TIMELY TOPICS

THOMAS, NORMAN

By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS New York'. Election MEW YOKE CITY has survived a scrambled * ' election. Ob the well known but very unsatisfactory "beat man" theory the beat man of the...

...It fell flat Now under the guise of carrying out the NRA, Mr...
...This plan when announced was approved by General Johnson, who had prepared the way for IS by advising labor to give up the right to strike...
...The power of the Socialist administration win" be limited...
...The fruits of these labors were shown in the recent victory...
...It was a deserved rebuke to the Administration ,br friends of the Administration, for butting into the New York election and trying to make a hero out of such poor material as "Holy Joe" McKec...
...Councillors are elected for tb-^-year terms and one-third of each council is renewed every year...
...J. P. Daviea, Socialist, polled 14,15...
...It is certain that he has a much harder Job, He goes into office with a nominal majority of th* votes on the Board of Estimate...
...virtual control in its own hands during the boom days...
...That fact had not prevented catastrophe out had led to it Moreover, Mr...
...He is active in his union and has held office as treasurer...
...It is ominous—even sinister—that Tammany still holds the District Attorney's office in New York County, which probably means protection for the very worst elements in the city's life...
...The Socialist vote appeared to have been a pretty straight vote and was better than at one time we feared...
...He is another of the old-time Socialists to win office in the Socialist sweep, his service as Alderman having served to point the weakest point of the armor of the enemies of the workers...
...The warnings that I and other Socialists have been giving of the dangers of Fascism have been doubly emphasized by the sudden appearance of the Swope Plan...
...Swope did not adequately prepare the ground for his plan even in his own class...
...For the present, this Swope Plan looks dead, but the workers must not become overconfident Big business is capable of ; learning a little by its own tactical errqrs...
...The same forces that converted East Fulham from a hopeless Tory constituency by a majority of 15,000 into a Socialist seat by a 5,000 majority—won on international issues—obtained in the local elections...
...Ob the well known but very unsatisfactory "beat man" theory the beat man of the three leading candidate* for Mayor won...
...By all meani we Socialists hope that Litvinoffs visit will be a complete success...
...The same forces that deepened and strengthened the Socialist majority in Zurich, that made the Socialist triumphs in Norway and Finland—those are the forces that are animating the labor movement everywhere...
...This makes the Socialist victory even more significant The Connecticut Legislature took care to put even mot* restrictions est th* Bridgeport City governmeat in anticipation of a Socialist victory than are usually pat upon city governments...
...With thousands upon thousands of them personality and racial issues loomed far larger than class interest...
...It arranged fifteen minute radio talks over station WICC, and it also published a campaign pape.r Local Bridgeport has earned its victory and we wish it and its fine leader the best of success...
...Still worse, Mr...
...For the first time in its history Glasgow, the second city in th* British Empire, will have a Socialist majority, and a number of other towns will likewise have Socialist governments...
...Swope had chosen a l very bad time for his plan...
...Whether Major LaGuardia's abilities will make him relatively as satisfactory a Mayor as ha was a free-lance Con-' gressraan is doubtful...
...Under all circumstances, economic and political, it is hard to see how Mayorelect LaGuardia after a few dramatic reforms at the beginning of his administration can be much more than receiver in bankruptcy for a broken-down city administration in a dying capitalist order...
...Chile Takes Steps Against Radicals The government of Chile hss enacted strict passport regulations which practically bar the entrance of persons with Socialist views...
...So far as Russian propaganda in the United States is concerned, or rather Communist propaganda, recognition is not likely to make much difference one way or another...
...having no enemies it is best to have * * stupid and blundering enemies...
...He is considered one of the ablest of the Bridgeport Socialists...
...This has been the fortune of ths workers with regard to the Swepe Plan...
...In his youth he learned his Socialism from British Socialist pioneers...
...Jack Bergen, Education Commissioner, is a native of Brooklyn, a practicing architect, and a graduate of Yale...
...Hamilton Fish and Mr...
...Many little business men and some big business men were, with reason, frightened by the prospect of this sort of control...
...Swope seems to have maae 1 not even a gesture of enlisting the farmers or a certain type of labor leader, or representatives of | the consumers on his side...
...Town Clerk Schulze is 55 years old, a native of New Hampshire and a machinist and toolmaker...
...Scottish Labor in Sweep Following the great victories of British Labor, the Scottish Socialists won gains in the municipal elections as great as those in England and Wales a week ago...
...candidate, supported by the Communists, who thus handed a seat to the reactionary government in the interest of working class "unity...
...Matthew Woll have nothing to worry about Socialists Sweep Bridgeport ernor and ten times for mayor of Bridgeport...
...To obtain passports, foreigners must prove they will have means to gain a living, must show certificates of good heslth, must have n* contacts of any description with Socialist organizations, and in the case of women traveling alone he nor* than 21 year* old...
...The year 1911 saw the Socialists lose by a narrow margin and again in 1031 they were beaten by only 2,500 votes, the Democratic machine polling 17,500 to McLevy's 15,000...
...That danger has not been ended because, most fortunately for us, the Swope Plan was announced at a premature moment and was badly handled with regard to propaganda...
...No Socialist seeks office simply to keep graft out of a street cleaning department The Swope Plan 1UEXT to...
...votes to 18,130 for the Tory supported by the MacDonald government, while a Liberal polled 0,219 votes snd a Communist 704, The Tory majority of 14,040 at the general elections was thus cut to 3,979, a turnover in Labor's favor of close to 11,000 votes...
...in the hearts of the workers the passionate resolve to employ whatever rights they had left in their own interest, and to build for themselves a power that neither Capitalism nor Fascism can overturn...
...We have a lot of thinking and acting to do on the problem of organisation and propaganda...
...Another Labor Advance The Labor Party scored a substantial advance in the bye-election this week at Sklpton to fill a parliamentary vacancy...
...He has been a party member, for 30 years...
...The local showed its strength in the whirlwind campaign it waged...
...The Hitler victory in Germany was supposed to have dealt a death-blow to political Socialism and democratic labor in all the world...
...Bridgeport /VJTSIDE of New Ycrk the great news for Sodelists, of course, is the election of Jaspar McLevy and so many of his colleagues In Bridgeport It shows what Socialists can do when they keep pounding away...
...One of his colleagues, Comptrollerelect Cunningham, was nominated, as LaGuardia said, because he disagreed with him on all financial questions, and another of his colleague* is none other than George Harvey, probably the worst Borough President in New York...
...Burlingham cannot provide LaGuardia | with the nominees for all the offices he will have to ' fill and increasingly he will have to turn to the Republican Party .whose candidate he was...
...Our Socialists are fighters and they know enough te keep on demanding power and more power...
...We owe Russia far more for our invasion of certain territory in the war days than she can possibly owe us even by capitalist standards o fdebts...
...It reflects not so much upon him or his colleagues as upon the voters generally that at a critical time in our affairs the voters of New York did not even demand' a platform from any one of the leading contenders, and that tho great mass of exploited workers, employed and unemployed, were apparently content with so little...
...That plan was a revival of a plan prepared by Mr...
...Actually, Stalin, as Trotsky has pointed out, is far more interested in pushing Russia's interest than the ntarest of ths Third International...
...In many more places the Socialists reduced the non-Socialist majority substantially...
...actually it awakanec...
...Men like Judge Seabury and Mr...
...City Clerk Schwartzkopf is 38 years old, a Rand School graduate, a carpenter and cabinet maker, and a journalist...
...Here is plenty of food for thought...
...His father was a carpenter, and he lived the life of the working class from his earliest boyhood...
...By common consent Solomon easily led the field in the quality of his campaign speeches...
...There is nothing in the Fusion victory to make a Tammany come-back any thing, but likely...
...At the Kilmarnock by-election last week the MacDonald National Labor candidate was elected by a heavily reduced majority over the Labor Party candidate...
...It purchased whole pages in a local newspaper to refute the lies circuited by the old parties...
...The people still remembered that big business ' hat...
...Pecora was still bringing out amazing revelations of the conduct of bankers who are at the very forefront of big bustI ness...
...Tl Tory victory was made possible by the intervention of an I.L.P...
...It was a partial rebuke for Tammany Hall because times were bad and Jimmie Walker had been exposed personally and politically...
...The Communists' supported the man who was at one time a Labor Party M.P., and the two together polled a vote far in excess of the Government candidate...
...I If that group cannot be workers, organised p°* litically and industrially, it is almost certain that it will be a big business group...
...Recognition of Russia fHERE is a certain grim humor about the general * acceptance of the idea of the recognition of Soviet Russia...
...Then the storm broke...
...Anybody who believes that that party is superior to the Democratic Party in New York City is crazy...
...Swops some two years ago in the Hoover administration, a plan for business Fascism...
...British Labor Victories Issue of the workers against Capitalism...
...Shipping, railroad and air transport companies must check pass* ports before taking passengers for Chile...
...He was brilliantly supported by Laidler, Crosswaith, and the Borough candidates...
...Swope proposes a government of big business, by big business, for big business...
...Twice before in Bridgeport the Socialist organization, headed by McLevy, almost won to power...
...The J logic of NRA requires that some group take ahold...
...that Russia will be recognised, and that without a lot of concessions on Russia's part in the matter of csarist debts...
...A Fine Socialist Campaign CO far as the Socialist Party is concerned, all its candidates made a fine campaign...
...A Chamber of Commerce and Industry was to be all but supreme in the United States, whereas in Italy and Germany with all their faults and crimes, tat least the government is supreme...
...City Treasurer Shenton is a native of England, 38 years old and a carpenter...
...Their latent tradition of individualism—for himself, not us—was aroused...
...There was, however, 'no platform to bind him and his colleagues...
...A lone Socialist alderman was elected, Fred Schwarzkopf, who did much to show up the hypocrisy of the Democratic machine and the old-line politicians The Socialist local carried on careful, watchful, plodding organization work in the interim...
...The peace and well-being of the whole world would have been promoted ii long ago Russia had been recognised without waiting for the pinch of adversity to compel American business interests .to desire recognition as part of a commercial program of expansion...
...Toward the end of the campaign McLevy's opponents, foreseeing defeat, became vicious and brought in all the old worn-out issues of patriotism, religion, and the economic doom which attends the coming of Socialism...
...LaGuardia's victory, in other words, was not a victory for a program, a party, and an organisation...
...We should be fools to say that we are satisfied with it...
...Moreover, Russia's present program has certainly been pacific even to the extent of continuing a recognition of Hitler In spite of his treatment of Communists...
...Here big businesa wants to be its own government with only a veto power in the hands of the political government Labor was mentioned only incidentally and almost parentheticallythe consumers not at all...

Vol. 26 • November 1933 • No. 20


 
Developed by
Kanda Sofware
  Kanda Software, Inc.