Harlem Store Acts to Enforce Court’s Ban on Negro Pickets

The A. S. Beck Shoe Corporation yesterday moved to halt picketing of its store at 264 West 125th street by Negroes bent on coercing the management into replacing half of its white clerks by Negroes, following a decision by Supreme Court Justice Samuel I. Rosenman.

Justice Rosenman ruled that the picketing was illegal, declaring the weapon’s use must be restricted to labor conflicts and could not be called into play in racial disputes, He declared that, while the action was “born of an understandable desire” to increase Negro employment, if the practice were permitted, white pickets might seek the discharge of colored help elsewhere, with resultant danger of race riots. The decision was viewed with satisfaction yesterday by Harlem merchants.

PICKETING CONTINUES

The picketing continued yesterday, nevertheless, as Isidore Schlesinger, Beck’s attorney, announced he would shortly serve a copy of the court’s order upon representatives of the Negroes, followers of the gospel of Abdul Hamid, Harlem’s “Black Hitler.”

The attorney said he had refrained from raising the Jewish issue in court but added there could be no question that the Jewish issue entered into the fight.

Justice Rosenman’s decision was believed to be the first of the kind either in this country or England, except for one made in Baltimore last May which was disregarded. The jurist said the picketing was now opposed by several Negro organizations and a Harlem newspaper.

At the instigation of Abdul Hamid other groups of Negroes in Harlem have from time to time made similar efforts to compel proprietors of stores in the district to discharge their Jewish employes and install Negroes in the vacated positions.

The persons against whom the injunction was issued include John Johnson, president of the Citizens League of Fair Play, and Arthur Reed, president of the African Patriotic League.