St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1943-07-16

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cannot, as they seem to be trying
to do now, follow both line 81
simultaneously. They must choose
and choose soon. Their choice would
logically be determined by their
theory of history. If they are of
the gradualist school, the procedure
would be to exact, by combination
of persuasion and pressure, as
much as the white man in the pres
ent state of the two races is willing
to concede. That is the method by
which peoples and classes, under
the slowly developing democratic
system, have in the past won a
measure of justice. It is method
which never achieves perfect JUS
tice and indeed does not present,
even theoretically, any perfect
state toward which the democrat
can strive. Since there is no COM
polling end, there is nothing to
justify the means. The means must
justify themselves; they must, how
ever compromised and inadequate,
at least represent amelioration of
present ills by methods generally
agreed on and protected by law.
Under democracy there are some
things which cannot legally be done
to Negro or any other man. I'm
der a total government, where any
policy may be promoted and de-
Tended as being in the interest of
a promised Utopia, there is nothing
which cannot be done. The Negro
has under democracy a certain mini
mum protection, pitiable though
it may be, and historically these
minimum rights of oppressed class
es in a democracy to tend to ex-
pand toward equality.
That this protection, however
limited, is not, within its frame,
negligible may be illustrated by the
fact that Negro Communists who
obstructed our war effort before
Germany's attack on Russia are
alive and active today, whereas
similar activity in their spiritual
fatherland or any other total state
would long ago have brought their
liquidation. In the same way the
Communist theater in London con-
tinued to give plays strongly and
no doubt justly critical of the
government during the German air
raids. The British government has
never attempted to achieve, or even
had any picture of, perfect state.
But by compromise, concession, be-
lated adaptation, and above all by
honorable adherence to such a few
legal principles as it did admit,
it has managed to exist without in
ternal violence since the time of
Cromwell. Therefore it was not
disturbed by the Marxist theater,
nor, with its principles, would it
have been easy for it to act if it had
been.
So much for democracy and it's
limitations and it's gradualisms.
The other theory Of history is, of
course, the explosive: it holds that
all progress, so-called, is produced
by fracturing a social mold-or at
least by attempts to fracture it. In
the case of the American Negro it
would have to be the second method.
He has not the military strength to
challenge the white man. And it is
doubtful whether he can get much
help. No honest American can be
happy about the Negroes present lot
or anything but contemptuous of
the whites who would worsen or
even stabilize it. But though Ameri-
cans fought once to free the Negro
from slavery, they will hardly fight
again over the precise status of
race which in the seventy. years
since it was freed has shown an ad-
vance unparalleled in cultural his
tory and which now occupies posi-
lions of esteem in the arts and in
some branches Of learning, of rank
in the army, and of influence in
Congress. In this picture, it is true
there are plenty of gaps and in
adequacies to move a well-disposed
white man to indignation and to
further effort, but they are not suf-
ficient, taken in their historical set
ting, to move him to crusade. Ex-
cept for problematical Communist
support, the Negro would fight
alone.
Even Communist support cannot
be greatly relied on. Communism
is prevalent among the Negro in
telligentsia, and it's characteristic
tactics of provocation and disrup-
ton, pursued long after they have
ceased to be of service to Russia,
may be seen in occasional manu-
featured incidents and in the
Negroes studied attitude of hostility
to all whites in some localities. But
numerically it is weak, and its
leadership has neither the quality
nor the native air required to move
Americans.
Above all, Soviet Russia, follow
ing the course indicated by the dis
solution of the Comintern, is almost
sure to become more nationalistic,
particularly if victorious. In that
case it will abandon its local efforts