The Omaha guide., 1941-09-13

I, LaDI Lay mccoo6C W
Randolph, international President
! Brotherhood Of Sleeping Car Por-
tiers. II. -. 1888. -. ~.
This Labor Day finds the work
eds at the crossroads. Today it is
war and destruction they face. To-
morrow when peace comes, it may
be famine, pestilence and revolu-
ton. In both the workers suffer.
Theirs is perennial struggle, suf-
fering and sacrifice.
With war, wages, through
strikes make rise, but prices
through greed or profits rise too,
and the evil days of Initiation may
come. /.
During the postwar days of de-
flation, prices will fall and SO will
wages, and another awfu depres-
sion with widespread unempoy-
ment will beset the workers.
But while the lot of the white
workers is terrifying, that of the
black workers is even worse. Black
workers are the first fired and the
last hired. They are denied jobs if
they don't have a union card and
they are denied union cards if
they don't have jobs. They are
damned if they do, and damned if
they don't.
Though America has set herself
up and %rightfully so, al the arse
nal of democracy, black workers.
citizens of the country, whose
blood has wet every battle ground,
from Bunker's Hill to Flanders
Field, these Negro workers must
fight for the right to fight and
work to preserve democracy for
which our country claims to be
fighting.
But out Of the travail troubles,
sweat, tears and blood Of people
have come the lofty and majestic
currents of inspiration and unset
fish devotion to great human and
social ideals, faiths and principles.
1t may be that the oppressed and
outraged Negro people will serve
as the supreme test and measure
of the quality and characted of the
democracy, freedom an justice of
the new worlu order, men now seek
and aspire to attain.
This Labor Day finds the Negro
workers with their backs against
the wall fighting a life and death
struggle. Racial discrimination in
industry and organized labor chal-
lenges them with the dictum, mo
further beyond"
But sleeping car porters, train
porters chair car porters under
the banner of the Brotherhood of
Sleeping Car Porters are marching
forward.
Redcaps, organized by the Unit
ed Transport and Service Emr
ployes Of America. dining car en-
ployes in the ranks of the Joint
Council of Dining Car Employees of
the International Hotel Alliance
Colored Locomotive Firemen,
freight handlers Of National Coun-
Gil of Freight Handlerh, Express &
Station employees, and Negro work
ers i nthe A. F. Of l.. and Go
are advancing. More and more the
Negro workers everywhere, in var
ious endeavors and callings, are
beginning to see the light and
realizing that organization is their
only salvation, and that they must
fight, if need be, organized bust
ness and ~orginized labor for their
rights.
These are days of worldwide
Storm and stress, chaos and confu-
sion, doubt and uncertainty. The
forces of darkness and barbarism
under the totalitarian flags of Hit
Ter and Hitlerism, Fasciscm and
Communism, are a~ssaulting the
citadel of civilization and human
decency. Negro workers, like white
workers, must choose the camp
they will fight in. They are the
lamps of totalitarism or democra-
cy. Which shall it be? The answer
is clear. It is the camp of democ-
racy-the brotherhood Of man in
which there shall be no lines Of
race, color, religion or national
origin.