Letter to a Young Pacifist On this War - and the last
Hayes, Dorsha
Letter to a Young Pacifist On this War - and the last From Dorsha Hayes Author of "An American Primer" r\EAR TOM: I/l'm glad you wrote honestly, stating your -^ons for being a pacifist. I...
...Then God give us mechanical hearts, for we are less than men...
...Oi^ was something I experienced, lived through;/my senses had a record of the thing...
...And it is he who is tfound to profit most from.the recent Supreme Court decision, when and if that decision is translated Into actual benefits...
...In fact, they joined the union in order to promote their politics...
...About eight hundred members, together with Dr...
...Furthermore, the Southern Negroes now permitted, by accommodation, to travel on Pullman cars may possibly lose this privilege because of the reaction of embattled prejudice...
...And there's more besides that...
...The conscientious teachers, though resentful of these activities, could not within the limitations of a normal life and a limited day, cope with this onslaught...
...I've heard some people take it all pretty casually, certain sure the old human race would come through— era if it did mean a few dark centuries...
...With you it's different...
...It's -blind, cruel thing...
...Propaganda to keep us out of war...
...Might take a number of centuries, but if we headed that way it could happen...
...segregating, regardless of race, all passengers who travel without shoes, or are poor and disgusting in appearance, have vermin or .loathsome diseases, and smell and spit in every direction...
...Segregation will continue, but perhaps somewhat less obnoxious, in a physical and aesthetic sense...
...Often they even obtained reservations for their friends...
...For many years what was enacted on the floor of the teachers union was the reflection of politics all over the world...
...The older- folk were bred to idealism...
...Professor Dewey is an acknowledged leader among liberals and his contributions to democracy and education are world-renowned...
...You can't take chances with dying...
...Everything we (to- said about war or against war doesn't make jense today...
...Stop him any way and every way he can be stopped...
...I lived through one war holding on to pacifist principles...
...You think talk of torture is propaganda stuff...
...Her is, like Mr...
...August of 1940, after electing an anti-r*ainnist date headed by Professor George S. J??*?' the American Federation of Teachers J**", a resolution condemning all totali-"V^sn...
...This is 0 upheaval in civilization...
...The years have taught teachers a great deal...
...If you want to do any blame-shouting, yell at the guy who started this, the guy who does the moving in on people—Hitler...
...537, College Teachers of New York City, and Local 193 of Philadelphia...
...The relation of the union to its members is therefore somewhat different from what is commonly understood to be trade-union relationship...
...It has a record of constructive work carried on in a spirit of cooperation and good faith...
...Cannot our spirit leap the distance and know their pain is our pain...
...Jim Crow himself," and the first derisive step toward equal rights for Negroes in his lifetime...
...Moreover, the abovementioned modification of segregation in favor of a certain type of Southern Negro will probably disappear...
...Lefkowitz, then withdrew from the union and organized the Teachers Guild...
...T is difficult for the general public to conceive •* of what the teachers in these locals mean by trade-unionism...
...Admittedly, this is not exactly the rule, but it covers a sizeable percentage of those eager and able to travel in this manner...
...As an enlightened high official of>the Virginia State Department of Education told this writer, the Gaines Decision gave liberal Virginians an effective excuse for further realization of an aim long envisaged and already partially attained, namely to give the Virginia Negro, in the inferest'of the community at large, the fullest possible equality in educational opportunity, along separate and parallel lines...
...But what you're handle oat in the way of arguments is what we Itaded out to you years back...
...How will it react on the policy of the railroads...
...W*hy the change ? Because I see that pacifism won't Work now...
...Because this is a new problem, and if you ion't see it that way, we're in for the dark tfa for some centuries to come...
...His people loved peace the same as we do, and what's happened to them...
...If thp demand is small, occasional Negroes will be sold or refused reservations, according to given circumstances...
...But these relations were no mere formality...
...A pacifist could hold out and count on his principles to win in the long run, even if a few or many pacifists were killed off in the meantime...
...A large order...
...Yet, a large order, but one that's got to be filled...
...The Southern Negro will probably not affect the situation to any notable degree...
...They will not be taken in by false prophets...
...Our experience shall serve us well so that we, in tarn, shall be able to serve teachers well...
...But here's another way of looking at it: thfcre...
...You won't think talk of danger now is propaganda when you get through...
...For six years the GuiJd has continued to serve the purposes of a union for teachers...
...To die at one quick crack of.a bullet—yes, men have chosen death for a belief...
...you wars bred in the debunking years, the bitterness was there when yon came along and it was handed an to you, but the -idealism wasn't...
...Anyone who knows about "Jim Crow" cars and the discomfort" and humiliation to which Negroes are subjected on Southern railroads understands what intense satisfaction thi»<judgment must give to Negro Americans...
...His demand for reservations will not rise much above" what it is today, mainly for economic reasons...
...Maybe you can't understand how the idealism can live on buried under the bitterness and come out true' and strong again when it is needed, when I >i rytMjfc a matrr or woman counts worth while in lift is challenged, and how once again the old words come back, words like sacrifice' and heroism and right and wrong, old words, but words not quite forgotten, words that wake man's spirit from .its disastrous sleep...
...Certainly, not every Negro can purchase Pullman reserva*-tions—the average Negro cannot under any circumstances, And the Northern Negro traveling into the South is not a recipient of the mentioned privileges and exemptions...
...The Northern Negro, on the other hand, may affect the situation to the extent that equal rights along parallel lines are granted...
...This is not World War II...
...Local 5, which was organized in 1916 by sincere trade-unionists and which flourished as such under the leadership of Dr...
...the other was awty in another toVn and I got notice of his death...
...The left-over ideas are got good- Forget all the things yon heard us ay and stop quoting...
...Yet, gratifying as it is, this legal victory should not be nerrated with regard to its social implications and concrete nine in the fight against race discrimination in this country...
...He sees the school as a vital interest of labor, for the children of labor must have public schools to further their development...
...These were Local 5 of New York k...
...Fortunately, both decisions contain elements which may become instrumental in launching a direct attack on segregation in due time...
...Many of the stories you hear today sound like the old atrocity stories we know now were fake...
...It was the political scene in miniature...
...Could he be swayed by martyrdom to a right cause?—come to believe in it...
...the Russian variety included...
...The spirit of the * American people is dead set against it...
...But is there respect for reason in Hitler's, world...
...PO be sure, war is wrong...
...4ers are now free to move forward ac-to their own rights, to prosper in their J*° *«y...
...Well, the Bgpt answers for the 1920's are the wrong ones {or the 1940Js...
...In a detailed report he made it clear that a union couTcT not attain its objectives nor could it even hope to endure with factionalism as it existed in Local 5. The Communists, of course, fought the recommendations of the Dewey report and many liberals permitted themselves to be carried along with them...
...But besides those—who else ? Who'd like us to believe we're safe just going along the way we've always gone—like the people went along in Norway ? Who'd like to see our defense preparations bogged down ? Who'd like to see America weak, unable to defend herself, torn with disputes ? I guess you can answer that easy enough...
...Notably, in Virginia it has brought about further substantial improvement in the Virginia State/ College for Negroes in Petersburg, already a very superior institution when measured by the standards of such school?' in the South...
...It's only a fact...
...On the whole, the Gaines Decision has had rather farcical effects...
...Because this is not just one more war, old...
...By 1935 it became apparent to the administration that the time and effort consumed in fighting the factions might better be put to union purposes...
...The South will fight, obstruct, and evade, by fair means or foul, the admission of Negroes, on a basis of equality with whites, to sleepers, diners, and observation cars crossing Southern territory...
...Linville and Dr...
...That record came up with every memory, making that death real to me...
...Yes, and once a boy guarding sheep upon a hill cried "Wolf...
...Do the ordinary standards of decent, moral conduct exist in his world...
...It has kept clear of factionalism and remained faithful to its democratic principles...
...Pacifism...
...Yes, it hurts to say I'm not a pacifist any more...
...But there is propaganda going round...
...It tends to prove that segregation in the South is a variable' factor and modified by all sorts of social forces...
...This college is being progressively enlarged into what promises to become the first real Negro university in the .South, a school with the requisite graduate faculties, competent staff, and adequate equipment...
...Europe Ho -Concern of ours ? But men, our brothers, are dying there...
...Or do we choose to cut ourselves off from humanity, a separate section of the human race, one little part of mankind that denies' kinship with the rest...
...You're meeting new (Bsditions with old reactions...
...people with high ideals and a love of peace and a wish for the good life, fine people, but people who haven't thought it all out...
...It appears that in no case has the decision led to the admission of a Southern Negro student to the state university of his native state...
...Moreover, the upper class Southerner—and it is he after all who frequents Phllman cars—does not, as a rule, begrudge the distinguished or prominent Negro the exceptional privilege of Pullman services...
...that went bitter after the World War, but now, with the world changing, it's not hard for them to reach back and pull out the capacity for idealism that was once part of them...
...I understand...
...DUT this situation is not in itself an answer to the problem " of segregation...
...Roosevelt a war-maker...
...War has moved irv on an awful lot of people who did not want it, but not wanting it didn't keep war out...
...However, welcome as this development is, it represents merely a step, and a comparatively small step...
...laTj now what's to come after...
...Dying in war...
...And of course she believed him...
...The decision was seemingly a direct blow at the exclusion of colored students from the professional and graduate schools of Southern universities...
...It places the Negro, literally and figura-Istly, in a ghetto and makes equal rights granted by law iOniory...
...And in the end segregation will be more firmly rooted...
...Most Southern whites are familiar with the relations between individual Negroes and whites, the "protection" and patronage extended the former by the latter, and accept the situation...
...It has, however, led, in some cases, to the establishment of a regular medical or law school for a mere handful of Negro students...
...But must we see with our own eyes, hear with our own ears ? Where is our intelligence, where is our imagination...
...THE South will go to any trouble and even cost to avoid * a breakdown in segregation...
...His membership in the union was evidence of his desire to make real in practice the principles of his philosophy...
...I hop* you can find the meaning of living for yourself...
...ij Just what will the attitude of Southern public opinion be toward the legal establishment of equal rights in Pullman transportation...
...In the last analysis, such concessions and softenings, of which there are many, tend, perhaps, to make race discrimination more elastic and durable...
...They are determined to build a union, faithful to democracy, opposed to all totalitarianism and free from political factionalism...
...In j™* "> cany out in practice what was implied ^^^resolntion, the Executive Council further pruned to clean house...
...You are SJtTto fear the coming of war hysteria...
...One more thing...
...I can just see old Joe Dinosaur pat-" ting Ma Dinosaur on the back and saying, bathing's ever going to get us down...
...After all, other Supreme Court decisions in recent years— Mtsbly the Gaines Decision of December, 1938, and the one CUranteeing Negroes the right to trial by juries including Hejroes—have equal, if not greater significance for racial •quality...
...The other death was only a fact...
...You can lay plans to build up your system so you won't catch it again, but your first job is to fightvoff the disease...
...The set-up is bad...
...Reason goes down and idealism along with it...
...the cars for whites...
...To be sure, segregation is apt to break down on buses in Virginia, as this writer had occasion to observe, but, then, in matters of race relations, as in other respects, Virginia stands rather apart and is not really typical of the South...
...If, however, the request is sufficiently large, or nearly so, and, nioreover, legal pressure makes refusal increasingly precarious, "Jim Crow" Pullman cars will probably be installed on railroads traversing Southern states...
...Ruediger Bilden DOLING in favor of Democratic Representative Mitchell ** of Chicago, sole colored member of Congress, the Su-jreme Court recently decided unanimously that, under the Fourteenth Amendment, Negroes are entitled to Pullman iceommodations and other first-class...
...The ties based on confidence and integrity endured...
...Its integrity is respected by all teachers...
...Sure, you're the young generation, you're supposed to be out in font, leading the way...
...IT was with deep regret that-ihey left their * many friends in the American Federation of Teachers...
...Henry Linville and Dr...
...Because of poverty and backward conditions, comparatively few Southern Negroes travel considerable distance, except as migrants, and have little means and taste for Pullman service...
...a chance coming up to build a new world,"* better world, a world where the system won't go wrong and the disease of war set in ag&ia It can be done—with Hitler stopped...
...First, it must be borne in mind that this union does not control a closed shop...
...The gain registered by the decision is thus far purely ^ and, .unless reeinforced by other extra-legal factors, ¦T remain largely theoretical for some time...
...Letter to a Young Pacifist On this War - and the last From Dorsha Hayes Author of "An American Primer" r\EAR TOM: I/l'm glad you wrote honestly, stating your -^ons for being a pacifist...
...Our senses have no record...
...The teacher who joins a union, does so not alone out of an economic need, but also out of a social awareness and responsibility...
...South's Reaction to Supreme Court Decision May increase Segregation of Negroes By Dr...
...Ifs a great JJjfl* surely...
...Abraham Lefkowitz, was steadily being attacked and abused by these interested political groups...
...At best, the decision is an indirect and partial at-t«ek on race discrimination...
...You say Europe is none of our business...
...It is, undoubtedly, an advance in the right direction, but, a relatively minor and perhaps not even a direct advance...
...BUT the,decision does not necessarily touch the question of segregation, the cardinal issue in the battle for racial •eaaKty...
...Well, to be sure, it's spread around by a lot of people like yourself, Tom...
...If you can't—we're off to join the dinosaurs...
...Was the King of Norway a war-maker...
...Or by war* Stop him...
...It will probably also continue in motor-traffic...
...Do you know what it can do, multiplied in intensity, in duration ? Try to guess...
...We're oft to a new start, confident in our ability and certain of success...
...It is tacitly assumed that there is sound reason for his presence...
...If we don't, we not be fit for survival...
...Those who do—usually the'substantial and prominent members of a colored urban community—have often no great difficulty in obtaining reservations, because of their standing or their connections with, influential whites...
...I had two friends I loved...
...This express's of determination to rid teacher-unionism •this country of Communist influence is J"rtening to all intellectuals, in whatever fields "9 may be...
...I saw one of them die...
...You know that fable...
...gare's the trouble, Tom...
...It j one idea of government setting out to destroy jg other ideas of government...
...You think it can work...
...It was with deep regret that they severed their formal relations with labor...
...Oh, I'm just as suspicious of propaganda as you are, and when I hear the kind of talk going round that must please our enemies no end, it just makes me iick...
...And not torture for one's self alone, torture of loved ones...
...In this manner both the Federal constitution and the state segregation law were effectively complied with...
...It's all there...
...Do you know pain...
...And so is disease...
...It's mighty dangerous stuff...
...It is very unlikely that this practice will be changed by the decision, even on interstate buses...
...Tell me what you think...
...Thus the pretense of equal rights will be observed...
...Maybe you wouldn't know how much hurt there is in saying, that...
...Once a- Negro has his reservation, he is rarely molested by the train personnel or his fellow passengers...
...Three locals in the /^ration were known to be Communist-jSffted...
...Most of the Negro travelers in the South go by bus and are strictly relegated to the last few rows in the back, the most uncomfortable part of the vehicle...
...I hope you can come to know* that spirit is life and spirit lives upon ideals...
...Take a look at the official Nazi Primer...
...It is with great enthusiasm and supreme confidence that we once more unite with labor in its effort to build for greater happiness and satisfaction...
...Yes, the-people in their simple, and profound wisdom know that wars are wrong...
...Science has taught him to fight germs with germs...
...If the South must have segregation, it should adopt the Brazilian system qf...
...Those teachers who join with us, join on these pria-ciples, and the Guild will, if necessary, show its devotion to these principles by protecting itself, should any violations arise...
...However, the deplorable condition of the "Jim Crow" coaches, which, apart from the spiritual humiliation involved, makes railway travel in the South such a thoroughly unpleasant experience for the Negro of some refinement and fastidious habits, is not solely due to the indifference of the railroads...
...The overwhelming majority of the Southern Negroes are forced to live under economic and social conditions which are anything but conducive to the development of personal cleanliness, sanitary habits, and refined manners...
...At this moment it would be rash to make definite predictions...
...The end is, and must be, the elimination of segregation...
...I used to...
...You [fright in saying war.is wrong...
...It is, in fact, the continuation of the old teacher union movement...
...Their fanatic zeal and financial affluence created the confusion and destruction which they desired...
...The most striking example is the reaction-to the Gaines Decision, establishing the right of the Negro to equality with the white in education...
...You're all wrong calling Mr...
...and no one came...
...As for day coaches on interstate railroads, the bgst to be expected is some attempt to make the "Jim Crow" ears conform more closely in comfort and cleanliness to the standard of...
...Rather it is part of the etiquette of race relations, the pattern of social accommodation maintaining and perpetuating the existing racial situation...
...Tom, one thing I wish you could realize, and that's how the cards are stacked against your understanding things...
...The mind can't reason under torture...
...Maybe...
...Segregation is discrimination in its most brutal On vicious form...
...Sead up on "Mein Kampf...
...What Roosevelt is aiming to do is to keep war out, and he's doing it the only way that will work in this new world we're living in...
...This is not one country setting out to janqner ss many other countries as it can...
...It could work in a ciyilized world, in a world where there was respect for reason, and for the ordinary standards of decent, moral conduct...
...Dying in concentration camps...
...And how does the doctor cure the patient...
...Vocal were the Lovestoneites and Trotskyites and Socialists, but loudest of all were the Stalinites...
...And you are right in ques-.ypjBg...
...AND theres' another thing: a man can face ^* death for a belief, but he can't face torture...
...We ^ace a changing world and we must change to meet it...
...jA long and hard struggle has thus ended...
...Those that are now refused accommodations will continue to be refused, on any pretext convenient and effective, in the same manner as most Northern hotels avoid having Negro guests, legal rights of the.Negro to such privileges notwithstanding...
...You've listened to people who say "We've learned our lesson," jut ss though in the school of life you get the goe problems handed to you twice...
...I'HERE'S only one thing counts today: Stop * Hitler...
...Admittedly, they are no worse in this respect than the "Poor Whites," but the latter'form a far smaller proportion of their racial element and hence are less apt to become objectionable to their more discriminating fellow passengers...
...Turn your headlights on that and see where it comes from...
...In 1931-33, Professor John Dewey, a member of Local 5, after an exhaustive investigation, recommended to the local that leading fac-tionalists be dropped...
...No, he Wasn't, but war came to his country...
...Dig into things and see what the officials of the Nazi Party say for themselves...
...Short of war...
...IF the actual gain in "equal rights" for the more cultivated Negro is to be quite slight on day coaches, it will not be much greater on Pullman cars...
...the strange thing—I grieved more for the death I saw than the death I heard about...
...Start finding the new orrers for yourself...
...It's not easy to junk ideals you've lived with and loved and struggled for—to kick them out as so much useless rubbish...
...The Stalinites resorted to all the devious methods best known to them...
...The courage and determination, ^pressed first by the Executive Council and Jrf oy the entire membership, should inspire Wler Organizations to do likewise...
...my senses had no record, memory could bring no sound or sighb to stab at me and make pain fresh...
...Ouster of Communist Locals in A. F. T. Opens Way for Wide Drive Among Teachers By Rebecca C. Simonson President of the Teachers Guild" J*HE American Federation of Teachers has _voted in a national referendum to expel T1* Communist-dominated locals...
...Write me,Tom...
...You've got a good right to think so...
...Yes, you are right in all of this, and -t I think you're wrong...
...Thus the legal demand for "equal rights" will be satisfied, but segregation, and ultimately discrimination, will continue unabated...
...Since the national organization, the American Federation of Teachers, could not realize the seriousness of developments in New York, and since they did not recognize them as a menace to the whole country, they refused to accept the recommendations then made by the majority of Local 5. They did not reorganize the local as was proposed...
...I hope you can understand...
...Now that the American Federation of Teachers has taken on the task of furthering teacher-unionism in the spirit of courageous liberalism, the Guild looks forward to working again within the Federation...
...Dying of starvation...
...the old machines at work grinding out a new version...
...It was done either by granting state subsidies to colored graduate students willing to pursue professional studies at Northern universities or by creating, at great cost to' the taxpayer, separate graudate or professional schools for Negroes...
...Now here's...
...Mitchell, categorically ordered into a "Jim Crow*' car on crossing the Mason-Dixon Line Or refused a reservation outright on various more or less plausible excuses...
...conveniences equal to •.hose enjoyed by white people in interstate railway transportation...
...I don't know, it aught be in for worse than that...
...But Mmplete extinction of the human race is 1 scientific possibility...
...Thus the writer observed in diverse Southern localities that colored educators or professional men traveled extensively, from and within the South, and invariably on Pullman cara...
...They will no longer be maneuvered * outside powers, nor will their energies be PPed by struggling against those powers...
...You are right to dread propa-tggii...
...But torture...
...When disease hits you, something has gone wrong with your system...
...For teajatter of that, wars never have been any » popular with the people, and we never had t single war without conscription in ^ne form a another, even the Revolutionary War...
...and that wasn't exactly pleasant or ^entirely.safe...
...This is the time for questions—plenty af them...
...These teachers were first members of political parties and only afterwards members of the union...
...Its chief effect, for the time Wng, will probably be the promotion of so-called racial quality along parallel lines...
...Mitchell was justifiably elated over this victory, but I think rither too sanguine in his reported remark that it is "a step in the destruction of Mr...
...But I'm not a pacifist now...
...And torture is the weapon of the rulers in Hitler's world...
...Being killed wasn't important if it was in a right cause, a cause that wouldT end-all killing...
...Unfortunately, some of the teachers in New York undertook to interpret labor's interest for the rest of us...
...However, the states concerned skillfully managed to circumvent the ultimate import of the judgment and yet satisfy, theoretically, the demand for "equal rights...
...Plenty ¦of'it...
...It was easier to appear "tolerant" than to strike out courageously on behalf of liberalism...
...I hope you can understand...
...In the first M*e, it does not affect intra-state railway transportation, 'fcieh means the bulk of colored railroad passengers in the ^"rth...
...In this respect segregation is left wholly unques-'w*d and in force...
...Ideals like justice and freedom...
...Well, here's your answer—you don't need to get your facts from propaganda, you can get them at the source, Hitler himself...
...In isolated instances it has been the source of definite progress, not in breaking down segregation, but in affording the Negro greater and more equalized opportunity along separate lines...
Vol. 24 • June 1941 • No. 24
