World's Last But Greatest Capitalistic Experiment

Orlando, Joseph

World's Last But Greatest Capitalistic Experiment By Joseph Orlando EJIUCH water has run under the " * Seine's bridges in the last three years, but still mure illusions have vanished from the...

...There is Ben Schubert, quiet, unassuming, sickly...
...It is an > inspiring book and should be read by everyone active in the party...
...But he F.oon forced their respect, they listened when he ' spoke...
...others, more courageous, go deeper and even if unwilling to draw the extreme consequences, they do not hesitate in declaring t h a t the parabola of capitalistic civilization is near its end and that new formt of social organization are necessary in order to preserve our civilization from a complete catastrophe Maurois Says Especially symptomatic—for th< i man who wrote it—is an article oi the well known French writer Andre Maurois, appeared in th< . "New York Times Magazine,' . Sept...
...And the silent wish and the blind desire Which were my thoughts and tny words Straight is the road, and broad, True the way and certain the goal, And our beloved leader in the van, Come, America, let us join hands And march, singing, together...
...Peace By Solidarity By American example the intellectuals of the international bourgeoisie wanted to demonstrate that it was possible, perhaps relatively easy, to establish a true and durable peace in the national arena giving to it, as a basis, not the struggle but the solidarity of the classes, not the opposition but the community of interests of all those belonging to a given nation...
...I venture to say it will be made up largely of the deeds and struggles of unsung and unknown Socialist heroes...
...Two junior Yipscls, Caroline Goodman and Sylvia Kaplan, are distributing leaflets for the strikers...
...The meeting continues...
...For next week, the Gen ;ral Executive Board will hold its meetings at the house, and the official closing will therefore take place on October 10th, which is after the Yom Kipper week-end, which will give many an opportunity to spend that holiday in the Poconos during Indian Summer...
...the fact that general welfare was becoming more and more widespread through the various social strata seemed to show clearly the error of Marxist anticipations...
...The Socialists who, in spite of the appearances of prosperity persisted in asserting the fundamental points of their doctrine were, by a strange irony, pointed to as anti pacifists...
...p It should be an easy matter to write the private Ufa of any Soc<allul...
...first, that of removing the economic competition with other States through the channel of international cartels of capitalists, and secondly that of eliminating the internal struggle of classes by the way of a better understanding between capital and labor...
...They are arrested and later fined...
...He hasn't any...
...A few of the rowdies separate themselves from the group and disappear...
...World's Last But Greatest Capitalistic Experiment By Joseph Orlando EJIUCH water has run under the " * Seine's bridges in the last three years, but still mure illusions have vanished from the heads of many intellectuals, of France and other countries, who for years spent their brilliant dialectic in defense of nationalism and in vain confutation of Marxism...
...I t is July—a hot, muggy night...
...Her eyes glitter, her fists are clenched, she pours out words of scorn and challenge, she bids the rowdies do their worst, the meeting will continue...
...Some Stories of the Struggle...
...creator of wealth for all and softening, if not eliminating, the struggle of classes...
...They could, then, speak of a new Eldorado and with some exaggeration to muke American workers appear as living in the beBt possible world...
...I. T . U . For Five-Day Week LONG BEACH, Calif.—The convention of the International Typographical Union here declared in favor of the five-day week and by a large vote referred the matter tc a referendum of the membershir I for final action...
...COMK day a book ought to be written, and it ahould ba called A Saga of Socialist Heroes...
...He comes reeling out of a polling station battered and bleeding...
...Time is a very good mender...
...America has certainly been the last and greatest capitalistic experiment...
...This happened in east Harlem in the heart of its slums...
...They begin to shout remarks, they throw something, they Jeer and laugh...
...There was a fighter...
...Or when Jacob Panken, at a conference, challenged the landlord, in the same rent strike situation, and dared him to evict a single family and, by heavens, he would have a tent colony erected and picket the house and keep it permanently vacant...
...It will be a big book, perhaps many books, and it will contain much that has been previously written...
...In America, they said, each worker can have his own comfortable house and his own car, and aside from these privileges, he can save part of his earnings to secure to himself a serene old age...
...The cop orders the girls to go away or he'll run them In...
...The speaker stands on a rickety platform, a bedraggled flag droops beside him, a small apathetic audience faces him...
...I will never forget the drama and thrill In the courtroom when Matthew Levy berated the judge in the rent strike cases for his bias and prejudice and read a long statement into the court records defending the historic right of workers to organize in Induntry, and as tenants for rent strikes to fight intrenched landlordism...
...A gang of rowdies gathers nearby...
...He has an injunction against this sort of thing: Why does not the law act...
...The system of planned economy, with variations, will spread, not necessarilly by revolutions or conquest, but by contagion and osmosis...
...Five minutes later a large bag of water comes tumbling from a roof, drenching several people, including the speaker and the committee...
...All in the day's work...
...Neo-Nationalism Not only the neo-nationalistic program sank but, what is more important, one after another all the principles upon which depended the theory of American prosperity were shattered...
...Now, unfortunately for them, things are changed and if they want to say something astonishing about America they may only speak of its twelve millions of unemployed workers...
...While the sbip of prosperity was able to master the enraged sea of international competition and so secure a possible standard of living to the workers of this country, all was well for the c a p i t a l i s t i c propagandists abroad...
...It will be a story of men and women, young and old, who refused to take the blows of a capitalist society passively, but who struck back and struck back hard...
...I remember Aaron Levenstein lecturing a cop on his duties and on the law when the cop attempted to Interfere with a meeting, and inviting arrest...
...Three years have passed and in this short time not only the wave of optimism has receded but, what is more, we may observe here and there signs of the spiritual crisis which troubles the men of the intellectual bourgeoisie...
...And "Collectivism may trl > umph...
...But speaking of unsung heroes, how about the fellows who—but let us hear what George Bernard Shaw had to 1 say: "I never refused or broke an engagement to speak ' on Socialism to puss a gallant evening...
...Not once but many times...
...He ; was a Socialist, an east-sider, a foreigner, a Jew, he spoke , with an accent, and he had brains...
...A lone voice of sanity in a bedlam of stupidity, he fought untiringly against exploitation, privilege, armaments, and war, and for Socialist construction...
...They go to the street meeting that is being held on another street...
...These stories are typical of what is going on daily in the Socialist struggle for workers' emancipation...
...Unity House will arrange for concert and entertainment to be given the coming holiday weekend...
...It has failed, and its failure happening in the richest country of the world, in a country where the greatest part of its population is ke,it apart from real political life by its unshaken optimism, makes still more evident the absolute incapacity of capitalism to deal with the solution of present problems...
...It is a Socialist meeting, and I stop to watch...
...General world affairs and the still mounting tide of prosperity seemed—in the view of these persons—the surest proof of the failure of the socialist view...
...The proprietor of the shop complains to a cop...
...I do not want to go bookish on you, but on this subject of fighters, I want to recommend the story of Meyer London by Harry Rogoff...
...They go back, although they know arrest faces them...
...I want to tell some of these stories...
...A strike is in progress in the Bronx...
...To realize fully the value of the evolution of Maurois' thought it will be enough to remember that he was one of the leading elements of the so-calle 1 French neonationalistic current, which desired to convoy both the political and economic forces toward a double goal...
...For, while they urged the abolition of national frontiers they—according to the socialist critics—claimed to suppress the partial war among nations only to substitute for it universal war among classes...
...A young girl takes the platform, a Yipsel, I don't know her name, and Bhe doesn't care...
...Some of them in their writings display their confusion and anxiety...
...America waa pointed out as the ideal country in which, founded upon individual initiative and on the free play of the economic forces, a new order was emerging...
...The author frankly ad mits that "the era in which liberal iam waa allied with science for th< attainment of human happinesi , seema at an end...
...He tells them to go back and continue distributing...
...A street corner meeting is in progress...
...He was a lone watcher but he did not approve the illegal tactics of some Tammany gorillas...
...They ask the chairman what to do...
...If tho Russian expert m«nt succeeds, it will have' create* a society of new type...
...Her passionate outpouring strips the crowd of its apathy, some applaud, the rowdies are cowed...
...When London first arrived in Congress, which was made up then as It is now, of Rotarians, Babbits, corporation lawyers and unsuccessful farmers who went in for politics, he was burdened, in the • eyes of his fellow-congressmen, with every handicap...
...Unity to Remain Open Until October The continuation of the season until after the Jewish Holidays, in response to the many inquiries and requests by guests, has been announced today by Isadore Nagler, Chairman of the Unity House Committee...
...Socialist Boy and Grit Dm Everything for Their Cause By Sol Perrin Guest conducting for Sam De Witt, who took a vacation to give even more time than usual to campaign work—and how he works I To Norman Thomas / have found the words for tny thoughts, I have found the voice for my words, And my thoughts are freed And my words take shape...
...The American crisi i has had the great merit of tearing the veil of a dangerous illusion from the eyes of millions of workers of other countries who looked to America, expecting a miracle...
...When, three years ago, prosperity was at its peak these intellectuals mocked Marx for having taught that the capitalist regime would bring the proletariat to increasing distress and that the workers favor a revolutionary movement...
...Will the nev . era be that of tho organlzini I ant...
...He objected and the toughs evidently did not like what he said...

Vol. 14 • October 1932 • No. 14


 
Developed by
Kanda Sofware
  Kanda Software, Inc.