War Department Pamphlet, Army Talk, Number 170 [cover and page 24], 4/12/1947This pamphlet discusses

War Department Pamphlet, Army Talk, Number 170 [cover and page 24], 4/12/1947

This pamphlet discusses the Army’s position on Black soldiers; answers from surveys about Black soldiers; and discussion of other minorities.

File Unit: Segregation in Armed Forces [1947-49], 1946 - 1953
Series: Subject Files, 1946 - 1953
Collection: Clark M. Clifford Papers, 1945 - 1980

Transcription:

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON 25 D. C.

12 APRIL 1947

ARMY TALK

[handwritten note p29]

[illustration of Black troops performing mechanical work]

170

Note to Discussion Leader:

This ARMY TALK consists of three parts:

Part I - Negro Manpower in the Army

Part II - Negro Platoons in Composite Rifle Companies - World War II Style

Part III - What About Minorities?

This Talk is designed for discussion on three separate days as directed in section

V, WD Circular 76, 1947.

Before conducting the series, the discussion leader should read carefully section

V, WD Circular 76, 1947 and WD Circular 124, 1946, which are reprinted on the

last pages of this Talk. Circular 124, 1946, gives the general provisions of a revised

Army policy about the use, training, organization, and assignment of Negro personnel,

together with a reprint of the approved Gillem Board Report upon which

the revised policy is based.

In Part I of the Talk stress should be laid upon the threefold objective of the

policy:

1. An immediate objective - a more varied use of the Army’s Negro manpower

than has been peacetime practice hitherto.

2. An ultimate objective - the effective use of all available manpower, should

war come again, without regard to antecedent or race.

3. An over-all objective - increasing the effectiveness of the Army.

In all the Talks it should be borne in mind that the discussion of “race” is likely to

touch off sparks from individuals who have deep-seated beliefs, convictions, or

prejudices in one direction or another. Such discussions, however, may be handled

constructively if the group is kept aware that while differences in personal opinion

are to be expected and respected, the basic purpose of the Troop Information

Program is to bring information to troops and to develop understanding through

discussion.

These Talks, then, should inform troops about War Department policy and stimulate

discussion.

Part One

NEGRO MANPOWER IN THE ARMY

How to use its manpower best is always one of the Army’s problems.

How to use its Negro manpower best is in some respects a special

problem. It is of significance to the entire Army. To this special

problem several factors contribute:

(1) The “general run” of Negro soldiers have had considerably less

civilian schooling than the “general run” of white troops; they are

much less likely to have had civilian training and experience in highly

skilled mechanical fields; they make much lower scores on the Army

General Classification Test.

[sidebar] The most effective use of its

Negro personnel is of concern

to the Army.

WD Circular 124, 1946, and section V, WD Circular 76, 1947, appear on the last pages of this TALK

[page 2]

How did the Axis method work? It was simple. Get your victim to squabble with his friends instead of with his enemies. Play on his fears and resentments to make him hate groups of his own people. Start him quarreling at home. Break down his unity and strength. Thus you’ll weaken him so much that you can destroy him easily. It’s just an application of the old story of the bundle of twigs: when tied together they can’t be broken, but separately they are easy. United, they win; divided, they fall.

It’s no secret now that Hitler hoped to crack the United States wide open by driving wedges between the many groups on our population as he had done in some of the countries of Europe. It’s no secret that Japan tried to make the war in the Pacific a race war, with every person whose skin was “darker” united in a holy war against every person whose skin was white. That neither of these attempts got to first base in the United States or in our fighting forces means that in a time of national crisis the ideas that held us together as a nation were stronger than the differences that might have divided us.

Even at that, although , a public opinion poll made at the height of the war revealed that 85 percent of our population accused one or more of the following American groups of profiting selfishly from the war:

Farmers

Negroes

Jews

Foreigners

Protestants

Catholics

Business Men

Labor Leaders

Working People

That’s a pretty big list, isn’t it? How many Americans can you think of who don’t fall into one of those groups?

[sidebar] But the dangers of serious group antagonism are always with us.

And now that the fighting is over, now that we are trying to get back to peacetime status, and especially when the almost sure-to-come economic troubles begin to show up, the tendency to break up into groups, to point fingers, and to build up resentment against minorities can set in strongly without any pressure from the outside. We do not wish to use the Axis method on ourselves.

STOP How do scientists describe attitudes toward minorities?

[sidebar] A scientific view of group attitudes:

Not long ago a number of scientists at an American university, studying the matter of group attitudes, developed a chart they called “A Continuum of Relationships Among Human Groups." [superscript 1] For "Continuum” in this discussion we can substitute the word “scale.”

This scale or chart of how groups feel and act toward each other ranged all the way from persecution at the bottom of the scale to cooperation at the top. And on the way up it listed such attitudes and acts as discrimination, prejudice, preference, tolerance, and respect, in that order.

———————

[superscript 1] From The ABC’s of Scapegoating, published by the Central YMCA College, Chicago 6, Ill.