Timely Topics

...They would be even less responsible to public opinion for their appointments...

...The alternative, of course, is a strong Socialist party...

...It is not a serious attempt to balance the postal budget...

...A few of these are really doing work which the party could not do so well...

...Courts-The "Militant Program—Kenttucky Bourbons INVITING FASCISM LAST week I commented on one rather favorable aspect of our democracy...

...KENTUCKY BOURBON, MODERN STYLE IN the old days Kentucky Bourbon had something to do with whiskey, now it has to do with mine owners and politicians in Kentucky more reactionary than Bourbon kings...

...Chrysler Corporation realized six times as much profits as in the preceding year...

...I said that it had proved itself capable of a degree of spontaneous revolt which compelled Congress to scrap the outrageous sales tax...

...That requires planned socialization...

...The first thing that government ought to use its taxation power and its credit for is to relieve the unemployed by direct aid and by public works...

...The speakers will lndude Heywood Broun, Terry Donoghue, Morris Hlllquit, Norman Thomas, Hendrlk W. Van Loon, B. C. Vladeck...

...At almost every branch meeting a good part of# the time is spent in electing delegates to two or three such bodies and receiving reports—usually so-called reports of progress, which means reports of nothing doing—from two or three others...

...Of course the kind of taxes that we ought to have are Income and inheritance taxes...

...True enough, especially in America, but it is also true that dur political corruption and the racketeering which sometimes creeps into our unions between them awaken a distrust of government and the way in which labor would use government, which makes Socialist progress harder here than abroad...

...But we are not asked to consider primarily the question of indiscriminately increasing somebody's purchasing power...

...The Communists' tactics of exploiting labor struggles and examples of racial Injustice for party purposes probably helps to explain the action of the Alabama Supreme Court in confirming the conviction of the Scottsboro defendants...

...We who do not want Fascism must build this party...

...ThU week I am obliged to add that democracy will have to go farther than that and become much more efficient before it can be our way out...

...National Dairy Products reduced its dividend melon by $3,000,000, but added $5,000,000 to its surplus...

...Nevertheless, once more I repeat that It is quite out of the question to think that one can bring back prosperity solely by taxation...

...Neither of these fundamental and forward looking steps can be taken if Congress is going to dump what it gets in the lap of the veterans...

...Those who need help are not just veterans...

...Its walls still stand, and I don't think they are like the walla of Jericho, ready to collapse at the blowing of trumpets...

...The only reason that Congress is considering this use of taxing or credit power is because Congress is subject to organized pressure by this minority of veterans...

...It is fair to the Communists to say that In Walter Pollack they have provided a very able lawyer to take up the appeal to the United States Supreme Court...

...We have got to cry out against political corruption in a more fundamental sense than the advocates of mere good government, in order to win the confidence and trust of the masses...

...So It would...

...It may give us a Kind of Indian Summer of capitalism to be followed by a more terrible winter of misery, violence and discontent...

...It shows no sign of sectarianism in an objectionable sense and Is obviously intended to build up the party and not to divide it...

...General Foods more than offset a decline of $2,000,000 in dividends by an increase of $3,000,000 n working capital...

...Two merchants met, and to Brown's Inevitable "How's business...

...I understand that the Civil Liberties Union is now going to take up the Civil Liberties fight...

...Communism, whatever it may prove to be in the futuref by accentuating dictatorship and the inevitability of violence, tends at resent to play into Hhe hands of this Fascist development...

...Bernard Rlfkln and Jesse Gross...

...At the first pause he asked whether business was still good...

...THE "MILITANT" PROGRAM THE published "militant" Socialist program is an admirable example of the kind of discussion which is wholesome in a party...

...Indeed it accentuates their dangers by accentuating nationalism...

...It is not a very funny story, but at that time there was a good deal of truth In it...

...That is one of the reasons why I can't get at al lexdted about Judge Seabury's suggestion that magistrates be appointed by the Appellate Division...

...There is nothing to make us think that that court or any bar association would have very much higher or different standards than the Mayor...

...Congress having thrown the sales tax out the front door is now inviting particular sales taxes to come in the back door or the window...

...Let the workers, the unemployed and the farmers organize and see what they can get from Congress...

...United Gas Improvement made more profits in 1931 than in 1930 by a margin of $1,000,000...

...They are workers in significant productive enterprises Who are either unemployed or else are groaning under a great burden of debts...

...The rest we have - prejudice, economic illiteracy, national and racial passion of all sorts, a befuddled political machinery, and no adequate and efficient organization, political or economic, of the workers...

...No, I don't ate any white flag hung out from the capitalist fortress...

...The moral is plain...

...American Tobacco had larger net earnings, after provision for taxes, interest, and depreciation, 41 1931 than in 1930, which had been a record yean Woolworth also broke its previous high record, with profits $7,000,000 above those of 1929...

...I'm In favor of glvlag more attention to the party Itself, making fuller use of its personnel and equipment under its own name, and never setting up an accessory machine unless we are sure that we cannot do the work well without it and that we can spare the motive power to run the new machine...

...I confess it is a matter of some satisfaction to me that he did not.say much more than I and other Socialists said when we began to make the shocking condition of the Magistrates' Courts an issue before the workers of New York who are their chief victims...

...SEABVRY AND THE COURTS NEW YORK Socialists will remember the fine work done by Charles Solomon in getting by unanimous decision of the Court of Special Sessions the conviction of Detective Lichtblau on the charge of beating up two of the members of the Yipsels...

...cried Jones, "Good Lord, we have no time to think about business— we've got our hands full running the system...

...Very commonly, instead of bankruptcies and foreclosures, we had what are called reorganizations, by which great banking syndicates got possession of mercantile and industrial enterprises...

...Timely Topics By Norman Thomas Inviting Fascism - Taxation and Relief for the Needy—The N.Y...

...In general the position taken in this program seems to me thoroughly sound...

...those were the happy days) and then talked an arm off Brown describing a system he'd just Installed A month later they met again...

...It expresses an excellent point of view in forceful but dignified language without personalities...

...LETTING THE SALES TAX SNEAK IN TO go back to the subject of taxes...

...Here are a few of the recent items that I have culled: Niagara Hudson Power Increased its assets by $21,000,000 last year...

...Utility and power corporations, taken as a whole, had a very prosperous year...

...These Negro boys are entitled to unanimous support of all workers in seeking a new -trial in the Supreme Court of the United States or free pardon from the government of Alabama...

...The outrageous treatment of the student college delegation proves it...

...Some of my friends who are veterans argue that at least the situation would be helped if veterans had more purchasing power...

...In the "militant" program there occurs the sound observation, "Socialists do not raise hands of horror, as do the reformers, over the corruption of old party politicians, because It is a fundamental teaching of Socialism that corruption is simply the retail side of the wholesale robbery which is capitalism...

...Each must have Its executive committee and Its secretary and treasurer...

...We cannot collect a proper inheritance tax in these times unless we—i...

...When I say that the times invite us to go Fascist I do not mean for a minute that Fascism is anything but an evil, an evil and a dangerous evil...

...Also we have got to give an example of labor's power to give good government in the conduct of labor unions and In the standards we enforce in the Socialist party itself...

...That is why the victory of the millinery workers over the racketeers was so important and encouraging...

...To change the subject—I have been watching the business pages of the dally papers for evidence of the alleged senility of the capitalist economic system...

...Letters must be sent out, minutes kept, publicity stories concocted, plans made and revised, and by the time these preliminaries have been attended to the moment for action has gone by and the net result Is a lot of unpaid bills...

...v It Is hoped that no conflicting meetings will be arranged for on this particular night...

...Most of them, it seems to me, are dissipating energy which ought to be spent in doing party work...

...Any criticism of it to be wholesome must be in the same spirit...

...Large department stores and chain-store corporations did a larger proportion of the country's retall business than ever before...

...HELPING WAR VETERANS AND OTHERS ACCORDING to the newspaper despatches, Congress or at least the House, is likely to pass a bill paying in full the claims of war veterans under the adjusted compensation act...

...Nevertheless parties In the state of the Republican and Democratic parties invite Fascism...

...Further details concerning the dinner can be had at the office of the Rand School...

...And I'm won, derlng whether it hasn't been a lesson for our movement, at any rate, here In New York, a. • • • • What I have in mind Is not the party machinery itself — though perhaps it could be simplified at some points—but the numberless 'subsidiary and auxiliary and otherwise related conferences and councils and joint committees and what-not, which we are forever creating or trying to create for this purpose or that...

...we are asked primarily to consider the just increase of purchasing power in the hands of those economic groups or classes who are now most unprivileged...

...Now there might be something to say for thus paying these claims weer it not that in all probability it would completely block any hope for adequate unemployment relief or for adequate help to the farmers...

...Lichtblau is said to have gotten an immense amount of political pull in action and the Appellate Division or some of Its judges are very familiar with political pull In getting and keeping their Jobs and perhaps In the use of them...

...Not on Its weakness, but on our strength, nust we rest our hope to subdue it...

...Business...

...Now the Appellate^ Division In Brooklyn by vote of three to two has reversed •the decision and thereby undone some but by no means all of the good work in getting a conviction for third degree stuff...

...If that were the idea in the minds of the Congressmen they would examine the subsidy given to publishers in the special second class mail privilege rate...

...The Important Problem of Organization Z?&™n* WHEN " efficiency systems" were something new this story went the rounds...

...In the meantime friends of Kentucky miners should not forget that the really serious charges are those pending against 45 miners indicted for conspiracy to murder...

...It's a Job worth doing...

...c , the government—can take over and carry on business...

...that these men are being defended by the General Defense Committee of the L W. W. not by the Communists, and that this same committee or its subsidiary In spite of difficulties does not get relief Into Harlan County, Kentucky...

...That does not mean distribution according to war service in a war now thirteen years old whose veterans have got fairly good help In case they were wounded or otherwise invalided...

...Brown Inquired about the system and got another earful...

...Of course, in saying this I, like other Socialists, reserve a right to differ in points of emphasis and interpretation...

...A. L. Annual Rand Dinner ' To Be Held on May 8 The annual dinner of the Rand School will be held at Webster Hall Sunday, May 8. An unusual program with a novel topic ha* been arranged...

...The second thing is to relieve the farmers of at least part of the desperate weight of debts which crushes them into the position of serfs...

...In general Judge Seabury reports on the Magistrates' Court was a useful and enlightening document...

...All that seems to be lacking is the American equivalent of Mussolini...

...Bankruptcies were numerous, but the victims were mostly small and middle-sized concerns...

...General Motors was able to acquire complete ownership of Opel, in which it already had a controlling interest...

...Jones briefly answered "Fine...

...Any Congress that wanted to help us In the midst of this desperate depression would think first in terms of fundamental enterprises, industrial and agricultural...

...A three-cent rate of postage, for Instance, is nothing but a sales tax...

...Fascism can solve none of our fundamental economic or political problems...

...Indeed In that county where Communists have been active as In Western Pennsylvania it is non-Communists who have to keep up relief...

...The dinner has been set at the very low price of $1.50...

...As a matter of fact, the confusion in Congress, the lack of any substitute plan for arranging the budget either by borrowing or by balancing, the complete breakdown of old party discipline and old party policy, is an invitation to America to go Fascist...

...Its appearance in this printed form ought to do much to clear the air, and to stimulate not merely helpful party discussion but active party work...

...American Telephone and Telegraph had the best year in its history with profits $1,000,000 above those of 1930...

...Income and Inheritance taxes levied to the extent that they hurt and collected without the present possibilities of legal and illegal evasion can meet our present emergency...