The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By William E. Bohn Death Knocks Out Radio Commercials This baa been • strange week ia American history. Ths only other time like it was the period of Lincoln's death. There wss the...
...H. R. 2031 and 2067 would permit the naturalization of Filipinos...
...There hss been nothing of the sort The wsr hss stimulated technology...
...But it will be tough...
...Thia invesigation waa asked for by Writers' War Board Committee to Combat Race Hatred...
...For three blessed days there wore no staging commercials or commerciali of any other sort We were allowed to forget about soap and cathartics and the magic virtues of this or that cigarette...
...It is doubt-fpl if the'House Judiciary Committee will bring up the bill of its own accord...
...And where the authors brought in menials, racketeers, thieves, gamblers, shady nightclub proprietors, crooked prize-fight managers, such non-sympathetic characters were seldom Anglo-Saxon...
...People loved the programs — especially the mutic...
...The slow proasssss of history, you think, may take a turn for the better in—let us say—a hundred or two hundred years...
...Bills Congress Should Pass By Milton R. KoniMz THE daily press gave considerable space to the course taken at bearings and in the New York legislature by the Ives-Quinn Anti-Discrimination Bill...
...We would buy more of your stuff if you didn't make us mad...
...They must hsve taken for granted that paeans of prsise for indigestion cures just naturally sprout from receiving sets...
...3. Congressman D. Lane Powers (R., N. J.) deserves much credit for his efforts to get the Discharge Petition properly before the House...
...I know that this is a lost csnse...
...This paragraph will not have the least effect on snyone...
...While tho chances are that tho bills will not be brought up sgsin In the 79th Congress, the Senate Immigration Committee may take favorable action on the Senate bills...
...Why not let np on as...
...But there are other bills that deserve widespread publicity, yet they are seldom if ever mentioned in the daily press...
...in 1918 the number increased to 63, and in 1919 lynching spiraled to 79...
...They are not as shocked as ws are by current events...
...Heroes sad heroines are easily turned out A single pair of thorn can, in*fact, serve s rapid writing producer for s life-time...
...Up to now it has been comparatively essy to devise a villsin...
...What chance Is there for a boy who is born on April 26, the date * of the San Francisco Conference T • • • Lett—mi o* the Dearth of Viltaimt TlIE Bureau of Applied So...
...There wss the same sort of universal grief, the people snetcning at every item of news, lining up along railway tracks ss the funeral cortege passed slowly by, feeling—esch one down m-side himself— that something important had come to an end, that the world ahead looked dark and menacing...
...Thus, Senator Capper has a bill (S...
...I cannot get excited over the prospects of men in the twenty-second century...
...Details of "hair or complexion or build may be varied a little, but the winning man and the alluring girl will always, of course, represent the dominant group in their civllita...
...We enjoy the wonders of modern Invention by the grace of soaps which clean our outside* and cathartics which elesn our ins ides...
...No one tried to sell us anything . The reporting and the orating ram a bit thin st times, snd at others they took on s falsely florid quality...
...Congressman Powell of New York has a similar bill relating to Koreans (H.R...
...The flrst concern that takes us into sccount will go right to the top of the business...
...505) to authorize admission of the people of India on a quota basis...
...g. Walls's picture of the aftermath of global war is ail wrong...
...The rules of the game sre being changed...
...But no one can doubt tho depth of it...
...Ten of the lyncheea in 1919 were soldiers or ex-soldiers, sad there ia little question but that these men were slain simply because they had tested a little freedom, a little travel, and had a little pride in the part they played in the army • that fought for democracy...
...it is therefore necessary to get 218 Congressmen to sign Discharge Petition No...
...but the Committee voted, 10 to 6, to table the bill...
...Ha will not always be able to put some sort of alien mask on s fellow snd my: Here is your villain...
...Anup Singh, Secretary of the National Commit, tee for India's Freedom, testified before the House Committee, and when he finished Congressman Mason of Illinois said, waving his hand enthusiastically towards the witness: "That man is the bett witness who hat appeared before this Committee in all the yeart I've been a member of it...
...Toehnology has wrought a change even in our expressions of of mourning...
...And if the fabricator of fascinating fiction is put in a tight spot, there will be few to sympathize...
...A little more taste, a little more decency, a little mom consideration far as listeners would psy rich dividends...
...He may have to think...
...To us, looking back, there seema to have been something grotesque, something macabre, about the forma taken by the national grief...
...1 am not going to ask the broadcasting compaaies to give up the commercials...
...Bach snd Beethoven and Chopin transmuted the common grief into beauty—which is the only psth to appeasement and alleviation...
...Can you not have mercy...
...Members of the House should be urged to sign the Petition, and then to vote for tho Bill whoa it comet up...
...I ask thst this House take immediate steps to outlaw lynching by adopting H. R. 1698 so that when these boys come home, black and white alike, they will know that they have truly fought for—and won—a better America and a better world...
...Now we have gone through two shattering wars...
...During wsr ho would come from the enemy notion...
...Why do you, think," he writes in hit dignified way, "that you and i would have a firmer basis for optimism if wo were twenty-one...
...As Leslie Perry of the NAACP haa pointed ant, Negroes have boss lynched in the S< uth merely because they had sought to go to tho ballot-box snd cast their vote...
...Bat, O yon million-dollar executlvea who know to much about Crosley ratings, do these verbal agonies have to be so long, ao stupid, so repetitious...
...On the street men snd Wins SO were silently hurrying...
...You rest your hope on increasing intelligence, growing possibilities of democracy...
...I wish the program directors of sit the radio stations and the directing geniuaea of the corporations which control the air could have heard the remarks of the listeners-in...
...Here I want to name a number of bills pending in Congress, in the hope that readers of The New Leader will write to their Congressmen urging them to take the type of action indicated...
...The investigation showed that of 100 motion pictures representing Negroes only 12 played up the black man in s favorable light Out of 188 short stories examined 90.8 had Anglo-Saxon heroes...
...and Optimiirn Writing the other day to sn old friend out in Loa Angeles i pnt down words something like these: "Forty years ago, in the days of the first Roosevelt, you and i had high hopes...
...and bills H. R. 1624 (by Lynch of New York) and H. R. 1901 would afford the same right to Koreans in the United States...
...al Research up at Co lussbia University publishes the results of an in vestige Mob -that may wofl throw fear Into the heart of any peppier fiction writer...
...I want to know what future there will be for my son, for my nephews...
...The provisions of some of these House bills were combined into one (H...
...If modern,technology were given free rein to do its best everything could be put back in better shape than it was in before, within five years...
...This is something for easy and ancient optimists to consider...
...It also made Chinese aliens eligible for naturalization...
...There was universal satisfaction...
...In this country they will be of reliable Angle-Saxon stock or of some foreign blend that readily and triumphantly takes on the accepted qualities...
...It has been referred to ths House Labor Committee...
...1901...
...Powers asked the House "to .make thia democracy a real and meaningful thing to the millions of Negro servicemen and their families who hsve helped to make victory and leadership possible...
...they eaadji got dote to it only by listening to reports over the air waves...
...v / And tho effect on tho programs of the broadcasting companies was a ma ting, ft took the death of a president to smock out radio advertising...
...Civilization is bankrupt morally, ideologically, politically—and where is the will or the power to restore these mental possessions...
...The results are to be used to brook down tho idea that we sre a fine tet of folka and the others are a mangy lot It it a worthy purpose, and ws unite In hoping thst the efforts of the Board will be crowned with success...
...1 know all about economic interpretation of jirogram policies...
...If wo were boys again, we might hope to live long enough to toe something different, something better...
...At any rats, liberals must do every thing possible to keep ths issue alive and to get favorable action ultimately—the sooner tho better...
...The Attorney General spoke in favor of ths bills, because of what India was doing for tho United Nations, snd because India is a rising market The President in a letter also endorsed tho ponding legislation...
...3) Immigration and Naturalization Bills At the end of 1943 Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Laws and gave the Chinese a quota of 106 immigrants a year...
...There were mure of the trappings of death in those days eighty years sgo, more catafalques, more black drapiags, more lines of people filing sadly past the open coffin...
...is in the hands of- tho House Judiciary Committee...
...Introduced by Representative Mary T. Norton (D., N. J.), the bill would prohibit discrimination in employment because Of race, creed or nationality...
...Many of them .ad never before been conscious of the fine possibilities of broadcasting...
...R 2609), and hearings were held in March by the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization...
...The Young, the Old...
...but Dr...
...It had never occurred to them that you can have drama, music, news without nuisance...
...and regardless of the motives of the editors in giving publicity to the proceedings, the publicity itself waa a good thing, for it gave the readers of newspapers an opportunity to learn something about the provisions of the bill and the arguments for snd against it and to make their own opiniona felt in Albany...
...i toon got enough of whst the professional word-casters bad to say...
...It was shown at tho hearing that if East Indians were treated on a basis of equality with Europeans, s maximum of only erne hundred Indian* would be eligible for admit tion...
...Recently he said to his colleagues: "My mind goes back to our experience with lynching immediately following World War I. In 1917, according to the best available figures, 82 Negroes were murdered by the lynch mob...
...We too the great powers steering straight toward a third one...
...Correcting the situation as to the Chinese was a measure of patent justice...
...Singh's eloquence and arguments availed nothing...
...at the aame time, however, the repeal of the Chinese laws has focused attention on the other lawa which discriminate against Asiatics generally, and on our "white supremacy" policy in international relations...
...That brought back a response that had all tho eharpnets of points that he used to hand me in college bull sessions s long time ago...
...4) rttmattaat FEPC Bffl HB...
...It will serve merely to relieve my feelings and those of < some of my readers...
...Discharge Petition No...
...But at any hour of the day or night you could turn to soma station and hear noble music...
...2) The Anti-Poll Tax Bill...
...On Thursday afternoon when the news was tsjopaouid to see bore in tho etuce my first impulse was b> hasten home whore i could got the up-to-the-minute detalle over tho radio...
...They'd better, or there will not bo any human race loft on this plundered planet, "But all of thia does not interest me...
...1) The Anti-Lynrhing Bill—H.R...
...Apparently they expected nothing better...
...But other Atiatict are ttill barred from immigration and citizenship...
...i know s number of young man, and their outlook Is anything but optimistic...
...This bill, too...
...A number of bills ore pending which would correct the situation to a considerable degree...
...1 has already noon presented, bat It thus fsr hss only 166 of the required 218 signatures of Congressmen...
...Senator Capper's bill would also qualify East Indians for American citizenship...
...Ho could bo a Negro, a Chinese or practically any sort of foreigner...
...One interesting point ia thst the comic stripe sre much fairer to minority groups then are the slick magazines...
...He predicted a complete aOd devastating breakdown of technology...
...If ten Negro aoldiera or ex-soldiers were lynched in the flrst year they returned to this country sfter World Wsr I, whst can we expect will be the fate ef almost a million Negro soldiers and aailora who have had several yearn of service and have seen duty in many foreign countries after World Wsr II...
...that of the several thousand East Indians in this country, 216 are In tho armed forces...
...Maybe we shall live to toe a Negro hero in True (en-ftotwms...
...1698...
...Apparently all of them bad tho same aanyuW...
...And that it not the worst...
...Negroes can now vote in Georgia and Texas...
...The Anti-Lynehing Bill and the Anti-Poll Tax Bill ahould be enacted together...
...tion...
...It was so decreed f rom the beginning, snd thes it shall over be...
...Something important was happening...
...Handreds of thousands of these Negroes are from the South and will return there after the war...
...During peace he might represent any defenseless minority group...
...Whst ths richly rewarded producer of stories for the millions needs most is a varied stack of viBams...
Vol. 28 • April 1945 • No. 16
