To Save Capitalism
to Save Capitalism Trade Unions, in MemorLing but Capitalist Aims ^president Roosevelt UtW planers ttnund of Lk increase of the stimula(inother very larking class), liefulaUon of %l...
...This indicates an anti-war sentiment in the unions more widespread than we suspected...
...The purpose toward which they serve is determined by the Head alone...
...not the chief si experiments working class , reduction of sue of wages panted by a tnbat economic •olives...
...JLJERE is an admirable history long overdue...
...then civil wars, like the Wars of the Roses in England, that wiped out whole sections of the old ruling class...
...Albert Einstein ' T H E man who enjoys marching * in line and file to the strains pf music,falls below my contempt...
...Down the long corridors of history there runs a thread of oppression of those human masses who counted no more than the cattle in the fields or the steeds upon which the bravely-caparisoned knights rode to their deeds of empty and meaningless glory...
...Then came the discovery of America that detached millions to cross the seas there to create a new world...
...Americans, says this Mr...
...On the field of Runneymcde on June 15tb, 1215, certain sections of the English people had wrested Magna Charts from a cranky and irascible King John...
...It required all the resources of President Gompers, aided hy the funds and the prestige of the government, to get a small gathering of union representatives to the conference of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy at Minneapolis in August, 1917, and out of a total of 170 delegates only 89 were labor men...
...Such a stain on humanity should be erased without delay...
...Despite these obstacles, the Federation had 800,000 more members in 1924 than at the beginning of the labor-government partnership...
...In a concluding chapter on Decline or Reorganization, he sketches the economic forces which compel recasting of organization and policies...
...freedom even for barons and squires and knights of the shire was a revolutionary concept for hundreds of years...
...For them the ideals of the Declaration were a noble promise the fulfillment of which they alone could win...
...And that document, considered by the descendent wholly obsolete, was drafted by Thomas Jefferson after whom the descendant's grandfather was named...
...The historical backgrounds and formative years in the 'eighties and 'nineties take nearly 60 pages...
...Hallelujah...
...Page He Cannot Endure Liberty, But Mankind Cannot Live Without It American of historic lineage announces renuncia* lion of his citizenship...
...And so, for over a century, there was a steady forward march, mostly under Socialist leadership...
...Page is a grandson of Thomas Jefferson Page and a direct descendant of Thomas Nelson, Jr., one of the signers of a certain document in which it is stated "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and, the Pursuit of Happiness...
...I think well enough of human nature to believe that it would have been wiped out long ago had not the common sense of nations been systematically corrupted...
...New Book Tells Inform ng Story of the A. R of L. By James Oneal THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LAUOR...
...Page, believe "that liberty is the greatest treasure," but he feels that "discipline" for the state is the only thing that matters, and he is going to become a member of the party that makes an ideal of crushing liberty and the rights and freedom of individuals in the name of "discipline...
...The national and international unions, and especially those in the building trades, are compared to independent feudal chiefs jealous of their own powers, yielding little to the central authority, and blocking more progressive policies...
...Tho author makes allowance for certain difficulties facing the organization of unions and finds some explanation and even justification In certain historical conditions in this country...
...Demands for Economic Planning need not therefore cause any confusion of thought, but should rather be the starting point of explanation tending to make clear to the workers of the whole world, especially the American, that "Economic Planning" by itself is not enough: there must be the right spirit behind it, and its goal must be the right one...
...The unions gained a substantial increase in membership by their partnership with the government in supporting the war, but It is obvious from the new evidence here presented that few of them had their hearts in it...
...to Save Capitalism Trade Unions, in MemorLing but Capitalist Aims ^president Roosevelt UtW planers ttnund of Lk increase of the stimula(inother very larking class), liefulaUon of %l the banks, •Heat (again foe class) do Cat fact that Welt If eonSey which has •tery into the I of capitalists m at the ex ittiers in the am...
...And in all countries there are groups who insist that the individual must be obliterated and merged into the common mass, blindly serving a Duce or a Ftihrer...
...There is no high-hatting or sermonizing in the book and yet the author does not overlook defects, failures and the fruits of conservative views and policies...
...By Lewis L. Lorwin...
...And also a fine fishing ground for $5,000 per week...
...Page's embracing of Fascism is hardly an important event, but it serves to give point to the struggle the world is facing today...
...First were the terrible plagues that swept away tens of millions...
...This heroism at command, this senseless violence, this, accursed bombast of "patriotism"—how intense I despise them I War is low and despicable, and I had rather be smitten to shreds than participate in such doings...
...gnhwas Rooseno of Labor ia ||t hi seeking Mai the eapistsm, and is •assures will If of placing omad basis, annalist Eco| Capitalism": Hag hoars and •-boil to be •lag rises in I merely two tiers whereby aide to over •Mandate ecotkh is slowing been moved to social reasons, I in economic I Socialism: he its inevitable I to cope with ianger of the Billions of un • brought capiil order to the Since the much-praised initiative of employers has failed in America as completely as in other capitalist countries, the only way of dealing with the social explosive of a mighty army of unemployed was for the state to intervene with full or semi-dictatorial powers in order to reduce what would otherwise have caused their explosion...
...the rights of all human beings s i individuals had never counted for much and rarely had been expounded in a public document even as an ideal...
...The geographical shift of industries, new inventions, technological changes and the continued development of mass production are bound to force changes or the unions will sulTer a decline...
...A' final section presents a short study of the status and problems of a number of selected unions, which closes a valuable history of American trade unionism...
...to be considered human beings, to fit themselves into the complex new world and at the same time to live as men and women, to create and to enjoy life and liberty and happiness...
...It is this loose federation of autonomous organizations composed largely of skilled and semiskilled workers who are members of unions adapted to the industrial age of the 'eighties and 'nineties, that feels the impact of mass-prodution industries...
...he is a passionate admirer of Fascism and Mussolini and he feels he can do no less than to acquire citizenship—if that is the correct word—in the Fascist state and to join the party whose slogan is "Mussolini is always right...
...I t is from these points of view that the "Economic Planning" of the I.F.T.U...
...THE BRAY of THE WEEK Aimec Semple McPherson Hutton, speaks: "New York is the crossroads of the world and a wicked magnet, but it is a fine fishing ground for souls...
...Shocks JT took several terrific shocks to the world's social system to break loose larger and larger sections of the population and have them treated as human beings...
...derives its true importance, although this importance may not be fully manifest for some time to come...
...Lorwin gives a satisfactory account of the evolution of the Federation's political policy, culminating In the campaign of 191)2 when Republicans, Democrats and Socialists each had their own labor bureau with union men attached to the respective parties...
...ference Adopts Platform wpiiie the in •t system, into •Hod and preli carry on the IL...
...Human lives axe nothing—obedience to the Head everything...
...As trade and craft lines disappear the old unions find it increasingly difficult to function in the greater form of production while inherited conservatism makes readjustment all the more difficult...
...The Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C. $2.75...
...Mr...
...Today, the right of human beings to live is challenged, that challenge is flung into the faces of the whole working class, and that challenge is taken up by the Socialist movement...
...Men Into Robots ILfUSSOLINI says the individual does not matter, and he seeks to merge a whole people into a solid mass serving a state—with himself as Head...
...True, there had been some who over a long period had won individual rights for themselves...
...He had access to a mass of documents at the headquarters of the A. F. of L. and, for the war and post-war period, they have yielded some information not generally known...
...And most of all, on the threshold of our own era, came the invention of machinery, the development of the factory and factory-town, the growth of industry and trade and exchange—all of which created new classes no longer bound as cattle to the soil...
...Yuss, yuss, indeed...
...As the A. F. of L. executives are also supplied by t h e s e u n i o n s , this conservative trend is observed in the Council itself...
...The war over, "business as usual" returned and with it many strikes and the assembling of President Wilson's National Industrial Conference late in 1919 to arrange a "genuine and lasting cooperation between capital and labor" which failed of its mission...
...Socialism is no longer an ideal of the future, it la* • duty of the present time...
...The chance coincidence of this great experiment (which is attracting the attention of the whole world) with the Brussels trade union congress and the adoption of the I.F.T.U...
...Indeed the very idea of individual liberty and persons...
...Interunion conflicts over jurisdiction, however, became rife, especially in the building trades and they continued into the depression years...
...Little by little they won for themselves rights...
...The conference passed a resolution of sympathy to the striking coal miners of New Mexico and Utah, and bitterly condemned the recent use of troops in the coal regions of these states...
...r*ar time on P - What is poor is 1 matter ••lossncsa.— m. Accursed Bombast By Prof...
...0. Scherer, P> Stern, E. J. PP, Eoy HineB, A. 0. Blow, George W. Read and Carle Whitehead...
...but those barons won a Great Charter for themselves alone, and continued to keep the masses enslaved to serve and toil and die for them...
...he received his great brain by mistake—the spinal cord would have been amply sufficient...
...On this point, too, the congresa has left no doubt: "It look* to the representative* of the working class to lead the way toward* the transformation of society by mean* of economic planning...
...Economic Planning program...
...The outcome of the experiment will be the continuance of capitalist profits on a new basis, and capitalist exploitation by a combination of private and state capitalism...
...Today it appears to us important and necessary, partly for the promotion of the clear thinking which the working" class must cultivate in order to follow and criticise all that is done in the name of "economic planning," to quote two clauses of the Brussels Resolution, which put an end to all doubt as to the spirit and aims of the I.F.T.U...
...The World War and the era following it brought out this conflict between the past and the present...
...Paging Mr...
...The resolution goes on to say that "it is the duty of the working class to spare no effort to lay in every country the essential foundations for the transformation of the capitalist economic order by transferring the means of production to the possesaion of the community, the ultimate goal being a planned Socialist economic system for the supplying of human needs, since this is the only form of economic life which is'worthy of man...
...These two paragraphs declare that experiments in dictatorship "can neither overcome the crisis nor bring about the solutions demanded by the working class: they can only end in the still further impoverishment of the working class...
...Hitler shrieks that the individual does not matter, and he seeks to force the sixty-five millions of the nation he rules so insanely to become robots serving him alone...
...Written by a man thoroughly informed, as his history of the International Indies ' Garment Worker*' Union shows, he maintains a fine balance between the critical and objective perspectives which most intellectuals are unable to attain...
...That was a new conception of human dignity that those who drafted the Declaration embodied for the first time in a State Paper...
...and thus they challenge the sentiments embodied in the ringing words to which the ancestor of the new-hatched Fascist pledged his life, his fortune and his sacred honor...
...Attorney General Palmer's drastic injunctions against strikers, the upheaval in the steel industry and its collapse, and the nation-wide open shop drive against the unions, beginning in tho short depression of 1921-22, showed that "lasting cooperation" was impossible...
...The rest were intellectuals and a few Socialists who had turned pro-war...
...Three powerful unions are out of the Building Trades Department and have formed a defensive alliance of their own...
...Political sterility could not be worse All this is on tho critical side of his theme...
...It was in those two decades that the structure of the A. F. of L. was shaped and, on the whole, it survived into the modern period except for the creation of a number of departments and a few amalgamations of unions...
Vol. 16 • September 1933 • No. 13
