Elks & Equality

Franklin Roosevelt is deeply indebted to one great big Elk, James Aloysius Farley, for engineering his election to the Presidency. Last week he warmly welcomed to the White House a whole troupe of great big Elks headed by their Grand Exalted Ruler. But the Elks in the President's office were not of Elk Farley's herd.

Just as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for North America has its Negro counterpart in the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine of North and South America and its Jurisdictions, so the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks has its black copy in the Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World.* Guffaws of bass laughter rocked the President's office as he cracked jokes with the chieftains of IBPOEW and received from Grand Exalted Ruler James Finley Wilson, the "Little Napoleon of Negro Elkdom," an invitation to review a parade in Washington on Aug. 27, during the IBPOEW convention. Joining with Grand Exalted Ruler Wilson in pressing the invitation were Grand Commissioner of Athletics John Thomas Rhine, Washington's leading Negro undertaker; Grand Esteemed Loyal Knight Roy Solomon Bond, Maryland's most famed Negro lawyer, who claims to have won more divorce cases than any lawyer of any color in his State; Brigadier General of the Antlered Guards of the District of Columbia, Maryland and Delaware Arthur Newman, onetime A. E. F. infantry captain, now a major in the Military Education Department of Washington's Negro schools.

Instantly the President accepted the IBPOEW's invitation, provided he was still in Washington on Aug. 27. Ruler Wilson expected nothing less, for all his life prominent men have been his familiars. At 13 he was a bellhop in Chicago's Palmer House. For four years he was a Pullman porter on the Missouri Pacific. "Buffalo Bill" Cody set him up driving a stagecoach in Nebraska. He was a member of the distinguished horde of gold hunters in the Klondike. Tex Rickard, who used to call him "Little Britches," took him on as a business partner in a dance hall at Goldfield. Nev. Now aged 53, he owns real estate in half a dozen cities, is publisher of the Washington Eagle, goes to all the best races and prizefights, has been Grand Exalted Ruler for 13 years. For the President, however, he had time to deliver a personal invitation. For Elk J. Finley Wilson the President had a most cordial reception.

Well might Franklin Roosevelt and "Little Napoleon'' celebrate an entente cordiale, for last week it became evident that one of the President's greatest political victories had turned out to be a great victory of the Negro race. Back in 1932 one of Franklin Roosevelt's Democratic "angels," Oilman Michael Late Benedum of Pittsburgh, pondered the problem of winning Pennsylvania for the Democratic Party. Well aware was he of the fact that of 432,000 Negroes in Pennsylvania 181,000 were registered voters who regularly voted the Republican ticket. "Angel" Benedum turned for advice to his Negro valet-butler, Joseph Howard Gould. He knew that Joe was smart, had already organized the Pittsburgh Butlers' Association. Presently Joe Gould put his employer in touch with a power in the Negro world. Editor Robert Lee Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier. Mr. Benedum put it plainly to Mr. Vann: "What had the Negroes ever got by voting the Republican ticket?" The answer seemed to be-"Nothing."

Editor Vann became an enthusiastic New Dealer and urged his 70,000 subscribers to forget the ungrateful Republican Party. In 1932 Roosevelt came within an ace of carrying Pennsylvania and the next year Robert Lee Vann found himself Special Assistant Attorney General of the U. S. Mr. Vann did not neglect Pennsylvania. He organized a Negro "Self-Respect" campaign. Of a very light hue himself, he announced: "In 100 years there will be no color. There are 13,000,000 Negroes in America, and every year a number pass over into the white group because of their fair complexions. The race is lightening up!"

So were Democratic hopes in Pennsylvania. In November 1934 when the votes were counted it was estimated that 170.000 Pennsylvania Negroes cast theirs for Democrats. Democratic Senator Guffey went to Washington; Democratic Governor Earle went to Harrisburg. More than that, Pittsburgh sent its first Negro to the State Legislature. One of Philadelphia's four Negro legislators, Undertaker Hobson R. Reynolds, who is so pale-colored he might almost be taken for a white, popped into the legislative hopper an Equal Rights Bill forbidding segregation or discrimination against Negroes in hotels, restaurants, theatres, shops. Senator Guffey's lieutenant, Democratic State Chairman David Leo Lawrence, backed the Reynolds measure to the hilt. Republicans who had seen Mr. Benedum and his butler snatch most of the Negro vote were afraid to oppose it. In the bitter closing hours of the Legislature the Equal Rights Bill passed the House of Representatives without a dissenting vote, passed the Senate with only one member voicing a partial objection. Governor Earle took pen in hand and, with Mr. Lawrence's white face beaming over one shoulder and a legislator's black face peering over the other, signed. Ten minutes later the House tried to recall the bill. The Pennsylvania Hotel & Restaurant Association had been heard from. But it was too late. The bill was already law.

The Equal Rights Bill will not become effective until Sept. 1. Last week, however, Pennsylvanians were beginning to realize how hard it would be to evade it. Discrimination of any kind will be a crime, punishable by a fine up to $500. a jail sentence up to 60 days. Two Negro women marched into the William Penn Hotel Beauty Salon, swankest in Pittsburgh, asked for a "powder test." usually given free. A white beautician told them it would cost $5 apiece. They showed their money. She said they would have to have an appointment. They asked for one. She finally said there were no appointments free for a month; she would telephone them when a date was open. Had the law been in force, she might have done her telephoning from jail, having boosted prices, refused to give an appointment.

At a cinema theatre in Monessen, Pa., three Negroes asked for seats in the orchestra. They threatened the manager, a Greek, with the law. He answered that if necessary he would close his theatre on Sept. 1. At amusement parks in several towns, when Negro couples invaded dance floors, white dancers promptly marched off. At a small hotel in Pittsburgh a Negro minister tried to arrange a banquet for 40 persons but the management was "booked up for two months."

*Other Negro fraternal orders include: Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia; Knights of Pythias (Eastern and Western Hemisphere); Grand United Order of Fishermen of Galilee; Grand United Order of Galilean Fishermen; Improved Benevolent Order of Reindeer; Benevolent Protective Herd of Buffaloes of the World; Improved Benevolent Protective Order of the Moose of the World; Grand United Order of Brothers and Sisters, Sons and Daughters o Moses-Grand United Order of Tents of J. B Giddings and Jollifee Union; Royal Circle of Friends of the World; Supreme Circle of Benevo-lence.

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