Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN Symptoms on the Home Front I have been strongly impressed by two recent * significant symptoms on the horse front, one very bad, the other hopeful....
...And it is wrong, in principle, to treat the naturalized American as a second-class citizen...
...moreover, psychologically so allied to Fa acism aad Nazism that the transition ef disappointed ami def est -ed Nsxu a^Fascists^Commuit i* not at all fanetful to imagine that a great many persons ? Br rope may prefer the rule of tteV own Communist partim — warn will probably keep their ties *** Stalin, Commintern or as 0s»-mintern—to a British or fiaW» •can or Anglo American ovsrhk ship of the Continent, heeessr well-intentioned in some ****** that overlordship may sets...
...At that time, when mob sentiment, in every sense of the term, runs high, there ? the greatest need for a body that will take its stand for the guaranties of liberty in the Constitution, True respect for the American flag will only benefit from the recent Supreme Court decision disallowing a state law forcing children of members of the sect known as Jehovah's Witnesses to salute the flag in school, although this was against their religious convictions...
...Their very presence irritates the fa Klux elements...
...The movement could be sank so dynamic that any little Ku Klox eajnfi, would quickly be stigmatised as disloyal ^sj low-down...
...The Reconstruction Finance Corporation antedates the Board of Economic Warfare...
...The land just naturally runs to extremes...
...This all tends to emphaab* us differences whkh divide the yoea» Mexieans from the rest ef thr community...
...No one will now demand that we find a solution for it over night But we have a right to demand of our federal, state and city governments that they show sufficient imagination and initiative to forestall and prevent outbursts of murder and pillage...
...They can be regulated...
...What this other tiring ? even a glance at the news columns instantly reveals...
...Under the strains and ¦ tensions of war a nation's internal morale is apt te let down in the weakest points of the national character...
...For example, I have heard of no public parks in California, where Mexicans are admitted only On certain days as alleged in fellow traveler publications...
...Qa^a-«, . reasonably educated would not be aeljsi...
...But education takes time, «2 job could have been done during toe past ma,* eration...
...Bat ¦ the first indispensable condition of better race relations is justice, in the full sense of the word...
...But berating such strikes ? too easy, too popular and fills -far tod much space In the popular prints...
...inhere ? en old saying of the homespun philes* opher Mr...
...DETROIT POST-MORTEM *T*HE Detroit outbreak was not an isolated * thing...
...Though he is no great shucks as a law enforcement officer, Biscailuz...
...Lee Angeles...
...The rest of the saatropoHtsn press was net much bettor...
...We have elaborate civil .defense nans a deal with dynamite which may never dsamsj from the skies...
...Had it beep directed with energy and foresight Feat* Harbor would not have found oar cupboard so bare* of many essential things...
...Specifically I am thinking of the action of the Soviet Government, which has trampled under foot every ideal of human liberty which Jefferson held dear, in prefeasing to honor that great libertarian on the two hundredth anniversary of his birth...
...Next we shall have Berk, boss of the Political Police, burning incense at the grave of Tolstoy, or Vishinsky, bloodhound of the political trials, sending a message of admiration to Gandhi EDITORIAL COMMENT TWO KINDS Or STRIKES U/E are witnessing in the public press and in Congress one of the baldest and boldest nieces of propaganda ever perpetrated...
...Many a politickn or writer who winds himself to a fury about them immediately rouses the suspicion that he hopes to divert attention from something eke which will not stand public examination...
...The Mexicans live in slum congested areas wish inadequate sanitary aad recreational facilities...
...Now it is a relief to see the Court repeatedly handing down \ decisions oa the liberal side...
...of course, ·, far better than punishment after they take place...
...double standard of loyalty and responsibility ? at the base of all our trouble on the home front...
...Juvenile detention homes are swamped with delinquents, and practically compelled to turn new offenders loose...
...At its convention in Indianapolis the Ka tional Educational Association bad the ?? age to face up to this situation aad take to only possible action to set it right The IPX delegates adopted a resolution atrongiy ma-porting the Federal-Aid Bill...
...Dooley that the Supreme Court follows the election returns...
...national...
...A good many Negroes must be thinking about the significance of these figures...
...T*he facts of the Los Angeles outrages were * badly...
...The result had been the exclusion of a number of children from school aad fines for their parents...
...Th* Pah Employment Practices Committee shesld si recreated with power...
...They must do this—not that They are expected to die for the four freedoms —but net to enjoy them...
...If werken refuse to deliver their product at the price offered, that is a strike and everyone is against it...
...The majority of the Justices upheld 'outrageous injustices, like the imposition of fifteen sad twenty year prison sentences en . some young Russian Anarchists la New York for criticizing, in very strong terms, American intervention la Russia...
...IJJHAT happened in Detroit has unfortunately Deen predicted only too accurately by observers of the growing tension in race* relations...
...As can readily be imagined, the wrangling between the totalitarian and semi-totalitarian fanatics provided little help toward a rational solution ef the problem...
...He should enjoy just as many rights and freedoms as the descendant of a member of the passenger list on the "Mayflower...
...There are: two important considerations to be borne in miad in connection with race riots that have taken'-place and .that unfortunately may take place in 'the future...
...Norman Thomas Clarifies Views on Comintern End From NORMAN THOMM To the Editor: Algernon Lee's comment in a recent issue of The Leader suggests a misunderstanding of my statenaent w the death of the Comintern which I should like tfccpMffif...
...The seat tale of under-paid teachers and deatrtai schoolrooms comes from all parts of the can-try—from Kansas, from Maine, from Gstapa...
...In his statement issued to the press on Tuesdsy Mr...
...W e have the highest mountains, the - lowest place in the United States, the biggest trees, the longest bridges, tiie most magnificent movies, and the.greatest crackpots...
...Incidents occur Rumor...
...eat excuse for the disgraceful scenes that fol- lowed...
...But now we ess tobst* things to tide us over the time of "cri*a, * carry us into the period when major all«nation* can be made and a fundamental re-ess**, tioav process undertaken...
...These men never gave - a no-strike pledge...
...Closer contacts between tenders of the two races, exposure of individuals aad groups, whatever their color, who are stirring up racial hatred, better housing and more recreation facilities for the masses of werkers in the war pleats: these are some of the remedies that are obviously called for...
...The* setting aslds of the conviction of George Sylvester Viereck on the ground that improper methods were used by the prosecutor is another score in favor of the Court and the sturdy liberal Chief Justice Harlan Stone...
...2) Bed aa I think international Communism is, and far removed from true Social urn...
...The whole business is rrrational...
...When the that csaa for pupils to return to their classes thenaassi of them will find the doors closed...
...And two of America's besetting sins (if one wants to employ theological terms) are readiness to resort to mob violence and a contemptuous and hostile attitude toward peoples Whose skins are of a different pigmentation from our own...
...If it had not happened there it could easily have eecured in any one of a score of towns where bad housing conditions and war work strain have brought the^ relations between Whites and Negroes to a dinger point...
...ing Education is as national as the Army *as Navy...
...In the meantime...
...The men who refuse to play ball get sympathy, and, federal officials, trying desperately to stave off inflation," get the blame...
...such hysteria...
...The men who have labor power to sell are subject to public authority Profits, the reward of the capitalists, are sacred...
...He gives all the details, dates, figures...
...An immediate prelude was furnished by murderous outbursts in Beaumont Texas, Mobile, Alabama, and Newark, New Jersey...
...On the other aide, than should be in every great war-work esjfe an active commission made up of Misyj jji" whites to plan for unity...
...Where the batter were the aggressors they deserved proper legal punishment...
...No oa* can doubt the accuracy of his account...
...The BEW hag a directive from the President It's business ? to fight the Axis countries by purchasing supplies away from them in neutral lands and to stock essential materials for our war effort It has a competent staff...
...The best explanation would be suitable disciplinary measures against the responsible military and...
...The recent soot suit or pachiico riots gave additional emphasis to this extremist tendency...
...For there ? another sort of strike...
...Jones has bean distinguished as an Old Deal official ¦ ia -a New Deal cabinet...
...I favor cooperating with the USSR in so far as it may be possible .in decent terms...
...Just because we are a "white man's country" in the sense that judges and members of juries are Whites, in the overwhelming number of cases, it is most important that strictly evenhanded justice should be meted OUt...
...Oa tats sab of our life our educational system baa aXT It will take at least another geneEataaj %. remedy the failure...
...The whole subject of A**flgy remtion to German future WJW mirably dealt with in Oswatifig rkoa Villard's psssgslrf We Baak Saraesyf f*w*4ff* the Post War Warbt Cede...
...The argument against granting this right to a naturalized citizen is that dual allegiance is unavoidable, in the case of a member of aa organisation which has invariably followed instructions from Moscow and conformed to the foreign policy of a foreign state, the Soviet Union...
...The price ceilings are eeneUhced...
...The trade unions are doing their part and submitting to the necessary restrictions...
...The writer cite* Associated Press reports as authority for the statements that all but three of the persons killed were Negroes, that a beut 86 per cent of those arrested were Negroes, and that all who received prison sentences on the first day of the trials were Negroes...
...But it was not done...
...Vice President Henry Wafiace's revektion about Jesae H. Joses ? such a row on such an occasion...
...The flag ought to mean more to everyone now that the Court has duly recognized religious convictions which are sincere, even if most people would regard them as misguided...
...Ha baa suffered top much from it The only pay ett ia to establish - national atandard* aad ae national monev...
...Philip Murray is te be , congratulated fer writing to the President and urging that the Department of Justice investigate the inciters of the riot "with a - vkW to severe punishment of those found v guilty...
...That may tak*e**P but ft will be more buWMf * good results than the augegJem of American "gaulertsea ssr * indefinite period, eve* If jM have been trained at the e>d**> «ity of, Virginia within Hi **" dow of Montkello...
...The pachuco gasga an an outgrowth of thk separat—, a feelkg whkh comes front ast being Jh integral part of tat esn-munity...
...When John L. Lewis leads a strike, he is denounced...
...Since the dhnout went into effect the playgrounds have been closed at night and no effort has been made to provide wholesome substitutes...
...and the magazine ?Time" deserves a favorable citation for giving wide circulation to the accurate version of what occurred...
...casualty list of some thirty dead and hundreds wounded...
...The news' of this Los Angeles outbreak will reach Mexico "and other countries south of the Bio Grande and will no doubt be exaggerated and exploited by Axis undercover agents...
...At the other pole, the Hearst press, with its long established reputation fer misrepresentation, egged oa the service men and fully justified them hi taking the la w in their ewa hands...
...On the other hand there has never been any serious effort to denationalize native-born Americans for' membership in the Communist Party...
...We make no proriska at dealing with dynamite which bursts frsa tka heart of our social set-up...
...They are assumed to be under no moral or patriotic compulsion...
...The thing hidden under thk contrast is basic Wages, the price of labor power, are public business...
...It has shown that it means business...
...The causes of such outbursts lie too deep to be removed in a month or a year—br in ten years...
...I learned of the ruling of the court on the * Schneiderman case, establishing the right of a naturalised citizen to belong to the Communist Party with somewhat more mixed feelings...
...Vice Pres¦ ident Wallace has taken a long step upward in public estimation...
...The very bad symp-tom is, of course, the outbreak of serious race rioting in such large cities as Los Angeles and DetroU...
...Far from keeping out Mexicans, defease plants have taken particular pains to circularise the latin community...
...Bot they must live .here —not there...
...The Negroes have been Jim-Crowed in the North as well as in the South...
...Ia coming ?? squarely for federal support the esOealsn have made a great forward step hi their thkfi...
...Propaganda is 'a matter of attention...
...Thk was a civic failure of the first order...
...They threaten not to can the fruit or the vegetables...
...Labor strikes are shouted about...
...Communism is...
...A twelve-year-old boy had his jaw broken by " these rowdies...
...The causes of the disturbances are far more economic than racial in origin...
...They stopped just short of bringing in the Mexican war, Vera Cruz, add Yankee imperialism...
...It is a strike of corporations dealing in food...
...The hopeful counterpoise is tile excellent record, up to the present time, Of the Supreme Court in maintaining reasonable standards Of civil liberty in time of war...
...that ? not called a strike...
...There had been some clashes between service'men and police end members of juvenile ganga, some of whom wore the flashy "soot suits...
...Million« of our white toflew -Tito In ? tradition that the Negro must be...
...That is just the thing that the Court should not do in time of war...
...Viereck, a self-confessed German propagandist, was a natural object of prosecution after the outbreak of the war...
...But I am inclined to believe that, on balance, it was a healthy decision...
...They need room, room to werfc^ play...
...The War Labor Board is praised for enforcing the "Little Steel formula...
...The least that the President and Congress can do is to give this agency the power to spend its own funds...
...A tetter recently published in The New York Times brings out a thought-provoking point...
...Band* of sailors went about the city beating and stripping naked everyone of Mexican extraction whom they encountered...
...The average first generation Mexican uses Spanish not Only when speaking with his parents, but also with hk friends and companions...
...The New Leader ? against such strikes during war time...
...I do not, however, think that Stalin's act sprang principally from any desire to fight Axis propaganda bet rather from hk desire to make an at least temporary cooperation with the Allies easier—and possibly get a freer hand lor the future in Europe— than if he seemed to be publicly committed to the Comintern...
...the Sheriff of Los Angeles County, ? himself of Mexican descent However these great fishermen in troubled waters, the Communists, the California CIO under Bridges, and assorted other fellow traveling elements began a campaign by dragging in the all but forgotten coolie riots of the last century, and by invidious comparisons with Nasi atrocities...
...They are told that their effort is needed...
...In this matter of prophylactic prevention there has keen too much of s tendency to drift, to talk about the danger of race friction without doing mach of anything about it...
...unequipped, insanitary school-booses sad aar hundreds of thousands of unprepared tsarina The thing has gone on too long...
...It is taken for granted that he ? responsible and should be punished When corporations devoted tb the processing and distribution of food go on strike, it is taken for granted that the Office of Price Administration ? responsible...
...For the record, then, let me make these two sUternenu (1)1 have never believed that the Axis was primarily m*" vated by a sincere tear of, or opposition to, the Third...
...CRISIS IN EDIICATK* ftUT of nearly a million teachers ir tan " country, 100,000 have left their sand rooms for better paying jobs...
...Our race problem gees' back for more than three centuries...
...It is like disapproving of the devil...
...There are deep resentments at work on both sides of the color line...
...The whole affair pas a disgrace to the Amer--< ken uniform and to American standards of , law ead order and...
...There are some tributes that are worse than insults...
...In Detroit itself public officials acknowledge that they had feared the up-bursting of hate for many months...
...Jones, as holder of the purse-strings, held up the purchase of them...
...They •imply refuse to slsughter the beef or to deliver it...
...What the situation require* s an intelligent piufiisssive approach free both from fits estates of big business and faming interests, and devoid SB eaj of the necessity of eenfermkg with the political loqiiireasmu of the Communists...
...Nevertheless, the existence of the Third International and its tactics gave some point to the Axis, propaganda and Stalin's dissolution of that organisation was, at the present juncture, a rather •shrewd move...
...obscured at first...
...What is to be desired ? *· occupied countries and ia B*-many itself, after the fafl ef W Nasi tyranny, ? a chance ttetw democratic forces ie each essaW to work out the salvation at iff country...
...When the managers of these organizations refuse to deliver their product for ? rices set by...
...Goebbels'and his Japanese opposite number than the pogrom against people of Mexican origin in Los Angeles and the fierce race rioting in Detroit, with lit...
...t Prevention of such outbreaks is...
...If the price offered to the sellers is not satisfactory, it ? taken for granted that the price is wrong, that the public authorities who established it do not know their business, that they should be replaced by someone who will rake the price to the required figure...
...War conditions have intensified their feeling of frustration...
...Incidentally the aas ef ? phrase "American gaulek«** originated with reports** #· * scribed the probable ratend*«« the Administration...
...For a bang time Mr...
...Most of the pachucos are children of migratory workers, and although many are born in thk country, they quite often spend a good part of their life in Mexico...
...Police stood by and watched ' the brutality—and then arrested the victims...
...Forty out ef every 100 among ear teachers reeeb-t ka titan $1,200 a year...
...Eight out of a ftaadrej receive less than $600...
...LETTERS TO THE EDITOR A Letter on the Los Angeles Riots Fro* JACOB MARGOLIN Te Ike Editor: It is' certainly no news' that California ? addicted to the cult of the colossal...
...Right now they are raising such strenuous objection* to restrictions set by public authority that they threaten to break through all the dams set against inflation...
...naval officers who let the men under thei r command get out of hand...
...This ? just as definitely a Strike against the war effort as anything perpetrated by the mine workers...
...It was preceded by the housing riots in February...
...1942...
...It ? a fine and civilised thing that even such a' man should have his legal rights carefully safeguarded...
...On the average the rulers of capital are doing their part only at their own price...
...City govenssassh* social agencies, churches, trade anieas enfil all be mobilised...
...The old mob spirit bursts out...
...There ? no mob so dangerous, or sd intolerable, as a uniformed mob...
...thk fact many of the ssstjs-formed observers sad rafdga» have borne testimony...
...The exceptions are so unimportant that it has taken an immense amount of ballooning to blow them up*dhd place them at the center of public consciousness...
...It is up to the true unions and the labor press somehow to break through thk propaganda dam aad tc give the public a true picture...
...Thk messen allots $200,000,000 for the general fawrem of salaries and $100,000,000 to the states whet are in special need of help...
...What everyone has known the Vice President has now officially proclaimed...
...What was largely a juvenile problem, which our city and county police failed to handle intelligently, has been blown up, in part by the Communists and the local Communist dominated CIO, into the appearance of a deliberate conspiracy against the entire Mexican community, which it was not • It ? certainly not condoning the kwlese attacks ef the soldiers sad sailors, to declare that stories of intolerable Mexican discrimination assiduously spread by the Communists are untrue, aad are being made with ulterior objectives in mind...
...Obvious public measures should be tabs* a . give the Negroes 'a more even break...
...They fight, work, pay taxes and buy war bonds...
...Bat these clashes did not furnish the slight...
...Our failure to deal with it effectively is a part of our history...
...Wallace gives a long list of products aid tells how Mr...
...The true facts are bad enough and will take a good deal of explaining, in the Interest of the "good neigh- ' bcr policy...
...Sentimental arguments for osmesis, ism fall flat before the failure of tba yean After more than a century of our public achat system we still have our illiterates, ear Htm...
...In the last war one could consistently count oa only two of the Supreme Court Justices, Holmes and Brandeis, to think straight and courageously en issues involving civil liberties...
...is— The sense of danger ? mytbologieal, ???_ patirte bat aeae the less real, u dasasTw war-work centara ties black men end aesan swarm...
...The BEW, with Henry Wallace at its head, has tried energetically to make up for lost time...
...Another factor here ? that assimilation whkh operates at a fairly rapid rate in other sections of the United States ? much slower here...
...There are occasions when such a demonstration promotes efficiency and gets results...
...WALLA CI IS IHrHT SOMETIMES s good row is conducive to public heaJth...
...hear are completely misled...
...It should be obvious that the only salute to the flag of a free country that is worth anything is one that is free and unforced...
...there can be no doubt that it still has an appeal in the world and on the European Continent The Communists are certainly active elements in the underground movement in practically every occupied nation...
...Capital strikes are soft-pedaled, Simple persons who believe what they read and...
...There could have been no better present to Dr...
...Even if it bad been, its-eriraes would not have been justified by that fear...
...The Office of Price Administration is denounced for enforcing price levels...
...But no measures were taken to prevent it The Mayor and the Governor, in fact Were unprepared to take the most elementary means to maintain order and prevent bloodshed...
...Douglas Aircraft even had large billboards written in Spanish urging Mexicans to take war jobs...
Vol. 26 • July 1943 • No. 27
