The Chatterbox
The Chatterbox Every day in every way my ideas about getting through the depression become brighter and brighter. Last night a feverish cold tossed me between pillow and bedpost, and billions...
...Eureka...
...P. J. H. sends us the clipping which quotes the General...
...If the latter is just flat bust, he can come around to our house some day and get an unread copy of one of his books which was sent ua by mistake to review and try his luck with It on the secondhand dealers on Fourth Avenue...
...And that the private banking communities have been buying up each issue as it was authorized and selling it to the public at a profit to themselves, or holding it themselves after they had purchased the issue, and printing money for the full amount of their holdings, including their commission of course...
...No railroad or public utility company ever forgets to mention the "widows who own our stock...
...Last night a feverish cold tossed me between pillow and bedpost, and billions of dollars kept showering their evil weight upon me...
...However, that's one break the unemployed get...
...And those that haven't gone yet will go by the time the next election swings around...
...We serve the soup in pails and send it Into the homes so that every member of the family will be benefited...
...That sum is fully one-third of the amount a dizzy Congress is derVishing about to raise by every means except the sensible one of taxing those who have income in vulgar superabundance...
...A publisher wanted to get out a book with photographs, "graphically Illustrating the horrors of modern conflict...
...And if you are a good niece or nephew owning some of these bonds that pay to 4 per cent and you go to your bank and want to borrow some money on them for an emergency, you are privileged to pay six per cent for the loan...
...1 All this is very much in line with the policy of the War Department...
...We are giving soup and crackers and occasionally bread to the needy families of the community...
...Gosh, wouldn't business take a boom then...
...I had thought that we had somehow got over some of this mush and molasses state of mind...
...Sore...
...All workers are urged to attend the reorganization meeting held on Saturday, AprU 9, S P. M., at the Bakers Union Hall, 350 Bast 85th street, New York City...
...And by golly, that's just what I'm going to, do...
...We are then supposed to deliver a talk, dripping with sweetness and light and never once touch on anything vital...
...And most of the workers and most of the middle class by this tune have allowed their life insurance policies to go by default...
...The Chatterbox Every day in every way my ideas about getting through the depression become brighter and brighter...
...A brass-hat General wrote back indignantly that no such naughty pictures would be sent out...
...Worrying liebout thoea who have not . . . that's our job . . . S. A. do Win...
...Norman Thomas wiU speak on "A Socialist View of America and Russia...
...Thomas to Speak Saturday At Russian Movie Show Students and others will have the opportunity Saturday night, April 2d, 8 P. M., to see uncensored moving pictures of Russia...
...I'm being pestered about everything I write or aay, for feat' I shall hurt someone's feelings...
...Uncle Sam owes his nieces and nephews and sundry widowed sisters of his some sixteen billion dollars tn bonded indebtedness...
...David Sinclair, of the Columbia University Physics Department, who spent all of last year traveling through Russia, will act as chairman...
...The idea seems to be that we have somehow gathered such a collection of sensitive plants that they will shrivel up and die, if they hear a Socialist discussing Socialist policies...
...With deep grief the Socialists of America pay tribute to his noble and inspiring memory...
...You bet I'm sore...
...Comrades should realise that the truth can only come come out in the clash of ideas...
...I ought really to go and Us In the sun and let It soak Into me and listen to the pretty birdies ringing their pleasant songs, Instead of griping around here at a typewriter...
...And I wish to tell you, that this whole government bond selling business is a racket from the word "Go...
...Suddenly a clearing came...
...Party members who don't like what we have to say about things, have thought up a new way of muzzling us...
...This is to invite us to speak at meetings and then, just before we get started, tiptoe up and whisper in our ear that we must be very careful not to deal with any controversial subject as there are some non-Party or brand new members In the audience...
...We make on an average of twenty-five (25) gallons a day...
...It's lovely Spring weather outside...
...We could give them tickets provided of course they could prove- that they were deserving poor, that they had never been in the hoosegow, that they loved their wives and children and that they would promise to vote the Republican ticket all the rest of their lives...
...But apparently it is as deep-rooted as ever...
...The council wishes to thank the merchants of Marlon for their ready response to this need...
...Wherein I Get Good and Sore IHAVE received a letter from a former Columbia classmate of mine who ia sow a big shot Is the Army, a major or colonel or something;, anal wno wants me to chip in to raise an alumni fund in honor of Nicholas Murray Butler, who has been President of the mass-production education factory up on Mornlngalde Heights for thirty years and has been malting speeches in a deep bass voice for nigh onto seventy, Qott verhuete...
...The "Nature Friends" have now so many English speaking members in their ranks thta they are reorganizing this section of the club on a broader basis...
...Everybody would soon be back at work, Including the former coupon clippers...
...That is about six million persons, Including widows...
...Several new studies will be published this year...
...Prospects for finally getting the book out are brighter now than they ever were and right here and now we want to warn all of the above-mentioned Illy-like souls to steer away from this book...
...It begins to look as though we were turning into a new generation of Pollyannas, with treacle and marmalade as our national dish and all blunt references to.truth carefully barred...
...In 'other words, one-third of the annual load that all of us must carry consists of presents wc make to the bond holding coupon clipping classes of our land...
...Hillquit Lauds Life Of Filippo Turati A cablegram sent by Morris Hillquit to the Italian Socialists now living in exile in Paris expresses the sorrow with which American Socialists learned this week of the death of Filippo Turati...
...Hillquit's cable, addressed to Emanuele Modlglianl, a life-long co-worker with Turati, said: "In the death of Turati the Socialist movement of the world has sustained a heavy and Irreparable loss...
...It seems to us that if we 'were even more unemployed that we are at present, these plena for charity on the part of certain rich men would actively nauseate us...
...I had it...
...There would be snappy shots of the boys hilariously indulging in bayonet practice, laughingly digging latrines, gleefully gouging out eyes of their enemies...
...The bureau Is engaged in comprehensive studies on national income, business cycles, Industrial concentration, corporation profits, savings, production, unemployment and wage statistics, and trends during the present crisis...
...Harry W. Laidler, executive director of the League for Industrial Democracy, was elected chairman of the board of directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research, at the bureau's annual meeting on March 28, following the expiration of his two-year term of office as president of the bureau...
...Of course, those who hoard their cash and those who have large sums of cash In reserve would be hurt a little by this inflation...
...Something ought to be done about them...
...FOB LABOR HIKERS Another branch of the labor movement is developing rapidly...
...The executive committee of the council meets twice each week to look after the affairs of the organization...
...Only those photographs which show the pleasant features of war should be released...
...If you think that there are enough unpleasant things In real life without writing books or plays about them, go and read Hans Christian Andersen, but don't go near this novel...
...v NcAlister Coleman...
...Neither wiU I. Wouldn't it be reasonable then for our uncle to try and shift that load from off the backs of the 95% of his family who have nothing but the right of being taxed year after year in order to keep paying that $600,000,000 to the fortunate 5% who do nothing except coUect...
...Fichandler has consented to give one more lecture on Sunday, AprU 10, 3:30 P. M., at one Perry street, city (Sam Friedman's house...
...Although statistics are unavailable for exact calculation, it is reasonable to assume that about five per cent of Uncle Sam's relatives own 100% of these bonds...
...It would not be decent," said General Irving J. Carr, "it would not be ethical...
...It looks, now, as though a publisher were going to take a very depressing novel about coal-miners which we wrote with Stephen Rauahenbuah...
...We solicit the cooperation of any organization, club, merchant or person in the city...
...It's bad enough to have J. P. Morgan yelling at me over the radio to help stamp out want, without being asked to fill up a tin cup for Nicholas...
...The banks would have plenty of liquid cash crying for a market...
...National banks have that right, you know...
...It's controversial as anything...
...You're suggesting dangerous ideas...
...But then, I think it ia about time we stopped worrying about those that have too darned much anyhow...
...Although a workers' outdoor and hiking club has been In existence here for many «ears, most workers have not heard of it The "Nature Friends" formerly confined its membership to the German speaking element...
...My heart breaks for the indignant Morgans and Butlers and tbelr kind...
...A soup kitchen might help...
...Well, we get one Break In the monotony of gloom...
...I suggest then, that Uncle Sam print sixteen billion dollars worth of nice, crisp new money, buy up all the bonds outstanding against him, stop paying that awful Interest charge every year, take the yoke off one hundred and fourteen million people . . . and tell the former owners of these bonds . . . "Now little lads and lassies, put that money into circulation...
...Industry would start humming with this new current of cash resources...
...One of the features of the season has been the series of lectures by Alexander Fichandler on the methods of teaching in Socialist schools...
...Maybe, some astute coUege financial genius will step up now and say . . . "Young man, be careful...
...And we have a slightly mild curiosity what these pleasant pictures would portray...
...I'm getting so that I hate to answer the door-bell or the telephone, because I know there will be sbme adamant creditor at the other side or end...
...On this he pays those of his luckier nieces, etc., over six hundred million dollars in interest every year...
...Vallee, who Is going to sing us back into prosperity, what time the boys went cheerily over the top...
...Laidler Heads Board Of Research Bureau Dr...
...Marion, Ind., Workers Aid Their Unemployed (Br m N f W l.rtdrr Correipondrnl) MARION, Indiana.—The Workmen's Council of Grant County, Indiana, an organization formed by a few working men of Marion, for the purpose of giving relief to the unemployed Is growing at a rapid rate...
...The council has an open forum every Wednesday night, We have a band of string music and we usually have a speaker for th«s principal address and follow with open discussion...
...Julien Bryan will present them In Seth Low Auditorium, Brooklyn Law School Building, 875 Pearl street, Brooklyn, under the auspices of the New York Intercollegiate Student Council of the League for Industrial Democracy...
...It isn't pleasant...
...Fichandler to Lecture For Socialist Teachers The New York Sunday School Socialist season draws to Its close, with a record of many successes and some discouraging failures...
...And no tax to pay...
...The sin starts right there...
...We can't be sure enough yet to go out and dance on the streets about i t Because some time back when we sold it to a publisher and went around to sign the contract he had gone bust the day before...
...Bo don't read it, when and if, It comes out, If you are one of "pleasant feature" boys...
...If these pictures were made to move and somehow hitched up with talkie apparatus", we could have gay songs crooned by Mr...
...And the same with the life insurance companies that Insure the lives of the poor workers . . .? That's where most of that interest goes " Well, my answer is that most poor people haven't any savings any more...
...Don't you know that every savings bank where the poor people keep their nest eggs holds large amounts of these bonds, bought with their money...
...It shows how the labor movement of today, with especial reference to the miners, has been corrupted from International headquarters down to the moat remote local...
...They can't lose their lunches, 'cause they ain't got no lunches to lose...
Vol. 13 • April 1932 • No. 14
