Hartford chronicle., 1946-05-04
PLAIN TALK
By John M. Lee

1 Pegler's New York outlet, the
 Hearst Journal has long
 been a most unpopular member of
 the metropolitan daily press. It has been accused of questionable eth
 lcs, and it has not hesitated to use it's power to whip up a frenzy against the Negro. The Christian Science Monitor is a unique publi- cation that follows dainty ethics
 and will not accept liquor ads.
 However, both are newspapers that
 enjoy wide circulation, and this
 would not be so if it were not true that many people find something
 of interest in some part of each paper.
 Neither the self-sufficient Peg
 Ter, nor the talented lady from
 California can say that luck
 charms, love powders, sensational
 news stories or vulgarity are the
 chief reason why people buy Ne
 gro newspapers. Perhaps the day
 will come when the standard of
 the Negro press will be higher,
 but that is, at the moment, an
 ideal that must be worked for like first class citizenship and the right to live where we please.
 The lady from California is try ing to build herself and her paper into giant proportions in her cho- sen field, and that is her right. She has taken on every Negro pa- per in the country, and that is her right, but it should not be a source of comfort to her to know that her most unrealistic public scolding has provided a spring board for Pegler to libel Negro soldiers with these words: ........ 5he majority of the Negro papers turing this war so undermined the 1ational loyalty of Negro service men that they became unmistak- ably responsible for episodes hu- to their own racial ellen ;ele and tragic to many individual Negroes thus seduced to commit grievous military crimes" That statement, MT. Pegler and dear ady, is a DAMN LIE. The rec ] ,rds of the OWI will show that every Negro paper in the country ased volumes of it's material to ] build morale and loyalty through put the war period.
 If Pegler means that by carry ng reports of white peoples dis and curtailment of . Negroes rights at home made the { ,oys at the front angry he should , that both himself and ; he lady from California subscribe { 0 the belief that, Truth is al- { ways dignifed." The influence that Z he Negro press exerted over our ,oys at the front is a normal in f 1uence that the presentation of ruth would ordinarily have. None ( If the white papers, committed to , he practise, deleted the word Ne , gro from any of it's crime stories n difference to better relationship l between the races during the war. i
 Whatever Peglar might say, and much the lady from Cali 'ornia may speak her shame of : Ter people, the condition of the { Negro press reflects accurately the l condition of the Negro race in the ] American scene. You can't
 traighten out the press until we { ;traighten out the race problem. Some of us may grow impatient and disgusted, but nothing will lelp except sincere hard work on Ill fronts. Telling the white man low badly off we are won't help. He knows the score already, and le'll only use our tirades against ourselves to push us farther into he background. The Negro press ( grew before the advent of Pegler md the lady from California, and | t will survive and continue to
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