Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 March 1947 — Page 10

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REGISTER OR SHUT UP! Readers are asked to pardon the somewhat impolite heading of this editorial. It is intended to shock those who» from carelessness or indifference, might not register to vote in the coming city elections. During the tenure of the present city administration, there has been plenty of opportunity for protest on the part of minority groups and other liberal-minded citizens. Goodness knows it is hard to think of a single question which our present city fathers have settled right. Various citizens, powerless to change the adverse curlent of affairs, have commendably done the next best thing —they have got up on their hind legs and exercised their vocal chords. They have made it plain that they did not approve of what was being done on segregated schools, on fair employment, on slum clearance, on taxicab licenses and other civic issues. Now, with the city elections coming up, the time is here to pass from talk to action. Every citizen will be affected in some way by the caliber of officials chosen. Every citizen has a stake in the elections, and every citizen should be prepared to protect his stake. In order to cast your vote in the primary election May 6, you must be registered. If you voted in last fall’s election and have not moved, you are registered automatically; otherwise, you had better check up on it. All voters who have moved since the last election, must transfer their registrations. The main registration office, in Room 12 of the Court House, is open daily from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m. In addition, voters are being registered at various branch offices which move into different neighborhoods from day to day. In Mississippi, Alabama and other states of the South, courageous men and women are taking their lives in their hands by entering their registrations. Can we of favored Indiana—who have nothing to fear—do less? Are we going to sit idly by while others determine our fate? “No!” is the answer to both questions, and therefore we urge our readers who have not registered, to do so at once. Only two weeks remain until April 7, the registration deadline. After that, it will be too late.

“JUKE-BOX” RACKETEERING MUST GO! Racketeering has crept into the local juke-box business to stifle free enterprise, it has been charged, in very recent weeks. The racketeers in this line not only propose to restrain trade in denying business to competitors, but in one instance went outside of their domain to restrain trade in another line of business. In this connection one vending machine operator, it is reported, poses in the dual role of a labor union official and “coming juke-box czar.” This particular union, newly organized seeks members among employes of hotels, restaurants, clubs and places of entertainment. Establishments in these lines use music vendors, and it is charged, that the connection afforded a point of persuasion toward using jukeboxes of this particular operator. The “coming juke-box czar” in this instance has figured in the police files in attempting to intimidate the operator of a business place and a salesman of a downtown business firm at the same time, police records indicate. On the face of things the case is generally insignificant, but thousands of dollars are turned over weekly by juke-box operators and some of these operators have fair reputations of long standing as good citizens and business people of the community. They, shquld. be afforded a fair chance to continue in business along with others engaged allegedly in many types of shady or illegal activities. And law enforcement officials must not tolerate the intimidation of business people as alleged in this particular case.

“THE MILLS OF THE LAW” The recently adjourned Eighty-fifth Indiana General Assembly passed 4JO of the 815 bills introduced in the two houses. In baseball parlance that was a batting average of better than 50 per cent, but many able observers have expressed some skepticism in regards to the necessity of some of this legislation or again the merits of the same. Several measures of constructive legislation were enacted and leaders of both major parties in the General Assembly have these to their credit. But the “mills of the law” were bogged down by 815 bills, again some observers charge, while many direct pledges to voters of the state were forgotten by the dominant GOP faction in the General Assembly. War veterans of the state, or their needs for hospitalization, housing vocational training and general rehabilitation were forgotten generally in the shuffle or hubbub of the General Assembly. The GOP majority also slipped the traces in regards to pre-election pledges of economy in spending the taxpayers’ money. In the minds of many voters throughout the state “liquor in politics” or vice versa still stand to be corrected. And the 410 measures enacted into the law border on a record of lawmaking of too little practical consequence in the lives or affairs of the masses of people of the state.

KEEP NATION-WIDE RENT CONTROLS ‘ Former Mayor of New York City, F. H. LaGuardia, now chairman of the National Fair Rent Committee, announced last week, that “the National Fair Rent Committee supports the position taken in the Murray-Wagner Rent Control Bill (S-528) that rent control should be continued at least until June 30, 1948, wuthout a general increase.” Mr. LaGuardia wired Chairman Tobey of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee asking that hearings be reopened so that the new features being considered which were not before the committee when the original hearings were held may be discussed by those who will be affected by rent increases. Mr. LaGuardia further suggested that severe hardships will be created for 95 per cent of the nation’s rent payers with proposed increases of rent. In this connection surveys sponsored by organized labor groups indicate that low income families cannot pay even a 10 per cent increase in rents in the face of the general rising cost of essential consumer goods. On this point the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, in the last 30 days that the wholesale price of generid commodities has reached an all-time peak. Higher rents will mean finally a calamity for the low income workers, with repercussions in all directions eventually. Now is the time to join the National Fair Rent Committee’s movement to have the Senate Banking and Currency Committee reopen hearings on rent control to hear all the facts against Increasing rents.

THE OPINION OF THE PEOPLE “What do the people say about ‘it’?” The answers will appear in The Recorder very soon. These will represent a cross-section of opinion of citizens of the state of Indiana, all races or creeds, industrial leaders, business and professional people, church leaders, civic dhd labor leaders, from the right or left and the middle of the road will have their say. You may not agree with them, but all Indiana may learn something from what youf neighbor appears to be thinking.

- .i<S2r~.Xv ' " ♦ RACE, 5AM- UNTIL I CAN ~ ]

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“FOREVER LOTALT Between The Lines

By Dean Gordon B. Hancock For ANP AME CHURCH NEEDS HOUSE CLEANING After having had so many occasions to extol the greatness of the AME church, it was a rather pathetic experience for m? to sit through the trial of one of its most imposing churchmen, Bish. Davis. What I saw and heard for two days did not leave me with less admiration and respet for this great church but greater! As sordid details were bared in open session, F could not restrain the conclusion that this great church has realized the grim necessity of a general housecleaning. Self-correction is the highest method of correction and the AME church therefore is setting about the task of correcting within its own domain certain conditions which threaten its prestige and very existence itself: and for this, the great church should not be censured but admired. The stately Bishop Ransom presided with all the dignity commensurate with his majestic 80's. He is a marvel of physical and moral stamina that the years have wrought in him. Bishop Milton H. Davis was imposing in his humiliation. After r e a d i ng much in the papers about the meat episode in Baltimore I was not quite prepart d to meet so amiable a man as Bishop Davis; and although the verdict was rendered against him I am not convinced that he is the diabolical character so flagrantly portrayed in the press. His record of achievement is , not such as to convince a neutral that he is a self-seeking ec-

clesiastical shyster. Bish. Davis is (he victim of certain circumstances that only those on the AME inside could accurately appreciate. During that stirring trial it was never clear to me where the prosecution left off and persecution began. It was one of those ugly nasty family quarrels which prove at times so disastrous. When families fight the feathers fly and so they flew at Richmond. In the first place the trial was in the open—nothing to be concealed or covered. In this the church scored htavily. The immortal Richard Allen would have look<d wi h favor upon such display of (cclesiastical magnanimity. The church was committing itself to the late Pres-iden-t Wilson’s policy of “open covenants openly arrived at."’ The trial of a ‘AME bishop does not take place in a corm r.” Bishop Davis was tried on four counts, namely excessive assessments for personal gain, mal-administration, disobedience to church discipline and mishandling church funds. The trial committee brought in a verdict after an hour and a half of deliberation of guilty oh counts two and four. From the evidence offered, a detacheti Baptist that I was could not comprehend the committee's verdict. It seem d to an outsider that the cards were stacked against the venerable bishop from the beginning. Just how much evidence counted and just how much prejudices and o'd scores counted nobody could tell. If there is a bishop of the AME Church or any other, who is not guilty of one or all of these counts in some

d igres, it is a marvel of marvels; for the every power invested in the bishopric of the AME church predisposes the individual bishop to err in one of th se spheres. But the great AME church is out to clean house and woe unto him who steps into the blade of its two edged sword. The tragedy of the situation lies in the fact that In family quarrels there are no n utrals, such as the trial committee presupposed. It would be a fine thing if prelates of different denominations could sit in such trials. There would certainly be greater possibility of neutrality. Pernaps I did not know the insiue story of it all. I only wcigned the evidence as I heard it and to my way of deciding Bishop Davis in his more than an hour on the stand m t squarely the charges in a way that won my admiration and the admiration of others. The “away-with-him” spirit was not a'togtther absent, and that Bishop Davis was the victim was merely an incident. The great A.ME church is out to clean house and woe unto those who are caught in its purifying net. Perhaps I was too greatly awed by the record Bishop Davis has compiled in his church. He inaugurated a pension fee for superannuated ministers and widows, before the gen ral conference had done so, and in this he pioneered. He found Kittrell college in a state of financial collapse with a d bt of $1,000. He has paid the debt and the school is now solvent. A man of this stature shou’d be saved. Such giants take too long to grow to be slain with impunity! Cannot the < great AME church save Bishop Davis?

New York This Week

By GLADYS P. GRAHAM (For ANP) Justice Hubert Delany of the domestic relations court appeared on the Freedom House forum along with Edgar Ansel Mowrer, foreign correspondent. The program was also broadcast bv Station WEVD. This station has a liberal policy of picking up outetanding speakers on public affairs. Mrs. Emma Clarissa Clement, mother of th > year, for 1946, spoke on the Town Hall workshop calendar on ‘‘The Challenge of the Atomic Age to America’s Mothers of the Year.” HARLEM NURSES PRESENT PROGRAM AT NYU Alma Vessels, executive secretary of the National Associatlon of Colored Graduate nurses, presented the 6th annual intit-cultural program of Nursing Education club of New York university. The theme of the program was: ‘Democracy and America’s Largest Minority.” Rev. Ben Richardson was guest speaker and the Mariner’s musical aggregation appeared. More than 1,100 registered graduate nurses, many of them veterans of World War II, are enrolled in the department In order to equip them•elves for public health nursing. Shirley Graham, noted authoress, said in an interview h€,re that the “tendency to prejudge the Negro is not as prevalent as it used to be. Further, the country Is being swept by a spirit of inquiry with respret to minorities and one of the heartening things Lu Amer-

ica is the resurgence of new life in the south and the realization that ignorance must go.” HOWARD PROFESSOR SPEAKS AT CITY COLLEGE CELEBRATION Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche of Howard university and the stata department now on loan to United Nations as director of its trusteeship division, ia scheduled for the City College Centennial program. Dr. Herbert King, pastor of Grace Congregational church, and advisory board member of ths National YMCA, addressed the class on the "Negro In American Life,” at the New School of Social Research In tha Village. Dr. Bond of Lincoln university also addressed the class. YWCA HEAD RESIGNS Mrs. Cecelia Cabaniess Saunders has resigned from the post of executive director of the Harlem YWCA after 33 years of service. Mrs. MiBelle Williams is to replace Mrs. Saunders. James C. Arnold, executive secretary of the Harlem Men’s Y (one of the largest in the country), continues quite ill at the Harlem hospital. Prior to his illness he had helped to launch the $100,000 drive to furnish the Boys building with needed equipment and reconditioning. CLAYTON POWELL JUNIOR TESTIMONIAL UNDERWAY The huge testimonial dinner for Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., at $7.60 per plate Is to be held at the Hotel Diplomat here. Outstanding mem-

bers of organizations will be on hand to salute the liberal. Entertainment is to be in charge of Bill (Bo [angles) Robinson and Ralph Cooper. Mayor William O’Dwyer is scheduled to make the keynote address. Dr. Vernon A. Ayer has been appointed acting district health officer in the Central Harlem Health district of the New York Department of Health. Dr. Ayer, a wall known Harlem meoico, has been serving in the Bedford Health district in Brooklyn since 1944. NEGRO YOUTH IN SPOTLIGHT AT JUILLIARD CARNEGIE HALL RECITAL Samuel Hicks, Ilona Ntgro percussionist and h native of Alberquerque, New Mexico, was among the 130 students of the Juilliard orchestra which presented its initial recital at Carnegie hall und r the baton of Thor Johnson, eminent conductor, hare this week. Hicks is a composer-baritone and an er-GI. and is majoring in percussion instruments at the music school studying on the GI Bill of Rights. Several of his compositions wera played in an all-mixed band and broadcast over the British Broadcasting company’s station wbi’e he was overseas. Six co-eds who have been working together fts a ‘‘panel of Americans”, made a uport h re at New York university’s school of education. The all girl group are from the University of California and represent the various races Jean Farrell was the Afro-American representative of the group. The local branch of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and history has launched a drive for $.6,000 to be usfd as a nucleus to build a fund to aid in the work of

Labor Viows By GEORGE F. McCRAY for ANP MR. TRUMAN ON COMMUNISM If Mr. Truman really believes that a handful of American military personnel and a couple million dollars will stop the spread of Communism in Turkey and Grece, the President of these United States has been sadly, if not tragically misinformed. The problem posed by the world-wide spread of Communism is not one to be handled by military threat and a few million dollars. To contend that the growth of Communism whether in Greece or elsewhere in the world is due directly to Russian plotting and intervention is to ignore the basic social and economic facts of the present-day world. Apd to attempt to stifle the logical consequences of these facts with money and military, advisors is sheer folly. We shall pour our hard-earned cash down a bottomless rat-hole and sacrifice’s America’s opiiortunity for democratic world leadership. And what are the facts that Mr. Truman and the present generation of American statesmen are determined to overlook? The first is: The business class, the middle classes in the countries which have been ravaged by the war, were largely liquidated by the Germans under- Hitler, or were completely bankrupted, or their prestige was largely destroyed. The social destruction has been as far reaching as the destruction of railroads, factories and other types of poverty. In colonial and semi-colonial areas in Asia, Africa, South America and the West Indies, imperial governments through fostering trade monopolies for their own citizens, never permitted a local middle class to develop in a genuine sens 0 . The fact must be faced that the underlying ideas of these peoples are socialist and communist. To the two fundamental happenings above must be added the stubborn fact that the war, the Four Freedoms and other basic humanitarian and equalitarian ideas which were so eloquently preached by Winstcm Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, greatly stimulated and inspired the masses of the world’s population to leok for improvement in their lot. Even Negroes in South Africa and the Southern United States were led to hope for a better day. The better day for most peoples has not arrived and many hard-pressed peoples like the English worker are trying to take power into their own hands. Much of what we blindly and foolishly call Communism and Russian scheming in China, Asia, Europe, South America, Africa and the West Indies is nothing more than an attempt of the people to use governmental and economic power for their own benefit. Most of them know nothing of theories of Capitalism nor Communism. If much of what these peoples write and say sounds like a release from the Communist Internationale it is largely because they think no other political or economic principle is applicable to the realities of their miserable lives. Almost without exception the most vigorous and determined groups, and hence the most important from a practical point of view, in all the areas mentioned above, have had little if any connection with business. There is no important middle class to which these countries can Jook for leadership to economic security, and only Marxism gives them guidance in their efforts to take power into their own hands. They might be following a shadow, but the shadow has promise for them. Mr. Truman’s intervention in Greece, like that of Mr. Churchill and his successor Mr. Atlee, refusing to concern themselves with the people and their needs will only discredit those on whom they place their sthmp of approval. The spectacle of revolutionary America keeping Greece’* puppet king on his throne is the joke of the 20th century.

compiling historical and cultural material on the Negro. Gladys MacDonald, Voice librarian, heads the drive. Frank Crosswaith of the New York City Housing authority was among officials laying the cornerstone of the lowrent housing development (Brownsville houses) in Brooklyn. The housing authority has declared its anti-bias policy and Negroes have already moved into the Yorkvillo projects without altercation. THE OPEN DOOR TO FAME By Wm. H. Huff for ANP No matter what is thought of me My great desire is to be Of service to humanity. I do not hang my head In shame When people try to smear my name; That is an open door to fame.

In The Nation’s Capital

By LOUIS LAUTIER For NNPA New* Bervloe The bent of Southern States tqward circumventing the decisions of the United State* Supreme Court in Smith vs. Allwright and of a federal court in Georgia, holding illegal state action which barred colored voters from participating in Democratic primaries, emphasizes the necessity for federal regulation of federal elections. Since the Mississippi legislature convened in special session March 4 there have been six bills introduced in that body to accomplish this purpose. One of these bills follows the South Carolina plan of rescinding all primary election laws. Another seeks to remove the exemption of colored war veterans from poll tax payments during the period they served in the armed forces. The four most recently introduced measures would empower the Democratic state and county executive committee* to set up rules and regulations to restrict party primaries to white persons only. Despite the advocacy by Gov. ' Fielding L. Wright of Mississippi in his message to the legislature that the state adhere to the doctrine of state’s rights in defining primary voting privileges, a review of the report of the Select Committee on the Election of President, Vice-President and Representatives, made to the Fifty-first Congress, clearly establishes the right of the Federal Government to make such regulations as it may deem necessary to insure free and honest elections. The committee had had under consideration a bill providing that the United States shall watch over every stage of elections which concern the choice of federal officers. It took the position that there were only two questions involved: tl) The power of Conerpqs try e^act such legislation, and (2) the expediency of do ing so. After quoting Section 4. Article I, of the United States Constitution, which provides that _the Congress may at any time by law ‘‘make or alter” regulations governing elections of Senators and Representatives, except as to the times and places, the committee report said: “The language employed in this section is so plain that it would seem almost superfluous to enter into any argument- or discussion as to its meaning. If words mean anything. those just quoted mean that the power of Congress over the conduct of elections of members of this body is absolute and complete.” On the second point involved—the expediency and need of such legislation—the committee did not feel that it was necessary to enter into a detailed argument in its report. It asserted that the fact in

many Congressional districts of the country elections were tainted and their results perverts! by fraud, violence and corruption was too well known to require an elaboration of the evidence. Although a period of nearly CO years has elapsed since that report was made to Congress, conditions in the South have not changed. The minority rPport of the Senate Campaign investigating Committee, which held hearings at Jackson, Miss., in December, inquiring into the nomination and election of Theodore G. Bilbo as a Senator, found that be -‘openly and notoriously” violated Section 20 of the United States Criminal Code. Section 20 makes it a penal offense for anyone who, ‘-acting under color of any law wilfully subjects or causes to be subjected any inhabitant of any state ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges and immunities secured and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” The legislative history of this law indicates that it was adopted for the more adequate protection of colored people and their civil rights. In fact, the measure, when originally introduced in the Forty-first Congress, was entitled “A hill to enforce the right of citizens of the United States to vote in the several states of this Union who have hitherto been denied that right on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” When the bill came to the Senate its title was amended to read: “A hill to enforce the right of citizens of the United States to vote in the several states of this Union and for other purposes.” To get back to Bilbo, two Senators, Styles Bridges, of New Hampshire, and Bourke B. Hiekenlooper, of Iowa, found that he had ‘-openly urged the subjection of Negroes as a class to the deprivation of the right to vote by reason of color. a right secured to all citizens of the United States by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 'Amendments of the Federal Constitution.” The prevention and deterrence of colored people from registering and voting in the July 2 Mississippi primary by means of artifice, deception, frau 1, violence and outright refusal is a part of a pattern to maintain white supremacy and nullify the laws of the United States. The white primary laws enacted in South Carolina and Georgia are a part of the same pattern. Not only does the Constitution authorize Congress to regulate the manner of holding elections but it leaves to Congress the choice of means by which its constitutional powers are to be carried into execution. if the’ Constitution alpd laws of the United States ate to remain supreme, it is necessary that the Congress 6Xereise this power. Otherwise, Bilboism will rule the South.

Voice of The People

PUBLIC SERVICE COMMENDED To the Editor The Recorder, Dear Sir: Recently you published on your front page, pictures of winners in Ayres’ Valentine-mak-ing Contest who- represented Lockefield Recreation Center. In behalf of Lockefield Recreation Center, whom you have served in many ways, I wish to thank you. I know this is but a small sample of the type of service you are continually rendering the people of Indianapolis but sometimes I think it necessary to put in words our gratitude. It is our aim to bring our community the best in wholesome recreation. We are living in an atomic age. Machines have replaced human

energy and workers as well as housewives find themselves relieved of much of the drudgery of work by various laborsaving devices. Consequeh$Iy, there is more time for leisure. It is time we learned to usfe that leisure advantageousiy. Perhaps recreation cannot solve the deep problems of the world, but' it can go a loqg way in preserving the hortie and family. It is my belief that, the family that play* together stays together. ' ’ ‘ Because of your sympathy and cooperation with our work, you are helping us to make our community recreation conscious. Many thanks again for yoor generosity and assistance. MRS. CELESTINE PETTRIE. Recreation Director.

THEY’LL NEVER DIE gy ?«*

/// // Wl LMIN5T0N. DELAWARE 13 KnSEMTC-lazsHre* 1 ° W/v v EARLY EDUCATION WAS OBTAIN- ' / ED IN ft*. AND SHE SHORTLY AFTERWARD MOVED TO . WIND60R.CANADA-THERE SHE PUBLISHED A WMWLET AND A WEEKLY PAPER UROIffOFU&ITIVE SLAVE MI6MTI0N TO CANADA/ UPON ONE OCCASION SHE, ALONE, RESCUED A POOR SLAVE BOY FROM HIS PURSUERS AND PROVIDED HIM WITH A HOME * ' I MRS. CARY ALSO HELPED^ RECRUIT COLORED SOLDIERS IN THE UNION ARMY AND AFTER THE WAR, HEADED 3 ; PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN WASHING TON, D. C> /

UNUTR9R0UND c ~" OPERATOR IN CANADA Continental FeatferM