tirring Scenes as Jobless Throng Legislative Chamber
McDowell, A. G.
By A. G. McDowell tirring Scenes as Jobless Throng Legislative Chamber Five Thousand Pack Assembly Hall, with Darlington Hoopes in Chair—Prompt Action by Legislature Follows. JJARRISBURt*....
...You think you have an iron wall of selfish personal security, but if you do not act in relief of the unemployed and quickly, the workers will tear down "A friend to whom I have been talking wants to get the lead on my arguments, and I know of no better way to encourage him than to have him read The New Leader...
...111 have to get a copy of the 'Spectator.'" "Delightful," said Bill, who had ulso enjoyed a fit of laughter...
...The editors understand from their younger contemporaries that not to have read "Das Kapital" until 1932 is a sign of advanced thought.'" Joe rocked with laughter, quieted for a moment, and burst into another spasm...
...I suggest thst Autolycus be allowed a chance to redeem himself with a serious review of Professor Hook's new book, 'Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx.' " "Now will you be good," Joe exclaimed with a smile...
...Persons knowing what German conditions sre t .day know that nothing under a Berlin date line is reliable news these days, what with henchmen of Goebbels in charge of a nation wide censorship, snd informed Socialists withheld comment—waiting for more informatoin...
...Socialist Representative Darlington Hoopes presided during the two-hour sear sion in the chamber, carrying out the spirit of grim finality that dominated the unemployed by concluding with the announcement of the Pennsylvania All-Labor Congress at Reading April 22nd and 23rd, and the New Continental Congress on Economic Reconstruction at Washington, D. C, May 6th and 7th...
...Reading...
...In conclusion he solemnly warned the Legislature that their heedless action last week in rushing through miserly and inadequate relief bills, if not remedied, —ould place upon their shoulders the responsibility if "anything breaks in Pennsylvania...
...But it was not until ths dawn was breaking that the election was confirmed by the totaling up of the watchers' reports...
...Joe inquired...
...Autolycus says a review of Hook's book will appear in The New Leader, but do you remember what I said of Todsnappery last week...
...And Just Afterward - Old Age Pension Constitutional Amendments, which were brought to the floor last week by a vote of 129 to 63, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 180 to 12, just an hour after some 5,000 unemployed from eastern Pennsylvania counties had concluded presentation of their relief program, which included passage of old age pe: -ions...
...Yesterday he handed me a letter he received from a chap who reads his reports...
...And CouieismT They arc now ghosts...
...Collieries being abandoned and deliberately flooded by the powerful Reading Coal Company, 239 pair of shoes sent into a community like Pottaville where 1,500 sre dependent upon relief, miners driven to bootlegging coal by opening crude drift shafts, or "dug holes," which in more than one case has already proven the grave of the desperate unemployed miner...
...I'm amused, that's all," Bill replied...
...Beneath these significant concluding words of their manifesto, leaders of ten unemployment organization?' wrote their signatures while 5,000 unemployed from ten eastern Pennsylvania counties jammed every inch of space in the hall of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the greatest demonstration for relief that the capital has ever seen...
...Like a very patient but far from benevolent school ma.' ter...
...Comrades shouted their joy, embraced and kissed London, tears streaming down their faces...
...I was a Marxist when the intelligentsia were sneering at Marxism...
...The Bureau of the Labor and Socialist International, meeting in Paris in the absence of the German delegation, indignantly denounces this blackmail...
...Bill 'n' Joe Discus* Letter Sent To Autolycus by Hook Admirer and Laugh Over Some Clever Satire - By Autolycus , "VTOU'VE given me some notoriety through that guy, * Autolycus, who reports u» in The New Leader," ssid Joe as he and Bill met in the cigar store...
...It's nothing new," Bill replied...
...After a wild night full of rumors, punctuated with brawls at polling places, often breaking out into open fights, the news had been published in election extras that the'sitting Tammany Congressman, Henry M. Goldfogle, had been re-elected by a majority of 5,000 in the 12th Congressional District in New York's congested East Side...
...Autolycus gets a kidding, two...
...The Labor and Socialist International refuses to subject its press to Hitler Coring censorship...
...Yes, but it's not a sudden discovery but a matter of years of study that has not been interrupted by soms intellectual fad, Bill replied...
...He wrote that 'The comment of Autolycus was wholly inadequate.' The comment this writer waves aside included facts from the history of the European Socialist movement...
...Pa — "Act or Abdicate...
...Well, 1 naturally went back to the declarations and activities of the European parties to ascertain whether these parties acted in accord with the statement of Hook who made a sweeping statement without offering evidence...
...Harry Kovaleski of Mount Garni...
...I remember,* now," said Joe...
...read it to me," said Joe...
...I wonder what's the cause of this epidemic...
...It will continue to condemn arbitrary sets of violence, which are a negation of the principles of civilized government...
...Read it...
...I'm not...
...I've had a good laugh," said Bill as they passed eut of the store...
...Under a Berlin date line came information that Wels had resigned from the International, that the German party had withdrawn from the International, that the ierman Socialists hsd made their peace with Hitler and were quitting the International as a protest against Socialist criticism of Hitler snd Goring...
...It all comes back to me now," said Joe, "but what's that got to do with the letter Autolycw received...
...No one who was there will ever forget the indescribable thrill of the moment...
...Stick in hand, the machinist pointed out the great industrial developments that enabled capitalism to take on a new lease of life between depressions, and ironically pointed out the irrelevent babbling of the fake political issues of "free silver," "the full dinner pail," "busting the trusts," "he hept us out of war," "back to normalcy," "a chicken in every pot" and finally the top of all "the New Deal" from the old pack of cards...
...It was worth waiting a lifetime for...
...of all persons to bring a charge of Podsnappery, the creator of Joe and Bdl should he the last...
...The comment of Autjlycus was wholly inadequate...
...said Joe...
...In 1932 Marxian generals appeared on the intellectual front by the hundreds and today you cannot throw a stick ten feet in any club of the intelligentsia without hitting a score of them...
...Don't get too serious," said Joe...
...He says that he accepted Hook's article in the 'Nation' as 'a welcome contribution to Marxian thought.' And here's the rest of it...
...Sands set out to instruct the members of the House and Senate in the causes and nature of depressions...
...Dean Swift," said Bill, "and if you do not get a roar out of it you're hopeless...
...Ths humble folk of thst teeming section had long been enslaved and plundered by Tammany Hall at its vilest This was the first break...
...I found declarations and activities in conflict with Hook's assertions and I concluded thst we had a man who waved facts aside...
...By A. G. McDowell tirring Scenes as Jobless Throng Legislative Chamber Five Thousand Pack Assembly Hall, with Darlington Hoopes in Chair—Prompt Action by Legislature Follows...
...Enclosed you will find his sub...
...I wish when Autolycus showed me that letter I had read an item in the 'American Spectator.' I saw it later...
...This maneuver will fail...
...It is worthy to rank with the satire of...
...My memory is poor,"»said Joe "It consists of waving facts aside," Bill replied...
...What's it all about...
...Let the operators run their mines, demanded the miner delegates, "or relinquish them to spme one who will...
...The followng fscts are definitely known: 1. The German party did not quit the International...
...workrule sffj awe sat J was jsnamj only mm Re pretest Madison Sunday sf constitMBJ Utyeri in Conrrs rible yen like Victor Congress I and good plunged in of the earl of the b participate slaughter, the friend...
...Admitting the connection of boom periods with the wars of 1808 and 1914, Sands declared that war was no solution of depression for the working class and defiantly declared while the unemployed cheered until the chamber rang, "Before we will take up arms again to defend a ruling class in this country we will overthrow it...
...Bill Is Humiliated "I'm propci ly humiliated," said Kill...
...Immediately after the resolution was made public wild and contradictory statements began to appear in the press...
...Today a Marxian war is waged on every intellectual front...
...A unique feature of the hearing came when Hoopes introduced Charles Sands, an unemployed machinist of Reading...
...It is something that comes in waves not only to the intelligentsia but to other sections of the population...
...Shannon, who without delay handed the chairmanship over to Darlington Hoopes and left through a back door, all other outlets being jammed with a human wall...
...What's become of Psychoanalysis that only yesterday was the rage...
...Further results of this week's record unemployed demonstration were rumored in reports that House committees holding antieviction legislation had resumed consideration of the measures before them...
...It so informs the world that Germany's present masters are holding Socialists as hostages in the hope of thus silencing the expression of the international conscience...
...The demonstration came, also' very significantly, on the boldest program for direct unemployment relief yet asked from the Legislature by any mass group, that introduced by the two Socialist members of the House...
...Marxians of the Clubs "It has taken the average Marxian ten and twenty years to acquaint himself with Marxian philosophy but the intellectual reads n pamphlet or an article and he advances to a high command immediately," said Bill...
...I have i public life three bitu paigns M tion to Ga a Sociala" have 10,1m to break m] International Denounces T he .Crazy Nazi Terror D A R 1 S. — Denouncing as * "blackmail" the plan of the r Hitler government in Germany to suppress all Socialist papers until Socialist papers in other countries stop attack'ing the Hitler policies, the executive committee of the Labor and Socialist International voted to continue attacking German fascism...
...You said it, boy," said Joe, who had to restrain another roar...
...Here it is...
...asked Joe...
...Some of my friends have been kidding me about it...
...The hearing was launched by Lieut...
...His reports of our chat about Sidney Hook's Marxism last week," Bill replied...
...they made no mentiou of the Socialist vote, nor did tin evening papers urttft^late the next day...
...2. Weill nation sit committal the foil phael Ah the lata] was in tl meeting, i ward, eyjl LJ M THE tj 1 meet] declared i only con Communi The Iri ommendej refrain ft with CoU Commune factorilyj to it by f The ¦« "The ¦ clares tkd tween tbl such can II est agreej action *# capitalist I points oat ternational manifest*'' on Febre* when t Germany,1...
...The news swept ths East Side like wildfire...
...Go into any haunt of the intelligentsia and you have to be on your guard against the weapons brandished from every lounge and table...
...Just as the first rays of the sun broke through, Meyer London entered—unutterably weary but walking like a conquering lion...
...Sands had set up across the front of the chamber an immense chart, showing in alternate red and black the successive periods of prosperity and of tragic depression, with the black line of the present depression reaching down fa.' below any previous panic...
...Tammany, for all its brutal election methods, was licked...
...w - this wall of stocks and bonds and securities, only a psper wall after all, and write a "new Declaration of Independence for the workers of America...
...Hitler and Captain Goring have an easy way to get the Socialist press to cease attacks about the abuses of force—it is no longer to commit or encourage these abuses...
...You will remember that Hook in the 'Nation' article said that European Socialists in the pre-war period had accepted a fatalist Marxism, believing that action was not necessary because Socialism would emerge from capitalism as an automatic progress...
...The extras, however, gave only the Republican and the Democratic vote...
...soc iall] __NojL ft was early in the morning following election day in 1914...
...That's rich," said he...
...In declarations to foreign press representatives," the International's 'statement reads, "Captain Hermann Wilhelm Coring, president of the Reichstag and Prussian minister of the interior, declared that the German Socialist press will be suspended as long as Socialist newspapers in other conntries continue their attacks...
...But you also claim to be h Marxist," said Joe with a grin...
...Henry W. Schlegel, Allentown...
...said Bill...
...Don't keep a secret...
...The Pab Enjoy a Laugh "That's logical," said Joe, "but they seem to have got your goat...
...I, Jess Dickson and J. Flannery of Pottaville, and John Dougherty of Shamokin, hard coal miners, painted in passionate words the story of capitalism in the hard coal fields...
...Well, the writer of it in denying Podsnappery to Hook also ignores the evidence I cited against Hook," said Bill...
...It was the dawn of a new dayl The Socialist watchers and other party workers gathered for a bite of breakfast in a Division Street restaurant...
...Socialist runners hsd brought in preliminary reports that indicated the election of Meyer London...
...The Socialist watchers had stuck to their posts, often st imminent risk of their lives, and did not turn their reports in to headquarters until the last vote for the least important office had been entered upon the tally sheets (that was before the time of machines...
...Teaching School Those few legislative scholars who were present had no choice but to remain, wdged in on every side...
...The Socialists hsd carried on a terrific campaign, and they knew they had elected their Congressman...
Vol. 15 • April 1933 • No. 14
