Hartford chronicle., 1946-09-07

| IAC CASCPtlOho, anu 4lhC hlooI SA-
 captions, are too few for their
 use as any yardstick. The major offenders in the do-nothing policy
 for vets have naturally been the American Legion and the Vet
 erans of Foreign Wars. If there
 is any chance of making a dis
 tinction between the two, the
 VF'W is the less pernicious of the
 pair. But neither has ever come 1 out strenuously for a program of housing for war veterans. Nei- ther has ever made an organized stand to exert the political might | of millions of men who bore arms in their nations defense. And of utmost importance to the Negro, neither has ever done a tinker's dime worth of work to break down discrimination within their own rangs. These things the new veteran wants; he knows he has to have them if the weight of the veteran of the second world war is to be felt.
 Legion Again The Worst
 In these things, again let it be said, the Legion has the smelliest record of the two major veterans group of the first world war. But both smell to the high heavens. The Legion has tolerated, even fostered, systematic policy of jim-crowism that no self-respect- ing veteran would countenance for
 Mitchell and Pickle" Hie used minute. In the South there have been jim-crow chapters; when white Legionnaires have pro- tested against their existence, even these have been wiped out, and the Negro Legionaire was a man without Legion. Little or no effort has been made to break down discrimination in Legion ranked even in Northern centers where there was no slightest ex- tenuation for it's presence. If the VFW has ever come forward with any strong program against the Legion's practices in this regard, it has not come to my attention. Note the Contrast
 Contrast this with any of the larger groups of new Vets and their policies. Two of the largest, to my knowledge, have inserted antiAjim crow legislation INTO THEIR CHARTERS. Others have started out with Negroes fully integrated into their programs from the very beginning. One of the newer groups has far-reach- ing housing program which has a good chance of success; it provides for a complete absence of segre- gation in the housing of veterans the country over. Other policies of the new vets are just as broad. l No Time For Sentiment
 This is no time for sentiment. | The new veteran knows that he is veteran second; he is first an | American, part of the same American mass from which he went to war, The war-mongering policies of the Chamber of Com merce boys in the American Le- zion leadership have no part in the new vets schedule because he knows that these Let's-Fight-R Rus sia-Now babies aren't figuring on fighting anyone anytime; they are figuring on Young Joe doing the fighting when they have whipped up the war. And Young Veteran Joe doesn't want any more war. Young Joe knows that he has to | have housing, and he knows that 1 the old-timers in the older vets bodies aren't going to give it to l him. They didn't get it for them selves. He knows that his main | strength lies in the full support | of all veterans, regardless of race or religion. And he knows that the American Legionnaires who tore up their membership tablet because it contained Japanese American names, who attend every fashionable lynching of Ne groes in the South, aren't the lads to come out on a unity program. ! Thinking these things over, Young Vet Joe is realizing more and more every day that he needs a strong unifying organization for veterans of the second world war, and that to get it he is going to have to shun the older groups like the plague. Hence, the whole concentration must be on strong, virile, American groups of his own. And I believe Young Joe !S poino to pet them