St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1949-01-07

- - W. NAAAAAAg = ANRAAA~NNO WV
enant Is operative unless and
until IL Is questioned In q court
action; few Of those injured by
It are likely to go to Law about
II.
Moreover, few Negroes can
build houses without borrowing
from the banks, which stand SOL
idly with the Washington real-es-
tate interests against invasion of
white districts. In one Washing
ton area after another, during and
since the war, Negroes have been
dispossesSed to make way for
housing projects for whites. "a
climax of some sort is TO be found
in the dog cemetery which will
not give burial to a Negro" dogD
As for employment, nobody
needs TO prove that Negroes are
universally given the meanest
jobs, paid less than white men,
are last to be hired and first to be
fired. In Washington, they are
One-quarter of all the workers, but
are three-quarters of domestic
servants and the unskilled. They
have only six per cent Of the Jobs
at the professional and manager
ial level. They are excluded, COM
pletely or nearly, from work as
boilermakers, motormen, tele-
graph operators, bOokkeepers, ac-
countants. conductors, machinists,
telegraph and telephone hnemen,
metal workers, printing crafts
men, stenographers, typists, tele-
phone operators, clerical workers
and librarians. In government
employ a large group OF Negroes
was compared with the same num-
Der Of white men who. as 1t hap
pened, had exactly the same edu-
catiOnal background, experience,
and proficiency ratings. The white !
men were being promoted 900 per
cent faster.
EducationS The amount spent
for Negro schools Is substan-
TALLY less per pupil than Is
spent on white schools. Negro
teachers have IL to 80 per cent
more pupils TO handle; Negro
schools are In old buildings,
with inferior facilities, and are
far more OVercrOwded than
white schools.
Fairgrounds are segregated; in
one case, for example, there is a
white playground, almost unusued,
across the street from a Negro
school housing 1000, with no play
ground facilities whatever. Super
Wsors are placed on Fairgrounds
to make sure that white and Ne
gro children do not mingle, even
If they want to.
Perhaps you think the mistreat-
ment of Negroes in Washington is
part of the sorry heritage from
the mRlodorOus past, which is be-
ing better little by little as time
goes by?
On the contrary, things were
better half century ago than
they are today. AS long ago as
1872, a District ordinance was
passed forbidding discrimination
in public places, but about the
year 1900 this law mysteriously
disappeared from the collected
statutes. Fifty years ago 1t was
not at all uncommon for Negroes
to be served in Washington res
taurants with white patrons; such
an occurrence is extremely rare to-
day.
In 1875, as most people have
forgotten, Congress passed a ma
tionwide civil-rights law, with
stiff penalties, better than any
thing which exists today except
in three or four of the most ad-
vanced states. 1t was decided I'M
constitutional by a divided Su-
preme Court in 1888, on the sacred
ground of states rights.
Taft Established Jim Crow
William Howard Taft was part
ly responsible for establishing the
color line in government employ
ment, when he personally insisted
that Negro census takers must
not be employed in white districts.
With the first election Of Wood
row Wilson, a relatively new type
of Negro-hater came to Congress,
such men as "Hoke" Smith of
Georgia, "Pitchfork Ben" Tlman
OF South Carolina and James X.
VSrdaman of Mississippi, bringing
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