St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1941-10-31

pany toward TINS investigation OF
discrimination in industries of any
that has been cited here for these
hearings. 1 want this to go in the
record for the attention of the Pres
ident," further stated Ethridge.
A. F. of l. Man Not Present
Harvey Brown, international rep
resentative of the AFL Union, dis
regarded the FEPC request to ap-
pear before the body at Tuesdays
hearing, and Ethridge ordered
Brown to appear before the COM
mittee in Washington at it's next
session in regard to what he
termed, ga clear case of racial dis
elimination" ~
The testimony which caused his
order was given by C.. L. Dellums
of the NAACP, who stated that he
had been one of those investigating
the charges that Charles Sullivan,
machinist, had been refused admis-
sion to the union because of his
race.
Earlier, Sullivan testified that he
had applied to the Bethlehem
Shipbuilding yards in San Fran
cisco, and was acceptable, but that
he could not go to work because
the union would not admit him to
membership.
Squires Charges Machinists Union
Discriminates
B. E. Squires of the Urban
League of Seattle also made
charges against the ALL machin-
lists union, stating Negroes were
barred from the Boeing Aircraft
Corp. plant because as he was told,
"Only Caucasians are permitted to
join the International Association
of Machinists. And yet" Squires
said, ~ appeared before 1870 men,
bers of the Seattle local of the lam
and persuaded them to pass a mo-
ton which would permit Negroes
and other dark races to join" A
few days later the union executive
committee rescinded this motion.
At the morning session, the air
craft directors were resummOned
to the witness stand in order to
give them an opportunity to rebuilt
the stream of witnesses who had
appeared stating their policies of
discrimination
The most outstanding denial of
racial discrimination was made by
Randall Irwin, director of indus
trial relations at the Lockheed-
Vega plant in Burbank.
Irwin brought with him a sheaf
of documents regarding each case
that had appeared against his COM
pany, and attempted to show that
these persons were either mentally
incapable of handling the positions
they had passed the tests for, or
that their emotional patterns were
so keenly awry that they would be
unable to get along with the other
members of the plant.
Irwin stated that LOckheed does
not discriminate against Negroes
and that there are 81 Negroes now
employed there, 81 of whom are do
ing mechanical tasks.
Achievements In West
The governments achievements,
attained through the cooperation of
FEPC and OPM with the offices
of DR.. Robert Weaver of the Ne
gro employment and training
branch and DR.. Will Alexander of
the minority groups branch, are
appreciate in this section.
Typical of this progress has been
the breaks in the military aircraft
front which was widely publicized
a year ago. AS the committee
hearings opened Monday, four of
the six leading manufacturers of
aircraft were employing Negro
workers in their plants where only
one employed Negro skilled work
ers six months before.
On the other hand, though, two
of the large companies still had no
Negro employees and the FEP was
expected to crack down on their
management Of one and the closed
shop union of the other for their
barriers against colored workers.
Progress Made
The good side included:
1-Lockheed- Vega Aircraft COM
semi-shlled workers, which was In
creased its number Of Negro en-
ployees in this category in the last
few weeks.
pany, which two months ago an
nounced a sensational change in
employment policies and began hir-
ing of Negroes in all crafts In
which they were skilled and