The Omaha guide., 1935-05-04

other groups of industrial workers N
creases in cost of living, coupled with
the part time and irregular nature Of
the work, make the results of NRA
negligible. In highly mechanical in
dustries ~speed-up and stretch-out
nullify the promised result Of NRA to
bring increased employment through
shorter hours. For the workers are
row producing more in their shorter
work periods than in the longer per-
iods before NRA. There is less I'm
ployment. The first sufferer from
lever jobs is the Negro worker
Finally the complete breakdown of
compliance machinery in the South has
cancelled the last minute advantage
to Negro workers which NRA's en-
thusiasts may have claimed.
Farmers Exploited Under AAA
The Agricultural Adjustment Ad-
ministration has used cruder methods
IN enforcing poverty on the Negro
farm population. 1t has made viola
tons of the rights of tenants under
crop reduction contracts easy; it has
rendered the enforcement Of these
rights impossible. The reduction of
tn acreage under cultivation through
the government rental agreement
made unnecessary, large numbers of
tenants and farm laborers. Although
the contract with the government pro
vided that the landowner should not
reduce the number of his tenants he
did so. The federal courts have now
refused to allow tenants to enioin
such evictions. Faced with this bred
Scott decision against farm tenants,
the AAA has remained d.scretely 81
lent. Farm laborers are now jobless
BY the hundreds of thousands, the
conservative government estimate of
the decline in agricultural employ
ment for the year 1884 alone being a
quar5er of q million. The larger por-
tion OF these are unsklled Negro agri-
cultural workers-now without income
and unable to secure work or relief.
But the unemplo5 ment and tenant
evictions occasioned by the crop re-
duction policies of the AAA is not all I.
For the tenants and sharecroppers
who were retained on the plantations,
the governments agricultural pro-
gram meant reduced income. Whole
sale fraud on tenants in the payment
of parity checks occurred. Tenants
complaining to the Department of
Agriculture have their letters referred
back to the locality in which they live
and trouble of serious nature often
results Even when this does not
happen, the tenant fails to get his
check. The remainder of the land he
tills on shares with his landlord
brings him only the most meagre ne
cessities during the crop season, vary
-ng from three to five months. The
rest Of the period for him and his fam
lily is n of root hog or die"
The past year has seen an extension
OF poverty rel to the small percen-
tage Ia little more than 20 percent) of
Negro farmers who own their own
land. For them compulsory reduction
Of acreage for cotton and tobacco
crops, with the quantum of such re-
duction controlled and regulated by
local boards on which they have no
, representation, has meant drastic re-
{ duction of their already low income
/, Wholesale co~nfiscation of the income
OF the Negro cotton and tobacco far
mer is being made by prejudiced Local
) boards in the South under the r
5 nose of the federal government. In
the wake of such co~nfiscation has come
e a tremendous increase in land tenant
~ as a result of foreclosures on Ne.
q gro-owned properties.
PWA Seeped Through With Prejudice
Nor has the vast public works pro.
gram, designed to give increased EN-.
ployment to workers in the construc.
ton trades, been free from prejudice
State officials in the South are in
many cases in open rebellion against
the ruling Of PWA that the same wage
scales must be paid to Negro and
white labor. Compliance with this
paper ruling is enforced in only rare
cases The majority of the instances
of violation of this rule are unremed-
led Only unskilled work is given Ne
groes on public works projects in most
instances. And even here discrimina-
ton In employment is notorious. Such
is bound to be the case when we real
lze that there r only a handful of
investigators available to seek en-
forcenent.
Recently a move has been made by
Negro officials in the Administration
to effect larger employment of Negro
skilled and unskilled workers On pub
lie works projects by specifying that
failure of a contractor to paw q GER
tain percentage of his payroll to Ne
gro artisans will be evidence of ra-
cial discrimination. Without doubt
ing the good intentions of the spon-