Register and Enroll at Once!
Register and Enroll at Once! 5nly Through Socialist Party S Success Can We Really Get i Rid of All Political Graft Br HAKRY W. LAIDLBR ( andidate for Comptroller from a Radio Address Over...
...They are bankers whose sons go to expensive private schools, brokers who can afford the best specialists and private suites in the best hospitals...
...THE MASSES MUST DEPEND UPON RELIEF AND BITTER CHARITY IN TIMES OF DISTRESS...
...We condemn Tweed, and rightly so, for hia part in directing a corrupt political machine...
...The exposures again led to an overtarn...
...By all means let us end the looting and the plundering of the city by the more vulgar and leaa scrupulous gang of servants of tho big financial Interests...
...Mayor Strong lasted one term and then gave place to one of the worst nr Tammany's nominees, Mayor febert A. Van Wyck...
...actually, however, they care about one thing alone— THE TAX RATE AND THE THREAT TO THEIR BANKROLLS IF THE RATES ARE HIGH...
...The playboy mayor signed the franchise and a few days later sailed (or Europe, with a $10,000 letter of credit bought by the Equitable's New York representative...
...Croker ie euetained, directly and indirectly, by 'resectable and prominent eitittns' who believe that it ie better" to uphold bosses than to 'imperil the interests, perhaps those of widows and orphans committed to their charge...
...By all means, let us strike against the assortment of people who aee Tammany cracking and seek to substitute for the crooked and stupid Tammany a Tammany not quite so stupid and idiotic aa that led by Curry and McCooey...
...In the first place, in condemning political corruption, which we do with all the energy we possess, we should not overlook the fact that where there it a politician who receive...
...even if lower taxes mean inadequate public health service, WHAT DO THEY CARET It does not affect them as It affects the great maaa of people whose toil creates the wealth out of which taxes are paid and whose children %eed the Social Services that they.themstlves do not need...
...The real estate people think they pay the taxes but they are mistaken—we pay them in - our rents, in the profits that merchants make out of our trade...
...And they do not need jobless relief...
...Now, the social services cost money...
...The masaea must send their children to public schools...
...Charles B. I'arkhurst secretly visited the lad Light District, wearing his famous black and white checked trousers, gathered volumes of facta regarding the organised system of Hbery under which the police colfited millions of dollars in tribute far the failure to enforce the law, laundered his denunciations from B pulpit, turned on the city government the searchlight of the Swew committee and laid a foundation for the election of William L Strong aa anti-Tammany mayor...
...After the Mazet Inquiry, which led to the dethronement of the Croker regime, the City Club of New -York iasued a pamphlet axj plaining the connection between big business and corrupt municipal politics...
...If the community had owned its own railroads it would not have sent its own representatives to its own legislatures and bribed its own legislators to pass legislation in favor of its own railroads...
...He made astounding admissions to Counsel Frank Moss concerning the gentle art of city plunder...
...It's THEIR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE I VOTE FOR YOURSELVES i VOTE SOCIALIST...
...McCooey and their pals can keep Tammany Hall from going completely to pieces, real issues are being lost sight of...
...The real estate speculator may aay be is concerned about the Social Services...
...They do not need public health eervicee...
...In the early nineties, Dr...
...For example, aome comparatively unknown business men organised the Equitable Bus Company...
...Curry and its record of corruption, the people are •tain aroused...
...If the transit companies under ground and above ground were owned by the community, that type of corruption and attempted corruption would not exist Fusion Breaks Down The Fusion movement breaks down because it does not attack Not for the Grafters or the Exploiters, but for the Workers By William ML Feigenbaura JN a fevered campaign'apparently centering around the important question of whether or not Mr...
...Probably the most important single issue before the people (whether most of them know it or not) is whether or not the Social Services are to be run for them, or are to be plundered by the grafters, or are to be starved by the bankere...
...or for the people who make the city what it is...
...Curry, Mr...
...LaGuardla ve...
...When Boss Tweed was stealing about a million dollars a month from the city, six of the wealthiest men of New York, headed by John Jacob Astor, gave Tweed a certificate of character, for which it is alleged their taxea were reduced...
...The chancea are that they would "wit of office after the next elec**¦ Should, contrary to pre' JJJjnt, tho Republican machine ¦°*a on to office more than one '» there any reaaon to belJ*J* that that machine would not UiS-**1, thfi history of the corrupt gjahlican machines of PhiladetHJPJ...
...The big corporations of Richard Croker's day did buaineaa with him aa they have done with the present-day Tammany...
...Jay Gould advanced a million dollars as bail to free Tweed from jail...
...When honesty interferes with these profits, it is just too bad...
...BUT LET US NOT LEAP FROM THE FRYING PAN INTO THE' FIRE I Let ua not leap from plunder to exploitation by bankers and their agents even If camouflaged as "liberals" or even -radicals...
...And what next...
...The same story was repeated with Mayor Mitchel...
...The Republican Machine is again uniting with inHpendent Democrats to oust Tammany from the City Hall...
...They do not need public libraries...
...The bankers and real estate speculators, the exploiters and employers write the checks that are turned Into the city treasury (when they are not able wholly to evade paying taxes), but the money comes from the workers who pay rent, who create tho wealth out of which the taxes' are paid...
...actually, however, he la Interested In one thing and one thing alone—THE TAX RATE The employer, the banker, the exploiter, may talk about the Social Services...
...Richard Croker In the late nineties, further protests began to fill the papers regarding the corruption of the Croker machine...
...O'Brien...
...Reform, with McKee vs...
...Those who are wealthy, those who have profits and- dividends, THOSE WHO SUPPORT "GOOD" GOVERNMENT IN THE SHAPE OF FUSION OR McKEB, may TALK about schools and hospitals snd relief, BUT . .. They send their children to etpeneive private schools...
...These types of corruption have been long in evidence...
...And the mam issue is—or should be—whether or not the city is to be run for the grafters and political plunderers, or for the bankers...
...We forget about the'source of much of the corruption, the msnner in which such men as Gould reached the legislators...
...He brazenly admitted that he was "working for ' ki» own pocket all the time...
...Sometimes the givers of graft are the proprietors of speakeasies and houses of ill-fame or sellers of other illegal goods and services...
...Now, Sallowing the Seabury Investigation exposing the "New Tammany" •I Mr...
...The msaaee, who are supposed to supply the votes, are expected sto become delirious with enthusiasm over a program that strikes directly at them and their Interests...
...The Mazet Inoniry of 1899 followed...
...Another big source of graft In city government has been connected with the securing of franchiaea...
...JE'fo h> thia election, a few RepubIffMsa on the Fusion ticket should *>n there is no reason to assume »at the city would uproot graft ««d corruption any more than did naUIar movements in the past...
...5nly Through Socialist Party S Success Can We Really Get i Rid of All Political Graft Br HAKRY W. LAIDLBR ( andidate for Comptroller from a Radio Address Over WEVD EVER so often during the last two generations New Yoik ha* been whipped into a frenzy over corruption under Tammany rule...
...dishonesty, with Tammany vs...
...The Social Services are supported out of taxation...
...O'Brien, Mr...
...They do not live in tenements or in overmortgaged little houses...
...In other words, the theory is that a citizen ie justified, when acting ae a director, or ae a manager of a company in 'doing bueineee' with a political machine, however corrupt and however dangerous to the state...
...They appointed as their "expert" Senator Hastings, friend of Jimmie Walker...
...Sometimes those wanting favors for which they are willing to pay politicians are small fry hunting for jobs, a form of corruption which can be largely avoided by the development of an efficient civil service system and enough industrial jobs to go around, a condition however, which requires for its fulfillment a Socialist administration...
...Those whose ideal of government ia CHEAP government, banded In support of Fusion or of McKee, those who put up its funds and direct Its policies are those who do not and need not use the Social Services...
...Seth Low was elected mayor, hut after one term the Fusion forces again dissolved into thin air and George B. McClellan, Tarn S's nominee, was overwhelmelected...
...It would have no meaning, no value without the working people...
...Ground ie not wanting for the belief that the power of Mr...
...to them the Social Services are only a couple of words...
...And there we hate a clash of Interests that has nothing to do with honesty vs...
...of Chicago under the reign II Mayor Thompson, or of the dt« ¦•« northern New Yorkt The reasons for the failure of the Fusion movement to effect any vital change fh the city government are brilliantly set forth In Lincoln Steffena' "Autobiography" and in Norman Thomas' What'* the Matter with New York...
...Thus New Yorkers, shocked into action in the early seventies of the pit century by the exposure of the Tweed ring;, hurjed Tammany henchmen, aent Tweed to Ludlow Street jail, and then, three years later, saw Tammany return to ofIce and to plunder...
...Croker Was brought to the stand...
...The masaes use the public libraries, the public hospitals...
...When the votes were counted and the reformers installed, the average citizen breathed a sigh of relief, turned Ins mind from politics, permitted {Tammany to reform its ranks and, in the next election, wit•eased the Democratic machine again roll into power...
...They want honesty among city employees, but they also want their profits...
...Big Business To a large extent they are the big buaineaa men competing for fat contracts, franchises snd other special privileges — respectable members of the community, contributors to Republican and Democratic campaign funds, men in high stsnding in both parties,' who are not averse to splitting profits with a political...
...THEY TALK sbout good schools, but they WANT lower taxes so that their Interests may not be affected And even if lower taxes mean crowded classrooms, insanitary buildings,overworked teachers, inadequate equipment...
...DY all means, let us get rid of Tammany...
...Uaa your votes to regain control of the city, TO MAKE IT YOUR OWN...
...The city waa made by the working people...
...THE CITY FOR THE PEOPLE...
...machine if they can retain aome awag for themselves...
...They sought a franchise which, they estimated, would yield a profit of $19,000,000...
...The citizens ; have risen in their might, have driven the Tammany Tiger from office and have elected reform administrations...
...see, WHEN we pay rent, when we buy food and clothing and our little luxuries, we put money into circulation, some of which is taken off in taxation...
...graft, there ie eeme person in bueineee who gives graft...
...And so in this day we find the Republican and Democratic business men, many of them prominent in their respective parties, getting all they can in private buaineaa and parties to tho corruption of city officials...
...Gould had admitted Tweed to the Board of Directors of the Erie Railroad during his control of that road, and in return for that honor Tweed had arranged favorable legislation for Gould's railroad at Albany...
Vol. 16 • October 1933 • No. 16
