Timely Topics

...That sentiment is rooted in the past, and does not fit the facts of today...

...It would be a gain for us, though only a partial one...

...What use we make of that understanding Is another matter...

...Among other things, it la our urgent duty to help American worklngmen develop a sense of International solidarity...

...GERMAN AND BRITISH SOCIALISM ALL over the country questions at meetings and after meetings show me that...

...He "would kick at an income tax-but he swallows this bigger tax almost without grumbling...

...THE MILLINERS' VICTORY rray comrades and friends of the United Cloth, Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers' Union, greetings and congratulations on one of the most magnificent exhibitions of intelligent solidarity and what It can do even In bad times to win victories over the legalized exploitations of capitalism and the illegal racketeering of its underworld allies...

...In every cause she always worked...

...In Poland 588 meetings were held under the very nose of Pllsudskl...

...THE LIMITS OF TAXATION rruHERE is one word of caution a Socialist must give when he hears nondescript J. radicals talking about solving all our problems simply by taxing incomes and inheritances...

...A lot of these blind governors who deny anyone is starving will never ask these loans...

...Of course, income and inheritance taxes will have to be heavy...

...Altogether there were nearly 30,000 meetings with an aggregate attendance of more than twenty millions...

...But to say that Is only to say that no one step In a great task stirs our imagination as does the vision of the completed.work...

...We must keep up pressure...

...The British Labor party made the mistake of never getting very far beyond heavy taxation of the rich when in office...

...Moreover, while public works, and especially housing, should be financed or underwritten by loans rather than taxation provision must be made in the loan for « sinking fund to be collected by Income and inheritance taxation...

...THREE COUNTS AGAINST THE SALES TAX IN the fight against the sales tax we must keep explaining' certain things which even the advocates of the sales tax usually admit if they are forced into a corner...

...Stewart argues, taxation at the source of Income...

...Such taxation was something...

...This bill, as even Its friends will observe, still has to run the terrible gauntlet of the courts who pulled the teeth of the Clayton Act which Samuel Gompers thought was labor's Magna Charta...

...Socialism is handicapped by the record,, or alleged record, of the British Labor party and the German Social-Democrats...

...Maxwell S. Stewart has -an exceedingly Important article in the March 26 issue of The Nation...

...Great Britain had 5,618 meetings, Sweden 6,422, Denmark 3,282, France 1,554, Czccho-Slovakia 1,872, Finland 1,-808, and so forth...

...It is this last point which I want to emphasize...

...The ordinary expenses of government even in bad times can be met by proper application of the land tax, especially in cities, and Income and inheritance taxes...

...Neither have our meetings and petitions freed Mooney and Billings, yet no one will say they have been wasted...

...What can be hoped for at this time Is not complete disarmament, but gradual reduction...

...SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SAlES TAX r[E only argument that even the advocates of the sales tax seriously advince -aside from vague and foolish talk about heavy Income taxes being an approach to Communism—la that the sales tax will raise the money and nothing else will...

...Such a party even before it has a majority can compel more far-reaching and more rapid Concessions than mere spontaneous pressure can win...

...V _ EVA FRANK r -»rN the tragic death of Eva Frank more organizations than I can name have lost a singularly valuable friend...

...Not yet do most Americana feel the community of hardship and peril with peoples beyond the sea so Intimately aa is felt by those peoples among themsel ves...

...I think we might have done as well as Greece or Esthonla...

...It requires action to prevent legal and Illegal evasion of the tax law...

...It was a little humiliating not to And the United States in the list...

...That is not a sure guaranty of peace, but it would lessen the danger of war...

...They apply to expenditures...

...Adequate substitute taxation is not yet provided...

...All sales taxes, except perhaps taxes on extreme luxuries such as expensive jewelry, fall on the poor and the very moderately off fax more heavily than upon the rich...

...True, the criticism is often too impatient and blind to part of the facta...

...He shows that 355,000 persons receiving income* be-tween $10,000 and $50,000 in 1921 paid just 2.5 per cent on their gross income...

...No, they have not...

...Congress has recently given three illustrations...

...but perhaps it does tend to cool our ardor...

...On this subject Mr...

...That ' Mrt rue...

...It is the Socialist party and Only the Socialist party which thus seeks to build a democratic party of the workers On a national scale...

...From Germany 5,712 meetings sent resolutions to Geneva and to-the German government...

...For instance, the German Social-Democrats are up against a terrible dilemma and they are right in wanting to vote to defeat Hitlerism and to keep the peace of Europe...

...This is no reason why we should not advocate it...

...Have those twenty million voices brought any tangible results at Geneva...

...1. In no sense does a sales tax meet the principle that taxation should be levied according to ability to pay...

...BALANCING THE BUDGET rE problem of balancing the budget, about which we have heard so much In connection with the sales tax, has two elements that must not be forgotten...

...Of course, disarmament is not an exclusively Socialistic ideal.' While It is-not likely to be fully realized in a bourgeois world, it can be sincerely desired by bourgeois democrats and humanitarians...

...Her memory Is an Inspiration...

...He amasses figures to Show that the decline in the payment of income taxes in 1930 can't be honest in view of the $>ct that in that year interest and dividends reached the highest point in our history...

...Perhaps, though, the most Important point la the third one—tha question of our party's organizational methods...

...That s why the plutocrats and politicians yearn for it 3. There is home reason to believe that the advocates of the sales tax overestimate its probable productiveness in a period of depression...

...Public pressure and a few outstanding spokesmen can get some things done along the right lines...

...The tax is always pyramided or multiplied when it is passed from wholesaler to retailer, retailer to customer...

...We ought to know our country and understand our countrymen, in order to work effectively among them...

...but such traditions outlive by many years the conditions which produced them...

...In Belgium 150 municipal councils went on record along with Labor party groups, trade unions, and co-operatives...

...Our Hungarian comrades held 250, In spite of a Setree prohibiting advocacy of disarmament...

...No such provision Is being made or.Is being contemplated by any existing bill...

...They will not, however, be so heavy that they will create that bugaboo Of capitalist economists, a dearth of investment capital...

...To provide a substitute for sales taxes requires not only a willingness to go much farther in taxing incomes and inheritances...

...It was not because of doubt as to the efficacy of the method that we failed to respond to the call of the two Internationals...

...The Wagner bin for relief through loans to states for building roads, etc., la neither adequate nor sincere...

...They will hurt those who have something...

...We Socialists may as well face the facts...

...Timely Topics By Norman Thomas Taxation and Ike Two Old Pmrtieg—The Sale* Tax and SoriaII*l«^ori«lf»ffi /¦broad—The Mflliner*' FifM THE POSSIBILITIES OF POLITICS ONCE in a while our creaking political democracy, dominated as It la by an economic plutocracy which owns both parties, shows that there la some life in the democratic principle...

...By the same token the final victory of the lame duck amendment for Which Senator Norris has fought so long is a victory of common sense Over the selfish Interests of politicians...

...And I know no better way to do that than to enlist them in joint action with worklngmen of other lands...

...Indeed It Is remarkable how clearly the mass of the workers have shown themselves In both England and Germany opposed to civil war or what they fear might lead to civil war...

...These workers have proved that battles may be won for labor, by labor and by labor's power...

...Too Bad Vt Were Not Heard "Neither Song Nor Sermon" I'VE Just been reading in La Vie Soclallste how the various countries responded to the Joint call of the International Federation of Trade Unions and the Labor and Socialist International for a demonstration in favor of disarmament...

...But the gains I have noticed constitute something of a case for substituting for our cynical or irritated despair of political democracy more efficient machinery of political action...

...Neither of these bills, however, come so close home to the heart of the economic 'fanulem under capitalism as the spontaneous revolt in the House against the sales tax...

...But to get the principle Of the sales tax accepted Is to get the camel's nose under the tent and to give hope to the Income tax paying groups that they will find relief in the sales tax in years to come...

...The temptation of both old parties to cater to the income tax paying group which finances their campaigns is very strong...

...Certainly this has no such eme-i tional thrill as has the {fcftiCMil1 a classless and warless world...

...You cannot possibly allow our craxy, acquisitive, chaotic capitalism with all its cruelty and waste to run on indefinitely and simply correct the balance by taxation...

...It must have been because we did not care much about reduction of armaments, or because our feeling of International solidarity is not very deep, or because there Is soaio defect in our methods of getting into action...

...She gave her time and her money with an intelligence and devotion that is unique* She set an example in the way in which middle class privileged position can be used in the services of the workers and for the building of the new society...

...Among other things, it prevented breadlines...

...We wish our Socialist movement to be American, but in what sense ? Not in tha sense of sharing the defects of American provincialism...

...Nevertheless witWit a more positive and active socialization program than so far they have been able to carry out they are going to have increasing trouble to hold their own young folks...

...It is our duty to help them outgrow ways of thinking that belong to America's past...

...Hence the importance of adding constructive socialization to any program of taxation...

...Henry Dubb with an Income of $1,000 a year ana family to support buys more in proportion to his means than Reginald Rocks with $500,000 dncome a year...

...The situation has been worse because these lame ducks usually rote with an eye to the possibility of getting a job from the President...

...It is natural that our party should be Influenced by the general Ideology of the American people, one feature of which is a sense of aloofness from the rest of the world...

...that is, defeated Congressmen, after their defeat to meet in solemn session to pass laws for the people who don't want them...

...The sales tax is not yet defeated...

...The British Labor party really stood the defection of its principal leaders remarkably well and was less heavily hit by the reactionary wave than the Communist party...

...Nevertheless those of us who believe in Socialism must hope that the British Labor party as a whole will share the energy and enthusiasm of the I. L. P. Certainly we must hope that it will repudiate the fuss its renegade leader, J. H. Thomas, is now making about the form of oath in Ireland...

...It is hard to believe that the states Will not promptly ratify an amendment which will dd away with the dangers of electing a congress a whole year before it can sit and permitting lame ducks...

...It would not put an end to capitalism, but It would lighten the burdens of the proletariat and better its strategic position...

...Still the bill does represent progress, and progress against the wishes of the dominant plutocracy...

...Who will be the next...

...What we need in America With our splendid factories idle at this moment is not Investing power but purchasing power, and it is purchasing power which the sales tax helps to kill...

...Of that later...

...It passed the anti-injunction bill supported by labor and pushed in the Senate principally by Senator Korris...

...2. The government gets only a part, perhaps only a half or a third, or less, of What the sales tax costs the consumers...

...These figures make out a case for cutting out reckoning capital gains and losses under tha hand of income and also, as Mr...

...Why not help balance the budget by having an absolute naval Sollday ? When tha total wage payments in America are only a little over a half of what they were In 1926, why not stop these great appropriations for more naval vessels for which our big navy men are hollering, aa they always do, after the fleet manceuvers in the Pacific f On the other hand, no budget Is balanced that makesNio provision for direct unemployment relief...

...That means, of course, building a powerful party of real workers with hand and brain...

...Socialists regard such' taxation as the proper source of revenue for financing government as of themselves partially useful in redistributing the national Income and above all as important for effecting a transfer from capitalism to Socialism...

...Someone may ask: What good would it have done...

...Moreover, most of the state courts are still open on easy terms to employers...

...A similar prohibition In Rumania did not prevent the Socialists from making themselves Beard...

...You cannot even tax inheritances properly, especially In a depression, unless you are willing to fake over property in payment for the tax...

...The question is, whether we can carry into each dally effort the enthusiasm which we draw from contemplation of our ultimate Ideal...

...Everybody knows this is true of all sales taxes, including the tariff and yet because the sales tax la hid in the general price Henry Dubb does not always know he is paying it...

...It did not of itself and could not of itself bring about prosperity which depends upon planned production and distribution for use, not profit...