AMERICA'S NEGROES
By BASIL MATHEWS Washington.
discrimination against coloured labour. "We are told," negro soldiers explain, "that we are fighting for democracy. The Declara- tion of Independence and our Constitution are based on the belief that "all men are created equal ; yet at a time when the work of every American is vital for winning the war, our brothers and sisters are persistently refused employment, solely on the grounds of colour.
Why should we fight against Hitler's theory of white-race superiority if we are to go on suffering under it here?"
This feeling boiled up into such active resentment that a demonstration march of negroes on Washington was threatened. President Roosevelt immediately, both on ideological grounds and further on the grounds that racial demonstrations in Washington would be rich booty for Goebbels' propaganda machine, decided to take strong action. He, therefore, made an Executive Order, which
appears to have no parallel in the inter-racial field of Presidential action since Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The central sentences in that Order are as follows: "Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes, and as a prerequisite to the successful conduct of our national defense production effort, I do hereby reaffirm the policy of the United States that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or Government because of race, creed, colour, or national origin, and I do hereby declare that it is the duty of employers and of labor organisations, in furtherance of said policy and of this order, to provide for the full and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination because of race, creed, colour, or national origin?'
The President, discovering that widespread disregard of this emphatic instruction was taking place, established what is called "The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice." This Is a powerful committee, including white men and negroes, with the heads Of the two great labour organisations of America and repre-
sentatives of industry, with Lawrence W. Cramer, late Governor of the Virgin Islands, as its executive secietary. That committee receives complaints about the discriminations against workers in defence industry, sifts them and then takes action where grievances are valid. It wofks with the Government Departments to place in all contract forms handed out to manufacturers clauses against race- discrimination. It goes down into areas where race-discrimination
IS practised and has hearings to which witnesses are called. Follow-
ing those hearings, if the race-discrimination charges are proved, the committee recommends to the proper Governmental authorities can- cellation of the contract unless the discrimination ceases. In one case where a great business firm refused even to send witnesses, the committee, after sifting the evidence, published its report all over the country, and the firm soon found it was losing millions of dollars in orders for its goods because of the feeling against racial dis- crimination. Since that day no firm has refused to send its witnesses. There was a widely held view that the committee would never dare to send investigators to the "deep South " ; but a powerful investiga- tion in Birmingham, Alabama, last June proved the falseness of that prophecy.
The President's committee explicitly disclaims any intention of forcing "social changes" or challenging social attitudes. Its sole aim is the nation's full use of its man-power in the war crisis. The general view of all negro groups, except the most bitter and extreme, is that this Committee on Fair Employment Practice is achieving more than would have been expected, and that its work should not be hampered by complaints that it is not achieving perfection. One group, however, of a rather bitter type of leaders has just been formed by the American Civil Liberties Union, with Pearl S. Buck, the well-known novelist, as its head. It intends to survey discrimination and segregation of negroes in the armed forces and civilians employed in Federal Agencies, as well as in the Red Cross and the United Service Organisation, or discriminations in defence industries and civil defence activities.
President Clements, the head of the famous Atlanta University for coloured students, pointed out to me a deeper issue, basic to any solution of this problem. Business firms attacked for discrimina- tion sometimes state in defence that no negro skilled labour is available. That is at times true. But the reason why no negro skilled labour is available is because any labourer can only become skilled if he is trained either through apprenticeship in a business firm or through a State Vocational Programme. Both of these channels to skilled-labour status have been largely blocked to negroes. If we ask why the State Vocational Training Programme has not been open to negroes, its responsible executive replies : "I do not accept negroes for training for skilled labour because no jobs are open to them if and when trained." We see here, then, the vicious circle which the President's declaration and his Committee on Fair Employment Practice may be able, while the war is on, to break.
One further snag needs elucidation. Resistance to the employ- ment of negro skilled workmen comes even more from white labour unions, and more especially the American Federation of Labour, than from the employer. Some business firms say : "We will employ any negro skilled workman who has a union card." But then we discover that the white trade unions frequently refuse to give negroes union cards. One dramatic step was taken in this respect this summer by Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy. White war-pro- duction employees in a private plant, working exclusively for the Navy Department, refused to continue work in consequence of the introduction of some negroes employed as machine-tool operators. These negroes were union members. The Secretary of the Navy instantly telegraphed saying that such refusal meant that the recal- citrants were disloyal to the Government ; they were consequently liable to immediate dismissal and might be prevented from obtain- ing employment in other industrial establishments. This, of course, meant being drafted straight into the armed forces. Work was resumed by the white labourers.
By and large, then, we may say that the Administration under the President's courageous initiative, with ex-Governor Cramer's firm and consistent handling, is grappling with considerable success with America's baffling and pervasive race problem. The principle on which the racial issue in this immediate war situation is approached was crisply put by the Atlantic Monthly this summer when it said : "We can lose the war without the negro, but we cannot win it without him." The deeper issue that lies behind the immediate crisis was summed up by Bishop Francis McConnell recently when he said : "America cannot with a clear conscience sit down at the world council-table to deal with the relations of Empires to subject peoples unless she takes drastic steps to apply Christianity to race relations within her own borders." Those steps, thanks to the President, are now being taken.
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