Black on Blacks

White citizens of the U. S. South expect a Republican President, for political reasons, to treat Negroes as near-equals. That is a prime reason why they have almost always voted solidly Democratic since Reconstruction.* On the other hand, Southern voters expect a Democratic President to cooperate in keeping Negroes firmly in their social place.

Last summer President Roosevelt, a Northern Democrat, received a delegation of Negro Elks in his office, allowed himself to be photographed with them (TIME, Aug. 12). Still more shocking to Southern sensibilities was it when Mrs. Roosevelt addressed the Women's Faculty Club of Washington's Howard University (Negro), let herself be photographed between two young Negro officers of the University R.O.T.C. By count of Chicago's Negro Representative Arthur Mitchell last August, President Roosevelt had given more jobs to blackamoors than had all three preceding Republican Presidents put together. To a North Carolina Negro businessman the President wrote that, in proportion to their numbers, Negro citizens had been given more Relief than whites. Negro journals like the Baltimore Afro-American, and the Pittsburgh Courier commented happily on these and other instances of the Roosevelt consideration for their race.

Political opponents of Franklin Roosevelt were not long in seeing that this kind of political dynamite could blow larger holes in the Solid South than any other single campaign issue. Throughout the South began to appear cheap pamphlets containing blurred photographs of the Roosevelts consorting with Negroes, blatant text proclaiming them ardent Negrophiles. First public notice of this stirring of the black pot of race feeling was taken when copies of the Georgia Woman's World were placed on the chair of every delegate to the convention of anti-Roosevelt "Goober Democrats," called by Georgia's Governor Eugene Talmadge and the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution in Macon last winter (TIME, Feb. 10). Embellished with most extant photographs of Roosevelts & Negroes, this shoddy sheet shrilled:

"Notwithstanding the fact that he was elected by the Democratic Party, PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT HAS . . . PERMITTED NEGROES TO COME TO THE WHITE HOUSE BANQUET TABLE AND SLEEP IN THE WHITE HOUSE BEDS. . . THE LITTLE DOLE WHICH HE GAVE TO THE SOUTH WILL NEVER PERMIT HIM AND MRS. ROOSEVELT TO PUT SOCIAL EQUALITY IN THE SOUTH AS THEY HAVE DONE IN THE NORTH AND IN PENNSYLVANIA."

Last week Senator Hugo Lafayette Black chose to give this whole delicate question a public airing in his Senate Lobby Investigating Committee.* Up for investigation was John Henry Kirby's Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution. First witness was fat, freckled old John Henry Kirby, Texas oil and lumber man, who quickly revealed that the right-hand man who really knew the inner workings of his organization was one Vance Muse. A big, muscular, loose-jointed Texan with thick brown hair and a scar on his cheek, Mr. Muse swung up to the witness chair. Senator Black told him to sit down.

"I think," boomed Vance Muse, "that I should stand in the presence of the Senate of the United States, in which I have implicit faith."

Confusion arose at once over the line to be drawn between the activities of the various organizations with which Mr. Muse, like Mr. Kirby, seemed to be connected--the Southern Committee, Texas Taxpayers League, Texas Election Managers' Association, Order of American Patriots--all with headquarters in Houston's Kirby Building./-

Cutting through the fog of Mr. Muse's organizational affiliations, Senator Black put a pointed question, "Have you personally," he asked, "caused pamphlets or printed sheets to be circulated, with reference to the President of the United States and his family?"

"I have," said big Vance Muse. "Describe them." "It's nauseating for me to do it," blurted Vance Muse. "It was a picture of Mrs. Roosevelt going to a Negro meeting with a Negro escort on either side of her. You forced me to say that."

"I didn't force you to circulate them," snapped Inquisitor Black.

Vance Muse pounded his big chest, boomed: "My conscience forced me to do that. The same conscience that made me put on a uniform. I'm a believer in white supremacy." (Outside the committee-room, Mr. Muse explained that by "uniform" he meant the grey suit he was wearing. Grey being the Confederate color, it was, he said, a sort of symbol.)

Witness Muse explained that the pictures had been printed and circulated by Allen Sheppard of Houston, head of the Election Managers' Association and a Democratic county committeeman.

Pushing on toward his main objective, Inquisitor Black asked Witness Muse if he had caused the stuff to be distributed at the "Goober Democrats" convention. "I think Gene Talmadge's group did that," replied Vance Muse. Getting still warmer, Senator Black asked who had paid for the Macon convention.

He and John Henry Kirby, testified Vance Muse, had persuaded two men to put up $5,000 each to finance the convention. One of them was John Jacob Raskob. The other was Pierre S. du Pont. Both are prime supporters of the American Liberty League.

"Did either Raskob or Du Pont." cried Inquisitor Black exultantly, "complain about the type of literature and pictures distributed at the convention?"

"They didn't know anything about it," hedged Witness Muse. "It was printed in all the newspapers," insisted Senator Black. "You knew that, didn't you?" "Yes." "Did they express disapproval?" "Not that I know of."

* An exception: In 1928 Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas preferred Hoover and the Negro to Smith and Catholicism.

*Expecting to have to fight William Randolph Hearst's injunction suit against it up to the Supreme Court (TIME, April 20), the Black Committee last week asked the House for permission to pay its counsel more than the statutory $3,600 per year allowed to Congressional investigating committee employes, got a stern refusal, 153-to-137.

/-Named for John Henry Kirby by its builder-owner, RFChairman Jesse Jones.

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