The Chicago star., July 10, 1948, Star Edition, Image 1

About The Chicago star. (Chicago, Ill.) 1946-1948

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
The Chicago
Published
Weekly
Vol. 3. No. 28
Stall housing
plan again
Mayor Martin H. Kennelly and mem
bers of the City Council Housing Com
mittee were expected to emerge sometime
this week from a series of closed sessions
with a make-shift face-saving “solution”
of the current Housing Controversy.
Goaded in recent weeks by outstanding citi
zens for failure to give the green light to Chi
cago's $30,000,000 Kennelly-inspired slum clear
ance and housing program, Kennelly and his
aldermauic committee are in hot water.
Off the record, housing experts put the blame
on the Mayor for the failure of the program
to produce a single home to date. They charged
him with refusing to stand squarely behind a
non-discrimination policy for the new housing.
* * *
THIS, briefly, is his dilemma:
Elmer Gertz, president, Public Housing Assn.,
fired one of the first shots in the housing feud,
when, on June 23, in an open letter to Mayor
Kennelly, he declared:
"It is a matter of profound regret that after
'Glamor boy' vs. program an editorial
l. 1 HE Democrats are in a dither.
What's the commotion? Is the party working
to provide a genuine alternative to the blueprint
for reaction laid out by the GOP convention?
Is the party concerned—as it was in the days
of Roosevelt with
< a program to so : ve
tae problems of 'he
H nation?
"Hang the pro
grant!" they say.
. "IT is win." And the
feverish 11th hour
m ismem Eisenhower "boom'
-y>,~ is only a symptom
Mlri: % . this paralyzing
■ fear of defeat with
jfoSWB Truman in Novem-
IHlft Q Wtßßk ber. Bankrupt, the
__ , , Democrats are try-
Kl*ftSS hat at* •• • ; n g f Q substitute a
glamor boy for a program.
They think they have the answer in Eisen
hower. Undoubtedly they would have in Eisen
hower a master of double talk. He has said
"No" to the nomination a dozen times. But on
closer examination, every "No" turns out to be
"Maybe."
Like the blind men bnd the elephant, every
major wing of the party the "liberals," the
bosses, the white supremists—finds its own set
of virtues in the glamorous "Ike."
He hates war as only a war veteran can, some
6g Chicago, July 10,1948
more than M months since you assumed office,
and eight months after the approval of tha
(housing) bond issues by the citizenry of this
community, not one additional housing unit has
been commenced. ..."
The Mayor’s Housing Co-ordinator, Milton C.
Mumford, took up the gauntlet. He asked the
City Council for approval to build four public
housing projects, totaling 2,000 units, on two
near South Side and two West Side sites.
* * *
THE PROJECTS are intended, under the
housing program, for families who will be
evicted from buildings torn down in slum clear
ance projects.
The selected sites were approved by the Chi
cago Housing Authority, Chicago Plan Com
mission and Park District engineers. Kennelly,
in writing, labeled the sites ‘‘good selection”
June 25.
All that was needed, in order to begin work
See Back Page
say. But then again, as a military man, Eisen
hower as President would be a master stroke
in our "preparedness" program.
He is for civil rights. He is against civil rights.
He is the man who can get tough with Russia.
He has said some kind words about the Rus
sians.
He is for Negro rights. He is for segregation
of Negroes in the armed.forces.
Ike is everything. And his most outstanding
attribute is the fact that he is a complete blank
on- such issues as labor's rights, Palestine, price
control, public housing.
The thing to remember about Ike and the
Democrats is the fact that he was also acceptable
to the Republicans!
Could any piece of evidence point more con
vincingly to the truth that there are no impor
tant programmatic or principle differences be
tween the Republicans and the Democrats?
Ike is "popular." But so are the Lone Ranger,
Ted Williams, Dick Tracy, Jack Benny and Nature
Boy. We're trying to choose a President, not Mr.
America.
Ike's real popularity comes from the main
strongholds of corruption and reaction in the
Democratic Party—the big city machines and the
South. The 3rd strange bedfellow in the Ike
coalition is the ADA "liberal" group, who talk
a great deal about peace—when they are not
busy outdoing everyone in their raucous and
hysterical cries for war with Russia.
In spite of the hubbub, there is a growing
fear in Democratic circles that they are stuck
.4
;
■ •;
■ .•• 'V
the people's viewpoint
.
ir
r Edition
ADOLPH Hitler's personal armored touring car was purchased
and brought to the U. S. by Christopher G. Janus (perched on
seat). The new owner will exhibit the chariot in a national lour
to raise money for hungry European children.
with the fish-faced little haberdasher who now
occupies the White House. Truman's record of
reaction and errbr is the great deficit of the
Democrats in their first campaign without Roose
elt in 16 years.
This is the situa
’OHu tion in the Demo
flPß erotic Party on the
eve of its National
Convention. And
so there is this des
perOte wooing of
BjK * ** s something like
■F Sl ?I 1 that strange ro
mance in David
l.jHk Copperfield, with
F Barkis 'willin'
IjljL but Peggotty coy
dr HHIHI and noncommittal.
.. hat salesman? T a °
man driving a hard bargain. Ike is insisting on
election on a silver platter, without the "unplea
santness" of a bitter campaign. He wants assur
ance of a rubber-stamp Congress with no organ
ized opposition.
These are guarantees that neither the Demo
crats nor the Republicans can give him. Both old
parties committed to a reactionary program
will be fighting for their lives during the coming
period.
The organized opposition will be sustained,
powerful and growing. Its core is in the Wallace
movement which has just begun to fight.
Fin Cents