CHRISTIANS AND COMMUNISTS

Every so often somebody breaks out in print and calls me a Communist, evidently under the impression that they are calling me a dirty name. Well, they can't hurt my feelings that way because I have as much respect and admiration for true Communists as I have for true Christians, since both of them are trying to make the world better, *while* And those who cry, "Red! Red!" are trying to make it worse. I have never yet heard tell of Mr. Dies opposing the Jim Crow laws of his native state of Texas, yet he can get awfully mad about something the Russians have done way over in Russia not half as bad as what *home of his lily-white constituents* ~~doest~~ to Negroes and Mexicans every day. *down in the lone star state.*

Gerald L. K. Smith and his America Firsters in Detroit have been the latest to attack me as a Communist. *Aime Semple McPherson* out in California did, too, a few years ago. Both Mr. Smith and Mrs. McPherson threw picketx lines around the places where I was speaking and distributed handbills proclaiming me an enemy of religion and of democracy. Yet never to my knowledge have either Mr. or Miss McPherson picket to pass the *anti-lynching bill*, or to force the employment of colored people in factories from which they are barred, or to get Texas *years eternen* to permit them the freedom of the vote, *however*, *or in any other way to extend to us* democracy.

Bishop Haas, of the FEPC and Earl Browder of the Communist Party are both trying to achieve a few/democratic equalities for Negroes. I respect them both, although I am neither a *MM* Catholic nor a Communistx. I belong to no church and no party, but I believe in a fair deal for everybody, Negro and white, and I don't believe in races fighting each other stupidly because of a difference in skin *xx* color. I don't believe an America divided into black and white is a *xx* strong America. I don't believe an America afraid of Christian ethics or socialist economics is a good America. Doing unto others *as they do unto us*.

2.

moxibustion as you would have others do unto you, is not a bad idea.

Nor would it be bad if the mines, the factories, and the means of
production belonged to all the people, not to a few great corpora-
tions intent on exploiting the people. Also the apartment houses, Rents
in Harlem and Chicago's South side would certainly be lower if the
buildings there belonged to the people, and not to the banks and the big
landlords.

Sure there are things wrong with the Communists party, just as
there are things wrong with the Christian church as it is established
(It's primarily a Jim Crow church in the first place.)
in America. But their local failings have little to with the basic
of church or party
principals of Marxism or Christianity. It takes more than a Billy
value
Sunday doing acrobatics down a saw-dust trail to destroy the beauty
of the teachings of Christ. It takes more than the occasional blun-
ders of the DAILY WORKER to destroy the economic truths of practical
Marxism. Human beings are human beings in the Church or in the Party
and in either place they are liable to make mistakes. (Likewise as Re-
publicans or Democrats---but these latter big-wigs don't attempt to be
anything as useful to mankind as either Christians or Communists.)
Some

3.

With all its defects, however, one thing I do know is that if the white Christians of America hadn't sent teachers and money down South in the days just after slavery and set up schools for the newly freed Negroes, we wouldn't have had the first bit of education in our heads for years. Another thing I do know is that if the Communists hadn't set up and firmly established the Red Army in Red Russia we might have had Hitler all over Europe and Asia by now, getting ready to come on over here.

Another thing I surmise is that if there were no Christian influence in America, weak as it has sometimes been in the more backward regions of our country, the lynchers would have a field day more often than they do. Another thing I surmise is that if there had been no Communist influence in America, the more conservative parties like the Republicans and the Democrats would not now be handing out New York City judgeships and setting up Fair Employment Practice Committees to keep the Negro vote in line. The Communists have always come out squarely for full Negro rights in regard to every aspect of America life. The other parties have to think up something to conteract that mighty statement/which just about equals the Preamble to the Constitution.

I know religion is one thing and politics is another, but in ethics and morals they meet and merge, as do all activities of life. Of course, some Communists are almost sure to accuse me of confusing

MM Communists are sure to accuse me of confusing the issues when I speak of them and Christians in the same breath. And some Christians are sure to accuse me of being as bad as Gerald L. K. Smith says I am, for the same reason. The columns of the DEFENDER are open both verbally to them/to proceed to/knock me down and flatten me out. The reason I am not a Communist is because I don't always understand what they are talking about. I don't always understand the ministers either. I am willing to admit/there is something wrong somewhere with my intelligence. But what little sense I have got, and what little understanding I do possess, I try to put at the service of the making of a better world in which there won't be any Jim Crow or poverty or senseless warring due to greed or race. Personally, I would like to see a world with no Jim Crow churches, no Red baiting, and no poverty.