Timely Topics

...Now, a t a time when mass unemployment handicaps the unions, the gains of a century may easily be taken away...

...Neither reason nor justice mean a thing to the California utility plutocrats and their political tools...

...Life and limb may be sacred, to a moderate degree and under some circumstances, but that which is above all sacrosanct Is the acquisition of profits...

...Anyone who looks into the decisions that have recently been rendered in just three or four suits brought by members against their unions, will have to admit that if these decisions stand and serve as precedents, labor unionism will have lost fully as much as it can hope to gain by amendment of the federal law concerning injunctions...

...Gambling is gambling...

...I replied that the question might be appropriate if it came from one who believed that the doom of capitalism was at, hand, but that it sounded curious to hear a believer in capitalism speak as if only a war could restore it" to strength...

...Recently he committed suicide...

...What conceivable collectivism could be as bad as this collectivism of absolute individual power...

...The second cause for rejoicing Is the action of the Central Trades and Labor Council of New York in voting to set up in earnest a labor conference on unemployment...

...his native Sweden reduced from relative prosperity to the depression ol the rest of Europe...

...The one catastrophe to be avoided is that capitalism and the middle class generally will try to save itself by war...

...In these recent decisions that rule is explicitly set aside, and in negating it the judges have uttered most unjudicial sounding tirades, not merely against union officials directly involved, but against unionism In general...

...How could we do it now...

...THE BANKRUPT CAPITALISM HEN I was before the Senate Finance Committee in Washington Senator Couzens interrupted me when I said that a government which could finance a war against Germany, raising twenty-one and a half billion dollars In liberty loans, could finance a five billion dollar public works program...

...they apparently lent themselves to a trick for substituting for the original collateral behind certain Krueger and Toll debentures any kind of collateral...

...What's the use...

...I n the trade concerned there exists a regular union, recognized by the labor movement, to which the employers are bitterly hostile Seceders from this body some time ago formed a dual organization, and had not much trouble In getting the bosses to recognize and employ them...

...It's against the wicked bears that the New York World-Tel eg ram tearfully begs the Stock Exchange to reform or else Congress must a c t Nonsense...

...If they are honest they have a lower opinion of tbe present vitality of capitalism than most radicals...

...Aak us something harder...

...The In.sull brothers are American citizens who built a great empire of electric power...

...Some of the members accused others of grave misconduct and, not content with the action (or it may have been the inaction) of this organized body, appealed to the courts...

...And their blind propagandists will go on telling us how public ownership of power will fall...

...it's 100 per cent right when it points out that the place for Hoover and Congress to do some economizing is on the army and navy...

...To liquidate the little fellows who bought Insull stocks and Insull bonds, o( course...

...If representatives of progressive unions will work as hard on making this conference mean something as Abraham Lefkowitz and Fannia Cobn worked to get it authorized, it will get some where...

...That Is bad, says the judge, but there Is something worse...

...Tbe attempt would resemble the insistence of the drug addict on saving himself by a new dose of the opium that ruined him...

...That their own vote was no greater may mean bad tactics and too much Russian rather than German outlook and emphasis...

...The thing we must insist on is provision for the unemployed...

...And Socialists out of office may be able to build their ranks and then* program up again...

...They dominated by holding companies which defied effective state legislatures...

...I t is a generally accepted principle that members of a voluntary organization, who feel aggrieved in matters concerning its rules and their application, must exhaust the remedies which its constitution or by-laws provide, before they come into court...

...TWO HOPEFUL LABOR MOVES IF it is the weakness of working class organization that enables Mooney's enemies to keep him and Billings still in prison, two recent acts of organized labor or I t s leaders may help to cure that weakness...

...I recall it because it is an amazing thing that capitalists ask questions implying an inability to help tbe unemployed without wrecking their system...

...but brother goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers...

...Through more than a century of working-class struggle, the law has been to some extent modified, partly by statute and partly by Interpretation, so as to bring human welfare a little nearer to parity with business interests...

...He completely dominated his native Sweden through bis companies oi which the match trust was only one...

...The broken parts will probably be gathered up by some banking interests, or maybe by the Insulls themselves...

...Once upon a time this was thoroughly good law...

...And what Is t h a t ? Why, pickets of the regular union have carried signs in front of houses manned by the employers' favorites, announcing that there is a strike and asking the public to give preference to union houses...

...Recent Anti-Union Decisions "Neither Song ISor Sermon" rHATEVBR a n y o n e may think of Saint Paul's theology, it must be conceded that he was a successful organizer and a wise tactician...

...The navy supply bill alone is 1327,000,000 and represents only a 9 per cent cut as against a 35 per cent cut for the peaceful activities of the Interior Department...

...The unions are in these cases forbidden to interfere In any way whatever with the relations between the complainants and their employers...

...The funny thing Is that so far popular wrath has not been against the stock market game because it has been as Matthew Brush said: "A racket t h a t makes Al Capone look like a piker," but against the operations of bears who are alleged to force down the stocks...

...e "The words of a rich man, though foolish, a r e taken for wisdom...

...He used graver words than those, as some of us do nowadays when we condemn what we believe t o be serious violations of working-class ethics...

...But as these cannot be expected to take Labor's view on tiny labor question, they could not be expected to understand the Christian attitude on any controversy among Christians...

...A respectable banking house—but could Tammany politicians have done worse...

...I t was discovered that for some four years or so, he had been trying by all manner of chicanery, fraudulent credit, and even actual forging of bonds to save himself...

...Since it is a rich man who tells us that there are no rich men now, there a r e many who believe i t Poor little rich man Schwab...

...Now, as perhaps never before, the paramount duty of Socialists Li to promote, by example and by precept, the sentiment of solidarity and self-reliance within the working class...

...Now their holding companies are in the hands of receivers but their empire will not be given over to the workers, or to the users of electricity who have been paying In America to the Insulls and other power monopolists an extra millon a day for the joys of "rugged individualism" and private ownership...

...Not only did they not protect their customers from Krueger's schemes...

...No, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren...

...You can't rationally encourage bulls and throw out bears—not and keep a gamblers' world What we want is social ownership that will make the stock market unnecessary and impossible...

...I don't suppose the Roman judges were less learned or less upright than our Schmucks and Berry...

...And Paul knew that to ask them to adjudicate such disputes was In effect inviting them to disrupt or dominate the infant church, • • • Paul didn't exactly say "Naughty, naughty...

...There Is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law with one another...

...Senator Couzens asked by what yardstick I measured the end of capitalism, but the chairman, Senator Smoot, broke up our colloquy rather gruffly...

...I speak to your shame," he writes...

...I n one of the cases the judge has made a statement which is not only amazingly brutal, but eloquently expressive of the class feeling which animates most of the dispensers of official justice...

...Certainly* Hitler has nothing real to offer...

...The apparent contradiction is accounted for by lower expenses, due largely to reduced wages...

...It ought, however, to warn even tbe French that Germany will pay no more reparations...

...Only a -working class, organized powerfully, both economically and politically can move them...

...There's no time to be lost in city, state or nation...

...As a reward for having run to a capitalist politician on the bench, these dissident members are privileged to make their private bargains, regardless of union rules as to wages, hours, overtime, • and distribution of work...

...If that provision finally shows the bankruptcy of capitalism, and drives us more quickly to Socialism so much the better...

...It seems that sharp dissensions had arisen within the Christian Community at Corinth...

...PRIVATE OWNERSHIP'S RECORD A SWEDE named Ivar Krueger built himself up into a Napoleon of Internationa) finance...

...By such actions do our rulers show themselves double hypocrites in professing their love and faith in either peace or economy...

...o • I t Is really no playroom affair...

...Timely Topics By Norman Thomas What Next for Mooney?—Hopeful Effort* —The Honesty of Private Business— Economy—The Rise of HMerism ROLPWS BRAZEN DECISION A BRAZEN, conscienceless California plutocracy hasn't even bothered to make its latest tool, Governor Rolph, a clever liar...

...The current preparedness cost is $721,000,000...

...Whatever else we do, If we fall of this, we shall be as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal...

...Paul blames them for this...

...Yet worse than the acts of personal violence which were .charged against agents of the union, was the injury to property for which It was responsible...

...If there ever was a moment when It was Important for workingmen to feel together and think together as worklngmen, it Is so I today...

...Apparently it's all right to gamble as a bull on the chance of a rising market...

...They say that his case has been before the state and federal Supreme Court which it has not except OD procedure...

...His economic hash, brutal anti-Semitism, unscientific "racial parity" nonsense and jingoistic nationalism are all reactionary...

...MAKING JUDGES BEHAVE q p H E New York World-Telegram may be a bit amusing when it asks the Stock Exchange to reform or the Bar Association to make judges behave...

...This lessens the profits of the antiunion bosses—and that is the "destruction of property" which the judge deems so much more atrocious than the beating up of strikebreakers...

...He and Sullivan, the reactionary lawyer and ex-judge whom he (or hia bosses) picked to do the dirty work for them, simply fall back on tbe old stuff: "Mooney was a radical labor fighter, he might have planted the bomb, therefore, he dtd plant it...

...H.s economic empire it broken...

...I t were better, he says, to suffer wiong from their fellows than to drag them before heathen magiatra' >s...

...It may be that relative responsibility will sober the Nazis...

...The capitalistic economy is surely on the toboggan slide, isn't i t? Or is i t ? Here's another bit of news...

...Is It so, that there Is not a wise man among you...

...BULLS AND BEARS IN Washington a badly managed investigation of the Now York Stock Market again SUM brought to light the use of dummy names, pools manipulating stocks with the aid of the "specialists" who handle them, and all the tricks which make betting on horses so much safer for the "outsider" than playing the market...

...THE GERMAN ELECTION r:E expected triumph of Hitler in Prussia Is a calamity...

...They don't, so far as press summaries show, bother with the proof that all evidence against Mooney was tainted with perjury, or that the judge who sentenced him, and the Jurors who convicted him, are now convinced that be should be released...

...billion dollar holding company, and the two investment t r u s t s connected with it, have gone into bankruptcy...

...And poor Instill...

...Much good may come from President William Green's announced intention to have his personal representative inquire into the situation which has brought five unions lately into court on charges by their own members...

...Sometimes even the liOJe fellows can get in on that...

...But," said the Senator, "that was when we were prosperous...

...What he has a chance to do depends upon the Communists...

...Why, then, -should the holding company and Investment trusts go Into bankruptcy...

...His two and a hah...

...A. L...

...One of the weapons of the workers and their allies in this struggle for justice, should be an Intensified boycott against California products and against the Olympic games in Los Angeles...

...Forty-five operating companies of the Instill system, thirtyfive of which are controlled by that bankrupt holding company of his, show aggregate gross income for 1931 five and a half millions smaller than that of 1930, and aggregate net Income four and a half millions larger...

...And I do not see how the propriety of asserting our class viewpoint, and blaming acts which are from that viewpoint unethical, Is to be brushed aside by translating what we say into the language of the nursery...

...Fights have occurred, and it is alleged that members of the seceding body have beea cruelly maltreated...

...s e e That is sound capitalist ethics...

...Is this economic individualism or is it a system of weak insanity which permits such things...

...To clear up this situation will recommend unions to tbe unorganized as few other things can...

...There la a passage In one of his epistles which might well be taken tqlheart by organized working-men today...

...That strikes at the very essence of trade unionism...

...Lee, Hlgginson & Company were Krueger's American bankers...