The Omaha guide., 1933-08-26
|NRA Menace To The Econmic
Advancement of Negro

back home between even and eight
in the evening. The Negro grocer has
been closed an hour when they re-
turn.
EVERY Negro grocer in Oklahoma
City will tell you that he does his
largest business between seven and
nine thirty at night. The average
Negro comes home and eats his ev-
ening meal and then goes to the gro
Gerry to get his next supply after he
has rested. This is representative Of
what we have observed in many
southern cities.
New Deal Means Annihilation
and CConfiscation"
"Negro grocers in Oklahoma City,
whom we have interviewed on this
subject, are positive that their re-
venues have been reduced fully one
third since required to observe this
new opening and closing rule. Their
black customer is forced to dash away
from his employment during spare
moments on the job and make his
daily purchases in a white store in
the neighborhood where he works.
Judged or measured by such a stand
ard Of circumstance, the New Deal'
means humiliation and confiscation,
rather than recovery-to Negro bust
ness.
Must Cut His Own Economic Treat
to Be Patriotic
with reduced volume the Negro
grocer is next ordered to increase his
help and pay higher salaries. Here
again he must cut his own economic
throat to be patriotic. What we are
stating here may not seem just right
to those who are crying out to close
ranks and obey the Presidents order,
but with the Negro merchant hang
ing by a flimsy economic thread, to-
gether with may white merchants. we
believe that on the salary proposition,
every merchant should have been ex-
Guided from the salary raise, whose
volume Of business is under three
thousand dollars a month
I'm this crisis the Negro wants to
be just as patriotic as his white bro
ther. In fact, the Negroes patriotism
cannot be questioned. The blood and
sweat and tears we have deposited
upon the battlefields Of American
progress attest that fact. The only
justification for government rests in
the fact that it offers equality OF
opportunity to all its citizens. To pay
one class of citizens far less business
men within a denoted group to abide
by rules which cofiscate and destroy
their business is not, at least for
them, RECOVERY"
The New York Times, Of Saturday
August 10, in an editorial entitled "In
Defense of the Humble" says:
mot from the Northeast but from
the South has come the first strong
note of concern over what may hap
pen to Negro labor under certain
operations Of the National Recovery
Administration. The Norfolk-Pilot
and its colleague, The Ledger Dis
patch Of that city have pointed out a
real danger to low skilled or unskill-
ed Negroes in reports Of labor dis
placements in the South under the
minimum wage and hours sections of
the Presidents Agreement. To these
poor folk, says the Norfolk newspa-
per, the Blue Eagle may be predatory
bird instead of a feathered messeng-
er Of happiness.
"A Norfolk restaurant, obliged to
raise its minimum wage under the
code-a wage that had been accept
able to Negro workers - dismissed
OhSAh oA0 CiiP1OyCQ OdQCdSldQS III
their place. The newspapers fears
that thousands Of Negroes engaged
as porters, janitors, elevator men,
messengers, drivers and the like, will
be ousted throughout the country by
employers who hire Negroes at pres
ent because they can get them cheap
er. These employers would prefer
white labor The newspaper calls for
an appeal to the sense Of Justice of
persons disposed so TO displace their
help.
If in the pre-code days (says The
Virginia-Pilot) an employer made
use Of Negro workers because he
could hire them at low wages there
IS a moral obligation on him to retain
their services now that a national
code requires that they be paid 4
little more money. It would be a grim
ana tragic commentary on the nat
lonal recovery effort if a business
and industrial RECOMMENDATION directed
to lifting the people out of denres-