Heading Toward A Capital Levy

...The appeal reads: "The Governor of California says the Tom Mooney case is closed...

...Melms was a remarkable organizer, and under his leadership the Milwaukee party achieved high efficiency...

...Nothing is said about how bosses and foremen went around urging the workers to contribute, pointing out that it would be "advisable" for them to give a certain percentage of their wages, and in fact offered to take that percentage off the next pay check...

...Democrats and Republicans alike are shying away from any discussion of a capital levy...

...By Laurence Rogin They Don't Call It A Wage-Cut, But What Would You Call It...

...There is a possibility, at this time, of forcing the courts and the Governor to act, if the aroused and aggressive mass pressure of public opinion for my pardon is crystallized immediately...

...Unproductive lands and plants could be retired from competition, scattered small properties could be grouped under a consolidated management, and economic planning could at last be begun...

...But he cannot go ahead without immediate contributions...

...Nothing is said about the special drives that are put on in shops and offices...

...WASHINGTON.—Congress is drifting toward a capital Financial disaster, which has overtaken one by one the various lower levels of income, has in the past two months knocked the props from beneath the multimillionaire class...

...The Gibson Committee has set out to raise at least $15,000,000 for relief in New York...

...Vogel and Crummenerl will report on party •rgansation and fineness...

...The impression is left that employees of their own free will contributed the money...

...Eighteen thousand Californians, in a recent mass meeting, shouted Nol The Wickersham Committee report, revealing that the Mooney prosecution was a frame-up, should declare an even louder No, but unless financial suuport is immediately forthcoming Governor Rolph may be proven right .GERMAN SOCIALISTS TO HONOR MARX BERLIN.—the annual conference *^ of the German Social Demoo racy, scheduled to be held at Frankfort-am-Main, March 12th15th, will constitute itself a me'moriul to the life and work of Karl Marx, the 50th anniversary of whose death occurs March 14th...

...Under California law it is legal]/ impossible to reopen the case on the basis of evidence made available after the trial, for court reviews can be based only on alleged irregularities in presentation of evidence...

...But they find no other road of escape from the utter collapse of revenues for private as well as public purposes...

...If he Is guilty the California authorities have the prospect of a conviction and the complete cIobb of the case for all time...

...Reduction of the nu.nber of grains of gold in the dollar will not solve the inflation problem, since Morgan A Co...

...Aufhiiuser will speak on "Measures to cope with the Crisis and to create Employment...

...A capital levy, economise point out to members of the Senate and House who dare t j listen, would be the simplest, surest and quickest way of raising the money needed to start the home market into new activity...

...That is the sad thing about that $2,150,000...

...The Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee of San Francisco, the only authorized Mooney defense organization, is carrying on a campaign for such a pardon and a new trial...

...THE joyous announcement that the Interborough Rapid Transit employees had consented to start their pay two weeks early in order to be able to contribute $110,000 to the Gibson Committee in its emergency relief drive shows the spirit in which relief is collected in this imperial city of ours...

...By December 31, 1932, about $14,000,000 had been raised...

...Something drastic must be done to restore buying power In millions of families...

...Socialists are Sourning the* death of Edmund T. elms, former Socialist sheriff, president of the City Council in the Seidel administration and for twenty five years county secretary of the Socialist party...

...The secretary of the Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee writes us: 'It is imperative that we immediately obtain some funds if the defense is to continue.' "Tom Mooney writes us from his cell in San Quentin: 'If my plans fail now there is no telling when I will have another chance to leave here alive...

...Against these properties the government could issue currency with which it could give employment on the one hand, and pay unemployment maintenance on the other...

...On a trial on that indictment the "evidence" of proved perjurers and paid liars can legally be subjected to the proper scrutiny...

...There mutt be a redistribution of wealth, and it must come toon...

...Norbeck has hesitated at again digging into the false fronts of big financial structures, but is convinced that further delay of exposure of vast frauds against the investing public is useless and injurious...

...collapse, is about to resume open hearings...

...Profits from investment have shrunk to a dangerously low point, as the public's buying power has disappeared There is no longer mere talk of a moratorium on private debts...

...Not half of the draining off of wealth from the , American middle-class pa1 lie 1 s , yet been aisclosed...

...ers r —it for a commodity dollar...

...Mooney demands a new trial...

...Foreclosures have thrown into the hands of banks and insurance companies a vast amount of real property which is not earning its maintenance charges and taxes...

...The committee is very proud of the fact that there were 238,728 individual gifts of employees organized into over 6,000 groups and each contributing, on an average $9.04 to the committee...

...Jn tome way the federal i government mutt either employ i thete people or buy their products or give them maintenance fundi with which they will bwy the good* that the industries should be producing...

...I beg of you not to fail me.' "Today please send some contribution, however small, to the Tom Mooney Molders' Defense Committee, P. O. Box 1475, San Francisco, California...

...Melms, who was one of the pioneer Socialists of this city, had long been ill, and was long ago forced to forego' the activity that meant everything to him...

...Factores, apartment buildings, hotels, stores, farms—the solid property of the nation—is becoming worthless as a producer of revenue...

...and some other big financial houses have long purI sued the policy of making their . bonds payable ;*> u certain number j of grains or ouncia of gold...

...The story in the World-Telegram concluded by saying that the committee discouraged coercion...

...Of this sum, according to figures released that day, $2,150,000 (about 15%) was' raised by employee groups...

...To Resume Digging Senator Norbeck's sub-committee of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, which has had investigators at work examining the causes for the Krueger & Toll and Lee, Iligginson & to...

...An exemption of $26,000 or |60,000 could he provided, and a graduated scale of levy be placed on all property above the exemption line...

...Fundamentals Not Touched However, none of the inflation . measures touches the fundamental problem of getting a huge sum of 1 buying power, quickly, into the hands of the 22,000,000 unemployed or partly employed, and ¦ into the hands of the destitute farmers...

...International Reconciliation — Economic and Political" will be dealt with by Breitscheid...

...It is, however, legally possible for the Governor to give Mooney a full pardon, and to order his immediate arrest on the indictment for the murder of Number Two...

...Nothing is stid about the subtle, and not so subtle, means of pressure that can be brought against those employees who are reluctant to give voluntarily...

...The political report of the executive and the party in the Reichstag will be given by Otto Wels under the title "Social-Democracy and Politics...

...Wages have been cut so that stock and bondholders Will be able to continue to get dividends gand interest Now the wage earners have to share their small earnings with those less fortunate than themselves bo that the wealthy won't have to worry about riots this winter...

...An Artists' and Writers' Committee for Tom Mooney has issued a call to the American people to back that method of legal procedure...

...So long as $2,000,000 can be raised from among those who can least afford it the Gibson Committee is very happy...

...He was deeply affected and tears streamed down his cheeks when they came to him...

...It isn't called a wage-cut, but it serves the same purpose and has the same effect...

...Nine persons were killed by the bomb that July day in 1916, and Mooney was tried and is now serving a life term for the murder of Number One...

...Buying power among the people Is lacking...

...in every direction, the bankers know, creditors are finding collection of debts impossible...

...That collapse is estimated to be all the way from two years to only six months distant— cinless powerful owners of property combine to surrender part of their holdings in order that they may retain a liveIslihood from the rest Tom Mooney Demands Pardon and New Trial 'Fill'] great objective of the Tom Mooney defense at this stage is a full pardon and a new trial for murder...

...EDMUND T. MELIUS DIES IN MILWAUKEE MILWAUKEE...

...The purpose of going to the wage earner for contributions was exposed by the manner in which the Interborough gift was announced...

...The accompanying release f r. m* the committee giving figures on just how much money was raised from employee groups make very interesting reading...

...Otherwise the greatest banks and insurance companies in the United States will crumble, and what the politicians fearfully speak of as the "big crash" will arrive in the form of general and chaotic bankruptcy...

...After all, isn't it just another form of wage cut...

...He was a sturdy figure in the Socialist party, and one of the best loved members her* for his manly qualities and his splendid devotion...

...He is survived by his wife, two sons, Edmund T. Jr., and Gen* , Debs Melms, a daughter, a brother, who is a Socialist member of the County Board of Supervisors, and two grandchildren...

...During the National Convention last May he was driven to the Convention hall and met some of his old cronies who came out to grasp his hand...

...His attorney have taken the legal steps necessary to bring him to trial on an old Indictment No court has ever considered the proof secured for Mooney's conviction, including that all the witnesses against him have been proven perjurers...

...Melms was a native of Milwaukee county, and was brought into the movement by Ferdinand W. Rehfeld, once Socialist alderman and for years business manager of the Milwaukee Leader...

...I make this desperate appeal to you for immediate help...

...The provisional agenda for the conference submitted by the executive provides that the keynote of the conference will be set by an address by Rudolf Hilferding on "Marie and the Present Day...

...Many members of Congress are urging that silver be remonetixed, or that flat money be issued, • that the gold content of the dollar be reduced...

...This same committee, and the ' House Banking and Currency Com• mittee, will soon bold hearings on currency inflation bills...

...Great pressure has been exerted upon him to protect the secrets of empty treasuries o: supposedly powerful, concerns, but he has determined that the country mi t stand a new series of shocks to its complacency...

...Government bonds, corporate bonds and stocks and other property could be taken, in this way, to the extent of $10,000,000,000 or even $40,000,000,000, without impoverishing anyone...

...That is the only legal loophole left, the only method by which the proof of perjury and corruption, discovered after the first trial had resulted in a conviction on the basis of purchased perjury, can be legally employed to discredit the case for the prosecution...

...There are proposals that a tax be laid on gold, in order to force the use ' of gold as a basis for issuance of • gold notes or other paper money...

...The appeal is signed by Lucia Trent, chairman, and Ralph Cheney, secretary, and other members of the commi '.oe are Fremont Older, Upton Sinclair, William Ellery Leonard, John Haynes Holmes, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, and others...

...He also served on the National Executive committee for several terms, and was a delegate to many national conventions...