In a government
bureaucracy, power and authority are distributed throughout the
administrative hierarchy. Officials at varying levels were still
influenced by their personal prejudices, and they continued to
use their positions in a discriminatory manner. Regardless of the
intentions at the top, prejudice continued to exist in varying
degrees throughout the lower levels of the structure.
In 1935 the Wagner Act protected the rights of labor unions,
but because most unions practiced racial discrimination, it
served indirectly to undercut the status of the Negro worker
for a short time. Actually, with the heightened competition for
jobs, unions tended to intensify their discrimination.The American
Federation of Labor largely consisted of trade or skilled workers.
Its member unions regularly practiced racial exclusion and kept
blacks out of the trades. To the contrary, the United Mine Workers
Union which had been organized on an industry-wide basis rather
than a craft basis had encouraged the participation of Negroes
within the union since at least 1890. In 1935, several union
leaders, led by John L.
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