Minneapolis spokesman. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1944-01-28
Webster Defends
A. T. L. RapS Press
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A. L. l.. RapS Press
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The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters was credited with doing
more than any other organization
in creating FEPC and saving it
when it was about to be scrapped
last year, by the speaker.
Mr.. Webster said Paul V. Nc
Mutt, head of the War Manpower
Commission, admitted that Presi-
dent Roosevelt had given the order
to call off the railroad hearings be-
fore he went to Casablanca. The
Negro fremen have been given a
chance to get their case before the
bar of American public opinion
through the recent railroad hear
ingS conducted by FEPC, Mr.. Web
ster said. "FEPC is doing a fairly
good job and it will do a better job
when the Negro supports it," Mr..
Webster asserted. I'VE had better
get all we can now while the white
people are worried and before the
war is over and when they will not
be so sympathetic"
In referring to the fair and i'm
partial policy of the Federal Cart
ridge Corporation of the Twin Cities
Ordnance Plant, Mr.. Webster said
that he believed that the president
of the company (Mr. Charles L.
Horn) was helped greatly in the
carrying out of his non-discrimina-
tory policy because of Executive
Order 1902.
Segregation Has Come North
The speaker said that segregation
has come north. I'm another twen-
ty-five years Negroes will be as
completely segregated in Chicago
as they are in Birmingham" he
asserted. Mark Etheridge, a for
mer member of FECP and southern
liberal, may net have been so far
wrong in his now famous utterance
in Birmingham about "all of Hit
ler's armies could not break down
prejudice and segregation in the
South, etc." Mr.. Webster declared,
so long as the philosophy of the
South is accepted all over America
in race relations. "The Southern
cracker is in the saddle in Wash
ington and it will take years to rid
the country of that influence" he
asserted. The Democratic party
was blamed largely for conditions
as they are in regards to the Negro
in the country today.
considers 1t Honor to be
Criticized by Negro Paper
Il have no apology to make for
anything that l have said about the
Negro press" Mr.. Webster said,
as he fayed the Negro press for
Joining with capitalistic white
press and the Pullman Company
in trying to keep the Pullman por-
tiers from being organized" The
speaker attacked an editorial writ
ten by a managing editor of a lead
ing Negro weekly (The Afro-Amer-
ican) that characterized "a. Philip
Randolph as the most misunder-
stood man in America" and a "pri-
soner of his own group" Instead
of writing an editorial that would
be read by 100000 Negroes, the
writer of this lying editorial (Ralph
Matthews) should be a comic
writer, Webster said. 81 consider
it an honor to be criticized by a
Negro paper" Mr.. Webster de-
clared.
In speaking of the possible con-
dition of the Negro in the postwar
world, Mr.. Webster said that the
Negro will be in a bad fix, because
he is not organized. He said that
the Brotherhood planned to take the
fight directly to the people, not
through the preachers, as was sug-
gested by a friend in Chicago. One
alternative for the Negro is to fight
now for his rights. Probably
some of US will get shot, but we
must not let down now, as some
people suggest" Mr.. Webster con-
cluded.
Alfred North presided at the