The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1937-04-16
New Amsterdam
News-C Guild Tilt
Gets More Bitter

what may prove a more prolonged
and bitter struggle doomed between
the New York Amsterdam News
and the New York Newspapers
Guild on Saturday as The Guild
hit back at DR.. C. B. Powell, pre-
ssdent and editor of the paper, by
distributing handbills throughout
Harlem charging that DR.. Powell
had made an open bid to race pre-
judice in his signed full page state
ment in his paper, which was made
public Thursday morning. In a
screaming headline. Amsterdam
News Bids to Prejudice" the Guild
attack said race plays no part in
the fight being made to have Obie
McCollum former managing edi-
tor, and Roi Ottley. former sports
editor, reinstated in their jobs. The
men were let out on March /.
Causing a sensation in Harlem,
DR.. Powell, who has never before
taken the initiative in writing. de-
clared in his full page statement,
which It is claimed even the en-
ployees did not know what it con-
tanned until the paper was out,
that, Amsterdam News Control
is Threatened"
Apparently anticipating trouble,
DR.. PowelTs statement began:
THE New York Amsterdam News,
your newspaper. is facing serious
trouble for which all Harlem must
be prepared" The statement then
went on to say that control Of the
paper and its editorial content is
the main issue, and that the man
agement is not anti-union.
In a significar. paragraph, DR..
Powell declared: we are prepar-
ed ana ready to keep our agree
ment with the Guild in every de-
tail; but we viii not agree to the
threat Of force. We will not allow
any outsiders who may attempt it
to muscle in on control of Har-
lens great newspaper
Again, DR.. Powell charged the
Guild jim-crows Negro members,
by saying: Lately there has been
evidenced an increasing spirit a.
gainst the isolation of our employ
ees in a jim-crow unit by the Guild.
When we signed our agreement
with the Guild we understood that
the Guild would take a progressive
stand and demand that All News
papers hire talented colored edi-
tors. Otherwise the agreement
with the GUILD has small value to
Harlem, since they need no con-
tract with the Amsterdam News
to hire qualified colored men and
women and to maintain high STAN
dards of wages and working con-
ditions."
The Guild, in a ten-point cate
gorical denial of the Powell charg-
es, says in the handbills distribut-
ed Saturday: THE Amsterdam
News unit was n of the earliest
units organized in the New York
Newspaper Guild. Membership of
units in the Guild is determined by
job location, the rank and file
members in these units having
complete home rule. Shortly af-
ter the Powell-Savory corporation
took over control of the paper,
four white workers, connected with
the original Amsterdam News unit,
were fired. The Guilds constitu-
ton states that no eligible person
shall be barred from membership,
suspended, fined, expelled OF dis
eliminated against by reason of
sex, race, or religious or political
conviction or because of anything
he writes for publication The
Newspaper Guild supported the
successful eleven-weeks' strike a.
gainst the former Amsterdam
News owners to the extent of So
600 and white members of the pa
per Guild, Ted Poston and Henry
Lee Moon now write for the New
York Evening Post and the New
York Times, respectively. Both
men were fired three months after
the strike was won.
Negroes are to be found in
Newspaper Guild units on white
papers in Greater New York, in
GLIDING the Daily News. A Negro
has been a member of the Execu-
tive Committee of the New York
Newspaper Guild for over two
years and Negroes continually
serve on important Guild commit
tees. The Newspaper Guild is &C
lively affiliated with the Negro
Labor Committee. The New York
Guild sent an official delegate to
the National Negro Congress in
Chicago last year."
The official status of the fight