Timely Topics
THOMAS, NORMAN
Timely Topics By Norman Thomas WHAT IMMEDIATE STEPS FOR THE FARMERS f •jrN an Interesting article In Current History, a former Republican Gov-JL ernor of Minnesota, Mr. Theodore Christiansen,...
...The labor leader was President Hirshberg of the Central Labor Union of Philadelphia and the Mayor was Hampy Moore of the City of Brotherly Love who had made that name a hissing by ordering his police to break up any Communist parade or meeting on May Day...
...For many months in this column I have been giving the arguments for this...
...Thispicture shows the activities of the young people and children in the Socialist movement, how they are organized, and how they manage their own little Republic in a camp set aside for them...
...There is always, of course, a question of how far in a capitalist society such marketing boards can function fairly...
...3. Marketing of staple agricultural products through Federal market boards which would fix price and determine the quantities to be taken at that price...
...The pictures will be shown Saturday, May 14, at 3.00 p.m., at the People's House...
...It is a tremendous picture of the development of the Socialist Movement in Germany up to the present time...
...it is also hopelessly opposed to any real recoveryfrom depression...
...Hishberg did not mince words...
...Whentockton and Oenlt learned of this afair they secured the promise of the heriff and county attorney adequatey tp protect Murray Baron...
...Planned economy—and that includes a plan for the farmers—In view of all the circumstances cannot be achieved simply by trying to control the volume of money while we still leave profit and private property in production goods in their old places of leadership...
...Organizer Baron was asked to salute the flag, but since they had no flag that arrangement wag dropped...
...Middle Class Hope In Union With Labor, Says World Tomorrow The middle class should expressits political discontent In a party which is rooted in the economic Interests of the workers, ratherthan in terms which are purely middle class, says the World Tomorrow, in an editorial in the MayIssue...
...There is therefore a danger that in a natural impatience farmers and debtors generally willInsist on arbitrary and uncontrolled inflation...
...When the fanners' purchasing power Is reduced evenbelow that of the rest of the community, in time it drags the standardsOf the rest of the community down also...
...Not only in the old South but elsewhere that means putting marginal farm land back Into timber...
...In the face of the exhaustion of toll In the old South, the competition of Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, etc., and the rising oomps...
...As was shown in Germany, it never brings true prosperity and is always followed by another period of deflation...
...The chairman of themeeting was Comrade Jose KellyStockton, direct descendant of Richard Stockton of New Jersey, a signer of Hie Declaration of Independence.HLs wife, Comrade Kate BradfordStockton, is likewise a descendant ol Governor Bradford of Massachusettscolony...
...By taxation or otherwise we must abolish the existence of the present miserable landlord-tenant relationship...
...The Red Cross Is feeding hunreds of farmers who are virtually prostrate after several hard seasons...
...MCOMMON SENSE ON BIRTH CONTROL ARGARET SANGER and the forces of humanity generally are to be congratulated on the Introduction into both Houses of Congress of a bill legalizing the dissemination of birth control information by licened medical circles...
...It becomes a habit...
...2. Actual reduction of debts, especially the farmers' debts...
...Let us examine briefly the merits of these plans, always remembering (1) thatto have no plan at all means the rude and cruel surgery of debt reductionby failures which menace not only the farmers but savings banks andInsurance companies which are the chief protection of certain kinds of Workers under the capitalist order...
...OA LABOR LEADER SPEAKS OVT UR hats ought to oe off to one labor leader who dared to tell a Mayor to his face what he thought of him...
...CSOCIALISM FOR THE YOUNGSTERS OMRADES in many parte of the country tell me what I have found out in my own family...
...There are three possibilitiesof action which could be used either alone or in combination: (a) wemight try by controlled inflation to restore the price level of 1926-1927;(b) we might put into effect some plan for reducing the burden of debtand Interest on the farmers by outright cuts...
...The second picture is entitled "The Children's Republic...
...This is certainly a plan to which a Socialist society would have to come...
...Admission is 15 cents...
...I am still remembering UN magnificent demonstration of the Socialists at Norfolk, Va...
...The comrades here are organizing a local In the county which promises to be the largest in Tennessee history...
...Now is the time to press forward...
...and (2) that the Immediate action taken should hasten the transition to the Socialist society by the precedents it sets up and its general psychological effect, 1. Controlled inflation...
...Tt would be an outrageous thing, for Instance, to help land owning farmers by some combination of the first two plans I have mentioned at the expense of the vast and growing army of tenant farmers...
...Under a capitalist system when business shrinks it will always be hard to keep prices from falling...
...At the I. L. G. W. U. convention in Philadelphia I found a new spirit of earnest interest not only in union affairs but in the Socialist movement...
...Ell Kahn organized a Y. P. 8. L. circle with ten students, the leaders of whom are Mabel Stockton and Carmen Genit...
...To be concrete, cotton farming in what we call the old South is practically doomed...
...Party members were urged to use this information to get the books Into libraries which have not yet purhased them...
...The difference would have to be made up in one way or another by taxation which should fall on incomes and inheritances of the creditor class, thus hastening a transfer of ownership...
...Loads of literature were distributed and sold...
...It now takes 1,200 bushels...
...The biggest problems before our national convention will deal with plans for organizing and financing a corps of picked workers to agitate, educate and organize throughout the country, not alone in the Presidential campaign but right along...
...Hishbergs action was in striking and encouraging contrast to Matthew Woll's latest plea to put down the Reds in America by methods very similar to those' the late Czar of Russia used unsuccessfully in his domain...
...listened to the exposition of trueAmericanism by Baron and enthusiastically endorsed the Socialist program for the farmers...
...What we want is a standardized dollar as we now have a standardized yard-stick, but we ought to make every effort, including international conference, to standardize It at the level of, let us say, 1927, which was before the climax of the wild boom and the consequent depression...
...This film depictsthe starting of the "New Rhenlsch Zeitung" by Karl Marx in the 40's,and follows all the phases of the Socialist Movement in Germany,Including the time under the Bismark Anti-Socialist Law and after, during the World War, anafter the establishment of theGerman Republic, in fact, up to the present day...
...On May 2 Mayor Moore and President Hirshberg met at the opening session of the convention of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in Philadelphia, Both publicly to the Mayor's face and later to him privately, Mr...
...It is time to make every child born in America a wanted child Birth control will not produce prosperity in America, Intelligently applied, it will greatly increase human well-being...
...The present efforts to raise prices through the machinery of the Federal Reserve System has not yet met with success — chiefly because of lack of cooperation of the bankers...
...The workers hart been left to have an indefinite number of children regardless of their Ability to support them, or the health of their mother, unless in despair they tried cruel forms of birth control or abortion...
...Hon of Russia, India and the Sudan, a substitute for cotton farming must be found...
...c) we might set up government monopolies for marketing farm staples at a fixed price...
...I am aware that, long as this seems, it is too short to develop dearly all the points that are involved...
...On my recent trip to Tennessee I found evidence of a genuine awakening of Socialist sentiment Paul Porter and Paul Blanshard bring news of the interest in the colleges and the number of workers we can get from the colleges, especially for the campaign...
...Now a fiscal system under which this sort of thing can occur is not Only bitterly unjust...
...Thetown of Allardt originally was a Oer-man communist community foundedby the father of Comrade Hugo Genit, the most prominent man In Fentress county, who was solely instrumentalin arranging the meeting...
...What immediate steps could be taken...
...Similar figures could be cited for cottonfarmers...
...On Mondaynight about 100 farmers packed thesmall schoolhouse at Allardt and vigorously applauded the speakers...
...What we do in this matter is likely to be far more important than the exact wording of most of our resolutions...
...Controlled inflation must be based on getting work going again and would be helped by our program of public works...
...I shall be glad to get the comment of farmers and others who have special knowledge of farm problems on this general statement...
...that is, we shall have to advance steadily toward Socialism...
...namely, that Harry Laidler has done us a great service in writing that interesting Primer, "The Road Ahead...
...It should be of special interest to the young people in our movement...
...The immediate result was that the Mayor reconsidered the refusal to permit a concert on a city plaza in behalf of the unemployed musicians...
...The text.and the illustrations appeal to children and adults need not be ashamed to read it for its singularly clear explanation Stresses Job Crisis< Bw n New Leader Correspondent)WASHINGTON, D. C—For thefirst time since the war, a MayDay demonstration, arranged \fBranch 2, Local Washington, D. C, of the Socialist party, was held inthe heart of the downtown sectionof the city...
...Both of these pictures are worth seeing...
...On Tuesday night a crowd of 125 listened attentively to the Socialistorganizers...
...Theodore Christiansen, points out that In 192it took 240 bushels of wheat to pay the Interest on a $10,000 farm mortgage...
...The speakers denounced the hugemilitary expenditures and the government unemployment program,anil succeeded In organizing anUnemployed League of 22 workers,who will send a delegation to the Congressional hearing on the proposed $600,000 unemployment relief bill for Washington, demanding that this bill be passed to proride temporary relief for the 20,000unemployed of Washington...
...Despite the fact thatthe squad of police present forcedall our banners down, after havinggiven us a permit to carry them,the meeting was attended by over100 members, sympathizers and unemployed workers, who listened tospeeches by Marion Malone andRobert Shostock...
...All the founders and organizers of the Party, Marx, Engels, Libknecht,Bebel, Lasalle, are in it...
...This the police did with extraordinary brutality...
...One othe chief activities of this leaguefrill be the selling of the "Unemployed" magazine, published by theID, TAME8TOWN, Tenn.—Murray Baronand Samuel Block of Brooklyn,mid Ell Halm of Milwaukee, arrived In Tennessee last Sunday for the initial stop in an Itinerary which will takeihcm through Kentucky, Tennessee.Illinois and Wisconsin...
...Until now, Intel* ligent birth control ha* been one more form of special privilege...
...Two Socialist FilmsOn View Next SaturdayAt the Rand SchoolThe Committee on Education of the New York Socialist party has arranged to show two moving pictures imported by our Germancomrades from Germany...
...TTHE SOCIALIST TIDE RUNNING HIGH HE Philadelphia May Day meeting was about the most encouraging Socialist meeting I have ever addressed in Philadelphia...
...Socialists young and old will learn and (get a great deal of inspiration from them...
...History shows uniformly from the days of our Continental Congress paper money down to the days when Germany printed marks in trillion mark denominations that inflation by legislative act Is something like taking dope...
...Thomas and Laidler Books On List of "Fifty Bosl" CHICAGO.—Two Socialist books, "America's Way Out," by Norman Thomas, and "Concentration of Control in American Industry," by Harry W. Laidler, have been Included In the list of "fifty notable books" issued by the American Library Association, Clarence Senior, executive secretary of the Socialist party, reminded locals In a circular letter sent out last week...
...Stark destitution and poverty stalks the country here...
...When inflation gets out of hand it may wipe out debts but it also nearly wipes out the workers because prices rise so much faster than wages...
...Moreover, we must face the fact that no special schemes can indefinitely prolong an unsound agricultural economy...
...While we are on the subject let's add that the New York police behaved themselves very well on the occasion of the Communist May Day parade and that both the Socialist and Communist parades were visible evidence of a »sw awakening in the working class...
...Let government officials - federal, state e.nd city—observe from these signs that the workers are not going to starve forever ih silence...
...I believe that the government and the Federal Reserve System should have started on this policy long ago...
...On Wednesday the organizers met with opposition in Jamestown, whereduring the day a score of "patriots" led by a notoriously corrupt politicianthreatened to make of Fentress county another Harlan county...
...The firstis entitled "Eighty Years of Socialist Press...
...The middle class alone,"he editorial says, "cannot produce social reorganization significantnough to matter...
...Lawrence'Dennis and others have suggested practicable plans for far more scientific reduction of the burden of debts by substituting government bondB at a low rate of Interest for the high interest bearing farm mortgages now outstanding...
...American Socialists should see it...
...Timely Topics By Norman Thomas WHAT IMMEDIATE STEPS FOR THE FARMERS f •jrN an Interesting article In Current History, a former Republican Gov-JL ernor of Minnesota, Mr...
...What we are getting now is debt reduction by a cruel and haphazard method of bankruptcy and foreclosure...
...The magistrates finished the picture by holding under excessive bail the victims of police attack for the crime of attacking the police...
...Itis worth while to see the struggles the Party had to undergo until It reached its present importance...
...It Is time to end this hypocrisy...
...It is certainly true thta if we are to have a system of planned price fixing to help the farmers we'll have to come to another plan to protect the consumers against the bakers...
...The chairman of the meeting was Judge Case, the county liberal who denounced thetown hoodlums for attempting to deny the privilege of free speech to the visitors although the judge emphatically stated he wasn't a Socialist...
...We were asked to leave town Immediately...
...This Umberland should be publicly owned and would thus become an addition to the public wealth...
Vol. 13 • May 1932 • No. 19
