TIMELY TOPICS

...In the Middle West I have found some use of barter and work exchange*, aided by script, which is helpful...

...In Belgium the expenditure of the emergency fund (exclusive of family allowance* for unemployed workers) has increased from 32,000,000 francs in 1930 to approximately 865,000,000 in 1931...

...They have been fairly safe while the people said, "Hoover is my shepherd, I shall do nothing but want...

...This inflation will get out of hand and a cry for organization will go up...

...Such a capital levy is far more equitable, and lea* destructive of confidence and more orderly than wholesale foreclosure*, wild inflation, or piecemeal cancelation or confiscation...

...Better organize the unemployed to demand immediate government action...

...Other relief appropriations—notably $40,000,000 to the Americas National Red Cross—hare also been found necessary...

...He will give the workers just enough to keep them quiet...

...In Great Britain the expenditure for compulsory insurance, already regarded as extraordinarily high (?51,500,000) in 1924-25, approximately doubled (?101,300,000) by 1930-31, and it is estimated by the Minister of Labor that the cost in 1932-33 will be ?120,000,000...

...Controlled Inflation SOCIALISTS ought to insist on two things:(1) Inflation must be carefully controlled in amount and directed to helping unemployed workers by maintenance allowance which aa soon as possible and a* far as possible should be changed into regular wage* for public works, including a great housing program...

...VVe read in our favorite weekly paper, the New York Democrat, house organ of the Tammany clubs of Manhattan, that "Over 3,000 attend Anawanda Ball...

...In Germany the total expenditure for compulsory insurance, emergency relief and communal relief taken together has risen from 1,151,000,000 reichsmarks in 1928 to 2,973,000,000 marks in 1931...

...By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS Every week Norman Thomas write* ui hi* |«*nigf**t style hi* own comments upon the *alient erenta of the moment Hitkr b la AREPORTER ha* just told me th* calamitous news that Hitler I* German Chancellor...

...the dilution of motor fuel (gasoline) with ten per cent of alcohol distilled from corn or grain...

...Then with increasing volume the chorus will ¦well: Give us a dictator or a group dictatorship...

...Cost in Various Countries "In Queensland the total expenditure sine* 1923-24 has more than trebled...

...Only by nbsidiaiag unemployed worker* aa consumer* can purchasing power by increased and effective demand be made available...

...A Dark Prospect • |^ONGRESS will soon find that we can't drink ourselves into prosperity or even into • balanced budget...

...No man can say that we ar* doing all we can to get out of this bog who rejects consideration of a capital levy and discussion of th* proper rates for it...

...In Italy "In Italy since 1924-25 the total expenditure on compulsory insurance is fully four times what It waa (22.fc00.000 lire ia 1924, tt> 100,000 lire in 1925, 115,600,000 Ur» in 1930...

...Charitable as the very devil...

...It will wrangle over budget balancing, give it up in despair, and resort to some sort of inflation, probably monetary inflation which must be on a huge scale to be effective...

...The committee is composed of men and women of the most varied background and education, colored and white, Mexican and Scandinavian, engineers and manual workers were discussing how best to bring pressure on Chicago relief agencies for effective action...

...If you don't like our Ike try out Mike...

...There's No Depression Here |_|KK K'S one industry in which there is no depression...

...Payment can be in money, government bonds, or in securities in comporations which should be socialized...

...This forecast is not a statement of inevitability...

...By washing our hands of responsibility in Germsny for the reparations situation, by blindly insisting on collecting Allied debts which of course mesnt that the Allies would insist on reparations, and by doing so little for disarmament we contributed to the conditions which gsve Hitlerism a fertile soil...

...I can't see much hope except that German Social Democrat* will now, after their desperate effort* to save the constitution, shift their emphasis from constitutionalism to Socialism To vote for Hindenburg to block Hitler and then get both—that is a tragedy...

...Charitable contribution* to relief in this country (the United States), large as they are In th* aggregate, are estimated to amount to only 1 per cent of the wage loss incurred by the workers...

...It appears that one Carley "served a* publicity man for the...

...Some farm leaders and others recommended the Beshers plan...

...School terms are being shortened, th* teaching force curtailed, attendance work reduced, vocational training and guidance program* suspended, and building plans cancelled...

...That national $50,000 budget must be raised...

...The report says: . "Huge sums are being expended by governments, municipalities and private organizations in relieving the unemployed...

...The participants will be Cicero Codina snd George Mladnick for the affirmative and Zekor Antonsen and Peter Miettinen for the negative...

...Perhaps the object lesson Hitler will give of what be can and cannot accomplish may check the drift to Fascism ia America...

...Extent of Unemployment Is Calami y Greater Than War AREPORT of th* International Labor Office on unemployment throughout the world give* some idea of the overwhelming disaster that baa coo** to the world'* working class...

...It is a place on the staff of the State Senate requiring certain technical qualifications...

...benign countenances were Mayor O'Brien, Boss Curry and othir Tammany notabilities...

...This drift to Fascism is the thing Socialists must fight...

...1 was considerably impressed by a conference in Bloomington following a forum— where, by the way, corn was accepted for admittance, the same to be ground into meal for the unemployed...

...Th* tax should begin at the one hundred er possibly two hundred thousand level because of administrative difficulties in price under that sum It might use th* rate worked out but, alas, not applied by the British Labor Party...

...But when Congress gets political paralysis, in the midst of depression, big business will abandon the fake two-party system and will look around for a demagogue with whom to make a working agreement...

...And there's a pretty picture tot youl...

...Th* emergency relief and construction act recently adopted by the United States Congress authorizes loans up to $300,000,000 to States for unemployment relief, loans up t* $1,500,000,000 for revenue producing construction works of * public character, and an additional sum of $322,000,000 to be appropriated for Federal public works...

...An Interesting Meeting /%NE of the most interesting meetings I attended on this trip was in Chicago, th* weekly meeting of the Central Committee representing the fifty or sixty locals with some 2,500 members of the unemployed groups initiated by the work of Karl Borders and the Chicago L. I. D. Socialists are actively working in them though they do not seek to dominate them as the Communists dominate the unemployed councils...

...It is rumored that storekeepers and pushcart peddlers, civil servants and teachers, little merchants and unemployed who want the favor of a job find it expedient to buy tickets and show themselves there...

...Business as usual—or more so...

...To fight it we must build the party...

...Bdueatlon Threatened by Economy Drive* A release from the National Child Labor Committee declares thst "the schools, which ought to b* offering increased facilities, are faced in many sections of th* country with reduced appropriations...

...Roosevelt will call will flounder around, pass some hasty legislation—perhaps an ill-considered farm allotment plan—under pressure, without adequate compensative legislation for city workers, employed and unemployed...

...Incidentally, in another column of the same Issue we read: "Carley Rewarded by McGuiness...

...In Poland total expenditure oa compulsory insurance has likewia* more than quadrupled...

...We are terribly hampered by lack of funds...

...2) The main dependence for necessary debt reduction must be a capital levy, that R, a tax appropriating, by a carefully adjusted scale, a share id the great wealth which its present owners did not create...

...Late in 1932 the total unemployment in the work) was carefully calculated to be in round numbers 30,000.000, with an annual expense to the world of $21,000,000,000 in wage* alone...

...The faithful and their wives bedeck themselves in borrowed (or rented] finery, drive up in taxicabs, do homage to the bosses seated in state in the royal boxes, and then gyrate in slow and majestic di.nce...

...Most of the farmers I've talked with in Iowa and Illinois want some form of allotment plan though, in discussion, they admit the dangers of the bill which passed the House of Representatives...

...In Austria it has about doubled in the same period...

...In the Netherlands, in th* eta* of the voluntary unemployment lasur»nce in operation there, expenditures have more than quadrupled during the last seven year...

...It calls for...

...And the bosses wsnt only one thing in return for "charitably" giving away th* money extorted from those wh* feel they ought to buy ticket** that is, the control of the city, club-house government snd large* wait loot...

...Greenpoint People's Regular Democratic Organization" of which a clows named McGuinass is "executive member...

...Day by day it is clearer that nothing can be done without lightening the debt burden which last year took half the national Income...

...They csn say...

...And where dd'the 3,000 merrymakers come from...

...The drift ia real and has been accelerated by disgust with the present session of Congress Of course this is • Lame Duck Congress—thank God, the last-but I see little hope for improvement in the next...

...What is the urge that induces the povertystricken of that proletarian section to pay high prices for tickets snd to rent plug hats snd swallow tail coats T And do they have aa much fun as they would in their own section among their own kind ? The answer of these questions tells the ugly story, of Tammany shake-down politics...

...In Switzerland the increase has been from 2,600,000 francs in 192S to 4,300,000 franca in 1926, t* 37,600,000 franca in 1931...

...The Anawanda Club wa or-< ganized by the sainted Charles* |Murphy, and long before his trans* lation to the Valhalla of statesmen its annual ball* were transferred from the rough-snd-ready ballrooms of the Gas House district to the swell precincts of the Astor...

...In New York City, for instance, the executive director of the Welfare Council has estimated that not less than $75,000,000 will be needed for relief in that city during th* next twelve months, of which at least $55,000,000 will have to b* provided by public funds...

...I am glad to report that the interest wherever I have been is almost as great as in csmpalgn time and that our locals are, to an encouraging degree, keeping on the job...

...Maybe some of hia colleagues the sobering weight of responsibility, his own essential weakness, and his party's lack 01 real unity will tame the boastful Hitler and prevent him from starting an antiSemitic terror or a militaristic rampage...

...Tomorrow, after wages are well down, it may start an inflation which will wipe out small saving* and insurance policies, measured in dollars, and will leave wages hopelessly lagging behind prices...

...As s result it will throw things further out of balance...

...circumstances may change it...

...Such a law would provide use for six hundred million bushels of grain, give a fuel which they claim is proved by test to be better than straight gasoline, and raise the price per gallon only by one cent, If that much...

...Workers with money ia their pocket* will begin again to buy...

...For this tragedy we Americans have plenty to answer...

...It is all too likely that the special session Mr...

...RAND SCHOOL DEBATE The newly-formed Rand School Debating Society will hold its third student debate of the year, Friday, February 10th, at 8:45, In the Rand School on "Resolved: that Technocracy is a Socialist Philosophy...

...So Carley gets a $4,000 job—but McGuiness does not pay the salary, nor does his "regular" club...

...Today the capitalist .system is lightening its toad by the cruel and crude surgery of ruthless deflation of wages and wholesale foreclosure...

...But, possibly, the moat startling figure* ar* those which reveal the financial burden which unemployment places on every industrial state...

...It was held at the Astor Hotel, and looking upon the merry throngs witir...

...Heretofore our fake two-party system has served it* mssters well...

...And they were reporting an appreciable degree of success...

...And that tells the story of what is going*on in New York, and givts an added reason for the useful people to turn their backs on th* two old parties, and upon a "fusion" movement, and upon * projected Goo-Goo "City Party," and to unite in the Socialist Party to clean out the mesa and take over government in their own interest The proceeds of the Anawanda ball are scheduled to go "to-, ards relief of the needy of the district...

...And that is why Republican leaders attend them and sit conspicuously smirking in the boxes with their allies, the Tammany leader...

...During the campaign Professor Maynard Krueger and come student* working with him, at my request, estimated that conservatively on this basis we could collect forty to fifty billions which could be used to wipe out the worst of the debts we have now and will have to incur for unemployment relief, etc...

...As sn emergency law it seems to me that it promisee real help to a great many farmers with far fewer dangers than the allotment plan—certainly as that plan- passed the House...

...McGuiness is not the appointing officer, but he "rewards" his man, and shamelessly the organizaion sees nothing wrong in letting the world know how the wheels go 'round...

...Oh, yes, indeed...

...If instead of Hoover the masses had said "Wall Street" it might lie different and dangerous for our masters...

...These funds take no account of sums expended by local relief funds and private organizations...

...I am appalled when workers talk of building new shoe factories, for example, to produce for th* unemployed when we have so many idle factories...

...It would help conserve petroleum...

...The farmers say they wsnt something now and God knows they need it...

...But unless these exchanges can get control of factories their usefulness i* limited...

...The Standard of Living TTHE present standardization of poverty by food * allowances averaging, in most cases, under three dollars a week for a family with rent and other charges mostly out of the picture is ruining the socalled American standard of living...

...A d that accounts for the big success of nil Tammany district club affairs...

...A Huge Burden "In countries such as the United States, where organized provision for unemployment relief has not yet been developed, the burden hat fallen in the main upon local funds...

...That ought to be the -primary purpose of this conference or congress the Organization Committee of our party is now working at...