St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1945-02-23

A. Taft of Cincinnati is a very
obdurate person. In his present
role in opposition to enactment of
Fair Employment Commission leg
islation with enforcement features,
he is more like Sampson, who, as
his last act, is pulling the temple of
Republicanism down upon himself
and all of his colleagues heads.
No one questions Taft's ability,
but we must certainly question his
judgment. Whether he knows it or
not, his present action is doing
more to drive hundreds of thousands
of Negro votes away from the
Republican party than anything the
New Deal has ever done.
In Ohio, Taft's action is bound to
have many repercussions. He is
sowing seeds of resentment among
the most solid voters the party has.
In the big cities of this state, no
Republican candidates can win with
out the Negro vote. When you
realize that, in this state, there is
an election every year, it is easy
to envision the damage Taft is do
ing to his own party.
Mr.. Senator Taft may reason
that he is safe in office for six
years; therefore, there is nothing
the voters can do to him until
his present term is up. That may
be true, but Mr.. Taft mustn't for
get that rightly or wrongly, he
has become the symbol of the Re-
publican party. Therefore, every
thing he does reflects favorably or
unfavOrably upon the party. The
present controversy over the FEPC
is no exception. The Negro voters
are putting the blame on the Re-
publican party. Now if Mr.. Taft
doesn't mind killing the party in
this state, that's his funeral. But
it seems to me that somewhere
along the line, there are forces suf-
fciently powerful and interested in
the Republican party to apprise
Mr.. Taft of the damage he is doing.
The Republican party can't take
many more defeats and still sur
vive. MIR. Taft has already, by his
actions in Congress, alienated the
labor vote from the party in Ohio.
He now seems hell bent to eliminate
the Negro vote. He had better
realize that, if the Negro vote
leaves and fuses with labor, with
out these two groups, no Republi-
can candidate can win in this state.
Senator Taft isn't smart political
ly at all. There he had in his of
flee some 20 prominent Negroes
from his home state. He knew they
were coming, but he didn't make
any provisions for them at all. The
delegation had to stand during the
entire hour and half the interview
lasted. He could easily have secured
any one of a number of committee
rooms in the Senate Office building
or the Capitol. He showed the dele
cation no courtesies whatever. His
office staff seemed bewildered and
confused.
Senator Taft didn't know it, but
every word he said was taken down
in shorthand. In looking over a
transcript of these notes, l note
how Mr.. Taft revealed by his own
statements how insincere he was
last fall when he voted in commit
tee to report out an FEPC bill with
enforcement features.
First he said: 81 do not consider
the Republican platform calls for
this type of bill "a bill with en-
forcement features), 1 am not in
favor of this bill Is. 1917" Con-
tinuing, he said: "The difference is
do not believe in a compulsory
bill"
Then Councilman Jesse Locker
of Cincinnati said: Someone said
this is similar bill to that which
you did approve last fall" To this
Mr.. Taft answered: Last fall they
reported out bill like this one.
argued against reporting out. We
did report it out, but with the
understanding that it would not be
acted on in the Senate, but would
come back to the Committee for
amendments. ,"
Thus by his own words, Mr.. Taft
says when he was campaigning all
over Ohio last fall, the impressions
he was giving about being for an
FEPC bill were nothing but politi-
cal molasses to catch Negro votes
Councilman Locker, who acted as
chairman and spokesman for the
delegation, did a bang-up job under