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About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 1946)
j The Omaha Guide | | A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ^ I [ Published Every Saturday at 2)20 Grant Street ^ OMAHA, NEBRASKA-PHONE HA- 0800 (Entered as Second Class Matter March 15. 1927 at the Post Office at Omaha, Nebraska, under i Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. C. C. Gallow iy,.... Publisher and Acting Editot 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 thin Wednesday noon, proceeding date of issue, to insure public ation. SUBSCRIPTION RATE IN OMAHA 1 ONE YEAR . $3.00 i SIX MONTHS .$1,751 THREE MONTHS .$l-25j SUBSCRIPTION RATE OUT OF TOWN i ONE YEAR . $3.30] SIX MONTHS .$300< National Advertising Representatives— . INTERSTATE UNITED NEWSPAPERS, Inci 545 Fifth Avenue, New York City, Phone:— i ! MUrray Hill 2-5452, Ray P;ck, Manager j OUR HEROES uy a„wUa "i'ayiOi February is the month in which we celebrate the birth days of two of our national heroes. Rut this year while we pay honor to them, we also pay honor to many new heroes who on land, sea, and in the air gave their lives for that nation which George W ashington helped to found and Abraham Lincoln helped to preserve. What makes a hero? Not his background. Our heroes come from every rank of life, class and creed. it is not a question of birth-we believe more in nobility of ascent, than in nobility of descent. There is a eomon yardstick for heroes, one by which we judge these new heroes, one to which Washington and Linoo'n measured up in full. It is the willingness to put others first, to give unstintingly of themselves in the cause of right, and for the protection of the country they loved and of their fellow Americans. That their memory endured throughout the years is no’ just because of what they did for the nation but because they clearly foresaw the course of events. ashinfjton said: “My politics are plain and simple. I think every nat'on has a Risrht to establish that form of Government lind'-r which It conceives It shall live most happy, provided it infracts no Right or is not dangerous to others.*’ Lincoln said: “Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the inheritance of all men in all iands.’’ Th«*se are the things for which we fought. Unless we realize the ideals of freedom for all men, un’ess we see to it that no basic Right is infracted we will have betrayed ALL our heroes. Our honor of them will be a mockery. The Lakewood Citizen has an excellent line which it runs in the renter of a page containing; the names of hon ored dead of that community. “They ask no more enduring monument than final vic tory.’' Final victory is not merely the victory of war. It is the victory of peace as well. The achievement of that victory is our task. Don't let us fail any of our heroes—they did not fail us! OVERTONES — (by A1 Heningburg BROTHERHOOD W EEK: I lie annual celebration of Brotherhood Week helps even the most unchristian among us realize the great need for friendliness wnioh always conies upon a nation after a war. Men tend to lose moral and spiritual ground as they try to overcome the effects that our boys too went out to kill or he ki led. \\ idle we rejoice that the war would ap pear to be over, we still remember that at Nagasaki %vas lo cated the most important Christian center in japan. Yes, you read correctly, we said WAS located at Nagasaki. A tireless ami effective worker on the American scene is Dr. George E. Haynes, of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. Soft-spoken, patient, and persuas ive, formerly of Fisk University and one-time of the Na tional Urban League. Dr. Haynes knows that tiie churches of this country have not furnished enough greatlv needed leadership. But he believes as do most other thinking people that if there is a way out, the Church will come near er finding that way than any other single institution. BEVIM VERSES VISHESSKY: Thousands of Americans sitting in comfortable living rooms, reading their evening papers, or listening with half their consciousness to newscasts, have failed to realize how important to 1 HEM are the sharp words which pass be tween Messrs. Bevin and Yishnisky. Many of the Negroes who did the spade work in World War II. and their older brothers who also did the dirty work in World War I. fail to understand how significant is the power struggle reflect ed in the discussion between these two men. liut histor ians know that diplomats make wars, while common men like you anil me f.glit them. There is none too -.ood feel ing between the Soviet Union and the British Empire. It was neither the elevator operators nor the owners of build ings who suffered during the recent operators strike in New Vork, it was the foot-weary men and women who work NEBRASKA SAFETY PATROL SAYS— With the number of auto glide.* or “scooter bikes” on our streets and highways rapidly growing, it is imperative that these riders assume more responsibility for their own safety. In any competition between auto glides and automobiles, the auto glide is obviously at a disadvan tage. In power, size, weight, and speed, the automobile excels. The Nebraska Motor Vehicle Laws require that the driver of an auto glide or scooter with less than t*vo horse power, must be 16 yrs. old. If the auto glide or scooter bike is two horse power or over, the driver must be 16 yrs. old and have a Nebraska operator’s per. mit or license All auto glades or scooter bikes regardless of horsepower, must be titled and registered. C. J. Sanders, Capt. I I Editorial: “Saboteurs Of Democracy!” in those buildings. THE CASE APPROACH: Representative Francis Case, of South Dakota, conies from one of the most sparsely settled sections of the Unite States. He runs a close second to Mr. Bilbo when you consider how few votes are necessary to send either to Con gress. He has always voted anti-labor, perhaps because he comes from a neck of the woods where industry is practie al’y non-existent. This man whose home-town number fewer than 2000 persons presents a bill which, if it beconu es law, will set the cause of organized labor in this country back twenty years. The House Rules Committee, domin ated by die-hard Republicans and southern Democrats, has a’ready given the Case formula its blessing. All of which shows the new low level to which our present Congress has sunk. MR. TRIM AN NEEDS: The Honorable Harry S. Truman has discovered that being President of these United States is certainly no bed of roses. The post probably looked attractive from the dignified and isolated office of the Vice President, for with a man like Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House, a Vice President was about as unnecessary and unheard as anything you can imagine. His recent clashes with Con gress have made the President aware that he needs a new alignment, and he is beginning to seek that support among the same men who advised his predecessor. Mr. Truman too, needs to draw about him brilliant men with “a pass'on for anonymity.” Whether he has the personal magnetism to attract such men is another question. LEARN FROM CIO: It’s no simple matter to go on strike in the dead of win ter, and to find yourself in a picket line at five below, with the wind whiping through you and past you all day long. The kids get hungry, and the rent man comes a round just as regularly as if Dad were working every day. U hen you think of things like this, you realize that UAW I CIO. and United Steelworkers of America, and other strik ers are fighting a new kind of war for thfc rights of ALL working people. One lesson that Negroes everywhere should learn from this, is the fact that CIO leaders have discovered that not enough men were registered voters. Not enough in Cincinnati or in Detroit. Watch PAC go to work, watch registration increase and watch Congressmen begin to take heed. _ I About the Common Man * (by Jl DAH DROB) (from The Detroit Tribune, Sat., Febr. 2, 194b) What’s your formula for ending race prejudice? Most people who have thought about the problem, who believe that it can be solved, have some notion of what ought to be done to end this special curse of America. My formula goes by the name of “association." Simplv stated, it means that when the average prejudiced white person has had to work alongside a Negro in some enter prise or other, prejudices soon disappear in the startling revelation tlita all human peings are pretty much the same, after all. , The difficult of this formula, as you cam see, is produc ing the association. For, by and large the results of the association are automatic. But getting the white person to agree to tcork alongside the ISegro, or to live next door to him, or to belong to the same organisation, if often next to impossible. During the war a special factor operated to force the as sociation. This was the necessity of production. The government officials in charge of manpower were often aide to force reluctant white persons to accept Negroes as co-workers. In many cases the union involved had an anti-disrimination policy and helped provide the needed push. „ In almost every case, where union. H ar Manpower Com mission, or 1EPC succeeded in forcing workers of both races together, the automatic cutting down of prejudice began. From here on out it looks very much as though the gov ernment will not he playing a major role in this process for some time. This is written as the Senate filibuster a gainst FEPC gathers steam, and the prospects lor passage of S. 101 look dim. W HO W ILL GIVE THE PISH? The filibuster comes at a time when the powers of the 1 wartime FEPC are at their lowest. Add to the starvatior diet deer ed by Congress the reduction of its nut* ori'y by the president, and you have an agency with little oppor tunity to carry out its job. Does th;s mean that all hop" of hr»W a**ocia'ion is ended? 1 think not. It just means that nnt:l tee can gnt a Congress that will adopt a permanent FEPC Imc ice must continue tn plac" our reliance on other agene'es. The chief of these is the union tha*. bans discrimination For the immediate future that is the best bet for coniine ing the pressure on reluctant white workers, and for put ting them into the situation where they will be able to learn j to get along with their Negro associates. AH this came to the front of my mind r-v'cniiy when T j met two good friends, one Negro and one white. One, the I Negro, is chairman of the shop committee of t*je UAW CIO local at the Crysler Highland Park plant. The other is the president of the local, who was born and brought up in Tennessee. The history of their local, and its race relations, is the best reason I have for pinning so much faith in the next ^ few years on the prejudice-busting possibilities of some unions. A CASE HISTORY When I first met the Negro, L. McPherson, in the early days of the war, he was the leader of the Negro employees in the plant who had gone out on strike to force the com pany to upgrade qualified Negro workers. A more forelorn and isolated bunch of strikers you have seldom seen. They were on a wildcat strike, and g >t no j support from the union. They had been isolated in the janitorial work of the plant and hail few friends among the white members of their union. Finally, it was agreed that Negroes would be upgraded in the plant, and the strikers went back to work. When I next met Mac he had been elected the chairman of the plant shop committee, representing all the workers in the plant, regardless of race, and regardless of skill. This was all the more remarkable because I know one young fellow a red-hot radicla, who three years ago had been run out of that plant for arguing that Negroes had a right to work on machines. The couple of years of association between Negro and white workers, doing the same work, side by side, had com pletely changed the atmosphere of the plant, and had put Mac in a position that he earned by his ability as a nego tiator. The President of the local, Bill Jenkins, came from Tennessee. He is one of many UAW-CIO leaders who came from the South, and who share with him a complete lack of prejudice, which most of them learned from the union. You bet Pm for the union as a prejudice-buster! Released by Calvin'* New* Service My survey is far from complete—it’s just a sampling— but I'll go out on the limb to say that the striking workers of this nation have the solid support of the Negro press. This support varies in degrees. A few Negro papers are unbecomingly timorous. But most of those I have read evince a warm appreciation of the strikers' point of view and are correspondingly hostile to the workers’ plutocrat ic exploiters. This attitude contrasts sharply with that of capitalist newspapers generally. W here the metropolitan dailies are not hysterically demanding dascistic laws to outlaw strikes, and arguing the corporations’ case while posing as cham pions of the “public”, they are slyly disparaging. A few. a very few. affect mild sympathy for the str.kers nut water it down with large tears for the “suffering public.” Why this contrast? The Negro press is commercial. It is owned y capitalists and operated for profit. Compared with publishers of the big dailies, its capitalist-owners are to be sure, “small potatoes.” But that doesn't explain anything. Some of the most vicious traducers of the strik ers are small-towTi capitalist sheets. Actually, the pro-striker sympathies of Negro newspa pers is a phenomenon which grows out of the larger part icipation of Negro workers in industry. It reflects a grow DO’S AND DON’S: } CONTlUC.V-*r-rW,'>'~~__ Dii! you write that letter in pencil? Do write the next one in ink it gives the letter a h.tter appearance. ing consciousness that the struggle against prejudice and discrimination is related intimately with the s;ruggle of workers against wage-slavery exploitation, and It I^as a significance that goes beyond the present wave of strikes. This is wl.at I mean: Not only in America, but through out the world, things are shaping themsehen for a show down fight between those who live without working and those who work without living. If vo.' hold your ear to the ground, you can hear the muffled roar of this revolu tionary force. It is the demand of the workers that soc iety put an end to the insane/ paradox of p’enty. It is a protest against a system which destroys what it calls “sur pluses” while men are ill-clad, ill-fed, and ill-housed. It is a new awareness of the unmitigated evil of a society which allows the socially operated instruments of toil to he owned privately, and which, through private ownership, vests despotic power over the many in the hands of a few. The minority of Negroes who possess wealth have an in terest, a CLASS interest, in preserving the evC-spawuing capitalist system. On the other hand, while they possess wealth they are denied many of. the privileges which ordin arily accompanies it. For. while the Negro community also is divided along elass lines, the white world doesn’t recognize the divls'on. “For white only” is an Injunction that excludes the Negro who is well-to-do as affectively as the plantation field hand. Money may buy luxuries, af ford idleness, pay the wages of servants, but it can’t pur chase the favor of Jim Crow, and this fact rangles in none so bitterly af those who have the money to offer. For good or ill, their escape from the indigniteis and humili tations of race and color prejudice hinges on the escape of all who share them. H This brings us back to the movement of working elass emancipatoin to which the struggle against race discrim ination and prejudice is inseparably linked. Fractically, the few Negroes who may be described as capitalists—busi nessmen, publishers, bankers, etc.—have ultimately to choose between a society which gives them status within the circumscribed sphere of the Negro community and a social system wherein affluence is general, hence no dis tinction, but wherein also inen of all races and color mingle freely and live in harmony. To choose the latter implies that the Negro capitalist rises above his immediate elass interests—as the Negro press is doing in a sense in supporting the strikers today—and stands with the useful producers, the workers. In all great social upheavals there are men who rise in tellectually and morally above the material interests of their class. Some of the most devoted supporters of the bourgeois revolution were nobles for whom the revolu tion meant the end of special privileges. And we may ex pect that in the revolutionary struggle that is shaping, a few enlightened men will detach themselves from the ramp of property and join the embattled workers. If the views currently expressed in the Negro press mean what they seem to mean, the enlightened men of wealth who cham pion th proletarian cause will include many Negroes. YMCA EMPHASIS ON YOUNG MEN, AND RETURNING VETERANS AH Sorenson is heading the 1946 YMCA Enrollment Week, according to an announcement by C. W'. Mead, President, and Winslow Van Brunt, Chairman of the Membership Committee. Sorenson was the unanimous choice of the “Y” officials. He has been active on the Youth Program Committee of the “Y” and while Chairman of the Rotary Boys’ Com mittee, he helped extend the YMCA Boys’ Community Work through the assistance of the Rotary Club. Sorenson has picker! the following men as his Generals anrl Airies and met with them Monday to plan the strategy of this camnaiim. The Generals anti Aides are Roy Pratt, Henry Windheim, Harry Trustin, Ed Garvey, Albert Stell ing, Cletus Haney, C. W. Minard, Wilson Walters and Jim Ainscow. Advising these leaders will be Bob Hall, Murray Champine, anrl Kermit Hansen. “One thing we know for sure,” said Sorensen, “our em phasis will be on the young men and returning veterans.” fine Quality-Personalized PRINTING CARDS, LETTER HEADS, PERSONAL STATIONERY, HAND-BILLS — ANYTHING PRINTABLE... 1 JUST CALL HA-0800 or better still Come to 2420 Grant Street