A Woman's Point of View
Klein, Gertrude Weil
By Gertrude Weil Klein A Woman's Point of View There'* Always Some Money for Coemetic*— Now the Depression Is a Thing — The Teachers' Fight. J^O you know that you can get a perfectly dandy...
...Johanna Lindlof ia president...
...And we're going to feel the effects of our depression within a year' or two...
...As it is, we must be thankful for whatever information we can glean from the Consumers' Research- Bur reau and wait, or rather work) for Socialism...
...it's amazing how handsomely the beauty-mad sisterhood supports the synthetic beauty industry...
...You need not even ssk...
...In his rebuttal Mr...
...Infantile diseases are no worry at all...
...Thus Socialism would mean a leap in the dark...
...Lastly, Socialism would have all the evils of public ownership, namely, inefficiency, bureaucracy and political corruption...
...He also argued that capitalism could cure its evils by planning, shorter hours and higher wages, governmental regulation, and by the development ef a general will to co-operate...
...Indeed, said Waldman, when "we went to Albany to visit President-elect Roosevelt he told us that he had borrowed many ideas from the Socialist platform...
...Waldman tin ¦ pointed out that social institutions were not static but always changing, that during the last one hundred years there have arisen in America cities and urban problems, for whose solution the concept of individualism was totally inadequate...
...It had never been tried, except in one form in Russia...
...But that these systems together with capi- ¦ talism had spent their vitality and capitalism is now decadent...
...But today...
...With so many millions of people having a real stiff time trying to raise the price for three meals a day and the right to sleep without shouting "Hallelujah to God on the highest...
...The only other one of the many teachers' associations in this city which has not showed signs of weakening in regard to this "penny-wise pound foolish" expedient is the Kindergarten 6B Teachers' Association, of which Mrs...
...Nothing, that is, except raising the price...
...There art fewer commercial trucks and fewer pleasure cars on the streets, so of course accidents are fewer...
...There's less industrial illness because there's less industry—not because people are healthier...
...You don't believe it...
...It is gratifying to see that the Teachers' Union is standing by its guns in thought against,t*»cht;ra,' pay cuts...
...Silk stockings—that is, the silk-out-of-tin kind, can be bought for 39 cents a pair...
...Battle proposed had been tried and failed...
...Well, I'm not calling any President of these United States a liar...
...The existence of a Public Service Commission in almost every state had plunged us neck-deep into regulation, yet never was business so poorly regulated as today...
...The Thomas-Kaltenborn debata will be followed on Christmas Day with the first nanual Christmas festival of the Forum, snd on New Years Dsy Norman Thomas will debate General Smedley D. Butltf on disarmament...
...Waldman replied that every attempt on the part of the government to interfere with the full and free use of private property is to that extent an abrogation of the rights of private property...
...The Bureau of Vital Statistics at Washington recently completed a survey of the health situation in this country, and according to their figures, which President Hoover quoted in his message to Congress, everything is Jake...
...Once It Was Radical Waldraan pointed out that individualism was once a philosophy of revolt when it represented the desires of the rising tradesmen and industrialists against the feudal nobility, but that when the rising classes became the dominant class, individualism became the philosophy of reaction...
...Once upon a time you could ask, "What happens to a girl in cotton stockings...
...Socialism, on the other hand, is at a disadvantage, he said...
...And what a racket it is...
...And thus every time a social measure was introduced its opponents invoked the holy spirit of individualism...
...Which is what the doctors told them to do in the first place...
...Battle himself by advocating increased regulation and measures- of social insurance had abandoned the philosophy of individualist . Mr...
...Waldman attributed this to the fact that instead of government regulating business, business regulates government...
...The actual value of a $3-jar of cold cream, that is, the cost to manufacture it, is about 12 cents...
...This will be Norman Thomas' first appearance this season at the popular Brooklyn Forum, and a record crowd is expected...
...What we can't understand ia why President Hoover was so dan busy feeding the hungry Armenisns and the starving Belgians « few years back...
...It could not abolish exploitation and arrive at an equitable distribution of wealth without abolishing the system itself...
...That's when these lean years will begin to take their harvest...
...There's less infant mortality and disease becajuse there are less infants and because birth-control knowledge is enabling parents to take better care of the children who axe bom...
...Tuberculosis, high bloodpressure and other diseases requiring sunshine, fresh air and rest have declined...
...The infant mortality rate haa dropped...
...Battle, he pointed out that the regulation Mr...
...Theft all the selling schemes, ending in the retail dealers' rake-off which amounts to about 30...
...Maybe it'a not so easy to get away with suck fluff outside America...
...A siege of severely cold weather or an epidemic will see our people dying like flies in winter...
...Now if it's your nose that's the plague of your life, there are expert surge ons who can make you over into "a thing o f beauty and a goy forever" (excuse, please Mr...
...The bright boys and girls behind the horn-rimmed spectacles can prove with rhythmic rows of figures and dazzling diagrams anything you like...
...The chairman for the evening was Abraham I. Shiplacoff...
...He referred to the war experiment with the railroads and other public functions as inadequate but indicative of attempts at what might be done...
...Battle in presenting his case^ identified Individualism with private property, and maintained that under the system of individual property-holding mankind had progressed from barbarism to our present world...
...The effects of - undernourishment, anxiety and suffering do not make themselves felt immediately, but they are deep and farreaching...
...and a protesting chorus would wail: "Nothing...
...Battle's statement that capitalism had worked, Waldman said that so had feudalism, and so had slavery...
...Is a system working," asked Waldman, "which cannot provide the common necessities of life T Is a system working which permits starvation amidst plenty...
...Which leaves us girls practically nothing to woi iy about...
...And it's all because of the depression...
...One Thing Impossible But there was one reform that capitalism could not give...
...Cases of breakdown from overwork are fewer...
...Waldman greeted his opponent's conversion at so early a time, even before the debate was well under way...
...Continued on Page Seven) By Gus Tyler Capitalism a Failure, Waldman Says, in Debate With Battle I OUIS WALDMAN, New York state chairman of the Socialist Party, met George Gardon Battle, noted lawyer", in debate on the subject of "Individualism or Collectivism" at the Brooklyn Forum held in the Academy of Music on Sunday, December 11...
...When Progress Is Possible Waldman admitted that progress might be possible under capitalism, but only to the extent that the community encroaches on the rights of private property and that carried to its logical and ultimate conclusion this would mean the introduction of Socialism, In reply to Mr...
...To add to the attractiveness of the occasion, Samuel Untermyer will be the third man on the platform, as chairman of the occasion...
...Our death and illness figures are going to increase with staggering rapidity...
...Well, the figures may be right, but the conclusions are phoney...
...Battle said that he "hoped and prayed, as does every good man or woman, that the Russian experiment would succeed...
...Mr, Kaltenborn, journalist, traveler and radio lecturer on current eventl, is one of the best-informed nonSocialists in the country...
...Battle maintained that mere regulation is not collectivism nor is it contrary to the principles of private property...
...The needs of present-day society have forced capitalism to yield many socialistic reforms...
...Some people are living longer than expected because they can't find anything to do but sit around in the sun and rest...
...J^O you know that you can get a perfectly dandy pair of artificial eyelashes for $2...
...The same goes for industrial accidents...
...Besidea it's all there in black and white, figures, charts and everything...
...But that so far it had not...
...Heaven only knows how many comforts and even necessities are sacrificed, but depression or no depression the cosmetic trade keeps booming...
...Cotton stockings—but why talk about the dodo...
...Why didn't be give them figures...
...Europe is still suffering from the effects of the malnutrition of her children caused by war privations mure than fifteen yeara ago...
...The League of Nations' health section is gravely concerned over the i.ew food deficiency diseases which are appearing in the world's areas of great unemployment...
...First, the flamboyant advertising which givea the girls the cock-eyed idea that all they have to do to get that perfect date, or the ideal husband, or the right job, is to use Minnie Ha Ha's toilet preparations...
...And $5 buys a little jar of cold cream which1 smooths away "those telltale lines" by magic...
...Thomas Debates Kaltenborn At Brooklyn Forum Sunday 'WHICH way out of the Crisis...
...He showed how Mr...
...will be the subject of the next debate Sunday, December 18, under the auspices of the Brooklyn Forum at the Academy of Music, with Norman Thomas and H. V. Kaltenborn as tile debaters...
...And most of the fancy stuff has no more beauty value than the 50-cent jar, on which there is also a neat profit...
...If profits and advertising and selling ballyhoo were taken1 out of the cosmetic business the chemists could tell us some interesting and honest facts...
...In presenting the Socialist case, Waldman painted individualism as an "old, wrinkled, once healthy, ,now decaying hag "who in com, petition with" collectivism, a "young and beautiful maiden" was seeking the hand and heart of the people...
...Keats), at a price, of course...
...He argued that the determination of how affairs should be run in such Industries as the railroads is an interference with the rights of private property incompatible with the original concept of Individualism, and a legal and philoaophie recognition of the fact that the railroads are collective properties in private possession...
...The jar costs about 15 cents...
...The Very fact that individualism has not yet shown the stamina and vigor to preserve the "present decaying order is an indication that it has not worked...
...Nor was human nature ; et ready for the co-operative commonwealth...
...By no means a conservative, the debata is expected to be conducted on a high level...
...Lastly, Waldman showed that public ownership and operation of certain industries is not without precedent...
...In turning to the speech of Mr...
...Thus capitalism showed its capacity to work...
...Only an ignoramus could minimize the danger to which the millions of our undernourished workers and their families are exposed...
...Then, the fancy jar, which costs more than the contents...
...The death rate has dropped...
...All because we've gotten away from heavy eating, overheated houses, late hours and expensive pleasure...
...We've never been a** healthy in all our lives...
...Industrial accidents and injuries and deaths from automobile accidents have declined...
...If, during the next few years there should be anything like an economic recovery in this country some idiot will probably come along and blame the mounting illness and death rate on prosperity —and prove it with figures...
Vol. 14 • December 1932 • No. 25
