St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1943-10-29

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top it all, the army was forced to
maintain our fiction of neutrality
and to train men for hypothetical
battles with unnamed enemies,
rather than for a certain death
struggle with Germans, Italians
and Japanese.
No necessity was as urgent as
the necessity for speed. One de-
cision made instantly was that a
large proportion of the camps had
to be built in the South. The milder
climate afforded more days for out
door physical work by green
civilians in uniform. The open
spaces, the forests, the cut-over
pinelands afforded room for maneu-
vers, resulting in the least damage
and delays for farming and other
civilian pursuits. In the milder
climate camps could be built with
a smaller proportion of vital build
ing materials, such as heating
equipment and insulation.
In the face of these monumental
tasks, the army apparently decided
that it must accept the Southern
jim Crow patterns for the Negro
troops which would be trained in
the South. The army itself, fur
thermore, was built of Americas
components, and the principle of
segregation was embedded in it.
There were large proportions of
Southern officers of all ranks, from
top to bottom; as military re-
sources the army relied heavily on
them. Southern states had the
highest rates of enlistments. Be-
cause of the relative poverty of the
South, a greater proportion of its
young men had been trained in the
state-supported institutions which
conducted reserve-officer-t training
programs as a function of their
Immigrant charters, in return for
state and federal support. Huge
Texas A and M, for example, has
sent more officers to the war than
has West Point. Because of all
these factors, the student of con-
temporary America, even though
deploring the tragic national back
ground which produced it, must
nevertheless understand the in
evitability of the army's decision
not to buck the Southern race pat
tern, or comparable bi-racial pat
terms wherever they manifested
themselves, North or South.
By now it must have become ap-
parent to the army that a mistake
has been made, a mistake judged
not on the basis of ethics, but on
the basis of military logistics. The
mistake was not in its failure to
| choose completely to override the
South's Jim Grow patterns-for
that could not be done-but in the
excessive degree in which they
have been observed. AS a result,
the morale of Negro soldiers is
one of the major background prob
lens which confront the army
probably the most important; and
the morale of Negro civilians
who number q tenth of the nation
has suffered its severest damage
through the experiences of Negroes
in the army.
For three years now, the letters
of Negro soldiers have flowed
homeward; month by month the
volume has mounted; year by year
the information which they con-
tanned has been digested and dis
seminated through the Negro popu-
lation; until at last, in this brief
space, they have created an actual
folkway, to use the term of social
scientists, among the Negro peo-
pie. It is an ominous folkway. Its
basis is a belief that sons and hus-
bands and loved ones are subjected
to humiliation and injustice in the
army Of American democracy. It
is a belief also that Negroes in
army camps, particularly in the
South, are in constant physical
danger at the hands of white au-
thorities, principally civilian.
The Negro press has dissent
mated much of this information. A
number of white critics, with utter
disregard for elemental considera-
lions Of justice, have accused the
press of reckless and hysterical agi-
tation. 1t is fallacious to accuse
the Negroes newspapers and his
leaders of having created this folk
way; they have done no more than
report and react-with Indignation,
it is true-to actual instances of
cruelty and brutality to Negro SOL
diers by civilians, or discriminatory
treatment of them in the army.
The folkway has been created by
the Negro soldiers experiences.
Anyone who has had access to
large numbers of the letters of Ne
gro soldiers knows their tone; bit
terness and establishment, often
accompanied by macabre humor.
Their experiences have an impress
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