TIMELy TOPICS
Thomas, By Norman
By Norman Thomas TIMELy TOPICS Every week Norman Thomas writes in his pungent style his own comments upon the salient events of the moment. The Fighting Lead at the A I of 1 • y i l K A. F....
...Nevertheless the most serious mistake in Russia was not bureaucratic inefficiency but the enforced collectivization of agriculture accompanied by too great a concentration on heavy industries at the price of the production of consumers' goods...
...Mrs...
...The official reason given is that Nepszava had been guilty of a "gross insult to the friendly count ry of Italy, and of inciting the unemployed to class hatred, in order to break up, for narrow party interests, the national concentration on behalf of which the Government had appealed and offered the workers its hand, by creating artificial opposition between the Government and the people...
...The Fighting Lead at the A I of 1 • y i l K A. F. of L.'s insistence on the five-day week * and the sii hour day without reduction of wages is vital...
...Brookwood Bazaar A bazaar arranged by the graduates of Brookwood Labor College to raise funds for the school is being held at Irving Plaza, 15th St...
...NEPSZAYA IS BANNED Nepszava, the daily organ of the Hungarian Social-Democratic Party, was banned by the Gfimbos Government for eight days in a recent order...
...Particularly, I want to acknowledge the many greetings which came to me on my birthday...
...Toys, made by Pioneer Youth, proletarian holiday greeting cards, Russian peasant work, men's snd women's wear, pictures, needlework, dresses and other articles will be on hand In the booths...
...Since the election I have stated that I had expected to get upwards of two million votes—I mean two million votes that would be counted for us.| Before the campaign began I should have been well satisfied if I had been assured we would get even as many as are now counted for us...
...a boom is on News of this boom spreads to other towns and cities, all suffering from the depression...
...It was a mistake of the British Labor Party that it Spent too much energy in set-king to overcome the defects in the profit system by re-distributing incomes through social insurance without going to the root of things and substituting socialized planning for capitalist chaos...
...My opinions I kept to myself or confided to a few friends...
...and Irving Place, this Friday, Saturday and Sunday...
...Laura Harwood, Shepard, Mass., 6 subs...
...The funniest —and saddest—thing about the film is that this capitalistic world is crazy enough for such things to be quite possible, for trifles, accidents, to disturb ths balance of the world...
...Combos also explained to press representatives that the Government "accepted the principle of the freedom of the press, but that this, like all other public liberties, could only be exercised in so far aa the national interests are not thereby endangered...
...providing its worke/s with a degree of economic security and hope that they have never known before...
...I am quite willing, myself, to be allowed to forget the too rapidly recurring birthdays, but with all my heart I appreciate the friendship that has been expressed...
...Thet/e thirteen trunks, intended for a great hotel in Ostende, miscarry and reach a little German town, Ostend...
...In any transitional society there will be a problem in making the necessary bureaucracy truly efficient...
...The thing, however, that B S yet the A F. of L officially has missed, the thing which is vitally important, is an understanding that neither adequate unemployment insurance, which the A. F. of L. has not yet called for...
...Do see what you can do in Pennsylvania...
...I say this not because I find any joy in criticising Russia but because precisely at this moment whin the stock of what we call democracy is deservedly low in America and in much of the Western world it is important that in a reaction of disgust against this miserable condition of democracy we do not blindly rush to indiscriminate enthusiasm for dictatorship...
...Theodore Seibert's interesting book, "Red Hussia," is a j icture of life under the dictatorship which, while somewhat out of focus and not quite up to the ruinate, is also worth considering by these same intellectuals...
...It is necessary to go farther and to make rapid strides in socialization and social control in order to carry out this program...
...What great man is coming...
...Valuable' as isT unemplo/iwerrt insurance, for instance, under no circumstances can it be made a substitute for socialization...
...as, for instance, that because the Socialist vote in America did not pass the million mark, while the Communist vote did not reach a hundred thousand, therefore the American people are getting ripe for Communist revolution and will have none of Socialism...
...By "the way, I should like to assure some of my Party friends who write me letters on the basis of misinformation that following my UBUSI custom I never made any numerical prediction of the size of our Socialist vote during the campaign...
...As much as ever I believe in the tremendous and encouraging significance of the Russian Revolution...
...Entertainments have been arranged for each day, among the artists participating being Ray Porter Miller, The Workmen's Circle Children's Choir and the German Sports' Unit...
...Indeed this particular plank in a program for fighting unemployment is probably more basic, significant and far reaching than unemployment insurance itself...
...SHARE-THE-WORK L E A D E R USES 60-HOUR WEEK PHILADELPHIA.— Challenging Chairman Walter C. Teagle of the share-the-work committee to see that his own organization cuts "uneconomic, inefficient, stupidly cruel long hours" in non-union hosiery mills, John W. Edelman, research director of the American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers, has written Teagle congratulating him on his speech to cotton mill owners on the 48-hour week...
...Mitchell has long been recognized a s an authority on labor conditions in the southern states, and his writings have had a socialistic slant for several years...
...F.," now running in Paris, plays on man's nature nn interesting turn Hint, for one little German town, ends the depression...
...Real estate rises in value...
...people rush to Ostend to get their share, to invst their money profitably— and the apparent prosperity becomes real...
...Yet it gave the world something to think about...
...More than ever I believe it is essential to recognize Russia, partly because of the acute situation in Manchuria...
...building begins...
...These things, it appears, are necessary tactics and to be criticized only if they are unduly stupid...
...As a brilliant and thoughtful scientist who had spent a year studying in Russia said to me recently: "At the very least it is a great thing when a country which has been backward industrially succeeds io...
...Further informstlon at Bazaar Headquarters, 12ft E. 10th Street (Stuyve•ant 9-2181...
...I think Walter Duranty is right and that Russian government will win through...
...Enthusiasm for Dictatorship LATELY I have had some new experiences which show that this enthusiasm for dictatorship goes along with some other curious convictions...
...O. F. lie forgotten in the baggage-room...
...Somewhat to my regret I have to use this column to ask my friends to be patient if they do not get prompt replies to their letters...
...The Russian Five-Year Plan, valuable as it has been as a milestone in social progress, has obviously run into a very bad snag when it is necessary at this stage of Russian development still further to limit food supplies for the workers...
...Here is mine...
...Admission is 25 cents...
...the thirteen trunks of Mr...
...nor the 30 hour week without reduction of p a y C a n be achieved simply b y demanding them of the capitalist system It is doubtful whither the capitalist sy;;t'm could stand the cost ana strain of such demands in time of crisis...
...Whatever one's comments on Russia, it is necessary to add a sort of postscript...
...A reporter suggests it must be a millionaire...
...I knew and tried to assure people in the closing days of the campaign that fear of Hoover's winning was quite unnecessary...
...That campaign will require a much enlarged national organization with an appropriate budget...
...Trotsky's radio address gave the world no new Information...
...The second thing that my correspondents assure me is that there was a wholesale defection to Roosevelt in the closing days of the campaign because of a panic fear of people, who very much liked our program, that after all Hoover might win...
...Your efforts might have better effect in the full fashioned hosiery industry," he comments on the cotton industry speech...
...It will, of course, require aggressive and intelligent action by our locals...
...The members of the International Economy Conference grow old vainly seeking to explain (>stend's prosperity...
...This is scarcely what Trotsky would have been expected to have to say about the revolution of which he was a father ten years ago...
...He now says that it is not enough for one to call himself a Socialist, but to make his work effective he must join In the active organization work of the party...
...Autographed books by H. G. Wells, Upton Slnclsir, Hnrold Lsjki, Charles A. Beard, and Everett Desn Martin will be auctioned...
...I sm still 'way behind on mail...
...Without a reduction in working hours there is no way of grappling with the increased productivity of machinery...
...Broadua Mitchell Joins Socialist Party BALTIMORE.—Broadus Mitchell, associate professor of political economy 'at the Johns Hopkins University, has joined the Socialist Party...
...The important thing is that we got enough votes, enough interest, and enough healthy new organization to warrant us in going ahead...
...Teagle's assistants have shown no interest in Jannsen's record...
...A sketch will be performed by the Brookwood faculty...
...Even stranger is the enthusiasm of some intellectuals for the deliberate policy of lies and slanders employed by the Communists in their campaign against Socialists, and, indeed, in most of their dealings with non.Communists...
...It will tic a very serious question whether Stalin can force the peasants into line by the new policy of even greater sternness...
...a jobless architect says he's probably coming to build factories and start some great enterprise...
...The Socialist Vote Is Encouraging I T is rather encouraging to find the size of our * national vote very considerably in excess of the estimates of the first day or two after the election...
...Actually if a victury of the working class has to be won by fooling the workers with falsehoods it will be terribly insecure...
...Perhaps its most striking feature was his emphasis on the revolution as changing the character of the Russian people...
...By Norman Thomas TIMELy TOPICS Every week Norman Thomas writes in his pungent style his own comments upon the salient events of the moment...
...It will be our own fault if timidity, inefficiency, or internal differences of sny sort prevent us from putting on a most aggressive campaign...
...French Film Ends Depression •"TIIK Thirteen Trunks of Mr...
...Great excitement...
...Why let a stranger get ahead of them, the citizens reflect...
...Of course voters so easily swayed are pretty poor material for action in critical times, but at least they may be capable of further education in Socialism...
...Henry Jannsen of the Berkshire mills a t Reading is county chairman of the TeagL committee and is responsible for the 60-hour work week in the hosiery industry of that, section right through the depression, Edelmann declares...
...Of course social planning, even social planning avowedly and passionately in the interest of the workers, will not produce perfection...
...Every day I get letters which show two things: First, that an immense number of votes was not counted at all either on account of deliberate malice or through laziness, inefficiency and the absurd opinion that after all it doesn't matter whether a minor party vote is counted correctly or not...
...Enthusiastic Young Intellectuals BJIKAN WHILE some of our enthusiastic young * " intellectuals who accept Communism without the discipline of the Communist Parly, who are devotees of the cause of anti-militarism and academic and other liberty everywhere except in Russia—or in America if America began to be Communist—might profitably consider the spectacle of the great Trotaky permitted by a Social-Democratic government in Denmark to give his views to the world againn the vehement protests of his erstwhile comrades...
...That problem is peculiarly great given the Russia a background...
Vol. 14 • December 1932 • No. 23
