A Socialist View Of the Week
A Socialist View of the Week "THE American Federation of Labor * ii in a fighting mood. The stand of the executive council in favor of compulsory unemployment in •urance, and the demand for the...
...The stand of the executive council in favor of compulsory unemployment in •urance, and the demand for the thirtyhour week expressed in the fervent sddress of President Green and the defiant and unanimous veto of the delegates to the Cincinnati convention, mean wnly one thing...
...And if the money were paid in full if it ever could be!—it would bring disaster upon debtors and creditors alike...
...I t may be that the reason Is thai those who are crying fraud are not the Socialists...
...Considering the composition of its membership, that was to be expected...
...In many cases there was no money at all, but only credits for the manufacture of machinery of destruction...
...that cannot be u i e d will not be r e t u r n e e , u n l e t ! return nnitaate Ii enclosed...
...After many years a large section of the medical profession has come to the conclusion that much of the glamor thrown about the Old Family Doctor ia so much bunk, and that medicine, as practiced today, is just another trade...
...but it is also significant hat the demand for an honest ballot is rooming so widespread...
...People of the most peaceful intentions have been worked up into murderous rages and have been induced to arm themselves and go to war by being hypnotized by such words as "National Honor," "the Fatherland," "Our Country...
...Long before the boards of canvassers have mad« their reports and the tables are embalmed in the political almanacs most people have forgotten...
...The world ones move toward t h e things Socialists believe i n . T r y i n g to Purify The Ballot T*HE outcry against election thievery * usually lasts a few days after th< ballots have been miscounted...
...the latter now help to make this clear...
...la t h e Halted States I Year to P e r e i s n Caaatiles ill ' .Caaada ....ii.*t B a t e r e i a a ' S e a a a d Cleat awlter, ' • «; • e r i it...
...It is a matter of grim amusement to Socialists to see "respectable" elements echoing the protests made by them for nany years...
...War By William Allen Ward War is A vulture who Sits on a dead tree In the morass of hate Feeding on the dead belles i c a t i o n of the Socialist Party, s u p p o r t! t h e etrugejles of th« organised working c l a s s Signed contribution* do not n e c e s s a r i l y represent the policy of The New Leader...
...our party has cried "fraud' .o often (and with so much t r u t h ) thai most people have come to believe it but mother cry of Wolf I Wolfr This year, however, the "better" elements feel a sense of outrage, largely against the way those seeking to'writ* in the name if McKee found themselves hampered and often frustrated by Tammany hacks...
...but once we did, and once we gagged the mouths of everyone who dared have an opinion con r a ry to the President's, and once we began to conscript our boys, the granting of those vast credits was but part of the waging of that war...
...The money was not invested in selfliquidating enterprises but in destruction...
...There is a witchery in words...
...When politics be:omes the agency of the masses, when he masses enter politics in the millions luch corruption will disappear because t will no longer have meat to feed upon...
...Last May the French Socialists scored their greatest triumphs...
...And the shorter working week and iompulsory unemployment insurance are tot "demands" in the same sense a the conglomerate items in an old-party platform, tossed in Just for the hell of i t Those two vital and fundamental demands are based upon granite facts, aad unless a fight is made for them and they are made part of the life of the masses there is disatter ahead . . . or rather the disaster that is here will be continued and deepened...
...Millions of otherwise intelligent men accepted the fact of war in 1914, and again in 1917, when they were given a false analogy between a man outgrowing the clothes of his adolescence and a nation outgrowing its boundaries...
...Not that Socialists have converted them to a demand for social insurance away from their previously held ideas, but that CONCRETE FACTS have driven them to that position . . . that is significant...
...A f<« weeks before that the Socialists swept the Swedish elections and put their leader in office as Premier, and less th*n a month ago the British Socialists scored a sensational comeback in the city elections all over the country...
...That colossal sum Is, in effect, a credit extended to nations in their extremity by this, country after our ruling class had deliberately and of their own volition (but not on the volition of the people...
...That it will "string" some of the reformers is also evident in the personnel of a few slready enlisted in support of the fusion movement...
...Unless the •lection returns furnish an exact picture of the sentiments of the people rating is a farce...
...Contributor...
...The Federation is speaking in strong terms...
...or that he new fighting spirit is the result of > sudden conversion to a new spirit of he individual gentlemen who happen to >e leaders...
...This week brings the announcement that the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York recommends the creation of a "nonpartisan" citizens' organization for the elimination of corruption, waste snd extravagance from the city government...
...And tMa is mere than tragic...
...The fact that should concern us is that during the bleak years of fraudulent "prosperity" the soul seemed te have gone out of the masses of organized workers...
...i t M . at the Peel O r t e e JO New Tor a , a a i e r aet af Mates I...
...It will also serve as an example for the party in other cities as the party increases in strength...
...Why that was so, why the membership did not demand a more spirited leadership, is quite another story that does not concern us at this moment...
...Socialized Medicine T l I K world moves—slowly...
...But the emergence of this situation is a distinct service to the Socialist Party which will nominate its own csndidates next year...
...Possibly there is more misundertanding in the world arising out of •1st analogies than from any ether single cause...
...On IIM other h i n d It welc o m e ! a variety of opinion connlitnit w i t h Its d e c l a r e d purpose...
...And every year, after the internes lesve the hospitals to try to make a living, they find themselves thrown into a bitter struggle for existence in'which the Ethics they were lectured on in medical school seem to have become s sour jest...
...A few weeks ago the Danish Socialists moved forward under the leadership of Socialist Premier Tborvald Stunning to ever greater victories...
...For a decade and a half the American labor movement seemed to be slipping steadily backward...
...Politics is corrupt, the ballot box is lebauchod and democracy as practiced s a farce because parties are agencies if the ruling elass eon ducted by crooked cangs of racketeers...
...This is in full accord with what we said on this page last week...
...We have always believed hat, generally speaking, a mass organiation gets the leadership it deserves, .ml that the policy of the official labor novement is an accurate reflection of the spirit among the membership...
...It is often difficult for us to make the working masses understand the difference between us and the reformers...
...And today millions of people—inspired by politicians, preachers snd clowns like Cslvin Coolidge, Will Rogers and William .Randolph Hearst— talk about the war-debt problem as if i t were merely a matter of a loan of ten dollars until next pay day...
...This year, however, the charges will not down, and they are not dismissed as the squawks of bad losers...
...The Federstion is not giving so much attention to a consideration of legisative matters before Congress, to de>ntes on prohibition and Russian recoglition...
...Labor is facing realities...
...It cannot be emphasised too strongly that without an honest ballot democracy Is a fraud and a failure...
...Hesling the sick, snd keeping people well, constitutes one of the noblest of services...
...The $11,678,093,000 owing the United States do not constitute a losn like that made when one finds himself at lunchtirae without the price of the e a t i ; it is not even comparable to funded debt represented by interest-bearing bonds sold to finance self-supporting enterprises...
...The ticket will be a Chamber of Commerce ticket and it would be appropriate for its hackers to hoist the dollar sign as its official emblem...
...Socialism Moves Forward In All Countries A F T E R Denmark, Belgium...
...But securing pstients, collecting fees snd in other wsys making a living at medicine Is something so different from the idesl profession that it is s shock for many when they begin backing the game...
...I t is the more significant that this has come about not because of the conversion of individuals from one point ttf view to another, but because of concrete, inescapable economic facts...
...There are many more realities that must also be faced, but a start has been made...
...Dollar Sign Reformers I'M ERE are occasions when conservative reform * ism unwittingly performs a real service for the Socislist movement snd this service appears to be unfolding in New York City...
...Hesling a one of the most Important of ihe social services...
...a r e r e q u e s t e d not to w r i t e tm both ildei of t h e p a p e r a n d not lo uie lead pencil or red Ink...
...SUBSCRIPTION SATES • » Year la the U n i t e d S t a l e ! tf.JJ • Btoatk...
...And above all, let us not make asses of ourselves and argue by false analogies...
...We are not among those who believe n a hero mid villain theory, that the ubor movement languishes and loses its ighting edge when certain villainous raders hold back the masses...
...I t was this body that exerted pressure in support of every reactionary view and measure in this state in the post-war period of reaction...
...And the great, thrilling fact of today ia that the soul seems to have come back to reanimate the body of organized workers...
...Between the Chamber of Commerce, a holding company of capitalist interests, and the working masses there is a galf that cannot be bridged...
...The Cincinnati convention will remain historic in that there the labor movement took its stand for things that mean a forward march...
...nd there is no other way of per ma - lently purifying the nasty mess that Is Vmerican old-party polities...
...The Socialist program is not a series of individual items arbitrarily selected because it happens to occur to Socialists In convention committees that they Slight catch some votes with them,- but rather a reasoned program based upon the Socialist philosophy, which in turn is based upon economic facts...
...As the movement for a fusion ticket next year unfolds it also reveals the chasm that yawns between that movement and the Socialist Party...
...it is devoting Ha attention to the welfare of the men and women who do he work of the nation—when they have work!—and of the labor movement...
...Ami It is goon to see that • a i m p o r t a n t committee of the medical profession has so recommended...
...We did not have to enter the war...
...But every intelligent and well-informed person knows thst the problem is something else again...
...Before we begin to debate vital issues let us understand our terras...
...Socialists demand Hid fight for an honest ballot not only a protect their own interests but as • natter of profound principle...
...Every year the newly-hatched doctors take the noble Hippocratic Oath in which they pledge themselves to uphold the highest ideals...
...Healing and prevention of illness ia, in sctual practice, reduced to the vending of wsres snd the doctor is all too often compelled sgsinst his own sensibilities to become a merchant and to indulge in merchant«' devices te get snd keep trade...
...l i e Witchery Of Words POSSIBLY the greatest single cause 1 of misunderstanding among people i misunderstanding of the meaning of rords...
...taken their place at their side...
...Hesling and keeping the people's health s h o u l d be a function of the community...
...If t h" European nations were merely a pal who needed a couple of bucks for lunch until Saturday that would be one thin?, and the debt collection would be as easy a matter as getting the money hack when the pay envelopes are passed around...
...That its political views are of the same character is also obvious...
...It is no longer devoting the major portion of its conventions to friendly exchange of compliments with representatives of the American Legion, various chambers of commerce and ither organizations—it is getting exsited about things that count...
...The fact that is significant is that a predominantly conservative body of men, warned again and again to avoid a philosophy that leads inevitably to those two vital demands, has accepted them as their own...
...Who said Socialism has failed snd is a dead Issue...
...When the American labor movement takes such a stand it means that: 1. The leaders AND rank ami Ills realize that society as a whole is responsible for the welfare and the very lives of the human beings who constitute society, and 2. That capitalist production has become so efficient that unless production is rigorously limited by a shortening of the working week—BY GIVING THE WORKERS A SHARE OF THE FRUITS OF THAT PRODUCTIVITY IN THE *FORM OF INCREASED LEISURE—the workers will be drowned in their own abundance...
...This movement is likely to sttract practically all the reformers and their following...
...Manuscript...
...The impact of economic conditions has roused the masses of the labor movement, has stirred them to aggressive action...
...And there is no money to pay back...
...War By William Allen Ward War is A vulture who Sits on a dead tree In the morass of hate Feeding on the dead belles / Of fools...
...A steady increase in the Socialist strength in the country Karl Marx called "the paradise of Capitalism" is recorded as a result of the elections last Sunday...
...and in Spain the Socialists are sitting on the top of the heap, steering the Republic in the right direction...
...And there is a danger in false analogies...
...but it moves...
...but that was because a fighting spirit was lacking In Its membership...
Vol. 14 • December 1932 • No. 23
