Veteran Campaigner Tells How Socialism Can Progress in South
Sayera, James Demon
By James Demon Sayera Veteran Campaigner Tells How Socialism Can Progress in South Southern Socialist Telia of Hia Experiences as Propagandist in Dixie—Show Workers What It Would Mean to...
...If pottible, he should alto have himtelf made Mayor of the City at well...
...Equal Pay for Negro In five different cities I brought up the s a m e argument and this is the hopeful item I mentioned above: In every place there was unanimous and wholehearted agree* merit with me and determined expressions of sentiment looking toward equal pay for the Negro worker in the future...
...Which makes him no more qualified in Marxism than in Einstein's theory of relativity," Bill answered...
...In speaking to a group of the $2.10 a day "superior white worke r s " 1 pointed out that in New York there was no thought of discrimination and that both white and colored workers got more than twice the Florida $2.10 rate...
...All that a homeless man needs to get the tame eontiderate treatment accorded the Mayor it the company of a reginyent of reporter...
...Such is seldom true anywhere in the South...
...There la no greater proportion of nit wlttlsm among his kind than elsewhere...
...it can be presented in the purple silk of highly intellectual social philosophy to the academic and win (and it is winning) his adherence...
...I t does seem strange that they appear all at once," said Joe...
...In fact, it is sometimes actually dangerous...
...that the milder climate and cheaper living conditions accounted for but a fractior of this difference...
...i t will bring him ever increasing benefits of labor-saving machinery to free him and his children from backbreaking toil...
...Let an organizer go into town or country district, make up a likely list of fifty or i hundred Workers, give them appropriate reading matter in leaflets, pamphlets and papers...
...The words of Broun have greater significance in relation to the spread of Socialist evangelism in the Southern 'Bible belt" than to any other section...
...Then go back along the route with public meetings, speak, organize and take subscriptions and collections for furthering the work...
...And win him with false pretenses, you ask...
...The United Press doesn't say who the one thousand are, but my guess is that they're stenographers taking dictation from corporation presidents applying for loans...
...The revolters were independent small producers of crops mainly for their own consumption and much of their produce was exchanged by barter for things which they did not produce in their own homes...
...and a battalion of newtpaper photo graphert...
...Patient, tactful pioneering must be dune...
...Win the white Southerner toI Socialism, and the race problem will solve itself naturally...
...I'm not talking of tomorrow...
...Bill Is StilP Peeved "But those farmers hired labor, didn't they, and doesn't that show that they were petty-bourgeois...
...No, I think that Marx is turning in his grave," ssld Bill, as he bid Joe good-day...
...Why did it fail...
...A white man, or even a Northern Negro Socialist, speaking to and organizing Southern Negroes for Socialism is not only risking hia life—which could be approved if necessary—and sometimes their lives, but creates an antagonism born of suspicion among the whites which shuts the door hard and fast against winning the latter...
...Oh, that's it...
...And Jimmy arrangements I write the stotl asmuch as SsS ready written I the career, 11 hire him...
...It was only yesterday that some of them were on their knees before bourgeois idols...
...A Method of Approach If the speaker is capable of developing the similarity between Socialism and the temporal aspirations of Christianity he can always get large audiences In rural Southern communities for Sunday afternoon and evening meetings, invariably with free use of a church or school building...
...Give me a slightly different world.' The cry should be for one brand new...
...He's built that way...
...Their surplus of corn was distilled into whiskey because the liquor could be more cheaply transported than the corn, or the corn transformed into hogs...
...Bitter memories of the Reconstruction era are still too fresh for it to be otherwise...
...I'm amused but not enthusiastic," said Bill, "and without some entertainment life in this capitalist civilization would be darker than this...
...This Is Utopia, but it is the promise of Socialism...
...1 had pleasantly surprising results along this line...
...There are fads and ailments in the literary profession and this is either one or the other or a combination of both...
...In most localities, unless thus given a churchy tinge, Socialist meetings on Sunday are frowned upon and it is on Sundays that the largest rural audiences can be gathered...
...Well, the rebellion failed, didn't i t ? " "Sure," Bill replied, "but the failure is not explained by a phrase...
...As his educational and cultural level—and that of his white neighbor—advances, he will extend his franchise rights...
...It is thrilling to watch their faces as you tell the story...
...it will divide up" and all the other tripe, and still he can be induced at times to listen to the truth...
...Why not knock the " r e " off, the old-party hacks out, and have a real CONSTRUCTION Finance Corporation...
...He didn't think that such unpopularity must be dOwen D. Ya capitalist...
...Let me supplement the earlier paragraphs with some pointed suggestions for Socialist propaganda in the South...
...Joe had started to light a cigarette but paused in amazement and dropped the burning match...
...Much of it is sereamingly funny to those who have the historical perspective of Marxism...
...Do you mean to say that this turning to Marx by the literary fraternity isn't a fine thing for you Marxi s t s ? " Joe gazed at Bill with continued astonishment...
...On the contrary, even the implication left by that phrase is not supported by the facts...
...Bill Is Very Weary "Perhaps you're right, Joe," said Bill...
...Let the average man anywhere else be led to misbelieve that "Socialism will destroy the home...
...William R»« shares s 41 f Franklin D. I nard Maefaosi rope that sas I to America...
...During a recent four weeks' speaking and organizing trip in the South I relived experiences I had down there more than a dozen years ago...
...Aw, that's exaggeration," Joe responded...
...Show him that Socialism will harness his abundant rivers with hydro-electric plants, not for further exploitation of him and his children but to light his home, do bis chores and bring him cheap nitrates to grow verdant crops...
...I cash, the rata nations can *< writing srtidl publications...
...Each reaches over the shoulder of Marx to shake the hand of Stalin...
...Teach it to him as an ideal, as a natural ally of his religious credo, and all hell and high water, with the Democratic politicians thrown in, won't stop his march in the vanguard of Socialism...
...He found everything splendid...
...A heavy direct Federal tax on the whiskey placed these farmers at a disadvantage with the big distillers of Rhode Island who favored taxing their small Pennsylvania competitors into bankruptcy...
...I would be the last to question the intelligence of my fellowSoutherner...
...A wave af the hand and important history is swept into a dust-bin...
...Bill Examines a Sample "Examples are as thick as flies around a dish of honey," said Bill...
...Those who read the accounts of the Mayor's visit, couldn't help hoping that they might become homeless themselves...
...Farming was a family occupation and neighbors helped each otiier in the harvest season...
...Southern Politics But Socialism, the Co-operative Commonwealth, the Brotherhood of Man, the practical realization on earth of the teachings of Jesus Christ by the removal of the incentives for selfishness, greed and hate, transcends politics...
...In most other sections some few Socialists already exist for organizer contact and aid...
...That is a problem that must be left to evolution, just as our foref• thers had to wait for riddance of their tails...
...He is infinitely more inclined to kindly, hospitable, courteous treatment of a stranger than our hardened, sophisticated metropolitanite...
...Lecturing at the Labor Temple he considers the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania in 1794...
...A. whole swarvi.of the intelligentsia twoop down upon*us within a year and a year and a babel of voices roar Marxism...
...and now it must be presented to our unconscious proletarian, highly emotional, naturally religious Southern rural and small-town worker in another language—the language he understands best—and that will be a language of great fervor and emotionalism, a painting of a Utopian picture of paradise on earth, a fulfillment of all his dreams of Heaven that he has heard in his church sermons from earliest childhood...
...Here we have novelists, poets, essayists, dramatists, artists and free lance literary chaps suddenly discovering Marx and Marxism...
...That rebellion was crushed by the Federal Government...
...I should be more precise, but I am possessed with a feeling of insufferable weariness when a whole flock of the lit'ry boys crawl out of their cultured towers and shout Marxism...
...that the main c a u s t was because the white Southern worker had too long been a silent partner of the employers in holding down his colored fellow-workers' pay to a lower level and that this acted as a boomerang in holding the white worker down to just a little higher level, just high enough to fool him...
...that the white Southern worker always gets half or less than half what a similar wage earner gets in the North...
...It can be presented to the hard-bitten, exploited city worker in the North with the baldest, bitterest class-struggle vocabulary and win converts...
...It is easier to go the whole way In one great leap than to crawl a foot at a time...
...The intelligentsia have education and each is conspicuous in his won field...
...He may not be very erudite in some fields of knowledge, but that is the fault of hia environment and Inheritance...
...And how happily they respond to the truth...
...That realization is the beginning of the solution...
...Perhaps an ailment," said Bill, "but whether ailment or fad, it is amusing...
...If one or two had appeared on the scene after a long approach to the revolutionary movement we would be impressed...
...it will give free and complete education to his children...
...I t will bring him much more than all this, for limited space does not permit unfolding the whole canvass, even if I were the painter to do it...
...It wat agrarian, not petty-bourgeois...
...Let the pot boll gently for a few weeks while other localities are being covered in the same manner...
...I know him...
...By James Demon Sayera Veteran Campaigner Tells How Socialism Can Progress in South Southern Socialist Telia of Hia Experiences as Propagandist in Dixie—Show Workers What It Would Mean to Them, He Urges...
...The only bourgeois phase of the struggle wat represented by the capitalist distillers of New England whose business had grown fairly large...
...A whole carload of important economic facts is disposed of by the lecturer with a phrase...
...I'm wondering what will be their next fad...
...Do you wonder, Joe," Bill continued, "that I get weary of these gentlemen who have suddenly discovered Marxism...
...Naturally, I am not talking about theological dogma, but I mean the revival of that fine word 'brotherhood', which has come to be sneered at as namby-pamby and feebly Utopian...
...The Southerner Let us go to our Southern fellowworkers of town and country, remembering his usual religious and emotional background...
...You're a cross-word puzzle, Bill...
...Better still, put them on for a five or ten weeks' subscription to a good Socialist paper...
...Let me finish with Heywood Broun's last paragraph of the fine column quoted from above: "There is no point in saying any more...
...In Jacksonville (and very similar situations exist elsewhere) on the Community Chest "made work" white workers are pa'd $2.10 a day, Negroes $1.40...
...One hopeful item of better interracial sentiment among the workers came to my attention in Florida...
...it will give him all the beauty and comfort of a perfect home and absolute security in its continued possession, with leisure and capacity fully to enjoy it all...
...Then they're not turning to Marx," said Joe...
...The Negro is slowly winning back Jua, franchise...
...We associate pettybourgeois with the possessors of small capital and the Whiskey Rebellion was a revolt of small farmers...
...So our pseudoMarxist transformed a rebellion of agrarian self-producers Into a small capitalist revolt...
...Not a bit of It...
...I have been twenty years acquiring Marxism and I am still pursuing the quest and then a large squad of literary guys sweep out of their academic cloisters and get away with such historical twaddle...
...He Is naturally endowed with keen wit snd Intellectual <•* pacify that needs but little cultlvation for the bearing of rich fruit...
...U k Y W O O D BROUN, in a recent column, said among other good things, ". . . But L say in sincerity and after watching a lot of politics that important economic changes will come in America just as soon as they are presented with a religious fervor...
...Well, that's a flip answer, I'll say," Joe shot back...
...You think that it is just a fad," Joe r e sponded...
...There are a few important facts not explained by a phrase...
...it will reverse the present paradoxical system under which he receives less for a bumper n o p than for a small one...
...And Jack (Jack of-All Kvils) Garner is at work on a formula for a liquid that will taste like beer to an Eastern Democrat and like a mint-Julep to a Southern dry Congressman...
...it will establish free love...
...Otherwit*,' an autolitotfK * The lamenai session of Osjl cap it In tell task of pro*" for the JobtaSi CongreW % beer-for-rtrS" for-rsrenos II It posslWs • do lomethlafi...
...it wiH build him good roads everywhere needed...
...They're not turning to Marx but turning flips like an acrobat in the big tent," Bill replied with a gesture of weariness...
...But once your rock-ribbed Southerner, just one generation removed from the hatreds and terrors of t h e Reconstruction period, hears that Socialism menus forced mingling and intermarriage with the Negro, and that it would suppress all religions ("Ain't they doing it in Russia, and ain't Russia Socialist...
...Literary Pseudo-Marxism Lure* Joe, But Bill Analyses Sample And Concludes It Is *foor Stutt By Autolycus " W H E N I read some of the liberal magazines and literary ** reviews 1 am wondering why you Marxists are not enthusiastic over the progress being made by Marxism among our literary men," said Joe a s he and Bill met in the cigar store...
...ret men who am their work mi are mt yayi told only aal/i share work vA wealth with tk And Cslvisi whose silence i hit that he siq enough to m manding aneth road workers { holders...
...Our pseudo-Marxist answers, because it was petty-bourgeois...
...I mean today, and it will belong to us all as soon as we take on fervor...
...Calvin's uU out in direct pleasure that i Got'emor I Roosevelt's I New EngUu*\should com ( standards tt from cheap It Meanwhile, tk best to lower I competition jli China and M • Things our bearable until ( cover that thi labor to be es where in this I sible worlds...
...Just like one of the unemployed, Mayor McKee of New York went to the Municipal Lodging House to see how the homeless were being treated...
...I am aware that our responsible party leaders recognize that the spread of Socialism in the South presents a special problem which cannot be solved by methods used elsewhere...
...I was asked), there is little chance, indeed, of reasoning with him...
...The superintendent of the lodging house told the Mayor, that conditions sre improving...
...Lay off of that TNT mine in t he South for the present I mean the race question...
...Here is a pseudo-Marxist who has advanced almost to the front ranks...
...But Herbert Grass - Grower Hoover it ttill trying to figure out why people who were dumb enough to vote for Roosevelt weren't dumb enough to vote for him...
...Let't not preach Socialism to the Southerner at jutt another brand of politict, Politics to him is synonymous with the Democratic Party and the latter is the Rock of Gibraltar...
...While Charley (Buried-at-AnotherGuy's-Funeral) Curtis is wondering whether an ex-vicepresident can sleep as well as a vice-president...
...Tust an Ordiq FRANKLIN D. (Lcsser-of-Two* Evils) ROOSEVELT, who called himself "just an ordinary citizen" when a group of "hunger marche r s " called on him, is shewing an extraordinary interest in providing jobs for Democratic ward-heelers...
...That it the normal process of accepting Marxism but here *m have an-Mbmrmal titmtuin...
...The Socialist philosophy Is a wonderful mosaic in its various avenues of possible presentation, though fundamentals remain the same...
...On the contrary, there was almost no labor hired by farmers in the revolting region," Bill replied...
...I found Socialism already known and supported only in more or less industrialized cities, or in places with a goodly number of workers from the North of Europe—and these are mighty few...
...How do you explain i t ? " "We are too close to it yet to give any final answer," Bill replied, "but that it is pseudo-Marxism is evident the moment we probe it...
...During the recent cold spell there were empty beds In the lodging house, he told tb« Mayor as proof pf Improving conditions...
...And the United Press reports that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which was to have knocked the depression out of the ring, has put only one thousand men to work thus far...
...In all but the few largest cities there is complete ignorance of Socialism, or the worst sort of misconceptions about it...
...Joe inquired...
...Propagate Socialism among the educated Negroes of the South, yes, but quietly, through the medium of native Southern Negroes...
...Well, become more specific," said Joe with a trace of Impatience...
...Misconceptions I t is these misconceptions of Socialism among the average natives of the South that swell the problem to extra-special size...
...Well," the reader may ask,' "what has that to do with Socialism in the Southern field...
Vol. 14 • December 1932 • No. 23
