Newspaper Page Text
THE MAROON TIGER
Page 3
: c57 Challenge c (90 CHegro College CMen ♦ |
By Robert B. Stewart, ’31
In this period of distress everyone is upset and is
wondering what will be the outcome of the greatest
depression that the modern world has ever seen. The
only thing about which we can be certain is that the
end is not in sight. Our best economists and business
leaders are working day and night in an effort to find
a way out. The Federal Government has had to step
in and try to salvage the wreckage of the country’s
banking and industrial systems, which were contented
enough in times of prosperity to get along with the low
est possible minimum of Federal interference.
This depression has been felt by people in different
walks of life in different ways and in varying degrees
of intensity. The college man belongs to a group that
was in a sense isolated and the last to be vitally affect
ed. Those men who sought jobs in the usual places
in the summer of 1930, the first after the great stock
market crash, succeeded to a great extent in finding them;
and earned a sum of money that summer that com
pared favorably with what they had earned in other
summers. They read of the great slump in business
and of the efforts of the millionaires to bolster the
market by buying huge blocks of stock; all of which
was an effort to establish what would have been false
confidence in the market. They read also, and in some
instances saw, evidences of unemployment on a large
scale; but the general security of the college man had
not been disturbed in 1930; at least not seriously enough
to alarm him.
The year 1931 saw a vastly different situation. Jobs
were very difficult to obtain and the wages received from
those obtained were much lower than in 1930. In the
fall of 1931 the decrease in the number of students in
colleges—and especially in Negro colleges—was very
noticeable, and in 1932 it was even greater. By the
beginning of the school year 1932-1933, salary cutting
among teachers, which had previously assumed vague
forms such as “donations” of a part of the salaries to
the schools, was practiced extensively. Then it was
that Negroes in academic circles began to feel what they
had previously only read about. This has made some
of us think, and think seriously. Others are not both
ered about the condition of the world as long as they
are apparently secure.
But the college teachers and students are no longer
secure in their isolation from the world of affairs. Many
of them have condescendingly admitted that it was their
duty to serve humanity; and they rendered their serv
ice with a patronizing air and retired to their cloister,
so to speak. The college teacher failed to realize that,
even though he was not in the grocery, merchandise,
banking, or some other business which would bring
him into contact with the people, his security and pros
perity rested on the good-will and buying power of the
masses. The privately endowed college has its endow
ment invested in corporations which in most instances
derive their incomes from the general buying public.
The state universities and colleges are supported by the
revenues which the states receive from their citizens.
To be sure, our sociologists teach us that our destin
ies and lives are intimately bound up with those of
the general population of the country, bu'; we have been
prone to think of this fact as something to be thought
of in a class in sociology and economics and forgotten
when the class was over. The greatest lesson in sociol
ogy and economics that academic people have received
has bc-m taught by the depression that has us in its
grips today. Let us heed this lesson, and be guided
by it throughout the remainder of our lives.
What T have said so far is applicable to college peo
ple of all races and my reader might wonder what sig
nificance it has for the Negro college man. The re
mainder of this article will be devoted to that phase
of the matter.
The Negro college student is a member of a small
group within a group which comprises about one-tenth
of the entire population of the country. The salvation
of this minority group depends to a great extent on
the type of civic, political, and religious leadership that
the college trained men and women provide during
the next two generations. At present the country is
seeking temporary relief from an extremely dangerous
situation. At the same time we are seeking a permanent
way out of the depression as I have said before. It is
in the program for a way out for the nation and the
world that the Negro college man will have to play
an important part. His part will be one of fearless
leadership, in which he will have to bear refusals, in
sults, and slanders, not only from the white race, but
from his own people. The hardships inflicted by the
latter group will be the most stinging and hardest to
bear; but if they are overcome, the Negro leader will
have behind him a body of people whose demands can
not be denied.
Several solutions for the ills of the world have been
offered embodied in the principles of Communism, So
cialism, Technocracy, and Capitalism, to name only a
few. It is very likely that none of the above mentioned
systems will be tried with the exception of Capitalism;
but before the world is settled economically and social
ly we will have to try some of the principles of all and
keep the best. The question that Negro leaders will
have to decide is whether or not they will be willing
to lead their people in trying something new or will
they be contented to sit by and perish under the pres
ent system of economic and political slavery.
The best example of fearless leadership that the coun
try can claim is that of Norman Thomas, leader of the
Socialist Party. Unfortunately, he is not the leader
of a majority group, but of a very small minority. In
a recent address to the citizens of Atlanta he offered a
program for the future security of the country and one
for immediate relief from our present ills. In this pro
gram are some features that are not practicable just
now; but there are other features that are very practic
able. It would behoove the young Negro to think well
on this program and ally himself with some organiza
tion to carry out its main tenets. This organization does
not have to be the Socialist Party, but it does have to
(Please Turn to Page Seven)