TIMELY TOPICS
THOMAS, NORMAN
By Norman Thomas TIHELy TOPICS Every week Norman Thomas writes in his pungent style his own comments upon the salient events of the moment. What U Technocracy? 11711 AT should Socialists think...
...There is a large and important element in every community which, except in a few places, our party has not successfully reached...
...The union and the party, she thinks, are the enemies of her home—not of the home in the abstract, but of her particular home, which Is the only isle of safety slie knows...
...What we all knew in a general way they have made specific and vivid by telling us just how many electric light bulbs a machine can turn out, how rayon can be made without human hands, etc., etc...
...This also has been done before not only by Socialist but by Lawrence Dennis in his brilliant book, "Is Capitalism Doomed...
...The American farmers and workers were loaded up with non-productive debts under pressure of heavy propaganda during and after the war...
...Marx settled this question for himself when he was still a very young man...
...She grudges every dollar that goes for dues and contributions and every evening that her husband spends at meetings or in committee work...
...Before that time, I have no doubt, they will have enlisted at least forty other women to form a similar class in time to finish its work by the end of May...
...The only real opposition In New York State is the Socialists...
...They were dragooned and stampeded into a war which was not their war but rather a war to make safe the immense investments of bankers and others in the allied cause...
...Most of them have children below working age, and their influence on the minds of these youngsters is greater than that of the husbands and fathers...
...In many such a case the wife's well-meant opposition takes the heart out of a naturally brave and true man...
...We shall not wait till we get the capital levy in order to urge better adjustment of foreign debts in the interest of the workers of the world, in the interest of peace and a greater prosperity that might be produced by sound trade between nations...
...They have an importance beyond hteir numbers...
...17, at T p. m. sharp, in the cafeteria of the Rand School...
...The topic for the discussion is "Whither American Socialism...
...Still more do we need the inspiration of the Socialist philosophy, but these must be interpreted and applied by means of power...
...Their burden of debt has not been reduced by inflation but increased by deflation...
...France and the War Debts PVERY day brings new reason for understanding *"* what the United States and the whole world lost by its failure to take the Socialist position in the matter of war debts and reparations way back in 1920...
...Beyond that they have not gone except that they have called attention, very usefully, to the immense weight of debt under which we stagger...
...Granting that our diplomacy before, during and since the war has been unsure in its purpose and inept it is not France which has the most right to complain...
...It is the tragic and ironic dilemma of our time that .at the very moment that people who voted for Roosevelt or Hoover are all excited about the wonderful dreams of Technocracy and the way in which we can establish a world in which everybody will have a standard of life equivalent to the present standard of families with an income of $20,000 a year, at this very momant, I say, tha process of wage and salary cutting and the"reduction of social services goes relentlessly on and the people who read about Technocracy do nothing Infective to organize any section of the workers for aggressive action...
...The moral of all this, in so far as it is true, is that we should never have gone into the war...
...But to say this is not to acquit France...
...The material conditions under which these women live, and which influence their mentality, are radically different from those which surround women wage-workers on the one hand or middle-class women on the other...
...But if the work is kept up, and if each of this little band does her bit among her neighbors, they will have influenced hundreds or even thousands of working housewives before November of next year...
...If you don't live in New York read in the name of your own state where I have written New York and you will be not far from the truth...
...Their principal contacts outside the home are with' neighbor women of their own type, and next to that, for many of them, with sisters in the church...
...With the utmost frankness these officials discussed the real reasons why both old parties for their own sakes don't want proportional representation...
...They have a class of about forty women, mostly of the type I have described, which meets every Monday afternoon, with Esther Friedman and August Claessens as instructors...
...A Trip to Albany IT'S very educational to go to Albany...
...To our comrades, the British, French and Belgian workers, we Socialists ought to say something like this: "You know our Socialist position in favor of debt reduction or forgiveness on terms that make for world peace...
...These women are keen to learn just what Socialism is and how to explain It to other women...
...But we do want you, our comrades, to understand the factors which make the average American worker insistent on the payment of interallied debts which have already been more reduced than the internal debts under which he and his brothers, the farmers, stagger...
...The stool-pigeon is a hundred times worse...
...Our Socialist position, European comrades, is this: Under terms that we have steadily outlined the interallied debts should be forgiven or greatly reduced, but that same process must be extended until the American people are freed of a staggering load of internal debts which they carry Hence our proposal for the capital levy on great wealth...
...They started late in November and will continue the course till some time in March...
...Its members are going slowly...
...Concerning its merits they made no denials whatever...
...You kept intervening and then letting us down...
...Some members of the Technocracy group or their interpreters are very high-hat, toward both Socialism and Communism without' giving any adequate reason for their attitude...
...Actually the group itself so far has confined itself to Its main purpose, namely, an examination of the energy resources of America...
...It la hard to say definitely just what the group which calls itself the Technocracy group does propose...
...They saw other nations take German territory and German property as the United Stales did not...
...The articles are the somewhat' exuberant and in some cases premature utterances of an interpreter and disciple...
...Doing their work alone by themselves, and dealing with a hundred petty details, they tend to think in individualistic terms and have no clear notion of social forces...
...Much of the good that might have been done has gone and gone forever...
...I mean the working housewives— women who have homes to care for and-who have not the means to employ domestic help...
...The work ingman's wife who does not understand and sympathize with the working-class movement is almost always bitterly opposed to it...
...If one does not cars to study Marx' own works thor* oughly enough to perceive this, ho can find it lucidly explained to Engel's "Socialism Utopian asi Scientific...
...From his earliest published writings to the end of his life, he always treated being as relative, not as absolute—as a continusl becoming...
...Forty, or even twice or thrice forty, are few enough in this great city...
...It Is still possible to do something by making a willingness to forgive debts the basis of conference on disarmament and sounder economic relations...
...It is the American worker...
...But you ought to understand our attitude or rather the attitude of American farmers and workers who are not Socialists...
...The most hopeful thing about the A. F. of L. convention was that it gave us some ground to hope that behind paper demands would be put in increasing the power of organized workers...
...He is a deliberate, cowardly, paid instigator of murder in the interest of the worst elements of reaction...
...A. L And So They Cheered Him...
...Every phenomenon within the range of human thought is in Borne way comparable with every other ' phenomenon...
...The most hopeful thing about the Socialist situation and in particular about'the work of the N. E. C. at Baltimore was the evidence that now we are , in a position to' organize so as to have in an increasing degree the necessary power for change...
...It is through the former of these contacts that we can best reach them—that is to say, the best propagandists of Socialism among working housewives are those few working housewives who are already Socialists...
...They have an enormous influence also on their men-folk...
...The bankers and others who now talk most about forgiving or reducing the allied debts have not forgiven or reduced one single debt which" they hold...
...What wc must get is power...
...t » When I read Reinhold Niebuhr's statement that Marxism is in some ways comparable with Christianity, I am not much impressed, of course it is...
...They think of "good people" and "bad people," not of antagonistic elates...
...To be sure, we need more facts...
...She has the most powerful army and air force...
...Siegfried Lipschitz, Joseph Shaplen and Vincenzo Vacira...
...They believe that the loans to these foreign nations are as legitimate as any loans under the capitalist system...
...Th/y have collected an amazing and 'startling amount of information on technical progress...
...They were told that that war was for idealistic ends, none of which was realized in the event...
...The Ding an »ich and suchvphrases as "eternal verity" and "absolute right" were often made the targets of his not very gentle irony...
...And we've got to get them to keep on the job...
...We must be on guard against them...
...Just how numerous they are, I do not know, hut they must constitute at least one-fifth of the population of voting age and a still larger fraction of the adult working-class population...
...or, if they do vaguely feel certain economic antagonisms, these hsrdly reach beyond the landlord and the retail trader...
...The price for supper and discussion is 60c...
...Likewise, here in New York, when the "hunger marchers" on their return from Washington, parade to Union Square with a big sign reading, "Four Policemen in the Hospital at Hagerstown," we don't need to make any elaborate investigation —we know that there is a stool-pigeon among them...
...Our So* cialist .committee met the affable Governor who offered the most pitiful excuses for failing to reopen the question of unemployment relief in a state where conservatively more than 126,000 families accredited for some form of relief are without aid of any sort...
...She has repudiated three-fourths of her internal debts and part of her external debts by a process of inflation that cut the value of the franc to a quarter of its former worth...
...Bitterness and economic folly have been heaped by the efforts to collect debts which cannot be collected without hurting both him who yaps and him who receives...
...We saw Republican and Democratic legislators and high officials sitting in a big hotel room in the greatest good fellowship...
...The principal effect of that sign is to irritate every policeman who sees it, to prejudice him against all demonstrating groups, to put him into the humor to use his club or his gun on the slightest provocation...
...They have not much time for reading—for, as they say, "Man works from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done"—-and even if they do read, our party literature does not usually reach them, and besides, most of it is not of the sort to fit their "apperceptive basis" and make its impression on their minds...
...and among those who will participate a|e David P. Berenberg, Haim Kantorovich, Gui Tyler, Dr...
...Anyone but an imbecile knows the' sign will have that effect, and the only purpose anyone but an imbecile could have in displaying it is to produce just that effect— to precipitate violence and bloodshed and thus injure the cause of the unemployed...
...That Albany hearing was a good beginning It has to be followed up'with greater strength and determination...
...She has waged almost literal war against both Germany, Great Britain, and to a lesser degree, the United States, by her manipulation of gold supply and now" she says in effect, "by coming to our rescue in the World War you Americans committed yourselves to support our policy throughout...
...She has w——- — the eecond largest empire in the world...
...For .ill these reasons I attach a great deal of importance to an enterprise that ban been planned by the Women's Section of the Socialist Party in New York and is being carried out by it jointly with the Rand School...
...On the occasion of Dictator Mussolini's visit to'Milan persons desiring to visit this town were offered free travel on the linos of tho State and Northern systems...
...Social Dynamics •THE outstanding problem of Socialism—indeed, * the outstanding problem of the whole working class—just now is dynamic...
...If there is anything characteristic of Marxian philosophy, it is the rejection of "the absolute...
...and with a human soul, and with I don't know what else...
...To'day the American workers and farmers are worse exploited even than their brethren in Europe, for they have not such meagre t» curity as elaborate systems of social insurance give to European workers...
...On the other hand, if she does understand and sympathize, she doubles her husband's courage and devotion, besides adding her own...
...They seldom listen to street speakers or go to evening lectures or mass meetings...
...The Ninth Annuel Dinner of TUB NEW LEADER will be held Friday evening, , February 10, IMS...
...Party members are urged to make reservations...
...The scab (in the strict meaning of that word) is a pretty contemptible specimen of humanity...
...Warning, Congratulation, and Also a Bit of Protest QUT in the country, when you1* perceive a certain nauseating odor, you don't have to see a little blagk-and-white animal— without seeing-, you know that there is a skunk in the neighborhood...
...They have, I am told, repudiated the articles by Wayne Parrish in "The New Outlook," especially the second article, as authoritative statements of their position...
...In such times as these we may expect stool-pigeons to be at work...
...11711 AT should Socialists think ab>ut Technocracy ™ and what is the relation of Technocracy to Socialism...
...American Socialist Quarterly Dinner The first supper session of the American Socialist Quarterly group will be held Saturday, Dee...
...But when I read farther that: "The religious element is in both of them, because both expect the triumph of the absolute,'.' then I demur...
...Theirs is a fight for office and not for principles, and when they get together with plenty of good tobacco and a moderate supply of liquid refreshments they make no bones about admitting it...
...Their own program they have not yet formulated, at least in detail, even to themselves and certainly not to the public...
...The moon, for example, has been compared with a maiden, and with a boat, and with a shield, and with a rather jolly human face, and with the church militant (or is it the church triumphant...
...The dinner commemorates the completion of the first year of the Quarterly, a publication that has devoted Its first four Issues to serious discussion of serious and Important events and tendencies in the Socialist movement...
...Keynes' distinction between non-productive debts, such as loans to the allies, and productive debts does not stand...
Vol. 14 • December 1932 • No. 25
