Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1930-12-27
What The Negro Wants
Is Work, Not Charity
From The Atlanta Independent

Charity is no remedy Tor unem-
nlovment. The remedy is job for
everv man who is idle. Congress may
annropriate millions and billions ano
Mace it at the hands of the President
70 he disbursed in his wise and ex-
perienced discretion, but such an
expenditure of the taxpayers money
will not provide jobs for the millions
OF unemployed men and women
throughout the country. What the
people want is work, and not soup
houses and bread lines.
Loans to farmers in the drought
stricken area on sentiment as securl-
ty will not make jobs for the Idle.
Then, loans to farmers and other
special classes every time they have
a short crop, or it rains too much, OF
the Mediterranean fly affects them.
smacks of socialism, destroys sell
help, and leads to communism.
The people must not look to the
government to feed them, but me
government must look to the people
whom it protects to support it. Loans
to farmers, land grant banks,
drought and Mediterranean fly rellet
are special legislation for the favored
few, have not even afforded tenn
porary relief to the privileged classes
these experiments sought to help.
None of these remedies were in the
interest of all the people and none
Of them have helped any part of the
people. Condition have drifted from
BAD to worse and the favored few are
now suffering in common with the
masses.
What the people want is work, not
money from the Government to open
up soup houses, bread lines, and
charity wards. The Negro is willing
for the President to give the White
people all the millions that Congress
gives him, if he will just make it
possible for the unemployed Negroes
to get jobs so they can help them
selves.
If the President is going to use
the millions voted him to speed up
good roads and public buildings, see
to it that union labor and no other
agency shuts the Negro out from his
share of the work. The man outside
Of the union is entitled to as much
consideration as the man inside; and
it is hoped that the Presidents big
and humane heart will see that equity
is done between Americans, as he did
when he fed the world during the
World War.
If the Government is going to pay
the farmer a dollar a bushel for
wheat when it won't bring but sixty
cents, and pay the fruit grower for
fruit when the Mediterranean fly eats
it up, why should it not pay the
laboring man his perdiem when out
of job?
The principles upon which these
appropriations are made are entirely
different from the principle upon
which the protective tariff is based.
Protection to home industries has
for its purpose the protection Of
American labor against the pauper
labor of foreign countries and at the
same time build up home industries
to provide employment for American
labor. This policy is not in contraven-
ton of the Federal Constitution, but
in harmony with it's purposes and
aims.
But millions to feed the people and
pay the fruit grower for a crop he
has never made, and the farmer a
price for his produce, contrary to the
laws of supply and demand, is special
legislation and in violation of the
Constitution of the United States. 1t
is little less than a raid on the
Treasury, as the President has point
ed out.
Why create deficit by giving the
taxpayers money away? The millions
appropriated are not only going to
create work for the unemployed; thew
are purely charity. The politician
wants story of philanthropy to tell
his constituents when he goes home.
They don't care whether it is consti-
tutional or not, nor how much it costs
the taxpayers.
The Government cannot afford to
pay a farmer because it does not rain
IN his field, or because the Mediter-
ranean fly eats up his fruit, or the
ooll weevil eats up his cotton boil.
Give the Negro work, not charity.
Don't let aliens and foreigners get
all the work? Let the native born
Americans have a chance to earn
meat and bread. Don't let a mans
color stand between him and a lob.
me black man is starving like the
white man. Let relief be common. not
special NV
II IN this crisis the Negro is not
gong to be placed in a position where
ne can help dispense charity and
a al the work the government
creates let those who deny him the
t ~ OF sell protection be fair in the
,;iSeri nnutlon OF government help and
a ,,HI i a4oEe race prejudice, bigotry,