THOMAS SAYS:
THOMAS SAYS: SETTLEMENT THE best news from abroad for many a weary month la the agreement at Lausanne to settle German reparations at about a cent on a dollar of the older claims. It is more...
...Thomas will return to New York City for a meeting on September 11 which will launch the New York campaign...
...Lots of "progressives," especially In the South- and West, will vote for Roosevelt...
...How did he figure that out...
...On September 22 he will start a trip to the Pacific coast which will take him west across the northern section of the country, down the Pacific coast and bach along the southern route...
...That Is an enormous gain...
...Furthermore, by lessening that danger, It increases the probability that the European nations, with or without the participation of the United States, will feel safe in starting the process of simultaneous reduction of armaments...
...He was retired...
...The last ten' days of the campaign will be spent In the vicinity of New York...
...i—I li...
...How well they could counter by taxing away the profits which Ford and General Motors and General Electric and our other great capitalists are drawing from their huge investments abroad...
...News of the endorsement of our ticket and immediate program by the League for Independent Politclal Action was also a good hot weather tonic...
...No one in his line has done sounder scientific work than he, and there has been no falling off In its quality...
...A nation which has given so many tariff doles ought not to be ao afraid of help to hungry men...
...they can be got at a cheap price...
...In this case even the ineffably obstinate Hoover had to change his mind...
...Formally, the treaty has not gone into effect But this does not mean that nothing real has been accomplished...
...Would the United States try to coerce them by forbidding its people to buy their goods...
...He will cover two dates In Vermont, one in New Hampshire, three in Maine, and two in Rhode Island in addition to the Massachusetts engagement...
...AND if the treaty is not ratified, what then...
...When they declare against cancellation they are "talking for Buncombe...
...He showed them authentic figures, which they printed...
...Nevertheless sooner or later America will have to forgive what America cannot collect...
...But Secretary Wilbur is Incorrigible...
...The first thing" he did was to call in the reporters and issue a statement in which he appealed to all workers to visit Yellowstone Park, the Grand Canyon, and Mount McKinley...
...Then natural demand will start up production...
...Or by forbidding its people to sell their surplus wheat cotton, oil, and copper to those countries...
...Subsidizing consumption means immediate federal relief on a large scale...
...Hoover and Roosevelt, know all this...
...Now cabinet members don't like being shown up as either ignorant or mendacious or both...
...The kind of work we need Is public, not private...
...He will be available in New York and vicinity for some evening meetings during the next two weeks...
...Housing and reforestation are two ways to add to the social wealth and put men to work...
...All of which, as well as the decree branding Einstein's relativity theory as "bourgeois," Is In per-, feet harmony with the fundame-1 I tal nature of Bolshevism...
...NORMAN THOMAS SPEAKS: Western Massachusetts: wOT" have the first campaign speechea from Norman Thomas when he starts on a ten-day tour of the New England states on August 13...
...That was tactically a stupid move to make and bound to cause Irritation here...
...Both local papers are now carefully predicting and "explaining" the large Socialist vote that Is expected, tp, be cast fa Npvelbbety The Lausanne Treaty Is Hoover's Dilemma rmpHB treaty signed at Lausanne JL has not beta ratified...
...I was particularly delighted with the Virginia comrades' splendid campaign plans for covering the state on a $1600 budget...
...About four months ago Secretary Doak told the newspaper men that employment was on the Increase...
...If we've been converted to Socialism so can other workers with hand and brain...
...I understand the S. P. C. A. won't let you drown them...
...Meanwhile, and for three years anyhow^ Germany is to pay nothing...
...Hoover Is right about not lending money to private profit seekers who can't borrow at the bank, but he is overoptlmlstic about his bank and railroad friends...
...Or by refusing to lend any more money...
...It's easy...
...And this is not chiefly because they are politically stupid—some* of them, I suspect, are that—but because at bottom their way of thinking is that of little would-be owners of something, rather than of cooperators in a Socialist Society...
...If Instead of an Income tax we could abolish work less Incomes we would balance the budget and provide for the Income of Socialism...
...He's got his revenge...
...The meeting was arranged on one week's notice and It had been found impossible to secure a larger hall on Sunday night Fully two-thirds of the audience wore red "Thomas and Maurer" buttons upon leaving the hall, while all literature was eagerly purchased...
...What can you do with cheerful idiots like that...
...2) The settlement, it is said by some "gentlemen's agreement,"' Is made contingent on America's forgiveness of war debts...
...Most so called progressives in America don't know exactly what they want...
...On October 26 and 27, he will appear in Philadelphia where he Is scheduled to debate with James Cox and Ogden Mills...
...Here's why...
...A Moscow technical journal has published an article on "The Dialectics of Internal-Combustion Engines" and a society of engineers has had to listen to essays on "The Dialectics of Synchronic Machinery* 'and "The Dialectics of High-Grade Steel...
...The amount they have agreed on Is desperately Inadequate in a nation where city relief is nearly exhausted and there are 12,000,000 unemployed...
...They dare not tell the truth to American voters In campaign time...
...But don't forget the times are doing some teaching for us...
...INADEQUATE RELIEF CHARACTERISTICALLY wrong about relief are both the old parties and their quarreling leaders, President Hoover and Speaker Garner...
...He la wrong In not knowing that what we must do is: (1) Subsidize consumption...
...I don't just see the United States, without an ally nor a friend, making war against at least twelve nations In the hope of collecting those debts...
...The fresh air will do them lots of good, he says, and In contemplating the beauties of nature they'll get rid of their petty anxieties...
...Hence their conscious or subconscious fear of Socialism—the fact of Socialism, not merely the name—and their overwilllngness to try anything else...
...The L. I. P. A. had been candidly told in advance that Jim Maurer and 1 we,re running first, last- and all the time as Socialists on the whole Socialist platform, so of that there can be no misunderstanding...
...ENCOURAGING SIGNS DURING a recent trip when I spoke before the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, a Socialist Party meeting in Richmond in a jammed hall on a scorching night with short notice, and the convention of the' Hosiery Workers in Philadelphia, the receptions were all very encouraging...
...What then...
...August 23 and 21 will be spent iJ.n his office in New York before he starts for Chicago for a meeting of the national executive committee...
...WHAT, NO BEERT JUST what old party platforms amount to Is shown ludicrously by the way Democrats in the Senate and House side-stepped the legalizing of beer for which Democrats in Chicago were so vociferous...
...The Soviet Bulletin of Venerology and Dermatology formally announces that In Its pages diseases of the skin and the reproductive organs will be discussed "from the standpoint of dialectic materialism.*' Another periodical is devoted to the task of expounding "the party point of view In mathematics," and yet another prints a contribution on "Marxist-Leninist Theory In Blacksmith Work...
...The discontented, the so called "progressives" and the like, ara not all automatically going to vote Socialist...
...Suppose, after giving Washington another chance to co-operate gracefully In a practicable settlement, and getting no response, they just say that they can't and won't pay—what can Washington do about it...
...If and when the treaty la ratified, Germany's remaining obligations to the other signatory powers will be 714 millions of dollars, Instead of the 8,093 millions that were still due under the Young Plan...
...The very fact that automatically every one who Is discontented or thinks he Is progressive won't vote for us is the more of a challenge to us to do our fundamental work of education and organization...
...Working-class parents have no jobs and no money and consequently no place to go, so they stick around home and take care of the kiddles—God bless them...
...Well, not for anything Roosevelt has done or even said but just because they are without fundamental philosophy...
...I think we may feel sure that what was done at Lausanne neither will nor can be undone...
...The audience sat and stood for two hours on the hottest night of the year...
...They know that the only hope of getting any part of the war debts paid is by coming to an agreement with the debtor nations...
...They think Roosevelt far more progressive than he is because they think Wall Street or Smith, or the wicked cities generally are against him and that therefore he must be at least "liberal...
...Several joined the parity, while thirty took cards, promising to join the Socialist party...
...We Would suggest an amendment to those who carry signs on their cars reading "Repeal the 18th Amendment...
...The meeting was the official opening of the state campaign, and the results exceeded anticipations...
...The old parties have handled the question so t> it America Is now caught In a state of irritated futility over this whole matter...
...It is not knowledge and understanding that they leek, but Just moral courage...
...AND then there Is William N. Doak of Virginia, Secretary of Labor...
...It is more in line with what Socialists of all countries have wanted ever since the war than anything yet proposed, and that Premier Herrlot agreed to it is proof of the influence and power of the French Socialists, on whose benevolence his stay In office depends...
...PROGRESSIVES Trim remarks of some Socialists and nearSocialists in Eastern cities prompt me to a word of warning...
...That would be bad business and bad politics, to say nothing of Its foolhardlness from a military and naval point of view...
...That would be a fine example of cutting off our nose to spite our face...
...ONE hardly knows whether to laugh or swear at the antics of Bolshevist "Intellectuals," who turn Marxism into a collection of sacred, formulas and blessed words...
...It is far less adequate as a barrier against the drift to destruction than It would have been before the bitterness arid suffering of Europe had grown so great...
...Some will support these mushroom "third" parties that want to vote for lots of money and the days of Andrew Jackson back again...
...He will speak at the Rhode Island state picnic at Providence at 2 p. m. Sunday afternoon, August 21, and at either Woonsocket, R. I., or New Bedford, Massachusetts, the same evening...
...Ethelbert Stewart has been at the head of the bureau of labor statistics for many years...
...Here are a few examples, drawn from alleged scientific journals and the proceedings of alleged scientific societies in Russia...
...They knew something about the facts—also, they knew Doak...
...In accordance with a "gentlemen's agreement" whose provisions are an open secret, It win sot be ratified unless nor until the United States consents to seals down the war debts due to It from the eleven nations which have consented to a great scaling down of their reparations claims against Germany...
...Ours would read, "Repeal the Depression" *->-• THOMAS JAMS RICHMOND HALL i * RICHMOND.—Five hundred people jammed the Workmen's Circle to hear Norman Thomas, while several hundred were turned away for lack of standing room...
...The tariffs are already so nearly prohibitory that such a threat would be laughable...
...Last week he got back from a tour of'the national parks...
...Two dates are available between New York and Chicago on August 25 and 26...
...It goes far toward making It possible for Germany's economic life to emerge from the utterly hopeless condition which has been driving her people to the verge of madness and bringing even closer the danger of civil and international war...
...Doak, being both, was doubly angry...
...The chairman had to shut off discussion, to save him from being figuratively skinned alive...
...There, for example, is Roy L. Wilbur, M. D, of California, Secretary of the Interior, A couple of months ago he nearly started a riot at the national conference of social workers by declaring that the depression was having a good effect on children's health...
...It seems safe to say that, regardless what the United States may do, Germany will never be asked to pay more than the reduced sum agreed upon...
...But the good news Is marred by at least two ^things: (1) It comes too late to do the good it could have done.in earlier years...
...Ever since the war we Socialists have urged that we do not merely drift to a time When the European Powers will repudiate their debts or fool us by some form of words, but that we forgive the war debts on terms that make forgiveness dependent on progress toward disarmament, not armament, and on such terms of domestic taxation, etc., as will make the workers rather than' the bankers the direct beneficiaries of this forgiveness...
...And just what this talk of "Jeffersonlan Democracy" means Is wonderfully illustrated in Virginia, Jefferson's native state, where no one con vote who hasn't paid poll taxes for three years—a law aimed straight at white and colored workers...
...The next commissioner of labor statistics will perhaps remember on which Side bis bread is buttered...
...From August 29 to September 9 will be spent in the middle west...
...He reached the age-limit a few days ago, but the President, using his authority to make exceptions to the retirement rule, had listed him to be retained another year...
...Stewart Is out and Doak is still in...
...RESIDENT HOOVER has IT some eueerkpedimeha tu blk cabinet...
...2) Start worth while remunerative work on a largo scale under pub-' lie ownership and control...
...So they asked Commissioner Stewart how about it...
...In other words, what if the United States, following the counsels of both Hoover and Roosevelt, refuses to meet Its debtors In the same spirit which they have shown towards theirs...
...What if "we" still insist on "our" pound of flesh ? Well, I think that Great Britain, France, Italy and the rest of them will very politely tell us to take it out In insisting...
...The Moscow surgical society was recently treated to a paper on "Marxism and Surgery...
Vol. 14 • July 1932 • No. 3
