HEARST ASKS WAR
HEARST ASKS WAR Millioruirc Publisher Would Solve Depression by Hurling the Unemployed Utfo a War; Why Not Make the Jingoes Risk Their Own Lives in the Wars that Ifhey Start? WOULD HE...
...in guarding her loot In Manchuria...
...over which Labor remains in control In local administration...
...For social and decorative purposes the capitalist'forces now in charge of things still parade him on occasion: he is permitted to attend conferences, and to make a show on things that do not matter...
...She has earned the enmity Bt China and would not think of •ending her forces across the Pacific...
...And If you confine yourself to the Parliamentary view of our hold on public life in this country, you might easily persuade yourselves that British Socialism is right out of things for the time being...
...Stupid and Dangerous The whole editorial is stupid and dangerous...
...and our funds are not wholly local funds, but are aided by considerable Parliamentary grants...
...Let the Jingoes Fight The working people of all countries need Socialism, not capital' ism...
...In Socialist - controlled cities, practically all the houses built since the war have been built by the City Councils...
...Personally, I have my doubts about that prospect of years of office for the completion of the work of sabotage...
...That is, take them as conscripts and hurl them Into a war with Japan...
...And the point I want you to appreciate at Its full value is that this hold of Labor upon administrative power has been very little affected by the Parliamentary debacle of the last general electjpn...
...lap Hearst vs...
...Our powers are, of course, not absolute...
...but It cannot get the wheels of production going...
...But he, says nothing...
...Hearst is said to have cabled back-, •Tou provide the pictures and we will provide the war...
...we are ordered to reduce our scales of civic wages...
...What the masse3 of both countries who are Jobless and hungry need Is not a killing match but the conquest of Industry...
...in many of them represented with appreciable strength...
...We simply administer such Services as Parliament may have authorised...
...activities of the Government, they will no doubt do much mischief...
...Why not have a change in this PJhssional trade of war...
...The Hearsts would have It read, "Workers of the World, Let's Fight...
...and In quite a number in a majority...
...Agriculture has sunk Into general bankruptcy...
...As for the sabotage...
...It is in this field of our activities that on acute conflict Is now rapidly developing between the MacDonald government and the forces of Labor throughout the country...
...You hear all there is to hear— and Judging by some of the things I see occasionally In the American capitalist press, a good deal that doesn't happen at all—about the condition of helplessness to which the British Labor party has been reduced in Parliament...
...and so on over a very wide range of social services...
...He anticipates a Japanese attack on the Pacific coast and the conquest of the United States...
...Take the ten milIon Jobless workers and make "patriots" of them...
...but we can very largely bring home to the intimate life of the people the advantages of planned community provision for human needs and conveniences...
...U . 8. Hearst w» know of no American work* who has any Interest thrusting | , bayonet through a Japanese Peasant or a Japanese peasant who PS anything to gain by killing an Ataerican worker...
...Hearst is again at his eld game...
...On the fourth day the Japanese airplanes could have swept across l ie whole United States, so that he middle of our country and the tastem slope will only he a day Mhlnd the ^exposed Pacific Coast Instruction...
...A creeping paralysis Is crippling Industry generally...
...The fact is, however, that our hold upen public life here has always been much stronger in and through the civic life of the nation than In Parliament...
...It can tax...
...But I think the forces entrenched In our civic life will be able to hold tho fort With a good deal of success, and prevent the mischief from bei foming the sheer destruction at which the Government Is aiming...
...In the two vast areas of England given over to the staple industries of cotton and coal, life and work are collapsing...
...but have become a source of civic pride to the populations of our cities...
...a Conflict which I think you will find...
...Japan thinks in terms of a Monroe Doctrine in Asia and her Imperialist aims are confined to Mat part of the world...
...Nothing that the government could have done could more effectively open the eyes of the nation to the real character of»the trick played off upon it at-the general election...
...to cease building houses...
...to scrap our civic works departments end hand things over to private contractors...
...Capitalism breeds the Jingo Hearsts in all nations...
...to cease making effective provision for the physical care of our school children...
...They want jobs, not war...
...Not by a hair's breadth, Is the Insistence upon a reduction of working class standards of living or the maiming and destruction of the social services built up in the past half century, allowed to be Interfered with by the MacDonald faction In the government...
...And the nation which cheered itself hoarse with Jubilation at the result of the General Election, in the belief that It had saved itself from ' ruin, finds that every evil with which It was then threatened has become intensified...
...by finance restrictions...
...There Is not a single great city in England in which Labor Is unrepresented in the local administration...
...We cannot change the social order from capitalism to Socialism by the use of such administrative powers...
...knowing perfectly well that if he were to say anything he would merely be laughed at Within his own Cabinet, and told to go and play at Lausanne or at Lossiemouth while the Cabinet gets on with the real business of sabotaging...
...He warns that Jap airplanes will be in the Philippines the first lay after war is declared, In the Hawaiian Islands the second day, fad In the United States the third lay...
...and that the one Party which brought hopeful constructive ideas .to bear upon the problems of a period of transition from an old and' wornout to a new social order—the one Party which was able to do so precisely because It realised that the times we live in are such a period of transition—has been thrust for the time being into political Impotence against this accelerating drift to social and Industrial chaos...
...Js destined before long to play a very important part Indeed in the return of the nation to the political sanity which it abandoned in a panic last year...
...Why not pick fr^ap Hearst and an American Psarst and stock them with hand • h a d e s ? Give them a broad field where both can display their prowess.Then give the signal and we can stand and we can stand at a safe distance and wish them both both success in their efforts U> destroy each other...
...Japan has her hands Ml...
...MacDonald himself, having served his purpose of placing a huge capitalist and financier majority In Parliament, has.become of no real account In the government...
...but it has no plan by which the resources from which taxation must come can be produced...
...They want war but they do not want to fight...
...Paints Terrible Picture "People will be slaughtered by thousands, possibly by millions, until the skies are filled with flame lad smoke and the air polluted with the stench of dead and decaytog humanity," says Hearst...
...There is much more of this hor•ible forecast calculated to make Die unthinking shudder and be Irawe the logical conclusion from Us nightmare...
...If there is to be a fight let us fight the Jingoes, not fight each other...
...life, not death...
...MacDonald, the Poppet il • MacDonald, the nominal head of the government, and the puppet of the financiers In the great betrayal, is reputed to be alarmed at this unfolding of the purpose for which he permitted himself to be the catspaw...
...Hearst has found that Japan is guilty of a "deliberate insult to the American Ambassador and to the American Hople...
...Its one definite Intention in the panic by which it obtained power was to disable and displace Labor...
...WOULD HE FIGHT...
...And what Is the occasion for Ms editorial...
...Any "Insults" that may be at issue will then be wiped out and the rest of us will be better off in not having fought in a quarrel that does not concern us in the east...
...and that having been done, the nation is now discovering with amazement that its government from first to last never had the faintest idea of a positive or constructive policy...
...But so far as the essential purpose of this government Is concerned—the rooting out from our public life of such Socialist tendencies as had been achieved, and the maintenance of capitalist control in all its essentials—he has been reduced to a cipher...
...Over practically the whole range of our administrative work these social activities are now being attacked by the government...
...In a war both |*JjM be bloody pawns In the g j | ° s of the Imperialist Hearsts of ipta countries...
...It can ravage the life of the nation by economies and deprivations...
...With a Parliamentary majority that gives to the government the prospect of some years of continued life, they are evidently determined that, before their time is up, these beginnings of a social provision for the well-being of the nation shall be wiped out, and that as little social activity as possible shall be permitted to survive out of which private capitalism does not get Its plunder...
...This will leave the nation from Invasion," It srtji "save our cities from destruction" and "our people from wholeisle slaughter...
...Ip the New York American of last Sunday under his own signature Hearst baits Japan...
...Iff U Mid that on the eve of the J[ American war with Spain M i l a m Randolph Hearst received a cable from his artiat in Cuba faring that he found no war there...
...control of industry for their own welfare, not private ownership for the enrichment of a few...
...Hearst alone claims to know of this alleged Insult And M avenge it he would have mll•°at of Japanese and American P* k e t » wallow In gore...
...Let's fight for economic freedom, for a Socialist world.AMONGST the factors which are contributing to the Labor revival In Britain there is one of which I Imagine you hear very little In America But it is Just now playing a very important part in our recovery...
...Hearst and also Pulitzer of the Hew York World indulged In insane Jingoism that helped to bring p the war...
...For the" real drama of the present position la Britain is that while the govern" ment Is displaying all this activity In mere wrecking and forcing down the our standards of living, it is revealing itself as a government without a single constructive idea for saving the Industry of the nation from collapse...
...And city after city Is becoming aflame with Indignation as this attack develops...
...The industrial position becomes worse and worse...
...A Ruthless Attack You have probably heard very little of the attack on social services which Is now being ruthlessly by legislation, but by administrative order and...
...These social services have not only justified themselves by their human results...
...Hot, one person In a million even pspected that he* has been invested...
...No Inmate of I padded cell could paint anything •ore improbable...
...She has her own discontented masses to deal with and her ruling classes laould risk suicide by sending her eonscripts so far from home...
...And I do not believe that the period of ordeal will ha SO prolonged as the Government confidently est...
...Why p t let the Hearsts who cry for • I d o the fighting...
...But it has reached a point at which hardly a day passes when those of us who are engaged in this administrative work do not get notice of restrictions here and prohibitions there...
...The most essential things in public health and administration are being cut down...
...The Social Services In this way we have built up splendid social servloea In education and public health, We have socialized many industrial services —street transport, the supply of electricity, -of water, of many of the common necessaries of life and run them for the general advantage of the citizens instead of as sources of tribute to private owners...
...The old Socialist slogan, "Workers of the World, Unite," is as necessary today , as ever...
Vol. 14 • July 1932 • No. 1
