Minneapolis spokesman. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1942-11-13
AfrO-American Says F.E.P.C.
New Deal Has Slight OdOr'
Negro Members Agree
COLORED MEMBERS OF R0OSEVELTUS FAIR EMPLOY
MENT PRACTICE COMMITTEE VOTE mo" ON
NEW RESTRICTIONS
From Aro-Am ercan)

All is not we'll with the Presi-
dents Fair Employment Practice
Committee (FEPC).
Established over a year ago to
interpret and administer F. D. RS
Executive Order $500, which re-
quires war plants to give ''fair and
equitable" employment to all work
ers without regard to race, religion,
or national origin, the committee
had no power to enforce the order,
and depended on public hearings
and newspaper publicity to whip
cheesy employers and unions into
line.
Naturally, the committees pub
licity made enemies among unions
and employers who favored exclu-
sion of colored workers, Jews and
foreigners from war work. And
when the FEPC went into the
South, with its mixed membership,
and held hearings in Birmingham,
Southern Senators and Congress-
men squawked their heads off about
social equality.
Mark Ethridge, a so-called liberal
Southerner, resigned as chairman
of the committee. Ethridge spoke
those famous tory lines, which said
in effect: "The South will never
give up segregation for Roosevelt
nor for Hitler" He was succeeded
by DR.. Malcolm MacLean, president
of Hampton Institute.
President Feels the Heat
With heat turned on the White
House from three sides (unions,
employers and the South) and the
November elections so close, Mr..
Roosevelt took steps last summer
to get from under. He took away
FEPC's independent status and
transferred the committee to Nc
Nuts War Manpower Commission
(WMC).
There was an immediate howl
that the President was selling his
own committee down the river, and
the President fastened to issue a
statement of denial. Far from
weakening the FEPC and Executive
Order No. 1902, Mr.. Roosevelt said,
both would be strengthened by the
change and the benevolent leader
ship of McNutt.
There the matter stood until last
week. For three months FEPC
hasn't struck a lick of work, just
marked time, waiting for Mr.. Nc
Mutt to call it in and define its
status.
He got around to it last week.
COlOred Members Absent
FEPC has five white and two
colOred members. Mr.. McNutt
called in three of the white men,
bers, Chairman MacLean, Commit
tee Member David Sarnoff of RCA,
and the committees paid secretary,
Lawrence Cramer.
The session was long, and Mr..
McNutt didn't tarry. He left Fow-
Ter Harper, a deputy, to iron out
the details with the FEPC trio.
What they worked out had faint
odor. WINGS own colored man.
power service, under DR.. Robert
Weaver, was abolished. FEPC was
taken in as a substitute.
1t will make Investigations, hold
hearings, and function in any case
only after it has first gotten per-
mission of General McSherry, Nc
Nuts deputy, and after approval
has been given by the VINO direc-
tor of the region in which the in
vestigation or hearing is to be
made.
Discussion or Rubber Stamp
Chairman MacLean took the new
agreement back to FEPC board
members and asked them to dis
cuss it.
Milton Webster "a. F. of L. was
quick to say "No," protesting that
MacLean was asking for a rubber
stamp o. X. rather than for dis
cussion.
Earl Dickerson, Chicago alder
man, the other colored FEPC men,
Der, said EYES," with so many res
ervations that Webster declared he
might as well be voting mo" too.
Both colored members resented an
FEPC meeting with McNutt to