The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-10-23

The Negro is not an issue in this cam
paign' says the Richmond News Leader.
And the Manufacturers Record of Baltimore
takes up the subject as follows:
depreciation by the Richmond News Leader,
an ardent supporter of Governor Smith, of the
Negro menace in the South as campaign
issue is so sane and opportune that true friends
of the South will hope other Southern editors
will emphasize this point, regardless of their
party affiliations. The Negro is not an issue
in this campaign says the News Leader, and
in that pronouncement it speaks truly.
Left to themselves the white people and the
Negroes of the South will dwell together in
amity and mutual benefit economically. This
is fact that the leaders of both great
political p rt ies must grasp, and thus
refrain hereafter from promoting the race
issue or the Negro menace. In the heat of a
political campaign of few weeks duration they
must be careful not to undo all that individuals
and organizations have brought about in the
creation of spirit of harmony between the
races in the Southern states.
The Manufacturers Record means what
James Weldon Johnson said some years
ago = that "gentlemen's agreement
exists between the democratic and repub-
lican parties (and if Mr.. Johnson were wide
awake he would include the socialist party
Ia "gentlemen's agreement" under which it
is pledged that all capitalist political parties
will silently cooperate to suppress every
issue raised by the Negro masses against
their oppression, double exploitation, segre-
cation, lynching and disenfranchisement
This "gentlemen's agreement" tacitly in
cludes the reform parties of capitalism,
for in 1924 the LaFolette party followed the
unwritten law in suppressing VILLA m
Pickens, the Negro leader who came to ap-
peal to its convention, and remained silent on
the issues of life and death to the Negro
masses. And now the socialist party which
boasts of inheriting the remnants of the
LaFollette movement, while putting up few
Negro speakers as 'store front" carefully
abstains from demanding full social equality
for the Negro masses.
And so, as far as these capitalist and these
reform" parties which also support "Ameri-
can (Jim Crow Institutions" are concerned,
it is true that "the Negro is not an issue in
this campaign"
But-4look beyond these parties Of capt.
talism, and you see the Communist candidate
for president of the United States arrested at
Wilmington while his running mate, candi-
date for vice-president is forcibly elected
from his meeting hall at Houston and threat
ened by posse of would-be kidnappers or
ynchers in Arizona-because the party of
these candidates fights for certain position
on the Negro issue!
So what the Manufacturers Record means
is:
The Negro would not be an issue in this
campaign except insofar as the Communists
make the Negro an issue.
Never since the last gun was fired in the
Civil War has the Negro had a political
party as his champion the Communist
Party came on the scene. To the ruling class
of Texas, Arizona and Delaware, the Negro
menace" has become reality Just to the ex-
tent that the Communist Party has pene-
trated the South. That is why Foster is at
tackled by the police in Wilmington and Git.
low is attacked by police and posses" in
Texas and Arizona. The Negro menace"
becomes identified with the Communist
menace" IT, Workers (Communist) Party,
being the re dictionary working class party,
cannot but be also the party of the Negro
masses. So the Southern ruling class press
is screaming that the Workers Communist
Party is "the Niger Party" And we accept
the honor with joy.
The ruling white bourgeoisie of the South
wants "the white people and the Negroes"
to be left to themselves so that they
twill dwell together in amty and mutual bene-
fit economically" But this "amity' means
Northumberland and slavery and lynch
ing. and the mutual benefit economically"
means the one-sided benefit of the idle ex-
ploiters and the beastly exploitation of the
Negro workers and tenant farmers. By "the
spirit of harmony between the races" the
Southern aristocrats mean the spirit of
slavery on the part of the Negro masses and
the spirit of the arrogant parasite on the
part of the white employers and bankers,
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