The labor world., 1922-12-02

SATURDAY. =
dividing line between black. and
white labor and make the white
right the black to retard the strength
OF the labor movement.
Play Race Against Race.
can show it to you. In my boy
i!ooo lived in little town where
they had black and white section
gangs: one black gang with a white
poss and one white gang. This is the
way they did that. They would say
TO the colored man. I'VE are going
70 pay you $3.50 day for working
on this railroad" They would; say
TO thOwhite man, I'VE are going to
pay you $1.75 to work on this rail-
road"
Then there would come a great
boom all over the country and the
colored men would say to the white
boss, "Everything is going up. We
want more than $3.50 for working
on this section gang. Beans and DO
tatoes and sugar are going up" The
white boss would say, what do you
want? Do you want as much as
white man? You are getting s1.5O
and the white man is only getting
$1.75. What do you want?" Then
the white gang would present itself
and say, Sugar and beans and bacon
and everything are going up. We
are getting $1.75 a day; we want
$500 or 1926"
Then the boss would say, What
in the name of God do you want?
You are getting a quarter more than
the Negrpes now. Do you want the
earth?" There you are. This fellow
pats himself and say, II am a white
man and he is paying me a quarter
more for being white" You think
he was really doing you a favor
when as matter of fact the Sec
tion gangwork at that time was real
ly worth $3.50 to any man. They
would get you to hate one another
and they got you both down to $3.50
and $1.75.
Pleads For Unity,
Suppose those two section gangs
could have had meeting at dinner
time and one fellow had said Come
over here, Bill, I have two ears of
corn: have one." The other would
have had a quart Of milk and given
his fellow half of it, One would have
said, This business Of being white
men and Negroes, when it comes to
earning money for the comfort Of
our wives and children is a thing
we have got to get out of our minds
What we all. want is $3.50 on the
| section. We want all Of your men
ana all Of our men ready and then
we want our foreman to come up
to us and we will say to these peo-
pie there will be no more work on
the railroad until every man on this
job gets $3.50 a day."
I want to ask you while you are
smoking your cigars here, what is
there to Keep that from being done?"
What is it?
You have black men among you
here. You see black men every day.
All the viciousness, for the most
part, that you - about black men
you get in newspapers. White men
Of the same type would be vicious.
But the fundamental interests of the
mass of white laboring men and of
black laboring men are the same.
Interests Are Identical.
All the stuff we have had about
the absolute difference of interest
between black and white men is the
thing that has kept the white men
and black men, especially laboring
men. from understanding one an
other and from cooperating in
unionism.
This misunderstanding between
white and black workers is rooted
in the days of slavery, when both
of them were taught to hate one
another by small grofp of slave
holding masters who exploited the
one and cared nothing for the other.
And in those days the black slave
and the poor white worker never
thought Of getting together and hav-
ing an understanding. Suppose they
had! The poor white man would
have seen that if Negro labor could
be had for nothing then his own la
Dor could be bought for practically
nothing. And slavery would not have
lasted long after that.
AS long as there are great masses
Of Negro laborers outside the Amer
| lean labor movement, who are oblig-
ed by conditions to. sell their labor
at less than. a living wage, it will
be practically impossible for tfe
American labor movement to win
it's Objectives.
Points Out the Way.
Now the way to remedy this sit
uation is not to ship all the Ne
groes to Africa, or to kill them by
mob violence (because we multiply
+oo R,.% %or @loN h,.k ~