Dear Editor

...To validate this violence to liberal morality, Moon now cites a letter that Roy Wilkins, NAACP Executive Secretary, sent to George Meany, President of the AFL-CIO...

...I pointed out that Local 89 was a "language" local with an all-Italian membership, that so far as is known there are no Italian-speaking Negroes in the dress trade, and that it was thus base and malicious to accuse the local and its manager, Luigi Antonini, of invidious bigotry because the local had no Negro members...

...In an amazing example of political connivance, Hill made himself available to two Tammany stalwarts—Representatives Herbert Zelenko (now ex-Congressman) and Adam Clayton Powell—to prepare a case against the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, of which David Dubinsky is president...

...DEAR EDITOR NAACP AND LABOR As one who has been a longtime reader of, and occasional contributor to, The New Leader, I was shocked to read J. C. Rich's diatribe against the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ("The NAACP vs...

...When I wrote my article for The New Leader I was not aware that Wilkins had given the AFL-CIO two weeks to get out of town...

...It is like crying, "You're another...

...Contrary to Rich's assertion, Charles Zimmerman never held any official position in the The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...

...New York City Henry Lee Moon Director of Public Relations, NAACP J. C. Rich replies: It is pleasant to note that NAACP executives do recall the gratitude and regard with which I myself, and the trade union of whose newspaper I serve as editor, responded to an act of fair play by the organization and its labor specialist, Herbert Hill...

...The Herbert Hill on whom Rich now focuses his attack is the same Herbert Hill whose role in prevailing upon Negro workers not to allow themselves to be used to break a strike of the United Hatters against the Hat Corporation of America was heralded in the columns of The Hat Worker on February 15, 1954, edited then as now by Rich...

...In response to Moon's objections, I repeat this assertion...

...Some of the trade unions' bias exists only at the local level and some exists as the entrenched policy of the internationals...

...How Rich arrived at the conclusion that the NAACP "had to beat a hasty retreat" in regard to the United Automobile Workers defies understanding...

...Each to his own taste...

...perhaps the NAACP feels that Powell and Zelenko have acquired sufficient moral and ethical stature to sit in judgment over Dubinsky, Antonini and Zimmerman...

...To this Moon interposes the legalism that Zimmerman was a member of an affiliate of the NAACP, not the main body of the organization...

...In his eagerness to discredit the NAACP, Rich puts words in Herbert Hill's mouth which the organization's Labor Secretary never uttered...

...he accused it of racial malpractice, knowing full well that his charge was false and contrived...

...But instead of apologizing for Hill's hooliganism, instead of disassociating itself from this dreadful onslaught on a decent trade union, instead of steering clear of Powell's and Zelenko's politically motivated inquisition, the NAACP gave its blessings to the anti-union smear...

...There is little refutation and much evasion in Moon's letter...

...For bombast and pompous self-righteousness it tops anything a Senator Claghorn could have uttered on the lily-white side of the racist street...

...On the basis of this misrepresentation he proceeds to berate the NAACP staff member...

...Responding to Meany's letter of November 20, the NAACP leader committed the Association to "the resolute employment of every technique which offers the hope of relief" and affirmed that the anti-bias campaign would continue to "be directed at every barrier extant...

...This course of action, he told the labor leader, does not "constitute an 'attack' upon organized labor...

...Similarly, there is the detail about Dressmakers Local 89 which Herbert Hill presented as the horrible example of anti-Negro bias...

...I thought it was generally known that the NAACP was established and exists to combat racial discrimination wherever it may be found and in whatever quantity...

...As a matter of current practice, NAACP strategists find that progressive laborites are more vulnerable targets for calumny than the porkchop artists and boodle hounds of the labor movement...

...Inaccuracies, distortions and outright prevarications by the dozen abound in his bill of indictment—as Gus Tyler of the ILGWU Educational Department has demonstrated...

...Moon dismisses the deceitfulness of Hill's fabrication with the airy observation that a local of Italian dressmakers is an "anachronism...

...Does the NAACP find such violence to integrity acceptable...

...Too many eminent Jews, including distinguished rabbis, have served in too many capacities with the NAACP to validate that charge...

...On October 18, UAW President Walter Reuther issued a statement in which he conceded that "a few unions still have not met their moral obligations and continue to deny equal opportunity to all workers...

...NAACP itself...

...He attributes to Hill a statement made last August by a spokesman for the AFL-CIO as reported in Newsweek [August 20, 1962...

...Therefore, Meany, Dubinsky, McDonald and Paul Hall become subjects of attack, while Hoffa teammates and walking delegates with the social morality of hyenas become acceptable to the NAACP...

...I now suggest to the NAACP that it recall Wilkins's letter and hide it from view...

...Later he scotched a published report that he intended to resign from the NAACP Board of Directors...

...so that American Negro workers may have their rightful share of the abundant American economy...

...Labor," NL, November 26...

...How this refutes Zimmerman's charges against the NAACP and the argument of my article is hard to determine...

...Presumably it would be less of an anachronism if an NAACP caucus, instead of the Italian membership, chose the local's officers...

...The NAACP has made no charges nor instituted any actions involving the UAW...

...Inasmuch as Henry Lee Moon thereby establishes my credentials as a friend of the NAACP—an outraged friend —perhaps he will appreciate the dismay that impelled me to write the article to which he files objection...

...He has been active with the Legal Defense Fund, a separate corporation...

...My article referred to Zimmerman's resignation from the NAACP, giving his reasons for this harsh severance...

...In publishing this distorted version of the challenging issue which confronts the American labor movement and of the NAACP role in trying to eradicate discrimination against Negro workers, THE NEW LEADER, I believe, has done a grave disservice to the cause of liberalism...

...The document was rejected by the subcommittee, but it was "leaked" to the press in advance of the hearings and has since been published in toto...

...The fact is, discrimination against Negroes does exist in labor unions, including all of those against which actions have been instituted...

...Rationally considered, the letter commits the NAACP to the idea that, by-and-large, all whites are anti-Negro, only organized labor is more so than most...

...The charge that the NAACP is anti-Semitic on the basis of a reference in the Hill statement to the "ethnic composition" of the ILGWU leadership is childish...

...In his letter of December 7 to George Meany, President of the AFL-CIO, Roy Wilkins, NAACP Executive Secretary, made it clear that the Association has no intention of shirking its responsibilities to Negro workers hamstrung by the discriminatory practices of some trade unions...

...Personally I doubt whether liberals would accept these statesmen as proctors ot ethical conduct...

...But Hill did not accuse Local 89 of maintaining an outmoded system of organization...

...Responding to the Reuther statement, Willems expressed appreciation for "the active cooperation of the UAW on civil rights matters over a period of more than 20 years," and affirmed the NAACP obligation "to press the campaign to eliminate these inequalities [within trade unions...

...And the astounding aspect of the entire maneuver is that Hill was caught with his facts down...

...One of the evasions is a typical Pecksniffian turn in respect to Charles Zimmerman, manager of the New York Dressmakers Joint Board and a vigorous opponent of racial bigotry...

...I stated in my article that the liberal community has a right to demand the NAACP behave according to the code of ethics longestablished and respected among liberals and laborites...

...All of it persists despite the declared antidiscrimination posture of the AFL-CIO...

...As for Rich's reference to the ILGWU'S Dressmakers Local 89, the continued existence of an all-Italian local—or, for that matter, an all-Negro, all Jewish, or all-Irish unit —within an international which prides itself on its liberalism and integration is in this day an anachronism...

...In any case, at hearings of a subcommittee appointed by Powell and chaired by Zelenko, Hill submitted a bill of indictment running to some 14 pages of supposed "evidence...

...To the extent that the NAACP indulges in its present behavior its credentials as a liberal and libertarian organization become as suspect as those of the Muslim band among Negroes...