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fighters in Spain. Our own American Negroes, Oliver Law, Milton Herndon, Douglas Roach, and others, have given their lives in the same cause.

The partial success of the Nazis and the fascists in Spain led to a renewed attack of the Japanese on China in 1937. Italy signed the "Anti-Comintern" agreement with Germany and Japan on November 6, 1937. Italy withdrew her air mission assisting the Kuomintang government in December. At the same time Japan recognized Franco. On December 11 Italy finally resigned from the League of Nations, following the example of Japan in 1931, and of Germany in 1933.

Nazi Germany has shown her intimacy with both the white plunderers of Ethiopia and the colored plunderers of China by recognition of Ethiopia (1936) and of Manchukuo (1938), by continuing her joint war with Italy against Spain, and by withdrawing her military mission aiding the Chinese government (1938), etc. The Nazis have shown their attitude toward Negroes by the sterilization of thousands of Negroes who have lived in the Rhineland ever since the occupation by French colonial troops. The snubbing of the great Negro athlete Jesse Owens by Hitler at the Olympics in 1936 should be contrasted with the warm reception given to Paul Robeson,* the great Negro singer, and other Negroes, in the Soviet Union.

REPUBLICAN SPAIN AND THE MOORISH PEOPLE

The present People's Front government of Loyalist Spain, expressing the united will of the population in the fight against fascism, recognizes as a part of its whole fight for the preservation of democracy and against fascism the right of nations within its jurisdiction to autonomy, to a free nation existence.

This policy was carried out in the case of the Catalonians and the Basques, who of their own accord decided to unite

*Paul Robeson is a sponsor of the China Aid Council of the American League for Peace and Democracy.

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with the rest of Loyalist Spain in the fight against the common foe, fascism. The Loyalist government, following the same line, recognized the right of the Moroccan people to self-government, and pledged fulfillment of this as soon as Franco's fascists are driven out of Spain and Morocco.

It may be asked, why has not the Spanish government already granted independence to Morocco? The answer is clear.

Spanish Morocco is at present in the hands of the fascists--Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco. Through their bribed tools, the reactionary Moroccan chiefs, they are using the manpower of Morocco as mercenaries in a war against democracy.

Obviously a declaration of the independence for the Moroccan people on the part of the Loyalist government now, with Franco's 
fascists in power there, would be tantamount to ceding Morocco to the fascists. It would be desertion of the liberation struggle of the Moroccan people to the tender mercies of Mussolini and Franco. He who does not see that the fight for democracy in Spain must inevitably be its very nature be an ally to the Moroccan people, is either blind or is working in the interested of fascism.

VIII. The Negro's Stake in Democracy

Amidst the confusion and complications of today, which are piled up on the international scale as well as on the home front, the Negro people are faced with the vital problem of making a clear-cut decision and following it through. The gains of seventy years' struggle since the Civil War hang in the balance. Today as never before it is necessary that we soberly appraise our position, realistically approach the problems

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