worker should not lull himself into believing that the centri fugal forces which scatter and disunite the workers have vanished from our society. They have not vanished. They are only temporarily obscured. They iwll become more virulent as the unemploy ment crisis draws near and competition for jobs in tensifies. The moral is plain. We can’t solve the economic problem by closing our eyes to it. We must, all of us, awaken from this twilight sleep. We must squarely face the fact that this system threatens us with catastrophe. We must boldly make up our minds, singly and collectively, to end this threat once and for all by solving the problem of distribu tion in the only way it ran be solved—by making the industries the collective property of the people, by runnig them democratically, and by producing things for use instead of for sale and profits. Liberalism r p. By GEORGE S.BENSON President of Harding College fly Searcy, Arkansas _::E3 i _ BACK in America’s colonial days before the Revolutionary war when everybody was underprivil eged, there were only three free doms. Everybody had a right to work hard, save as much as he could of his earnings and use his head as profitably as possible in business. If you have a taste for long words; you might call the three freedoms industry, frugal ity and ingenuity. Government in those days was the English king, of course, and people who thought he ought to show more liberality called them selves liberals. The king taxed them plenty and his subsidized buying concern paid little enough for what they produced. A liberal then, was a man who wanted gov ernment to loosen up a bit in favor of the individui v Love of AFFAIRS of the people Liberty • were not changed very much by the Revolu tion. Colonies changed into states and new issues arose but still there was an over-all govern ment. In this over-all govern ment were people who had power lust, or else feared to trust the common people with vital deci sions. Opposed to these pow'er hungry folk were the liberals, ►till plugging for. personal. lib erty. - — ^The liberals’were’rightTTime lias proved beyond a doubt that people act better and live better and make more progress mate rially and spiritually when they have more freedom. ^.The United 1 States became a first-class power in record time — the world’s wealthiest and happiest people, so the word “liberal” is popular here. To us, a liberal is one who wants the individual to be free. Switch THROUGH the same Labels historic periods America has had reactionaries. These were people, in colonial days, who wanted the king to reign. After the Revolution, the same element wanted an iron-rod rule in Washington, something like a dictator. Small wonder our reactionaries have always been unpopular; people who oppose progress and try to grab power for themselves. & Reactionaries in America today are smart. They have learned one lesson well. They are very sure of one thing: They have a bad name. They know also that the word “liberal” is an asset. Ac cordingly they have adopted1 the term “liberalism” and call them selves liberals. This is the same political group that supports more government rule and less liberty for individuals.^ 0 How thi3 element has begun to call people reactionaries who hold precisely to the liberal teachings of Thomas Jefferson. But gov jernment control of everything, , and the destruction of individual freedom and opportunity is not • the • liberalism that Americans J think so highly of —not liberal ism at all. It is a counterfeit road sign designed to misdirect Amer ican i thinking away . from . the .ways of freedom.'' — fine Quality-Personalized PRINTING CARDS, LETTER HEADS, PERSONAL r STATIONERY, HAND BILLS — ANYTHING PRINTABLE... ~ j JUST CALL HA-0800 or better still Come to 2420 Grant Street