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About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (Aug. 30, 1947)
The Omaha Guide A Weekly Newspaper Published Every Saturday at 2420 Grant Street, Omaha, Nobaaaka Phone HArnay 0800-0801 Entered as Second Class Matter March 16, 1827 at the Post Office at Omaha, Nebraska, under Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. C. C. GALLOWAY — — —-- --Publisher MASON DEVEREAUX, JR. — — Gen. Manager - Acting Editor All News Copy of Churches and all Organizations must be in our office not later than 1:00 p. m. Monday for current issue AU Advertising Copy, not later than Wednesday noon, preceding date of issue, to insure publication. SUBSCRIPTION RATES IN OMAHA ONE YEAR--- 54.00 ... ....$2.50 THREE MONTHS .....-. 51.50 ONE MONTH ......50c SUBSCRIPTION RATE OUT-OF-TOWN ONE YEAR . 54.50 I Back To School Once aBain he eld schoolhouse bell will ring and boys and girls throughout the nation will go rippting merrily back to school. It will be a great day for most of them after a throp month’s vacation filled with picnics, sightseeing trips, parties, outings and generally having loads t>f fun, it will be/ a change To others it will be looking forward and toward the future where they will plan and prepare for a better America through edu cation. These boys and girls will carry on the traditions of the true democratic printijJles sonobly set down in the Constitution, Declara tion of Independence, Gettysburg Address^ etc., by our forefathers. They wiH see that discrimina tion as to1 (freed, color, or racial^iden tity wift be forever erased from our nation’s history. OOn these small shoulders will fall great responsibiities and Brave probems con fronting the American people of this great nation. Yes, ba*k to school they go, to learn to prepare for a better way t» live in order that they might be ready when the time comes to lake their place in the American way of life, A life that opens its doors of opportunity to all according to his or her given ability and desire to contribute something to mankind everywhere. A way of that will help to build a greater, stronger and saner America. A way of life that will make democracy riing forever throughout t!»: land and abroad. These boys and girl swill be preparing for all of this and more, yet many are too young yet to realize it. As they Brow in strength, wisdom and vision their once little infant minds will grasp the great problems confronting our nation, and they will take up the banner of Democraek and carry it to a victorious conclusion. __ i Li. ' Labor Day » - ' Labor Day, 1947, will have a significance that goes far beyond the picnics and the parades and the windy speeches that mark all ^ national holidays. j , American labor has come to a crossroad. On tKe one hand, it; has achieved enormous economic and political power, and wages and working conditions unequalled throughout the world. On the other hand, as a result of certain grave abuses o£ that power, it has incur red the distrust of millions of Americans wfiOi aije not “anti-labor” but are “anti-racketeer.” - The Taft-Hartley measure marks the first decisive attempt to cor rect these abuses. But a law is not enough. Tabor could evade and perhaps circumvent for a time the clear intent of Congress. It could continue to hamper prodcction and disrupt the smooth function ing of our economic machine. It could continue to reduce the pres tige of this country abroad and its security at home. Should it do that, it would eventually bring down the wrath of the people upon its head, and invite a really touBh law that would drastically limit its rights and privileges. ) \ If labor will cooperate with industry and the government te clean its own house and to contribute its full, measure to the produc tion of goods and services, it will earn and rec?eive the respuct and confidence of the country. It is a good sign that some leading labor leaders have recently said that workers productivity should be in creased. One reason for today's high prices lies in the fact that ous put per man hour has gone down ejen as wages have goneup. Labor's basic interest lies in “real wages, ’ which means wages measured in the light of purchasing power, not merely the number of dollars in the pay envelope. Labor Day will be a memorable date if it marks the start of a voluntary effort to resolve labor-manaBement differ ences through honest collective action, and to stabilize the American economic system. What The Consumer Wants At various times polls have been made of consumer needs, desire5 and eccentricities. And the answers show why there is plenty of room for all all kinds of stores, from independents to chains, and from gigantic department stores to little specialty shops. One segment of the consuming public is primarily interested in certain trade-marked brands, and buys only in stores which carry those it favors. * Still another segment places service high on the list of its re quirements, It wants delivery of good to the home, the charge ac count privilege, a very liberal policy in exchanges, etc., and it is will ing to pay the added costs that these and other services entail. Under the free competitive system—which is the American sys tem—there is a store to meet every demand. Every kind and char acter of consumer commodity is stocked, and a long list of bronds is offered. If one store can’t meet some buyer’s standards, another store down the street will. And every merchant who keeps up with the times will get his share of the business. American retailing is geared to serve the varying wishes of the 140,000,000 Americaift who patronize it. In June there was a 13 per cent decline in American export trade. This reflected a decline in foreign Hbying power due to depletion ef dollar credits—not a decline in foreign desire and need for U. S. goods. HoweTpr. tf>» drcp had relatively little effect on industry—tire domestic market i6 still able to absorb all we dan produce. The Offering 7 “This one is far - more becomuo! I, i THAT’S YOUR BUSINESS Profits spark our economy. Yet Prom Much current discussion of profits, on* would think they bur den our economy, and that it would be better if all business o perated constantly at the break even point. MUCH OF THE current discus sign of profits has been of over-all aggregate profits, without regard to volume °f Sales. Such discuss ion is bound to give a distorted TO A CONSIDERABLE extent, profits represent accruals of physi cal assests. A large part of profits in 1946 was d*e to increases in inventories and higher prices of inventories. STOCKHOLDERS HAVE not benefited much from dividend pay ments in the past five years, be cause corporations have had to retain an unusually large portion of profits fdr captial needs. In 1946, only 44 per cent of corporate rofits were paid out in dividends. Since 1942 dividend payments ranged from. 43 to 53 per cent of profits. IP WE CONSIDER aggregate , profits it is fair t<5 consider aggre ate wages,. Wages in manufactur ing increased from $9,390-million in 1939 to $25,016 in 1946—an in crease of 166 per cent. During the same period, aggregate profits of manufacturing corporations in creased from $2,941-million to $6, 338-million—an increase of 115 per cent. AS”A MATTER of fact, profit rates in 1946 (5.0 per cent) were slightly lower than in 1939 (5.1 per cent.) HUMAN RELATIONS A Midwestem manufacturer sent personal letters asking em ployees on his payroll five years or more, what they think of the company, its management and supervision, and their own future prospects. Replies showed 65 per cent be lieve they have done better in their present jobs than their could have done elsewhere. The average has been on the job 8.75 years, has had five advancements, and i, now gets $1.59 per hour, compared with 59 cents less than nine years ago. Can Racial Preju Be Stamped Ow By BLANCHE What is- prejudice ? The diction ary says prejudice is an injury due to some judgment or action BLANCHE ALICE RICH of another, as in disregard of a persons rights. Because prejudice has poisoned human relations since th dawn of civilization, skeptics maintain that it is human nature to be pre judiced, and that human nature is unchangeable. Others, disagree ing, point out that society is ad , vancing steadily to higher levels of development. There are many I things we as citizens can do. j First of all we must shed our own prejudices. We must teach 1 children and their parents so they | won’t fed the slow poison to their , children—we can have peace only ' if there is trust among people. Sermons in every church should aim to stamp out intolerance. Radio talks, and magazine arti cles will help to make the public think about the problem, and may be their chi|&ren will have differ ent ideas* Racial and religious prejudice can and must be stamped out. People were not born with pre judices—they acquired them as a result of their environment. One time a man was walking by a layce and ne saw some little | ducks by the shore. He went to THE BIG ONE GOT AWAY! By COLLIER ittwiip ■ ■■—i ■ mii i 11!■ !■! ■ i ■■■■!! ■ _ dice ? ALICE RICH them and picked one up and fond led it. He put it down and started to walk^away when the Mother duck discovered him. She hurrid ly swan to her brood and made a big fuss and shooed them away from the shore. When the man walked back again later, as soon as the little ducklings saw him coming they began swimming a way from the shore. They were frightened of the man. They had not been frightened until the Mother duck had put the instinct of fear in them. It is the same way in children. They are not bom with it. To dis. cover the origin of prejudice in the life of a person, we must be gin at the beginning. Psycholo gists have studied Negro bias in white children living both In the North and in the South. Their most striking finding was thaft little children do not have pre judices. Three and four year olds make no distinction between Ne gro and white playmates. Yet the “race’ prejudice does emerg.e but gradually. The child observes very carefully what his parents and other adults do. The child soon sees discrimination all around him. His parents never in. vites Negroes to the house as they do their white friends. If Negroes are around they are usually ser vants or hired hands. The child eventually thinks this must be the way to treat Negroes. The prejudice is clearly not in stinctive because children are not bom with it, and takes a long time to develop it, often resisting very strongly. Research has shown that child, ren of parents who treat Negroes as equals do not develop a bias. Prejudice comes from contact with prejudice. It does not come into being out of thin air. But who does start the predice? It has Jpeen demonstrated that Negro prejudice in America was created and kept alive by the people who had the most to gain, by it—the Southern land owners, who werp latter joined by indus trial and business interests. They | controlled, and still do, the press and other means of communica tion. Any motion picture which defends thp rigths of the Negroes or of the white sharecroppers can not be shown in any Southern commiunity. The system of educa tion is controlled in the same way. Thg landowners and business The landowners and business men feel that by making the people believe that the Negro is inferior, and that by keeping him in an inferior position they can bavp a constant source of cheap labor. Prejudice exists because some group who has the power to put it into effect, gains bv it. Once the preiudice has caught on it is easy to keep alive, and passed down from father to son. Money, as well as power, is usually what the group behind gains. Negroes have had only eighty vears of freedom as a group. Stating with almost nothing by the way of property, education or organization, they have made historic strides toward overtaking whites as a group, and individual Negroes have managed to attain some status as lawyers, physici ans, ministers and porperty own ers. which helps to spur the others on; but none can really escape the discrimination. A LABOR PROGRAM AGAINST INTOLERANCE ] By John W. Gibson Assistant Secr«tary of Labor “The Commission holds to the faith that if people are exposed to the inner truth of the life of a j particular group, they will gradu ally build up respect for and un derstanding of it.’’ The above quotation is taken; from the recent report of the dis. j tinguished Commission on Free- j dom of the Press headed by Rob ert M. Hutchins, Chancellor, Uni. I versity of Chicago. In the Com mission report it applied, of course, to the factual, and repre sentative portrayals of social and ethnic groups. But even out of context this particular staement has pertinent application to the problems and responsibilities of the labor movement in connection with religious and racial tolerance We have spoken a lot of gener alities about racial prejudices and religious intolerance in the labor movement; some brave words have been uttered; count less resolutions have been passed; here and there some progress has been made On cannot help but wonder, however, how much, in terms of the practical, work-a-day world of the trade union member, it all means. A Negro member of the UAW, telling his story in the April 1947 issue of Ammunition, organ fo the educational department of that union, thinks that workers, when they go into the plant, “bring their prejudices with them.'1 Bui, he adds, "in our union they learn.’’ In his shop, he felt, the program of the fair practices committee was taking hold, "down in the “hearts of men c.n<I women.” Is this a widespread or even fairly frequent experience ? I doubt it. The organized labor movement currently constitutes about 16 per cent of the adult pop ulation and it is reasonable to as sume that it carries within it a replica of he pattern of think ing which characterizes the popu lation as a whole. If this is true then we do indeed bring our pre judices with us not only into our plants but into our stores, offices school rooms, and other places of work. And the resolutions, while they indicate the fundamental de cency and progressivism of labo* movement cannot alone fulfill their objective. We must implement the resolu tions with a painstaking and workable program. We start with one advantage: the character of unions themselves. While union members may be subject to the many racial and religious preju dices of the general adult popu lation, they are the most highly organized and most enduring seg ment of the population: they meet regularly, they are banded together for a common objective and purpose, they too have the benefit of well-established means of communication. I suggest only thq broad out lines of a program which is flex ible enough to be adaptable to local needs. I start with the pre mise that an effort to combat and eventually to eradicate racial and religious prejudice in the labor movement must be a part of the general program for work ers’ education. Workers’ educa- j tion classes which present, objec I tively and accurately, interesting lectures on the following general subjets should be developed in every locality: 1. The contributions of various religious and racial groups to the American community and to the labor movement itself. 2. The orgin and development of the races of mankind. 3. The origin and development of religions and religious groups. 4. A frank discussion of myths and slanders connected with racial and religious groups. Such lectures could be followed up with talks by religious and racial leaders of the community talks which would be built around the economic and social problems of the particular group. Granted the reasonable success of such a program, its scope could be ex. panded. The labor movement of the community officially should help initiate and participate in similar programs for the locality as a whole, through such organiz ed groups as parent-teacher as sociations and adult education classes. Looking at tne articles in this series in previous issues of LA BOR REPORTS, X find a com mon thread of agreement: intol erance in general is a threat to labor; intolerance on the part of labor itself is a movement toward self-destruction. I-abor must dim inish the discrepance between their resolutions and their actions against intolerance. The mighty organized will of the free Ameri can trade union movement, which in the past has been harnessed to countless sociaj and economic re | forms must again take the lead. The Russitns Wouldn't > GetR By GEORGE S.BEHSOK % f BwUrnt at HaJtBg Coflf —... —..m j WE TALK of those Russians be ing difficult to understand. Rut there aoe some things our totali tarian neighbors would never be able to understand about us. They just wouldn’t get it. The way we hrgued and fussed over the labor bill Congress just Phased, for example. Then when the bill became law, we all settled down to see if we can abide by it. This is what we call majority me, through the elected representa tives of the people. In our kind 6f set-up, people are given credit for being able to think for themsfelves. Facts are easy tto get hold of. Viewpoints may be freely expressed. We make up our minds, and our rep resentatives at the sent of gov ernment try to carry out our wishes. Things do not go l\ke this in the totalitarian eountnes. Such questions would no^er be placed before $hg people in the first place. Regardless of every thing else the will of the dictator wcTuld prevail. Controversial 0T GAN1ZED LA Legislation liOR, in its atti- * , tutie toward the Taft - Hartley Bill, has demon strated the manner in which the •'people’s mandate" is accepted in a land where laws, are determined by the will of the majority, but where all minorities are respect ed. The bill was the most con troversial legislation to come up In years. Much feeling was de veloped.^ Lobbying ’was. every, where; Yet, when the tabor bill be came law over the President’s veto, and when the President bad i stated that he’d sincerely en force it and not sabotage the taw, the top leader3,of labor affirmed there wotdd be no general pro* test strikes. Rightly, th?y de-\ dared they would test it\ in the courts, where taws should be test ed. If the legislation is in error; time will tt.ll. In the true Amer ican tradition of fairness and justice, we are awaiting the prov ing and testing of the new law. How About NOW I WOULD Economics? like to say that the , - whole nation’s economy is the direct .result of this sort of thing. We may not like the decision of the majority, but we go along and make it work. We bank on the majority beingVight. We are willing to S;t the majority, through our lected representatives, write the laws. Most historians agree this is the best kind of government that civilization has yet devel oped. Economics used to be a big word. Now, nearly everybody un derstands it to mean the way we use opr resources and consume our wealth. This includes pro duction, buying, and selling. It includes the activities of labor and of management. Traditional ly, in, this country, we Lave al lowed our economy to remain free .of artificial barriers Which would ! hamper its natural lavra, like that j of/ supply and. demand, for -in-' stance. The important thing: free trad ing and bfaying and selling (that is, an economy which freely be longs to the people), works best when we have a truly represen-] tative government. They go hand „ in hand: Tyrants and dictators never let these things go free. A1 restricted economy «nd a non-; representative government, ymfil! find, are always part and parcel of the totalitarian method. 'This method nyver pays high wages., In America we have a great land.* We ppy the highest wages men’ ever earned. Let’s kebp it that way! And free! \ The Veteran Asks... Q. Will the Veterans Admin- | stration guarantee a loan made to me by my uncle, who is a non-supervised lender? A. Yes, but made by non-sup ervised lenders require prior ap proval of the Veterans Adminis tration. Your uncle should submit the propsal to the local VA re gional office for approval. Q. I wanted to file applies tion for a disability pension full amount? A. This is a matter to be set when I was discharged from the service, but passed up my chance because I was afraid it wdLld delay my discharge. Can I still apply? for a disability at any time. Visit the nearest Veterans Administra tion office where a contact repre sentative will assist you in filing an application. Q. I want to get a fZ. I. loan guarantee for the purchase of a home. Will I be required to put up any of my own money, or can I get a loan for the full amount ? A. This is a matter bewteen you and the agency which loans you the money. The Veterans Ad ministration does not require you you to put up any money in order to obtain the loan guarantee, but the lender may. Lenders often re quire down payments in cases where the veteran wishes to bor row an unusually large amount of money. As in the past, it will be a mani festation of the development and growth of the movement — true growth which comes from a stirr ing of the roots. And that is why, in discussing the fight against in tolerance. I stress local activity so heavily. Q. My National Service Life Insurance term polity lapsed after I was discharged fropi the aervifx. How can I rein state it ? A. You may reinstate the pol icy by certifying that you are in as good health as at the time the policy lapsed, and by paying two monthly premiums. This simple method of reinstating term insur ant will be in effect until Dec.31. 1947, irrespective of the date of lapse. Beginning next year it may be used only within 3 months of the lapse date. You may obtain a reinstatement form at any Vet erans Administration Office. Q. How long after discharge from the service may a vet eran claim readjustment al lowances? I understand that the allowances stop when the veteran has received all he isentitled to. but how much time does he have in which to collest his allowances? A. Readjustment allowances (jobless pay) are availabde to an eligible veteran only for two years after the end of the war. which became official on July 26, 1947, or from date of discharge, which, ever is later, and no allowances will be paid for any week five yars from July 25. 1947. f Q. I have been attending col lege under the G. I. Bill. May I transfer from one college to another without losing my rights to educat'onal benefits? A. Yes. Under the regulations of the Veterans Administration, a veteran mav change his school, but he must have approval of the Veterans Administration, in ad vance. Fishing and Hunting Area Sun Valley Idaho, borders op a iiur',inp a>~d fishing area as large 9' t» of Connecticut. THE POCKETBOOK OF KNOWLEDGE <jj|| By PILGRIM ♦ t . f ; jc 2,836,db.O BUSINESSES IN * IN "ME 8MONTHS* THE U. SuJEMPLOVINS FEWER AFTER V-J PR/, * /THAN IOCTPERSONSEACH.PROVIDE STRIKES,WPRflSEP 'JOBS FOR A THIRD OF ALL - 372 O _ \fcA6E EARNERS MONTH n.-- —--« ; HE WEIGHT OF SLOOP 15 ONE EIGHTH OF THE [ WHOLE BOP)/ v . Ln - ' AS Af " Area WALL WOLPS? FOR ELECTRIC shaver -aiRM5.rr OFF AMP ON, flMP REELS UP THE * CORO