The Omaha Guide
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Afterwards-What?
by RUTH TAYLOR
9
“If, after the manner of men, I have ought with beasts
at Ephesus, what advantage it me, if the dead rise not.”
So apnke Paul—Paid the realist, the practical preacher.
Of what avail will the sacrifice of our youth have be?n if
we go on blindly compromising with prnciple, making the
same mistakes as before, allowing, the hydra head of tyran
ny to rise again?
e fought for freedom—our own and our fellow man's,
for without his freedom, our own was not and is not secure.
Democracy, our way of life, has one answer and only one
1o ALL forms of Statism. It is the fundamental principle
of equality before the law, and the sanctity of all men as
individuals.
If the was is to stay won, then aL over the earth there
must be freedom for all men. Men everywhere must have
the right to decide without fear or favor under what govern
ment they shall live and, regardless as to whether they are
the minority or the majority, they must have freedom to
live and work and grow strong, in the spirit as well as in the
flesh. A refugee is not a solution.
If the war is to stay won, then there must be established
justice, giving to every man no matter what his race or
creed or color an equal opportunity to utilize, in the chan
nels of his own desire, such talents and ability as he may
have. As a great thinker said recently: “When we pray
for the peace of Jerusalem we do not merely desire that
there sould be no fighting in her streets. We are praying
for the presence of that quality of justice which ensures
peace, and which, above all others, distinguishes a society
that accepts the moral law, from a society which repudiates
it.”
If the war has in truth been won by the forces of democ
racy, there must be universal brotherhood of nations as
well as of men. Only this spirit can bring in the new day
for which the hearts of men have long yearned—a new day
in which the law is love, and love, thefulfilling of the law.
This must come, for “If, after the manner of men, I have
fought with beasts at Ephesus what advantageth it me, if the
dead rise not.”
Released by Calvin's Newi Serviot
The age-Hour law was adopted at the heyday of the
New Deal to the accompaniment of lavish self-praise, not
only by New Dealers, but by big employers generally. The
legal “floor under wages” wa& to be elevated gently until it
reached the dizzy altitude of 40-cents an hour. True, sev
eral million workers, a large proportion of them Negro
field hands and domestics, were excluded from the law, it
being argued that this would inconvenience an Important
group of politically potent employers. Doubtless, the leg
islators were also deeply concerned lest the millions of cot
ton choppers and other field hands suffer vertigo as the
result of a giddy elevation in their fortunes. Notwith
standing this exclusion, the “floor under wages” was hailed
by industrialists, sundry reformers and do-gooders gener
ally as a tremendous step toward giving the workers secur
ity“.
What has happened to the “floor under wages”-? To
the workers to whom the law- applies the 40-cent minimum
wage has become meaningless. Forty cents an hour is $16
a week, of about $950 a year. Industrial employers can’t
buy labor that cheaply these days. And the reason they
can’t buy labor that cheaply is that the cost of living has
risen to a point where 40 cents an hour no longer repre
sents a minimum LIVING wage.
Actually it is capitalist economics, not capitalist law,
which fixes the minimum wage. How much can an ordin
ary laborer squeeze by on at current prices? That is the
real minimum wage. The law merely codifies the mini
mum wage that capitalist economics has momentarily estab
lished.
Share Your Easter Joy!
Buy and Use Easter Seals!
;! CRIPPLED
CHILDREN
Editorial: “Another World Menace!”
pcOpiE$ o7 Ttit WOStv
If there is a group of workers, such as Negro field hands
whose standards are traditionally lower, and who are inur
ed to etremex poverty, THEIR minimum wage is lower—
and the legislators simply exclude them from the act.
Because the 40-cent “floor under wages” has become
meaningless in the face of current living costs, the capital
ist State faces the alternatives of adjustnig the “floor” up
ward or abandoning a reform that has proved its political
usefulness in distracting the workers.
The Administration has chosen to revise the law. The
debate which began a couple of weeks ago in the U. S. Sen
ate, therefore, is to determine a legal minimum wage that
will not conflict with the real minimum established tempor
arily by capitalist conditions. Some of the Senators would
jack the “floor” up to 65 cents immediately and then raise
it gradually to 75 cents by 1950. (By 1950, because of the
increase in living costs resulting from the debasement of
currency, 75 cents will probably be as far below the real
minimum wage as 40 cents is today!) Others, including
the bloc of Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans
would play it safe by calling for a‘55 cent “floor"’ now and
an increase to 60 cents in eighteen months. Very likely a
compromise will be reached but, whatever it is, it will not
alter the real minimum.
I do not deny that a considerable group of workers, in
cluding the large proportion of Negro workers who crowd
the lowest wag elevel, might receive a modest wage increase
under the enfrocement of the new legal minimum wage.
On the other hand, many who would be thus affected are
employees of two-bit firms which have managed to survive
the competitive struggle only by chiseling on wages. As
was the case when the 40 cents “floor” was put under wages
many of these are doomed. Others will be. compelled to
accelerate the adoption of laobr-displacing machinery. In
either case, unemployment will result and capital will con
centrate.
The moral of this is that the minimum wage reform is a
nut which, once cracked, is a pretty empty hull. The con
dition of the working class, lashed to the capitalist jugger
naut, is not rendered less insecure by such shifts. Now
think a moment! Isn’t it a commentary that in this day
and age, when we have demonstrated in wartime our capac
ity to produce enough to provide every family in America
with at least 35,000 a year, our legislators are talking in
terms of 65 cents an hour? The age of abundance opens
before us. But the wages system prevents us from reach
ing it. The abolition of that system is the key that will un
lock the door to plenty, peace and human brotherhood.
INDUSTRIAL LABOR RELATION by Geo. DeMar for CNS
No Jobs for Negro Pilots
America’s far-flung and expanding airlines’ industry has
closed its eyes to Negro men and women as it operates its
great silver fleets throughout the world. Only yesterday
twelve pilots, seasoned in the air, made application for jobs
as pilots with the Eastern Airlines, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, to
be told that there are no openings. In fact, this company
has never employed a Negro as a pilot and it is open in its
position that no provisions have been made for Negroes
who have had previous flight experience and CAA ratings.
Archie Smith, who has more than 5,000 hours in the air
and who has trained over 150 flyers for the Army, said that
of the forty-five Negro flight instructors in the United Stat
es, only two have been able o land jobs. For the most part
and in order to preserve their licenses, they must set up
business for themselves.
Edward Gibbs, for five years flight instructo- for~ the
Army and a civilian instructor before the war, is operating
a grocery story.
The State Commission Against Discrimination, the NA
ACP and the Urban League have taken initial steps to
change this lily white policy in the air. A passenger in a
plane is only concerned with the proven ability of the pilot.
The organizations mentioned and those that will be formed
on behalf of fair employment practices want only that the
Negro pilot be given the opportunity to carry on in peace
time he skills he so ably demonstrated in the war.
WON’T YOU, MR. AND MRS. READER, write to the air
lines in your community? Tell them we have men who can
qualify, and let’s help the pilots get jobs like everyone else.
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The COMMON DEFENSE hy Rev. W rn. C. Kernan
Hope and Promise in America *
Something significant is happening in professional base
ball. For years Negroes have been barred from member
ship on a team in the big league. But now Branch Rickey,
President of the Brooklyn Dodgers, has signed up Jackie
Robinson, a Negro, to play short-stop for Montreal, one of
the Dodgers farm teams.
Rickey was asked why he did it. His answer, In LOOK
for March 19th was, “I’m doing it because I can’t help it.
I cannot face my God much longer knowing that His black
creatures are held separate and distinct from His white
creatures in the game that has given me all that I can call
my own.”
That is in the record now. And Jackie Robinson is part
of a major league baseball team. W hat Mr. Rickey has
said and done is a sharp rebuke tc those critics of Americ
AWID THE RUINS OF WARSAW
Warsaw, Poland, Soundphoto—
This one legged boy standing
alone against a background of
ruin is only one of the countless
inhabitants of Warsaw, once a
thriving capital of Poland, who
have suffered by the terrific
bombing of World War II. The
city which once had a population
of 1,265,000 and many modern
buildings, has only a fraction of
its former population today, and
its buildings are all but completely
razed to the ground. These are
the first exclusive pictures of the
ruins of Warsaw.
~ ■ — . "
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DO’S AND DONTS:
Do make your word your bond. Society respects the
person with integrity.
t ^=]i---'■■■■ ie=^- ir ~ii-•■■■ -ir==
an democracy who, in unrestrained bitterness, sometimes
condemn America as if it were a land of unrelieved injus>
tice.
Injustice there is in America. ISo one can overlook it.
But, neither can anyone, reading our history, deny that we
have made—and still do make—progress toward the crea
tion of the kind of country in which opportunity is open to
all regardless of race or religion.
And because there is hope and promise here for all men
—as m no other country under the sun—in spite of our
short-comings, Americans are e\ery day more and more
realizing how good a thing it is to live under one form of
government—liow good it is to be free, free to speak, to
print, to worship to vote—howr good it is to be able to work
towards a better democracy here-to bring the fruits of
justice to those of our people who yet do not enjoy them—
to be able to do this without fear of reprisal by the govern
ment.
How good it is to be an American! To live in a country
where rotestants, Catholics, Jews, Whites and Negroes have
an opportunity to carve out their own destiny and over the
years, to make progress toward that better, juster order of
which America gave promise at her birth.
THEY LL wmitn, &*m
THOMAS A.
mMAS
FRANCE'S GREAT
CZRERAL y
\ !M
TV OA'.AS * '
ALEXANDER DUW.5 WAS '
BORN 1762 IN SAN DOM
INGO OF A FRENCH FATHER
AND AN AFRICAN MOTHER
BECAUSE OF HIS RARE
COURAGE HE BECAME THE
MOST FEARED SOLDIER INTHE FRENCH ARMY- IN NO
TIME AT ALL HE BECAME A GENERAL, AND STAGGERED
ALL EUROPE BY ONCE CHALLENGING NAPOLEONS RANK/
HI5 SON. THE ILLUSTRIOUS WRITER. WILL BE
PRESENTED IN A LATER CARTOON.
GvAwidl fwVst
STERN TEACHER
✓ \ .VU sr'jtT* . V
" Coilri W Appreciafe America, /as.
