For Unity in Action Between Socialists and Cooperatives
Cooley, Oscar
By Oscar Cooley For Unity in Action Between Socialists and Cooperatives IT would stem that now if ever is the time for harmony of action for all movements sincerely and genuinely striving...
...We should be able also by the spoken and the written word to spread more thoroughly among Socialists the knowledge of what cooperatives are doing and can do...
...I think there can be no denying that there is something pathetic about a woman alone...
...We can, however, develop more intimate contact and better mutual understanding between leaders of the two forces...
...Or per...
...Ths larger ths rols of machinery and administration the greater the difficulty of bringing prices down when unemployment and lower wages have brought about the inevitable decline of purchasing power...
...A conference of all interested might be the first step in bringing about some such committee...
...We can not—nor should we be expected to—serve ultimatum on all cooperatora to vote the Socialist ticket...
...Hardly a day passes whilom some offering of the station beis| featured in the radio news in tk< dailies...
...Can it be that Hitler has the right idea...
...THOMAS IN CLASH WITH MAYOR O'BRIEN TPHE fake "economy" of the * Tammany city administration that saves on education, libraries and recreation while leaving the useless jobs of political hacks virtually untouched was exposed by Norman Thomas at an open meeting on the 1933 Budget of NewYork in a session in which the Tammany mayor lost his temper and angrily declared that he was not there to argue with the Socialist leader...
...Let us recognize that as human animals we cannot agree on all things...
...The reaction of the members of the Board (most of whom, by the way, are Socialists) was that this involves no change in policy...
...In the first place, what can we not do...
...Why ahould it not also have a permanent Committee on Cooperation...
...SjBj The first two New Leader p«t oda were received with enthusiast] by many listeners-in, and follow ing the first broadcast letters with requests for sample copies and subscription rates came from „, far away as New Hampshire...
...Only together, using all the tools at our disposal, can we hope to build anything approaching a cooperative commonwealth...
...Franklin D. Roosevelt re cently sponsored a "Just Smile" campaign and expressed over thi radio a wish that we would all sing that old Song, "Pack Up Yosl Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile—Smile—Smile...
...To be sure, wages have gone down, but the fixed char gee of machinery and administration have added to the unit cost of production in inverse proportion as the turn of production hat fallen of...
...At least it would be the first step toward a broader Socialist educational policy, and thus toward the laying of a broader base for a workers' culture in America...
...Are women nanny-goats...
...Specifically, I propose that a conference be called of all Socialists and all Cooperatora, in and about New York City, who agree that a wider dissemination of knowledge of Cooperation, and closer relations in general, are desirable...
...Those who have come through, still eager for the fight, still sturdy and independent, are the same few rebels we find everywhere in the most backward as well as the most enlightened countries...
...In this way pricos were brought into at least partial equilibrium with purchasing power again, and the recovery of industry was hastened...
...The spectacle of radical thinkers, who are agreed in general on the kind of world they | want, pausing to argue over details of how to attain it, and thus making Hole perceptible progress toward its attainment, ia unedifying indeed...
...grade, and the remarkable "Um versity of the Air," organized u| sponsored by Hendrik Willem V« Loon and including such leeturn as Prof...
...From such a conference, methods of cooperating may be developed...
...You silly nanny-goats," was the answer, "that's what vou've pot sons for...
...one of the Hitler deputies in the Prussian Landtag spoke to the women of Germany when the women Social Democrats interrupted him with the cry: "We have sacrificed our sons who died on the field of battle...
...Thomas centered his attack upon the Tammany ideal of economy that retains eleven sergeant-atarms in the Board of Aldermen, while the educational services are slashed and Charles E. Mitchell dictates the financial policies of the city...
...Thomas continued: '.'The spectacle of Charles E. Mitchell appearing before this board as the sponsor of economy is enough to make the gods lsugh or swear, in view of his record in Wall Street...
...And Is There Something Significant in Hitler's Appeal to Women...
...Mrs...
...IN previous crises of the capitalist system, when large numbers of workers have become disemployed and the purchasing power of the masses of consumers has declined, the capitalists reduced wages and, thanks to tlris economy, also the prices of commodities...
...Wages are now a much smaller factor than formerly in the cost of production...
...Does every woman cherish deep under the layers of emancipation, a desire to be dominated, a wish for a sanctuary, a place where she knows she belongs...
...Again and again the women o f Germany have been s a v a gely scolded for daring t o think of themselves as emancipated creatures...
...Today them have them...
...For years the Socialists battled for suffrage for women and for the extension of civil and economic rights...
...haps it is just too soon for then to stand alone...
...By the hysterical millions they are flocking to the Hitler banner...
...Can the capitalist system recover even to a condition of partial health...
...We csnnot adopt the Socialist Party as "our" party, for the simple reason that many good cooperators, especially farmers, are not Socialists...
...The "everlasting" > and "biological" laws don't seem to work this timet The reason is not far to seek...
...Perhaps the women of Germany, having caught a glimpse of their reflections in the mirror of the future, are frightened at the apparition and so take refuge in an emotional bath of Hitlerism...
...cooperative toward other radical groups...
...By Oscar Cooley For Unity in Action Between Socialists and Cooperatives IT would stem that now if ever is the time for harmony of action for all movements sincerely and genuinely striving to sweep away the wreckage of the capitalist system and erect in its place a system of production for use, not for profii...
...But let u» not allow that fact to keep itt from cooperating in those things that we can agree upon...
...Nearly seven million of them gave their votes to the Nazis in the elections last fall...
...This difference between the crises of the past and the present crisis may prove the difference between a passing indigestion and the last fatal attack...
...To this end the Cooperative League is glad to furnish speakers to Socialist branches that desire talks and forums on Consumers' Cooperation...
...Our bonnie Lady Astor over ths ocean tried a somewhat similar stunt in the House of Commons "Wouldn't it be better," she asked, "if people did not talk so muei about the influenza epidemic...
...Some of it * most vital services are being injured...
...You have cut drastically into the various city departments," said Thomas, "into the pay of civil service employes and into the el-' lowances for education and libraries, but you have scarcely touched those exempt positions that keep the political organization going...
...For example: Suppose the charges of machinery and administration to be $3 on every pair of shoes when one hundred thousand pairs are produced, then if in a same period of time only fifty thousand paira are produced, it is obvious that the same incompressible charge distributed over all will amount to $6 per pair instead of S8, and the price per pair would actually have to be raised above $6 in order to pay for labor and any other charges...
...Is there any power within the capitalist system that cafi now raise wages to a level where it is possible for the masses to buy at the high prices that actually exist...
...Which ii pretty sensible and businessliki reasoning...
...We might get ferocious and just sock you one on the nose...
...Such a reduction would be a larger saving than that cut from this year's budget" By Gertrude Weil Klein A Woman's Point of View "VOU silly nanny-goats . . ." This is how...
...Well, Mrs Roosevelt, we didn't seem to read just right to this slogan and it first we thought it was because w» had no kit bag...
...Good, said I, now let us make this policy more positive...
...In fact, they stati that there are more buyers h Paris this year than there wen last year...
...WEVD is rapidly becoming on, of the leading stations in the com, try...
...John Dewey, Dr...
...Even if she is a genius or a saint, she carries about her an air of insufficiency that is poignant and tragic...
...Roose* Jelt, I want to warn you that ii you try any of that psychology stuff on me—you know—what yo« said over the radio about "greeting even the most cheerless and hopeless person with a smile"-* well, just look out Because when we're feeling our most cheerle* and hopelessest we just can't stand having anyone grinning sweetly is our face and telling us to smile...
...Or will it remain a hopeless cripple until its final death and burial...
...This is only o n 3 i n d 1 c ation of the Hitler att i t u d e toward women...
...How can such closer relations between ths Cooperative League, representing the Consumers' Cooperative movement, and the Socialist Party be brought about...
...Important public even are broadcast, music of the highes...
...At least we might sit down together around the conference table at frequent periods and discuss methods by which we can cooperate in attacking the common enemy...
...but prices have remained relatively high, so high that there seems to be an almost complete dislocation of the system of supply and demand...
...sea fruit to the women of Germany...
...We cannot throw ths meetings of cooperative...
...Also, we should be able to join forces in protesting against measures which are obvious thrusts at the consumer, such as the sales tax and high utility rates...
...Has emancipation become dead Are Women Nanny-Goats...
...our own is too empty...
...Future program, will be shortly announced...
...At a recent meeting of the Board of Directors of the Eastern States Cooperative League I proposed that the League in its educational work should seek closer relatione with Socialists, militant trade unionists and others who, like ourselves, are working along revolutionary lines, and who are ready and willing to cooperate...
...Mayor O'Brien admitted, however, that Thomas' figures were correct when he said that only 33 of 2,150 employes, exempt from the civil service rules, had been dropped at a saving of only $212,000, while most budget slashes affected education and the salaries of the less well paid city employes...
...Or is there any person that can reduce the prices to a level corresponding to the low standard of wages...
...With him as dictator, the city has cut and cut again...
...They can vote at the age of twenty...
...By Herman Kobbe Low Wages Mean High Prices Unchanged Machinery and Administration Costs Make All the Difference —Is It Merely Indigestion, or a Fatal Attack...
...Back to your kitchens," screams Hitler...
...And what do the women of Germany answer...
...And our big business men 7 Whil a ludicrous fix they find themselva in with the Paris offices of thi high-hat department stores scurrj ing around assuring the Frencl that there's nothing to it Eve the Paris office of Macy's, which as we all known, caters to the mid' die class, ridicules the "Buy A mo icsm" movement...
...The Socialist Party has a permanent Committee on Trade Unionism...
...The "Buy American" proposil has been practically repudiated bj the Federation of Women's Club* The question came up at the recent convention and it was opposed bt cause it would incite other oeua tries to trade reprisals and ws therefore considered a short-sight ed act of patriotism...
...The next broadcast will be net Friday, February 17th, by Willu, M. Feigenbaum...
...Why has not the same phenomenon taken place in this present crisis...
...that the League is and always has been —,- e Secretary of Cooperative League of America Wants Closer Cooperation— Most Cooperates Are Socialists Already...
...Look after your men folk and your babies," echo his lieutenants...
...societies open to political discussion, because the Cooperative movement has found by long and sad experience that the injection of political blarei into cooperative meetings resuit in dissension and disharmony, even to the point of wrecking the cooperative society, and no good— in fact ii-rm—is done to the entire cause...
...Professors of political economy who want to save the life of the patient should try to give an early answer to these pressing questions, for the continuance of low wages in combination with a high price level'is a dangerous symptom for Old Man Capitalism...
...On second thought though, we're afraid our trouble wouldn't fit into a kit bag anyhow, so we're not going to ask you to send us one as we had intendei i And furthermore, Mrs...
...Wages, and consequently purchasing power, have gone way down...
...The sergeant-at-arms receive $26,520 a year, and Thomas cited their existence merely as an example of the retention of useless jobs to reward political services...
...All who are interested in attending such a conference are asked to inform the Cooperative League, 167 West 12th St., New York City...
...They have hai a statement printed in the Frencl press denying that Macy's is dit continuing the purchase of Frencl merchandise...
...We can not, m a movement, contribute to the Socialist war chest...
...Thi House just howled her dow** "Wouldn't it be better to bear mind what Job said—" the ladf persisted, but the howls became st loud and vociferous that it was in* possible to hear what the bo* pestered Job said...
...It is machinery, and administration, that now play the major roles...
...What should be done is to ask the banks to reduce the mortgage rates by at least 1 per cent...
...Divided we are merely aeets, each striving to establish our own particular creed...
...John | Watson, Henr < Co well, Signna Spaeth, Thomas Craven, Fanni Hurst, Elmer Rice, and Carl Vi Doren are regular features...
...I charged the League with following an isolationist policy and stated as my strong opinion that this p tlicy should be changed...
...They can shoulder all the back-breaking and soul-destroying burdens along with their men-folk...
...It ia sad either wij to see them voting for the mil who is going to take away frog them even that measure of fret dom, the vote...
Vol. 15 • February 1933 • No. 6
