THOMAS SAYS:
THOMAS SAYS: THERE la a true and comforting; proverb to the effect that "It la never too late - to mend." Neverthelesa over some of the most] tragic pages of history the words, "too late," must...
...He ia the moat conspicuous, exponent la either party of the general sales tax...
...A DEMOCRATIC MESS THESE major •party political conventions are Just episodes, and not very important episodes at that, in the political struggle of our time...
...GORDON BELFRIDGE, London's American-born multimillionaire merchant is another wnp gets top of column in the dally papers to say that the people don't know enough to govern themselves, that democracy Is a failure, that what we need Is a benevolent dictator...
...But his record...
...German reparations and Interallied war debts in form or another are going to be repudiated if they are not cancelled...
...SOME persons who ought to know better (and who...
...You can trust the Democrats to make a mess of the best Intentions...
...Within the last few month* a certain bank bad foreclosed mortgages on sixty farms In that county...
...fifty-five families who know how to cultivate the soil added to the army of the unemployed...
...Were they alive today, Mussolini would be plotting to get them murdered, as he plott e ' the murder of Matteottt...
...Under Massachusetts l aw the appointment must be ratified by the Governor's Council, aome of whose members are quoted as saying that they Will never vote for a man who dared to defend Sacco and VanxetU...
...There Is nothing in the world that is heroic or patriotic in his effort to stop Roosevelt when he can't get the nomination himself...
...Se the humane agency of which this gentleman is the head struck a bargain...
...It won't matter, much whom the Democrats nominate because he Is a Democrat and a member of a party with the record of the Democratic party...
...I think, really do know better), have circulated by word of mouth a report that in my address at the L. L D. conference last Friday I spoke against recognition of the Russian Soviet government by the government of the United States...
...Children ot* fourteen are not eemssgtaat to rule the nation...
...The owners' equities were wiped out, and aa no one offered to purchase, the bank now owns the farms...
...Of course they would like to have us believe it, because they count their power will be unchallenged and uncontrolled...
...Fifty-five city families put on farms on which experienced farmem thought- It Impossible to make a tolerable livelihood...
...His speeches have a certain learning which make them sound as if they said far more than they do on analysis...
...Lssemai was an wrong...
...Sisson is Just as likely to be right as President Hoover was when he said the same thing in the winter of 1929-30...
...Walter Uppnrlnn, who has been diligent in attacking Roosevelt, is now trying to build up Baker...
...Some* of those pages are being written wow...
...As I write, the Democratic convention is still on...
...His record of Identification with Tammany la these last four years Is far worse even than Roosevelt...
...We hope you can get a bare living this year and maybe next and after that, if times improve, you'll be able to pay rent to the good kind bank...
...FRANKFURTER'S FOES AGAINST the ratification of the appointment ot Felix Frankfurter of the Harvard Law School to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts—an appointment recommended by none other than former Justice Holmes— are ranged some of the worst and most reactionary forces In Massachusetts...
...Any who hear this rumor will do simple Justice to me by branding it as wanton falsehood...
...I t won't matter very much even If a few comparatively Intelligent planks slip Into the platform...
...Ergo, the affairs of the nation are not safe in the hands of the voting public...
...Our "best minds" In big business and in old-party politics have been telling us that at least twice a week for more than t w o years...
...What we need Is not a series of . inadequate dribble* of relief but a bold and adventuresome program...
...One encouraging thing is, however, that the people are leaa fooled by this bunk than ever before...
...Every fairly well Informed person knows' that the answer Is an emphatic No...
...He will fall...
...s AI' The Hoover promises have become so balled up that tbe pot in the chicken U as intelligent as the chicken la the pot » » ' • ' , Capitalism went on a long spree and it Is tune for the Socialist cop to put It in Jail so it can do no more bairn...
...The Governor agreed with the Socialist proposal that thirty million dollars could be raised at once If a special session of the Legislature would raise the Income tax rate 80 per e a s t But the Governor agreed to take no action Whatever...
...Parson and Merchant Scoff ti Democracy a MOTHER Haw' Torn, prsaehsr 1 law broken loose about "the evils inherent in democracy.'' the average iateUlgerio* of the voting public, be says, la that of a child of fourteen...
...e •«" >• AVERT eminent gentleman glowed with moral enthusiasm the other day as he told me of the wonderful work that Is be* log done far unempieyed city M , pit by -getting them back to the land...
...I should say mat Banker Sisson's regard for truth Is more than comparatively small...
...The issue on which the final break came Is scarcely one to capture the Imagination of the workers...
...We should have 'government for the people, but not government bp the people...
...It was generally agreed that the Republican convention wasn't even a good show...
...BUILDING UP BAKER ; n u t who would have done better among JL> the Democratic candidates T Smith's recent career baa been closely indenUfled with Raskob aad tbe duPonta who bra among the most predatory of our great financial interests...
...His picture has gone all over America showing him "in a huddle" with Walker...
...Eleven million unemployed wags-workers, with at least twice that many women aad children vainly looking to them for bread — thlrty-threeNmllllon persons, or one-fourth of tbe whole population—that is what be calls a comparatively small number...
...Had I done so, I would have said, as always In the past that I favor such recognition...
...FASCIST Italy has dug up the body of Anita Garibaldi and made a pompous ceremony of reInterring It In Rome...
...What an unmanly Insult to the memory of that heroic woman and the husband she loved...
...Every year of delay has made the situation worse, has served to inflame hatred and to encourage a crazy fiscal policy in which national tariffs have been mixed with reckless international lending...
...That left fiftyfive farms from which the bank could get no Income nnd on which it would have to pay taxes...
...He has the manner of a scholar and a gentleman...
...For Instance, the amount of money appropriated to unemployment relief of one sort or another by the Wagner bill (though not the method of administering I t ) in 1990 might have served to keep us out . of the most desperate depths of misery of this depression...
...But perhaps It Is unfair to ask him to think...
...Each month of delay makes the amount of relief needed greater...
...The little tin boxes of Tammany grafters should be enlarged into...
...Today the amount Is grossly Inadequate...
...ROOSEVELTIAiV EVASION MOOSEVBLT ia unquestionably as weak as » some of his own party, critics, say he is, but they're, no stronger...
...I t Is quite a show—funnier In some ways than "Of Thee I Sing," but much more expensive to the country...
...This report is untrue...
...They illustrate the appalling weakness of the capitalist version of democracy...
...Once a near pacifist, not only did he become Secretary of War but an open advocate of universal military training and service...
...In the face of evidence that he must have known was true, he calmly denied for weeks after the Armistice that conscientious objectors were manacled eight hours a day In a standing position in the utter darkness of the holes at Leavenworth...
...Really, If this sort of thing goes on much longer, I shall lose something of my respect for the clergy —and I don't see how I can afford that A • • • IP the Reverend Dr...
...What a Job that la...
...It Is a measure of the weakness of liberalism that so many liberal Intellectuals can find a saviour in Newton D. Baker...
...I have frequently said that were I in England I should be a member of the Independent Labor party, with most of whose positions I am In hearty accord...
...SUPPRESSING FACTS^• TB™ A S T spring a newspaper dispatch reported Xs "No unemployment in Conrad, Montana...
...Let them only ask themselves whether conditions in Russia, Hungary, Italy, and other -ountrles where no trace of demoracy now exists, are better than in Great Britain, France, or the United States, where It does exist in an imperfect form...
...His trade Is telling other folk what to believe...
...Skwon takes the prise, however, when he says that even now "the vast majority" of the wage-workers are employed and are getting almost as good "real wages" as In the past "Tjhe unemployed," he declares, "never represent more than a comparatively small proportion of the population...
...A good Socialist comrade has written a letter to a friend which I have just seen, saying that he alone had a list of 36 men, all of them unemployed, the majority of them with families, and all of them were on the public list 4':, This Is Just a little sample of the deliberate way la which public authorities and newspapers try bo play down unemployment all over the country...
...They criticize Republicans for lack of a constructive program, and they have none, The informal Socialist committee of Comrades Waldman, Solomon and Lee, pointed out to Governor Roosevelt that the state had reduced its appropriations tor unemployment relief which has been three million dollars a month for six months to one million two hundred thousand dollars/a month for the next six months—this though the employment Index of the State Department of Labor has dropped ten points since the first of November...
...Once passionate for the League of Nations he has today made his support of it subordinate to his desire for the Presidential nomination...
...net result, a bank, gets its taxes paid out of an unemployed relief fund — what an achievement...
...It put fifty-five city families In place of the fifty-five ruined farm families, paid the taxes on the bank's property, gave each family some necessary tools, seed, and food to live on for two months, and said to them: "God bless you...
...I did not speak of nor even Indirectly allude to the subject of recognition...
...A DANGEROUS * LIBERAL' npO my mind Baker represents the most X dangerous form of liberalism or pretended liberalism...
...Isn't there an old rhyme that runs something like this: "Of all the sad words of tongue or pen, the aaddest are these: It might have been...
...It takes the people as a whole to guard the Interests of the people aa a whole, e -e e "TpRANCIS H . SISSON, vice-preaX. ldent of the Guaranty Trust Company, tells us that we are within a month or two of the lowest point of the depression and that In the very near future prosperity will be coming back...
...They want Smith and Roosevelt to stop each other so their counsel, Baker, can be nominated...
...Dictators are always benevolent to themselves and to the classes or coteries whom they represent and who support them...
...I doubt if the Scrlpps-Howard papers are supporting him In any belief that he can be nominated...
...Be Industrious, honest, and frugal...
...Frv* out of the sixty farmers thought they might make a living if they stayed on as tenants where they had been owners...
...Once a believer in civil liberty, his post-war policy toward imprisoned conscientious objectors was arbitrary, vindictive and discriminatory...
...k one county atone, at a cost of JMO per family, fifty Ave families have bean provided with farsaa, Haw did farms happen to be available T That Is simple...
...Any long range criticism must be made with some hesitation but I cannot help thinking that the I. L. P. has at least temporarily weakened Its usefulness as a leavening force.in the labor movement by Its Withdrawal...
...I don't say this so much to cry over the past « s to urge the Importance of vigorous action in the present...
...Once a political follower ot Tom Johnson, an opponent' of the great public utilities, and a single taxer, be ia today one ot the outstanding corporation lawyers in America, a defender ot tbe open shop, the brains of the Democratic political machine In Cleveland...
...Forman^ would only let the grey matter inside his head function a bit, he would see that the smart saying about average Intelligence which he glibly quotes Is either false or meaningless...
...Neverthelesa over some of the most] tragic pages of history the words, "too late," must be written...
...T A REGRETTABLE BREAK AT this distance It seems a matter for keen regret that the Independent Labor party has parted company with the Labor party In Great Britain...
...That la what moat multimillionaires would like to have us believe, only most of them are not bold enough to say It so openly...
...In the same way even supposing that the Lausanne Conference does not break up in failure or that the Unite dStatea on certain terms would cancel the interallied war debts the resultant Jam will be infinitely less than . It would have been if these debts had been cancelled from the beginning...
...Characteristic, Isn't it...
...Frankfurter's appointment was miles above the usual appointment and In view of the nature of the opposition to him the ratification of the appointment Is a matter of genuine importance...
...But the good that might have been done had Socialist advice been followed from the beginning will be far less than it might have been...
...The sad thing is that many working people, accustomed td think that wealth la an evidence of wisdom, say amen to the impudent talk of Self ridge and his like...
...Since they cannot protest he tries to steal the glory of their names...
...Not on the Janiculum, but In the hearts of the suffering Italian people, is the inviolable tomb Of Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi...
Vol. 14 • July 1932 • No. 1
