The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1931-02-05
America Has Two Long Lines Now
The Color Line And The Bread Line

Fair and equal opportunity for
employment will establish his going.
Industrious Negroes are tired of
temporary existence.
A Fair Chance
Let the philanthropists who have
stores, shops, factories, and great
plants for every description give the
Negro fair chance at employment
and he can buy his own bread.
1t might be necessary to give the
Negro a million dollars worth of
bread and soup in an emergency, but
how long is this emergency going to
last? What are the people who are
feeding US soup out of long handled
spoons and passing bread down long
lines doing to make it impossible for
another emergency like this to come
up and torment us? N3s
Leaders Must be Keen
If our leaders are not keen and
vigilant they will find that in the re-
adjustment, that the Negro will be
left standing In the bread line. There
are thousands Of industrious, ca
pable Negroes who want work, and
there are just as many who want
to loaf. The former should be given
work and the latter should be given
Horace Greeley's doctrine, root,
hog, or die" ssAa.'N
1t does not require the sense of
the sage to see that the present at
titude towards labor is doing nothing
in the world but breaking down mor-
ale and encouraging and justlfying
professional loafing.
Professional Loafers
The country is already seriously
menaced by the activities of the pro-
fessional loafers in both races. They
are the crime breeders; they make
life and property unsafe. Then too,
the bread line is giving the profess
sional loafersa fine opportunity to
organize themselves into national
association. They will prey upon
the nation.
Some Americans are losing sleep
over the rise of the Communist
movement, but if once these profess
sional loafers decide that they are
through with work, the country will
be in greater danger from their ac-
tivities than it is from the activi-
ties of the Reds end Radicals.
Friends Never Think of Employment
Some of our best friends never
think of giving us employment, but
they never fail to give US charity. It
would be good for the race and cas-
Ter on our best friends to take US off
of <hos., oba,;<x, v.ol1 opJ mt
their payroll. Why are they per-
fectly willing to support us on the
bread line, but unwilling to let us
support ourselves on their payrolls?
Giving million dollar school is
all right as far as it goes, but it
does not go far enough. What is the
Negro going to do with all of his ed
ucation if the doors of every shop,
factory, and business concern
through which this money comes is
shut in his face when he goes seeking
an oportnnity TO- use his educa-
ton? ~ $500 81 ftf
sshs,l. bp., no Shop.
-PhilaAthrppists educate the ig-
rorant Negro with money earned by
their .shops Ind factories, but they
will not. employ Him in their shops
and factories after he is educated.
Unskilled and igfiorant Negroes. cAn
get employment but the educated
and skilled cannot. Why educate
them? The race hasn't employment
to absorb them iasa
Friends of the. Negro race have
provided jim-cruw schools, colleges.
and universities for the Negro to
learn in, jim-crow y. M and Y. W.
C. AS. to behave in, and jim-crow
hospitals for himsto die in, but these
same friends have been most con-
sistent in not. opening their own
shops and factories, or even opening
jim-crow shops and factories, to
give the Negroes work.
Why not 90 all the way with the
jirn-crow policy and provide jim
crow shops and factoriesg The race
needs work worse than it needs some
of the other jim-crow things that
are so willingly provided.
Must Do His Part
The Negro must do his part OF the
work of the world in all fields for
which he has natural bent. To ac-
complsh that supreme objective, the
leaders should organize to break up
industrial boycotts and wipe out eco
nomic injustice. The friends of the
race should help. 1t will be inn,
possible for the race to make its con-
tribuition to world progress stand
ing in the bread line intsead of
working in the broad fields of human