St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1962-06-22
Freeman Appoints SeabrOn

The appointment last week by Secretary Orville
Freeman, of another former Nnnnesotan, William
(Bil) Seabron to Washington post as assistant to
the personnel director of the US Department of
Agriculture, may do much to obvate the criticism
of the departments racial hiring and upgrading
policies by segments of the Negro press.
Some of the criticism of the Freeman directed
and think partly unwarranted. Freeman inherited
from prior administration a governmental bureau
with 100 900 employees the bulk of them civil
service
1t is charged that his predecessor the famed
Ezra Benson color conscious that when he
assumed the post he wanted to get rid of the Negro
chauffeur who had served at least two prior secre
taries, if it meant reduction in grade of the
employee.
The Agriculture department all other gov
eminent bureas admittedly rife with job in
CAPABILITIES as far as Negroes concerned, when
the Kennedy administration took over the national
administration This true not only under the
prior Eisenhower administration but also under
Truman and Roosevelt administrations.
Under Kennedy some of the cabinet heads
got the word and Immediately began to clean up
the ant-Negro practices which previously kept
most Negro workers in the lower paid job CLASH
fications whether they were qualified for advance
ment not.
The State Department, the Attorney Generals
department, the US Postoffice, the Commerce
Department moved almost Immediately to institute
fair employment practices Others have been slowly
getting into line.
Former Governor Freeman, a known liberal
faced with the million complexities of the con-
troversia Agriculture department found in addition
to the farm problems, the South firmly entrenched
in Agriculture with employment standards, prac-
tees closely following the ante-bellum lines
written and unwritten
The Negro press which expected immediate
action by Freeman because of his liberal policy
in Minnesota wasted no time in leveing off at his
department almost before he in office month
Anyone having experience with the personality
of the former Minnesota governor knows he has a
streak of stubboness in his character and the crit
icism did not set well with him.
Freeman among the young Democrats from
Minnesota led by Hubert H. Humphrey who upset
the 1913 Democratic National convention by obtain
ing approval of the strongest civil rights plank in
US political convention history. Perhaps he felt his
prior record in this instance and also Governor
entitled him to time for instituting fair en-
poyment practice program in the agriculture de-
parment.
The Seabron appointment is a good sign that
Secretary Freeman intends to do the same job in
Agriculture which other cabinet members have been
doing in the other departments. His job will be
more difficult because Of the huge number of en-
poyes and certain ingrained Dixie type practices
which have grown up in the department and existed
even during the secretaryship of Henry Wallace
Certainly in Seabron, who resigned the deputy
dictatorship of the Michigan Fair Employment
Practices commission to take the post, Freeman will
have person whom the Negroes trust and who is
articulate and able to convince and persuade even
the most unreasonable Of the unjustness of employ
ment discrimination American practice.