Timely Topics
THOMAS, NORMAN
Timely Topics By Norman Thomas (Socialist Candidate for Pretidcat)_ Taxation and Relief for the Jobless—Class Lines in New York—Socialism of Various Brands—American Communism Today THE...
...Immediately after a brilliant program on the 4th of July weekend there will be atagld from July 5 to 10, a week full of interesting events by the staff of "Americana," celebrated magazine of pictorial satire...
...And the Mayor, whose heart bleeds for the unemployed and who himself has been let in on good things to the tune of hundreds of thousands a year, waa all worried about the tax rate regard-Jess of the death rate...
...Tariff schedules lave no business In the tax Mil and are likely to provoke reprisals that aill make our trade situation worse and help induce other American Indus, tries to open plants In foreign countries...
...It's no good paying employed members of the American Legion a bonus either by taxation or inflation...
...Theodore Debs of Terre Haute, brother of the famous leader of the Socialists, was chosen as nominee for Lieutenant Governor...
...Among those interested in arranging the series of discussions, art exhibits, and pageants will be leading artists and writers, among them, Alexander King, John Sloan, Art Young, George Gross, CI eon Throckmorton, Willi Noell, and Gilbert Seldea...
...Charles Stastney of Bedford, ninth...
...On this latter point I quoted a statement by Professor Charles Beard...
...Lillian Miller of Terre Haute, superintendent of public instruction...
...WLN)—By holding out with typical Dutch determination, the 4,000 pulp mill workers in the province of Gronln-gen who went on strike about ten months ago against a proposed wage cut of 20 per cent won a substantial victory in the compromise agreement, the wage reduction will be only 5 per cent and, as the cost of living has .declined considerably during the last year, the new weekly wage of 22.80 guilders (worth 40 cents each) has a greater pug chasing power than the old rate of 24 guilders...
...We are the only democratically controlled party...
...They come-too late to be of the service that they might have been earlier and they never would have been much good...
...And now we nave a Chilean military revolution brought to success by the same air force.which defeated a prior revolution...
...Such a proposal is bad Socialism and bad sense under worst however it may be intended it is an invitation to race riots...
...Such a policy will either ¦tart a wild orgy of inflation, something like that which Russia and Germany experienced, in which wages will always lag behind the Increases In prices, or else it will be made an excuse for giving no further real help to the unemployed and to the farmers...
...Hoffman Paroled By State Board PHILADELPHIA.—(FP) —Alfred Hoffman, hosiery workers' union leader, has been paroled from the Stroudsburg jail and his fine reduced at a special meeting of the State Board of Pardons...
...My sentence began, "Though I do not think the Russian government gets its astonishing results primarily by terror, I agree in the main with Professor Beard's vigorous statement" which I then quoted W. Z. Foster proceeds to quote my sentence in his book, omitting the important clause, "though I do not think the Russian government gets its astonishing results primarily by terror...
...it has long been advocated by Socialists, but It doesn't apply at present to the vast army of the unemployed who are now out of work...
...George M. Larralr of Indianapolis, treasurer...
...Dutch Paper Workers Win Ten-Month Strike AMSTERDAM...
...Erne Mueller of Indianapolis, reporter of the Supreme Court, and Mrs...
...The real Socialist position would be, to try, as we Socialists are trying to do...
...THE KIND OF SOCIALISM NEEDED That remark applies to people in other countries than America...
...There are six of them in the parly's 1982 platform and they are non-revolutionary...
...If this means anything it means autonomous Negro republics in the South...
...The, Debs dub will continue to "Americana" Staff Will Foresmther at Camp T'amiment Camp Tamlment, Forest Park, Pa., made proof of Its great popularity in the brilliant holiday over Decoration Day weekend...
...Socialist speakers should take these examples aa the sort of thing they will have to meet and on which they should be well Informed Ind...
...Warren Evens of Elkhart, auditor...
...Klein's small property holder friends were mighty eager to get ail the unearned Increment on land which piled up during the boom years—unearned increment to which landlords are no more entitled than big plutocrats hi Wall street That doesn't mean that we don't favor Income taxes and scientific land taxes rather than taxes that crowd the small home owner, but the small home owner is not tbe typical New Tork landlord...
...This is not an argument against properly controlled Inflation to which we may come...
...Bohn on Hard Times W. X. Bohn, Educational Director of the Rand School, will speak on "History of Hard Times" Wednesday, June 19, at the Rand School, 7 R ISth St...
...The relief bills, most of them, are equally bad...
...Mrs...
...It is still more difficult business for Communists to endorse, aa they now seem to endorse, the indiscriminate payment of the bonus to World War veterans...
...Electors Chosen ^ The following electors in each district were elected: Joseph Gray of Gary, first...
...He was serving a term of two years on a queer charge of conspiracy growing out of the strike In Stroudsburg...
...The better we show tbat we can fight capitalism the less excuse there will be for Communism...
...1. The nature of Communist immediate demands...
...The meeting, sponsored by the B. V. Debs Club, will begin at 8 30...
...As Will Rogers said, these bills represent for the most part an effort of the old parties to reach Into their bags and dust iff some of their old promises In time for the campaign...
...Never did people more truly need fundamental education in Socialism...
...A record attendance is expected sad further details of the events will be given la later Issues of the "New Leader...
...But there are two general subjects concerning present Communist demands and tactics which Socialists ought to understand...
...As proof of this, in his next sentence, he offers the fact that I and J. P. Morgan spoke for Block-Aid As a matter of fact, as any one who read my speech in The New Leader knows, I accepted an invitation to speak over the radio (with the unanimous approval of the unemployment committee of the party) to point out the desperate condition in New Tork, the tragic inadequacy of Block-Aid, and the need of the Socialist plan for unemployment relief...
...Attractives rates are offered to act students who register through the Secretary of their organization...
...John A. Wilson of Anderson, eleventh, and William Tice Of IndlanapoliH, twelfth...
...The convention nominated Hapgood unanimously when others In the race withdrew...
...We receive our funds from the working class...
...C. Y. Edklns of Greensburg, tenth...
...He also insists that nothing la going to avail in America but violent revolution at tbe proper moment It's a pretty llfflcult business to be for unemployment insurance and a violent revolution...
...A. L. Binford bf West-field and Maurlel C. Turpln of Columbus were elected electors at large...
...Timely Topics By Norman Thomas (Socialist Candidate for Pretidcat)_ Taxation and Relief for the Jobless—Class Lines in New York—Socialism of Various Brands—American Communism Today THE BUDGET NOT BALANCED THE tax Mil does not balance the budget, even omitting all provision for unemployment relief...
...Moreover, he would know that some of Mr...
...In trade union circles this effective defense by the well organized pulp and cardboard mill workers in Groningen is being contrasted with conditions in the Twente textile district where some 20,000 mill workers were forced to accept much greater wage cuts in March, after a strike of about three months hampered by the division of the labor forces into three different unions — Socialist, Catholic and Evangelical...
...The desperate situation of capitalism makes even militarists—for instance, in Japan—talk a kind of national Socialism...
...The convention voted to authorize the executive state committee to nominate candidates for Judges of Supreme and Appellate courts, clerk of Supreme and Appellate courts and any office for which vacancies may occur...
...I hope that revolution will be genuinely Socialist...
...J. M. Coffman of Freedlandvllle, seventh, Mike Hastenstabb of New Albany, eighth...
...More recently by taking sentences out of their contexts some Communist publications have deliberately tried to make It appear that before the War Policies Commission I said tbat I would reluctantly endorse war at the last moment The word which the Communists so interpret referred not at all to war, which I opposed throughout my testimony, but to a proposal by Congressman LaGuardia to conscript property in the event of war...
...I repeated the familiar Socialist argument for Socialism aa a basis for peace not as an emergency measure for war...
...It would take more apace than I hare even to list Communist misrepresentations that have come to my attention...
...The kind of Socialism we urge is international rather than jingolatically national...
...Everybody Invited...
...For Instance, the second half of demand No...
...For this and other reasons which ( have previously pointed out the Mil on which Congress has worked so long is a characteristic capitalist bi-partisan mess, the main purpose of which is to let tbe income tax paving group off as easily as possible, and the only praise for which Is that it might have been worse...
...Some of these immediate demands of our Communist friends are very dangerous...
...No program of immediate relief is even outlined...
...To balance the budget requires economics which Congress has not the courage or capacity to make...
...J. H. Smith of Fort Wayne, Fourth...
...On the very next page Socialists, whom he calls Social Fascists, are accused by Foster of cooperating with capitalists "accepting as their working principle that in the crisis the workers' living condition must come down...
...SOME COMMUNIST FALSEHOODS a.Our Job in this campaign and other times, I think, is to fight capitalism rather than Communism...
...This la good...
...No Communist government could or would thus pay the bonus to all war veterans and what is likely to happen is that some Fascist demagogue will steal the veterans organized in part by the Communists and use them as a kind of black-shirted army for Fascism—an army interested not in workers as workers but only in Indefinite benefits to all those men who were conscripted for a year or a week to make the world safe for democracy...
...L W. Daacke |of Indianapolis was nominated for secretary of state...
...Ed H. Nox of Huntington, fifth...
...A large part of the Communist campaign seems to be an attack on Socialists in which no great care is taken to tell the truth...
...Refreshments...
...Socialists know that In my hook, "As I See It" and in other places, I have praised the economic results of the Russian Revolution, though I have criticized the severity of the dictatorship and in particular have argued that it la inappropriate to America...
...Leo K. Friedman of Lafayette, second...
...A SHAMEFUL EXHIBITION Any one who believes that there is no class conflict ought to have witnessed the painful and shameful exhibition in the Board of Estimate n New Tork City the other day when representatives of certain property solders argued vehemently that there waa no unemployment problem or that if there was the unemployed came from out of New Tork, or that at Stay*"rate, It wasn't the city's business to take care of them...
...Jacob Schra-der of Elkhart, third...
...The great emphasis is laid on "unemployment and social insurance at the expense of the state and employers...
...Holding of the state convention follows the party's national convention in Milwaukee, when Norman Thomas was named candidate for President...
...The only excuse, we aaid, for Block-Aid was that If supported by those who had no better cause it might tide over an emergency until the right thing could be done...
...Lincoln Oiiaswaki of South Bend, aa attorney, attorney general...
...Frank Barker of Terre Haute, sixth...
...The dominant party In France cans itself "radical Socialist" though it is neither very radical nor Socialist...
...namely, to show unemployed veterans, who at least have had the gumption to do something besides starve, that what they want la help as unemployed soldiers in the war against poverty, not as veterans of an old war which, however disguised, was really a war for Imperialism...
...Admission free...
...Forest Wak lace of Vederaburg and Powers Hapgood of Indianapolis were chosen to lead the Socialist state ticket in the November election as candidates for the offices of United States senator and Governor, respectively, at the party's state convention in the Columbia Securities building last week...
...It it democratic and not military...
...It is an argument against an indiscriminate payment of tbe bonus for which apparently the Communists have persuaded the old soldiers that they stand It is a dangerous policy to promise anything that you think win win you friends for the moment 2. The nature of Communist charges against Socialists...
...The number of guests reached the peak of 700 people and other hundreds were turned away for lack of accommodations...
...Henry Klein went beyond any Communist in laying all the blame for our trouble at the door of Rockefeller and Morgan and urging that the unemployed march on them...
...We are therefore loyal to the work-era who finance us, just as the Republican and Democratic parties are loyal to the capitalists who finance them...
...4—"Self-Skftermlnatlon for the black belt...
...Socialists Name Hapgood For Governor Forest Wallace Picked for U. S. Senator at State Convention (it a a w ip Leader Correipondent) INDIANAPOLIS...
...The Socialist party entera the 1982 campaign, as in all campaigns, pledged to the principle of social ownership," Hapgood said "We will present certain immediate demands, such ss unemployment insurance, old age pensions, abolition of the 'yellow dog* contract and injunctions in labor disputes, and many others which our representatives elected to office will fight for...
...I argued that such last moment action would mean very great benevolence to property and great harshness to men under a Fascist military state...
...A Communist, whatever he thinks about Rockefeller and Morgan, would know that It is the whole system we have to fight and not a few men...
...Here are some illustrations taken more or less at random...
...William a. Foster insists that these immediate demands are more than halt to satch workers and poor farmers...
...Some of Its program looks goed, hut I have my suspicion that it may be more Fascist than Socialist before It's through...
Vol. 13 • June 1932 • No. 24
