The Houston Informer (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 6, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 29, 1929 Page: 6 of 13
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ST IN (
Inis Relieves Negro Race Has
Opportunity In U. S .Political Lite
Chicago. Ill —(ANP)— Although | an opportunity for the directors of the
the United States of America is con- Fact-Finding Conference to organize
ducting the greatest experiment in a study of political organization in
greater experiment n the United States that should begin
popular government, there is less se-with the Negro and be extended to in-
rious study of politics by the mass of clude the effect of such organization
Americans than by the citizens of upon the lives of all Americans.
any first-rate country in the world to- Before coming to the conference,
day, asserted Dr. w E. B. DuBois, Dr. DuBois had sought to obtain in-
Crisis a legates formation concerning the Negro’s re-
editor of the € rsis. before delegates lation to political organizations in a
to the recent Fact-Finding Conference number of cities—New York, Buffa-
held in Durham, North Carolina. . Io. Chicago, Philadelphia and Rich-
“The average American does not mond, Va.
ized times. Where are you going to
put your knife and say where you are
going to break in your morality? Are
you going to depose Mr. DePriest? He
is a part of the Thompson machine
and that machine is running Chicago.
It will be a hard thing to replace it
and when you do you won’t get any-
thing essentially different. What does
the reform movement say to Ne-
groes? It says you should be asham-
ed to stand in with this combination
of vice, crime, graft and bribery
known as the Thompson machine, and
the Negroes do not say, but they
think, why? Now that you have these
jobs is there any other way to get
these jobs in the city of Chicago?
know nearly as much about the polit- New York and Chicago were held
ical life of the nation the averse up as cities in which the Negro had
* ne AN SE SE D achieved certain benefits * ult
DuBois announces, “and in the next of tical organia tier Negroes hold Now everybody knows there isn’t. The
ies, it was pointed out. Negroes hold only way these jobs were distributed
representative elective and appointive was through machine politics.
offices, worthwhile jobs, and share in . . .
the underworld profits that come to "Why is it that the white people of
political organizations. Dr. DuBois ( hicago had to choose between Dever
hundred years he will be totally ig-
norant of the real way the govern-
ment is carried on.”
Some of the responsibility for this political organizations, ur. uupoi--=R*--------— -----------
ignorance is placed upon the press of notes a growing tendency on the part and Thompson: You cannot conceive
America, for the editor continues: of the American people to make a 1- * * 1.....
“In the United States today the domi-living out of politics and he believes
nating force is the people who own that the jobs they get attract Negroes
the newspaper and distribute news, to political activity. These jobs are
These people, who dominate public used by the editor to explain the Ne-
opinion, in all sorts of ways, do not gro's alignment, especially in Chica-
want the people in the L nited States, go. with the anti-reform factions in
black, white, or any other color, to polities. He writes:
know any too much about the politi | Polities have everything to do with
cal organization of the United States incomeand the peculiar thing going
or how the government is earned on. on in the United States today is that
. “If you watched the last presiden- a)| clauses of citizens are turning to-
, tial campaign you saw an extraordi- 1 wards politics in order to earn a liv-
' nary series of things taking place. TA
" can remember when a presidential sudden living through -.....______.......-
campaign was a time of real polit- the underworld. That’s what’s going | proceeds to answer his own question
5 ical education. It was a time corre- on in Chicago, New York and all in the fallawine wise:
spending in some ways to the question through the country. People are mak-
hour of the British parliament. Now,
in the political campaigns that used
r to be carried on in the United States
< you had a little of that. In small
[ towns gentlemen representing cer-
I tain parties came before the people.
E stood up, made a speech, somebody
L. asked questions and for a time the
gentlemen more or less defended, ex-
I plained, let in a little light on the
way government was carried on. The
p last campaign successfully got away
I from it- You could not ask Mr. Hoov-
7 er anything over the radio. You
might assume he was anxious to have!
I questions put to him, but it could not
- be done. The whole campaign was a
K series of properly placed bits of prop-
1 aganda and we got out of it knowing
I a little bit less about government
I than when we went in.
“Toward what end is this tending?
yuWhat does it mean? It means the
.persons carrying on the government
RAND LODGES
ASSOCIATIONS
CONVENTIONS
people wanting to live among crime.
Why don’t they do something? They
don’t do anything because the politi-
cal support of Thompson and the Re-
publican party is bound up with busi-
ness, ar ’ ...ey don’t want to disturb
business, and if they get the people of
Chicago interfering with business,
where is it going to stop?”
Information obtained from Buffa-
lo, Philadelphia and Richmond was not
significant, but that from the two
larger cities presented such important
*6 r—.-. 11 ing. It is possible to earn a very angles that Dr. DuBois asks:
presidential sudden living through affiliation with i ** +
ought we get out of this?” and then
in the following wise:
ing money through politics in other
ways. The fortune of government has
greatly increased. The number of
actual people employed by the govern-
ment is tremendous. That means
something.
"In the first place we should make
it perfectly clear as to what politics
is to mean to a group of working peo-
ple like the American Negro. Should
investigate and tell the truth. Should
start something to turn the search-
light on the political life of the Unit-
ed States. I do not know anything
more necessary. If people once un-
derstood, then you could begin re-
"What colored people are getting
out of politics is jobs. It has all the
importance in the world. Here you
have two things. They are making
money from politics through traffic
in crime and making money through
getting political jobs, and these two
things are the main things that are
back of the party organization. The
party organization is interesting peo-
ple in getting the vote out and mak-
ing people vote. There is, of course, I white that that kind of thing can be
a third thing. The third thing is '
that through / political manipulation
and organization you are having the
business of the country carried on.
Business today is tremendously inter-
-: *2**5,Y tu* *-**** mingled with politics. The day when
do.net want interference; do not want you could talk about politics in one
itererence not, from you particu-category and business in another, is
ankutfrom the mass of people in past. People have forgotten it, ex-
the United cept the president of the United
States and members of congress.
Great corporations pay from five to
fifteen million dollars in presidential
campaigns.
"In Chicago there has been gam-
bling on a scale which has not been
I duplicated in any modern city in civil-
After pointing out the extent of
American political ignorance and its
importance as a national problem, the
h veteran editor and sociologist declar-
- ed that he believed this very paucity
s of knowledge and interest on the part
t of the average American presented
CHI CAGO NEGROES COLORED AUTHOR
KNOCKED HARLEM,’
R A CE PRODUCTION
J (For The Associated Negro Press)
As this is written. “Harlem,” that
colorful drama of a phase of the life
which New York Negroes lead, is put-
ting in its last days in Chicago. The
MOVIE DIRECTOR
AT PATHE STUDIO
William Foster is out in Los Ange-
les as an honest-to-goodness assistant
director in colored scenes for Pathe.
Many of Foster’s Chicago friends are
unable to believe that this determined
form. If people organize in order to
get a few people in $1,200 jobs there
is no reason why a political organiza-
tion should not keep people in better
jobs, in other kind of work not strict-
ly political. It could be done. It is
simply a matter of application.
“It does not occur to colored or
done. The only way political parties
are run is by funds contributed by
great corporations or rich men. That
is done and puts the power of the
government of the United "States in
the hands of these men.”
Of course, it can be seen from the
foregoing paragraph that Dr. DuBois
anticipates a political leadership
among Negroes in large urban cen-
ters that shall be powerful enough
to exercise a decisive influence upon
business and industry in such a way
that the Negro cannot be shut out of
employment, as has been largely the
case in many Northern cities during
the last few years. .
Lafayette Players'
Season Is Successful;
Ran Forty-Two Weeks
Los Angeles, Cal.—(ANP)—Wind-
ing up a forty-two weeks run in a
glorious finish with a repetition of
"The Unborn" by popular demand, the
famous Lafayette Players closed at
New Lincoln Theatre giving away to
a musical comedy being brought West
by Sam Kramer, director. Accord-
ing to Robert Levy, manager of the
players, and Curtis Carpenter, man-
ager of the theatre, all records for
attendance have been broken during
their stay.
The way dramatic art interpreted
by them was received by the public is
also a revelation, and each night
there have been some of the greatest
stars of screenland, as well as some of
the most famous authors and legiti-
mate actors.
man has kept on trying until he has
u . I realized a little on dreams he has
We, . young closed main! and ITheJijwenved for many, many years.
, laboration with Wm. Jourdan Rapp. . Foster has had a long and interest-
white. it was prepared for the theater, ing career which carries him back be-
lt opened in New York during the vond the days when he was with Peter
winter and had reasonable success. Jackson in England and later when he
tmhe New York company closing only arid Jay Gould were doing first
after repeated misunderstandings be-nights in the show houses on Broad-
g tween the members of the colored *av. He came to Chicago, knew the
Feast who felt they were underpaid Pekin players and began the produc-
s and the producer, Edward Blatt, had tion of colored motion pictures when
grown to such proportions that Blatt enthusiasm- for the Pekin players was
.threw up his hands in disgust and at its height. In those days he was
r quit. one of the closest friends of Flourney
The early favor with which New Miller. Foster now carries a diamond-
York, or Broadway, viewed the pro-studded watch, a gift from the kindly
I duction was sufficient to inspire the Flourney.
" men behind it to put a second com- "Bill,” as he is known by most of
“pany in training which opened in De- his friends, got out of pictures and a ,
" troit and went afterwards to Chicago, into the newspaper game, so-called, birds, which opened recently at the
, This company with Andrew Bishop. For some years he wrote sports for Mawlin Ponce m Paris % said to he
1 Alston Burleigh, and a young lady the Chicago Defender under the pen
find. Vivian Baber, was said to have name of Juli Jones, Jr. He left the
ed patrons will seize the opportunity
to see it.
New York.—Lew Leslie’s "Black-
been superior to the original players. Defender and started a daily paper of
It did commendable business at the his own, with Count Gary of New
a large Majestie Theater in the Windy York. Gary’s health forsook him and
the paper failed. But Foster did not
stop trying. He wanted to make pic-
tures. He had written stories and he
1 City.
. “Harlem" belongs in the class of
— plays whose chief attraction has been
f their approach toward a sort of
coarseness that was on the borderline ! Heaven only knows how he got to
Lof indecency It was of the “Diamond Los Angeles, but he reached there.
,Lil”—“Frankie and Johnnie-Jarne-| He himself tells of his efforts to
I gan” type. When it reached Chicago, get on the movie lots. Time and time
t one critic ecstatically wrote that it again he went with his story. Most
It was so bad that it made “Diamond
Lil” look clean which was not merely
“exaggeration, but untruth. There
c have been quite a few white produe-
t tions that were coarser than "Har-
wanted to see them on the screen.
of the times he could not get in. At
One of these. “Frankie and John-
Moulin Rouge in Paris, is said to be
meeting with tremendous success in
the French capital. Some of the lines
of the show are being spoken in
French.
Los Angeles, Calif.—Speed Webb, E
who brought his Melody Lads here =
from Ohio two years ago, has built up E
an enviable record on the coast and ==
is still going strong.
Chick Snowden, pianist and brother
of the famous Carolyne Snowden, is a
in the city reporting good business in E
the East.
other times he got in only to be sent
out. Sometimes he was played with,
at others, ridiculed. It was not until
he ran into a Mr. Powell, vice-presi-
dent of Pathe, through the influence
of the colored doorman at Pathe’s,
=
Charles Butler, highly valued mem- | §
ber of Central Casting Bureau, could -
not get released for a vacation. Even =
when there is no call for colored ex- =
tras and actors. Mr. Butler is con-
stantly busy with other important of-
| fice work.
"Trader Horn." now on location in
t hat he st ruck a chord of int erest. . . 1 rader or . DO '‘. anon . | M
re'l was willing to talk La Foster. Africa and carrying Ou ■ in nite of=
being washed away, will use plenty
of extras on return to M. G. M. Stu-
nie,” was closed by the Chicago police
whoapa rently wore -V' nthr ouch u' - , -......-----,----------
the prosperous run of "Diamond Lil." He came from Virginia and he had a
Soon after the denizens of the law was of understanding that Foster
got on the trail of that show and cut might have an idea. Foster’s stories
its wind off, the protecting arm was were read and reread. Conversations
reached out after “Harlem," and the were held with lawyers and finally
producer was informed that he would Foster was sent for to go to work,
have to close up shop. The police He could scarcely believe it himself,
commissioner reported that he had re-Nor could the Negroes whom he was
ceived numerous objections to the to direct. When he gave them orders, _
show in letters The production was hey looked at the white men to see ng their interest in all colored cast
later expunged of some of its worst if they should do what the Negro di-pictures by the way they have been a
ector was telling them to do. Powell flocking to see "Showboat." "Music ==
luck behind Foster, in spite of crit- Hath Charms. "Fox Follies, "On
dio.
Now comes word that not only is
Fox Movietone Follies to be an an-
nual production, but that it is to be
I made in four foreign languages as
well.
Colored theater-goers are evidenc-
and the dancing was toned down
No the point where it was permitted .......................--.--.- .
continue, but the dirty work b sm from blacks and whites, and with the Show, and "Hearts in Dixie 1
been done, and it is now preparing t. now Foster is well in the game. He now on the Avenue,
heave stuck, and he won. ---------
Fit is interest ing to note that the - FALSE ALARM ENDS D
Chief complaints against "Harlem” STAGE TID)-BITS 44401
Sime from Negroes d notI N NEGRO’S DEATH I
tend the show in any numbers.contes €
of pro , touched up edition of the review at
1 ma was a ( innie’s Inn, in Harlem, with a book
upon The One of by Salem Tutt Whitney and J. Homer
ad to bear Tutt, and music and lyrics by Thomas
E brum of Pembarr nt, caused v alle r. Harry Brooks and Andy Ra-
W v he affable zaf. opened on Broadway Thursday
2.3 a part in night at the Hudson Theater,
and one of Cox and Minto Cato head the cast and
. Chan.IConnie and George Immerman provid.
Me wauenvowered er all sorts!eel the bucks to get it going,
or inducements to go red patrons L
to take the bes ____s, but they town and outlying theaters, "Hearts
withheld themselves and wrote mean in Dixie,” the Fox singing and talk-
letters. It is reported that Lee Shu- ing picture with Stepin Fetchit and
bert. wired from New York that he Clarence Muse, is billed for the week
didn't care, that Negroes could
Baby
Raleigh. N. C.- (ANP) Because
some curious person wanted to see
how quickly the local fire department
answers calls, one man is dead, a fire | K
Connie and George Immerman provid-
er all" aorta I ^ the bucks to get it going.
Chicago.—After showing at down-
truck damaged, a Ford demolished,
and a porch wrecked.
Newton Williams, the dead man.
| lost his life when the truck answer-
| ing the false alarm crashed into the
| be of July 6, at the Regal Theater,
gated in his houses from now on.I where it is expected the bulk of color
: Ford car which he was driving. His
body was broken in several places and
death was almost instant. The driver
of the fire truck and several members
of the crew were bruised in the acci-
dewt. •
With the most modern and best equipped printing plant owned and
operated by Negroes in Texas and the Southwest, the heads of all Grand
Lodges, Associations, Conventions and other Organizations will find it to
their advantage and benefit not only to permit us to sulanit figures on
printing their minutes, but in giving us the contract for this and other
printing.
Among the recent big jobs turned out by our printing department are
the minutes of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows of Texas, Arizona
and New Mexico, G. W. Jackson, Corsicana, grand master; Lone Star State
Medical, Dental and Pharmaceutical Association, Dr. E. A. Etter, Gal-
veston, retiring president; catalog of Bishop College, Marshall, Prof J. J.
Rhoads, president; constitution and by-laws, Most Worshipful King Solo-
mon Grand Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masoms, Hon Nelson N.
Boozier, grand master; large poster for the Ancient Order of Pilgrims,
Prof. B. H. Grimes, supreme worthy shepherd; large photo job for Colored
Knights of Pythias of Texas, W. S. Willis, Dallas, grand chancellor.
No job is too small or too large for us, and we are as near you as eith-
er your telephone or typewriter. In other words, either call or write us
and we shall be delighted to serve your printing meeds.
We are not seeking business on the grounds of color, but rather on the
high-grade work which we turn out, whether a calling card or encyclope-
dia; dodger or minute; envelope or wedding invitation.
Give us a triarand become one of our satisfied clients.
Webster-Richardson Pub. Co., Inc.
WHERE ONLY TH E BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH"
409-11 SMITH STREET
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Richardson, Clifton F. The Houston Informer (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 6, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 29, 1929, newspaper, June 29, 1929; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1637666/m1/6/: accessed May 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.