Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR HOUSE DIVIDED Although Allan Nevins was more than generous in his judgment of my presentation of Lincoln's political philosophy, in my Crisis of the House Divided (NL, May 16), he went...
...I am somewhat disturbed at his bringing the great weight of his authority into the scales against me in an ex parte matter...
...The expression is taken from Mill's On Liberty, and has a precise meaning in the context of my book, a meaning of which Nevins gives no hint...
...Surely, there was nothing gay in my manner of making such an assertion, but has Nevins forgotten that it was Abraham Lincoln who first made it...
...As for the Federation's Civil Rights Department, its performance would seem to indicate that its major function is to create a liberal public relations image rather than to attack directly the broad pattern of anti-Negro practices...
...It is necessary to note that in many communities where the public schools are now integrated, such as in East St...
...I tried in two long chapters to show why, precisely because of the critical struggle to dominate the national Government, Lincoln's fears were justified...
...These include the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Operating Engineers, the Iron and Structural Steel Workers, Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Union, Plasterers and Lathers, etc...
...In December 1958, Roy Wilkins, NAACP executive secretary, sent to George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, a lengthy memorandum together with affidavits from Negro workers in several states charging a wide variety of discriminatory racial practices by many unions affiliated to the AFL-CIO...
...I compared this with Lincoln's stand on the Know-Nothings (whom Douglas denounced publicly): private denunciation, public silence...
...But I do not believe that I have written any such thing...
...The fact is that since the AFL-CIO merger in 1955 very limited progress has been made...
...Nevins takes me to task for saying that only an infinitesimal minority of Americans in 1858 believed that Negroes were capable of "being improved by free and equal discussion...
...In that same spirit, I analyzed Randall's analysis...
...The refusal to admit Negroes into membership simply denies Negro workers opportunities to secure employment...
...After more than a year and a half the Association is still awaiting a progress report on the memorandum and the complaints submitted on behalf of Negro workers...
...Unfortunately he does not specify precisely where and when the alleged "substantial gains" have occurred...
...The NAACP memorandum documented discriminatory trade-union practices in, four categories: outright exclusion of Negroes, segregated locals, separate racial seniority lines in collective bargaining agreements and exclusion of Negroes from apprenticeship-training programs controlled by labor unions...
...I would remind Nevins that Randall himself, while revering Lincoln, nevertheless wrote a devastating critique of the "House Divided" speech, prefacing it with the remark: "Unless biography is to be treated solely as fulsome eulogy, it becomes a duty to analyze this speech...
...This is the only practical way it seems to me that unions can be compelled to conform with national labor policy...
...In both East St...
...Let me say that I yield to no one in my respect for Randall, and would deplore as much as he anything that anyone might write to undermine it...
...Racism in organized labor is essentially based on powerful vested interests that have been deeply institutionalized and sanctioned by tradition...
...We do not believe that organized labor can have an immunity from criticism and comment in this matter...
...But has Nevins forgotten the famous four workingmen, Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James...
...Columbus, Ohio HABBY V. JAFFA NEGRO UNION RIGHTS In the interests of accuracy the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People would like to comment on Harry Fleischman's article, "Labor and the Civil Rights Revolution," (NL, April 18...
...There has been a significant absence of leadership within organized labor on civil rights matters...
...The Negro worker is today keenly aware of the great disparity between trade-union ritual and rhetoric on civil rights and the day-to-day reality, in the North as well as in the South...
...We believe the record makes all too clear that in the four and a half years since the AFL-CIO merger, the national labor organization has failed to eliminate the broad pattern of discrimination in its affiliated unions...
...Because the National Labor Relations Board has done little to enforce the anti-closed shop provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, building trade unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO are closed unions operating closed shops in most instances...
...This disparity is seen in the practice of some major unions in removing the "lily white" exclusion clause from their constitutions but continuing to exclude Negroes from membership by tacit consent...
...I merely pointed out (among other things) that the "leak," which I learned about from Nevins' book, tended to support Lincoln...
...The question at issue is: How many Americans would have been willing to give free Negroes the ballot in 1858, at a time when Lincoln pronounced himself against it...
...Nevins treats the gallant though mistaken Douglas with contempt, while attacking me for differing with a man who thought Douglas right...
...Twice Nevins defends "a historian" against my attacks, a historian who is in fact himself...
...Fleisch-man states that relations between labor and Negro groups have been deteriorating "at precisely the moment that Negroes have been making substantial gains in opening the gates to union and job equality...
...Louis, Illinois, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, trade unions continue to resist changes in the status of Negroes bitterly and, in fact, lag behind progress by other institutions in the community...
...The NAACP supports the legitimate and socially desirable goals of organized labor, but where trade unions use the power of the closed shop to prevent qualified Negroes from securing employment in craft skills, the Association must protest and call upon the National Labor Relations Board, as well as other Government agencies, to enforce the law...
...Because the economic welfare of the entire Negro community is directly at stake, the NAACP together with others, whose first responsibility is to the cause of civil rights and the welfare of the Negro worker, will continue to criticize and expose publicly all the institutions in American life guilty of anti-Negro practices...
...I did quote a well-known private denunciation of slavery by Douglas, and contrasted this with his public refusal so to denounce slavery...
...Again, Nevins accused me of "recklessly" converting a "Supreme Court Justice's leak to Buchanan on the Dred Scott decision into a conspiracy among Buchanan, Taney, Pierce and Douglas...
...Nevins deplores my "contemptuous" attacks on the late James G. Randall...
...We therefore agree with Benjamin Aaron, who in a letter in THE NEW LEADER on May 2 called for an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act "which would forbid the recognition or certification as exclusive bargaining representative of any union that discriminates in the admission or representation of minority groups...
...Now there simply is no such denial in my book...
...Louis and Tulsa, Negro children attend integrated schools during the day but their parents attend segregated union meetings at night, if they are admitted into labor unions at all...
...New York City HERBERT HILL Labor Secretary, NAACP A reply by Harry Fleischman will appear in a forthcoming issue.—ED...
...Part of Nevins' rebuttal is that Lincoln proposed, before the Civil War ended, to give Negroes the ballot in Louisiana...
...The basic fact of craft unions in the building trades industry is that they control access to employment by virtue of their control of hiring...
...is essentially a limited and strategic adjustment to community pressure...
...In the first of these matters, I am accused of "flagrant contradiction" for allegedly denying that Douglas' speeches and writings contain but few passages expressing a repugnance to slavery, and later asserting that Douglas never unequivocally denounced slavery as an evil or curse in public...
...I would only add that, however I may ultimately have differed with Randall, I paid him the sincerest of compliments by my lengthy defense of his hero of the 1850s, Stephen A. Douglas...
...In virtually every large urban center Negro workers are today denied employment in major industrial and residential construction projects because they are barred from membership in the building trades craft unions...
...DEAR EDITOR HOUSE DIVIDED Although Allan Nevins was more than generous in his judgment of my presentation of Lincoln's political philosophy, in my Crisis of the House Divided (NL, May 16), he went on to take rather harsh exception to my "quarrelsomeness" and lack of grounding "in the history of the time...
...As long as union membership remains a condition of employment in the building trades and elsewhere, and qualified Negroes are barred from union membership solely by virtue of their color, then trade-union discrimination is the decisive factor in determining the exclusion of Negro workers in a given industry...
...Is this a historian's evidence of opinion in 1858...
...What contradiction is there between saying that Douglas expressed anti-slavery feelings in private, and that he did not express them in public...
...On occasion there has been the admission of one or two Negroes as token compliance with state and municipal fair employment practices laws, as in Milwaukee and Cleveland, but this THE NEW LEADER welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...The conspiracy theory was Lincoln's, not mine...
...If Jaffa were better grounded in the history of the time," Nevins says, "he would not so blithely assert that the conversion of Illinois into a slave state in 1858 was a practical possibility...
Vol. 43 • June 1960 • No. 25
