St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1944-09-08

OO,OOO-is slated to play an i'm
portant, if not deciding role in
whether Governor Thomas E.
Dewey of New York is chosen as
the nations chief executive or
whether President Franklin D.
Roosevelt remains at the helm.
The right to vote is no more i'm
portant than the duty to vote. This
should be the theme song from here
on in our two leading organizations
The NAACP and the Urban
League: every Negro Must Reg
lister; Every Negro Must Vote!'
The well-organized facilities OF
these organizations must be put to
work at once to get every potential
Negro voter registered.
The politicians are still as wise
as of yore. They are now making
promises on a basis of potential
Negro vote of 100000. If this
figure falls below 100000 in regis
tration, they will know exactly
where we stand; how much power
we can muster to control our own
ballot; they will know exactly how
to act on the promises they are
making. Therein lies our danger.
Outlines Danger of Not Voting
If the Negro vote falls shy of
it's threatened strength, the poll
tax will remain, for hard-headed
politicians will truthfully say: eff
they don't vote in the North where
they have the ballot, why should
we give them the right to vote
down South?"
The effort to register every Ne
gro in position to exercise his
franchise should stem from 50 Fifth
Avenue in New York City, head
quarters of the National Associa-
ton for the Advancement of Col
ored People; and from 1133 Broad
way, also in New York City, head
quarters of the National Urban
League.
The hundreds of N A A C P
branches throughout the nation
should be given plans for house
to house canvass as we'll as de-
tailed campaign of door bell ring
ing to acquaint our people with the
seriousness of the situation.
Correspondingly, the nearly 100
local Urban League offices should
be the centers for this all important
drive. By centering the campaign
from the main offices of the two
organizations, the situation can be
more highly dramatized and with
more satisfying results than scat
tered attempts to do rightly our
most important job of the decade.
AS one man put it, "there is no
use taking the case to the Supreme
Court and getting the right to vote
if the NAACP is not going to fol-
low through and prove that the
Negro wants this right" 1t was
thought by many Negro leaders
that Walter White, executive Sec
rotary of the NAACP, was set to
do just this follow-through cam
paign and prove that the Negro
wants to vote-when he made his
entry into the campaign by de-
nouncing the platforms of both the
Republican and Democratic Parties
as inadequate in the attention paid
the Negro question. We know that
the platforms of both parties left
many things unsaid and were word
ed in some instances in hazy Ian
guage. But we must not go fishing
because the platforms didn't say all
they should have. The next time
they might not say anything.
What Happened In 1910
Frankly speaking, it is an opinion
that the politician who counts only
the votes that are cast on election
day and not the potential vote,
believes the Negro will vote as
usual in very light turnout. This
happened in 1910 when the Third
Term was a pressing issue. Negroes
stayed away from the polls in thou
sands. In 1912, especially in such
heavily concentrated Negro districts
as Chicago's South Side, and New
York's Harlem. This was what
happened as every agency and eff
fort was bent toward obtaining
justice on such issues as Jim Crow
and intolerance in our armed forces
as we'll as in essential war indus
tries, and in the political life of the
nation itself. AS one observer had
it, Negroes went about their bust
ness on election day drinking and
dancing as usual while the white
folks were busy building that fence
higher around all of u.s."
Normally ten per cent of those
who register to vote fail to do so in
any election. This fact makes the
duty of the NAACP and the Ur-
ban League all the more plain and
urgent. The matter is a respons-
Utility of civic leadership as well
as political. Meanwhile, Walter
White must correct an impression
he gave that Negroes might 90
fishing in November if the plat
forms do not say what they should"
Too many Negroes are apt to take
such a statement from such a
source as gospel and actually go