TIMELY TOPICS
THOMAS, NORMAN
By Norman Thomas TIMELY TCPICS Every week the presidential candidate pauses in his campaign to hammer out pithy comment on the anvil of Socialist philosophy and ripe experience. Why Race...
...Arrangements have been made by state secretary Alfred Baker Lewis to broadcast Thomas' Boston speech through stations WAAB of Boston and WNBH of New Bedford...
...I have faith that my six grandChildren will live in a different order of society than that in which they now exist...
...Independence is a fine thing...
...Those relations must be the relations of men working not for but with one another to build a happy future for mankind...
...Bellamy was regarded as a visionary, and his schemes impractical: So often it was said that the book was the product of a vivid imagination...
...WALTER S. HUTCHINS, for Lieutenant Governor...
...The Commission, through a subcommittee headed by Professor Zechariah Chaffee of the Harvard Law School, made a thorough study of the case, but the 600-page findings of the committee was not made public with the rest of the Wickershsm report, and was not printed as a Senate document...
...At best it suggests segregation for the Negro tenth of our population, at the worst it invites race war...
...MRS...
...The committee reported to the Presidential Commission that: 1. There was never any scientific attempt made by either the police or the prosecution to discover the perpetrators of the crime...
...The police investigation was reduced to a hunt for evidence to convict the arrested defendants...
...But at least there is never any doubt as to where the party stands...
...He delayed, rather than furthered the City investigation...
...The Socialist platform gives in detail our plans to escape disaster...
...Bellamy predicted it, is well on the way...
...Suppressed Mooney Report Proves Frame-Up Charges WHAT Socia..sts and others have< always insisted, that Toss Mooney snd Warren K. Billings are victims of a peculiarly vicious anti-labor frame-up, Is proven to the hilt in the suppressed report of the Wickersham Commission, now made public for the first time...
...Russell Flanagan, Easthampton, Angelo Conz, Northampton...
...There is a strong inference that some of this coaching was done by prosecuting officials, and other evidence points to knowledge by the prosecuting officials that such coaching was being practiced on other witnesses...
...8. The prejudice against the defendants, stimulated by newspaper publicity, was further appealed to at the trial by unfair and intemperate arguments to the jury in the opening and closing statements of the prosecuting attorneys...
...Leo Meltzer, Ward 14 in Boston...
...Mrs...
...It is not what Negroes want...
...Mrs...
...Thomas Nicholson of Lawrence...
...It is based on a false analogy with conditions irf Russia where different races, speaking different languages, occupy different geographical areas...
...The New Leader will soon have additional readers In Denver...
...White arrogance is a product of accidental economic advantage...
...This is Socialism...
...The Socialist Party is, in the last analysis, not offering Norman Thomas, Louis Waldman, Morris Hillquit snd other candidates for office...
...That may be a "straitjacket...
...White arrogance is the products of accidental economic advantage...
...ForState Senator: Harold U. Faulkner of Northampton...
...Herman Keller, Greenfield...
...I have always regarded that fact as a happy omen of the relations of the races in our party...
...GEORGE E. ROEWER, for Attorney General...
...After 'Looking Backward' first appeared, Mr...
...Otherwire they have no business in ths party...
...To this day he has denounced no one except those fine crusaders—John Haynes Holmes and Stephen Wise...
...For Representatives in the Stmts Legislature: Chas...
...They cover the needs of farmers, workers, the tragic army of the unemployed, and all of us who hope to escape new wars...
...The question is will a dying system drag us and our children to ruin with it...
...Simpson, North Adams...
...In particular the Socialist Party offers to the Negro drastic anti-lynching legislation and "the enactment and enforcement of Constitutional guarantees of economic, political and legal equality for tho Negro...
...If we only had more leaders like you and Norman Thomas 1 Thank God, they are materialising and the world, as Mr...
...BELLAMY APPEALS FOR SUPPORT OF TICKET Springfield, Mass...
...A Program for All | HAVE said that this program is essentially a * program for all workers with hand and brain whether they work in school, office, mine, farm or factory...
...Thimas will broadcast for onehour, beginning at 8:15 P. M. The Socialist candidates in Massachusetts are: ALFRED BAKER LEWIS, for Governor...
...And people may take it or leave it on its own merits...
...Chas...
...GLENN TRIMBLE, for Treasurer...
...The establishment of economic justice and the end of a class division of society will rapidly help us recover our sanity concerning race relations...
...The first thing that Socialism offers every man, white and colored alike, is a new social order, a classless society based on the material abundance and the social justice which can be ours when we own collectively, as a society of workers, natural resources and the principal means of production and distribution, and manage them for the use of all of us and not for the profit of an owning class...
...S. Grieves, Amesbury...
...Certainly, party candidates must represent their party, else the very existence of parties is absurd...
...They want to bo treated on a level with whites...
...7. Witnesses were cosched in their testimony to s degree thst approximated subornstion of perjury...
...The investigation was in reality turned over to a private detective, who used his position to cause the arrest of the defendants...
...If the people who said these things could only realize how terribly in earnest he was, and- how sure he felt that his so-called dreams would come true, The Cause,' .as he always referred to it, would have been advanced,' much sooner —however, perhaps the world was not quite ready for" it then...
...Chas...
...I make the following specific animations in proof of this statement...
...The Negro in America is a proletarian...
...About "Self-Determination" 1*11 E Communist demand for "self determination * in the black belt" implies Negro and white governed counties and states...
...For County Commissioner in fssex: Leonard Spalding of Newburyport...
...9. After the trials the disclosures casting doubt on the justice of the convictions were minimised, and every attempt made to defeat the liberation of the defendants, by a campaign of misrepresentation and propaganda carried on by the officials who had prosecuted them...
...Emma G. Bellamy, widow of the author of "Looking Backward" and "Equality," in an open letter to Mayor Daniel W. Hoan of Milwaukee, chairman of the Socialist national campaign committee, last week appealed for support of the Socialist party in the coming elections...
...George W. Miller, Belliagkam...
...6. Witnesses were produced at the trials with information in the hands of the prosecution that seriously challenged the credibility of the witnesses, but this information was deliberately concealed...
...We should seek to capture political power to use it for the workers cannot complicate the building of a working class party by trying to build a racial party or government, white in one country or state and black in another, according to the chance numerical preponderance of one race or another...
...But such things happen rarely In the Socialist Party, for it is made up of Socialists who are all seeking the same thing, the abolition of the profit system and of the exploitation of th: workers, and the rule of those who do the work of the world...
...as a party and a movement...
...Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Progressive" pOVERNOR ROOSEVELT has no claim to progressive support...
...DAVID A. EISENBERG, for Auditor...
...3. After the arrest of the defendants, witnesses were brought to the jails to "identify" them, and their "identifications" were accepted by the police and the prosecution, despite the fact that these witnesses were never required to pick the defendants eat of a lineup, or to demonstrate their accuracy by any other test'1 Immediately a. er the arrests of the defendants there commenced a deliberate attempt to aroase public prejudice against them, by a series of almost daily interviews given to the press by prosecuting officials...
...And that, it is submitted, is one of the really hopeful signs of the present dark moment...
...The Socialists who struggle to maintain the party are not interested in the progress of "independent' men who seek careers...
...ALBERT SPRAGUE COOLIDGE, for Secretary of •State...
...Dennis F. Reagan, Brockton...
...Morris Berzon, Everett...
...I have read everything I could get hold of concerning the wonderful things brought about in Milwaukee under Socialist leadership...
...Joseph Orr, Chicdpee...
...9 Progress in Massachusetts Century Club before the Tremont Temple meeting...
...It is now published in book form for the first time...
...For Sheriff of Essex County...
...2. Governor Roosevelt's eight point power program is not only inadequate in itself, but is reduced to absurdity by his failure effectively to defend the interests of domestic users of electricity in New York City, 50% of whom now pay more for electricity than when he took office because of the institution of a so-called "service charge...
...he should be proud of it and help to make a society in which every able bodied man must work to live and none shall seek work in vain or bo forced to toil without recompense or leisure...
...L. Hamblin, Barnstable...
...There is no other hope...
...2. There were flagrant violations of the statutory law of California by both the police and the prosecution in the manner in which the defendants were arrested and held incommunicado, and in the subsequent searches of their homes to procure evidence against them...
...John Mac Williams, Andover...
...6. Witnesses were permitted to testify at the trials, despite such knowledge in the possession of the prosecution of prior contradictory stories told by these witnesses, as to make their mere production a vouching for perjured testimony...
...Why Race Prejudice b an Economic Question Trill-: root of race prejudice is planted deep in the * soul of economic inequality...
...but Independence must be defined...
...It is the capitalists who have done much to divide us by keeping hate alive, the better to exploit both Negroes and whites...
...The first time I ever ran for office, one of my chief associates on the ticket was my friend, Frank Crosswaith...
...The Socialist Psvrty is offering SOCIALISM, and as its guarantee of sincerity it proudly points to the fact its candidates are devoted to their party, and pledged to its ideals...
...George H. Jones, Bernard Feldman, and John W. Carabine, all of Springfield...
...1. Governor Roosevelt's present suggestions for the regulation of banking and of Wall Street are not only vague and inadequate in themselves, but worse in view of the fact that he has done nothing to curb Wall Street, while Governor of New York...
...Indeed, the union of workers across race and language barriers for the cooperative commonwealth will of itself be the greatest solvent of our racial jealousies and hate J. It is the capitalists who have done much to divide us by keeping hate alive, the better to exploit both Negroes and whites...
...Every party worker, platform car-| rier, speaker, candidate, writer, elected official bears that in mind...
...Harry I. Giants, literature agent In Denver, sends in three subs and request for 26 eab blanks...
...But no one has more to gain than the Negro, The root of race prejudice is planted deep in the soil of economic inequality...
...Bellamy's letter, in part, follows: "At the close of your meeting here I felt and still feel that 1 did not express adequately the thrill I experienced with your interesting talk.1 It had a true, sincere ring, and went straight to my heart as to many others, who were held spellbound by your straight from the shoulder words concerning the cause you and some of the rest of us love so well...
...Arthur Ouellette, Lawrence...
...It will be reviewed in an early issue of The New Leader...
...If a person desires to be "independent" in things that Socialists consider fundamental he has a right to be, but OUTSIDE THE PARTY...
...would for one minute stand for that sort of "independence...
...My daughter and granddaughter who live with me (and of course, are good Socialists) join me in expressing our great appreciation of the splendid work you are doing...
...Finally, may I say that we Socialists have proved our faith by our deeds...
...A Pal of Tammany O UNTIL it was apparent that he could not afford to go before tho country with the Tammany brand upon him, Governor Roosevelt gave Tammany what it wanted more than any Governor in New York State in recent, years...
...Too Late for Imitation IT is too late in the day, even if otherwise it were * possible or desirable, for the Negro race to seek progress by imitating this dying capitalist social order and developing its own bourgeoisie...
...And all Socialists have all the independence In the world IN THE PARTY in framing party policies...
...Independence" Once the party's policies are deelded independence still continues...
...More, the thoughtful Negro should not and will not ask...
...And increasingly large numbers are taking it...
...He failed to remove men whose guilt was at least as great as Walker's, and is now supporting a Tammany machine which has put up for Mayor of New York a Tammany man who will give the City a Tammany administration like Walker's, only less colorful, and with a somewhat higher degree of personal decorum on the part of the Mayor...
...The establishment of economic justice and the end of a class division of society will rapidly help us to recover our sanity concerning race relations...
...Capitalism is dying...
...If a candidate does not chose to keep faith with his comrsdes who have honored him he is free to withdrew and rind a more congenial home, where he can seek civic indorsements until he's elected to show the sterility of "independence...
...What Price "Independence...
...Sarah Burgess, Alan S. Wriglef, George Grime, and Ernest B. O'Brien, all of New Bedford...
...For Congress: Paul C. Wicks, S. Ralph Harlow, Joseph F. Massidda, Jacob Minkin...
...They are interested in promoting the Ideas that to them spell the salvation of the human race from the fate toward which it is drifting...
Vol. 14 • October 1932 • No. 18
