The Illinois standard. [volume], October 09, 1948, Page 4, Image 4

About The Illinois standard. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1948-1949

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,— - THE ILLINOIS
5? owned and published WEEKLY by The Illinois Progressive
Publishing Co., Inc., 187 N. LaSalle St., Chicago 1, 111.
Phone: RAndolph 6-9270
METZ P LOCHARD . Editor
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WILLIAM SENNETT. General Manager
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Entered as second class matter at the post office at
Chicago, 111., under the Act of March 3, 1879.
editorial
HENRY WALLACE, in his tour of the South, has shaken
all America to a rude awakening as to the state of our
country's moral strength, political integrity, and national
sense of justice. History has now recorded his answer to
the question of “Am I my brother's keeper?”
Regardless of how one views the political beliefs of
Henry Wallace, his fellow citizens recognize that he has
come to grips, as few men have, since Lincoln. writh the
fundamental cancer that is destroying our American heri
tage of freedom.
Let no man or woman in America delude himself that
what has taken place in the Carolinas, Alabama, Georgia,
and Mississippi, affects only the relations between white
and Negro Americans. This is much more than the issue of
race relations.
THE PROGRESSIVE people all over the world will not
regard it in this light and we, here in America, cannot
sc consider it.
Henry Wallace has sought only to apply the Constitu
tion of the United States and the Declaration of Independ
ence to our daily lives, in all parts of our great country.
If the answer that he has received in the South is to prevail,
then the last great hope of democracy will have gone.
For our country must be an entity — as one nation.
This country cannot survive half slave and half free.
The organized mob violence of the South will conquer
the nation, or democracy will prevail equally everywhere.
It must be one or the other. It cannot be both.
Could he funny
Although K r e i s 1 e r pre
ferred playing in public to
appearing at private houses,
he was persuaded to per
form for the famed but ob
noxious Mrs. Astorbilt. His
fee was a thousand dollars.
"A thousand dollars?” said
the rich hostess. 'Isn't that
rather high?”
“That is my fee,” said
Kreisler.
"Well, I suppose I’ll have
to pay it,” said she. "But
remember, you are an enter
tainer. and as such you must
not mingle with my guests.”
“In that case,” said the
violinist, “my fee will be
five hundred dollars.”
CONGRESSMAN DRlPP BY YOMEN
(ft) “ _^ _
•/DREAMED THEY FORMED A CONGRESSMEN'S
* UNIONr _
HENRY WALLACE says: Jim Crow must go!
TN MY recent trip through the
* South I was again impressed
with the fact that the problems
of that region are basic to the
problems of our entire nation;
and the problems of the Negro
people lie at the
very heart of
the problem of
the South.
The cancerous
disease of race
hate, which
bears so heavily
upon Negro citi
zens, and at the
same time drags the masses of
southern white citizens into the
common quagmire of poverty
and ignorance and political
servitude, is not an isolated
problem to be attacked com
pletely apart from our other na
tional problems. It is part of
an ever more dominant philo
sophy of dollars above men, of
property values over human
values.
The Jim Crow system pays
handsome profits to a small
number of men in positions of
economic and political power.
Jim Crow divides white and
Negro for the profit of the few.
It is a very profitable system
indeed.
We have only to examine the
wages paid to white and Negro
workers in southern agriculture
and industry to see how profit
able this system is. We find, of
course, that Negro workers re
ceive many millions of dollars
less pay than the same number
of white men doing similar jobs.
But that is only part of the
profits from Jim Crow.
We look further and we find
that southern white workers re
ceive far lower wages than their
brothers in the north. It is then
that we get some measure of the
tremendous fortunes which are
wrung out of the hides of all
workers by a system which di
vides Negro and white and in
creases the exploitation of both.
It is a system which puts many
millions of extra dollars every
year into the pockets of the
owners and rulers of the South.
It is “good business’’ for the
few; but it means ignorance,
disenfranchisement, poverty,
undernourishment, disease, ter
ror and death for the many.
The fight against monopoly
dominance is at the very core
of the fight to abolish segrega
tion. The wartime recess in this
fight is part of the reason for
our failure to make headway in
the fight against Jim Crow.
We have known that those
who profit from the traffic in
human misery in the South are
not exclusively southerners. We
have known that the big Wall
Street interests dominate the
southern economy. We have
known that our fight for justice
in the South is doomed to fail
unless we carry the bigger fight
We must act on this knowledge.
As we take the offensive to
lick Jim Crow, we must keep
our eyes on the principal op
position—the big interests for
whom Jim Crow is profitable.
We must not be distracted into
fights against their other vic
tims, their tools—the prejudiced
and bigoted workers, farmers,
and small business people who
have been so warped by their
economic masters that they do
not respond to principled ap
peals.
We must talk to these sad
victims in language they under
stand. If they see a clear pic
ture of the concentration of eco
nomic power in Wall Street;
if they see clearly Wall Street’s
domination of Washington; and
if they can be made to see the
high day-to-day cost they pay
for a system of Jim Crow, we
shall win strong allies in our
fight.
The freedom of all workers,
farmers, small businessmen, and
professional people, North and
South, white and Negro, de
pends on our final victory in
the fight to destroy Jim Crow.
It is a fight we must and will
win.
CIO-AFL endorsements look bad—even on paper
IF THE right-wing majority that
controls both CTO and AFL
has its way, the voters will real
ly get stuck with a lot of shady
characters.
Both labor or
ganizations have
made known
"1 their p o 1 i t ical
_p r e f e r e nces.
- Some of them
are nothing less
_J than amazing.
Let’s take four of the contests
for state representatives, just for
example.
To simplify this business, we’ll
call James J. Adduci, Republic
an incumbent in the 2nd dis
trict, Exhibit A.
“Janies Adduci was arrested
by the police in 1933 with Will
iam Bioff,” the Chicago Crime
Commission informs us.
After he abandoned white
slavery in favor of the more lu
crative shakedown racket, Bioff
became a labor racketeer, mak
ing sell-out deals with employers
and crushing democracy among
the members of the union he
controlled, the International Al
liance of Theatrical Stage Em
ployees & Moving Picture Mach
ine Operators (AFL).
And now the one-time asso
ciate of this labor racketeer is
endorsed for election by the
right-wing majority leadership
of CIO and AFL, who refuse to
endorse a single Progressive
Party candidate.
But let’s get back to Adduci,
Willie Bioff’s buddy.
Has Adduci abandoned his
fondness for hoodlums? Let the
record answer that question.
The crime commission says
that Adduci was one of the “key
men” who led “the organized bit
ter fight” in the state legislature
against five bills designed to
“slrengthen the hands of law en
forcement agencies in this area.”
* ♦ *
CiNCE CIO and AFL endorsed
*■- Adduci despite his opposition
to those five bills, it would ap
pear that neither group feels
that defense of the interests of
organized gangsterism is a bad
thing for a law-maker.
In fact, both CIO and AFL
I seem to feel that it’s actually a
virtue for a state representative
to have helped the underworld,
judging from their endorsements
in the 17th district.
There CIO and AFL right
wingers would like their mem
bers to vote for one Republican
and two Democrats. The GOP
hopeful is Peter C. Granata. The
Democrats are Andrew A. Euz
zino and John D’Arco. All are
incumbents seeking re-election.
Why did CIO and AFL en
dorse them? God only knows.
But one thing we do know: all
three, like Adduci, were “key
men” in the same fight to save
Chicago’s underworld from
stricter law enforcement, accord
ing to the Chicago Crime Com
mission.
It is also interesting to recall
that Euzzino, for one, is so well
acquainted with the Capone
mob, that—in the words of the
crime commission — he “was
called as a witness to identify
Tony Accardo’s handwriting” in
“the recent grand jury investi
gation of the parole of four
Capone mobsters.”
By PETER WILLIAMS
RALPH BUSHEE, acting 42nd Ward
Progressive committeeman, who also hap
pens to be an ordained minister, married a
couple last week in the 42nd Ward PP Hq.,
113 W. Elm. Bride and groom spent the
afternoon, following the wedding, painting
PP campaign posters!
* * *
CANADA LEE has narrated the story of
Sojourner Truth, the great American Negro
woman fighter against slavery, for Stinson
Records who will release it around Oct. 10.
* » *
CIO United Electrical Workers
bought and moved into its own office
building Oct. 1—and ever since, UE’s
district president, Ernie DeMaio, has
been getting a ribbing. Why? The 3
story building at 37 S. Ashland has
been a favorite meeting place for
G. L. K. Smith!
* * ♦
SOS! Progressive Party needs volunteers
to help out in a hundred-and-one jobs at
their Hq., 187 N. LaSalle. If you’re willin’
call RA 6-9270.
* * *
PRESS: Edwin C. Johnson of the Sun
Times editorial staff passed away this week.
He was 52. For nearly 40 years a Chicago
newspaperman, “Eddie” was the brother of
the late Hilding Johnson, whose exploits
as a reporter were chronicled in the play,
“The Front Page.”
* * *
UNEXPECTED celebrity turned up
at the Arts (Sound & Words division)
Committee for Wallace’s party Satur
day night. It was Irwin Young, head of
the Young Engineering Co., who re
recently gifted the Lincoln Park Zoo
with four gorillas from the Belgian
Congo. Incidentally, one of the gorillas
has been named—“Irwin.”