St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1943-02-26
1902 BLUES
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Randolph's Provisional Committee
to Organize Colored Locomotive
Firemen, supported out of his
Sleeping Car Porters' resources,
had carried the ball on prepara-
lions for the railroad hearing,
though the grievances of Negro
dining-car walters, car cleaners
and shopmen were being champ
Toned before the FEPC by the Ne
gro Labor Victory Committee.
Swinging wild at Randolph, the
administration hit the Negro.
Josh White might we'll make up
a new social significance blues"
around Executive Order 88O2's I'M
fulfilled promise to the Negro.
From the start, action to imple-
ment the order was slower than
molasses in January, despite the
crisis in Negro morale and the ur-
gency of mobilizing every man.
power resource for war produc-
ton. 1t was very puzzling. If
the White House really meant the
brave words of 1902 blazoned on
a bright blue poster above the
Great Seal and ironically grazing
the walls of discriminatory United
States Employment Service offices
from end to end of the land-how
was it that the President Tipped
only pennies in the FEPC's direc-
ton? In year of war budgets
that ran off the edge of the page,
the President dug up a mere $780,
900 out of his contingent fund to
finance the FEPC's whole national
show.
Still, the FEPC travelled further
on less than any other agency in
New Deal history. Disclosures of
its findings at Los Angeles, Chi
cago and New York, where public
hearings were held, made the
front pages not only in these cities
but in unbelievable places like
Savannah. Suddenly the nation
was made discrimination-c
after decades of ignoring the evil.
This was part of the picture dis
closed by the FEPC at Los Angeles
in October, 1871:
Boeing Aircraft of Seattle had no
Negroes out of al, 900 workers. The
finger was put on the International
Association of Machinists (AFL),
which had closed-shop contract
with Boeing. The lam membership
had voted unanimously to admit
Negroes but higher-ups overruled
the rank and file on the basis of the
"ily-white" clause in the union
ritual. Subsequently the President
cracked down on the lam leader
ship-his only breakdown yet on
anybody caught at the nasty bust
ness of Northumberland Ne
groes were admitted.
Consolidated Aircraft of San
Diego employed Negroes only as
"custodial help" Ditto for North
American Aviation. Douglas Air
craft had ten Negroes out of $4,000
workers. Lockheed-Vega Aircraft,
with $4,000, had hedged against the
hearing by hurrying on "a Negroes
there had been none a few weeks
earlier. Since the hearing, Lockheed
has stepped its Negro employment
up to more than 500. Other Pacific
Coast plants have mended their
ways to some degree.
Next the FEPC hit Chicago.
With Negroes making up almost a
tenth of the city's population, the
FEPC found in sampling several
war industries that:
Stewart Warner wouldn't use
Negroes and asked the Employ
ment Service to send whites only.
Studebaker had a few Negroes, all
at mental work, including a Negro
craftsman and machine operator
who was given a job sweeping
floors. Nordberg Manufacturing
had no Negroes and the guard at
the gate said "scram" when a
Negro made so bold as to ask for
an application blank. Three big
Milwaukee outfits %. A. Smith,
the He'll Company and Allis-Chal-
mers-averaged one Negro apiece.
The He'll Company has since hired
LAO and A. o. Smith 447. Lin
coins home state, the Chicago
hearing brought out, had nobly
passed law against discrimination
in defense industries-and let it go
at that. In the six months that the
law had been in effect, no suit had
been entered under it and no appro-
priation made for its enforcement.
New York, where "minorities"
are the majority-Jews, Negroes
and foreign-born comprisino tvo-