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NEW NEGRO OPINION [heading] NEW NEGRO OPINION [subheading] OFFICIAL ORGAN OF NEW NEGRO ALLIANCE [subheading] 2001 Eleventh Street, Northwest Phone: Decatur 4237 EDITORIAL STAFF FRANKLIN THORNE__________Editor WILLIAM H. HASTIE________Associate Editor ISADORE WILLIAMS_________Associate Editor DUTTON FERGUSON__________Associate Editor BERTHA McNEILL___________Associate Editor HOWARD FITZHUGH__________Business Manager RUDOLPH REFROW___________Advertising Manager MELVIN BARKER____________Circulation Manager THE NEW DEAL HAS A BIRTHDAY March 4th was the birthday of the New Deal. Opinions among Negroes, as among persons generally, differ as to what has been accomplished and as to what may be expected in the months to come. "New Deal, but old deck'" is also heard on many sides. It is difficult to determine whether the immediate gains of the Negro under the New Deal have outweighed his immediate losses. How many thousands of Negroes have been dismissed by employers when it became necessary to pay code wages, we will never know. How many other employers have signed codes and then ignored them altogether when it came to the pay of their colored employees, we will never know. NRA has meant increase of wages from some Negro workers. It has not meant new jobs for very many. PWA projects has meant some jobs for Negroes, but the exclusion of colored workmen, particularly skilled workmen, from PWA projects has been a national disgrace. Probably CWA has been the greatest immediate benefit to Negroes. CWA was designed to afford temporary work for those who had not been cared for by other recovery measures, there was a very high percentage of Negroes among the applicants for CWA jobs. A great many got such jobs, but in many places even these temporary jobs have been denied us. In most places Negro applicants have been hired, if a all, as laborers, regardless of any skills or training they may possess. In the various codes of fair competition vicious discriminations against Negro workers have been included, disguised as 'sectional differentials." Where jobs are of a kind that are usually done by Negroes, these jobs have been excluded from codes altogether. Domestic service has no code. The same is true of "Negro" jobs in many industries. For the sins of the first year the New Deal can excuse itself in some measure. Everything has been done in a hurry. The whole thing is an experiment and no one knew what difficulties would present themselves. Much has been left to local groups in various states and cities. The Federal government has not cracked the whip very often. THE DECK IS STACKED [heading] No such excuse can be made for the second year which is now starting. The New Dealers now know the way the deck is being stacked against the Negro. President Roosevelt has just announced that the government is going to take a firmer and more aggressive attitude. Industry has got to give the worker an even break. It is up to the administration to see that the Negro worker shares that even break. It is not going to be easy to accomplish that. A Representative in Congress from South Carolina has recently written to manufacturers "back home" telling them that he knows that they can't live up to code wages and hours, so they can just go along as best they can. One is led to suspect that the Congressman meant that it was understood that Negroes would not be paid a code wage or anything like it. Nothing but a big stick wielded hard and often by Uncle Sam across the unruly back of southern industrialists will improve the situation. What will Uncle Sam do? Radicalism vs. Conservatism [heading under columns 1 and 2] By LAWRENCE J. W. HAYES N.N.A. young Executive Committeemen have been censured for their radicalism. They are scored for their inexperience. They are called agitators. The Socialists are not accustomed to holding office. "That," wrote Mrs. Walter Ferguson recently, "is why they are valuable political assets." The man who owes no campaign favors can afford to be honest in his opinions and when he is assured that he will probably never have to put his dreams to a practical test, he can speak the truth no matter how cruel it may be. A large share of all liberal measures now incorporated into our codes were championed first by the elements we often hear spoken of as radical and dangerous. As a matter of fact, sane radicals are never dangerous. They are the safest element in the land, the yeast that leavens and keeps alive national idealism. I think that it might be written without fear of successful contradiction, that Persons and Affairs... By William H. Hastie [heading columns 3-5] "A youth movement which lacks a high and rare idealism which will enable it to rise above the temptation of subsidy and security will not be worth the effort necessary to give it birth." Recently, initial steps have been taken toward the stimulation and organization of a National Youth Movement among Negroes. It is a great idea. In fact I consider almost any movement toward organization of Negroes significant regardless of its particular purpose. A youth movement is particularly attractive, but we may well stop to consider what promise it offers and why. At present throughout Negro America there is a growing sentiment for new an younger blood in activities and organizations generally. I believe there are two reasons for this: First there is a rather general dissatisfaction with the accomplishments of Negro leaders in various fields during the twentieth century. Second, there is a high hopefulness that a young, well-trained generation, fresh and capable, is about ready to take the helm. In one respect that hopefulness is justified. We have a far greater number of trained men and women in various fields than ever before. But if they are going to mean much to us they must improve upon their elders with similar training in several respects. A worthwhile youth movement might well develop a superior idealism, more intelligent planning and a greater interest in the other fellow among these young people from whom so much is expected. I should like to see the members of any youth movement consider and aims to overcome three great shortcomings of the older generation. By and large during the past decades leadership in America, whether white or black, has been very selfish. Each individual was scheming to get ahead himself, with at most a polite and superficial interest in the other fellow. But an awakening social conscience is so apparent everywhere, that we may reasonable hope that this selfishness is not going to be repeated. A second related shortcoming of the older generation has been a failure to realize the tremendous importance of Negro labor and the total neglect of its interests. No youth movement can amount to very much that does not devote a very substantial part of its energies to the problems of organization and affiliation with labor in America generally which the black worker faces everywhere Finally, a youth movement must be independent of white philanthropy. I do not mean that white philanthropy is not needed by so terribly poor a group as the Negro. But the thinking of the younger generation must be free of the direction and control of philanthropy and foundations. It must be willing to say to white philanthropy: "Sure, we will take your bounty if it is offered in good faith and without strings, but just as soon as the point is reached where we have go to hold our tongue or talk and think dishonestly in order to please you, you can take your bounty and be damned." I have no illusions about this last. It takes guts and a willingness to be poor even by standards of prosperity that we have had to accept. But as long as a few hundred thousand dollars can control "representative" and "respectable" Negro thinking as that sum does today, and as long as fear of loss of the security of a job can shut up almost any of us the way it can today, we will not advance far or fast. A youth movement which lacks a high and rare idealism which will enable it to rise about the temptation of subsidy and security will not be worth the effort necessary to give it birth. THE PROGRAM OF THE NEW NEGRO ALLIANCE [heading under column 3] To improve the economic and civic status of the Negro through: 1. The security of positions which will increase the earning capacity of our group. 2. The securing of opportunities for advancement and promotion in positions secured. 3. The uniting of the purchasing power of the Colored people to be used as a lever in securing economic advantages. 4. The creation of bigger and better Negro business through increased earning power of Negroes, through a better business outlook resulting from the contact and experience with successful businesses of the other group, and through the stimulation of businesses now run by Negroes to higher levels of efficiency and service. 5. The concentrated support of all businesses which employ Negroes or in which Negro capital is invested. 6. Research and investigation which will discover and thoroughly analyze the possibilities for Negro Business and Negro labor in new fields. [continuation from column 2 under the heading Radicalism vs. Conservatism] most of the measures our fathers regarded as frankly revolutionary are now for us settled and accepted things. The public welfare and public organizations need conservatives, but no more than it needs the radicals who in every instance keeps the conservatives from petrifying in their tracks. The agitators are of especial benefit to any group or people. As one writer so aptly puts it: "By constantly shouting about injustices, by constant ranting on the evils that grow more quickly upon political systems than parasites upon a tree, the public conscious is kept in a state of awareness that prevents it from sinking into dangerous comas of complacency." [Advertisement insert in column 3 and 4] Timely, Interesting, News of... WASHINGTON...of the NATION in the Pittsburgh Courier NOW SELLING AT 84 CITY NEWSTANDS A Sure Hit with 5,423 Washington Readers Haley Douglass Challenges the Alliance [heading under column 5] LOCAL TEACHER POINTS OUT STUMBLING BLOCKS One of the featured speakers at the regular meeting of the New Negro Alliance held on Saturday, March 3rd, was Mr. Haley G. Douglass, instructor in political science at the Dunbar High School. Mr. Douglass gave a very candid, heart-to-heart talk, in which he raised two very challenging questions: 910 Will the members of the Alliance continue to exhibit the type of sacrificial fighting spirit which they have shown in the past and (2) Will they go all the way and see to it that the men who obtain jobs through their efforts make good? Mr. Douglass warned the organization of the Negro's tendency to let down after a short spurt of activity, and advised that there is a real job to be done in educating our youth to the point where it will take a live interest in those businesses which decide to let down their barriers and appoint Negro clerks. He expressed a sincere desire to see the New Negro Alliance prove itself to be a truly "new" Negro organization, in that it will overcome these two problems. Send Information to the Opinion [heading under column 5] THE NEW NEGRO OPINION again extends to all organizations the use of the columns of this paper as a means of acquainting the public of the work that is being done. Send all information addressed to THE NEW NEGRO OPINION, 2001 11th Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C.
