PLAIN SPEAKING

Clarence Darrow, that brilliant criminal lawyer who specializes in lost hopes, has recently been accused of moral cowardice by his best advertised adversary; yet he did not hesitate to tell a large audience of Detroit negroes that their race has really very little to complain about. Slavery he said dispassionately, had been a good thing for them. It had given them a chance at civilization long before their time, and whatever troubles they might encounter are the price they must pay for the value of premature contact with something better than their primitive condition in Africa.

Whatever the Reverend Doctor Straton may think about it, considerable moral courage is necessary for facing a negro audience with such bald statements, especially in race-crazed Detroit. Moreover, Mr. Darrow's attitude toward the negro problem could well be brought to the attention of fire-eating white supremacists and sentimental advocates of racial equality. Hysterical pity for the down trodden negro from one kind of idealist, and blind recrimination of the black race from another, are equally futile. Any constructive settlement for this problem can only come from just such cool consideration of the peculiar necessities arising from the drugging influence of recent slavery and the undeniable difference of racial capabilities between black man and white.

Dissatisfaction among negroes assumed a dangerous tinge in the negro labor convention at Chicago, which was shot through with communist sentiment. Every large industrial city is facing an increase in inter-racial unpleasantness due to overcrowding. In negro districts. In the midst of this gradually increasing tension, Mr. Darrow's speech can be interpreted as a hopeful incident in two ways: one, that his audience heard him quietly, and another, that dispassionate appraisal of the situation is still possible.