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Honolulu Record, August 30, 1951, vol. 4 no.5, p. 8
Frank-ly Speaking
By Frank Marshall Davis
What is Loyalty?
Since we are in a period which finds loyalty probes and oaths in every direction, you will please pardon me if I ask a simple question of the powers that be. That question is this: Just what is loyalty? Of course I know that in a general way, loyalty is supposed to mean support of America and its institutions. But when you get down to concrete thinking, just what does this mean? To be loyal, must you give support to each and every institution? Is everything sacred? If not, what can you attack without being labelled disloyal?
Disagreement Found Even In High Places
I have looked a long time for a satisfactory answer and to date have found none. Nobody in authority has as yet spelled out what must be unquestioningly supported, and what (if any) may be safely attacked.
There is disagreement even in high places, on the question of loyalty. Discrimination, segregation and racism are American institutions, as one-time Chairman John Rankin of the un-American committee publicly pointed out And yet the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, has spoken for the overthrow of these institutions by suggesting passage of civil rights legislation. To the powerful white supremacists, this is unquestioned disloyalty. And it is a fact that Negroes and Jews have been kicked out of Federal jobs on charges of disloyalty because they actually fought for the program that Truman has verbally supported.
Similar examples may be cited in the concrete areas of labor union activity, free speech, public housing, etc. One person may be considered disloyal for endorsing a program outlined by other persons who are not considered disloyal; or disloyalty may be pinned upon an individual for exercising the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
What Are Dangerous and Safe Ideas?
As of now, loyalty is a kind of erratic ghost which changes shape and locale whenever it wishes. Yet we are supposed to be able to recognize it and say to our fellow-Americans: “Loyalty is a tall, broad-shouldered man with iron-gray hair and a mole on his right cheek about one inch above his black moustache. He lives in that green house at the corner of Cottage and Straight Streets.”
In an article some tune ago in the Saturday Review of Literature, Henry Steele Commager of Columbia University, professor of history and noted author, had this to say:
“If you are going to silence or punish men for disloyalty, you must first determine what is loyalty. If you are going to apply Mr. J. Edgar Hoover’s ‘easy test’ of a subversive organization: ‘does it have a consistent record of support of the American viewpoint?’ you must determine officially what is the American viewpoint.
“If you are going to dismiss men for membership in subversive organizations, you must establish what are non-subversive activities and organizations. If you are going to discourage or silence dangerous ideas, you must establish what are safe ideas.”
Who Will Decide?
And thus we come to the core of the problem: Who is going to spell out concretely and precisely which are the safe ideas that may be openly expressed by the American public? Who is going to decide what ideas are disloyal and dangerous and list them as thoughts which must not be expressed by Americans?
Let us say that the White House decides to lei the nation know exactly what is loyalty and disloyalty. A special commission is then appointed. It has the job of sifting and cataloging all ideas. But that will take years, maybe generations, for mankind has held many ideas since his appearance upon this globe. Meanwhile, to be on the safe side, people would be forced to go along with no thinking at all, thus turning us into a nation of puppets. But maybe that’s the idea, after all.
During this period, what happens to science, literature and the original thinking that makes for human progress? To be on the safe side, all the scholars would have to be liquidated. Imbecility would be the only guarantee of safe and unmolested living.
“Every Thinker Puts . . . Stable World In Peril”
For the bald truth is that thought control perils conservatives and reactionaries along with radicals. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “Every idea is an incitement,” and the noted philosopher, John Dewey, has written:
“Let us all admit the case of the conservative; if we once start thinking, no one can guarantee where we shall come out, except that many objects, ends and institutions are surely doomed. Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril, and no one can predict what will emerge, in its place.” The ultra-conservatives have all but wrecked the free enterprise system, cornerstone of capitalism, by monopolies, trusts and cartels. Hitler’s thinking led to World War II and the death of an estimated 40,000,000 human beings. The Nazi bid for world control was the result of thinking by the extreme right.
Nation Heads for Disaster When . . .
Turning directly to economics, what ideas are loyal and which disloyal to capitalism? Is it disloyal to oppose the gigantic octopus corporations who control meat packing, etc., and demand that their tentacles be severed? If this is disloyal then where does that place the government, which has anti-trust laws and a special antitrust division of the Department of Justice?
This nation has a lot of questions to answer before we can determine what loyalty is. Meanwhile, in place of exact definities, there is a general official attempt to shut off all criticism and dissent. To be on the safe side, nobody should praise or criticize anything not praised or criticized by the “safe” leaders in Washington. The result would be inertia and apathy where energy and independence once flourished.
I must agree with Professor Commager when he says:
“A nation which, in the name of loyalty or of patriotism or of any sincere and high-sounding ideal, discourages criticism and dissent, and puts a premium on acquiescence and conformity, is headed for disaster.”
http://www.hawaii.edu/uhwo/clear/HonoluluRecord1/articles/v4n8/Frankly%20speaking.html
Honolulu Record, September 20, 1951, vol. 4 no.8, p. 8
Frank-ly Speaking
By Frank Marshall Davis
“Unbelligerence” vs. Discrimination
Several persons have called my attention to the article on Herb Jeffries the Negro crooner, appearing in the September 3 issue of Life magazine.
Permit me to say at the outset that it is an excellent article for Life, since it paints a picture of discrimination that undoubtedly is foreign to the majority of readers of this widely circulated publication.
But despite its many good points, there is one with which I and many other Negroes disagree. It is the emphasis placed by the Life writer on the “unbelligerent” attitude of Jeffries toward racism.
Discrimination Costs $30 Billion Annually
Shortly after reading the Life story, I came across an item which said that Elmo Roper, noted public opinion analyst, had estimated that racial and religious discrimination in industry is costing the nation’s economy close to $30 billion a year.
In addition to the loss of purchasing power brought about by low wages and limited job opportunities, Roper cited the wasteful expense of maintaining segregated schools, housing, hospitals and other public facilities. He also pointed to the high cost of crime, delinquency, sickness and social maladjustment which can be traced to prejudice and discrimination.
To bring this close to home, undoubtedly the crime, delinquency and social maladjustment which shaped the lives of Palakiko aria Majors was partially the result of discrimination against non-haoles in the Territory. It is no secret that here in Hawaii, haoles often draw higher pay than non-haoles for doing the same job; low wages often lead to the breaking up of families with the resultant scarring of the lives of the children. Society then pays a high price later for the delinquency it has created through discrimination.
Although prejudice hits Jews, and in some areas Catholics, as well as all non-white groups, its chief victims because of then numbers and historic condition, are Negroes.
Tactics of “Unbelligerence” Cannot Erase Discrimination
But the cold fact is that discrimination cannot be erased through the tactics of “Unbelligerence,” no matter what the Life writer might think. I doubt that Herb Jeffries himself would advocate unbelligerence as a general weapon.
For a half-century the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has taken the lead in the fight against discrimination, and its guiding light is militancy and more militancy.
The breaking down of discrimination in education, which finds many Negroes entering universities in Dixie; the equalization of teachers’ salaries; the ending of restrictive residential covenants, and the many other gains on the civil rights front are the result of intelligent militancy instead of unbelligerence.
Doesn’t Pay To Have Segregated Schools
The Pair Employment Practices Commission, established by executive order of President Roosevelt at the start of World War II, came into being only because militant Negroes threatened a mass march on Washington. Since then many firms, which previously barred Negroes, Jews and Mexicans from jobs, have them regularly employed and several states have set up their own Fair Employment Practices Commissions.
As a result of these definitely belligerent actions by the NAACP and other organizations, many persons have come to realize that discrimination is a tremendously costly business. It doesn’t make sense for poor states such as Mississippi and Georgia and other Dixie commonwealths, to split their comparatively scarce dollars and duplicate their educational facilities just to keep two groups separate. The result is that neither group gets first class education.
Not only does the $30 billion sacrificed yearly on the altar of the god of prejudice make a mockery of democracy and hurt us in the eyes of the rest of
The world, but it is a disgraceful waste and unsound economically. It’s the same as pouring that amount of money down a rat hole.
Militancy Necessary To Bring About Improvements
Last week I spoke of a plan advanced by Dr. Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard University, to establish peace between our nation and Russia and bring up the standard of living of the rest of the world. That would require an estimated annual expenditure of $25 billion. Simple arithmetic shows that ending discrimination in America would provide not only the funds needed for worldwide rehabilitation, but would leave a total of $5 billion for domestic use, or else taxes could be reduced by that amount.
But unless you are militant about fighting discrimination, how are you going to point out these facts to the general public and thus move toward their correction?
In 1903, a Department of Commerce and Labor was created. The Department of Labor, as now constituted, was finally organized in 1913.
Profits of 30 large oil companies soared to around $1 billion in the first half of 1951. That’s a 42 per cent increase over the 1950 period.
[MR. DAVIS]