CROONER’S ATTITUDE EXPOSED

Joe Louis pins Bing Crosby
on his jimcrow golf tourney

THROUGH A ex-
change of letters, Bing Crosby
stands exposed today by Joe
Louis as a hypocrite and a de-

fender of

revealing

discrimination again&t
Negroes in sports,

The retired champ, who is very
much interested in golf, wrote a
letter to the
crooner pointing out that the an-
nual Bigg Crosby Golf Tourna-
ment at Pebble Beach, California,
somehow never seemed to include

multi-millionaire

golfers who ‘were Ne-
It was a friendly letter
saying this fact had possibly es-
caped Crosby’s attention.

qualified
groes,

Louis cited the fact that the ~

drive against discrimination in all

‘sports, spurred by “the victories
gained in professional baseball,”
had finally broken down the lily
whiteness of golf to the extent
Led
Rhodes and Bill Spiller, partici-
pated in the Los Angeles Open.
The Crosby tourney which fol-
lowed the L.A. tourney by a week,
included players whose scores had
been beaten by Rhodes and Spil-
ler, Louis pointed out.

that two Negro golfers,

Pinning down the fact that the
discrimination could only stem
from those who do the inviting,
Louis went on to write, “It has
been conclusively established that
the fault lies not with the other
golfers. It is pretty hard to con-
ceive that they should play hap-

pily together in one tourney such
as the L.A. Open and a few days
later be shed of all sportsman-
ship.”

The answer came. Crosby didn’t
even bother answering Joe Louis
personally. The letter was signed

by the manager of the Crosby
tournament! It said, in part:

“Basically the tourney is a ga-
thering of 84 of his personal
friends among the thousands of
amateur golfers he knows, and
84 professionals selected by the
national PGA and approved by
him. ...It is like giving a din-
ner party at his home, and the

BING CROSBY

!

) . a 2
Sam Lipshitz
Noted Lecturer and Author Will Speak On

Israel and the Cold War

Recently Returned from Tour of Eastern
Europe and Palestine

-Monday, Feb. 27, 8:00 p.m.

PENDER AUDITORIUM

339 WEST PENDER STREET

Auspices: Labor-Progressive Party

t

4

Collection

table can just accommodate so
“ae

many.” '

Joe Louis did not reply. He
simply made this insulting letter
public to a Negro newspaper. It
tells its own story very eloquent-
ly, A story of studied, snobbish
jimcrow discrimination by the
crooner-businessman who is now
worth millions, who is a big Cali-
fornia real estate owner, who as
vice-president of the Pittsburgh
Pirates is clearly at home with
one of the ten*major league out-
fits which still refuses to give
qualified Negro baseball players
a chance,

Imagine the gall of this reply.
A big public sporting event sup-
ported by the public and includ-
ing 168 of the country’s top golf-
ers is just “a gathering of his
persona] friends,’ just “a dinner
party at his home.”

It’s hard to say whether Bing
Crosby thinks he’s kidding any-
one with this stuff. Certainly, to
American sports fans (and people
who buy records) he will now be
fittingly labeled. And those who
don’t know yet should certainly
be informed. — LESTER ROD-
NEY.

MUSIC

Toronto to hear
/ a
Lonesome Train

A GREAT MUSICAL pageant
for peace will be the theme of
the Jewish Folk Choir’s next con-
cert in Massey Hall, Toronto,
March 23 and 25, Featured with
the choir will be Earl Robinson,
famous American balladeer.

Robinson will produce and take
part in the first full performance
in Canada of The Lonesome Train,
great ballad of Abraham Lincoln,
composed by Robinson. It is a
tremendous work that centers

around Lincoln’s fight for freedom -

and peace for all mankind,

Di Naye Nagode will also be re-
peated by the choir, once again
with Saida Gerrard, Canadian-born
danseuse who created a _ sensa-
tion last year in her performance
with the choir in this tremendous
work which tells of the struggles
of the Jews against the Nazi op-
pressors in the Warsaw ghetto.

* She will be assisted by members

of the UJPO New Dance Theatre.

Members of the Toronto Labor
Theater will also assist in the
production of The Lonesome
Train. In addition, a 36-piece or-
chestra will accompany the sing-
ers — all under the direction of
Emil Gartner, the choir’s perma-
nent conductor.

Other songs dedicated to the
fight for peace will be included in
the program,

s,

NEW ADDRESS

9 EAST HASTINGS
Corner Carrall

I invite you to
visit my new
office, I have
no connection
with any
other dental
office. :

Phone
TA, 5552

DR. R. LLEWELLYN
DOUGLAS

GUIDE TO GOOD READING

Honest, bitter picture
drawn by war novel

NED CALMER, widely known as a news commentator for the

Columbia Broadcasting System, has written an honest and bitterly angry’

novel of the last war in his The Strange Land (Scnbners).
The targets of Calmer’s novel are such men as Major General
Mallon who, out of a lust for power and callous disregard for men’s

lives, drives them into an offen-

sive for which they are under-

manned and unprepared; John C.
Waxel, Hearstian foreign corres-
pondent who plays Mallon’s game
and who tours the front only for
copy wherewith to discredit an

anti-fascist war; and Lieutenant

Phelan, brutal officer who was a
labor spy before the war and who
weighs joining the FBI or going
in for strikebreaking afterward.

Calmer’s novel is filled with con-
tempt for the military mind, as
exemplified by the U.S. brass hats,
their toadies and flunkies who
drank, whored and profiteered
their way through the war while
better men died. Its admiration
is for those officers of lower rank
who fought alongside their men,
for the combat soldiers and for
Such correspondents as David
Marks, who tries to tell the truth
in his dispatches and who does
his front line reporting from the
front.

Out of The Strange Land emer-
ges an unmistakable picture of
corruption and decadence in high
places, fighting a war against a
fascism it so closely resembled.
That this picture is one of surface
rather ‘than of depth is the novel's
major limitation. The why of the
behaviors of the Wexels, Mallons
and Phelans is never clearly ex-
plained in terms of a capitalist
United States fighting, for histo-
rical necessity’s sake, a war
against fascism, ’

The reader is thus brought to
an emotional repugnance for the
persons of these characters, ra-
ther than to an understanding of
the contradictions in the war. Thus
the liberal Major Harrod, aide to

General Mallon and the character

to whom the author permits most

THE ULTIMATE
IN UNIQUE
ENTERTAINMENT

Ola CuK, 4 cHost N ONE OF
|

Weth/ PICTURES OF 1949.

‘The LOUIS DEROCHEMONT production of

New Buck pamphlet
first in 3¢ series

FIRST OF A SERIES of ban-
tam-size, three cent pamphlets
to be issued during 1950 by the
Labor-Progressive party is Tim.
Buck’s THE YANKEE OCCU-
PATION of Canada, now on sale

at the People’s Cooperative
Bookstore, 337 West Pender,
here,

In 16 brighty-written pages
Canada’s leading Communist
outlines how Yankee domination
is chaining Canada to Wall
Street, and calls upon all patrio-
tic citizens to unite and fight
for our country’s independence
and maintenance of peace.

An independent Canada, says
Buck, will recognize China and
trade with her; will tell Wash-
ington to, take her atomic bombs
and her plames and her troops
out of our territory; will act to
prevent the economic crisis; and
will take her stand in the United
Nations for peace.

articulate expression on the na-
ture of the war, sees the power-
hungry general as “not really a
bad man,” but one who “just
wants to win” and “believes any
sacrifice, by others, is worth it.”

For the considerable positive
merits. heretofore listed, The
Strange Land is worth reading.
It is written with the device of
moving from inside one charac-
ter’s thought to those of another,
which gives a staccato impact.
And it renders a service to those
who want peace, by shedding
light on the conduct of the last
war by the “Mallon-type” gener-
als who would hurry us into a new
ue —ROBERT FRIEDMAN

TWENTY YEARS f

FRON:THE READE,

TASTINGS ODEON

and

PLAZA THEATRE

NOW Sons

AUETE EEOONRD

Bishop - Ireland « Homolka
ond BRODERICK CRANFORD

i

i