National Affairs: Black Purge

“Judge James is bought and paid for!”

“The only issue for Governor Earle and Charles Alvin Jones is ‘Jones or jail!'”

“This trucker lost his WPA job because he didn’t give $100 to the Democratic campaign!”

Such was the language which, in addition to the titanic shouts of Rev. Reginald (“Magnavox”) Naugle, was echoing through Pennsylvania last week, hurled by the major candidates: Democrat George H. Earle and Republican James J. Davis for Senator, Democrat Charles Alvin Jones and Republican Arthur H. James for Governor. At stake in Pennsylvania were not only 34 House seats, a Senatorship and the entire State regime, but perhaps a balance of power in the 1940 Electoral College.

In view of that, the most interesting statement of last week in Pennsylvania was one issued in Pittsburgh by a sharp-faced, dark-skinned personage who occupies a mansion hard by the swank OakmontCountry Club and is known throughout the Negro world as: 1) publisher of the weekly Pittsburgh Courier (circulation: 145,000), 2) national chairman of the Negro division of the Democratic Party for the election of 1932, 3) former occupant of one of the highest Federal offices ever held by a Negro (Special Assistant to the U. S. Attorney General, 1933-35). His name: Robert Lee Vann.

There are about 177,000 Negro votes in Pennsylvania, enough in Jim Farley’s estimation to be called a decisive factor in the Democrats’ capture of the State two years ago. So it was of major interest when important Democratic Publisher Vann, who pictures himself as the guiding mind for most of those votes, last week exhorted all Pennsylvania Negroes to vote for Judge James for Governor and ignore the rest of both tickets.

Publisher Vann gave as his reason for thus switching allegiance the fact that his good friend and patron, Senator Guffey, had been demoted to No. 2 Democrat in Pennsylvania when David L. Lawrence was put in ahead of him as State Chairman. Beating the Jones-Earle ticket would restore Senator Guffey as Pennsylvania’s No. 1 Democrat and patronage dispenser. At this announcement, Senator Guffey declared himself shocked and grieved. He said Publisher Vann’s reasoning was “deceitful and dishonest.” He professed his utter loyalty to the Jones-Earle ticket. He protested that it was “not through Guffey but through the Democratic Party that the colored people received so much.”

Fact was that Democratic strength in Pennsylvania’s black precincts was not sobadly jeopardized as itappeared. Publisher Vann is a smart Negro—born in the tobacco-market town of Ahoskie, N. C. in 1882, graduated by Pittsburgh University in 1906, from its law school in 1909, he grubbed at the law until he got stock in the Pittsburgh Courier for drawing its charter, later got control and built its circulation up from 50,000 to a peak of 187,000 by plugging Equal Rights, Joe Louis, Haile Selassie and Franklin Roosevelt.

As early as 1930 Publisher Vann sensed the changing political wind, shifted from Republican to Democrat. His subsequent rise under the wing of Senator Guffey lasted until two years ago when, at the Philadelphia national convention, Jim Farley learned that many a Negro preacher disapproved of Publisher Vann. Named in his place to lead the campaign of 1936 among Negroes was his distinguished friend, Lawyer Julian D. Rainey of Boston.

This affront rankled, but this year Publisher Vann’s chance to get even is none too good. Half of Pennsylvania’s Negro vote is in Philadelphia—out of his immediate bailiwick—and in Pittsburgh much of the Negro vote is on WPA where it cannot easily be weaned from the New Deal. One acute Pennsylvania observer last week declared: “If I had a penny for every vote Vann can swing without Guffey pressure on the WPA, I could go to the movies.”