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victory. Profiteers and war speculators are out to reap a harvest - a bloody one.

And the headline hysteria, and the military campaigns which the press is fighting for the Mannerheims, are used as a smokescreen to keep out eyes off the sore spots here at home.

There's a war boom, all right. But things are booming only in Wall Street. Among the masses of people there's not even an echo. Thousands of men and women are losing their W.P.A. jobs. They are told, "Private industry will take care of you now. There's a war going on, you know, and it promises to get bigger and better." But private industry - which is geared for increased profits - is using speed-up, not more manpower. The army of unemployed gets no smaller. And the man in the street finds his buying power decreased by rising process of bread, meat and clothing; his rent is being raised.

Yes, the war crisis had begun to strike home on this side of the Atlantic. "Everybody's happy" - everybody but the vast majority of the people. The profiteers have the machinery all in order to rake in the cash. They have a stake in this war and are anxious to see it continue and spread. It is we, the common people, black and white, who stand to lose.

We're already getting an introduction to the war on the battlefield - the war on civil rights here at home. This war has begun with the vicious attack of the Department of Justice on the Communist Party. That's because the Communist Party won't stop telling the people to fight against the imperialist war. Under the cloak of a drive against "foreign agents" the assault is carried out. Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Party, and other leaders, are indicted on flimsy passport charges.

And we here in America better look to our democratic laurels. It is a warning to us when Mr. Martin Dies, Negro-hater, receives support from officials in high places in his campaign to outlaw all voices which speak out boldly against our entrance into war. Isn't this Dies the same fellow who voted against the Anti-Lynching Bill and conveniently over-

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looks such un-American activities as lynching, mob violence and disfranchisement in the South? Shades of Thomas Jefferson! Into what hands out Bill of Rights has fallen!

But the Negro won't be so easily fooled this time. He will remember the Communist Party as the only party that has fought consistently for equal rights, against discrimination and for jobs for the Negro people. Are these the activities of "foreign agents"? The Negro will remember Scottsboro and the Herndon case and will ask: what's foreign about these struggles? We know that the Communist Party bears the brunt of the attack because it expresses the sentiment of the masses of people for real democracy in America, and against our involvement in war.

Despite these threads to our liberties, there are those who counsel that we have no special stake in the present crisis. This is a white man's war, they say. According to them, we should imitate the proverbial ostrich and hide our heads in the sands, secure in supposed isolation from the affairs of the "white world." This idea is not new to use. It would have us believe that we are living in a social vacuum, that the fight for our rights is not connected with the problems facing all mankind, that we can lift ourselves by our racial bootstraps.

How ridiculous! You and I know that this is just so much bunk. This program of self-segregation plays right into the hands of our worst enemies. It makes their job of splitting us from the labor and progressive movement easier.

But it seems that some of our middle-class leaders do not recognize this danger. They tire themselves out these days trying to split the Negro people from their most trusted friends. To the glee of Messrs. Dies, Bilbo and Co., they have jumped on the bandwagon of the anti-Communist attack. Servilely they parrot the slanders of the capitalist press, out-Red-baiting the Red-baiters.

Peter Poyas, trusted lieutenant of the Denmark Vesey, had a word for them. He said: "Beware those who receive presents of old clothes from their masters, for they will betray you."

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