Hartford chronicle., 1946-09-21

Since the age of about SIX l have been yapping for reform in the United States Congress. It must have more progressive men, has been my constant yelp. I have taken great pains to like, quite stickily, every mildly progressive element I have been able to un- cover in the august - and often useless - high governmental body represented by our representatives and senators. Even the Southern ones like Claude Pepper, when they have placed human rights above the various side nickels and dimes a Congressman manages to latch onto. And when the progres- sive congressman has happened to be coincidentally a Negro, or a member of one of the provenly so- cially-constructive political par ties, I have fairly blown my top in happy anticipation and unwavering support.
 Pm Behind the Eight-Ball
 All of which leaves me away out on a limb - a pants cutting, uncomfortable limb, at this mo- ment. The miserable, reactionary, actually subversive session of the Congress just ended q wouldn't t do to a dog some of the things it did to American history) managed to get through one bill in it's clos ing days that has set the cause of American democracy and justice back by three hundred years. It is a bill which permits the federal government to do a Simon Legree hunting act on escaped fugitives in certain cases.' These certain cases,' as the southern legislators made sure to include, cover virtual ly everything for which a Negro is put onto the brutal, inhuman southern chain gangs. The law makes it a Federal offense to es- cape across a state line from pris- on; no longer, therefore, can a state governor, acting out of mo- tives of the purest justice, suc- cessfully keep the minor Hitlers of the South from retaining their human sacrifices, no matter how much of a n1ockery of justice their original convictions were. The last Congress passed that, and Pm the boy behind the ebony sphere on the felted billiard table.
 Where Were They? fs
 Now that this barbarous, mid dle-ages legislation has been passed, I owe every one of my eleven readers an abject apology. l Not for letting such measure go through; I couldn't have helped that. Nor for not even informing you of it; I had no way of know | ing it was on the congressional agenda. But I humbly apologize to you for many of the things I have said about the alertness and vigil ance, the devotion and zealousness, of William Dawson, Adam Powell, Vito Marcantonio, and several oth- CT gentlemen of our camp in Con- gress whose merits, from time to time, I have religiously recom- mended to you. That these gentle men should not see such a bill in the making, that they should do nothing about it, that they should let it go through - even if it's passage was inevitable - with out raising an inglorious stink to the magnificent heavens, is care lessness of the most deliberate sort. Where were these boys, MY boys?
 The Bill Smells
 A bill as outrightly fascist as this one, as deliberate and vicious an undoing of the simplest human rights as it is, could not possibly have come up iii Congress, gone through and become a law with out SOMEBODY knowing about it. Why didn't my boys know? True, it came near the end of the ses- sion. But if there were enough re- actionary congressman on hand to pass it, couldn't there have been ONE progressive to raise a voice, loud, PUBLIC voice against it? Were ALL of the progressives home campaigning, building bet ter home lives, or vacationing at the same time? And if they were, do you know a reliable psychia- , trist I can see about my head, for | supporting such unvigilant cohorts and buddies? This bill smells as few bills have in recent years, and little guys like you and me had mo- body there with a parliamentary 1 f1lt-can to spray disinfectant around over the odor. We've been done wrong.
 | The Present Scara