St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1944-01-28

11S L 1SS1OC11G . l. oil I'LL
(FEPC) was praised and crit
of Labor were scored in a TO
ton P. Webster, international
hood of Sleeping Car Porters,
Forum in the Halle @. Brown
Avenue, St. Paul. The large au-
dience, composed largely of Pull
man employees and their wives, ap-
pIauded the speaker frequently as
he dashed out at the foes of the
Brotherhood and of the American
Federation of Labor.
Mr.. Webster asserted that there
was much "misinformation and
false propaganda" being circulated
against the A. F. of L., and in favor
of the Committee of Industrial Or
CARNATIONS (CIO). Don't get the
idea that one union is Utopia and
that you should stay out of the
other"
LII 0PCAS E11C olA
Mr.. Webster said that the CLIO
has been able to get a lot of pub
licity in both the Negro weeklies
and white daihes and he left a
strong inference with his audience
that these newspapers were not
spreading all of this propaganda"
for the CLIO for nothing. He read
excerpts from an article written
for the Associated Negro Press in
which the writer "is attempting to
prove that Webster and A. Philip
Randolph (the president of the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Por-
ters) were not making any head
way in their fight to get the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor to put an
end to discrimination in many of
their unions" To refute this argu-
ment, Mr.. Webster told his audience
of an incident that took place dur
ing the last annual meeting of the
A. F. of L. in Boston last year.
B.S.C.P. Is In Good Shape
In speaking of the progress be-
ing made by his own organization,
Mr.. Webster declared that the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Por-
tiers "is fairly secure, since our
men are receiving good wages, but
we will not be fully secure as long
as other Negro workers are unor-
ganized and insecure" He said
that the Brotherhood had helped to
organize other Negroes, notably
the Red Caps.
DenOunces Red Caps President
He was bitter in his denunciation
of "the joker they had made presi-
dent of the United Transport
Workers of America (the Red
Caps union). He was evidently re-
ferring to Willard Townsend, who
is the International President of the
United Transport Workers Union
of America and a member of the
Executive Committee of the CLIO.
He did not call Townsend by name
during his address, however.
Raps DR.. Malcolm MacLean
Mr.. Webster, who is a member of
the Presidents Committee on Fair
Employment Practices, asserted
that many people were not fair in
their Judgment of the work Of
FEPC. He said that some people
seized on every bit of gossip and
bad news about FEPC such as the
quitting Of the Committee by "your
man MacLean, who ran out on us
like rat leaving a sinking ship"
In this statement, the speaker was
scoring the resignation as chairman
of FEPC of DIR. Malcolm MacLean,
former dean at the University of
Minnesota and later president of
Hampton Institute.
Negroes have been placed in
many jobs that had been denied
them because of the Presidents
Executive Orders 1902 and 9346
and FEPC. The aircraft indus
tries on the west coast declared that
they would not hire Negroes
but now they are hiring thousands
of them, after we held hearings out
there" the speaker declared.
He pointed out that hundreds of
Negroes had been employed in the
south because of FEPC and there
is lot of ''token" employment, in
non-defense industries, of Negroes.
CONTINUED on PAGE d.