Vigorous Socialist Drive Brings in $25,000
THE SOCIALIST PARTY'S CLARION CALL TO ACTION By Norman Thomas DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL AS never before In America or any other country political democracy is on trial this year. Everywhere is...
...Without a quiver the courts turn against the dead past and face the living future...
...which you must not confuse with your own dear G.P.U.: the G.P.U., as I understand it, puts people out of their misery quickly, whereas the G.O.P...
...The GOP...
...Concessions to either farmers or workers are made reluctantly, inadequately, and Ineffectively...
...The party which debars Negroes from the polls in the South and makes it difficult for white workers to vote by a poll tax...
...The Democratic platform does not mention the recognition of Russia or the refusal to sell munitions of war to belligerent powers...
...Farley, his campaign manager, insists, however, that Roosevelt is eminently qualified to fallow in the footsteps of his predecessors, Harding, CooUdge, and Hoover, and there may be something to what he says...
...Now the issue is to free industry and save life...
...In nominating Franklin Roosevelt the Democratic Party nominated an admirable gentleman but a man who has shown no great strength of purpose or of leadership...
...Disarmament is thorough...
...New York City...
...He i*, of course, the logical candidate, having done nothing at all in the past four years...
...The Socialist Quarterly Is a scientific magazine intended for Socialists and those interested In Socialist theory and philosophy...
...Norman Thomas leads with "A Note on the American Political Scene," which largely considers our Socialist opportunity in relation to the political campaign...
...We intend to put men to work at reforestation, the conquest of the slums, the provision of housing, the electrification of world Industries, the building of roads —all things that will create social wealth, and in the process of creating it overcome unemployment...
...The Republican platform is nothing but a wordy and badly written endorsement of the program of Herbert Hoover...
...It la this revolutionary vision of a cooperative society which we need...
...Wages are high enough...
...It is as adequate to our time as a lady's parasol in a cloud-burst...
...While politicians played at politics in the convention stadium hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens in Chicago were unemployed, did not know whence would come bread for their children's needs...
...The fact that Thoma* is the ablest of the candidates will count heavily against him...
...OTHER PARTIES AND SECTS There are other parties...
...In view of the Democratic record in Congress, the Democratic economy and tariff planks are pure hypocrisy and the Democratic program for unemployment relief and agriculture may mean anything or nothing according as they are interpreted...
...the party of machine-made corrupt policies in northern citiea -this is not Jeffersonian even in the political sense...
...This seems to prove beyond a doubt that he is physically fit to cope with the problems of the presidency...
...Haste would be fevered...
...In International affairs we demand genuine disarmament, recognition of Soviet Russia, cancellation of war debts, which can't be collected anyhow, the entry of the United States into the World Court and into the League of Nations under conditions which will make it an effective Instrument for world peace, and renewed cooperation with working class parties abroad, to the end that the League may be transformed from a League of imperialist powers to a democratic assemblage representative of the aspirations of the common people of the world...
...Government, labor and management should act more speedily than if war should come...
...Anna Bercowltz reviews the work of the Milwaukee convention In an article that will provoke thought, and David P. Berenberg reviews William Z. Foster'* "Toward Soviet America," using Uila book for a critical analysis of Communist Ideas...
...Spain under the Republic" by Alvarez Julio del Vayo is an informative article, and Halm Kantorovltch continues his series on 'The Social Philosophy of Marxlam...
...Long ago events forced Hoover and his party away from the "rugged individualism" he once talked about...
...Security la complete for all...
...What would be done ? Hoarded, idle billions of surplus wealth are conscripted into active service, through loan or tax...
...We are aware that our great opponents are not the two old parties but the capitalist system, the private ownership of wealth and ita management for private profit, the chaos, the lack of plan, the cruel and absurd inequalities of the division of wealth which characterizes our modern life...
...Six have been Indicted, one Is in jail without indictment, and three are still being sought...
...World peace Is possible...
...Joint Defense Formed in Race Persecution Case WASHINGTON—( FP )—Local organizations opposed to persecution of the Negro race are being solicited to- join in a general defense committee to assist the legal defense of the six young Negroes now under indictment for murder in the case of the death of Policeman Kennedy...
...It Is opportunistic, confused, sure only of one tiling, its devotion to private profit...
...Whatever the intentions of the Communists, their insistence on dictatorship and the inevitability of future large-scale violence plays Into the hands of the menacing Fascist movement in America...
...WE OFFER NO MESSIAHS But I should give you a false view of the Socialist'*nope were I to tell you that we had a perfect plan or supermen and offer such perfection as your way of salvation...
...Foreign trade Is on a fair basis...
...Labor and management take care of the actual administration...
...No wonder men are crying out for some change, for we have come to a new tragedy in history, the starvation of willing workers in the midst of actual and potential plenty...
...It I* a little too early to tell In which direction Roosevelt la running—toward Garner or away from him, though a study of Roosevelt's previous tactics leads me to believe that he is not running, but straddling...
...He straddles as well aa Mr...
...Who shall build the classless society of tomorrow where all able-bodied men and women are workers and all collectively own the great means of production, where under expert leadership machinery is harnessed to provide abundance for all, if not the workers who have always known that man must live by toll and that there is no wealth apart from labor...
...There is a Liberty Party which as I understand it would save us by changing our money system...
...This point is being taken advantage of by the Republican propagandists, who keep asking, 'Why change Hoover's going downstream?' "Immediately after his nomination, Mr...
...Only his mental fitness for the office Is now open to question...
...They are poured Into circulation to buy necessaries and raw materials in enormous quantities...
...At once the resources of the country would be mobilized...
...There is, of course, also the Communist Party, •incere and determined...
...It ia not a political system merely but an economic order that ia on trial, an economic order that allows twelve million unemployed and their dependents to face literal starvation while a whole claas of farmers drift nearer and nearer to wholesale bankruptcy...
...BETTER ENGLISH—THAT'S ALL...
...Everywhere is cynicism with regard to political action, not merely with regard to the old parties but with regard to democracy itself...
...It can be obtained of the Rand School Book Store, 7 Bast 15th street...
...and that while men must struggle towards the goal of a new society there are things that must be done now, or we perish...
...Hoover, and, from any distance at all, it is almost impossible to tell them apart...
...Nor is there anything in the Democratic Party situation to make it better than its platform...
...The Democratic platform is superior in brevity and in English style but it is an amazingly conservative document coming from a party which once was as radical as the Bryan platform of 1896...
...We shall not know until November just how successful this movement was, but the general impression is that antiRooeejrelt men scored a triumph when they succeeded in nominating John Nance Garner as Roosevelt's running mate...
...Months ago he renounced his former belief in the League of Nations, virtually at the behest of William Randolph Hearst...
...Depressions end...
...As a result, production balances consumption, because: Every able-bodied adult goes to work...
...The above, an extract from "Explaining to Dmitri," by Morria Ryskind, one of the co-authors of "Of Thee I Sing," appeared hi a recent issue of The Nation...
...Until they do, there Is no hope...
...At Chicago he got his reward...
...But the paternalism he is obliged to practice la not intended to provide planned production for use for the benefit of all of us, instead of the profit system which has broken down, but to aid business to make more profit by the use of government credit...
...The political action that Is effective today must take cognizance of facta like these...
...It Ignores the League of Nation* and bluntly opposes cancellation of war debts without telling how they can be collected...
...Free Industry To Save Life SUPPOSE a real industrial gathering was held of labor and management...
...Education is ample...
...Every foreign office is filled with a genuine apostle of international accord...
...We propose to socialize bulking and credit beginning with the establishment of a unified banking system through the extension of the preaent postal savings bank...
...Carrying out its constitutional authority, Congress regulate* interstate commerce for the general good...
...Most of them had previously been threatened, arrested or otherwise bullied by Kennedy...
...The Democratic convention was enlivened by a 'Stop-Roosevelt' movement...
...Roosevelt flew to Chicago, and then made a trip in a small boat along the New England shore line...
...Practically all the conventions (including the Culbertson two-bid) have been held, and the list of the simple homespun nominees Is truly formidable...
...Child labor Is abolished...
...Every atom of energy would be bent to deal death in the most atrocious and savage manner...
...Only the workers themselves with hand and brain can save themselves...
...With regard to labor unions it employs the tactics of "rule or ruin" and deals in slander, lies, and half truths concerning its Socialist opponent...
...For instance, it calls for self-determination In the black belt...
...This i* the message of Socialism...
...Prices are low enough...
...Negro liberals are forming a committee to help finance the fight for the lives of the accused...
...Workers of the world, workers white ami black, workers with hand and brain, worker* In mine and field and school and factory, unite, you have your chains to lose, your haunting fear*, your economic Insecurity, your dread of war, you have a world to gain...
...Unless they do, the despair of the people may turn to the convulsion of violence at home or slaughter abroad...
...It must have proposals for the reordering of our lives...
...Hour* are few enough...
...Algernon Lee writes on "Bourgeois 'Planning' and Antldemocracy" and notes the correlation between the two...
...Politically, Industrially and socially there Is the people's will...
...We intend to wage war against poverty with more vigor than men waged war sgainat foreign foes...
...Hailed as a friend of the poor, his record on unemployment relief in New York State is the record of a man who has availed himself of every excuse to do next to nothing...
...Already in America men are crying for an American Mussolini, little recognising how great Is the cost of such dictatorship...
...Ten Negroes were accused...
...Its intentions arc good, but It's too late in the day to try to restore the economics of Andrew Jackson's time...
...We stand emphatically for free public employment agencies, for government aid to farmers and small home owners to protect them against mortgage foreclosures, a moratorium on sales for non payment of taxes by destitute farmers and unemployed workers...
...It* subscription price ia a dollar a year, single copies 25 cent...
...I share the Communist desire to treat the Negro as man, and brother and fellow-worker, but to talk of self determination in the black belt is at best an invitation to segregation and at worst to race war...
...As against these things we offer the hope of the cooperative society, the classless society where machinery is the slave of all of us to produce abundance of which we can build a new civilization of plenty, peace and freedom...
...Inspired by it we can press forward to the greatest of all goals, a peaceful revolution, the conquest of machinery in the service of the workers...
...Old age is provided for...
...Explaining" U. S. Politics The following purports to be a letter of explanation to ex-Prince Dmitri Vlchovich in Leningrad of "The political situation that affronts the American people...
...Industry thereby starts up...
...This can only be done when we assert that every able bodied adult must be a worker and that the community of workers must collectively own the things necessary for our common life...
...Health Is safeguarded...
...THE SOCIALIST PARTY Against this Socialists offer something better than a platform...
...Meeting side by side with Congress, there Is complete co-operation between government and business to start from the bottom up...
...It* immediate demands are not well thought out...
...It is necessary to bring about transfer of real wealth ;rom the hands of a small owning claas to the hands of the agents of the great masses of the workers who must use these productive tools for the common good...
...We want to make conscious and proud and effective the essential solidarity of workers with hand and brain regardless of race or creed or language...
...Yet if we cannot accomplish things worth while through political action the alternative is dictatorship, or violence, or more likely both...
...But this party accepts the necessity for dictaiorship and the inevitability of catastrophic disaster as bringing in the revolutionary moment...
...How fast could this be put over ? If another war should break, It would be world-wide...
...By JOSEPH E. COHEN Third Issue of American Socialist Quarterly Out THE Summer Number of the American Socialist Quarterly Is an attractive issue carrying six articles and one book review...
...prefers the slow torture of starvation) has nominated Herbert Hoover again...
...Hence we offer specific plank* on unemployment and labor legislation, social ownership, banking, agriculture, taxation, civil liberties, constitutional changes and international relations...
...But we are aware that hungry children must be fed now...
...Everything would be dragooned into making destruction most devastating, sudden and absolute...
...A. Jugow, author of "Economic Trends In Soviet Russia," writes on "The Five Year Plan," presenting his conclusions based on a study of current Soviet sources...
...In so far as the Democratic platform is liberal at all it is liberal in the old fashioned semi-Jefferson sense, and we can be Jeffersonian in economics only if and when we are ready to go back from electric lights to tallow dips...
Vol. 14 • January 1932 • No. 12
