A Fairy-Tale View of History
By James Oneal A Fairy-Tale View of History Calverton Makes Facts Over to Suit His Theories, end There Y'are—The Lit'ry Marxists Have the Root for a While. —Everything B.Cli "Petty...
...It recalls the two years following the split in the Socialist Party in 1919 when some fifteen or twenty Bolshevik groups, each having one or more Marxian commanders, appeared on the scene...
...Marxian" interpretations Now for some "Marxian" interpretations...
...By V. t, Calverton, New York: Senbnen...
...He accepted them after the end of the War of 1812, a decade before he died...
...many planters received generous loans from northern bankers and quite a number of northern members of Congress, editors, capitalists and professional men were members of families whose relatives owned plantations and slaves...
...CENSORSHIP FOILED BERLIN.—When the von Papen regime, controlling Germany's radio programs, refused Paul Lobe of the Reichstag, Socialist expresident of the Reichstag, the right to address workers on the anniversary of the Revolution of 1919, the Dutch Workers' Radio Club foiled the censorship by inviting him to give his talk via Hilverstrum, their station, which can be heard in Germany...
...Foster had called Calverton a "social fascist" and through five pages we observe Calverton almost grovelling before Foster in an effort to placate him...
...Our first job is to exert all pressure possible to force an adequate federal relief and public works program...
...Now w<r haw the literary Marxians, an important section unhid ins...
...He writes: "Our socalled proletarian movements prior to the World War were essentially petty bourgeois in psychology and programme...
...Over and over again Calverton uses the phrase and applies it not only to working class movements bnt to the most diverse of economic groups and classes...
...What was the composition of that class...
...Did it include the merchant masters of New England, the owners of shipping capital, the spermaceti can dlers, the rich fur traders, the successful land speculators ? Did it include all of them or part of them and, if so, what groups...
...A new united party must be in the lists to capture congressional districts in 1988 and to fight for the presidency in 1986...
...The first Calverton has the frontier usurping "political control from the Atlantic seaboard" in the Civil War and the second Calverton sees the "triumph of northern capitalism in the Civil War...
...The league is headed by Dr...
...Beading these repetitions is like hearing the same phonograph record night after night tiil one feels like heaving a brick...
...The John Day PampkletM...
...New York it still incomplete, and other states have not yet reported their official canvass...
...The vote for Foster In the entire state was 266...
...So the 16,276 votes were caRt by embattled farmers and workers, eh...
...By V. F. Calverton...
...NATIONAL CONFERENCE IS CALLED BY L.I.P.A A NATIONAL joint conference to consider a 'united new party" aiming to capture congressional districts in 1984 and present a united front in the 1036 presidential campaign, will be held early in 1933, according to an announcement by Howard Y. Williams, national director of the League for Independent Political Action, in a survey of the present third party political situation...
...The author is even not averse to that Bolshevik "ethic" of distorting history either through ignorance or because he thinks that it is easier to distort than it is to investigate...
...In this way all of American labor and revolutionary history down to the coming of the Communists is swept into oblivion like a conjuror making rabbits disappear—and the literary Bolsheviks have acclaimed the book as their own...
...It was because of this attitude by Garrison and some other leading Abolitionists that many workers in the North were lukewarm regarding the abolition movement A little more knowledge of the life of wealthy backers of the movement like Arthur Tappan, merchant prince of New York, and the stupid role played by the Garrison wing in relation to political action, would have saved Calverton from some erroneous impressions...
...to shift taxes from the backs of small consumers ; and to fight for a sane adjustment of war debts and armaments...
...Petty Bourgeois" Yes, if we accept Calverton's statement, all were "petty bourgeois" demands- but we wonder why the bourgeoisie itself fought all these demands and struggles...
...On the contrary, the Socialist Labor I'arty in 1896 and the Socialist Party in 1900 had to contend with a barrage of criticism from voters who favored Bryan's "down with the trusts" and who opposed the two Socialist parties because they ridiculed that demand...
...Literary Bolsheviks Intelligent people know that every human being outside of the Communist Party is placed in the same sack by the party Bolsheviks and that it is useless to argue the point...
...Not only was there the strong tie of intermarriage of ruling families of the two regions...
...Even Parsons, Fischer, Spies, Engel and their colleagues go into the discard as "petty bourgeois" by Calverton's sweeping assertions...
...Some disputes were amusing There was the notable incident in the State of Washington where a Marxian command collected carrots for strikers...
...Millions changed the political habits of a lifetime...
...They are entitled to it...
...Calverton on page 29 'forgets Calverton on page 329...
...He denounced workers who "inflame the minds of our working classes against the more opulent and to persuade men that they are contemned and oppressed by a wealthy aristocracy...
...It has been received by the literary Communists with acclaim despite its glaring defects...
...About the time we received this volume the summer number of Calverton's "Modern Quarterly" was received...
...The facts are that Jefferson won the wealthy planters from their allegiance to the Federalists and the sons of many of the planter gentry became leaders of the Jeffersonian democracy in the South...
...One of the principal lines of attack upon the Socialist Party is the allegation that it is a votecatching organization, caring more for votes than principle (as witness comments upon the discrepancy between the vote for Morris Hillquit, Norman Thomas and Louis Waldman in New York A recent issue carries the headline, "16,276 votes for Ariz...
...Now everything is quite clear...
...The election of Roosevelt means not a rebirth of the Democratic Party, but a desperate attempt to secure an immediate new deal by any means...
...Even Marx and Engels are thus unwittingly put into the same petty bourgeois sack because they also urged workers to organize precisely for such purposes...
...Communist," which is hot news, if true...
...Jefferson is paraded as a man who won the "petty bourgeois groups in the agricultural regions of the South and West" and who "remained adamant to the end" against manufacturers...
...Of the younger critics Calverton has been the most promising and wo feel in relation to him like one who has seen an intimate friend diverted from the prospect of some notable achievement by indulging in a narcotic that paralyzes the will...
...Were the fearful railroad strikes of 1877, the middle 'eighties, and the A. R. U. strike with Debs leading it all "petty bourgeois...
...Obviously,' the conservatives within the Democratic Party will not permit a thoroughgoing program...
...Women "Patriot...
...The Wisconsin vote shows an increase of 1,173 over the unofficial vote reported last week...
...This will be a jointly organized conference present in 1988...
...New England textile exploiters received the cheap slave cotton of the South, some northern capitalists and corporations invested in southern plantations, banks and railroads...
...259 Incomplete total...
...In contained an open letter to William Z. Foster, Communist candidate for President...
...Everything B.Cli "Petty Bourgeois...
...The convention proceedings and campaign This coal miner has quit his job in the mines to force higher pay and is shown digging at the bottom of a relief pot for the last bite...
...Again, we are told that previous to the Civil War the "only unifying bond" between North and South was the language...
...Calverton- has some acquaintance with social, economic and literary history, enough to write an interesting book...
...Some are interestingly suggestive, but the volume as a whole is marred by many rash assertions and interpretations...
...All "petty bourgeois" says Calverton...
...We expected much from the author a few years ago...
...Seme Errors Garrison was a fanatic and was opposed to organization of ths working class in the North as were a number of his influential associates...
...Here is retrogression, although the book has a certain merit...
...The movement has produced The Book, the first one listed above...
...NOW in ALL CLEAR There is a Communist Party daily in New York, and like all Communist Party organs its chief stock in trade is denunciation of the crimes, misdemeanors and derelictions of the Socialist Party, whether committed or not (usually not...
...of, New England...
...Indiana polled 21,388 instead of the 19,344 reported last week...
...The book before us also tries to satisfy the party Bolsheviks as well as the parlor and literary Bolsheviks...
...The official Connecticut vote was 22 higher than the unofficial vote shown last week...
...The ramparts of the old parties cracked in the election," says the survey...
...Einstein is pictured as more dangerous even than Stalin because his theory of relativity has been revised so often as to "promote confusion and disorder, doubt and disbelief," and thus cause the "ignorant public" to feel that "all sorts of scientific truths and human beliefs were to be upset," as the Patriot quotes an English critic...
...the Sex Boys...
...Official returns, as they dribble in from one state after another, so far have added 30,390 votes to the total reported last week...
...The protest charges that the great scientist has promoted confusion "to shatter the Church as well as the 1 State—to leave, if possible, even the laws of nature in confusion and disorder...
...Weighing the results of that election, the statement sees hope for progressive legislation in Congress in the defeat of old guard leaders and declares that the polling of over a million votes by minor parties and the "splendid educational campaign of Norman Thomas" will have its effect upon the national legislature...
...30,390 Correction...
...When workers organized into unions in the nineteenth century "it was under the banner of petty bourgeois demands and not proletarian ones that they fought...
...Would Bar Einstein's Theory Too WASHINGTON.—Secretary of State Stimson has received from the super-patriotic "Woman Patriot Corporation," headed by Mary Kilbreth, a 16-page argument against the admission of Albert Einstein to this country— on the ground that he is both an anarchist and a Communist...
...The official vote in Wyoming was 2,829, *62 more than shown in last week's report...
...The vote thus far known (with Texas still unreported and with many states still incomplete) is as follows: v ' • -sficported last week...
...Calverton comes across a period in colonial history that puzzles him so he gives us this obscure statement: "In the North, the weslthy bourgeoisie superseded the petty bourgeoisie before the middle of the eighteenth century," a sweeping assertion into which anything can be read...
...Did the whole constitute a solid group with no class entagonisms and can all be classified as part of a "bourgeoisie...
...Hunt Hunting" His assertion regarding the Socialist Party's position in relation to the trusts is simply a plain falsehood...
...Therefore, our second job is to convene a national congress in 1983 of all groups favoring a united party...
...If the underlying forces, trends and backgrounds are so often misunderstood, distorted or ignored we may Wf sure that C&iVeYton- has not pro-*sented a Marxian interpretation of the evolution of American culture that is reliable...
...The Liberation of American Literature...
...That the war was a progressive one, we agree, but when Calverton goes on to say that the "Abolitionist movement represented one of the most significant progressive forces in the pre Civil War era" and lauds Gar* rison, an informed historian la likely to tell him that he has fallen Into a "petty bourgeois" snare...
...And what of the economic organizations of the working class...
...John Dewey and supported the Socialist national candidates in the recent election...
...874,331 The latest report from Pennsylvania—not yet complete and official—shows 90,283 for the Thomas and Maurer ticket, as compared with 64,094 reported last week...
...There were quite a number of bonds that kept the aristocratic social order of planter magnates and the social order of northern capitalists, bankers, and politicians sheltered under the same government...
...The editor declared that such work was the most "petty bourgeois" that had ever come to his attention...
...844,200 Additional votes reported...
...Nor is it true (Continued on Page Sixteen) A Fairy-Tale of History (Ceatieaed fross Page Four) that Jefferson opposed manufacturers to the end of his life...
...The story goes on to say that the vote was cast for a candidate for Tax Commissioner, in which office the Class Struggle is undoubtedly waged...
...The main theme of the book, so far as it considers the labor movement and labor struggles, is that everything that preceded modern Communism was "petty bourgeois...
...A correction of the New Jersey vote deducts 259 votes from the 43,257 reported last week...
...Passing to other phases of the book, it is easy to find other misinterpretations...
...In "The Newer Spirit," published seven years ago, he presented a study that is in marked contrast with the present one...
...With one wave of the hand Calverton sweeps aside the I. W. W., the Socialist Labor Party, the Socialist Party, and men like Debs and Hanford, DeLeon and Trautmann, and the hundreds of "Wobblies" who rotted in prison cells...
...How destroying of the revolutionary spirit," he thundered...
...A broadcast marking the anniversary has been customary...
...He has a Communist "thesis" to read into the past and if it comes into conflict with facts, so much the worse for the facts...
...The Frontier What is to be said of the statement that with the election of Lincoln the frontier "had usurped political control from the Atlantic seaboard...
...to their own local leaders whom they knew and watched at close range...
...The leader reported this work to a Bolshevik organ in Cleveland which provoked a learned editorial...
...The total vote will therefore in all probability reach 900,000, as compared to 267,420 in 1928...
...for Hex-olution...
...The pre-war Socialist Party "won a considerable part of its support on the basis of such a petty bourgeois slogan as 'down with the trusts...
...books of the party are all accessible and nothing in them justifies such a statement...
...Was it bourgeoia for these organisations to fight for the suffrage, to struggle against the old common law doctrine of conspiracy which sent them to jail when they struck, to fight the old system of imprisonment for debt, to resist and finally aboliah the laws that required them to give so many free days or weeks to drill in the militia, to struggle against the 12hour and then the 10-hour dsy, to force the exploiters to clean np their sweat shop hens where workers contracted tuberculosis, to take their children out of the hands of the exploiters sad give them an education, to oppose their bare bisaats to the gunmen of the explotters, to endure the horrors of western "bull pens," to face the spies and Plnkertons st Homestead, in Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, and West Virginia, to have their leaders illegally arrested, their publications and halls destroyed and their organizations broken up...
...one hundred league branches, labor groups, farmers, unemployed, professional groups, women's organisations, insurgents who are breaking with the old parties, third party groups, etc...
...Some of his interpretations are sound...
...fJ.75...
...First, to the merit of the book...
...Vote May Reach 900,000 TTHE Thomas-Maurer vote is still climbing...
...He is cutting wood to help earn that relief, along with other miners...
...25 cents, AN amusing trend among the intelligentsia the past year is the sudden emergence of '¦Marxism," Kvery literary and art front has its Marxian generals...
...The-vote for state candidates was much higher...
...He is too obsessed with his Communist thesis —that all that preceded the Communist movement and the Communist literati was "petty bourgeois" —to write a reliable work...
...Stimson is amused, since the same group suggested, when he admitted Count Karolyi to the United States, that rulers had been assassinated in Hungary and Mexico when Karolyi was in those countries/and "but two lives stand between Henry Stimson and tha presidency of the United States...
...It lacks that intimate knowledge of American economic history that is essential to a competent work, and the author has endeavored to satisfy the Communist Party...
...The fact," says the story, "that he ran so far ahead of the ticket shows that the workers and farmers here are involved in their local struggle and . .. many rallied...
...Even the freelance publications of a Socialist character did not take the position Calverton ascribes to the party...
...He presents no evidence and there is none...
...However, Calverton's interpretation is required by his thesis which requires him to clear the way for the arrival of the saints—the Communists...
...Page after page carries a wearisome repetition of the phrase and it is repeated nine times on page 470...
...On the contrary, the election signalized the recession of the frontier as a power in politics, which began with the election of Jackson in 1828, and the beginning of the unmolested rule of the capitalists «f the North, «*j»eially...
...We have not exhausted the misstatements of fact, misinterpretations of history, and questionable statements to be found in this book, but we have considered enough to show that the Communist intelligentsia have not yet produced The Book...
Vol. 14 • December 1932 • No. 24
