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THE AMENIA CONFERENCES                    DIGGS

Negro's existing situation in American Society and to consider underlying principles for future action. Such criticism at this stage does not involve the offering of a concrete program for any organization for administrative guidance.

"There has been no attempt to disparage the older type of leadership. We appreciate their importance and contributions but we feel that in a period in which economic, political, and social values are rapidly shifting, and the very structure of organized society is being revamped, the leadership which is necessary is that which will integrate the special problems of the Negro within the larger issues facing the nation.

"The primary problem is economic. Individual ownership expressing itself through the control and exploitation of natural resources and industrial machinery has failed in the past to equalized consumption with production.

"As a result of which the whole system of private profit is being called into question. The government is being forced to attempt an economic reorganization based upon a 'co-partnership' between capital, labor and government itself. The government is attempting to augment consumptive power by increasing wages, shortening hours and controlling the labor and commodity markets. As a consumer the Negro has always had a low purchasing power as a result of his low wages coming from his inferior and restricted position in the labor market. If the government program fails to make full and equal provision for the Negro, it cannot be effective in restoring economic stability.

"In the past there has been a greater exploitation of Negro labor than any other section of the working class, manifesting itself particularly in lower wages, longer hours, excessive use of child labor and a higher proportion of women at work. Heretofore there has been slight recognition by Negro labor or Negro leaders of the significance of this exploitation in the economic order. Consequently no technique or philosophy has been developed to change the historic status of Negro labor. Hence in the present governmental set-up there is grave danger that this historic status will be perpetuated. As a result the lower wages on the one hand will reduce the purchasing power of Negro labor and on the other be a constant threat to the standards and security of white labor.

"The question then arises how far existing agencies working among and for Negroes are theoretically and structurally pre-

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