Penna. Socialist Legislators Battle for Old Age Security
McDowell, Arthur G.
By Arthur G, McDowell Penna. Socialist Legislators Battle for Old Age Security Lilith Wilson Demands Meeting of Committee—Conspiracy to Emasculate Bills Exposed. HARRISBURG, Pa.—Firmly...
...That's right but you seem to be talking through your hat now," said Joe...
...If you are on a strike against the capitalist class and other workera insist on scabbing while their leaders strike bargaina with other capitalist agencies, you wouldn't like that sort of thing, would you...
...But the Communists immediately called for splits in unions, parties and cooperatives all over the world...
...The difference between a Hitler or a Mussolini and an Al Capons ia that the American racketeer is only a half-baked dictator...
...Governor "Sunny Jim" Rolph, having declined to reopen the case, Mooney was doomed to spend the rest of his life in prison because the law, in its majesty, is unable to take cognizance of facts known to the prosecution but not to the defense, at the time of the trials and now known to the whole world...
...If I go to jail," he once said to me, "I know I will not live a week...
...8-1 "THERE was nothing about * Victor L. Berger to suggest the hero, outwardly nothing gallant and dashing and romantic...
...It declared that these sections should pretend to favor the purposes of the Berlin conference but 'not for the purpose of making it effective.' It was to strengthen the Communists, not to promote reunion...
...In the event of such an acquittal not even the bitterest California reactionary could justify keeping the victims in jail another hour...
...Not a strike but a- working class struggle," said Bill, "and I merely cited bfie strike as it bears some resemblance to the situation in yftrmany...
...I hope that the wide reaction will hammer the whole working class Into a revolutionary solidarity...
...Berger's name had been dragged through the dirt...
...The measure is phrased in general terms but was definitely written with a view to striking at the increasing reluctance of what are supposedly the people's local government servants to permit bodies of citizens with programs, suggestions or complaints at their meetings, particularly if such citizens happen to be workers and, worse yet unemployed ones...
...Will we ever have Fascism in America...
...Neither tide can win, both art likely to be defeated, and the whole working elan' will lote if that tolidarity it not realised...
...They not only held it out but accepted it when it was extended by the Communist International in 1922," Bill replied...
...And yet as he stood on a platform in Milwaukee one December night in 1919 and faced a vast audience and made his confession of faith there were many who were thrilled more deeply by the man's steadfast courage, his manliness and his heroism than by any other man excepting only the incomparable Eugene V. Debs...
...They Consider Some History "WELL, let's see," said Bill...
...Socialists have for many years pointed est that political) government, while inevitably serving the interests of the dominant class, in the distribution of property, tends to try to claim for itself a certain independent and authoritarian place of its own...
...The net result of fostering schismatic war instead of understanding and ultimate reunion is a yielding on both working clast fronts and strengthening the capitalist and Junker reaction...
...While the Communists have encouraged extreme reaction the Socialists, facing this fire, have made concessions to the enemy," said Bill...
...The past with its errors was history and could not be mended but world wide division was ordered...
...He had been told that he was a good man gone wrong...
...He had been implored to "recant...
...But these mistaken Communists in that country have even gone to the extent of supporting some Fascist proposals in Prussia and in the Reichstag...
...aaj uid Betas, would rej charged M would sis| No heroi the simplti sublime dm Another} It was thi...
...This alibi has considerable difficulty in squaring with the facts, both past and present...
...There's Al Smith who says that What we need in these times of depression ii good old dsj tat ors ran i duced a a Smith want depression...
...Governor Pinchot has let it be known that he is not "recommending" legislation, although he of course is on record as in favor of such legislation...
...The 20-year jail sentence waa in his mind a death sentence...
...The bomb, explosion of which sent Mooney and Billings to to jail, kiled nine persons...
...I don't like eivll war, anyway," said Joe...
...The meeting was the last rally in the campaign to fill the vacancy in Congress...
...They Don't Like Civil War '"TRANSFER this schismatic policy to a situation where * the workers are on strike against a powerful capitalist boss and other workers involved in the struggle systematically follow division and aid strikebreaking agencies and >ou have something similar to the German situation," said Bill...
...He a big, bulk] face of a used to ¦ tide," ha at a voice fn laughed, at witticism It instantly thi softened by he spoke qt heart...
...The Democrats and Republicans had united upon a "patriotic" candidate to oppose him...
...The Tom Mooney Mulders' Defense Committee, the only authorised Mooney defense body, has issued a call for a 'Mooney Conference to meet in Chicago April 30th to May 3rd...
...When events grow out of hand for ordinary measures of deception snd force, the owning class gives their support to an openly tyrannical authority such as Mussolini and Hitler are attempting in Europe...
...Berger was close to 60 years old, and a passionate lover of life...
...Fascism is a combination of the underworld and the penthouse class...
...Since a story in the labor press last week from Harrisburg gave the alarm to the friends of the Old Age Security movement, Charles Denby, Jr., president of the Public Charities Association whose failure to put forth old age pensions and unemployment insurance at the state meeting of the Association was the first indication of weakening on the part of former friends of the measures, has not denied the significance imputed to his action...
...Ia "a Social I Castor Oil a MUSSOLINI is reported to be "*> elated over Hitler's victory in Germany...
...We have the criminals Snd the penthouses...
...In Italy it was a castor-oil demagogue: in Atnerica it't likely to be a cocktail-shaking demagog**, • \ t...
...Joe inquired...
...I can't be confined...
...I just read that eleven Socialists were shot by Fascists and that some Communists have also been shot The temperature is rising in Germany...
...That is shameful...
...In time of crisis like the present, Hoopes pointed out, the period of the election of public officials may embrace a length of time sufficient radically to alter the alignment by which they were elected snd the sense of this often drives to extremes of abuse rather than modifying ths action of such persons...
...The new move is to secure a trial on the second indictment, a case identical in every detail (except for the identity of the unfortunate victim...
...Delegations met in Berlin to tear them down and there the Socialists found that a secret document had been sent to its sections by the Communist International...
...They should have united with the Communists as everybody could see this thing coming...
...Bill and Joe Are Much Concerned Over Danger to German Workers And Come to the Same Conclusion By Autolycus "¦ OOKS as though Germany will have a civil war," said *-» Joe to Bill as they looked over a copy of The New Leader in the Rand School book store...
...In extraordinary circumstances both Socialists and Communists have justified concessions and compromises, not as a permanent policy but as something that for the time is extorted by external circumstances...
...For Open Meetings Representative Darlington Hoopes, Reading Socialist, has introduced a bill in the PennsylvaniS legislature to compel all local government bodies, county commissioners, and boards, city councils, township supervisors, school boards, etc., to open their meetings to the public...
...Millions of workers despite revolutionary teachings had been caught in the whirlpool of nationalistic and patriotic propaganda...
...It has been especially disastrous in Germany, a nation that in some respects holds a key position in the revolutionary movement...
...But where does that strike analogy come in...
...Not because they want Fascism but because they are ordered to follow a schismatic policy against the Socialists...
...His devoted wife and daughters had suffered intensely—but they stood by him loyally...
...On that day he will be represented In the Superior Court of San Francisco by Frank P. Walsh and Leo Gallagher, attorneys, in a plea that may possibly reopen the entire Mooney and Billings case and give the defense an opportunity legally to establish what is accepted as a fact by everybody familiar with the cast?—that the conviction was secured in the first place by perjured and purchased testimony...
...Bo right to see as he said, the trouhbj Socialist" Then eas munist Inti ject of diss contained 1 hissing and Morris Hi] target...
...Al says State Kuil Washington around eai And that's* Or do we si nest firmt I empty flow Buildingt David S. arms of thi gressmen of tost his job tide to a a of course, are paid » We pay the for us...
...HARRISBURG, Pa.—Firmly convinced that a fairly welldefined conspiracy exists again to bring to naught the fight for Old Age Pensions in Pennsylvania, Representative Lilith Wilson, Berks County Socialist legislator, went on the war path against the treachery involved...
...Joe inquired...
...A word to show that he was sorry that he had done what he had done...
...We have had a peaceful halfhour," and they parted in a chummy mood...
...When criminals run amok, the Fascist believes in firing the police department for Inefficiency —and hiring the criminals...
...The German Socialists make me tired...
...The new attempt to reopen the case is based on a legal technicality...
...The Mulders' Committee is als> associating itself with a move to recall Governor Rolph as morally dishonest, Snd incompetent in denying Tom Mooney's pardon as he waa in the management of the state's affairs in general...
...While the dictator is an overbaked racketeer with an extra portirn of CTUSt...
...They were interested in division, not a reunion of the world's proletariat...
...Lilith Wilson, Socialist sponsor of one of the Old Age Pension resolutions which must be passed this session to give the people the right to vote on old age pensions before 1939, is laying the groundwork for a fight to expose the drive of Pennsylvania reaction and lay a political powder train to the door of the plotters...
...They accepted pro-war allies in some countries and condemned anti-war comrades in some others...
...Unions and other labor bodies are being urged to send delegates...
...But this isn't a strike we are discussing...
...Only continuous and aggressive expansion of their rights by the organised masses can serve as a check on this assumption of unlimited authority by officialdom, and the Hoopes bills works in that direction, having in mind the experiences of the organized unemployed in Reading and elsewhere with local government MOONEY CASE IS IN COURT AGAIN FEB...
...Bill asked...
...The whole world seemed to be against him...
...The labor men were indicted for the murder.of each one of th'e nine but were tried only on th first indictment...
...I'm disgusted," said Joe...
...Even in that policy the schismatics were not consistent...
...What happened...
...The Fascists believe that honesty is the best policy—for a burglar insurance company...
...But what have the Socialists been doing...
...Yes, it is sad," Bill continued...
...He was under a number of other indictments, both State and Federal...
...Same here," aaid Bill...
...The Milwaukee Leader, of which he was editor, had been excluded from the mails and subjected to persecution unbelievable to those who had faith in American democracy...
...Heat two bars of wrought iron to a certain temperature and place them under a powerful hammer and they will be welded together," said Bill...
...I must have freedom...
...11 THE case of Tom Mooney will * appear in court again on February 11th, for the first time since the trial that sent him to prison for life...
...That's what I think," Joe interrupted, "but instead of reunion of the working class they have been quarreling for years...
...tion in Nti Atlanta hi President i cheers...
...But even that should have been overcome," said Joe, "if the Socialists had held out the olive branch...
...All we need is elevator service between the two levels of society, and some of our industrialists are certain to offer to furnisn that...
...Certainly not," said Joe...
...see And the people in either case supply the dough—and that need'nt be classed as a pun...
...The chairman gave the impression that there were scarcely enough measures in committee to justify a meeting, and was- taken aback when the Socialist member listed a lone series of proposed constitutional amendments referred to the committee in addition to those dealing with old age pensions...
...A Terrible Error "IT was the most terrible mistake in all labor history," * Bill replied, "but it has beert repeated again and again by the other side in many nations...
...Bill asked...
...The only satisfaction Representative Wilson could get was a promise that as a member of the committee she would be notified should a meeting be planned 1 The "Liberal" Reneges A contact with th'e hitherto liberal Senator Harris of Pittsburgh who has sponsored the old age pensions amendment in the Senate, found that individual non-committal...
...We presume that Al Capone is also pleased...
...For consider the circumstances: Berger waa under a 20-year jail sentence under the Espionage act— the "Peonage act," he used to call it...
...They paid a fearful price, they were left divided, but reunion and solidarity should have followed the end of the butchery...
...It was the blackest moment in the blackest period of American reaction...
...the] charity to I What BM so sore is ti might hsvs I don't I vote-buying gressmen I their votssJ so many i takes plse*| , Anvhtahl dipnant htarinpjm tion...
...The invitation said that the walls that had been built between working class organizations should be torn down...
...A descent upon the Chairman of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments, which has had four amendments dealing with the final legalisation of the old age security system, affirmed the fact that no meeting of the Committee had been held and won the reluctant admission that he had no particular idea of calling such a meeting...
...In November, 1918, he had been elected to Congress, and after a long and farcical "trial" had been expelled from his seat...
...The Communists at the end " of the war began a policy of civil war in all organizations of the workers in all nations...
...Differences will arise in working claaa movements but you will agree that they never justify scabbing by one group on the other no matter what errors either aide may have committed in the struggle...
...Many leaders were also caught in It...
...In the event such a trial is ordered the defense will be able for the first time legally to riddle the frame-up and secure an acquittal...
Vol. 15 • February 1933 • No. 6
