Timely Topics

THOMAS, NORMAN

By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS Hail "Peace on Earth"! WHILE we worry, not without reason, about our own troubles—shall we inflate or not inflate? How shall we take care of the unemployed in a...

...I'm not minimizing the benefits of these data to those farmers who still have farms...
...There is absolutely no excuse for it in this day of scientific enlightenment Newark New Leader Dinner to Follow N. J. State Convention 1UEWARK.—What promises to be the largest and most interesting New Leader dinner so far will be held on Sunday, December 10, starting at 6 p. m., following,the adjournment of the state convention that day...
...Dont forget the bill comes back to you and me to be paid ia the end I Beginning with the notoriously expensive letter-carrier, the government employs to carry ¦sail across the ocean (through subsidies to steamship companies...
...NO political realist can expect very much from the Disarmament Conference now...
...This resolution was defeated primarily by tha French delegates with the support of delegates from the Little Entente countries on the ground, stated by a French delegate, "that his nation would not accept any proposals if this were included...
...Philanthropists and social workers who as late as 1930 and early in 1931 refused to support my repeated efforts to force from them a clear-cut declaration on municipal housing have now fallen in line...
...Therein is food for thought...
...An owning class has other things to be excited about...
...We want a Peter Owens who with the triumphant workers shall be able to stop munitions trade, the lying propaganda in the service cf profit, the cowardice and hypocricy of the respectable tools of an owning class, in time to prevent war...
...If she has no sickness insurance, she is given a pension for a period after confinement And she is given a gift of a complete layette together with a supply of baby's toilet articles...
...Women Don't Concern Them...
...There ia a logic in Germany's demand either to be allowed to re-arm or to have the Allies disarm...
...I think or, st any rate, I hope that it will be a long time before any Socialist Central Committee in New York or anywhere else gives an endorsement to a right wing urion in internecine conflicts simply because it used to have some Socialist connections and is now fighting a Communist-controlled union even if that be in collusion with the bosses...
...More Fur Union Confusion THE other day in New Yo-k a Tammany judge declared a mistrial in the rather complicated legal proceedings by which the left wing furriers' union sought to set aside an earlier injunction got by the right wing which forbade employers to use any but members of the right wing union while in answer to this effort the right wing union sought to get a new injunction against tha left wing...
...and the rest of it—the world continues to drift toward war...
...All expectant moth* era of the workingclass are given the same care...
...Meanwhile, I should like to see "Peace on Earth" given in every town in America...
...France doubtless thinks it would be equally dangerous for her to disarm...
...On several occasions the famous J...imie Walker assured audiences that he wanted what I wanted, but knew a better way to*get it In 1929, when again I made municipal housing a major issue, there was more interest, and more direct interest Nevertheless, in spite of repeated efforts, I could not force Major La Guardia, then the Repuolican candidate for Mayor, to commit himself to this principle...
...She H given expert medical care...
...The convention will start at 9 a. m. and be in continuous session until 5 p. m., a quick noon lunch being served to the delegates at their tables to save time...
...The whole proceedings on both sides are left up in the air by the judge's declaration of mistrial...
...New Leader readers, or branches or groups outside of Newark desiring individual plates or tables, are urged to get in touch with Dr...
...As far as the lack of money to finance such measures is concerned, I want to say that this $7,000,000 is just one little item in a wag list of expensive noneosontiala we're spending money on...
...Let no one think from what I have said that *»<e .lay is "propaganda" in any false, strained or unnatural sense which sacrifices drama to a sermon...
...It is drama, good drama, powerfully conceived and well acted...
...The commercial aspect of French militarism was never worse illustrated than at the International Press Conference recently held in Madrid under the auspices of the League of Nations...
...But to rllow Germany to re-arm now under any pretext—that of fighting Bolshevism or of equality with other Powers—would be iangerous...
...In Vienna, the municipality takes charge of the pregnant workingclass woman from the fourth month on...
...The confusion is so great that there is not even a code as yet in the industry...
...All Agog Over Bee and Hog...
...Everybody knows the shocking state of affairs in 'he fur industry...
...Could any commentary on the low ethics of the French in regard to newspapers, newspaper subsidies and armament profits be more striking or mora alarming...
...No single pa^er in New York cried out on Major La C—rdia as a Socialist or dangerous radical...
...It appears that the Russian and American delegates were together on this press resolution, which is a good omen, perhaps, for what the two countries may do for effective disarmament now that Russia has boon recognised...
...If that new war can be prevented, it will be by the effective determination of masses of the people that they will not fight...
...Owr maternity mortality figures are tecond higheet on the list of civilized nations and we are also the most backward country • in regard to other social legislation...
...Especially necessary it is that workers should be organized so that the general strike against war can be made effective...
...By Gertrmde Wen Klein POKING its 1 nose late the lev* affair* of Oa garter - snake and into tbe domestic hab-, its of the anteater costs the government of the United States $7,000,000 a year...
...I speak specifically of the car* of pregnant women because of the appalling mortality figures, aad because of the grand job the Socialists of Vienna have been aad are doing in this direction...
...How shall we take care of the unemployed in a cold winter...
...The dinner has assumed such proportions that it must be held in the ball room, with practical assurance that every one of the 400 plates will be applied for some days, before the event Party branches, unions, the People's Institute, and many other groups are taking one, two, and even three tables of ten each...
...Louis Reiss, 188 Springfield Ave., Newark (Makret 2-8850...
...Thanks to the cooperation of the Workmen's Circle, the dinner will cost only 60 cents per plate...
...The topic of discussion at the dinner will be, "Hitlerism — in America and Abroad...
...No question of legitimacy or illegitimacy enters in: I think Socialist women in this country, through their various organizations, should make an aggressive effort to have governmental action taken in regard to matters that particularly affect them...
...The speakers are Charles Solomon and Frank Crosswaith, and probably a representative from abroad will speak...
...Whatever may be the case .nothing is clearer* than that the right wing union made a dangerous error in trying to beat its rival by going into a capitalist court with Tammany lawyers to get an injunction against employers who were really in collusion with them on this matter...
...Yet there may be a wholesome lesson fo...
...A Russian delegate introduced a resolution to end the practice of subsidising newspapers by munition plants, which, of course, have much to win by all stories of wars and rumors of wars...
...So do some phases of Socialism growl But not fait enough or toon vnough...
...What she has done with her meagre resources, during a period of bleak suffering through all of Central Europe, is something to admire and to hope to emulate...
...The way men talk just before the outbreak of the next war is the way they talked before the outbreak of the last war...
...The play is almost prophetic as a probable indication of what will happen—of what will happen, fiat is, unless all who hate war are well enough organized to make their resistance and their strikes end in victory, not defeat...
...In arousing the people to the danger of war, nothing is more effective than drama, for few situations hold in them such powerful elements of drama as does the drift toward war and the fight against it...
...Therefore I hail with all my heart the appearance of that power' and moving anti-war play: "Peace on F '.h" at the Civic Repetory Theatre on Weat 14th Street, N. Y. It was written by George Skiar and Albert Maltz and is being presented by the Theatre Union, Inc., an exceedingly interesting and hopeful venture...
...By some queer reasoning*' it is Jthe government's function to conduct extensive researches into the private lives of the members of the insect and animal world, but it would break up the home if motherhood, childhood, old age, unemployment, to mention just a few things, were given the consideration they deserve...
...A L SMITH and the rest who talk about "crack pots" and "baloney" dollars or rubber dollars will have to do a little explaining to convince the average man that their beloved gold standard dollars, which will buy so much more now than in 1926, aren't also really made for rubber or baloney...
...Don't Be Fooled by ''—nation...
...In the meanwhile, the original injunction agalnat the employers is to all intents and purposes a dead letter...
...For reasons I have previously g'ven, I am very skeptical of the value of the President's gold purchasing policy in reference to the dollar...
...In depression, there isn't as much money as there used to be in speculative housing...
...Yet if I hated inflation as much as Al Smith, or most of the bankers, or Matt Woll, I might reflect that perhaps President Roosevelt was doing them what we might call a good turn by trying an exceedingly mild form of inflation in an effort to stimulate a rise in price of certain agricultural commodities by means of increased European demand for them in cheaper dollars, and to forestall a wholesale inflation for which Congress is said to yearn...
...The people—college professors, students, graduates back for a reunion, recipients of honorary degrees, workers striking against the shipment of munitions— are people like the folks we know and what they do arises naturally out of their own characters and out of a situation which, alas, is all too probable...
...They sinned against sound labor tactics, they laid down a precedent which may rise to plague unions, and they got nothing out of it except big lawyers' fees which probably the union doesn't have to pay...
...Due to ignorance and lack of proper care, thousands of women's lives are sacrificed every year...
...Now They're Talking Housing THE other day Major La Guardis, Mayor-elect of New York, made a speech m municipal housing which took substantially the position that the Socialist Party has been urging ever since the war, only a little less carefully worked out than in our platforms of 1925, 1929, and 1983...
...She is given periodic" attention and advice...
...at $17,000 a pound and ending with the $6,600,000 spent on the Prohibition Bureau alone—not to mention the more than doubly costly coast guard—this represents quite a tidy sum which might be spend for all sorts of desperately needed social services...
...That shrewd political opportunist doubtless favored it at heart, but he was sfraid to commit himself to it Now he has come around...
...This is what the physieians themselves say...
...Peter Owens, the hero of "Peaco on Earth," goes out to execution almost i;t the very moment that Congress declares war...
...They invite a lack of confidence from rank and file workers, organized and unorganised...
...It is no defense whatever of such conduct to allege that the left wing union has done things that it ought not to have done...
...There Is more than one way to defeat a good will or emasculate a good program, and you can trust the landlord* the real estate1 interests, and the banks tied up with them to try some or all of those ways if Major La Guardia in New York or a leader in any other city actually gats down to cases and proposes a real program for municipal housing...
...trade union leaders in the future...
...These are tactics which invite worse than defeat...
...But we cannot ask American dramatists to give us this ending until we have done something to point the way...
...She is given the service of competent physicians in child-birth...
...Who reads the stuff and who is interested—outside of the agronomists, (just plain farmers to you and me)—is a mystery...
...No inflation will do what its enthusiasts claim for it Uncontrolled inflation will do immense damage...
...The convention is expected to be a useful and harmonious one, with every sect lor, of the state, represented...
...Yet there is no denying that French armament itself is a danger to the world...
...If it had been made by stme of Hitler's nominally democratic predecessors as vigorously and as effectively as Hitler msde it, the world would have been better off...
...Pregnant cows and suckling sows have the attention of all aorta of experts, and mountains of literature are written on this theme...
...Some rather damaging evidence was brought out in the proceedings to show tl at the right wing union had originally proceeded to get an injunction against employers who did not fight it not...
...1 dont think the tabloids spend as much to give us the more spectacular gyrations of the so-called human race...
...My main hope is that Socialists and workers generally will not get so excited about this battle between Smith and Roosevelt Matt Woll and Father Coughlin, that they will forget that the roots of our trouble are in the disintegrating capitalist system, not simply in money, and that our salvation depends upon the cooperative commonwealth, not upon any scheme of monetary reform...
...According to figures just released by the New York Medical Society, thousands of mothers die in childbirth annually—and 60% of these deaths are preventable...
...A great, rich city like New York and a powerful, rich country like the United States let its mothers die by the thousands, through neglect and ignorance...
...Because the march of events hss made municipal housing so obviously necessary1 that practically nobody dares attack it very violently out in the open...
...Both dinner and convention will be held in the Workmen's Circle Institute, 190 Belmont Ave...
...on its own initiative but at the suggestion and with the help of the employers themselves...
...The basis of representation for each branch is two delegates at large and one delegate for ten additional members, or majority fraction thereof...
...We might start on this question of maternal mortality...
...Poor, poverty-stricken, beautiful Vienna...
...Don't Forget Armament Makers...
...Friends of peace should pay far more attention to the mischief done by armament makers throughout the world, emphatically including the United States, who seek profits from preparation for war—yes, and from war itself...
...Why...
...It is expected that many visitors will be present, as a secretary and treasurer, eight delegates to the coming national convention, and a candidate for U. S. Senator and Governor will all be nominated...
...I mention the bees and the birds and the bugs, because while millions of dollars are spent on their care, human mothers are neglected and ignored...
...Apparently Great Britain and France are divided as to what to do...
...Nor does the apparent agreement of the public with Major LaGuardia'a approval of municipal housing mean that—if be tries to do anything about it—he won't have an awful fight on his hands to get it in any worthwhile shape...
...Indeed, some of the tariff and trade wars and the new war of currencies Just launched tend to increase the rate of drift toward the second World War...
...In 1925, when I first began to make housing a major issue, people listened and liked it, but liked it as something spart from themselves and remote...

Vol. 16 • December 1933 • No. 23


 
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