Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1946-03-30
Race Relations Coverage
Banned In ,. c. Bureau
Agricultural
Economics
Unit Hit


date, must restrict its activitie
to the gathering and dissemination
/ Of statistical data related to agri
! culture. and not explore and no
inquire into the question Of rae,
relations in counties in southern
states.
Restrictions on the activities OF
the Agricultural Economics Blu.
reau were invoked after southern
members of the House Appropria.
tons Subcommittee on the Agri-
| culture Department had browbeat-
en- ii. r. Tolley, chief of the bu-
reau, during hearings on the Ag-
| riculture Departments 1917 ap-
preparations.
10 make its mandate effective
the House Topped off $485,543 of
an appropriation recommended by
the Budget Bureau for the Agri-
cultural Economics Bureau.
BILL NOW PENDING
The appropriation bill is now
pending in the Senate Appropria-
tions committee. The Senate itself
after the bill is reported may ap-
prove the cut, restore the funds
Topped off, or further reduce the
appropriation.
The wrath Of southern members
of the House Appropriations Com
mittee was provoked by a report
concerning Coahoma County, Mis-
sissippi, made to DR.. Tolley by
staff members. 1t was intended for
use by officials of the Agriculture
Department in order that they
might have before them the situa-
ton in the counties studied.
According to Representative
Malcolm C. Tarver, of Georgia,
chairman of the appropriations
subcommittee, about 40 or SO per
cent of the report was devoted to
race relations in urban as we'll as
rural areas.
The report stated:
"At present the militant Negro
leadership in urban centers Of the
North is making it's opinion felt
on the rural Negroes of Coahoma
County, for number of them sub
scribe to northern newspapers
which do not hesitate to emphasize
injustices done Negroes"
Judge Tarver declared that
statement an indictment of the
people Of Coahoma County.
COMPARES TREATMENT
II think that the treatment ac-
corded Negroes in industrial CEN
ters of the North is much worse
than that which is accorded Ne
groes in the agricultural sections
of the South in which they are
dealt with, on the whole, with sym
patty and understanding" he de-
clared.
Judge Tarver was particularly
critical of the report because it
stressed "the Importance of lead
ership, so-called militant northern
Negro leadership, which, in my
Judgment, is a most unfortunate
hing and which is doing a great
/ err injury to the Negroes of the
South than anything else when it
comes to the handling of racial
problems which exist in the South
problems which in the main are
stirred up by these northern agl-
tators, who seem to take every
opportunity of stirring up things
of this character"
ADMINISTRATION
The Agriculture Department adj
ministers:
The free school lunch program
toward which the federal govern
ment contributes $50.0OO,000 a
year.
| The Extension Service, for which
a total of $27,233,660 is provided
in the 1947 Agriculture Depart
ment appropriation bill. These
funds are allotted to the States
and distributed between the white
and colored Immigrant colleges. A
recent study made by the Negro
Newspaper Publishers Association
revealed that the seventeen coloreo
land-grant colleges get a dispro-
portionately small share OF these
funds.
The Farm Security Administra-
ton, which administers the rural
rehabilitation program providing
loans for low-income families who
are unable to obtain credit on rea-
sonable terms from any other
source; the farm tenancy program
which lends funds to tenant farm
ers and veterans for the purchase
of small farms.
Colored farmers, to some ex-
tent, participate in all of these
programs. The data collected on
race relations in counties in south
ern states with large colored pop
ulations would enable the. Agricnl.
ture Department to determine
whether these programs are pc
ing fairly administered. But the
House has told the Agricultural
Economics Bureau that it must mol
collect such information by with
holding funds for such studies.