Robert Wagner Answers Post-War Threat of Tory Defeatism
Wagner, Senator Robert
Robert Wagner Answers Post-War Threat of Tory Defeatism Liberal Senator Outlines, in New Leader Article, Plan for Social Security Meet-Economic Hazards By Senator Robert Wagner I JN'LIKE some of...
...We see irresistible forces set against immovable bodies to ends neither he nor we can divine...
...You must think as well as fight * \ * * ?N the past, men and women have been chal-'* lenged by.fear of want...
...Keep the flame burning...
...STARK rVERY gradustion exercise and every group ~* of graduating students in the United States renews hope in the hearts of men...
...Fewer persona, working shorter hours, produced substantially more goods and services in 1940 than in 192...
...Free choice of* doctor and hospital, and freedom of medical practice, are effectively assured...
...5. A new and improved national system of unemployment insurance is created by the bill, in place of the present Federal-State program...
...go back to the past...
...Old-age maximum benefits are increased to $120 per month, and the minimum for an aged couple is increased to 130...
...Think fearlessly...
...Death in Italy...
...Controversy:The South, the Liberal, and the Negro Problem By GORGE S. SCHUYLER [The New Leader hat atked a number of prominent American tpoketmen interested in the problem to comment on Cy W. Record's provocative "What Hat Happened to the Southern Liberalt...
...The people m resurrection freed From wordy...
...We>ee things that cannot be accomplished overnight being attempted -and the result threatening real progress made...
...Robert Wagner Answers Post-War Threat of Tory Defeatism Liberal Senator Outlines, in New Leader Article, Plan for Social Security Meet-Economic Hazards By Senator Robert Wagner I JN'LIKE some of aar Allies in this war, we will not need to employ our men and resources, in the immediate pott-war V„ to rebuild cities and factories torn by bombs or to restore the fertility of land ravaged by invading arm re...
...Thomas Jefferson kept his ideals and stuck to his course...
...Note.] By JOHN TEMPLE OUAVES Editor, the Birmingham...
...Congratulations to your parents who out of their joy, sweat, blood and tears, now see you attain your successful graduation...
...The maximum weekly benefit is $30...
...Jefferson was said to be an "atheist," an "anarchist," and "a follower of Robespierre," the French revolutionary...
...Whenever the going gets tough they rush for the cover of compromise...
...That means a potential national income of 146 billion dollars in 1946 at foil capacity (at 1940 prices...
...facilities assisting in making needy mdividmb self-supporting...
...f ? u rth and * final installment of Stefano Terra's story of En r i ? ? Bard, a mountaineer In the service of the Italian anti-fascist underground^ '?, i 11 appear' 4n Ta'e $ew Leader next »eek...
...Tacitus' description of the inhabitants of Southern England would fit many South Africans I have known...
...You can find in the Congressional Library a collection of vile libels which have only been equaled in recent times by the Cough-linites and by the tolJowoTs.-Qf^J*$a?^l*- K_ Smith and Joe McWilliams...
...This would be returned after the warn the form of social insurance protection, st ta* time when the individual family and prrfSSl industry will need it most...
...as follows: "We shall think of these (social insurance1 in terms of minimum benefits...
...and will be a strong rallying point for all liberals when Congress retains from recess...
...Many Africans closely resemble some Mongolians...
...Eugene Talmadge had been soundly beaten...
...Tht mlatioa ha* the fall endorsement of b»J «** American Federation of Labor aad the Congress of Indastrial Organizations...
...Control the powers of productivity...
...Record, who it now m the Army, will contribute "A Summing Up...
...Meet the challenges and be in the vanguard of that army...
...aaltS and marine«: In eight Eastern states alone, where manufacturing industries are heavily concentrated, servicemen returning to civilian life will be as numerous as the total of men employed in those industries before the war began...
...Such designation of Americans without porcine complexions is merely a convenient device for facil'tating their subjugation on "racial" grounds for the economic advantage of a minority of white* and the psychological satisfaction of the others...
...You are1 not a parrot repeating by rote unimportant details...
...That is your first challenge...
...One finds the fiercest Negrophobes in these whites of "dubious" ancestry...
...He served in the state legislature, berime t Supreme Court Judge and was draftee free the comparative peace of the bench to run for the Senate...
...It is not "WPA here we come," but ."Armed forces here we come...
...In America and elsewhere...
...This is the same as arguing that we should gradually get rid of Hitlerism...
...State and local government employees, who do not have their own pension plans, may also be covered through voluntary compacts with the Social Security Board...
...Congratulations to you for the accomplishment of your arduous task...
...We are now faced with the problems of what we can do in preserving the rights of free speech while showing no tolerance to the intolerant...
...Your duty and responsibility it is to take the torch from tired hands, trim it and make it burn brightly in your own vigorous grasp...
...Should we give to those who openly sneer at and propose to destroy civil liberties and rights the enjoyment of those privileges...
...I have seen a picture of the wrie of George III of England which looks like a photo on the woman's page ef The Pittsburgh Courier...
...You have to help humanity understand this oneness and unity...
...The ranks of organised labor had been opened...
...Insurance benefits are payable as of right and vary according to past wages and tht ???-be r of dependents...
...But recent decades have shown us that a knowledge of psychology may be used for the purpose of perversion...
...we shall wast to leave a wide area for private social serves . - . And* we shall only be taking a realistic approach when we say that the field left over ef still be too great for even the best ffforts d private agencies, and that there wilt therefor* be need for a well organized public-assmtasei Tiwgram ? nut mm shall look forward to ? otnav1 ishing need for a public-assistance program ?» social insurance expands...
...woven by Well-fed gentlemen Shall grow to be the army of humanity And build again the citadel of peace...
...Furthermore, the demands of war have speeded up the increasing efficiency of labor...
...as Sir William Beveridge has...
...There are 28 Negro families in Detroit who must feel the tragic mockery of the phrase "with liberty snd justice for sll" which we have just repeated in our allegiance oath...
...Right now thev are appeasing the militajit reactionaries...
...leave your teachers behind...
...have been sick to our souls in reading the papers during recent days...
...At a future date, Mr...
...If there has been a reaction such as Cy Record describes—and indeed there has, in the South and everywhere else—the pity is that he so little understands it and has so poor a program for meeting it...
...And if we had no jim crow laws how could we regulate the color caste system ? And if the color caste system could not be regulated by society but had to be left to individual taste, would not the whole philosophy and practice of white superiority collapse...
...Do not measure your scholarship by the encyclopedic detail which you can supply upon short notice, memory tricks of the elephant which outmoded methods of learning emphasize and''which loomed so Isrge and so uselessly m the New York Timet overpublicized tests...
...Wagner has long been acknowledged as* one of the ablest men in the United States Senate...
...Significantly enough, the word "Negro" came into general use with those Siamese twins, the 4 Age -of Discovery and the Age of Chattel Slavery...
...During your stay in this school you have acquired much knowledge, much of which will doubtless fade from your memory...
...Presently we have a dozen different definitions of "Negro," many of them contradictory and all of them confusing...
...Both the workei and the *?^*, would get their full money's worth ir sota» security...
...Frau ; Fischer described Beethoven as "blackish brawn," and when Count Esterhazy first saw Haydn after hearing one of his compositions, the nobleman exclaimed in astonishment, "What, this blackamoor 1" It is common knowledge that all the "better" European nobility bear traces of the tar brush, and the "common" people even more so...
...Neither are you a victrola record fresh from the pressing room...
...The professional aspects of this health program are under the direction of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, aided by a- Medical and Hospital Advisory Council...
...Cy Record will aVhetter, f think, to join the Southern liberal "panic" in the sense of appreciating at last the_ impossibility of revolution as a solution: of the most complicated, delicate and difficult race problem that ever existed and the desirability of lining up with us slow-poking "decents" (who do, after all, go fast enough to be threatened occasionally by the Klan...
...1 think...
...gradually detach ourselves from Stalinism and gradually take care of the Japanese...
...G run berry says I represent the extreme element...
...By the year 1946 we will need eight million fewer workers to turn but the equivalent of our 1940 gross product...
...Even while you take your place in the armed forces te win the people's battle, you must prepare to win the people's peace...
...This is a challenge peculiar to our generation and one which you will have to try and solve...
...The potential capacity of the available manpower hi 1946 will be almost 60 per cent greater'than the total output in 1940, with the same work week...
...Today there are scientists who declare both Moors and Ethiopians are white or Arabic, whatever that may be...
...Our past generations have so mismanaged the world that they have failed to tackle successfully problems of cooperation among the common peoples of the world...
...Tat measure has the support of the A. F. ef L and the C.LO...
...Being intelligent and informed, it would have to be special ratiier than general...
...You are the people who say, "We are going to do tilings in the future, rather than resting upon past achievements...
...Yours is the job to brush aside the shams and the illusions of the past which have failed humanity, and to make this the commencement of education as a never-ending process—and education 'to be carried on in company with your fellows—education which will understand social problems and help mankind to solve them...
...In facing this challenge, do not be afraid of changing your mind, of being misunderstood...
...but the habits of mental discipline and the skills you have acquired will remain...
...Newt" and "Age-Herald," Author of -'The Fighting South...
...Congratulations to the teachers who have helped you to acquire skills necessary to intelligent living...
...Now Robert F. Wagner, along with Senator Murray and Congressman DingeO, has introduced g new sons...
...Federal grants-in-aid will rear from 60 per cent to 75 per cent of the total, m that poorer states will have a larger proporuoaai Federal grant...
...That is the same challenge which you must meet in the same way...
...Actual experience under that statute has already shown us how social insurance ean help the individual aad Us family to bridge the economic gap of temporary unemployment, and to assist him in finding a new job through public employment ofneee...
...Obviously, markets for this vast new product must be developed if our working force is to be fully employed...
...Negro" is a smear word...
...Columnist The Pittsburgh Courver Having read John C. Cranberry's comment on Cy Record's article on "the failure of Southern Liberalism...
...You are the evidence of perennial spring...
...How could we7 have jim crow laws without the words "Negro" and "colored...
...You have the right to get hep with Harry James but you should also try to find out what William and Henry James have to say ss well...
...Msgr John OOrady *·» wrote in a recent issue of the magazine "America...
...or else all your endeavors will be in vain...
...Grow hourly, daily...
...When war ends, about 20 or 26 million war workers, many now .employed in Government shipyards and arsenals, n2 be looking around for peace-time jobs in private industry...
...This is to be expected on a continent only ten miles from Africa, Millions of Europeans could stroll through Hatlem without attracting attention...
...are "a sign of the belief that the ??*?» government in peace and in war is the iaafmaps of the common man—a belief which, IhieWPjrJjf differences in government, unites mW...
...Southern newspapers were taking more and more "liberal" stands...
...The average life expectancy was still lower than that of whites but was increasing twice a* fast...
...If, after this vision, it is not dene, if the new machine is allowed to stall, the disillusionment of the population might threaten the foundations of society...
...Thai National Leber Relations Act is rarely m>| ferred to by that title, bat more comment* as the Wagner Act...
...Unemployment insurance benefits are payable for 26 weeks, and up to a possible 52 weeks if the insurance fund permits...
...Security for All GERMAN-BORN, hard-working Robert...
...The death rate from tuberculosis had been cut in half...
...Where must "the clear and present danger" compel the suspension of liberties fas ¦ those who make them suicidal...
...Smash intolerance.' Dare to be misunderstood...
...Changes in the benefit formula at other points will increase ¦ greatly the general level of benefit payments...
...saving'tWels faeW Hd trying tfT **mfV-tHg colored folk by spreading the philosophy of gradualism in race relations...
...This article by Senator Wagner, Wittag especially for The New Leader, exphnas the aims and provisions of his bill...
...I do propose dropping the use of the word "Negro...
...The investigations preceding the adoption of Virginia's Racial Integrity Law in 1927, disclosed that most of the old white aristocracy are of African descent— not that that necessarily makes them aristocratic...
...Competing with them will be millions of demobilized soldiers...
...This particular "Southern ;Ijb- . eral" will* take some Of wTurrhe'sayf to^ heart' He should.be glad of this for he is going to need us in his business sooner or later—that great business of improving race relations in this country and advancing, the Negro from far behind...
...They were the people who suffered from little minds and shriveled souls...
...In order to help asset saw present needs and interventing gaps, tat mi provides for a new unified public assistance anv gram...
...Lynching had declined almost out of sight The Ku Klux Klan had been put down...
...Illiteracy among it had decreased from 30 per cent in 1919 to 8 per cent in 1941...
...This fat an American program, baaed apse oar own experience and geared te ear sea traditions aad standards of living...
...The President of Yale College, among other people, foretold that if Jefferson became president, then the wives and daughters of the citizens were in danger of being ravished...
...UsMed Socio» lesaroace Sytfm ALL of the foregoing major advances hi sseai ????$1...
...aged, and dependent children under he Seen Security Act...
...This includes an unemployment compensation allowance upon discharge from military service, varying from $12 to J9) per week of unemployment depending upon tat number of their dependents, and payable tor % possible maximum of 52 weeks of unemakgr-ment...
...We thought that the American army would have to fight the hordes of Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini and not the hoodlums of Detroit bent on destroying cur brothers under the skin...
...This, of course, has been intensely speeded up by tiie all-out productive effort to win the war.' "'Unless the United States is heavily bombed we shall emerge from this war with a plant capable cf nroducing possibly twjee the volume of durable goods which the consumers of America have ever had the buying power to purchase—even in the most prosperous peacetime year...
...College education had doubled in the 1930's over the 1920's...
...Indeed, this tar brushing is general among the Old American families, just as European admixture is general among "Negroes,!' many.of whom have so much of it that they have achieved the enviable distinction of being indistinguishable from the herd...
...You face the challenge of making the world safe for the common people—those who previously have been pushed around for reasons of race, color or creed...
...These are facts of transcendent importance and of revolutionary implications for tfce people of the United States—and especially for business and industry...
...The "racial" criteria continually overlap...
...Coverage is extended to include agricultural as well as industrial servants and employees of nor-profit institutions...
...Nations and divides them from their eosum* AddresstoAmericanYouth,1943 By...
...Unless we are kidding about freedom and democracy, we might very well delete this word from all our books, newspapers, magazines and laws...
...This is the challenge which faces you in 1943, the challenge of rising to greater heights of human happiness or falling to greater depths of human misery.* * Those billion-horses of new energy aad productivity challenge you to -Fide and rein them The modern miracles of science, making bouses that fold like accordions,, glass that bends like rubber, annihilating distance, discovering plastics, smashing the atom, perfecting television— challenge you to make your minds sweep out in equal range...
...butions would help mop up excess ??rehash* power...
...There are families and tribes but no "races," as Boas and other reputable anthropologists have shown...
...This is not a matter of sentiment nor of human welfare alone—it goes to the very existence of the American enterarh* system...
...When one of Napoleon's West Indian regiments accepted replacements from Greece and Naples, it was said one could scarcely tell the difference...
...Today, however, challenges and not mere congratulations are the orders of the day...
...Weekly benefits for an additional 12 weeks are authorized for the maternity care of married women workers...
...Let not the slogan, "safety first," satisfy your souls...
...The bill ma* increase social insurance contribution* aba* five billion dollars above present ???????* m the first year of operation The wags sarssr would pay 4 per cent, and the employer 1 P* cent, above the rates next year under the ams-ent law...
...Oar pro?2?' will be to make the fullest effective use of greatly expanded industrial and manpower resources...
...Would it not be mueh simpler if we dropped all such invidious designations and just called people Americans ? "Negro" has given good service in 'perpetuating a cruel system of humiliation, ostracism, torture and discrimination unnaralelled outside South Africa and India...
...Now there are great" "areas of industrial life in which we are challenged by the great productiveness of our industry...
...It will be easier to go ahead, to find work for the new skills, new workers, and new factories developed out of the war than to try vainly to...
...We thought that if the people were given the light of reason, they would surely find the way...
...They have mixed with Africans for thousands of years if, indeed, they did not originally hail from Africa, aa Churchward insisted...
...In the past many of us suffered from over-optimism about the reasoning powers of man...
...3. Covered workers who become permanently and totally disabled before they reach the retirement age are entitled to a regular monthly benefit for life, in the same amount as the old-age benefit...
...Where does tolerance become weakness...
...I com mend the statement of an outstanding leader ¦ his field...
...I must say that it is difficult to see how Record's thesis is rendered invalid because "it represents a special point of view...
...Out of the dangerous social maladjustments, out of the fever-ridden swamps of social misunderstandings, have developed the .dangerous specters of Fascism and Natis'm and black and red authoritarianism to menace'mankind...
...The annual death rate of 25 per 1,000 before the last World War had been reduced to 14 per thousand...
...Instead of finding your place in industry (or perhaps in the ranks of the unemployed) high school graduates now face the prospect of military service or important work as soldiers without .uniforms...
...Be prepared to eternally strive after truth and never be afraid to acknowledge yourself mistaken...
...The Southern o'igarchy is as much a menace to human progress as any of these...
...The poor whites of the poverty poll-tax ridden Jim Crow South have joined with all the.latent racial prejudice of the North to create under the strain of wartime the bloody outbreaks at Detroit which make us hang our heads in shame and resolve to wipe out those evils as we would a cholera plague...
...Our people —both at home and at the front—are beginning to realize it can be done...
...The rigid maxima ef the prmaat law are eliminated, and aid may be extended under any State plan to any needy person, secluding aid hi the form of medical...
...The full economic effect ef such a program in eliminating want aad suability can only be achieved over a considers** period of years...
...But if it were not so regarded, then we would have white "black" people and "black" white people, which would be even too insane for America...
...Since the beginning of tat Mew Deal, his name has been ideatiAed with tag-progressive social security sad labor lejh> latien enacted in the last ten years...
...So did Lincoln who gave his name to your school So did Franklin Roosevelt...
...It is a product of capitalism...
...Become really great in meeting these challenges to Youth and this will be commencement for you and for mankind...
...jj Reheat F. Wagner rose through the gle of Democratic politics in New York...
...The legislation, while bread in scope, simply builds ???» the recognised aad familiar pattern of — the Social Security Act...
...4s daseHcos...
...117...
...Sim-Harry Africans have mixed with Europeans, Malayans and Asiatics...
...Fabfic dstistosce The foregoing are social security ; -jrme programs, based upon the contribution* at employers and employees (except veterans' wns-fits...
...This does not mean that you are not going to enjoy life...
...This is the United States' great contribution to civilization — to show the richness of a culture to which all peoples have contributed...
...These grants-in-aid are Ansae*, as under the present law, out of general itv—ei Kelt of PrhcrH Social Service In stressing the continuing role of private, charitable, and social service agencies...
...We see a revolution that cannot succeed proposed in place of an evolution that has been succeeding...
...Translate these powers into the "freedom from want...
...You must triumph over the xenophobia which rules little minds, and not be repelled by things which are at first new and strange...
...Bantus and Nordics have almost identical physiques and skulls, although the former are brown and the latter ruddy...
...It would be a great step forward...
...We are convinced that Sues JS* posals...
...One easily definable group merges into another...
...6. Temporary disability benefits are payable for a maximum of 26 weeks, in the same amount as unemployment insurance benefits, when the insured worker loses his wage income because of illness...
...Only by thinking: and planning in terms of a continued high level of economic activity, purchasing power, and standard of living, can we sincerely show our faith in the future of our free economy and our democratic institutions...
...You are rather a human being with powers of judgment to interpret facts and to understand social trends...
...In thie issue toe print the first of a series of rejoinders...
...Half the propaganda battle against a group is won when you can invent a tag and get it generally accepted...
...Remind yourself of what happened to Thomas Jefferson...
...During the war, the increases...
...through grants-in-aid to the States, fallowing the general pattern of present Federst State programs for aid to the blind, the neat...
...Because he does not understand that it comes from the excesses and stupidities of Northern Negro leadership, from failure to know that the volume of Southern white passion in one direction is at least as great as the Negro volume in the other, from the illiteracy of trying to stage a revolution at intolerably wrong time and against a situation which simply will not be solved by revolution except to the detriment of its own objectives—he proposes to sit this reaction out and hope for a bigger and more successful . ^jobjtion^neptt_ tirae...
...For the first time in history the industry of a nation will be physically equipped to give every family in the country what we know in the United States as a middle-class standard of living...
...security messen te provide a comprehensive system ef social insurance and protection after the war...
...Before the present suietdal agitation of the Negro to achieve his whole ambition in course of a war, the race was making more progress in less time than any had ever made before...
...Many Indians encountered by America's first European visitors ware mistaken for Africans...
...You indicate that the human race enjoys eternal youth...
...Both China and Japan have many extremely dark and curly-haired residents, and several of their emperors would have been jim crowed in the Land of the Free, Including the reigning Mikado...
...To see the same red color of the blood of all peoples beneath all the difference in habits...
...it can also serve as an effective weapon is Be war-time battle against inflation...
...Grow and keep growing...
...THOSE of yoo who have read Willkie's One *· World will recall that he made his momentous global flight on a bomber called '*The Gulliver...
...Heipis« to Fie ? Motion WHILE the bill is addressed to the post-*** " problems of the individual and his fsaub...
...He says Southern liberals have become "panicky," and indeed some of us have...
...One is incensed at Southern liberals not because they "have failed to solve the race problem" but because they are intellectual cowards without the courage of the convictions they profess...
...2. The present old-age insurance system is expanded to include 16 million persons not now covered, suchea agricultural and domestic workers, employees of ???-profit institutions, and self-employed p*sannt (independent farmers, professions^ people pad small business men...
...It had won to its side the New Deal, the Supreme Court, the Democratic Party and the nation's economists of maximum consumption to contain mass production...
...It* ""P porters are found among forward hmssaf people in every walk of life...
...CCIENTIFICALLY "Negro" is meaningless because "race" is meaningless...
...This seems strange in a country where scientific thinking is supposed to be' the rule...
...Fight courageously and simultaneously as you think...
...are embodied in a new unified national system, contributing to better unitr-•tanding of the program by workers, employe* and he public, simplifying its admmistrahm, and providing for one set of payroll contrttn-tions and one set of reports by employers Seeenrj for Servicemen ??\ ^nd, woat" in the armed forces, whether or not they nan accrued benefit rights befon their induction, are guaranteed full rekt-m benefit rights in all phases of the innaranm protection provided by this bilL *?ht cost ef these benefits for servicemen are met out at general revenue...
...We have already seen —-hnrar thnsg ssrjncinJee.sC.aarial insurance ??* " promote dignity, well-being aad thrift among the millions who are covered, and how it can reinforce private enterprise by providing effective purchasing power in time of stress...
...I may be extreme but I represent only myself...
...One essential phase of that peat-war planning and adjustment is embodied in the social security ball introduced in the Senate by Senator Murray aad myself, and in the House by Congressman Dingell...
...Upon the death of any insured worker, the bill also provides for a lump sum * funeiKTibeneilt:- · ~ .------ - — 4. A Federal system of medical and hospital insurance is established, to provide essential care and services for every insured worker, his dependent wife and children...
...Before that time "Negroes" were known as Moers and Ethiopians names probably regarded as too respectable for people destined for slavery...
...This bill applies the principle of social insurance to the major economic hazards of industrial life, extending virtually from the cradle to the grave Socio) Isiarosce rVowisioaj THE new bill makes the following major * changes in the Social Security Act: J. A new nations)!¦ system of employment offices is established, to assist war workers and war veterans ? avail themselves of civilian job opportunities tiironghjput the country...
...However, unlike Gulliver in Dean Swift's satire, Willkie found the Lilliputians at home and in his own party when he returned...
...RECORD has presented the conventional ^ position ably and with some new penetration...
...ALL this,is cited because American anthro-" ** pology calls any person with one" drop of "Negro blood" a Negro, although singularly enough a person with one drop of "white blood" is net regarded as white...
...Youth is the keeper cf the flame of knowledge and of freedom...
...All of us are hoping and working for sens Congressional consideration and action sss» this program...
...Create racial understanding for world unity...
Vol. 26 • July 1943 • No. 30
