What The State Can Do About Power
Rosner, Henry J.
What The State Can Do About Power By Henry J. Rosner Regulation of Utilities Has Broken Down; The Governor Must Share Responsibility with Hoover for Excessive Electric Rates; Socialist Economist...
...Cutting Mellom The New York State Electric and Gas Co...
...By the end of 1931, it had increased almost two million to $4,800,000...
...The Binghamton consumer pays twice as much as the Jamestown consumer...
...A Plan for America" Is Party's Campaign Book CHICAGO.—A detailed presentation of the Socialist "Plan for America" and three chapters vigorausly assailing the records of President Hoover and Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt feature the campaign textbook issued at Socialist national campaign headquarters here this week...
...He frequently received Boss John F. Curry and Boss John H. McCooey at Albany and promptly appointed their nominees 10 state omce...
...Mary Hillyer...
...Never once did he denounce Tammany nor indicate the slightest anger against it...
...in Jamestown, $6.63...
...There was little variation from one candidate to another...
...If Franklin Roosevelt were genuinely in earnest about providing the people with cheap electricity he would long since have ordered his Public Service ,/Commisgion to wage relentless war upon the profiteering utilities in his own state...
...The Socialist Party, he said, vigorously opposes any, plan further to reduce earnings or tends to lower standards of living, and pointed out that the tremendous increase in productivity in all industries in recent years was close to sixty per cent, while the i umber of hours for the workers remained substantially the same...
...Waldman Urges a Shorter Week for the Workers pORTLANl), N. Y. Addressing ^ a large audience here at the Conservatory of Music, many ol whom had come from a distance to hear him, Ixiuis Waldman, Socialist candidate for governor, told the people of Cortland that a general adoption of the six hour day and five-day week in industry would put an end to the depression and return every unemployed man and woman to work within sixty days...
...We are aware that masses of men will not vote for deeper purgatory now in the dubious hope of paradise hereafter...
...Each edition gives special attention to the candidates and the campaign in the district that orders it...
...Comparative Gouging The situation in Binghamton is typical...
...The hours have remained stationary, while the productivity he's increased at a tremendous rate...
...These chapters were written, respectively, by James H. Maurer, the party's vice-presidential candidate...
...On the contrary, he says, the governor's party fought it...
...Party organisations interested in a special supplement should apply immediately...
...The governor has never "broken" with Tammany, but "has continued his regular, friendly contacts with Tammany Hall through the worst revelations of municipal corruption since the days of Boss Tweed...
...Krueger...
...in Jamestown, %:\Jti>, for 250 kilowatt hours the consumer in Binghamton pays $10...
...The cheapness of Jamestown electricity as compared with Binghamton and other cities in the State is convincing evidence in support of this proposition...
...In 1929, its gross corporate income after deducting all operating expenses was $3,000,000...
...There are no contests in the Socialist primaries, and one vote for each candidate is enough to get him on the ticket...
...In most other industries the same was found to be true...
...Our Sad Experience Experience with regulation has long since convinced imparital students of the utility question that public ownership and operation with service at cost is the only effective way of providing cheap electricity...
...The vote, likewise, was remarkably solid...
...for 100 kilowatt hours the consumer in Binghamton pays $6.00...
...Maurer, Louis Waldman and other candidates...
...Socialist Economist Shows the Way Out for the Producers The cost of living has steadily declined, the workers' incomes have been cut in half, yet the Public Service Commission has not launched an offensive to force the utilities to reduce rates in accord with the downward trend in wages and prices...
...If the people—the workers—of New York State seriously wish to end this depression and return each unemployed man or woman to work they can come close to accomplishing it by their ballots at the coming election...
...Morris Hilkjuit's "keynote" address at the Socialist nominating convention and the platform adopted there are also included in the book...
...Kirby Page...
...Then at the end of three years, driven by the grim facts into a corner, he made ' t h e belated admission that the welfare of its citizens may be one of th« businesses of the government, yet he snarled detestation for so plainly a pallistivje measure as the Wagner relief bill...
...The chapters on Roosevelt were written by Paul Blanshard, executive director, and Henry J. Rosner, research director, of the City Affairs Committee...
...Discussing "The Myth of a Progressive Governor," Rosner declares Roosevelt permitted reduction of the state's monthly unemployment relief fund from $3,000,000 to $1,200,000, despite a sharp increase in the state's unemployment...
...A Warning Ralph Gray has not been authorized to collect funds for the Socialist party or any of its activities, or for the Emergency Conference on Unemployment, or for any Unemployed League...
...Primaries Bring Out Record Vote for Milwaukee MILWAUKEE.—The Socialists of this city are elated by their showing in the primary election and point to the vote their candidates received as a straw presaging an overwhelming victory in November...
...Stubbornly," Coleman declares, "the President clung to his petty bourgeois thesis that unemployment relief was a 'local concern' and steadfastly he set his face against granting a penny of direct relief to the starving people of his own country...
...Ph'one Algonquin 4-4622...
...Each organization also obtains advertising that helps to pay the cost of its publication...
...This is not a fantastic dream but a practical fact, that can be substantiated by official figures and statistics...
...He encouraged his subordinates to give out false figures in regard to the extent of suffering and punished those who refused to stultify themselves...
...The rates are ajnong the highest in the state...
...The chapter on banking under Socialism was also written by Krueger...
...Electric light rates today are as high as they were in 1929, for the average consumer...
...Mayor Daniel W. Honn, of Milwaukee...
...New Leader Prints Special Edition of 100,000 Copies This week The New Leader publishes a special four-page campaign supplement of 100,- 000 copies for seven party organizations...
...Hence we are concerned with programs to keep the peace now, to relieve unemployment now, to help the farmers now...
...In short, Roosevelt, just like Hoover, is dedicated to the preservation of a system which has failed to give the people the cheap electricity that they deserve...
...The tremendous increase in productivity in the past decade in practically all industries indicates that industry can well afford a cut in hours with no corresponding decrease in pay...
...The Socialists are jubilant over their showing and are confident that the elections will show a clean sweep of city and county for Thomas and Maurer and every county candidate on the ticket, as well as two congressmen and a heavily increased legislative delegation...
...in Jamestown, N. Y., a comparable community, the charge for the same quantity of electricity is $1.40...
...So enthusiastically has the supplement idea been received that requests for another issue are being made...
...Roosevelt's utilities program has failed to prevent increased electricity rates for New York city consumers, Rosner charged, and the governor's Public Service Commission "has abandoned its regulatory powers and has pursued a policy of defeatism...
...Blanshard denies that Roosevelt had anything to do with starting the Seabury investigation...
...At the next session of the New York Legislature the Socialist Party will demand and press the passage of an emergency measure compelling the State's industries to adopt the six-hour day and the five-day week as a definite means to ameliorate the increasing distress from unemployment and to restore the shrunken purchasing power of the people, so essential to end this tragic depression...
...Give Socialist Plan The handbook, edited by Edward Levinson of New York, and May •iard C. Krueger of the University of Chicago, contains nine chapters setting forth the Socialist proposals on unemployment, nationalization of industry, farm relief, social legislation, peace and disarmament, women workers, Negro problems, taxation and banking...
...The current issues of Ihe supplement carries articles by Norman Thomas, James IT...
...Waldman said, "The Socialist Party vigorously opposes any plan further to reduce the earnings of American workers or which tends to lower standards of living...
...Harry W. Laidler, co-director of the League for Industrial Dc -.ocracy...
...Nevertheless the enthusiasm for the Socialism campaign is so great that a record number of Socialist voters went to the polls...
...Virtually every electric and gas company is making as much money today as it did three years ago, and therefore is in a position to reduce rates substantially...
...Only the Socialist program of public ownership and operation at cost will do that...
...The book is illustrated with cartoons by Art Young...
...The motto of our times appears to be that every one must make sacrifices except the utility companies...
...Nevertheless, Roosevelt in his Portland speech declared that he "does not hold with those who advocate government ownership of all utilities . . . that as a broad general rule the development of utilities should remain with Certain exceptions a function for private initiative and privatecapital...
...Blanshard attacks what he terms, "Roosevelt and the Tammany Myth," while Rosner analyses Roosevelt's record as governor on unemployment relief, unemployment insurance, old age .pensions, housing and the regulation of public utilities...
...Leo Krzycki, secretary of the Milwaukee Socialist party, tells of Socialist accomplishments in that city, and Clarence Senior, national campaign manager, writes of the Socialist manager, writes of the Socialist organization...
...Frank R. Crosswaith...
...What The State Can Do About Power By Henry J. Rosner Regulation of Utilities Has Broken Down...
...Organizations desiring to take advantage of this should have orders in the office of The New Leader not later than Oct...
...Time and again he lashed himself into a temper tantrum against those who made the mildest suggestions that the fate of ten millions of those who make the wealth of this country might somehow matter to the government of that country...
...The final chapter, written by Paul Blanshard, gives a picture "What a Socialist America Would Look' Like...
...His failure to do so stamps him as a friend and not a foe of the power trust...
...It has been estimated that an Immediate adoption of the five-day thirty-hour week by industry generally would put every unemployed man and woman in the country to work within sixty days...
...A recent study of eleven large industries shows that the average productivity of these industries increased from 1919 to 1927—the latest date for which available figures could be obtained —close to 60 per cent, while the number of hours per work week remained practically the same...
...These special issues also bring The New Leader to the attention of a 100,000 voters...
...Labor Planks Compared A comparison of the labor planks of Republican, Democrat and Socialist platforms is a feature of the book...
...has materially prospered during the depression...
...Two years ago, at a time the party swept Milwaukee county, the primary vote was beaten 10,500 and 10,000...
...In 1D32 the primary vote was between 25,1100 and 26,600...
...Thomas' contribution emphasizes the "practicality" of the Socialist platform...
...We favor the spread of available work among a larger area of the working population, not by compelling labor to share its employed time and wages with the unemployed, as is being suggested by President Hoover and his committee of bankers and industrialists, but by compelling industry to adopt the six-hour day and the five-day week at prevailing rates of wages...
...Roosevelt had nothing to do with choosing Judge Seabury to head the inquiry...
...Pen pictures of Norman Thomas, Socialist candidate for president, and James H. Maurer, are written by Devere Allen and Assemblyman Darlington Hoopes of Pennsylvania...
...The reason is that Binghamton is served by the privately owned New York State Electric and Gas Corporation, while Jamestown is served by a publicly owned and operated municipal plant which sells electricity at cost...
...President Hoover comes in for severe lashing in a chapter by McAlister Coleman on "The Light That Failed...
...Please notify your friends to look out for this unauthorised person, who is reported to be soliciting funds and claiming to be an agent of the Socialist party...
...The consumer in Binghamton who uses 40 kilowatt hours pays $3.60 monthly...
...that Roosevelt refused to aid legislation -seeking to end the seven day work-week for many thousands of public and private employees in the state...
...These requests warrant another issue on October 15th...
...In the final analysis the result will depend upon your ballots and the ballots of thousands of other workers in every part of the State...
...and that the governor's housing legislation has failed to affect even slightly the state's slum housing evil...
...In addition to remembering the Forgotten Man, he should also remember the old maxim that charity should begin at home...
...Louis Waldman, Socialist candidate for governor in New York...
...Our demands are practical as no other proposals are...
...We offer not only the one true hope for reorganising our economic life," Thomas declares, "but also immediate plans for making things better...
...These organizations include the Upper West Side Branch, Bronx County, the New York State Campaign Committee, Harlem Branch, Chelsea Branch, the Sixth and Tenth Congressional districts of Kings County...
...Says Roosevelt Aids Tammany "In the whole history of New York city corruption during his terms as governor," Blanshard declares, "Roosevelt has not done one thing to eliminate that corruption that has not been forced upon him by the pressure of public opinion...
...The Socialist Party, which originally urged and sponsored the idoption of the six-hour day and Ive-day week in industry as a nomnecessary protection for labor against the constant improvements in the machinery of manufacture, proposes that the coming election shall be in the nature of a referendum by Which the voters of New York State shall express their will regarding immediate legislation requiring all industry to adopt the five-day week for the workers' benefit...
...This demonstrated, the Candidate said, that industry could well afford a cut in hours without any corresponding decrease in pay...
Vol. 14 • October 1932 • No. 14
