Why Inflict Debate on Helpless Workers of New York? Asks Hillquit
Why Inflict Debate on Helpless Workers of New York? Asks Hillquit Socialist CaraKehte for Mayor Sees no Need to Donate Communist Aspirant—Nails Communist "Error" on Negro Question—And Corrects...
...The traditions of the Socialist Party are expressed in its platforms, constitutions and resolutions...
...Nor have you deemed it necessary to state what you would do, in event of being elected, to ameliorate the suffering of the Negro or white workers...
...For the rest, we set up tables in county court bouses and got a goodly number from that source...
...Block and Levy Head Socialist Judicial Ticket A strong ticket ef Socialist lawyers was chosen by the party as esmcrkhrtes for Supreme Court in the First District at the cnVial judicial convention held to the Peepic's Hence...
...Km pjhasis mine...
...By your failure to object to this statement fn The New Leader, you an evenly on the side of those who SUpuoit Jlm-crewfsm, lynch terror, brutal exploitation and oppression of the Negro people...
...The Second District convention, held in Brooklyn, named a judicial ticket consisting ef Low's P. Goldberg', Sol r. ho lew and" Louis Epstein...
...The National Office sent Harold Glasgow ef Weat Virginia in charge ef a crew of six workers to cooperate with the local comrades...
...I At the same time the party's o«eial city convention inado the nomiaation cf Mkurria Hillquit tor mayor oaVial, and the state tauiauUss ratified the aiBBJnitlmr made at the party'a unofficial convention at Utica...
...To us, Negroes are just workers and human beings...
...But with surety we can say that locals can he organised and the party can grow by leaps and bounds...
...Naturally there were plenty of thi other asrt People who were good Fibersla, who assured us they were not going to vote the Socialist ticket, but who thought democratic fair play demanded our having a chance to present our ticket to the voters...
...William L. Patterson Dear Sir: I have your letter of September 29th, challenging me to debate with you on unemployment relief and "specfflcslly on the Negro question...
...In the matter of relief, the Negroes in New York City as elsewhere are viciously discriminated against...
...Your failure to accept my challenge will mean only the following: a confession on your part that you are hostile to the workers and especially to the Negro workers...
...You base your inferences solely on the inferences ef a reporter for a capitalist paper...
...Ia the Beginning of May the Board was approached...
...Together with ether Socialist leaden you are ia favor of segregating and Jim-crowing Negro workers...
...They represent a consistent attitude of determined opposition to all forms of segregation within the Party and outside of it...
...The council bad no money to pay the auditorium rent for the convention of the Socialist Party, which stands nationally and internationally far peace and brotherhood...
...The city market places were a very good place, we discovered, for miniature street meetings...
...However, the situation at the beginning of September waa this...
...Yet, since your nomination by the Socialist Party as its candidate for Mayor of New York City you have failed to make any protest against such shameful conditions...
...And then the petition was only the entering wedge to talk ef greater things...
...But why divert issues ef principle to stupid and sterile personal attacks T You volunteer the information that I ens "openly ea the side of these who support Jim-crowism, lynch tenor, brutal exploitation and oppression of the Negro people" and that the Socialist Party ia "rotten to the cere with opportunism and greed for power at the expense of the workers...
...If there waa no money for that, I cannot understand hew yeu can find funds for this project...
...Asks Hillquit Socialist CaraKehte for Mayor Sees no Need to Donate Communist Aspirant—Nails Communist "Error" on Negro Question—And Corrects "Mistake" in New Leader Quotation—Communist Party Appeal to Negroes Rankest Opportunist Nationalism, Says HiUquiL *J"HE following correspondence between Morris Hillquit, Socialist candidate for Mayor, and the Communist nominee for the office is self-explanatory...
...As it is, newspapers all over the state were very sympathetic...
...Sixty per cent of the workers in Harlem are unemployed...
...Hillquit makes you the logical champion of the bosses who also live ia luxury, but not of the workers for whom you are separated by barriers of wealth, and whose sufferings in the present crisis you can no more understand than can Herbert Hoover and other capitalist politicians...
...Jfm-crowism, lynching, and brutal exploitation of the Negro people...
...We made use, too, of the fair held in one of the towns...
...Had the Board placed the Party on the ballot simply for the asking, aa Virginia did for the Jobless Party, or had the number of signatures required been 5,000 or thereabouts, it would have been a very quiet matter...
...People ail over the state wrote ia to Glasgow and Alton A. Lawrence, State Secretary...
...If you have, year sense of truthfulness ia somewhat deficient...
...Morris Hillquit, Dear Sir: As Communist candidate for Mayor of New York City, I challenge you who have been nominated for the same office by the Socialist Party, to debate with me on a date previous to the November 8th election on the issues of unemployment relief and specifically on the Negro question...
...That you yourself lack confidence In the Socialist Party being able to change present conditions in New York City is attested by your statement published in a New York Morning daily en September 17, 1932, shortly after your nomination, in which you stated: "A Socialist regime in New York would not mesa any great outward change in the government...
...They were returned with two, and five aad ten signatures, and ranged all the way to J. Pugh'a IS from Brown Summit and O. W. Pitt's 220 from Roanoke Rapids...
...The statement clearly refers to the non-Socialists in the South and Is made not by way of approval but condemnation...
...Students from the colleges came to get copies of the platform for use in government classes...
...A state, almost completely uaorgaaiaed for our party, having as a matter el fact only eae Weal, that at the university town of Chapel Hill, had to' secure 10,000 signatures in a period of three weeks...
...Very truly yours, (Signed) William L. Patterson...
...Among the ten planks adopted by the Socialist Party of New York City in its municipal convention en September 16, at which you were nominated, nothing whatsoever ia said of the conditions ef the N.gro workers in New York City...
...If your letter ia a sample ef the quality and methods of your dteraessaa, It would he cruel to tnftkt a paaHc achate with you ea the working class el New York already so sorely tried and terribly weakened by three years el heavy depression...
...You charge me with faveriag segregation ef Negro workers and in support ef the charge yea purpart to quote a passage frees The New Loader ef Jane 21, 1930...
...It waa not until the very end of August that a final decision waa rendered...
...You taunt me with my "millionaire's mode of life" and conclude that I am separated from the workera by "barriers of wealth...
...that in office you would use your power to break down the workers' struggles against the capitalist class, snd that you favor a perpetuation of...
...It ia paeely netimsauetk...
...By Bthet Lurie TP1IE Socialists in North Caro| lina owe the State Board of Elections a vote of thanks...
...People were just ready ripe to listen to us...
...This is as unfair as it is irrelevant I do net happen to live in riotous luxury and am ia much closer touch with the working masses than the coterie of parlor Communist intellectuals and Wall Street proletarians who have recently Bestowed their apostolic blessings upon your party...
...But again, the greatest satisfaction was to realize that the workers in the court houses were discussing Socialism...
...Of course, you know nothing about my mode of life or reputed wealth...
...These were the people who were signing the petition because they wanted something different from the present chaos, and needed only to learn what Socialism is to realise they were Socialists...
...Yet thousands of workers for whose rights you claim to be fighting are dying of hunger...
...Aa a typical piece ef Communist tactics the letter is a gem and is worth preserving, together with the reply el Morris Hillquit...
...Year emotattan ia gssMsd It consists of two disjointed passages from a report en the condition of the Socialist movement in Virginia...
...The writer ¦isllim as "one of the most difficult problems to solve" the fact that "almost all Southern era believe in segregating the Negro snd depriving him of the social snd political rights that whites enjoy...
...The rate of infant mortality in Harlem is four times greater than in any other district...
...This is bo tune fee the council to spend money en any type ef military celebration," said Hoan...
...It was necessary only to stop to talk to one or two fatpiers sitting together en a box to collect quite a crowd...
...On a letterhead reading, "United Front Communist Election Campaign Committee," and giving the address of Communist party headquarters, William L. Patterson writes: Patterson's Letter Mr...
...Marion Severn...
...True to usual Communist tactics, the Fosterite Mayoralty nonimee grasps the opportunity to vituperate, and like all Communists eagerly takes everything he reads in the Capitalist press as gospel while garbling and falsifying a quotation from The New Leader by taking it from its context and making it appear to mean precisely the opposite of its actual meaning...
...Hillquit, the Socialist Party has already degenerated and is rotten to the core with opportunism and greed for power at the expense of the workers...
...Never at any time during the campaign for names did we *feel discouraged...
...They will be worthy of the best Socialist traditions...
...Petitions were sent out and circulated by persona in their own communities...
...The same interview quoted you aa stating that if the Socialist Party gained favor it would degenerate...
...The Socialist Party has adopted a comprehensive program of unemployment relief for all New York workers, Negroes, Jews, Italian, Irish and American able...
...From the mild tone of your observations I infer that you are a novice ia the Csmsminist movement and have not yet fully mastered the picturesque vocabulary of Commaaist invective...
...The report concludes with the assertion that "the Socialists of Virginia are good Socialists as well as Southerners and can be trusted to solve the intricate problems involved...
...The official state aad | city co: ventieas were also held, i To face the joint Taaomcmy-Re> publican ticket headed by Samuel . H. Hofstodter and Area' Sseucr named in the recent notorious bipartisan deal between John F. Curry and Sam Kocnig, the Serial ht Party presents the following ticket: S. John Block, veteran Socialist and labor lawyer, brilliant speakex snd devoted Socialist, admitted by various bar associations to be one of the ablest lawyers in New York...
...The southern Socialists must adjust their tactics to thie state of affairs...
...In cases, multiplied many times over, a man who had taken any literature would coma back for mora and bring with him friends to sign the petition...
...a delegate would come from one of the offices with a list of questions which we would answer and back up with literature...
...The interview published in a New York morning daily on September 17, 1932, describes you aa living in luxury...
...Hoan Vetoes Use Of City Auditorium For Navy Day Meet MILWAUKEE (EP).—Mayor Daniel W. Hoan baa vetoed a resolution pasaed by the common council providing for free use of the auditorium for a Navy Day celebration Oct...
...Hllkmit's Reply Mr...
...They carried news stories whenever we approached them, and gave trs very favorable editorials...
...It ia impossible to estimate the number of votes we shall have in North Carolina...
...Matthew M. Levy, law partner of Jacob Paaken, whose recent victory for rent-payers in the Shalom Aleichfm rent cases was so sensational...
...Yours very truly, Morris Hillquit How the Signatures Were Won Ethel Lurie Tells How Band of Young FiWanmisnTts Got the 10,000 Signatures Required to Put Our Ticket on the North Carolina Ballot...
...Any seeming discrimination in their favor would be aa offensive to self respecting Negroes as discrimination against these, Tear atttteds en the Negro onesktrJc nor Cseuuamutic...
...My fellow Negro workers are undergoing extreme suffering in this crisis...
...Although at times it seemed physically impossible to secure the required number in the time set, we knew we were doing something much more important From court house to market place, from college to the country drug store we were talking Socialism...
...The requirement of a petition with 10,000 signatures for getting our ticket on the ballot was possibly the greatest single aid in the launching of the Socialist campaign in North Carolina...
...Your millionaire's mode of life, Mr...
...Sol Marcus...
...If you have not read the full article from which you pur pert to quote, you are a trifle careless in making charges...
...In The New Leader, a weekly controlled (sic) by your group, published in New York City, the following appeared on June 21, 1990: "Almost all Southerners believe in segregating the Negro and deprive him of the social and political rights that whites enjoy...
...People who considered themselves fair-minded citizens were also somewhat aroused, to the extent that the daughter of one of the well-known democratic families was the one to secure the signature cf Frank Graham, president of the University of North Carolina...
...It is certain that there never win be a thriving Socialist movement fn the South, unless it Is conducted fal Southern style...
...The changes ef heart the varying opinions, the lack of knowledge of the law on the part of the State Beard of Elections make an in tereeting story...
Vol. 14 • October 1932 • No. 15
