Newspapers / The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, … / April 1, 1976, edition 1 / Page 2
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rciiTTciilT Jimmy Carter Appeals To Blacks by Hoyle H. Martin Sr. Post Editorial Writer Jimmy Carter cnoshed Alabama Gov. George Wallace handily in the North Carolina Democratic presi dential primary last week. In cap: turing his 5th primai*y in six tries, Carter won a third of the votes Wallace received in 1972, all of the state’s ll congressional districts and 85 of 100 counties by leading the field with 321,059 votes or 54 percent of the vote^ cast. In the 9th Congressional District (Mecklenburg, Lincoln, and Iredell counties) the 51-year old former Georgia governor beat Wallace by a 2-to-l margin. In Mecklenburg Coun ty alone, Carter finished with 23,861 votes to Wallace’s 10,657. Carter’s N.C. victory was char ' acteristic of his previous four pri mary wins. For example, following his victory in Florida, “Newsweek” said, “the Georgian had almost equal appeal to moderates, liberals and conservatives. He also swept the state’s black districts.” While Car ter still has a long way to go in his quest for the Democratic presiden tial nomination, the question arises as to what accounts for his broad based appeal among so many di verse groups? In looking at the black vote, for example, Carter got 51 percent in Illinois, 73 percent in Florida and nearly 90 percent in North Carolina. Further more, nine black precincts in Mecklenburg County gave Carter 93 percent of the vote. Carter’s appeal to blacks is based in part on his image as a symbol of the New South -- integrated with equal opportunity for all. He appoin ted the first black judge in Georgia, helped blacks to exercise their vot ing rights, substantially increased the number of blacks employed in state government, and of symbolic importance, hung a portrait of Martin Luther King in the state capital building. Furthermore, Car ter has identified himself with a common interest of blacks by equa ting his opportunity as a southerner to be accepted as a serious presi dential candidate with the passage of the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s. In spite of this record, some blacks no doubt voted for Carter simply out of dissatisfaction with the current alternatives. George Wallace con tinues to be an image of the Old South — segregation and inequality, while the other Democratic primary hopefuls have largely ignored the needs and concerns of the black voter. On the Republican primary side, the picture reflecting an unconcern for blacks is even more clear. The party and its candidates are running a lilly-white campaign. The Ford administration’s plans to tamper with the food stamp program and their failure to take action to reduce black unemployment well illustrates the Republican Party’s indifference to the needs of black Americans. This is in part reflected in the fact that Ford and Reagan received a combined total of only 125 votes in the nine black precincts in eur county. Wanted: A Policy On Black Joblessness It is most unfortunate that in this election year the presidential candi dates of both major parties have said little, if anything, in specific terms about what they plan to do toward alleviating the depressing 13.7 percent unemployment rate among blacks. The true seriousness of this problem is even more shock ing when it is realized that the official Department of Labor statis tics on joblessness reflects a failure to count many who are out our work. The National Urban League’s “Hid den Unemployment Index” reports, for example, that the correct unem ployment rate for blacks is currently 26 percent. In addition, NAACP la bor director Herbert Hill estimates that for the 25 major urban areas of black population, unemployment stands about 30 percent for adults and a tragic 40 percent for teen agers. Furthermore, black unemploy ment has remained almost constant for the past 15 months while overall joblessness has declined about one percent. The static nature of this situation results largely from the view of many economists and presi dential_advisors jhat the only way to alleviate black joblessness is to have generally high levels of employment -high enough to utilize all available labor. Thus, for black unemploy ment to be reduced significantly everyone else (non-blacks) who de sire to work must be working first. This trickle down approach to reducing black unemployment is the reason for the static nature of such unemployment today. Furthermore, it points out that contemporary eco nomic theory is of limited value in solving the problems of black Amer icans. In all probability, it was knowledge of these and similar facto that lead the U.S. Supreme Court to rule recently that black victims of job discrimination have the right to be granted special seniority status thus giving them an advantage over some previously hired (white) work ers when lay-offs are required. our presidential candidates, and indeed the President himself, should take a page from the Supreme Court’s landmark decision and begin to institute some policies that will remove the disproportionate unem ployment burden from the backs of black Americans. rnLAiH£,WHOyANT 70 F'GHT CRIME by blac ks against &ACKS MUST NOT BEINTIMI' DR. CHARLES COBH DIR EOTOR. Cl IT 'MISSION ■cOR EQUAL JUSTICE Blacks Must Not Become ‘Just Spectators’ To Their Own Doom_ REPORT FROM jtk^Washington Federal Election Commission by Jim Martin 9th District, N.C Remember the Campaign Reform Act of 1974? It sought to establish a Federal Election commission to reg ulate campaign practices, and to impose limits on campaign contri butions and spending, and to provide partial public financing of Presi dential elections. Some have criticized the spending limit as an advantage to incum bents, and s6 the U.S. Supreme Court has now ruled against the provision as an unconstitutional lim itation on the freedom of speech. The limitation on campaign contri butions was, for the most part, allowed to stand. So That’s settled. In a related ruling the Supreme Court opened a real can of worms. It held that the commission itself was invalid, because some of its mem bers were appointed by the Con gress. The Constitution gives ap pointive power to the President alone. There then arose a great cry in the land to reconstitute the Federal Election Commission. Clearly some one was needed to enforce campaign regulations and to administer the distribution of the tax “check-off” moneys to candidates for President. A bill to simply reestablish the Commission in accordance with the Constitution was introduced by Rep resentatives Mikva and Frenzel, and I was pleased to join as a co- - sponsor. But things aren’t that easy. . Others saw this as an opportunity to usurp more political power for the labor unions, to weaken the political power of business interests, and carve out some more advantages for incumbents. The party in the major ity would stand to gain from all this. The first target was the so-called Political Action Committee (PAC). Many business, labor, professorial, and special interest groups had long established Political Action Com mittees to raise and dispense cam paign funds to candidates whose stance on legislation was compati ble. This all has to be reported, and was limited to $5000 per candidate per primary or election. The Commission had approved such PAC organizations for corpora tions, otherwise unions would have an enormous advantage. The cor porations would be able to admisis ter the political fund, but could not, of course, contribute corporate fun ds - which is illegal under other tes. They could only distribute funds voluntarily donated by employees. So much for past history. Now, along come the unions who see these business campaign com mittees as a rival to their own union campaign funds. Consequently, they have gone to work building support for favorable amendments. In par ticular, the bill just out of the House Committee has a provision that would permit only stockholders and executive management to contri bute to a business Political Action Committee. Hourly employees, even administrative, secretarial and su pervisory employees, could not make a voluntary donation. to IHH BE R^H EQUAL VFKNON K. JORn \X JR. New York Gty’s Crisis New York City’* last-ditch struggle against bankruptcy got a lot of national attention a few months ago, culminating with a hard-line stand by the Administration that finally led to a three-year plan to get the City back on the road to solvency. That plan didn’t end New York’s problems - it just was a step on the way toward correcting its fiscal emergency. In fact, the imposed cuts in City spending have worsened conditions for its poorer citizens and may, in the long run, prevent l the City from regaining its economic viability. One basic remaining problem on the fiscal scene is the dollar straitjacket the City has been placed in by its three-year plan that forces it to cut a deficit that took ten years to accumulate, and builds into the City’s budget over $2 billion just in interest charses. Those are tough terms; private corporations and foreign countries have all been able to get easier terms than that. So the very terms of rescue impede full recovery and make the long-term outlook bleak. With so much of its revenues going to credit ors, the City has fewer dollars left for essential services. That means lay-offs of City workers. Because the lay-offs have been on the seniority principle, black and minority workers have been the ones chopped from the payroll in dispropor tionate numbers. New York’s Human Rights Commissioner, Eleanor Holmes Norton, reports that in the past year-and-a-half the City has lost half of its Spanish-surnamed workers, 40 percent of its black males and almost a third of its women employees. So equal employment opportunities have been a big victim of the fiscal belt-tightening. Another target of budget cuts is the City University, which has a free tuition policy and recently instituted a successful open admissions policy that has enabled more youngsters to get a college education. Open admissions is one of those programs popularly labeled as being for blacks while actually benefiting greater numbers of white ethnics who never before went to college in such numbers i Now, both white and black students have their future* endangered since the City is trying to get the state to take over the colleges, and that means tuition payments beyond their means. Even if limited scholarship money becomes available, white middle class families that won’t qualify for such aid will have less reason to stay in the City, leading to increased white migration to suburbia and greater segregation. It’s as if each stop leads to a second one, and then a third, each with unfortunate results for the City and for its residents. Attracting more job-producing businesses to the City is one goal of the City’s planners and a good one. But several key officials are now talking about bulldozing slum areas to build industrial parks to attract factories. When it is pointed out that it’s cruel to uproot families in this manner and that the City has plenty of empty land zoned for industrial use, they say yes, but we need to give industry a symbolic gesture to show we want them. So the solution seems to be to kick the poorest and least able out of their homes and neighborhoods not for concrete results, but for “a symbolic ges-a ture.” THE CHARLOTTE POST “THE PEOPLES NEWSPAPER” Established 1918 Published Every Thursday By The Charlotte Post Publishing Co., Inc. 2606B West Blvd.-Charlotte, N.C. 28206 Telephones (704) 392-1306,392-1307 Circulation 11,000 57 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS SERVICE Bill Johnson .Editor-Publisher Gerald O. Johnson _.Business Manager Rex Hovey .Circulation Manager by Gerald O Johnson Approximately seven years ago the postal service took on an adventure to become self sufficient. The United States Governemt subsidised a ten year program to see if the postal service could become a private enterprise. Recently many of ua have been feeling the ill affects of this experi ment. While under control of the Federal Government, the Poet Office was financed with tax dollars. Now, the service is attempting to make it with revenue from the direct sale ef services to the public. Unfortunately, the new ad venture has become a farce. Because the post office Is las ing (millions per month, ser vice cuts have been made. Personnel cutbacks are being made. The cost of the service is going up. Because the postal service is a private enterprise now, production is stressed rather than service. Second Pass Postage Paid at Charlotte, N.C. under the Act of March s, 1878 Member National Newpaper Publishers , Association • North Carolina Black Publishers Association : ■ - ■ ■■ Deadline for all news copy and photos is 5 p.m Monday. The Post is not responsible for any photos or news copies submitted for publication. National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc. 45 W. 5th, Suite 1403 ^ 2400 S. Michigan Ave New York, N Y. 10036 Chicago, Tfl. 60616 (212) 480-1220 Calumet 5-0200 4 a * Deterioration Of The Postal Service We have witnessed the coet of a postage stamp rise from 9c to 13c over a very short time span. We have witneaaed a cutback in mall drop off stations. We have witnessed the slowness in the service. We have witnessed the cut back in pick up service. We have witnessed the deteriora tion of the communication sys tem that is the very heart of this country. Your postman is not the blame. He la only the one who has to carry out the orders passed down from the top. With the new production em phasis the post office is using, mail handlers are being given quotas to meet in casing and putting up mail. With the nev er ending cutbacks of postal personnel each handler has much more mail to handle. All ef this results in a mess. The handler either makes his quota with a bundle of errors or misses his quota and is reprimanded. Either way it is the private cUisen getting have started delivering their own bill payments. People have started drafting check ing accounts to avoid the high coot and poor service of the postal service. The seriousness of the deter ioration of the postal service was evidenced by several re cent developments in big busi ness. The electrical power companies are currently watching the experiment Duke Power is performing. Duke Power has undergone a door to door bill delivering program to avoid the high cost of postal service. If this exper iment works, all electrical power companies will put the same program into affect. This will take a considerable amount of revenue from the poet office. Not only that but if be electrical power compan ies succeed in bis endeavor other companies will begin developing their own deliver ing services. Anober development is the community or private deliv ery services. Those services are being discussed by entre preneurs interested in getting into the action. Still another development that will hurt the postal service indirectly is the new bank draft program that banks are serioualy consider ing. This program will allow checking account customers to let the bank draft their account just as can be done now. However, the bank in stead of mailing the money directly to the payee will sim ply have the paysaa chocking account crodited. This pro gram has a lot of wnnklos, •till, but when these wrinkles are worked out and all K«nS« are willing to participate, look out! This wUI mean to you and me that we will only have to make deposit* to the bonk and, the bank will automatically pay the bills. Because the bank need only credit a payees acpoudt, no mail transaction * should he necaaaarv. These developments mean sure extinction for the postal service by 1M0. The Directors of the post office need to look seriously at the future and a the post office’s purpose and objectives to determine a pro per course of action. You and I need to write our congress man to let them know about our displeasure with the ser-' vice and the cost of the ser vice. We need to let them know that public services can not function as private enterpri sea. Since we are going to have to pay for service via tax dollar or directly, I would personally rather see it paid for with tax dollars. At least this way the service is decent . deadline for placing Yoor news items and photos in the Charlotte (Post. Remember! If you doo’t read the P08T yoo don’t know what’a hapjjcning:_7 l Gerald O. Johnson hurt. Ac the service continually gets worse and the cost contin ually gets higher the users of the postal service are falling by the wayside. Christmas mail was consideralbly off per individual It is no longer eco nomically feasible to send Christmans cards. People
The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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April 1, 1976, edition 1
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