Reflections on May Day, 1933
Oneal, James
By James Oneal Reflections on May Day, 1933 THIS May Day brings with it more than ever the need of tound and sober thinking because of the rise of nationalist and racial hates out of a...
...In other words, the system of capitalist production has become so highly developed, it has gestated such vast powers of commodity production that it is the victim of glaring economic contradictions which it cannot solve...
...Opportunity Note t MIf.WAUKKE.—"I couldn't find i a Job...
...Our* ia a clarion call to claap hsnds across all frontiers...
...Sections of the ruling class subsidize such movements although they may even fear this nursing of a wild monster...
...These same masses if informed that capitalist civilization is reaching its end...
...Let us pledge ourselves to do everything in our power to disseminate this spirit, especially to that our children shall grow up with the same ideal...
...Commodities acccumulate till some become unbuyable...
...Kach worker sells one labor power...
...The Voice of Toil ^<cs^<Q=^'Q=«^ <<i=<6=: 'By William Morrw^>=^*^=^^^> i HEARD men saying, Leave hope and waging...
...Both mean little more than an alteration of the governing structure while the disease Is located in the industrial structure of society...
...Are the Fascist movements abroad jomething new to the Socialist movement...
...The participation of the party in calling the Continental Congress for Economic Reconstruction in Washington for May 6-7 paves the way for greater workerfarmer cooperation than the party has ever had...
...Las) year an American Hitler, Edwarf Young Clarke, after attempting to market a 200 million dollar scheme to restore "prosperity," was sent to a psychopathic ward for ob* aervation...
...They gamble with madmen, knowing that the latter will provide a noose for working class organizations but hoping that the noose will not be coiled round their own necks...
...Let dead hearts tarry and trade and marry...
...wu*rm mirth i* a crime and love a snare...
...All the more reason why the working class Mhould give its utmost support to the agitation fur the preservation of the popular rights of organisation, agitation, free asaemblage and elections...
...They are not...
...However, to get rid of Fasriam may mean agonized convulsions, conspiracy, terror, and bloody class struggles which, if prolonged, may largely wreck a highly complex system of production and e»change...
...Now the world shaketh and fear awaketh...
...We are Socialist* and Internationalists...
...The sense of freedom, human dignity and justice is—more and more rapidly—disappearing...
...Aside from, this depression cancer firmly lodged in each industry there is the basic diseasa in the monetary economy...
...Our Greatest Opportunity By Clarence Senior National Secretary, Socialist Party THE greatest opportunity ever afforded the Socialist movement in this country comes the week end after this May Day...
...These are May Day reflections upon a capitalist system in convulsions all over the world...
...One might as well expect to prevent a fault in the earth's cust from producing an earthquake fty passing a law against it a$ t • expect Fascist decrees to cure the cancer that eats through the whole structure of society...
...The post-war history of Italy, Hungary and Germany show that all these aspects of nationalism have served to put the whole working class In chains...
...Unemployed groups, unions, farmers' associations, party locals t —it may require sacrifices for you i to send your delegates to Washr ington...
...Now Fascism makes no alteration whatever in the system of commodity production To chain capitalist production to a Fascist regime will solve nothing...
...They serve and can only serve reactionary classes...
...If you want freedom, you . will sacrifice as those at Valley 1 Forge did, in order to take back . for the people the government . which has been usurped by the economic overlords...
...It is a united front that reveals much that Is similar ia the philosophy of each...
...Workers of the world unite...
...The Klan expired in a carouse of corruption and graft, with some whippings and murders thrown in for good measure, but the ignorance on which it fed is by no means banished...
...The unbuyable surplus increases and finally iti¦ dustrial stagnation sets in...
...a leaderless swirl of humanity, we will see the beginnings of a mass movement, with ' crystallized ideas, with a new view ' of the situation, with a determina1 tion to carry on for freedom as 5 the colonial forefathers did...
...The latter are demanding that support be given to the bill before the Legislature to place a tax of 100% on all incomes of $10,000 a year and over . Another demand is that the State take over all industrial plants running at 25% of production and that these plants be operated for in the public benefit...
...RACINE SOCIALISTS ORGANIZE JOBLESS OAClNE, Wis.—The Workers* ** Committee on Unemployment, i.tarted by local Socialists seven weeks ago, is rapidly growing...
...For us are no rulerh but fools and bcfoolers...
...Fundamental Considerations These are fundamental considerations that Marxian Socialism long ago stressed and there is no satisfactory answer to the problem they present short of i social revolution inspired and led by a class-conscious working class...
...And bear in mind, that while society has a right to your cooperation in working for the general good, it has no right to your bodies and your souls...
...We seek the abolition of capitalism not only In our own country but in sll countries...
...that they were in no mood to have further patience with aldermen who were hostile to extending aid to the jobless...
...The Congress will be a wasted opportunity unless every local and branch - see to it that not only their delegates are sent to Washington, but makes contact with all other organizations invited to participate and get delegates to Washington from them...
...World-Wide Convulsions Whether the worker ia Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant, black of white, German, Italian or American, all workers have one interest in common and that is te fight in a common solidarity for their emancipation...
...In fact, any alteration in the governing structure of society, whether,,it l>e toward despotism or toward democracy, will not toudi the twofold depression disease that races iti the system of <• >minodity prodic'ion for erehnrge end sale...
...The response to the call, and the idea of a united attempt to work toward economic emancipation is one of the most heartening things that has taken place in the last decade...
...Where fast and fatter our iron master, The Thing we made, forever drives, Bids us grind treasure and fathion pleasure For other hopes and other lives...
...And with what results...
...Slaves of the Wild Men But Fascist wild men do not stop short of jailing the movement that is really their liberator...
...She ran to his I home and found him unconscious...
...Each is a plant for producing commodities for a market the capacity of which i no one knows...
...That is its basic depression disease...
...Who now shall lead us, what god shall heed us As we lie in the hell our hands have won...
...Capitalist society in a period of convulsions, in a period when its productive powers develop to their fullest, .sets in motion decaying sections of the population in the lower levels of society...
...The Fascist, the Bolshevik, and the bourgeois reactionary all have one thing in common ia that they sneer at democracy...
...The great are fallen, the wise man gone...
...Our rallying cry remains what it was in 1848...
...If the voice of the mass of workers and farmers is heard strongly and firmly enough at the Congress, it will furnish the lead which is now absent Instead of a milling mob with I conflicting opinions and ideas, in r stead of...
...The 1 importance of the Congress cannot s well be overestimated since these - possibilities indisputably are there...
...By James Oneal Reflections on May Day, 1933 THIS May Day brings with it more than ever the need of tound and sober thinking because of the rise of nationalist and racial hates out of a decaying capitalist civilization...
...They are in fundamental conflict with the idea and practice of labor solidarity...
...And joy at last for thee and me...
...Already there has been an improvement in the administering of relief by the city authorities...
...At a recent meeting of the City Council unemployed workers packed the council chambers and indicated...
...There is no power from which we can permit ourselves to accept the command to kill or be trained in hilling...
...And trembling nurse their dreams of mirth...
...There isn't a tingle depression factor that i» inherent in capitalist society that Fascism can remove...
...Where home it a hovel aiui dull we grovel Forgetting that the world it fair...
...its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue...
...you have a world to gain...
...Cause spreads over land and sea...
...The two functions of gold as a commodity come into conflict...
...Capitalism' is a system of producing commodities for exchange...
...I Fear becomes panic and panic beI comes hysteria...
...I He was taken to the hospital...
...Why...
...Then the money structure slides off its gold bate and what was chaos in industry also becomes chaos in the whole money economy...
...Come shoulder to shoulder ere the world grows older I Help lies in naught but thee, and mc...
...There is a • remarkable passage by Marx and Kngcls in the "Communist Manifesto'* which anticipates the present Fascist period...
...that a collective regime of the working class alone can solve the absurdities and contradictions of capitalism, would be recruited into a Socialist move ment...
...It must be scarce for owe purpose and ubvndant fur anot)ierIn normal periods gold will function fairly well despite this fundamental contradiction but in a period of depression, if fear becomes gene ral, there is a scramble between the nations to maintain the gold reserves that are essential for each money economy...
...Hope is before us, the long years that bore vs Rove leaders more than men may he...
...It was only a few yean) ago that we had an epidemic of Ku Kluxlsm- hate of foreigners* Catholics, Jews and Negroes...
...You have nothing to lose but your chains...
...Blinded by their insecurity, hysterical because of the black curtains that capitalism has thrown about them, these unfortunates seize power and transform society into a prison with themselves as the keepers...
...All days shall be as all have been...
...That is, it must be scarce to meet these requirements...
...Workers should beware of a rig, trend toward diverting attention from these basic facts to any ah* tacks upon nationalities and racist, minorities...
...While ue the living our lives are giving To bring the bright new world to birth...
...Is it not the "passively rotting mass" in Germany and other countries, the mass ignorant of the causes that rock capitalist society to ita foundations, that is led by demagogues like Hitler and Mussolini...
...Onee the poison of racial and nationalist hates seeps into their ranks division is certain and solidarity is impossible Such hates are evidence of a barbaric mind...
...The interests of the workers of all countries are the same...
...The...
...Come shoulder to shoulder ere earth grown older...
...Capitalism being based upon commodity production, the system of exchange requires one generally accepted commodity in which the values of all other commodities will be mearured...
...Hysterical Fascists in control of a capitalist system are like a squirrel in a revolving cage, they are always moving but they get nowhere...
...In more and more countries it is planned to introduce compulsory military service and te enrb freedom of speech and freedom of the press...
...Every capitalist enterprise, from the first factory that issued out of the old system of family production more than a century ago, came ino the world afflicted with this depression disease...
...Turn then from lying to us slow-dying In that good world to which they led...
...When Earth was younger 'mid toil and hunger In hope we strove, and our hands were strong...
...The misery of these critical times has everywhere strengthened reaction, which in turn has created i blind nationalism and then misused it for its own purposes...
...What' happens...
...They are a reversion back to ancient grudges...
...A Scarcity of Abundance Because, to serve as a measura of value it must have large value in small bulk...
...In every plant the workers produce values in exceej of the value of the wage they receive...
...Arc we not stronger than the rich and the wronger, When day breaks over dreams and sleep...
...If it is true that a society based upon the production of eommoditiea for sale is afflicted with a cancerous depression disease, then it is also true that neither Fascism nor military rule can cure it...
...Today and tomorrow bring fear aid sorrow The never-ending toil between...
...I heard men saying, Leave tears and praying, The sharp knife heedeth not the sheep...
...I quote : "The 'dangerous class,' the social ansa, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, bo swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution...
...Then great men led us, with words they fed us, And bade us right the earthly wrong...
...o read in story their deeds and glory, Their names amidst the nameless dead...
...But as the basis of the money economy and to serve as a means of circulation it should be abundant...
...Cold has become that money commodity...
...the capitalist buys hundreds, even thousands, of labor powers and out of each one an excess value is realized by the capitalist buyer...
...I've taken poison," Frank I Cantrall, 19, told his sweetheart > over the phone...
...However, there is not enough gold in the world to serve this purpose...
...Within a few weeks it is expected that fully 25% of Racine's unemployed will be organized...
...Wage workers sell their labor power to the capitalists...
...In Italy the capitalist and banking classes are today the slaves of the Black Shirts and in Germany the same classes are coming under the dominion of the monster they financed and encouraged...
...Moreover, the contiadie* tions, conflicts and absurdities of commodity production are : I so <<itain to disillusion masses who follow a Hitler or a Mussolini...
...Where no babe we cherish lest its very soul perish...
...EINSTEIN CALLS FOR WAR ON WAR By Albert Einstein ytlll know that the situation * of the world has not improved in the past few years...
Vol. 15 • April 1933 • No. 17
