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issue. It is a maneuver of the bourgeoisie to strengthen the position of this leadership as against the growing influence of the revolutionary movement among Negroes. In fact, this was the very essence of the speeches of the reformist leaders at the recent hearings before the Senate Committee on the Costigan-Wagner Bill. These speeches showed clearly that the main interest of these misleaders in the passage of this bill was not to stop lynching, but to restore the faith of the Negro masses in capitalist justice as against the growing influence of the Communists. This was clearly expressed by them in their statements before the Senate hearing on the Costigan-Wagner Bill.

On that occasion Mr. Walter White, National Secretary of the N.A.A.C.P., stated:

"Twelve million Negroes who have been the chief sufferers from this evil are today anxiously looking to this committee and to Congress for the passage of this Bill. Energetic and long continued efforts have been made by certain radical movements to convince the American Negro that his hope of justice under the present form of government is useless and that he must lend his aid in helping overthrow this government and to establish a new one....It is for this committee and for this Congress either to demonstrate that this hope is not a futile one, or else to give weight to those who contend that such a hope is idiotic... refusal based upon figment of expediency or constitutionality to afford Federal aid against lynching will inevitably result in a deepening of this resentment which America would do well to consider."
[My emphasis-H.H.]

Here, his main emphasis is not against lynching, but against the growing revolutionary movement of the Negro and while toilers, which is breaking through reformist illusions. It is a plea for more support from his imperialist masters in the fight of the Negro reformists against the rising revolutionary movement.

In view of all this, it is small wonder that we find behind

this bill a united front of the most reactionary elements, ranging from Senator Wagner (sponsor of the fascist, strikebreaking "Wagner Bill"), the professional red-baiter Hamilton Fish, Southern reactionaries of the Inter-racial Committees, down to the social-fascist leaders-all united to defend the Negro masses, not against lynching and growing imperialist oppression, but against Communism, against the revolutionary struggle for national liberation.

The Bill of Civil Rights for the Negro People

Against these treacherous maneuvers of the Negro reformists, we must bring forward more energetically the "Bill of Civil Rights for the Negro People," proposed by the League of Struggle for the Negro Rights.

The "Bill of Civil Rights" differs radically from the reactionary Costigan-Wagner Bill in that:

1. It contains a clear class definition of definition of lynching. Lynching is treated in connection with the whole network of social and national persecution under which the Negroes in this country suffer. The abolition of lynching is inseparably tied up with the entire question of real enforcement of democratic rights for Negroes. This treatment of lynching as a part of the larger question of social and political rights of Negroes, implies that the struggle against lynching can be successfully fought only when connected with the fight against the whole system of Negro prosecution. This basic truth has been brilliantly confirmed by the world-wide struggle for the freedom of the Scottsboro boys.

2. The basic difference, however, lies in the radically opposite purposes behind these two bills. In contrast to these reformist proposals, the L.S.N.R. Bill is not presented as a cure-all for lynching. We have no illusions that the mere passage of the Bill will in itself abolish lynching. On the