St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1945-02-16
Nai Prisoners
Practice Dixie
WhiteSupremacy
By L. j. Perry

prisoners of war have started a
system of working hand in glove
with the Bourbon South in giving
the Negro soldier another type of
slap in the face.
On Monday, January %, 1916, a
group of German prisoners who are
working as Kitchen police and
cooks assistants at the Base Hos
pital of MacDill Field, Tampa,
Florida, refused to work if Negro
military patients were continued
permission to eat in the same hos
pital mess hall with the white, even
though these Negro patients ate
on separate sides of the mess hall
which has been the custom.
Strangely enough, the hospital Of
ficials, who stated they were acting
on orders from Washington, i'm
mediately began a system of feed
ing the colored military and civilian
personnel in separate mess hall
entirely. AS if by compromise,
however, the colored personnel were
then given white cooks in their
segregated mess hall. AS this goes
to press, both colored military pa
tients and civilian employees
state that the practice is still in
effect.
1t has long been a policy here
at this post, where the Negro
strength now approximates that of
the white section, to hospitalize
white and colored military per-
sonnet in the same wards, even
though they are filled with the
white patients from one end of the
ward toward the middle and the
colored from the other end toward
the middle. This same general
policy was practiced in the hospital
mess hall with colored military and
civilian personnel eating on one
side of the mess hall while the
whites ate on the other.
Feeling among the colored SOL
diers, who largely come under the
command of the Engineer Aviation
Unit Training Center, runs from
humiliation to. utter disgust with
its consequent lowering of morale.
Yet, these soldiers are fearful of
making any representations of an
official nature for fear of court
ing roundabout retaliation. Pro-
tests to minor officials of the
EAUTC have met with the usual
sympathetic response but with no
action to implement it.
No official announcement has
been forthcoming from either Col. |
Harold W. Kohl, who commands
the Base Hospital, or from Capt.
George R. Gresham, who commands
the German Prisoner of War camp
at this post. 1t appears that this
latest form of Nazi-South segrega-
ton ties in with recent clamorings
on the part of white Tampans
against the excellent food given |
German prisoners in contrast to
the ration-ridden food Tampans are
getting. Just as this controversy
over differences in weekly menus
between Tampans and German
prisoners was at it's height along |
came this German prisoner protest |
against the mess hall arrange
ments in the Base Hospital, which |
seemingly could have been an over
ture to white Tampans to clay off,
go easy on US; we play your game"
Just what action, if any, Col.
Reynolds ]. Burt intends to take |
is not known. Col. Burt commands |
the EAUTC, but allows his admin
istrative director, 1t. Col. Robert F. |
Hoffman, to handle such ticklish |
matters. It has long been known
that Hoffman's attitude to the |
colored troops under this command |
has been a little short of tolerant. |
His chief stock in trade has usually |
been the appeasement of entrenched |
southern interests, even though it |
meant the further inconvenience to
his Negro personnel.