A DOUBLE-BARRELED PROGRAM
A Double-Barreled Program A BILL of far-ranging significance—one which could make a tremendous dent in our farm problem while at the same time establishing new and higher standards of nutrition and...
...A petition now being circulated among the members can break the deadlock if signed by a majority...
...Two Critical Issues PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S courageous demand for a Fair Employment Practices Act should stiffen the back bones of those Congressmen who have been wavering on important anti-discrimination issues before Congress...
...In upholding this vicious doctrine of the Illinois bar, the Supreme Court has said that a man's religious convictions are sufficient grounds to bar him from making a living in a profession in which he might render valuable service to society...
...Aiken and La Follette in an article for readers of The Progressive next week...
...A conscientious objector on religious grounds, Wilson's convictions run so deeply that he refused to use his physical disability as the reason for staying out of the service...
...Senate rules provide a democratic means of preventing undemocratic filibustering...
...But I am not ready to say that a mere profession of belief in that gospel is a sufficient reason to keep otherwise well qualified men out of the legal profession or to drive law abiding lawyers...
...Tried in an atmosphere of hate and suspicion, they were denied the rights which even they, as American citizens, are guaranteed under our Bill of Rights...
...Both the Senate and House have critical antidiscrimination issues before them...
...This bill has a good chance of passage if the Seate breaks the planned filibuster, and brings the measure to a vote...
...Writing the dissent for Justices Douglas, Murphy, and Rutledge, Justice Black used some stern and vigorous language which any nation smugly calling itself Christian ought to read...
...IN the second case the Court upheld the Supreme Court of Illinois in ruling that the Illinois Bar Association may refuse admission to an otherwise highly qualified candidate solely on the grounds that he is a conscientious objector...
...It may be," he wrote, "as many people think, that Christ's gospel of love and submission is not suited to a world in which men still fight and kill one another...
...The case which attracted the most attention reversed the conviction of 24 members of the German-American Bund, each of whom had been sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for conspiring to advise evasion of and resistance to the Selective Service Act...
...of that belief out of the profession, which would be the next logical development...
...Cloture should be used to bring this issue to a vote...
...The President has not hesitated to come out firmly for FEPC legislation, despite the knowledge that the powerful Southern bloc of his own party is opposed to it...
...The basic principles of the La Follette-Aiken Plan are these : The first step is to determine scientifically the level of nutrition needed to keep an average person strong and healthy, and to translate that nutrition level into actual amounts of lower cost food...
...It lays equal emphasis on consumers' need for better nutrition and farmers' need for broader markets, in the belief that efforts to help either consumers or producers of food, independent of the needs of the other group, would in the long run be self defeating...
...The candidate denied the right to practice law was Clyde Wilson Summers, an outstanding law student from the University of Illinois who since has taken a position teaching law at Toledo College in Ohio...
...Pointing out that Summers measures up to every other qualification for admission to the bar, Black said that there could be no doubt he was rejected for religious beliefs...
...House members anxious to eliminate racial and religious discrimination in employment and concerned about the cowardly evasion in holding this bill in committee should sign the petition forthwith...
...The third step is to supplement the buying power of families that are not able to afford low-cost adequate diets...
...How the plan works to achieve these purposes without burdensome red tape or any of the hated paraphernalia of the old relief system will be discussed by Sens...
...The high court found that the evidence produced by the Government in the prosecution of the case was insufficient to sustain the conviction...
...These men were convicted at a time when war hysteria was at fever pitch...
...Every freedom-loving American deeply resents the efforts of the Bundists to plant the seeds of a despicable foreign political ideology in this country, but that same love of liberty enables most of them to recognize that the decision is in the best tradition of America...
...A Double-Barreled Program A BILL of far-ranging significance—one which could make a tremendous dent in our farm problem while at the same time establishing new and higher standards of nutrition and health for the normally underprivileged one-third of the nation—was introduced in the United States Senate last week by Sens...
...The second step is to determine the value of the low-cost adequate diet periodically at current retail food prices...
...This cost, on a yearly basis, would be known as the "food allotment...
...Civil Liberties In The Court CIVIL LIBERTIES split a double-header in the United States Supreme Court last week, both times by a 5 to 4 decisfon...
...The La Follette-Aiken Food Allotment Bill deserves the closest study by every progressive American, and The Progressive plans to publish a full statement on the measure by the two sponsors in an early issue...
...George D. Aiken, Vermont's hard-hitting liberal Republican, and Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Wisconsin Progressive...
...If Congress faces up to its responsibilities as forthrightly as our minority racial and religious groups are facing up to their patriotic duties on the battlefield and home front, it will at least see to it that a record vote is made on both these measures...
...For the present, however, one cannot avoid the conclusion that like proposals for full employment, broadened social security, and regional development of river valleys, this measure provides a major foundation stone for the progressive reconstruction of postwar America, and sets up a strong hope for the attainment of "Freedom from Want" here in this richest nation on earth...
...The Senate has before it the anti-poll tax bill which recently passed the House by the heartening vote of 251-105...
...Even if the bills are defeated, the nation will then know who is responsible for denying the Four Freedoms to 10,000,000 American citizens...
...The bill to establish a permanent FEPC has been held in a House committee for 3 months by Southern Democrats...
...Don't miss it...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 26
