TIMELY TOPICS
THOMAS, NORMAN
By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS Every week Norman Thome* write* in bit pungent style hi* own comments upon the salient events of the moment On the train to Evansville, Indiana, Jan. 16. Smokeless...
...Prominent among anti-Tammany reformers is Dr...
...What irony it is thst men can see the sun sgain, not becsuse they have used their scientific knowledge to banish the smoke nuisance and redeem the wealth that is wasted in soft cost smoke, but becsuse their mills snd factories are idle and they are hungry...
...This maintenance wage should be turned into a regular wage at socially useful work by a great program of public works, especially Including a- program of housing to replace the miserable houses which our industrial workers have to call home...
...Argentine Socialists Battle the Reaction OUGNOS AIRES...
...How are the workers of the city (and other cities afflicted by their own Tammany Hall) to defend themselves...
...There is no social merit in fostering small banks...
...Theoretically the banks have two functions: to protect the depositors' money and to make credit available for various activities...
...But if the dominating class attempts to emasculate the suffrage and dares to persist in denying us the right of free assemblage to propagate 'our ideas and to join together in syndicates, ths streets will be the scene of a conclusive battle between political barbarism and the forces of democracy...
...Inspired by the lofty humanitarianism of our ideals we wish to put a stop to violence...
...We don't starve people fast in America...
...TJKKH in Indiana, 'Gene Debs' home state, some-* thing has occurred to remind me of one of hi* close friends, that* stuanch, unswerving Socialist veteran, Channing Sweet of Denver, Colorado...
...Branch Banks and Big Banks CIX neighborhood banks, all of them independent, closed their doors in St Louis last week...
...The present difficulties confronting the nation have their main origin in the so-called "September 6th" movement Taking advantage of the demagogy of the Irigoyen government, when it was defeated by the voters, two generals of the Argentine army, Urlburu and Justo, revolted against the duly elected government and placed the arms of the Republic at the disposal of the most brutally reactionary capitalistic elements...
...Every industrial city we have seen from New York to St...
...He likewise supported the creation of hordes of militarized civilians, who, ssnctioned by the provisional government, began their sinister activities against democracy, constituting bands of assassins on the government payroll...
...Imagine a food tax of over a billion dollars which will have to be paid by unemployed or underpaid workers if they eat at all...
...More than 25,000 workers assembled in the Plaza of the Parque do lea Patricloe, at a meeting called by the Socialist Party to affirm their determination to combat the reaction...
...On the whole, big banks with branches, whatever crimes and blunders thsy are guilty of in this country and abroad, have proved aafer than small independent neighborhood banks...
...Justo gave himself over te th* most reactionary political elements, coddling the so-called "Civic Legion," having recently appointed to high public office the principal accomplices of the de facto government He is accused by the Socialists of fomenting fratricidal hatreds, goading on the capitalistic offensive, and is devoting his governmental activities to facilitating the definite return of the conservstives by violent means...
...But that would be dividing the opposition to Tammany, and would give victories to Tammany Hall because of insistence on a dogmatic principle," reply the anti-Tammany forces...
...The Socialist Party gave notice to the reactionaries that it would er.ploy all its defensive means to avoid retrogression in national institutional life...
...Congressmen Fiorello H. LaGuardia is another foe of Tammany, even though he once ran for Congress with Tammany endorsement in oider to defeat a Socialist Both those men will defend an anti-Tammany fusion of all forces, including the Socialist Party, in a four-cornered debate against the two leading Socialist spokesmen of New York, Morris Hillquit and Norman Thomas, who will answer why the Socialist Party cannot join hands In auch a fusion, and why the integrity of the Socialist Party is of far greater importance than a defeat of Tammany by anybody and any grouping that comes along...
...This is an increase of 2 per cent over last month, but to begin to make profits even st the present low rats of wages ths mills should have 41 per cent production...
...The infamies of other city Tammany Halls are being exposed every day...
...1 In the rapidly diminishing treasuries of the cities, in decreasing salaries of teachers and other city employees, in the ominous attacks upon the schools is told the story of, Tammany misrule and plunder...
...The League of Nations, according to Congressman Collins, fixed the active strength of the British Army at 144,522 officers and men, not including India, where its forces have their hands full...
...Yet a young man after a forum in St...
...They would operate to bring about some inflation and they could be supplemented, as I explained repeatedly in the last campaign, by a direct issue of money by the federal government to those now unemployed for relief and public works...
...He credited Great Britain with 451,000 officers and men...
...Smokeless Factories at Last VOUNGSTOWN, OHIO, is trying to feel cheerful * becsuse its steel production this month will rise to about 19 per cent of capacity...
...All money borrowed should be paid back by future taxes on wealth, that is, by income and inheritance taxes and a capital levy...
...Let all the foes of Tammany get together," say some...
...This money could be retired in a year by a two-cent stamp tax on its weekly circulation, which tax would stimulate the circulation of the money...
...First they showed themselves unable to protect the depositors' money and then in a frantic zeal for what they call "liquidity" they began to call loans or refuse to extend them and otherwise to contract business, thus adding to depression...
...Truth never did go well with war or militarism...
...in reality it will probably stimulate a wild overproduction...
...At the very outset Dictator Uriburu ohowed his hand by attempting to annul the Saenz Peja law and substitute for it the Fascist corporative system of representation...
...The consequent panic started a serious, though not disastrous, run on the big banks...
...Let all the foes of misrule and exploitation join the Socialist movement," say the Socialists...
...The General, who is Chief of Staff in the U. S. Army, in an effort to scare Congress into big appropriations in this year of depression, rated his army down the scale...
...Thanks to the action of the Socialist Party, the valiant attitude of workers' organizations and the enthusiastic cooperation of student organizations the dictatorship failed in the execution of its principal aim to nullify universal suffrage, and resigned itself to organizing the most shameless frauds in the political history of the country...
...One of the orators, Municipal Councillor Carrera, said: "We So* cialists will strive to maintain internal peace...
...its primary benefit will be grabbed by mortgage holders and farm landlords...
...How are they to defeat their despoilers and robbers...
...At every point these city plun-derbunds are robbing and misruling the people...
...What we must have is socialized banking as part of a general socialized plan of production for use, not profit...
...He loved and served the Socialist Party in his life and in his death he did not forget it I regret that only now, some months after his loss, in the crowded business of campaigning and post-campaign activities have I found space in this column for this brief snd inadequate tribute to a wise and loyal comrade of the stalwart generation of the great 'Gene Debs...
...To make the attempt prior to granting something like adequate relief to the unemployed Is to invite danger to expand into sheer disaster...
...And this notice ought to be oonugh...
...but before the menace which is growing against democracy, with organized violen 9 from above, we are ready to give battle...
...They protested against the passivity of the police during the outrages committed by the "legionnaires" at workers' meetings, which they claimed indicated complicity on the part of the government, and took a "laic" oath to struggle in defense of the rights of workers, for their maintenance and further conquests...
...Our homes, our Institutions and our legitimate rights must not be left to the mercy of a handful of criminals protected by the government In accordance with the principles of the Socialist Party, and with profound respect for the sacrifices of the people, we will continue availing ourselves of universal inffr...
...Foreign governments will almost certainly hold that a subsidy to whest and cotton in America means that what is sold abroad at a lower price is really dumped and therefore subject to excess duties and other penalties against dumping...
...It is simply impossible for capitalism to cure the sickness of agriculture by an immense dose of subsidies collected by whst is in effect a general tax against consumers without creating new evils greater than the old...
...In this issue of The New Leader is printed a story of how New York's own Tammany Hall treats the sacred right of franchise...
...One by one they pass, leaving us a deeper obligation to carry on...
...And so the argument is on...
...Louis presents a spectscle of idle factories snd smokeless chimneys...
...Few capitalist institutions are breaking down as badly as a privately owned banking system...
...Family relief in these Norman Thomas towns runs from s dollar and a half to two, or at the most three dollars a week...
...Louis asked me whether I did not think that Huey Long was doing a great service by his one-man filibuster against the Glass bill which under certain restrictions would permit branch banking, I told him I was as a Socialist little concerned one way or another about branch banking...
...and with all these domestic complications it is likely to get our export trade in a worss jsm than ever...
...How Best Defeat Tammany Is the Subject of Debate •THE infamies of Tammany are • being exposed every day...
...as our principal method of attack, so long as the ballot permits of the free expression of the will of the people...
...Taking aa a pretext the necessity of terminating the administrative confusion and of bringing the government back to its constitute ml channels, their real aim was to establish in the Republic a system of government along Fascist lines...
...Remember, this huge subsidy cures no primary agricultural evil...
...Money could easily be provided for this plan...
...Something IHce this will be even more imperatively necessary if this Congress or the next Anally passes the allotment plan for agriculture, which now appears likely to be loaded up in the Senate by a subsidy to the growers of all kinds of food, not merely those the prices of which are fixed in the world market...
...Mac Arthur Juggles Figures pONGRESSMAN COLLINS seems to have caught ^ General MacArthur, hero of the contemptible attack on the Bonus Army, in a discreditable bit of false propaganda...
...William Jay Schieffelin, business man snd Lead of the Citizens' Union...
...To the force of right and reason we will add that of arms if they persist in carrying the contest to the field of violent attacks...
...it will create an immense spy system In an unsuccessful effort to enforce a genuine twenty per cent reduction in actual production...
...There remained the black-shirts, as well aa th* government of General Augustin P. Justo, heir of the dictatorship, conceived in the barracks and elected president by fraud...
...Our American banks have failed in both respects...
...His call for a special session of Congress includes, as subjects of serious import, the "law of social defense," legislation on "the dangerous rtate of affairs," and reform of the Penal Code and complementary laws, all inspired by manifest reactionary motives...
...There is lots of money in the banks which bankers are afraid to invest in private enterprises and the federal government can borrow at a very low rate...
...It should be agreed in advance that the printing of such money should be stopped if and when it tends to raise the price level above the price level, let us say, of 1927...
...in spite of its allegedly experimental nature its tendency will be to force an unwholesome tariff and subsidy system more firmly upon us...
...Script and Inflation FAR better than voluntary piece-meal inflation, under which script facilitates the primitive method of barter, would be the controlled inflation provided by the Socialist plan for granting each unemployed worker a maintenance wage with which to buy what he most needs...
...These bond issues would have to be in the billions, as were the Liberty Loans...
...The debet* will feature the ninth annual New Leader dinner, February 10th, at Webster Hall...
...we starve them slowly...
Vol. 15 • January 1933 • No. 3
