National Campaign Breaks All Records
National Campaign Breaks All Records Socialist Campaign Greatest in Party's History—Thomas Spoke to Tens of Thousands Weekly, Packing Largest Halls—The Country Aroused WITH the Madison...
...and in every case there were thousands turned away...
...But in most places Thomas has been a frequent visitor for many years, and the crowds that battled to hear him did not come out of curiosity but personally to participate in the greatest Socialist campaign in American history...
...Hardly a day passed without a major meeting...
...Those who heard him more than once—those who heard him many times—never heard the same rpeeih repeated...
...The mass of the people, with their small income, can buy back but a portion of that which can be produced with such lightning rapidity by our mass industries...
...Hearst, one of the country's chief jingoes, I gives little comfort to friends of i world pesce who have disagreed J with many of the nationalistic actions of the Republican Party...
...His facts were unassailable, his logic inefutable...
...he hammered home the Socialist message on all the vital issues of the day and of the moment, and he made Socialism the livest topic in the country...
...Failing, in that he again tried to register, after his return on Oct 2V., He consulted' counsel but found he couTd not compel the hoard to aet I By Harry W. Laidler VOTE FOR SOCIALISM...
...The terrible insecurity and starvation in the midst of plenty now found in America have given rise to a widespread discussion of the imperative need for fundamental social changes...
...yHEREAS both the Republican and Democratis parties are prevented by their owners from making any positive promises to wipe out unemployment, to insure world peace by renouncing imperialism, to cancel war debts and level tariff walls as part of an immediate drive for world disarmament, to recognize Soviet Russia, to increase taxes on big incomes instead of levying the sales tax on the poor, to save American consumers a million dollars a day by public ownership of the electric power industry, the Socialist Party and candidates in this campaign have presented day in and day out a complete, coherent program for a planned and peaceful revolution in America that will take the great public resources and industries away from the few who now exploit them for profit, and turn them over to the farmers, the workers and the professional men and women to run for their own use, security, peace and happiness...
...For wherever other Socialist speakers went they found the same great upsurge of Socialist sentiment, the aame enthusiasm and the same attentive listeners...
...National Campaign Breaks All Records Socialist Campaign Greatest in Party's History—Thomas Spoke to Tens of Thousands Weekly, Packing Largest Halls—The Country Aroused WITH the Madison Square Garden meeting in New York on Thursday night the greatest Socialist presidential campaign in American history reached its climax—although it does not come to a close until the evening before Election Day...
...Little difference is to be found between the old parties on the tariff...
...They heard the same idealism, the same high dedication, the aame philosophy, but never the same speech...
...They are due fundamentally to the fact that we are conducting Industry without any plan, and depending upon the uncoordinated action of tens ef thousands of Investors, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and wage-earners to lead to Industrial harmony and security...
...Roosevelt on most international issues and the enthusiastic espousal of the New York Governor by Mr...
...Both have gone on record In favor of the protective tariff...
...Thomas won the devoted acclaim of hundreds of thousands who admire a manly, upright, fighting spokesman of a great cause...
...Thomas Is Unable to Vote, Absent During Registration Norman Thomas, Socialist candidate for President, will be unable to vote on election day because of inability to register...
...There was no city, town or rural district too small, too obscure, too remote but turned out great crowds to greet Thomas...
...As employed by Governor Roosevelt it has meant the turning of the Republican elephant into the cold, cold world and the induction of the Democratic donkey into the green pastures of the national capital An used by the Socialists, on the other hand, it nan meant the change in the basis of industrial society...
...Vast Meetings When he returned to New York October 25th, from his great tour of the South, Thomas told the local Socialists that he had spoken to 8,000 and 10,000 people in cities where in 1928 he considered himself lucky to secure audiences Of 200 or 300...
...Before leaving on his Western trip, Sept SI, Comrade Thomas visited the Board of Elections and tried to arrange for his registration by affidavit or otherwise...
...Socialists maintain that only when the community becomes the owner ef the chief industries will it be possible to plan industry for the common good and distribute the fruits of labor In a just and conrmonsense fashion...
...It is always going on...
...The silence of Mr...
...Thomas did men than make Socialist propaganda speeches every sight and during the day...
...The New Deal The new deal in the campaign has be n used in at least two senses...
...Hardly a day passed without many "minor" meetings, with addresses before all sorts of bodies, from the whole faculty and student body of a university to a mob of cheering YipBels waking him up in his sleeping car...
...But that the great response to the appeal of Norman Thomas was not a personal one is plain...
...Neither pretends to have a remedy for recurring depressions...
...The campaign waged by Norman Thomas in "1932 will take its place in American Socialist history with the battles fought by the unforgettable Eugene V. Debs, as an inspiring htory of devotion, of hard work, and of magnificent results...
...Neither party stands for free trade or tariff for revenue only...
...Meetings have been added to his schedule until on some days he was speaking almost continually from morning until night, facing n;w thousands, shaking thousands of hands, inspiring party workers, instructing college classes, informing vast audiences of the party's position—even in some places defying officious police and speaking at places barred by them...
...The cost of returning to register and the interruption of his speaking program made the trip impossible...
...There are a few mors days— eight hectic and exciting meetings in New York, and then the dash to Milwaukee to the colossal windup...
...The Socialist Party Opposed to these two parties is the Socialist Party...
...They are das to tho feet, oa watt, that, under the private ownership of our Indus tries, those who own the Industrial machine obtain i huge fortunes resulting from own jership rather than from their intellectual or manual contribution to society, and thitt millions of wage earners and salaried workers get just about enough to keep going...
...Scalpel and Microscope and Finds—Nothing...
...The Socialist presidential candidate has been absolutely indefatigable...
...Five Months of Propaganda It is hard to tell in this account where and when the Socialist presidential "arapaign began, for a man like Norman Thomas, constantly on the platform, never begins or ends his propaganda work...
...Goods pile up and cannot be sold...
...Never since the great days of the Red Special in 1908, and of the even greater Debs campaign of 1912, has there been such a wonderful following to the Socialist campaign...
...Neither party is taking any active stand in behalf of Negro rights...
...Day after day the Thomas speeches were reported in detail— often in full—in the newspapers, because they made news...
...In many places Thomas was heard for the first time—or at least the first time since 1928, and there was considerable curiosity to see and hear the presidential candidate...
...On the evening of May 23rd, lie addressed 14,000 people in the Milwaukee Auditorium at the convention mass meeting, thrilling and enthusiastic the vast throng and sounding the keynote of the great battle...
...On unemployment, the two parties take the same essential position...
...There was not a city in which any but the largest hall was engaged...
...The campaign started in New York at the great picnic at Ulmer Park on July 31st, and again with the amazing Town Hall meeting, from which ten thousand persons were turned away...
...It was explained that he was in the midst of his transcontinental speaking tour during registration week...
...Thomas went in the campaign a man much loved, much admired...
...Both candidates and parties are absolutely opposed to a change from private to public ownership of public utilities...
...From that time until the very end the Thomas campaign was a steady grind—or it would have been to any other man...
...Both candidates believe that the Federal government should provide relief only as the last resort, and neither party has formulated a federal public works program on a scale sufficient to absorb more than a very small percentage of the 11 to 12 million unemployed...
...Socialists, even those who knew Norman Thomas intimstely, have been amazed at the colossal amount of work he has been able to perform, at his physical stamina, at the freshness of his mind even utter' making four, Ave and six speeches a day...
...He emerges a man of infinitely greater stature than be went In...
...speakers from the colorful, salty and well-beloved Jim Maurer down to the humblest recruit in the ranks all found in greater or lesser degree something of the national awakening that greeted Norman Thomas everywhere...
...Men and women are thrown out of work...
...the transferrace of the present Industrial disorder into a planned cooperative order, operated for the common good...
...i VValer Power J In 1929 overnor Roosevelt signed . an agreement to grant to the Niagara Falls Power Company hundred* of thousands of horsepower and that, under his administration over half the consumers of electricity in New York City are now paying higher rates than 3 yc.nrs ago...
...Socialists insist that panics have occurred alike under Republican and Democratic administrations...
...eral rule the development of vtili- ' tie* should remain, with certain 1 exceptions, a function of private initiative of private capital...
...It was at the Milwaukee convention at the close of May, more than five months ago, that Thomas began making addresses as candidate...
...Always Fresh Observers also were amazed at the fact that no matter how often he talked, no matter bow many hours a day be spent upon the platform, Norman Thomas always had something fresh to say, always had pungent comment upon the speeches of his adversaries, always had a fresh point of view to present...
...After which, if we know our Thomas, he will rest up by going out on the road and working for Socialism...
...Under both Democratic and Republican rule in city, state and federal governments, the amount of public works construction is perhaps a couple of billion dollars less now than in 1929...
...That there is tremendous admiration for Norman Thomas personally, as a striking, a powerful, a courageous figure in publci life is true...
...Roosevelt In his Portland address declared: 1 state ts you categorically that as a breed genSocialist Economist Puts' Old Parties Under thej...
...We find ourselves in the midst of another period of depression...
...This year is witnessing the rensisasnce of the Socialist Party and from now on the struggle will be on In earnest In America against poverty, insecurity and Industrial feudalism and in behalf of security, freedom and an abundant life for alL...
...The opportunities of the campaign were great—he rose to them...
Vol. 14 • November 1932 • No. 19
