'Charttanog Choo-Choo'- Test Case on Negro Job Discrimination
RORTY, JAMES
'Charttanog Choo-Choo'— Test Case on Negro Job Discrimination Government to Review Case Against Railroads By JAMES RORTY pBOM the point of view of the Negro worker, and scarcely less ? so from...
...1 *sM ¦ This outline is the story that the Provisional Committee to Organize Colored Locomotive Firemen will spread on the records of the FEP...
...JilTI-?TOW -1 *ore World War ?· when the ma" ~* jority of the firemen, brakemen...
...Much of the first effective resistance to Italian Fascism, immediately after it came to power, and during the first years of the dictatorship, came—aside from the individual resistance of a few great personalities such as Matteotti, Count Sforza, Croce—from Italian communism...
...Italian communism did not disintegrate, despite thousands and thousands of arrests, and its outlawed organization continued to recruit new youthful members...
...This agreement provided that "the proportion of non-Promotable firemen and helpers on other than steam power shall flofexceed 50 per cent...
...Since June, 1941, when A. Philip Randolph and his March-on-Washington Movement induced the President to issue Executive Order No...
...Each of them—independent of the other—has sought to recall the philosophy of liberty to the working-class movement, and each has shown clearly that, even for communism, the epoch of the dictatorial party is over...
...The Negroes got their first big jolt during World War I. Attracted by the higher wages paid in war industries, numbers of Negro firemen left their jobs and went North...
...The next Italian revolution, should it take place, will be victorious only if it is aware of its distinctive aims (different in the economic field, the poiKieaL the ethical), and if it is capable of allowing the forces Interested in each of these fields complete liberty to reach their own original (yet coordinated) solutions...
...The people have always shown a great amount of hate in hysteric and historic moments...
...this without any serious consideration for justice, seniority, inter-racial morale, the efficient operation of the roads, or the safeguarding of the war effort...
...Unfortunately, it is not so...
...Then the solidarity of the working masses will be transformed from a myth to a reality...
...It is.a fact that, so soon as he caine to power, Mussolini upheld Poincare's occupation of the Ruhr, then in progress, because he feared to find himself in conflict with a militarily powerful and active France...
...There followed, for the Negroes, a long agony of attrition, beguiled by a huge literature of jurisdictional disputes between the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen...
...The second World War has, naturally, shaken the organizational positions of the anti-Fascist revolutionary movement«, and it is now doubtful whether these positions will ever be resumed in their previous form...
...noted jour- shovelled ? of ^ tons of ·» nshst and author, tells here ? on a g. ,e the N was what may be, perhaps one of welcome to the job- ?^ work...
...The democrats of central and eastern Europe—those in London, New York and, above all, in the occupied countries—are, on the whole, in agreement with the necessity of uniting the small nations of that region into a regional organization...
...Among the emigres of London and New York, this idea is popular, ana it becomes more and more clear that the union of these small nations is a problem of necessity, a problem of survival, because it is a problem of a lasting peace...
...In brief, what the FEPC hearings may decide will be whether Brother Jim Crow, as a principle and a policy, is going er coming on the I labor front...
...When the representatives of peasants and workers of different peoples meet in one council or board, they will find, easily, a common language and understanding to maintain the organization of common interest...
...One of the most penetrating Italian anti-Fascists, Aldo Garosci, rightly observes that, "Although they may have established themselves, although the disoriented squadron leaders of 1921 may have grown fat and made their millions, Mussolini and the basic neuclei around which Fascism was formed are bound by their illegitimate and violent origins...
...This they proceeded to do...
...It is quite obvious that this regional union must be part of a European union, which, in turn, must be a member of a global world organization, of a league of nations...
...But in those very years, on the fringe of the party and in opposition to it...
...The all-white railroad unions, even more than the carriers, are responsible for the practices referred to...
...At this Congress, the delegations of Czechoslovakia, Greece, Jugoslavia, and Poland were able to work together harmoniously...
...They didn't...
...These were the militant members of an original and daring movement of anti-Fascist combat, Giustigia e Liberia (JusHot ami Liberty), founded by Carlo Rosselli and directed by hhn (until—and even beyond—the sacrifice of his life) together with Emilio Lussu...
...Until now, not much was done by the United Nations in this direction...
...Today, while Negroes are not permitted to learn how to operate the Diesels, they are frequently called upon to train the white men who will replace them...
...The militant revolutionaries who, in 1920, could not come to power, knew from 1921-30 how to resist the oppressive power seized by their rivals and bitterest enemies...
...We read further in this article that all nations fusm the Baltic to the Agean Sea must forget their small quarrels and must unite into one regional organisation...
...This prevents the identification, or rather the contamination of two different values, and excludes the possibility of morality being directed by empiricism, as has happened, for example, when liberty, which is moral life, is made dependent on certain economic systems, when liberalism is (mistakenly) identified with freedom of enterprise," [Croce, ?.: 11 Carattere della Philoeofia Moderna, Bari, 1941, p. 24.] Thus, from the mouth of its greatest theoretician, the philosophy of liberty definitely breaks away from any union with an outworn economic liberalism, to which Italy coukl with difficulty return...
...International machinery, an international police force, a deep change in our concept of sovereignty (we mean here, a full limitation of sovereignty)—all these will be the first step towards a lasting peace, toward international security...
...Haw What happened, in essence...
...THIS Alice in Wonderland arrangement was climaxed in Feb-1 ?????, 1941, when the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen made a seemingly innocent contract with the Southeastern Carrier's Conference, representing twenty-five southern railways...
...But that is not all...
...For us, European social-democrats, it is difficult to understand and confess that the solidarity of the worker has never played any role in international relations...
...Antonio Gramsci, on the other hand, was eliminated by the Fascist police, killed by eleven years of pitiless imprisonment...
...IIJHEN the veil is rent, and that may be only in the distant future or it may be soon indeed, this death of Fascism, externally still in tact, will be found to have been a reality...
...Mussolini: Scritti e discorti, Vol...
...Such a regional union, as a part of a European federation, in friendship with Russia could form a cornerstone of European security...
...a few Italian intellectual Marxists arose capable of giving the movement a new impetus, when circumstances permitted, capable too of renewing the vigor of its philosophy...
...What is concretely at stake are the jobs of over 2,000 Negro firemen...
...It is always a white man...
...In order to justify this attitude, which differed from the "general line" of "proletarian Italy" (and which he was to resume for a few months in 1934), Mussolini told the Chamber of Deputies unequivocally on February 16, 1923: "I see the world as it really is: that is to say, as a world of unleashed egotism...
...Under the Railway Labor Act, amended in 1934 and 1936, the white brotherhoods were empowered to act as the sole bargaining agents for the Negroes to whom they denied union membership and whose jobs they were progressively appropriating...
...Back of this last ditch struggle of a harassed and decimated minority lies a more fundamental issue...
...This faith binds the most unprejudiced Italian revolutionaries to the loftiest Italian philosophy which has, despite Fascism," continued from Croce and come through the deepening of the dialectics of the distinctivists (and to the shame of Croce's personal antipathy to Marxism) to analogous conclusions...
...Where can support for it be found ? Is the solidarity of the workers sufficient as a premise...
...Gtuetinia e Liberia realised that the Italian revolution of 1919-20 had failed in its socialist objectives and had given way to Fascism because it was incapable of distinguishing its economic maturity from its own political and ethical maturity (or immaturity...
...Likewise, it breaks with the old liberal, democratic, socialist parties which Fascism destroyed...
...On December S, Paul McNutt told a conference of railroad executives that if the employment practices of many railroads were extended to industry generally, "Millions of American Negroes, instead of turning out the ships, shells, planes and guns America needs for victory, would be immobilized for the duration of the war...
...But the governmental representatives—ministers heading the delegations—were, on the whole, very progressive...
...This international organization cannot be a mechanical one...
...rXURIN'G these years, another group came to the same *^ conclusions, a group which placed greater emphasis on the value of the initiative of an elite...
...deprived them of their property anyway, and any change which would after victory allow them a modest but decent living was, at that time, regarded by most of them with favor...
...In fact the Negroes had about as much thance as a Jew before one of Hitler's arbitration boards...
...It is evident from the underground press and from other opinions that such a regional union would be very popular in eastern Europe...
...They weren't even permitted to look at or listen in to what was being done to them...
...After this, with the war in Spain, with Hitler's occupation of Austria, and above all with the present World War, these same Italian Fascists have been able to see that Mussolini was only too right...
...Even the representatives of employers of Central and Eastern Europe were in a mild mood...
...Meanwhile both brotherhoods were busy negotiating secret agreements with the carriers, in which the Negro "brother" invariably took a beating...
...Pact of Central European Nations Shows Way to Continental Regionalism By Feliks Gross TP HIS tragic war is a great experience in social prob-* lems for us all...
...The ideas and the true spirit are going much farther toward central and eastern unity than the slow, practical steps...
...The end is identified with its means, and Fascism is faced with a faith among the younger forces , capable of emancipating themselves from Fascism and opposing to it their own faith in a no longer purely activist and immoral revolution (as was that of Mussolini) but in a truly moral, truly, ethical, truly social revolution, a revolution most truly the work of the Italian people...
...It will then be seen that those generations which, during the Ethiopian war of 1935, were pro-Fascist and hoped for a corporative social revolution, are now far removed from Fascism, in fact are already on the march toward a new anti-Fascism...
...It will be the true moment of a rise of international solidarity of the working masses in Central and Eeastem Europe —solidarity which will not be hindered by frontiers and customs as in the past...
...But the picture in railroad employment is different...
...How can this security be assured...
...This is a definite condition of a successful and lasting peace...
...As a result, the four delegations organized the Central and Eastern European Planning Board as a post-war planning and research agency for these four countries...
...It must be founded on economic, social, and historical premises...
...Aldo Garosci, Gianfranchi and some others...
...even though they are not sup1 posed to know how to operate the sleek and spotless Diesels that are displacing both the old hand-fired Casey Joneses and the later stokerized engines...
...Moreover, this war-necessitated liberalism was worked: the Negroes have made good at bench and assembly line, and the expected conflicts with white workers have for the most part failed to materialise...
...To prevent the threatened demoralization of rail transportation, Secretary McAdoo intervened and equalized the pay of whites and blacks...
...does not * » » back ap the right of a Negro worker to hold his job on the THE engineer's job was differ-soiithern railroads, then one * ent...
...Can we disregard our plans and work only for this solidarity...
...Particularly is this true of the delegations from Central and Eastern Europe which were headed by labor and peasant leader...
...He had been one of the very few foreign revolutionaries capable of opposing the meddling of Lenin himself in the affairs of European countries, and had dared tell even Lenin that the national interests of the Russian revolution might conceivable contradict the national interests of the various revolutions of the European workers...
...This is true of motors, of aircraft, of practically every department of war industry, and from coast to coast...
...THE regional union will never fulfill its role if the * social and political matters remain behind the international organization...
...The formation of a generation animated by faith in the schism between the revolutionary labor movement and the surrounding reactionary world, in the survival of the intransigent Communist ideal despite all hardships and difficulties, is the work of Amedeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci...
...International unity in eastern Europe must be based on political democracy and social change...
...Instead, it has reduced "Fascist Italy" to a role of ridiculous vassalage...
...When the Chattanooga ^^?»·*!!^^^^-»· choo-choo burned grimy soft coal, and a sweating Negro fireman JAMES RORTY...
...will come together and be able to defend democracy and international security...
...hundred thousand jobs worth ap»ilBPOj-fijb proximately a billion dollars...
...Italian anti-Fascism has survived the test by fire of twenty years of Fascist dictatorship, not so much through its traditional parties (democratic, socialist, republican) —for these might more accurately be termed pre-Fascist— as through its anonymous, unconquered, illegal (clandestine) youth...
...As for the white unions, since they were debarred by race prejudice—written into their constitutions—from accepting Negroes into their memberships, their only recourse as they saw it was to push the black workers down the ladder and eventually out of railroad employment entirely...
...It should be noted that the agreement sets a maximum for Negro employment on the Diesels but no minimum...
...A Polish underground paper of January 21, 1942, ten weeks after the International Labor Conference in New York, commented on the declaration of the four delegations as follows: "It is already evident that in the future world order it will be above all necessary to unite several European countries into regions...
...The regions should be composed of several states and have a character oi partial union...
...Only toward 1931-32 did the Fascist arrests, the expulsions ordered by Moscow, the general weakness of the European proletariat, begin to weaken their combat organization...
...One cannot overstress the need to maintain it in its clarity and vigor, tor this distinction is categorical, that is to say, it helps to formulate judgments...
...And morality would remain an abstraction if it were not based on, and if it did not ally itself with, some vital force or economic interest, shaped to this end...
...Unity can be maintained only by democracy...
...They presented little or no opposition to the progressive motions concerning post-war reconstruction which were presented at the Congress...
...Plant after plant has opened its doors to Negroes for the first time, although often in terms only of "token" employment...
...They issued a common declaration for unity in war and peace, and favoring close post-war regional cooperation...
...When the Communist International ceased to be an autonomous organism and became, instead, the governmental tool of the Russian state, it imposed on the Italian Party the elimination of Bordiga...
...Experience has proved that we need a strong international, interstate organization...
...the most important stories of...
...M ,bef ore WoT}* ^ar I Jia-Crowism on the railroads the fire,nan^ wa*e » South...
...Not only has democratic Europe been swept by a "revolution from the right" (that of Hitler), but this right-wing revolution has proven itself so powerful and overwhelming that it has definitely checked any hopes "Proletarian Italy" might have had about national advantages to be derived from the cataclysm...
...This is the only coherence that is constant in the midst of so many Mussolinian variables...
...Croce writes in his last book published within this war-time: "Distinction between vital and moral forces, between utilitarian and ethical...
...And they can today, werkers considerably impaired...
...In »hort, the intent of the present policy is clear, and its joint execution by the carriers and the white unions admits of few exceptions...
...AS early as November 11, 1940, the Polish and Czechoslovak governments in exile signed an agreement in London, and a Polish-Czechoslovakian confederation was formed...
...If the future is to be shaped in a realistic and not a Utopian way, this experience Brust be brought into the picture in full...
...Only this basic concept can .' secure lasting peace in Europe...
...On January 15, 1942, the Greeks and the Jugoslavs formed the Balkan Union...
...That was all...
...Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Italy — The Coming Revolution Against Duce By Leo Weiczen [This is the second part of an essay which constitutes Chapter 9 of the History of European Socialism by Leo Weiczen, translated by Frances Keene...
...Moreover, the carriers, interested primarily in cheap labor, now had no further reasons to defend them from the aggressions of the white unions...
...But then as now it was of the fundamental war prin- inconceivable in the South that a ciples has been lost on the Negro could hold the throttle of labor and production front, a locomotive, although plenty of and the loyalties of Negro them could...
...There are some steps being taken towards such unity, but these steps are not sufficient...
...When a Negro dies, retires or "fired, no Negro replaces him...
...The best.and most widely-known of these men are Ignazio Silone and Altiero Spinelli...
...Since Negroes held the majority of firemen's jobs on many roads, the carriers, prevented from training an adequate supply of apprentice engineers, were obliged to place foot-loose "boomers" from the North in the cabs...
...th ear You will not find ers m general dum t want it, esthe sytory' of the fight^gainst ???1...
...Instead, they have reiterated that Marxism must wage a struggle to unleash the autonomous energies of the workers and the intellectuals, and must intransigently counter-pose to any "State Socialism," the free self-governed com* munity of its citizens, its workers...
...Each of these white unions was eager to "represent" the Negroes, to whom neither was prepared fe extend membership...
...hirre metropolitan press...
...Croce, ?.: II Carattere della Philoeofia Modema, Bari, 1941, p. 238.1 Thus: "to affirm the necessity for a link between moral and experiential forces, means to affirm in this union not the submission, but rather the hegemony of morality...
...jjjjflfr^- pood...
...8802 against racial discrimination in job opportunity, thousands of Negroes have found jobs in war industry...
...They will be able to work as one board which will be the legislative body of the region...
...During the intervening quarter century the ????^^_ Negroes have lost an estimated...
...Since the Negro fireman couldn't become an engineer, all he got for years of service was seniority and lots of it...
...And thus Fascism was able to keep, before a large part of the Italian people, its mjrthical appearance of more or less revolutionary dynamism and so maintain itself in power...
...When Central and Eastern Europe unite, the peasants and . workers of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Jugoslavia, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc...
...On the other hand, just because it is categorical, it must not be understood as empirical distinction, or separation...
...Charttanog Choo-Choo'— Test Case on Negro Job Discrimination Government to Review Case Against Railroads By JAMES RORTY pBOM the point of view of the Negro worker, and scarcely less ? so from that of organized labor as a whole, one of the most important battles of this war will be fought in Washington on January 25...
...After these statements, Italian anti-Fascism, having defined itself as a younger and newer revolutionary principle than Fascism, can in truth say with Marx and Mazzini—"Between the two principles, war to the death...
...But the choice also means that the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe must show a still more coBStruct-ive spirit and must really be united in a more definite form...
...When such machinery is established, the solidarity of progressive peasants and workers will form the true ' basis for maintaining the established systems of international security...
...Mussolini, Benito: Scritti e discorsi, Milano 1934, Vol...
...The Nazis...
...Service and safety records suffered accordingly...
...They started way back in the relatively idyllic period be...
...averaged $60 a month or less...
...Italy is prolific, whereas one nation of the democratic bloc, France, exhausts itself: the Italian people are hard working, intelligent, and have scattered millions of their sons in all parts of the world...
...It is not a pretty history, and its social and political consequences are likely to be more than a little distressing...
...In Practice, various jokers in the contract are used to exclude Negroes entirely...
...It has never prevented any war...
...II, p. 22.] Certainly, had France had a "sensational" upsurge in foreign policy, Mussolini would have discovered anew that the class struggle in Italy was not directed against France, but against the enemies of France...
...I wish this were so...
...Garosci, Aldo: Idee e popoli in guerra, Quaderni Italiani I. Boston 1942, p. 36.] This coherence of agitation for its own sake, of revolution for the sake of revolution, maintained in foreign policy (whereas in internal policy the same Fascist Party ended by being subject to the weighty directive forces of the capitalism of a bureaucratic state) gave strength to Fascism until (and even during) the Ethiopian war...
...Inevitably, this impacted situation produced its headaches for the carriers, the public, and the white unions...
...A great effort should be made now in order to prepare for this unity...
...af...
...Since 1848, we have told the people that such solidarity would hinder every war...
...Should post-war Europe develop in a progressive manner by organizing a democratic union of liberated peoples or by imposing dynasties against which most of them fought for centuries ? The answer is quite simple...
...The democratic conception of Central and Eastern Europe is the only conception which should be and is opposed to the Hapsburg ideas of Otto the Pretender...
...Yet they had no recourse...
...A aRd switchmen on the southern ?& roads were Negroes...
...If you look at the employment trends for industry as a whole, youM say he's going...
...Alberto Cianca, Umberto Ca-losso...
...Bat if the F.E.P.C...
...This conception presents a real possibility of developing this unhappy region which for centuries has been an area of manhunt and conquest, of imperialistic invasions by Tsarist Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, etc...
...These two steps, although very modest, are significant nevertheless, particularly when so little is actually being done about post-war international organization...
...That would have been a victory for the Negroes —if only they had enjoyed the job protection given by membership in the white unions...
...The federal Europe or European union should be composed of several regions...
...Two problems especially, two basic problems of post-war planning— social security and international security—must be discussed and solved in terms of experiences, but never solely on the basis of hypothetical, pre-conceived schemes...
...The idea of Giuetiria e Liberia was the same idea of autonomy, of distinction, which Croce had elaborated in philosophy and which these militants were to introduce into the revolutionary struggle...
...Barring government intervention, most of these experienced and competent Negro workers will be kicked out of their cabs by July 1, 1943...
...This agency, whose executive committee is represented by the four ministers of the respective governments, has its headquarters in New York...
...I use this problem as one example...
...Until now, we have not had any United Nations machinery, only some Inter-allied committees, some Inter-allied meetings in London, declarations, and resolutions...
...But what remains they hold in common, namely, a faith, tried by effective resistance to Fascism, in the distinctive, superior value of the moral, ethical content of the Italian revolution of the future...
...was tnat tne j°bs became too ['«fi...
...At any rate, the first agreement and the existing cooperation of the countries makes us able to believe firmly in the possibilities of establishing such a unity in Central and Eastern Europe...
...However, the solidarity shown at the International Congress of the Trade Unions and in the Socialist Party was not shown at the crucial moments in history...
...We have a general United Nations organization...
...Ill, p. 61.] But luckily for Mussolini and Fascism, French democracy could not longer recoup its position by means of jacobin militarism...
...is of capital importance for the (understanding) of the actions and accidents of history...
...Without this unity, it will be difficult to maintain democracy in eastern Europe...
...The Jugoslav Fighting ; Youth sent to the Jugoslav government in New York, a letter expressing their joy at the signing of the declaration of the four governments...
...A clearer picture is shaping in the eastern European region...
...It must be followed by a radical land reform in eastern ??????* by introducing the cooperative system among the peas-ants, by introducing democracy in an industrial sense, too...
...Progress must be achieved in all three fields—international, social, and political...
...The true spirit of solidarity was felt at the International Labor Conference in New York, in November, 1942...
...Therefore, all efforts to build up international machinery of a progressive character should be supported by international labor and farmers' movements...
...On that date the President's Committee on Fair Employment • Practices will open a three-day hearing to consider the grievances of Negro railroad workers...
...For all practical purposes "non-promotable" •Mans Negro...
...The delegations were composed, formally, of representatives, of employers, labor, and government...
...Thus Italian Fascism came to the death of its ideology, its dynamics, by its own apparent victory and by the hand of its ally and master, Hitlerian Germany...
...Thus Fascist foreign policy, bent on sowing discord in Europe, on destroying the structure of Versailles, had a favorable wind...
...j II THE conclusion Mussolini deduced from the evolution * of Europe toward the right was that "largely proletarian Italy, which has shed the blood of its ten most vigorous generations, can well take out its revenge in class warfare...
Vol. 26 • January 1943 • No. 2
