Let the Mayoralty Campaign of 1932 Be Beginning of New York's Redemption
Let the Mayoralty Campaign of 1932 Be Beginning of New York's Redemption (Platform Adopted by Socialist Party of New York City, in Municipal Convention, Thursday, Sept. 15, 1932) THE resignation...
...The speeches were made by Norman Thomas, candidate for*'President...
...The parties which represent :apitalism inevitably carry its un-icrupulous methods and ideals into politics and make government i machine for the enrichment of he few at the expense of the nany...
...ho.\i!ta!s, and subways, which luu beta suspended during daprcsslon...
...The Socialist Party has for years been directing |Hil>lic attention to the bribery, extortion,- and other abuses ¦ which have prevailed in the city administration and the lower courts...
...and even in New York, tae recent investigations have aoown Republicans, in Queens County and elsewhere, sharing in the crooked practices of Tammany Hall...
...5. We demand a unified and publicly owned and operated system of subways and busses, and pledge our candidate to the ; abolition of the seven-day week • In the transit system and the adoption of an enlightened and democratic labor policy...
...Neglect of the Unemployed The provision made by the Tammany administration for relief to the unemployed has been shamefully Inadequate...
...The Socialist party proudly points to tfce Record of the hundreds of Socialists who have held public office in this city, state, and nation, and of the many thousands of Socialist officials in other lands...
...Jacob Panken, candidate for Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, and Esther Friedman, candidate for Congress In the 24th District the Bronx...
...15, 1932) THE resignation of Mayor Walker under charges gives the people of New York an opportunity to hring a new spirit into the government of this great city...
...Democratic graft in New York la Ally matched by Republican graft in cities where that party is In control...
...When in office they have not practiced these virtues...
...For four years the Socialists of New York have officially opened their local campaigns at Town Hall, but it was the first time the opening of the campaign drew such a vast and enthusiastic audience...
...In this and all similar matters, we shall strive to make the municipality a model employer, whose Influence will tend to Improve conditions of labor in private employ...
...A few more have been removed from office or forced to resign But the heart of the evil has not been touched...
...The speeches were eloquent, thoughtful and Inspiring, but the chief actors were the members of the audience, who sang and cheer, ed, who paraded and who by their presence save visible evidence of the fact that In 1932 there Is to be the greatest campaign for Socialism ths metropolis has ever seen, not even barring the banner year of 1017...
...Too long have the people of New York been misruled for the benefit of bankers, franchise magnates, realty speculators, landlords, and other capitalists, and at the same time looted by the old-party politicians who carry on such misrule...
...0. We demand public owner* ship and operation of electric, gas, and telephone utilities, to the end that the present exhor-bltant rates may be reduced and the conditions of employment in such enterprises may be Improved...
...The Tammany administration has taken no steps, in this direction...
...The election of a Socialist mayor this year will prepare the way for complete Socialist victory In 1033...
...The city might have given employment to 80,000 workers for five years in replacing these fire-traps with decent dwellings...
...The Sea-Iwry investigation has mote than justified all our charges...
...Panken eloquently declared that capitalism is sick and what is needed is an operation before the diseased appendix bursts and poisons the whole system...
...It was a singing and a cheering meeting, and as Norman Thomas said a singing army is a winning army...
...Solomon opened the meeting with a masterly analysis of the Salt Lake City speech by Candidate Roosevelt, declaring that the Democratic presidential aspirant was offering the railroad magnates and security holders salvation from the consequences of their own mismanagement of one of the vital Industries of the country...
...The Equitable Bus deal, the Bronx street-cleaning graft, the Queens sewer graft, the system of blackmail in the Magistrates' Courts, the protection of crooks and gunmen by the Police Department, the connivance of the Health Department at the selling of impure milk, and corruption and malfeasance in the Dock Department, in the Department of Licenses, in the Department of Hospitals, in the Bureau of Standards and Appeals, in jhe Sinking Fund Commission—these are but the outstanding items in a long calendar of scandals which has been brought to light...
...Only by reason of police courtesy In permitting speeches to be made from the canopy over the entrance to the hall, what might have become a tumultuous scene was converted Into a second edition of the meeting inside, with speakers from Inside addressing the crowd without...
...1 The two old parties are equally tainted with political corruption...
...More than fifty thousand families have been left in utter destitution...
...Neither of these parties can he expected to use political power honestly, because both of them uphold an essentially dishonest •eonomic system...
...3. We demand the immediate resumption of work on parks, playgrounds, achoo'a...
...Address Outside Crowd Long before the moment for beginning the speechmaking, the hall was packed to capacity, and a crowd that blocked traffic on the street was vainly clamoring to enter...
...We demand a thorough revision of the antiquated city charter, to provide totjjropor-tlonal representation and in other respects to democratize the city government and make it more efficient...
...William Karl In, candidate for Attorney General...
...These and other sins of commission and omission cannot be laid exclusively to the account of Mayor Walker...
...Let the great powers of the mayor's office be henceforth used, not only to purify the administration but also to transform the municipal government from an organ of capitalist Interests into an agency for economic and social emancipation...
...It will mark an epoch on the road to universal liberty, justice, and brotherhood...
...It is necessary to put an upright and able man at the head of the city administration...
...Public officials have been revealed as hired servants of big business on the one hand and as in alliance with the criminal underworld on the other...
...By William Morris Feigenbaum Town Hall Thronged...
...Let the mayoralty election of 1082 be the beginning of the city's redemption...
...The Socialist Party comes before the voters with a program of it own, In harmony with its national and •tate platforms...
...We demand and pledge ourselves to atrlct enforcement of the Prevailing Rate of Wages Law, in accordance "With wage standards as established by organised labor, to Introduction of the six-hour day and the Ave-duy week, and to full recognition of the right of city employees to organise In unions for the protection of their common interests...
...Nothing but a decisive defeat at the polls will prevent it from renewing its criminal practices as soon as public interest has subsided...
...Street Jammed at New York City Demonstration THE Socialist campaign of 1032 in New York got off to a magnificent start at a meeting Sunday afternoon at the Town Hall, when close to 3,000 cheering women and women jammed the auditorium and more thousands, unable to get into the hall, packed 43rd street from curb to curb for hours and cheered Socialist speakers who addressed them from the top of the marquee...
...Even those who moat strongly oppose Its ultimate alms have to admit that its record is clean...
...Karlln showed that under the law the Attorney General's office Is the guardian of the state's water power and called for the defeat of the Incumbent, a former employe of a law firm associated with the Morgan banking interests...
...8. We condemn the niggardly policies prevailing In the educational system, especially that of enlarging classes In order to avoid employing more teachers, and we shall resist the efforts now being made to reduce teachers' salaries...
...2. We demand an appropriation by the city of 175,000,000 for direct unemployment relief during the next year, to be supplemented under the law by state and federal aid...
...Such action, while serving the needs of the public will give employment to great numbers of workers...
...Thomas after an ovation that brought tears to his eyes, stood under a group of red flags held over his head by Ylpsel standard bearers and in a moving speech called upon the Socialists to carry on for victory...
...7. We pledge ourselves to the thorough elimination of waste, duplication, and unnecessary expenditure In all city departments, and to the consolidation of the borough and county offices, which now coat $28,000,-000 a year and which Impede city work instead of facilitating It...
...but it is necessary also to Introduce a constructive social policy in municipal affairs...
...and Esther Friedman called upon the women to unite in the party to do their share...
...Capturing the City for the , t Workers Hillquit aroused the audience with an address on the need for capturing the city for the workers, declaring that mere honesty, at the hands of Democrats newly "converted" to political decency, Is not enough, and that a lower tax rate Is hardly an Inspiring ideal for a great city In a period of terrible distress...
...President McKee and the other members of the Board of Estimate were equally responsible, and the Republicans in and out of office condoned this neglect of vital human interest...
...9. We demand legislation to reorganise our system of taxation so as to include a graduated tax upon socially created land values and special assessments upon properties particularly benefited by subway construction...
...Appealing Decision Against Mayoralty Election This Year THE Socialist Party, through Louis Waldman and Morris Hillquit, announces that an appeal la being prepared to be heard in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court to test the decision of Supreme Court Justice McGeehan that Mayor McKee's term runs until the end Of 1933...
...1 representing the three-fold fight in city, state and nation, delivered addresses that stirred the audience and sent them into the September sunlight at the close of the meeting cheering and singing...
...4. We demand the immediate beginning of work on a comprehensive program of elimination of the slums through municipal construction of model dwellings to be rented at coat, thus diminishing unemployment and providing for the health, safety, and comfort of the tenement dwellers...
...Another forty-six thousand who are fortunate enough to get relief are granted only the wretched pittance of seventy-five cents a day per family...
...A few guilty officials have been-convicted...
...The argument before the Appellate Division will be heard Tuesday...
...The Socialist movement, representing the interests of the working classes, combatting exploitation in all its forms, and aiming at the establishment of a social order in which no class shall be permitted to live at the expense of another, is free from this corrupting influence...
...Justice McOeehan closely followed In his ruling the argument of former Governor Nathan L. Miller and Harold L., Medina, of counsel for McKee, to the effect that the City Charter provides for elections of Mayor only in every fourth year, and that the Mayoralty is not a^ constitutional office...
...In- City for the People The Socialist candidates fot state office and for the Senate and Assembly are pledged to cooperate in bringing about at Albany such legislation as may be necessary to empower the city to carry out any or all of the foregoing measures...
...By suspending construction on public works, this administration has added a hundred thousand persona to the army of the unemployed More than one-fourth of the city's population still lives in old-law tenements, which thirty years ago were declared unfit for habitation...
...The old parties will appeal to the voters on the issues of honesty, efficiency, and economy...
...Morris Hillquit, candidate for Mayor...
...and we demand that emergency measures be taken to prevent the eviction of tenants who are unable to pay their rent by reason of unemployment, thus saving thousands of families from being broken up...
...With Charles Solomon, candidate for United States Senator, as r chairman setting the keynote In an eloquent speech, the six leading candidates on the Socialist ticket...
...and we shall strive for the abolition of bureaucratic methods of administration and of political control of the schools...
...Louis Waldman, candidate for Governor...
...Capitalism, based on the exploitation of the producers by non->roducing owners, penalizing hon-!St industry and rewarding para-iltism in private business, naturally breeds dishonesty in public ife...
...With this in view, we offer the following immediate program: 1. While favoring reduction of the excessive salaries of a number of principal officials and commissioners, and the elimination of superfluous officeholders, we shall steadfastly oppose curtailment of social services, such as education, health, child welfare, and recreation, and shall resist every attempt to economise by cutting the pay of the rank and file of city employees earning $1,500 a year or less...
...The corrupt machine is still Intact...
...nor are these the only Issues which* ought to interest the masses...
...It was more than a great meeting;, it was a demonstration of the determination of countless men and women to advance the cause of Socialism...
...Our Municipal Program Socialist victory In the city of New York will mean honest, efficient, and economical government in the interest of the masses, instead of occasionally honest and usually dishonest government for the benefit of the capitalist class and Its retainers...
...Hillquit and Waldman maintain that the Court of Appeals, in precisely similar cases, has held that an election must be held the year a vacancy occurs In the Mayoralty of a city In this state...
...It was generally understood on all sides that whatever Justice McGeehan's decision, it would be taken to the higher courts, and no final decision will be accepted until the Court of Appeals rules upon the Issue...
Vol. 14 • September 1932 • No. 13
