The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-09-03
Race Hatred
by Children
Under Fire
Human Relations Bureau
Reports Progress Among
School Pupils.
BY DOROTHY ID. BROMLEY
Times special Writer

Times special Writer
WHAT with Mayor La Guardia
w Of New York turning thumbs
down on Germans and the Nazis
Of New York calling the Mayor a
Jew, its as good a time as any TO
do some straight thinking about
race OF religious prejudice, which
frequently begins at home
Too few parents take the trouble
10 instill into their children a reaAy
civilized attitude toward other races
and peoples. To do this We need 70
cultivate the habit Of judging other
people for themselves. regardless Of
their grandmOthers' ancestry.
Prejudice. Il seems 20 me. degrades
the person who holds it more than
it does its victim. So it makes me
very sad that Germany's anti
Semitism has had its echoes In this
country. even while We have de-
plored the NaZi exceSses.
All around you hear educated
people who ought to know better
labelling if not libeling other per-
sons. and the next day YOU hear
their children doing the same thing
Indirect Method Best
The other day while I was sun
ming myself on the beach at Rye /
e-avesdropped on a g~OOd-lOOking
weIl-bred group Of high school boys
and girls. They we're a li~ght-heart-
ed crowd. and their principal form
of amusement consisted Of mlmlck-
ing an imaginary Jewish girl.
Even If your children don't learn
such tricks at home they pick them
I'D from other children. That
weekend I was visiting a friend
who is a gentle person with few
animosities. She and I were both
amazed to hear her 1%0-year-old son
declare with a scOwl that the
'dagoes" should be put off the
beach and that they ought to be put
out of the country, too. Even when
we told him that the Mayor of New
York was a son of italy he stuck 10
his scowl.
The only way to eface the preju-
dices that children pick up is by
the indirect method. Mrs. Rachel
Davis-Dubois Service Bureau for
Education in Human Relations has
-made a hopeful start in this direc-
ton with the aid of relief funds.
Last year 1t put on programs IN
nearby New Jersey high schools
and in one New York high school
that definitely changed children's
attitudes.
They brought out that the first
person to lose his life in l776 was
a Negro-that the man who did the
most to finance the Revolutionary
War, and so died in poverty. was a
Jew-and that a German general,
two Poles and a French general
came to our aid.
Even more effective we're the ex-
hibitiOns and talks by artists and
writers of different races. White
and Negro boys alike listened with
starry eyes to Frank Wilson. the
Moses of Green Pastures" and they
were no less impressed by a Zulu
tribesman who showed them native
sculpture and did some Of his Afri-
can dances.
Education Proves Effective
Children have beautifully open
minds if we only don't seal them
Theoretically. At Benjamin Frank
lin High School, New York, tests
made at the beginning of the semes-
ter among 364 pupils showed that
they considered the Japanese a very
inferior race. with the Slavs and the
Italians next. After they had heard
about the cultural achievements Of
these races and had met the visiting
speakers at least IS per cent of the
children changed their unfriendly
attitude.
Such work in the schools is of the
first Importance because racial
hatredS more often than not provide
the finder for war. while economic
rivalries set the finder afire. Since
this IS so, We are in real danger of
becoming embrOiled in a war with
the Japanese some day. We've been
taught as children to distrust them
as a race, and the current cable dis
patches which talk mostly of the
military clique, without distinguish
ing between different shades of
political opinion. do nothing TO re-
move our prejudice.
Undoubtedly there are persons in
Japan who want peace as much as
you and I do. although they have an
economic problem which We. who
have already done our ruthless en-
plre-building, are too righteous 10
\ appreciate.
So long as We Americans consider
ourselves superior to other races
and therefore privileged 10 have a
monopoly on the earth's riches. and
long IS We teach children such
! atriotic hokum. we shall be kind
49, - g.