Gypping Uncle Sam
Helm, William P.
BOOKS IN BRIEF Gypping Uncle Sam M uthittytmt SurindU Sheet. By WiUiam P. Helm. New York; Albert and Charles Bonx, S2.50. PRECTED on our complex Industrial system of exploitation is a...
...This notion of sound knowledge ss the basis of sound organisation seems to be universal...
...He wanted to know about opinions...
...Why, out of their slender bank accounts, are they sending money for lessons ? * He was allowed to go through that pile of letters—after the checks had been carefully removed...
...But the reporter was not interested in finances...
...There is as much reason, nay more, that they be under white domination than black...
...But it does give us news of a powerful element, a trend that is probably a prevailing trend...
...15th printed an excerpt from an article of mine on the Communist slogan of "Self-determination of tho Black Belt...
...Does his liver function badly...
...Most of the branches are new, started from April to September of this year...
...It was from California and Connecticut and all the states in between...
...Every justification of Christianity, every bulwark of religious faith, is dispassionately examined...
...Legislation in response to national needs will be effective only if every, saeh act conforms-to a complete philosophy cf the people's purposes and destiny...
...The above letter should have appeared two weeks ago but was mislaid.—Editor...
...Direct quotation from the records presents many intimate and amusing details and among the boys enjoying the variety of nourishment provided by Uncle Sam are "progressives" in the two houses...
...Perhaps the working class got lost out of the sentence on the way aoross the conti- ent...
...NEW LEADER FORUM THR BLACK BELT By Ernest Doerfler The New Leader of Nov...
...The entire stand of the Communist Party on the matter of the "Black Belt" illustrates well (to correct The New Leader) the Shakespearian apothegm that "all impediments to fancy's course are motives of more fancy...
...every argument against the abandonment of belief judiciously weighed...
...Perhaps this morning's mail does not give us a cross-section of the mind of American Socialism...
...Their "rugged individualism" appears to thrive on this treatment and some of them must enjoy painting the horrors of a "dole" paid to the starving while Uncle Sam pays the lunch and bait bills of these statesmen...
...For ens man writes from Wast Virginia: "The members of oar class are all old-timers...
...There is many a human interest story in these letters...
...A variety of perquisites are his and among the most enjoyable that Uncle pays for Is the roving vacation as a member of a commission...
...He dreams of increased efficiency: "I have hopes of converting even more after I have taken your course...
...Ours is s distinctive government with a unique history and background, consciously dedicated to specific ideals of liberty and to a faith in the Inevitable sanctity of the individual human spirit...
...It is really too much for even Communists to expect that when a plebiscite is taken U determine the farthest boundaries of the Negro Free State that only those counties designated by Communists (412 Is number) will be permitted to vote so that the expected Negro majority may be returned...
...Checks and postal money orders peeked out from the edges of the letters, lending a pleasant variety of color to the array...
...Another new element is the willingness of the outside world to listen...
...For the Communists it is necessarxto include in the "Black Belt" counties in which (he Negro is not in the majority because they must conjure up a "continuous area...
...Hail...
...As printed with excisions by the editor, however, the article lacked, or so H seemed to the author at least, both point and coherence...
...As conceived by the Communists the "Black Belt" consists of 397 (really 412) counties in 11 Southern states forming a continuous area in which the Negroes are over 60 per cent of the total population...
...The largest class formed thus far is In Wilmington, Del., where the local was organized at the and of the campaign...
...Yet new the Communists stoop to Jtbe use of the same reprehensible political artifice of gerrymandering in order to carve out a continuous area on which to erect a separate Negro Republic...
...From a Pennsylvania mining town a friend writes: "I have been a Socialist for thirty years, and people were never so ready to listen as now...
...Teachers, attorneys, an insurance commissioner and other public men are talking it...
...Since an extended attack has been made in the Communist press upon the obscure article I should like to make my meaning clear...
...The main concern of the piece in the original was to expose the dubious mathematical computation resorted to by the Communists in order to eke out for themselves a "continuous Black Belt" with a Negro majority...
...Washington K. Plunkett would call "honest graft...
...In the maintenance of this balance the Federal Government can permit of no privilege to any person or groups...
...PRO AND CON By Johanna Rjawsky It is deplorable that The New Lender should advertise for the Communists...
...As for ads, our concern is not money...
...Without the 211 counties which are 35-60 per cent Negro the "Black Belt" would be a disconnected, shreddy affair...
...A comrade writes: "I feel that wo seed yesr coarse, as we have gained many new members from the hard-working classes who do not even know the essentials, and have been brought into the Party by soap-box oratory...
...Those who denounce us in the lowest way find means of advertising in a Socialist paper...
...PRECTED on our complex Industrial system of exploitation is a huge bureaucracy at Washington which has some of the aspects of the Tammany bureaucracy in New York City and this book by a newspaper man throws a searchlight upon it The light is focused mainly upon the two houses of Congress, but one shift of its rays also illuminates the White House...
...BOOKS IN BRIEF Gypping Uncle Sam M uthittytmt SurindU Sheet...
...The ill-considered and over-reaching desire of the Communists to make a special appeal to a special group smacks very much of what in BolRhevik parlance might be called "black chauv'nism...
...The first implies that by running the ad we will accept money from any source and the second wants to know what is the official Socialist position oa the hunger march...
...The old man barbers and bathes, tonics and perfumes them and singes and cuts the statesmen's hair...
...But we have the biggest job we ever had...
...The Communists justify their ass of the county as the starting point of self-determination (Browder has questioned the divine origS of state boundaries) on the ground that the white plutocracy originally so ger...
...Now reprinted in the Thinkers Library, the book has lost none of its power or appeal...
...I have pointed out, however, that in enly 191 counties are the Negroes absolute majorities, whereas in 211 counties the Negroes form minorities of between 35 and 60 per cent of the populations...
...Hats off and repeat: It seems to me appropriate upon this occasion to make certain general observations upon the principles which must dominate the solution of problems now pressing upon the Nation...
...So we want to go over the ground again and be sure that we have everything straight...
...rymandered the black population in the counties as to render the NeSroes politically impotent...
...We have builded a system of individualism peculiarly our own which must not be forgotten in any governmental acts, for from it have grown greater accomplishments than those of any other nation...
...I am referring to the ad in the last issue, for the Friends of the Soviet Union...
...A commission to investigate the rainfall of Alaska or the fauna of Florida and the boys are off for a good time...
...By Jacob Draehler Despite the fact that the hunger march is a Communist activity, it may be fairly included under news of interest to workers...
...A preacher writes that his congregation consists of farmers and i ilroad men...
...But then, we must rememl er the ulterior need of the Communists for a "cobtinuous area" on which a Neate "nation" which exists only wittta their heads can determine itself...
...He may tak« crosscountry airplane flights, or fish where dancing waters trill at the base of snow-capped moantains, or laze away the hours in picnic lunches in the Far West...
...In brief, it shows in some detail what the late Hon...
...And he adds: "We sorely need members who are well achooled in Socialism and in Socialist strategy...
...I would emphasize again that social and economic solutions, as such will not avail to satisfy the aspirations of the people unless they conform with the traditions of our race, deeply grooved in their sentiments through a century and a half of struggle for ideals of life that are rooted in religion and fed from purely spiritual springs...
...When the populations of all 41 counties are taken together the Negro is found to form 62.4 per cent of the total...
...It all depends upon developments...
...There is none, no more than on any other Communist demonstration...
...W'hrit are tho comrades on the job doing and thinking...
...but the guiding spirit in human affairs should be, and one day will be, a scientific humanitarianism working on rational principles for the peace and happiness of all mankind...
...Looking for answers a reprc-< sentative of The New Leader found the staff of the Rand School Correspondence Courses sitting at his desk before a pile of mail...
...But the chief reason why Socialists are getting behind the correspondence course Is their realisation of the fact that our new members are recruits in an army that is already in action...
...His first impression was one of enthusiasm, of a sense of responsibility in the face of a great opportunity...
...To balance this message another sends word from Texas: "I have been a member of the Socialist Party for thirty-five years and I verily believe that there is less intelligence today than there was when first I alligned myself with militant Socialism...
...Brooklyn, N. Y. The above two letters are examples of two views that we always have to contend with and it is impossible to satisfy both...
...THE BRAY off THE WEEK Fed by Pure Spiritual Springs and Sustained By Rugged Ideals of Herbert, Why Think of Things of the Flesh...
...So he wants to take the correspondence course and start a Party local...
...The Churches and Modern Thought" will prove invaluable to anyone who has ever argued, or thought seriously, about religion...
...The Gang's All Here...
...What I find it difficult to understand Is why, in a South still admittedly ridden with the most virulent race hatred, the white workers should be expected peacably to concede a point to Com-1 munist computation and submit to Negro rule in 211 counties in which they form absolute majorities...
...The old locals and branches report so many new members that the old ones, in many cases, feci that their whole situation is changed...
...he says, "and many of the railroad men have not worked since the shops closed two years ago...
...Also, the public trea nry will pay his hotel bills, tip the bellboys who leap to obey him, press hu pants and cross the palm of his valet not with silver, but with crisp currency...
...No wonder they are enthusiastic...
...The public treasury will pay his carfare, buy his bait, snd furnish his lunch...
...Education in Essentials Demanded Everywhere WHO are these new members of the Socialist Party ? What are their ideas of Socialism...
...The old mileage graft of the statesmen is retold, but the most amusing of the chapters are two, one relating the story of "A $200 a-bay Fishing Trip" and the other bearing the captain of "Hail...
...A good case could be made for the inclusion of these counties to the "White Belt" instead of their arbitrary annexation to the "Black Belt...
...The assistant organizer of Buffalo, N. V , is hustling to organize a class because "the work of organisation usually declines for want of leaders and a program...
...Comrades write that their vote in state, county or town has been doubled, tripled, and so on, up to one man who said it b.d been multiplied by ten...
...Has it come to a stage when we accept money from any source...
...J. O. Reason and Religion By Joseph T. Shipley When Vivian Phelps* "The Churches and Modern Thought" appeared in 1906, it was at once evident that the agnostic work of Tom Paine had been brought up to date, that the standard book, in the rational approach to religion, had appeared...
...They are fighting before they know what they are fighting for or how to carry on the campaign...
...Many of them are alarmed at middle-class tendencies...
...Furthermore, the continued existence and adequate functioning of our government in preservation of ordered liberty and stimulation of progress depends upon the maintenance of .State, local, institutional and individual sense of responsibility...
...We also have some young bourgeois from the college...
...I think it would be helpful if you would state editorially the official Socialist position on the hunger march...
...Less than two-thirds of all the Negroes in the 11 Southern states concerned live within the artificial bounds of the "Black Belt" Were more included the Negro weald not maintain his majority...
...To quote the author: On vacation, he may hie himself to the mountains in summer and the Sunny South in winter, likewise at public expense...
...The legroes were se segregated as to enable the white ruling class to dominate in states where a solid black vote might have prevailed ovei a split white vote...
...A boy in St Paul, Minn., worked during the campaign to convert his friends to Socialism...
...Yet I hsve seen nothing about in The New Leader...
...This is so because the Negro majorities are so large in the 191 counties that they more than offset the minorities they form in the 211 counties...
...What will they do with the old party ? All sorts of people are asking these questions...
...f\UR Lord Hoover, in hie mea" aage to the Imperial Diet on Tuesday, tell* our noble freemen how happy our rugged philosophy makes all who observe its tenets...
...It is difficult to see how the introduction of the extraneous question of artificial boundaries would contribute to the solidarity of Negro and white workers or mitigate the race oppression of the black people...
...Hence the "revolutionary reckoning...
...Here are statesmen committed to the sacred doctrines of American "individalism" and like a flock of urchina they are fondled by a fatherly Uncle Sam...
...We gave no report on the Communist demonstration in Madison Square Garden...
...This book is no passionate diatribe of a disgruntled atheist, but—long known t the student and now available to all —a well written and comprehensive study of this vital question, by an earnest as intelligent spirit, who concludes: "By all means let those who can, continue to cherish the 'larger hope'—why should they not, while all is unknown?—and let the metaphysicians continue to translate their aspirations into philosophical language...
...We may comment on the hunger march...
...New members and old are eager to work and eager to know how to work along fundamental lines...
...New York City...
...Some of the middle-class comrades feel a bit alarmed and uncertain about themselves and are anxious to get on a sure footing in the movement And the desire for sound Socialist teaching is tied up with the desire among new and old comrades for a movement based on working-class power...
...On the social and economic Bides, the background of our American system and the motivitation of progress is essentially that we shout 1 allow free play of social and economic forces as far as will not limit equality of opportunity and as will at the same time stimulate the initiative and enterprise of our people...
...I dont know which crowd knows less about Socialism...
...Many of the farmers have lost their farms...
...We have turned down advertising that would increase our Income but in the case of the ad objected to it lies in a twilight zone not easily defined and we accepted it...
...Will you please explain on what grounds you have ignored it in your columns...
...The Correspondence Course Department, 7 East 16th Street, New York City, is kept busy keeping up with this work of extending correspondence classes...
...From California comes the word: "Socialism is in the air...
Vol. 14 • December 1932 • No. 24
