The Northwest Enterprise

Mrs. C. Booth Luce Tells GOP Go Back To Lincoln

Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am happy to be here, and honored that on an occasion so dear to the hearts of all Americans, you have asked me to be one of your speakers. I am going to talk about a question inescapably associated with the name of Abraham Lincoln, and the Republican Party--the question of the Negro.

Now it is traditional that political orators begin their addresses by trying to put their listeners in a good humor by telling what is called a funny story. And since my talk tonight has to do, as I say, with a great political tradition it is right that I should open with the traditional humorous anecdote.

This one is about the American Military Observer sent to Russia to study Soviet plane production and who was shown through Russia's foremost plane factory. His guide, a Russian General, while highly extolling proletarian production records, showed the American the assembly line filled with planes as far as the eye could reach. The American officer at once observed a peculiarity common to all the planes that he could see. He turned to his Russian brother officer, and asked rather mischievously, "But where are the propellers? Haven't you Communists solved that problem?"

Whereupon the Russian general, who knew quite as well as the American this was an item only the assembly belt of capitalistic Detroit could supply, drew himself up with a frown and replied, "And what about your Negro problem?"

It is perhaps part of the perversity of human nature that we find our funny stories funnier when the gaiety is spiced with a touch of sadness. And if that is so, this should be the funniest story of the evening because-for proud Americans, proud of the American way of life-this story uncovers a deep vein of sadness.

Suppression of Minority Rights

For Americans--as men of good will in the world-must forever find themselves uneasily standing on shaky ground in criticizing the conduct of other nations towards their minorities as long as our own is vulnerable.

Is there something we Americans would like to say about Russian aggression against its neighbor states, and their suppression of minority rights and destruction of liberty and freedom? Do we hold a hard opinion of French policy in Syria and Lebanon? Or of British policy in India or Palestine? Is there something we would like to say about the conduct of the Argentine Government? Were we shocked and indignant because of the Nazi slaughter of the Jewish peoples of Europe? Or the Japanese cruelties to the luckless ones who fell into their hands?

And still what answer have we to make to Imperialists and Totalitarians whom we condemn these policies and they retort, "And how do we treat your Negroes?"

There are many times, I am sure, when all Americans, Democrats no less than Republicans, confess to themselves, "Our treatment of the Negroes is an American hypocrisy which every good citizen must do everything in his power to end." But, the inescapable political fact is that this thought is in the direct line of our great Republican tradition, and is only divergently embraced by a few Northern Democrats.

The Republican Party was born in the tradition of Negro Freedom. In the establishment of it, Republican men and women invested their hearts and their minds and their blood. But it cannot be finally ours, as Republicans until we have as Republicans completed the task which was begun by that greatest of all Republicans Abraham Lincoln.

Or Else Others Will Do It

Either we Republicans must do it or it will be done for us. For of one thing I am certain: The
MORE ABOUT Back To Lincoln

moral sense of this nation cannot long be denied. We must again have a great Republican president, or we shall have a great Revolution. A great president who will solve this greatest of American dilemmas - the Negro question, and finish the job that Abraham Lincoln so nobly started.

The Civil War freed the Negro physically, but it did not free him to make a decent living. to live in decent homes, or to make full use of his capabilities. And until all this is accomplished, the Negro is not really a free man, nor is America really a free nation.

The Negro, who was freed by Abraham Lincoln from the individual master must be freed from his present condition, which is that of being the slave of our whole society. He who was turned loose from the plantation, naked, hungry, destitute, still walks a dusty road, with little in his pocket but the franchise and sometimes not that. It is our job to free him completely from the economic slavery that is still relatively his lot.

That is one of the greatest meanings of the Republican task before us, and one of the main reasons why we must elect a Republican Congress. For with a Republican Congress this will not be so great a task as you might think. In Lincoln's time the Negro was enslaved both physically and economically. That was the size of the herculean challenge which faced Abraham Lincoln. The task that faces us is only half so great.

If Lincoln and the Republican men and women of his time had the moral courage to roll up their sleeves and wade into the job when it was twice as great, shall it phase Republican men and women of today when the job is only half as great?

It Is a Christian Problem

How should we as individual Republicans approach the problem? There are many ways: We can think of it as a Christian problem. The ethics of our Christian morality will not let us rest until our conscience is clear on the so-called Negro question. For as Christians, we know that there are no such things as "Negro rights" or "white rights," there are only human rights, which Negro and white and brown and yellow all claim equally as members of the human family, and children of God. In every way, the Christian approach to the problem is the soundest, the truest and the safest. And indeed it is a matter of record that the most fruitful work done in the elimination of discrimination in this country is being done on a united front by religious groups of all faiths and denominations. For they approach this problem armed with principles which are ancient immutable and godly. The Bilbos of our Congress evoke many secular authorities, and political and economic principles for their intolerant attack on the Negro. But not even Senator Bilbo has had the impudence to quote Scripture as witness. Why? Well, let us quote some Scripture for him. It has been said, "If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother he is a liar." Against this supreme charge Senator Bilbo must find himself defenseless, now and eternally. Let us try, as best we can, to stay out of that dreadful docket with him, for unhappily all of us have, to some extent, failed our brothers.

For the Money Minded

There is another way we Americans can approach the Negro problem: as patriots. Can we, as patriots rest easily so long as there is a black blot on the American flag for which America must face the world with shame?

The third way to approach the problem is as practical, money-minded men and women to figure out in dollars and cents what our failure to solve the Negro problem costs us. How much does it cost us, as taxpayers, when a member of an average Negro family falls ill? Or has children?

When such contingencies occur in the average impoverished Negro family few ever think of calling a doctor. That is to say, a private doctor. And why? Because such families have had the previous experience of not being able to obtain a doctor. For doctors too. must live and alacrity does not spring spontaneously when the doctor's experience tells him that he almost certainly will not be paid. But whatever the merits of that may be, do you know what the standard practice is, as every hospital in America can testify?

A Negro family calls an ambulance. And either public or private philanthropic funds pay the bill. Those funds come from the community pocket.

Or let us remember the long depression years when Negroes constituted a disproportionate share of the nation's relief load.

No practical minded citizen wants to have to lift that kind of load again. It is too costly to the taxpayers when people are on relief. It is cheaper for all that they should be working.

Or take it the other way round. We Republicans know that every thing that Americans produce increases the wealth of the nation. And conversely we know that what Americans fail to produce fails to increase the wealth of the nation. By denying equal job opportunity to the Negro we are denying him the full and free right to produce to the limit of his capacity and talents and we also deny to America the benefit of the wealth he would have produced.

As a member of the House Military Affairs Committee, I can tell you that the whole nation was forced to pay for it when wartime training programs financed from federal funds were barred to Negroes by discriminatory administration of state and local educational officials. In the Southern States, where three fourths of the Negro labor was to be found, training facilities were woefully inadequate and frequently non-existent. In the 18 Southern and border states where Negroes constitute 22 per cent of the total population, they constituted only 4 per cent of the total workers for war industries in January, 1942. In the state of Texas, where Negroes were 14.3 per cent of the population, they comprised less than 2 per cent of the persons admitted to training for defense production in 1942.

Bigotry Caused Deaths of White Boys

Discrimination against the Negro weakened our army's fighting potential and the potential of our production belts. Many a white mother today has sacrificed a white son on the altars of white prejudice.

We send our children to schools and colleges because we know the greatness of America depends on the development of their talents and capabilities to the fullest possible extent. Hard headed practical men know who is the ultimate loser by this conspiracy to prevent the development of the intellectual talents and capabilities of 10 per cent of our population. It is all of America.

In Baltimore. Negroes comprise 20 per cent of the population and are crammed and jammed into 2 per cent of the residential area.

In Chicago a quarter of a million Negroes live in units built to house 150,000 people. The second and third wards of Chicago have a population density of 90,000 per square mile, which is comparable to the teeming squalor of Calcutta. India.

These conditions impose an insupportable burden on the communities where they exist. They stack up health bills, sanitation bills, crime bills, prison bills, police bills, fire bills, and a continually lengthening list of costs to the community.

These are the price of poverty and the human degradation which poverty breeds.

Every intelligent American knows the economic drain that the ghettos of Europe placed upon the economy of Europe. Our Negro ghettos--for segregation and discrimination create ghettos--is the same drain on us.

Hard headed practical Republicans know that these are the ways in which we can save money: by making it possible for the Negro to earn a decent living, by

(Continued next week)