To Turn Yesterday's Despair Into Tomorrow's Joy and Hope
Waldman, Louis
By Louis Waldman To Turn Yesterday's Despair Into Tomorrow's Joy and Hope P| 193J labor will celebrate Labor Day in better spirits Ip in 1932. Not that there is eat tragedy, poverty and want in...
...Two weeks ago the hosiery workers returned to their jobs, with an increa...
...How can I be happy in thin no-called civilisation, where 1 see on every hand about me war and the preparation for war, poverty, and the despair which poverty brings, crime and prostitution, suicide and insanity—aueh a mass of misery that I cannot face the thought of it...
...There is plenty of Jr all too much in a world tenable of producing enough to gjike all happy and content, and to give to all opportunity for a {fee and full life...
...We must plan...
...In ita legislative capacity, Government is the' all powerful weapon in fashioning the destiny of American labor...
...Thousands of other workers joined the strikers' ranks, including clothing, shoe, pretzel, hardware, hat, silk, paint, cyramic and other workers...
...Will it meet this challenge wisely, courageously and in the spirit of the times...
...The nation lived a contradiction...
...and I feel certain that party work, carried on as diligently elsewhere, will bring equally gratifying results...
...Conditions are forcing quick and decisive action...
...Government control can only be accomplished through political action...
...The camp, the .mlpit, and the law for rich men's sons are free...
...Its opportunities for leadership in a new reorganization of our entire economic life are greater than ever...
...That is the new challenge to the labor movement...
...Some of these leaders exposed as common crooks, •Worthy of the high trust the public has placed in them...
...Capitalist development plus years of Socialist educational propaganda in this country have prepared for us the harvest which is now ripe for gathering...
...Here in the city, and in the nearby county districts as well, the mills, factories and work-shops are honeycombed with Socialists...
...Go forth, comrades, and gather it while the sun of opportunity still shines...
...The current of our national life tea too swiftly to stop and realize that in the age of electricity, airplanes and television we were still being governed by the philosophy of the simple agrarians life of a century and a half ago...
...Much credit for this was due to the intelligence and enthusiasm of the thousands of Socialists within the strikers' own ranks, and to the hearty support of other comrades who addressed meetings, joined picket lines and fought by their side...
...There is something more important than profit...
...and even the taxi drivers quit their jobs...
...What Reading Socialists are accomplishing in the way of educating and organizing the working class should be an inspiration to other comrades to redouble their efforts for the Cause...
...As the revolt spread it fell just a little short of developing into a general strike...
...For st least two generations Socialist action was urged upon America to replace its system of ¦o-cslled individualism, that is, the system of the undisputed right of Mployers to exploit labor at will and the absolute right of business sad finance to batten upon the nation, by a system of social control, aai social and labor legislation, which would consciously direct our economic and social institutions toward...
...Industrial and business leaders confessed their helplessness * face of the mighty economic hurricane created by their own oandiwork...
...but in this city the sweep was steadily toward Socialism, which made great gains in the Presidential election...
...The need of Governmental action in industrial relations has now been demonstrated...
...And nowhere are they marching with firmer tread, greater solidarity and finer inspiration than in the city of Reading, Pa...
...It is true, its faith isn't unlimited nor is it blind, yet it is that faith that prevents it from building a new social order free from the perils and danger now facing mankind, a social order based on collective ownership and democratic management of the nation's economic institutions...
...Labor's part in this new policy U significant for the future of labor and for the country...
...There were rumblings of big events to come, as alternative to chaos...
...labor lulls, it will be a calamity...
...And they are going forward aggressively, with new spirit and new determination, toward the Socialist goal...
...Since last Labor Day the country has been swept by a Democratic landslide...
...and by legal theories and institutions which hsve ceased to respond to the needs of today...
...Where other strikes have been settled the workers have won equally favorable terms...
...Again this year the two old political parties are joining forces to meet the political attack of the Socialists, an it is doubtful whether their fusion tactics will save them from defeat And defeat this year will mean loss of control >f he public school system, so vital to the success of capitalistic exploitation...
...There is the right to live...
...In the hosiery industry alone upward of 15,000 were on strike for seven weeks, closing completely every one of the 46 hosiery mills in the city and county (including the largest full-fashioned hosiery mill in the world...
...If ii will, Socialism and labor will yet turn yesterday'* teart and despair into joy and hope...
...Not that there is eat tragedy, poverty and want in Ivor's ranks...
...Collectivism has become the dominant note...
...and all those beauties of nature and art which in my youth set ma • thrill from top to toe, now mean hardly anything to me, becauae of the wrongs 1 nee about ine—and se> needless, so utterly, utterly needless—Upton'Sinclair...
...The change comes from a new lltarmination to fight adversity by ajaeerted, common action, to re-farm labor's broken lines, to strike oat on new bold paths, and to assert the rights of labor to life aid security as superior to those of property...
...11 -1 The Song of the Wage Slave By Ernest Jones *FHE land it it the landlord'*, The trader's it the sea, We ere the usurer's coffer fills— But what remains for me...
...Collective action, through the Government, has been instituted, on a universal scale, to regulate hours of labor, wages, standards of business conduct, etc...
...In spite of police brutality and arrests by the Fusion administration in the city, and by other old party officials in the county, the snirit of solidarity exhibited by the strikers was superb...
...TheWi, theirs the learning, art, and arms— I But what remains for mi-' ' coming hope, the future day, Whoa wrong to right shall bow, Ani heart* that have the cour-i °P...
...Individualism, as the nation's guiding philosophy, has become discredited...
...man, ft make that future now...
...of 25 per cent for a uch shorter work week, and recognition of collective bargaining through representatives of their own choice...
...But in spite of the administration's faith in capitalism, on June 16, when the President signed the National Industrial Recovery Act, the death warrant of the competitive system was signed...
...When things became so bad that they could hardly be worse, organised labor issued militant warnings...
...The many years of Socialist agitation and propaganda laid the foundation upon whicl the workers are building political and Industrial power for themselves in this community...
...Iniide and outside the lubor movement, So-eialiett will cooperate with labor in its new tasks...
...It is assuming new responsibilities...
...Collectivism, we were told, is not for our emntry, where individual initiative ess built the industrial, commercial sad financial giants, which are the •awy of the world, the non-Social-iits said...
...Such was the program and the dream of America's organized Socialism...
...But the administration a Washingon still has faith in capitalist civilization...
...The shabbiness of this ideal be-MoW obvious when we were plemgcd by this system of private •wesrehip and management into ess of the greatest disasters in Mstory...
...We must control the wild, competitive, unrelated activities of the^in-dustrialists...
...The Heel shines to defend, With labor's arms, what labor raised, For labor's foe to spend...
...The engine whirls for master's 'cre/t...
...Socialists were admired for their idealism, but ignored in the practical affairs of the nation...
...Labor Day of 1933 finds the hosts of Labor marching forward >n all fronts throughout the nation...
...collective ownership of the nesns of life and 1 heir democratic toatrol by the people...
...Altogether there are 20,000 of them—men and women who vote the Socialist ticket, think in working class terms, and agitate among their fellow-workers...
...Private ownership was taUted as the highest ideal, and private property became militant, leeertive and arrogant in its rule...
...There is the general welfare...
...Under this changed conviction the nation was in the mood for drastic changes...
...This Labor Day finds the workers of Reading and Berks County continuing their march forward, better organized and better disciplined than ever' before...
...Others proved themselves mediocre, unimaginative and even dull in the hour of crisis...
...Recognition of the unions, Aliich the workers joined by the thousands or spontaneoussly organized where none previously existed, was the principal demand of the strikers, and tho one most bitterly fought by the organized open-shop employers...
...By Louis Waldman To Turn Yesterday's Despair Into Tomorrow's Joy and Hope P| 193J labor will celebrate Labor Day in better spirits Ip in 1932...
...The myth of the Superiority of the Ruling Class was disappearing...
...During the present summer many thousands of these workers have been on strike...
...and in some cases they have added closed shop recognition for their unions...
...Socialists of Reading Are Always Alert By Lilith M. Wilson Representative in the Legislature from Reading, Pa...
...It shows what intelligent and persistent activity can accomplish...
...That Job reaeaias to be done, and will be done by the social architects frankly committed to the abolition of the profit system, and dedicated to the Socialist ideal...
Vol. 16 • September 1933 • No. 10
