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230    The Crisis

The Negro As A Citizen
by Harold L. Ickes

The opening address at the 27th annual conference of the N.A.A.C.P. at Baltimore, Md., Tuesday evening, June 29, was delivered by the Secretary of the Interior.  So many requests have come for a copy of the speech, which was delivered over a coast-to-coast network of the National Broadcasting Company, that it is reprinted here in full.

I am happy to be here tonight to address the 27the anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  In addition to my natural appreciation of the privilege of addressing you, I feel at home here.  The things for which you stand and the broad purposes to which your Association has been dedicated have been among my life-long interests.  I have always been sensitive about justice and fair play for those who were without a friend at court.  More than once I have stood in the line of battle against those who would exploit the weak and persecute the helpless. 

For the past 27 years your Association has been waging this kind of a battle.  As a lifeguard you have patroled the beach to safeguard the civic and personal liberties of members of the Negro race.  You have fought disfranchisement, segregation, and lynching.  Through mass protests, by appeal to the courts, and by arousing public opinion, you have rendered a significant service not alone to Negroes, but to the country as a whole.  In cultivating a disposition to accord Negroes their full rights as citizens, you have helped all of us to remember the fundamental principles upon which the Nation is founded.

Congratulations on Progress

Some years ago, it was my privilege for one term to serve as president of the Chicago branch of your Association.  During that time, I had the opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with your purposes and program.  It was also my good fortune to be associated with some of the fine, forward-looking leaders of the Negro race, the friendship of many of whom I still value highly.  Although I have not been officially connected with your organization for a number of years, I have watched its activities with great interest and sympathy.  I wish to congratulate you upon the progress that you have made.  Many of your achievements have not been heralded, but you have steadily pressed forward toward the goal of legal justice and civic rights for the Negro race.

Another reason why I am pleased to participate in this annual meeting in the State of Maryland is because of the similarity between the principles which you and I stand for and those which animated the founders of this great State.

I ensure that it is well known, at least to those of you who are Marylanders, that Lord Baltimore was characterized by great tolerance.  It was his conviction that a man should be allowed to have his own convictions and beliefs.  At a time when religious prejudice and bigotry were rife, even on the part of many who had migrated to these shores to escape the prejudice and bigotry that made England intolerable, Lord Baltimore was a liberal.  From this attitude of mind flowed many liberal tendencies in Maryland during its early history.  I am sure it is remembered today with pride by many citizens of this State, both Negro and white, that this is the State which in line with its finest traditions, gave to the world that great orator, statesman and courageous Negro leader – Frederick Douglass.  His life, perhaps more than that of any other single individual, has been the example which has challenged Negroes to press forward and achieve what at first seemed to be impossible.  The principles for which he fought at the same as those for which you are struggling today – freedom, justice, opportunity.

Thanks to Douglass and Lincoln and many others who gave their last full measure of devotion, the Union was saved and we are rapidly achieving the goal of a united country – united not alone geographically and politically, that united in spirit, in purpose, in aspirations.

Masses Were Exploited

As we look backward over the road that has led us to our present position of leadership among world democracies, and then forward to the promised land of the future we find two contrasting pictures.  Until the recent past, the spirits of adventure was our outstanding characteristic.  We pushed back frontier after frontier while wrestling a livelihood from a rich but none-too-friendly nature.  And because of the very abundance of our natural resources and our lack of knowledge and technical equipment, the process of gaining a livelihood resulted in wasteful exploitation.

Nor was exploitation confined to the natural resources of America;  it was practiced also on our human resources.  It was during this pioneer period that human slavery became profitable enterprise.  Helpless Negroes were stolen or enticed from their native soil in Africa and transported to these and other shores under conditions which would not be tolerated by the civilized world today.  The same spirit of exploitation was manifest in the use of women and children in sweat shops and other fields where at hard tasks they toiled for long hours and inadequate pay.

This was a tooth-and-claw age, during which every man was for himself alone.  The masses were sacrificed to swell the profits of the few.  It was the ambition of practically every youth to gain material wealth at whatever cost.  Some of our greatest fortunes were accumulated during those days, and we were not too particular about what methods were used in their accumulation.

Notwithstanding that our frontiers have receded so rapidly, our industrial development has been so immense and so swift in its progress that we have been dazzled by a sort of economic mirage.  We thought we were achieving real progress, when it was only an illusion.  We have been unable to comprehend the significance of the change from the simplicity and ruggedness of our pioneer life to the complexity, refinements and intimate interrelationships of our present era.

As our conception of democracy in earlier days was influenced by the characteristics and environment of those days, so must our conception of these times be in harmony with the age in which we live.  Our old concepts were materialistic.  Individuality and the rights of the few and of the strong were emphasized.  According to our new concepts, the social aspects of life, the rights of the many and our obligation to protect the weak, will be given ever greater consideration.

New Conception of Government

This new conception is being translated into governmental policy and practice.  President Roosevelt, in a recent address, laid stress upon the social responsibility of a democratic government when he said:

"Whether it be in a crowded tenements of the great cities, or on many of the farm lands of the Nation, we know