American Socialists Stand by Their Sorely Tried Comrades
Levinson, Edward
By Edward Levinson American Socialists Stand by Their Sorely Tried Comrades Matteotti Fund Reopened Here to Aid Victims of Naii Savagery—Hillquit and Thomas Head Drive to Enlist Support for...
...May 2«ib...
...And a still smaller fraction has had its eyes pried open far enough by the depression to see that the split between wages and profits has been badly twisted...
...They will be heartened a hundredfold and immeasurably aided by funds from other nations...
...Build the Matteotti Fund...
...That ia the atmosphere in which German Socialists must work...
...You don't have to stay there," Bill replied...
...The principal burden of resisting such a "peace," a peace of annihilation, rests on the German Socialists...
...The Woll idea parallels the Hitler idea which uses state power to destroy all art not of 'pure' German origin...
...The need for such aid has again arisen...
...Woll indicts Hitler in Germany and brings Hitlerism into the American art field...
...Peace Relations Restored "U/1TII one set of brains," said Bill, with a twinke in his " eye...
...The only difference is that in the former period the artist had little choice while today these conservatives volunteer to serve the exploiters...
...You remind me of the habitual drunk who is kept away from grog for months and who suddenly dives into a speakeasy and gets soused...
...On Juo court, on ministry, lence witi days lata Address I birth of all quite I until Har By Joseph E. Cohen Only as Work Can They I J7ROM all accounts the Government is giving industry a big hand...
...To be a Socialist in Germany today means to be prepared for anything and to reckon with every possibility," writes a German inmate...
...On May 18th, Hitler felt his "pacification'' of Germany had been completed...
...Germany may achieve peace in the years ahead...
...Woll is generally bold in support of reaction and timid when facing something progressive...
...from 18U2 to 1895 he was a "Lone Socialist," using the floor as a soap-box Defeated in the latter year he did not return until 1900, when he won a seat for Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, which he held until his death fifteen years later...
...THE statesman has begun to emerge in Adolf Hitler...
...otherwise" 'THERE must be magic, * Otherwise, Would people be such fools...
...So more clean chalk Is ordered to mark up another example of beautiful innocencel That puts labor squarely on guard...
...r Yet this administration hesitates to let go of our raw individualism, however ferocious that has been in both the boom and bad years of capitalism...
...On that day a Socialist rises in the Prvsfian diet and on behalf of his parly voices opposition to the regime...
...Joe wants to Fight "THAT assertion of some artists is cowardly evasion," ¦ said Bill...
...A little Marxist knowledge of class interests is mighty helpful in explaining such incidents...
...I favor two kinds of art...
...I like you...
...Then you slip away and you walk arm-in-arm with Woll...
...And I think that you have two sets of brains," said Bill with some heat "It seems that you sometimes bring one set that works fairly well...
...23-1 Will N Keir Hardie first entered Parliament in August, 1892, there were fifteen labor members, but most of them had been elected as Liberals He alone was to stand out as Independent Labor—that is, as the nucleus of a party distinct from and opposed to both capitalist parties...
...at other times you bring a set as soft as buckwheat batter...
...You've got me In a corner again," said Joe...
...A week later, Karl Severing boards a train for a meeting of the Reichstag...
...Only a small percentage is inside the labor movement...
...Well, Matthew Woll endorses this movement," Joe replied...
...Not a single word of the affair appears in the German press...
...wojkers' homes and clubs are smashed...
...Larry ogaa...
...But it will be the peace of the battlefield after the war haB ended...
...The most regrettable is the forced "coordination" of the German trade unions into the Hitler regime...
...isked Joe...
...I'm in favor of a ten cents per ounce tariff en foreign brains," said Bill,, 'and to rigidly enforce it I would offer a prize for the best machine to weigh the brains and put one in the bands of every customs official...
...at the ssme time...
...Every trade union local, every Workmen's Circle and Socialist Party branch will be asked to do their utmost...
...Joachim, Berlin lawyer who has defended the victims of Naziism as best he could, is taken from his home by storm troopers...
...A provisional committee consist* of Morris Hillquit, Norman Thomas, Emil Rieve, David Dubinsky, John Dewey, Abraham Cahan, Robert Morss Lovett and Joseph Baskin...
...What are they...
...Aw be serious, Bill...
...Bill V Joe Nearly Come To Blows in Art Dispute But Reach Happy Accord __, By Autolycus F-------"I'M for protecting American >rt against cheap foreign 1 competition," said Joe as he and Bill came out of the movie "It's a good thing that the Advance American Art Commission has been formed to keep out thi« foreign stuff...
...WEVD NEW LEADER SPEAKER Miss Goldine Hillson of The New Leader staff will be the speaker of The New Leader period of Station WEVD, Friday, June 2nd, from 4:30 to 4:45 p. in...
...Capital has taken the lion'a share...
...But what's an American artist going to do when cheap art pushes him out of the picture...
...These conservative artists have organized right after Diego Rivera, the revolutionary Mexican artist, was fired by the Rockefeller crowd...
...1 gether b capitalist at leasT* rocky, to I In the cJ starting i highest w effect Thl scale wool wage f«' Decade) that anr pay s I abolished, ure to f1 the indusi make ew But tin Plenty m Proptii provides labor c»» of profit vanishiis) expeniUfl placerM"' carefully-Piling "I the par* altogeth WEVD NEW LEADER SPEAKER Miss Goldine Hillson of The New Leader staff will be the speaker of The New Leader period of Station WEVD, Friday, June 2nd, from 4:30 to 4:45 p. in...
...Art of alls kinds comes into this country and deprives American artists of a living," Joe replied "Art belongs to all humanity...
...Bill, I'll punch you in the snoot if you ever say anything like that again," said Joe, his eyes ablaze with anger...
...He is beaten so badly that he dies in a few hours...
...Forget it and let's get back to art, but not of the fistic variety...
...Ben Blumenberg speaks Friday...
...Matt Woll gets a scent of this reaction and he brings the banner of the White Guards to support the art that serves the interests of capitalism...
...He is now in a sanatorium where, it is said, "he must stay a long time before he recovers...
...Among these the United States, still the richest country in the world, must be first...
...Those comrades missing from the executive will carry on from the vantage places of near-by borders...
...Build the Matteotti Fund Nevertheless, the German party in the end of April holds a party congress in which plans are made to keep the banner of Socialism flying come what may...
...That period was devoted to the task of building up the Labor party both in and out of the House, nuraing along younger men, snd building up the Socialist movement...
...Otherwise, Retain their ttolen jewels...
...Thus far the workers have been woefully slow in organising into unions for their own protection...
...Younger leaders of the party were given places on the executive, along with representatives of the party left and the seasoned leaders...
...It's contemptible...
...it Is universal, said Bill, "and to set up barriers to it is lo write ourselves down as barbarians...
...Watching the performance, it remains to be seen whether or not the hungry beast bites the hand which feeds it...
...Proletarian art in general and the art of Marxian thinking," Bill replied and they parted as friends...
...The trade unions were "coordinated...
...Labor will havs to The VI Inda Be I oft...
...S o g i a 1 ii No...
...Do you think that there is any relation between the two incidents...
...The Boys Calm Down "/"VH, all right," said Bill...
...You may be right, Bill," said Joe, who had cooled down...
...Within a few hours, he is taken off strangely suffering from a "nervous collapse...
...Do you agree...
...Getting Together Supposedly capital is to rub shoulders with labor in fixing wages, hours and prices, to say nothing of profits...
...Did you notice that the Advance American Art Commission is announced as composed of conservative artists...
...Only when they break loose and get out of bounds is the Government to atep in and crack the whip...
...On June 23rd, 1894, a baby was born to the Duchess of York and the grandson of the reigning Queen, now King t George...
...You sometimes get abreast with revolutionary philosophy and I find you marching with Marx...
...After the few defections from Socialism are noted—and these would include Communist deputies who have gone over to Fascism— there are indications by the thousand to show the manner in which German Socialists are fighting back...
...Cut it out or I'll paste you," said Joe with a menacing gesture...
...He is also an ally of the bigg««t exploiters of labor in the country in support of a high tariff policy," said Bill...
...take a * the prodi Where i To tb» in earns in tnameni down to figure...
...These organizations will lay the foundation for the mighty anti-Hitler campaign...
...Actually what comes out of putting heads together depends most upon how ready labor is to stand up for Its own...
...Thus * the leading dailies of the country editorialised the day after tbe nickel-plated Nazi Bismarck delivered his recent address to bis puppet Reichstag...
...The German Social Democracy at a congress but a month ago took notice of this defection but determined it would not influence their own resistance to Hitler...
...Bill, how do you do it...
...It is to place art on a level with commodities, ranging it with pig iron, glais and hides...
...He entered the House whose character as a stuffy cli bating society was varied by it other character as an eleg;mt club for younger sons of Tory tycoons, simply, without arro gance of humility, in the gar ments of honest toil...
...The fund has rallied into activity the Socialists of other nations...
...The Socialist deputy Adolph Biedermann, embarks on a railroad journey from Cologne to Hamburg...
...At least 20,000 Socialist men and women are in prison camps, in most cases crude buildings where it is not intended they should have even the most elementary needs cared for...
...The Socialist and Labor International and the International Federation of Trade Unions have taken up Hitler's gauntlet...
...It was during his service as a "Lone Socialist" that he was the center of a historic parliamentary "scene...
...The hoodlums of the Nazi benches shout in derision, then in danger...
...For how could wasters, Otherwise, Determine all the rules...
...Deputy Sollman is taken into custody by a Nazi "defense squad...
...You brought the mushy set along today...
...and in some cases reaping death...
...asked Joe...
...No artist who is confident of his own work will Beek state power as a club to restrict the American field to himself...
...We've been pals in many a strike...
...Here in the United States the Socialist Party has begun to set up a tremendous machinery which will spread the truth about Hit lerism while it builds a fund which it will at frequent periods forward to the German Socialists...
...Come to tnink of it, I did," Joe replied...
...They are a type that revert back to the precapitalist age when art was subsidized by rich patrons and art reflected this patronage...
...printing plants of which there were more than 130 are taken over by the Nazis or wrecked...
...Now add the two incidents together and the sum of both means that the conservative artists serving conservative interests wnnt to bar out labor and revolutionary art in general...
...So the separate industries are being invited to go as far as possible in self-government...
...The Matteotti Fund, which did such valiant service in aiding and equipping the Socialist victims of Mussolini and Pilsudski, will now devote its main resources to supplying the German Socialists the sinews of wsr...
...they also have an intense dislike for the art that serves the working class...
...A few hours later his body is found by the railroad track...
...the Socialists were not to be reckoned with...
...His work in the latter period was, of course, of infinitely greater moment than his first period, but there was something magnificently heroic in his stand alone in the House in his earlier years...
...Coordinating" Opponents It is true there have been some defections from the cause of Socialism since the rise of Hitler...
...I notice that Woll says 'it may seem bold' of him to express sympathy with this attack on foreign art...
...Thus « ill Hitler receive the answer of the Socialist movement of the United- States...
...Without any serious thinking you were about to approve a united front of Hitler, Rockefeller and Woll against your own class interests and you wanted to assault your pal because he refused to join it...
...By Edward Levinson American Socialists Stand by Their Sorely Tried Comrades Matteotti Fund Reopened Here to Aid Victims of Naii Savagery—Hillquit and Thomas Head Drive to Enlist Support for Germans...
...If true to past form it will snap at anything in sight...
...when he is released close friends can hardly recognize him...
...Ben Blumenberg speaks Friday...
...The Socialist movement has many times reached across national borders and given the subjects of czars, kings and kaisers the sustenance with which to continue the battle...
...But you are such a trial," said Bill...
...Thus the fight continues...
...The fund will be known as the American Section of the Matteotti Fund...
...And how could ifilers...
...I learned in school that two and two make four,' said Bill...
...Their contributions will make possible the spreading of the appeal into every by-way of American life...
...Comrade Otto Kohlmetz, administrator of an old workers' home in Lands berg, is taken to a Nazi storm troop barracks and there beaten so that within a few hours he dies in a hospital...
...The London Daily Herald writes in an editorial, "Back to Barbarism": "Of one thing the German Social Democrats can be assured...
...at the ssme time...
...That's important in itself but it is also important for another reason," said Bill...
...Prince of there wi Albion 0 Wales, ia lost their day M. 9 France, i days late Scotland wages...
...It will not lie long before further resem blances of Hitler to statesmanship will be discovered...
...But Hitlerism will nevertheless* continue to mean to the Germany of Socialism, labor and progress the rule of brutal absolutism...
...May 2«ib...
...To Keep Red Banner Flying Socialist funds totaling almost $15,000,000 are confiscated...
...They have the warmhearted sympathy, they will receive the moral and material aid of every Socialist movement in the world...
...The conservative artirts ure not only servile before the ruling classes...
...Hardie's parliamentary woi i falls into two periods...
...asked Joe...
...I'm only human, Joe...
...I think you're impossible," said Joe with disgust...
Vol. 15 • May 1933 • No. 21
