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desire to get married. This natural desire is not fulfilled because we do not have jobs. Certainly then, we are interested in exploring the reasons for this state of affairs. How can it be changed?
Rayford Logan, Professor of History at Howard University, states that "war will bring jobs." The aim of this argument is to get our support, yours and mine, for the Wall Street drive to plunge America into another imperialist world war. You and I see with our own eyes this drive toward war, but the prospect for jobs-- for us and our fellows-- is not visible. Even if it were true that "war will bring jobs," is there any reason to be gleeful? These types of jobs are at the expense of the blood of tens of millions of common working men of other lands, the people of Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, as well as the youth of the United States. However, the facts indicate that instead of jobs, as Mr. Logan predicts, Negro youth are being forced onto relief.
I have made a survey of a large number of industrial plants in the country. It shows a most scandalous policy of discrimination which denies Negro youth the opportunity of earning a living. Here is an example that can be multiplied many times: There are 36,000 Negro youth between the ages of 16 and 25 in Philadelphia. In this same city there are 684 plants which are important from the viewpoint of employment. Of these, 300 do not employ any Negroes at all. The other 384 do employ some Negro workers- to be exact, they employ a grand total of 428 Negro youth between the ages of 18 and 25 in these 384 factories. That averages up to a little more than one Negro youth for each such factory.

Discrimination in Aircraft

The Glenn L. Martin airplane plant in Baltimore now employs some 18,000 workers and plans to employ and additional 10,000, but refuses to hire Negro workers. In the Chicago area, the U.S. Arsenal refuses to hire Negro die-casters. According to the report of the Illinois State Commission on the conditions of the urban colored population, in over sixty Chicago firms which have received national defense contracts

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totaling over $35,000,000, less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of their employees are Negroes. The Los Angeles Council of the National Negro Congress made a survey of the airplane industry in Southern California last summer. It found only one Negro employed out of a total of from 40,000 to 60,000 workers.
The job prospect for young Negro women is even more restricted. The white collar job is limited to the Jim-Crow community. Jobs as clerical workers, stenographers, secretaries, cashiers, telephone operators, tellers and statisticians in the industrial plants and public utilities are closed to them. The jobs that are obtainable in the community are very few. Jobs in private industry are almost exclusively limited to laundry, cannery, food, and to some extent meatpacking and needle. The average Negro girl in search of employment must turn to domestic and agricultural work.
Are Negroes denied jobs because they are unskilled? Of course not! Skilled Negro workers are denied jobs as well as the unskilled. The following story is told by Ernest Pendrell, Philadelphia Daily Worker correspondent:

"Thomas Davis is a Negro welder with excellent references and experience. He was selected by a civil service examination to work as a welder on a government job in Honolulu. He was hired by the Quartermaster's Depot here at 21st and Johnson Streets. He was given the necessary tests for tropical diseases by two hospitals and kept there for seventeen days. He was okayed and told to come to work.
"When he reported for work at the Custom House where he was to get his passage to Honolulu, he was seated with the 11 other applicants. The men were called: No. 1-2-3-4-5-7-8-9-10-11-12. No number six? No number six! Reason: Mr. Davis, a Negro welder, was number six. Mr. Davis is still employed."

This is a general practice in Philadelphia as well as every other city throughout the country.

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