The Chicago star., September 14, 1946, Page 2, Image 2

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THE CHICAGO STAR, SEPTEMBER lJ t , 191,6
★ editorials ★
The Byrnes Axis
To coin a phrase:—
You can tell a foreign policy by the friends it makes.
If it had any shame, certainly our State Department
•would be embarrassed by the sinister crew that hangs
onto its coattails.
The “Byrnes axis” includes some choice characters
(see above).
That miserable old Tory, Winston Churchill, the
discredited Greek King George, Dictators Chiang Kai-
Shek and Franco, the fascist Polish Gen. Anders that
gang of international Dead End Kids would give any
decent American the willies.
And yet, these are the foremost supporters and be
neficiaries of the Byrnes program.
It’s the “anti-Komitern,” Hitler’s “hate Russia” line
up, all over again.
Isn’t this “where we came in” 10 years ago?
• • •
Answer on Monday
The colums of the STAR this week are filled with
reports of lynch terror, racial violence and violations of
civil rights in our own city and throughout the nation.
And this is not simply because our paper is especially
sensetive to dangerous developments in this direction.
The fact is that the fascist offensive in our
country is taking these forms.
Yesterday, Negro Chicagoans victimized by arson
ists. Today a Mexican-American is driven from his home.
Tomorrow . . . ?
The time has come for Negro and white citizens to
strike back. The answer must come in the form of a giant
demonstration at State and Madison Streets next Mon
day, Sept. 16 at 5 p. m. (See Page 16).
Trade unionists and other progressive Chicagoans *
must take this means to call a halt to the ominous tide
of fascist violence.
• • •
Progress in the Schools
The people of Chicago scored a partial victory last
week, when the Mayor’s nominating commission submit
ted 12 names for the six Board of Education vacancies.
The fact that the twelve nominees include several
outstanding fighters for an honest and modem school ad
ministration is testimony to the effectiveness of organized
public pressure for needed reforms.
But any one who feels that it is now possible to con
sider the school fight won must realize that many of the
nominees, while free of the McCahey-Johnson taint, are
no friends of progressive education. Add to this the fact
that McCahey and four ofr his supporters still sit on the
Board.
These facts, and the current scandalous increase in
the price of school lunches, highlight the need for an in
tensified drive by the people of Chicago, particularly the
trade unions, to demand the resignation of McCahey and
his cohorts and the naming of a Board of Education that
will be truly responsible to the needs of Chicago’s parents
and children.
A union leader writes:
'Familiar fruit of fascism '
- a bumper crop in the U.S.
By GEORGE F. ADDES
Secretary-Treasurer UAW-CIO
ON Labor Day, 1945, I wrote
". . . because free labor in the
United Nations contributed in
overwhelming quantities the shot
■ and shell that
cism, we cele
no other before
participated i n
the destruction
ize that I was
too optimistic:
._ _ was wide of
ADDES
the mark.
Our celebration of what we
thought was the destruction of
Fascism was premature. Fascism,
contrary to what many workers
thought, was not destroyed by
the success of our Armed Forces;
it was merely dispersed. Its seeds
now germinate in a wider area,
covered by the fertile soil provid
ed by England’s anti-Semitic po
licy in Palestine and the Anglo-
American treatment of Jewish
displaced persons in Europe.
# * *
RIGHT here in our own coun
try the seeds of Fascism, which
we failed to eradicate during the
war years, have taken toot and
now are bearing familiar fruit.
First in New York in the "Free
port incident”; then Columbia,
Tennessee and the “Columbia
Massacre”; and now Georgia and
the lynching of four Negro share
croppers in Walton County. And
in all of these instances there
seems only complete ineffective
ness on the part of the establish
ed machinery of democratic gov
ernment.
No, Fascism has not been de
stroyed; it has only been dis
persed and transplanted. Democ
racy still has a victory to win
and our Labor Day victory over
Calling First Voters!
If you never voted before
Os if you voted only when you were in service—
Or if you never voted in Chicago
Register now!
Here’s what you do.
1. Go down to City Hall Room 308. From now till October
7th it’s it’s open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays, 9 a.m. to
5 p.m. on Saturdays.
2. Register. To be eligible you must be a citizen, you must
have had legal residence in Illinois since last November sth,
you must have been living in Cook County since August 7th,
and you must be over 21 by election day.
3. Do it now! There are only a few weeks left. If you leave
it to the last minute you know what’s likely to happen you’ll
miss out.
That’s all, first voter. Register now, and make your vote
count.
such evil forces is still to come.
• • #
THE prediction of t r o u b 1 e
ahead in 1946 has come true and
more is to be expected unless we
take stock now and plan our fu
ture accordingly. In each of our
two major struggles since Labor
Day 1945 we gained our imme
diate objective. v
We brought General Motors to
terms and we saved some semb
lance of price control. But if we
are to be honest with ourselves
we must admit that we actually
lost both of those struggles. We
got a wage increase from Gener
al Motors; but the automobile in
dustry generally and GM. par
ticularly got much, much more
from the buying public in higher
prices which in the long run
means they got more from us as
consumers.
Again if we are honest with
ourselves we must admit that the
OPA on paper which we now
have, not only is ineffective price
control, it actually is increasing
prices and decreasing real wages.
* # *
ALL of this, I think, adds up
to the conclusion that between
Labor Day ’45 and Labor Day ’46
organized labor in general an!
the auto workers in particular
have lost valuable ground.
This loss has taught me and
I sincerely hope it has mught all
of us —two much-needed lessons
which our Union must observe
between now and Labor Day ’47.
The first lesson is that piece
meal or departmentalized con
tract negotiations and one-ata
time strike action is not Ihe most
effective technioue for gaining
our common ends.
* * #
THE mine workers, the cloth
ing workers and the steel work
ers learned this long ago and
have insisted upon industrv-wide
bargainin'* ever since. We also
accented this as our objective but
somehow and somewhere down
the line we have allowed our
selves to be diverted from that
objective.
I have been the official keeper
of the records of the auto work
ers’ union from its inception. And
I know that down through the
years and at every Convention
we have talked and planned in
terms of industry-wide bargain
ing and standardization of wage
rates and job classification as one
of our principal objectives. The
technique of piece-meal contract
demands and one-at-a-time wage
negotiations is foreign to and at
variance with this objective.
This technique, far from con
serving and channelising our en
ergy and resources, actually dis
sipates those energies and leaves
each of our locals or groups of
locals standing like clay pigeons
to be bowled over one at a time.
# # *
WE do not take on the corpora
tions one at a time. We can’t, for
they always plan and execute
each move together. What actual
ly happens is that they take on
groups of our locals one at a
time!
It is high time we trained our
sights back on our original tar
get which was and still is indus
try-wide contract negotiations
backed up by industry-wide
strike action if necessary.
The second lesson 1945-1946
should have taught us is that
strike action alone even indus
try-wide strike action is inef
fectual unless we are prepared
to back it up with political ac
tion.
The recent fiasco on OPA is
just added proof that no matter
what advantages we gain across
the bargaining table or by means
of the picket line, a reactionary
Congress can completely nullify
those advantages overnight with
restrictive anti-workers legisla
tion. —from “Ford Facts”
THE CHICAGO
★
is owned and published WEEKLY by
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Inc , 166 West Washington Street
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Cable address: Chistar.
Frank M Davis Executive Editor
Carl Hirscb Managing Editor
William Sennett General Manager
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