St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1945-03-23

GEM, SOCldlly-COIlSS1Ouo PSOPAS'
They are both college graduates.
They are people of integrity, am
bition, and promise. They are
leadership material.
That young wife is working hard
at the job of helping her husband
readjust to a normal life-but she
is getting little or no cooperation
from her government, to whom she
paid this week, incidentally, an in
come tax of over $500.
The husband is in his present
condition as result of battle
WEAKNESS. Yet, he has never come
face to face with the Japs or the
Germans. He has been overseas
with an Engineering" unit. His
most potent enemy, however, has
been the prejudices and ambitions
of some of our own American Army
officers.
He and his men have been denied
privilege of leave to be spent in
cities or even villages because of
the color of their skins. He has
seen white officers come into tents
and order pin-up pictures taken off
the walls because the pin-up subject
was a white girl-a famous movie
star. He has heard the white Of
ficer make a speech in CT theatre,
admonishing the men for hooting
and whistling at the appearance of
chorus girls on the screen-because
they were white girls, unknown in
dividually to either officers or men.
He has seen the theatre closed be-
cause a grumbling at such an at
titude was detected among the men.
He has seen a high-ranking Of
fcer, white, broken in health and
spirit because of the obstacles
thrown in his path as result of his
humane attitude toward his colored
troops. He has seen that officers
son prosecuted in first one division
and then another simply because he
was the offspring of such father.
He had to go over the head of his
regimental surgeon to get hospitali-
zation for a neurotic condition
which manifested itself in convul-
sions in his sleep. And he has heard
that regimental surgeon say that he
would readily recommend white
soldiers for return to the United
States because of neurotic condi-
tions, but mary a Negro" because
it might hurt his chances of becom-
ing colonel.
All this happened overseas.
And now, he is in this country
at a convalescent center where a
marvellous program is in operation
for the rehabilitation of men who
are suffering from neurotic condi-
lions resulting from war. And he
sees the same color restrictions. He
sees over $50 Negro soldiers, at the
center for the same reasons, con-
fined to hospital wards, denied
participation in any of the daily,
scheduled programs designed to
help rehabilitate them. Only white
soldiers are being rehabilitated
there.
Added to that are the community
prejudices he meets in the southern
area surrounding the convalescent
center. And heaped on top of that
is what he reads of the attitude of
some members of the Congress of
the United States toward legisla-
ton for a permanent FEPC, anti
poll tax, confirmation of liberal
Aubrey Williams.
He has a chance to regain him.
self only because his wife has more
than a smattering knowledge of
psychology, because she is de-
termined to understand the changes
which have been brought about in
him and to help him.
But what about the thousands
and thousands who will come back
unable to analyze what has hap
pened to them? What about the
thousands who will not find the
sympathetic cooperation this Of
ficer's wife is giving? What about
the thousands who will not be able
to exercise the social restraints
this officer has been able to put in
use? What about the thousands
who will have neither decent homes
nor decent jobs available to them
when they return?
Herein lie the seeds of inter-
national scandal. America is offer
ing leadership to a world composed
of one-fourth white and three
fourths colored people. Can it be
that the officers of our Army, and
the government of our United
States, whose brilliant military
achievement and home front efforts
will have won the war, will be
guilty of having lost it nevertheless
because of racial prejudices?
ST. PAUL INDUCTEES