A Socialist View of the Week
A Socialist View of the Week Al Smith Execute Flank Movement Against Likker And Opens Old Sores In Address for Unterrified Democracy Now Housed in The Temple of Plutocracy AL SMITH swung Mo...
...If capitalism is rotting at its economic base it ia certainly decaying at the top...
...Free trade or a tariff for revenue was a* sacred a dogma of the Southern Democrat as his belief that the Negro was created for the special purpose of making Southern gentlemen rich and happy...
...To have it cooly bared in an important government document is something that the average routineer at Waahington would shrink from...
...Hoover the hills to the poorhouse" are the words painted by a cynical wag by the side of a railroad and the sentiment expresses the feeling of millions of workers...
...Soma earloads were quietly delivered at the back entrance ilnce the end of the World War and in 1928 Al Smith publicly knocked at the front door and what remained of the Democracy walked in...
...It is a unique fact that the man who emerged out of the alums of New York City became the man who performed the final act that wiped out the final differences between the two reigning political parties...
...i "At the end of June there were 1,180,61(5 persons in England and Wales in receipt of poor law relief...
...One thing be said about unemployment we may heartily accept He declared that no party can bring prosperity...
...Not that Hoover is responsible for the economic ills of society...
...What is happening in the way of relief is related on the first page of this issue...
...To it Socialism means a spirit as well bb a programme...
...Of the thousands of New Leaders going out in bundles each week we also hope thst the comrades will see that every copy will reach a voter before election day...
...Mac Donald and the British Labor Party THE British Labor Party has gotten * out of the misersble opportunist hole into which it permitted itself to be dragged by MacDonald, Snowden and others...
...The workers of the cities in the fourth year of the depression can observe no improvement...
...That ugly fact is one that the apologists of capitalism would like to conceal...
...Is it conceivable that he will consent to the creation of a class of untouchables here...
...Tet Franklin D, Roosevelt ia endeavoring to convince millions that in some way the Democracy could have prevented the disaster and that if he is permitted to move into the White House next year be will employ some magic in restoring stricken industry...
...In that total—the figures must have increased since—are nearly half a million workless with their dependents...
...The question immedlstely arises: Why was this section of the report suppressed...
...There is little doubt that the vote for Thomss and Maurer will measure up to oar expectations snd thst the vote for other Socialist candidalch in the ststes will be Urge...
...The meat trail Leads through dark swamp And tangled jungle...
...It is one thing to poll a large Socialist vote and quite another thing to get the vote counted...
...The final week of the campaign is just as important as any other week and in some respects is more important...
...This should be avoided this year...
...Show the masters of industry a market for commodities and no matter what Hoover or Roosevelt promises or do not promise there will be improvement...
...THE MEAT TRAIL By William Allen Ward Waiting for a victim...
...Not that we think that the tariff ia of much importance to workers in general but it haa been a genuine issue between various sections of the exploiting classes in the past...
...In the skyscraper Of the great city other Monster* hide and wait for The weak and the poor...
...books and social conventions, They bid* lib* jungle creatures Waiting for « victim...
...Here is the recognised leader of one of the reigning capitalist parties...
...Heanessy, that everybody had one or elm be knew where he could got it Mr...
...In the Land of Rugged Capitalism ll/l Til officials at Washington fearing " another march on the capital, this time by farmers, and the agricultural price level sagging below production costs, Hoover hits the road in an effort to hold on to his job...
...Hoover as Secretary of Commerce was a faithful hound in hunting markets for the capitalist class but he cannot find them now...
...Smith waa mainly interested in booze and old sores of the campaign of four years ago...
...That "nation" is vague in theory but in practice it is the nation of capitalist property owners...
...The tiny National Labor Group which MacDonald has gathered around him endeavors to keep up the pretense of not having abandoned its Socialism and MacDonald recently published an article in the organ of the group against the Labor Party...
...There hsve been other campaigns when thousands of pieces of literature have been left in party headquarters...
...Every member and every sympathiser who can serve as a watcher should volunteer for this service...
...Of the British proposal the London "Daily Herald," organ of the labor movement, declares: "We trust that the Government will pursue the path of justice and common sense, and turn down with a dull thud the proposal to rob recipients of poor .law relief of the vote...
...Party branches and locals should see to it thst every piece available is tsken out and distributed the last week of the campaign...
...Smith's address is not the only one that has achieved a low level of mediocrity in this campaign but his was almost a perfect model...
...We are thinking not only of the funds invested in this literature but also the educational opportunity that is lost by not distributing it...
...A trail where might Is right...
...There is hardly anything that could be said of the prosecution's complicity in a shocking piece of injustice thst is not said in this report...
...He cannot bring about recovery and he cannot prevent recovery...
...This haa been a pet idea of a section of rabid Conservatives for a long time...
...The "Spirit" m a Government Proposal CONFIRMING the above estimate of MacDonald and his views, news comes from England that the Local Authorities Committee, set up by Premier MacDonald, is considering the disfranchising of workless men and women in receipt of poor relief...
...The price level sank still lower on Wednesday and is now lower than in 1896...
...In short, the last week of the campaign should be a climax to all the work done since the Milwaukee convention...
...He told Mr...
...The Mooney-Billings Report pXCERITS from the suppressed Mooney-Billings report of the Wickershsm Commission appearing in the daily press reveal the heavy Indictment brought by its authors against the frame-up of the two famous labor prisoners...
...MacDonald has shown commendable concern about the Untouchables of India...
...To add to their sufferings by depriving them of the elementary right of citizenship ia an injustice which few will lightly brook...
...War If a most detestable thing...
...Whether the fact that President Hoover is a citizen of California had anything to do with the suppression we do not know...
...A Socialist View of the Week Al Smith Execute Flank Movement Against Likker And Opens Old Sores In Address for Unterrified Democracy Now Housed in The Temple of Plutocracy AL SMITH swung Mo Um for the ** unterrified Democracy in a ¦peach in Newark, N. J., after aome months of sulking in his tent Practically the en tire address was devoted to likker and religion...
...Hence the importance of watchers in every state where the law provides for them...
...It is criminsl wsste to permit any literature of a campaign character to be held over after the campaign...
...Dooley wasn't concerned with the purchase price...
...Once a man abandons the class perspective in theory and action he is likely to wander anywhere...
...These are the people deprived of unemployment benefit and thrust on to the poor law...
...Dooley when the automobile first became a success...
...Killers armed with daw and fang, Walk this blood thirsty trail...
...The two sentences admirably express his view...
...For some decades the Democracy baa been moving its possessions into the temple where the plutocracy hu kept the Republican Party sine* the end of the Civil War...
...Why not suppression of some other section instead of this one...
...The industrial system cannot at home find its customary market and so capitalism must muddle through whether Herb or Frank is elected...
...The fact that they have forfeited benefits suggests that they are the least fortunate, the most hardpressed, section of the 3,000,000 of our fellow-countrymen out of work...
...It Is possible thst there will be a number of Socialists elected to variolic offices, possibly one or more Congressmen...
...Whether the traffic comes rat of its underground caverns or stays there it will make little difference to the working masses...
...We agree...
...Wage-cutting goes on for those who still have jobs and the largest group that faces another shakedown is the railroad workers...
...Then cornea party building and education, but of that more later...
...His Social iam, be wrote, "is inspired by neither claaa nor revolution...
...The snswer to these questions is not hsrd te find...
...It is the "spirit" of capitalism that is masked behind the National Government...
...In the old South It was considered an insult to accuse a politician with having any money invested in tariff-protected enterprises...
...In our own State of Maine this has already occurred...
...Millions haven't even a nickel to purchase a drink but that dia not disturb the speaker...
...The exhibition was like that of a child trying to bail the ocean with a spoon...
...The fact is that (he Mooney-Billings esses show that courts can be prostituted in the interests of organized capital against the organized working class...
...The Democracy now stutters when it mentions the tariff and in its platform this year it becomes screamingly funny in support of a "competitive tariff...
...Wheat hovers around 47 cents, corn at 25 cents, cotton at six cents and other farm products show no more better prospects...
...Since then the great capitalist and financial kings that rule the republic I have underwritten the expenses of the two parties with the affection that a dog fancier shows for two pups...
...The old dogma had been fading away after the Civil War and it waa during this period that the Democracy waa moving its possessions through the back door of the Republican temple...
...Now that the document is out, efforts must be renewed throughout the nation for the release of these labor martyrs...
...Mr...
...Facing the greatest economic disaster in our history, he devoted an hoar mainly to probing old sores and to a discussion of grog...
...If this waa a consideration we are inclined to think that it was a minor one...
...Their fangs and claws are Lav...
...There were times before the Civil War when Democrats and their opponents were venemoas in their antagonism over the tariff and duels were occasionally fought over this issue...
...When AI Smith, the former plebeian, announced four years ago that the Democracy would also shelter fat infant industries behind high tariff walla the old Democracy fainted in the arms of the capitalist plutocracy...
...Perhaps Smith waa thinking in terms of Mr...
...The Socialist Campaign A NOTHER week and the Socialist campaign will rt In i matter of history...
...There was not a ripple of protest against this proceeding and the ruling classes almost equally divided their campaign contributions between the two parties by way of showing their affection for the new tenant of the Republican temple...
...One who does not believe in the class basis of Socialism finds little difficulty in locating its "spirit" in the company of the Baldwins and Chamberlains in a "National Government" presented as representing the "nation...
...Nothing should be neglected to make a fine record...
...It is one of the most important tasks before ns...
...It now threatens to emerge'from the realm of advocacy to that of possible legislation...
...Reading* the speech one would think that millions of workers and farmers plunged into a social bell would be happy if their lager and gin could be purchased in the open instead of in secret...
...If you had seen but one day of war, you would pray God that you anight never toe another.—Duke of Wellington...
...There wan much more of this complaint and it indicates bow disappointed certain people an that the party did not follow the MacDonald Snowden course...
...Its shift leftwsrd from that position at the Leicester Congress wss such that a London correspondent of the New Tork Times recently moaned that "The hand of the Communist International'* could be observed in Its work...
...Hence the desire to suppress it...
...For many years to come no candidate for public office will dare stand on a platform anywhere in the United States and claim the credit for any political party for the cycle, the economic cycle of business dopressioa and business life...
...It waa revived in the temple of the plutocracy where R today is a playmate of the G.O.P...
Vol. 14 • October 1932 • No. 18
