The Gary American

FORD QUESTIONS OWENS' WISDOM IN BACKING LANDON

NEW YORK, Sept.--(CNA)-

The wisdom of Jesse Owens' espousal of the candidacy of Governor Landon, Republican Presidential candidate, was questioned by James W. Ford, Negro Communist Vice Presidential candidate, in an interview with newspaper men last week.

Ford, just returned to New York from the first lap of a national campaign tour, painted a graphic picture of his experiences with jim-crow reaction and fascist violence on his trip. He had instructed his attorney, he said, to bring suit against the Scranton, Pa., Y.M.C.A., where he was refused accommodations. He reported that labor and civic groups in Toledo, O., where a gas bomb was thrown into one of his meetings, were demanding a Federal investigation of the outrage.

He accused Toledo daily newspapers of inciting violence against the labor movement and the Negro people.

The noted Negro leader paid a high tribute to the Buckeye Bullet, warmly praising Owens' sensational achievements at the Olympics. He questioned, however, whether the 22-year old track star, who will cast his first Presidential vote this year, was sufficiently conversant with the issues of the 1936 campaign, the most portentous since the Civil War, to warrant his coming out openly for Landon. In this connection, Ford cited Jessie's own admission that he was not acquainted with all the issues of the campaign.

In an interview at Republican Eastern headquarters here, Jesse told reporters 'He (Landon) does not promise a lot of things, but what promises he makes I think he will keep. I am just an athlete and I don't know all the figures and arguments, but I do know a sincere man when I read his record and speeches.'

Displaying a warm regard for Owens throughout the discussion, Ford contended that Jesse was unwittingly doing his race a disservice by supporting Landon. The Communists candidate backed up his contentions with caustic references to Landon's record: his support of racial discrimination at the University of Kansas where Landon appointees have introduced discriminatory practices against Negro students; the Kansas Governor's advocacy of $1.08 a week relief for a Kansas unemployed family of five., and his use of troops last year to defeat a strike of Kansas miners for better conditions. One gathered from Ford's remarks that he had serious doubts that Jesse had given careful study to Landon's record.

'Owens was unwise to support Landon, whose most notorious backer, William Randolph Hearst, has ideas identical with those of Hitler, who insulted Negroes all over the world by his treatment of Owens in Berlin,' Ford asserted.

'Owens,' he continued, 'made a splendid record at the Olympics for himself and his race. But unknowingly he is doing his people- my people--a disservice by supporting Landon.'

Hits Jim Crow in Sports
A former athlete himself, Ford remarked that he could appreciate what Jesse has been up against in sports by reason of Jim-crow practices. He had played semi-professional baseball himself and knew of numerous qualified Negro players who were kept out of the big leagues because of jim-crow club owners and sport officials.

Assailing Landon as a puppet of the reactionary Hearst - Liberty League Black Legion combination, Ford expressed the opinion that Jesse would have done better to adopt a non-partisan attitude if he did not want to join with the progressive forces seeking 'to keep Hearst out of the White House.'

He thought Jesse could have done a great service to his people by throwing 'all his energy and world-wide prestige with those progressive forces which are building a Farmer-Labor Party throughout the country and right in Owens' home state, Ohio.'