Socialists Alert as GRAVE AUSTRIAN CRISIS NEARS
Socialists Alert as GRAVE AUSTRIAN CRISIS NEARS Otto Bauer, Valiant Led in this Article Tells J Facing the Y EVERY day, every hour the crisis near* in Austria. Trapped between two ambitious...
...In this defensive fight it was bound to be driven into k the strongest opposition against the Doll fuss Government, which has suppressed the democratic institutions...
...Hitler1* Nazis want to "coordinate" Austria into the Swastika realm, while Multolini wants to make a pawn of that country in his ambitious diplomacy...
...Born in Riga in 1809, he arrived in the United States in 1886...
...In hit early youth he was one of those pioneers of Marxism from Germany and Russia whose action hst been a dominant factor in the history of Socialism in the United States which Hillquit himself hss written ("History of Socialism in the United States," New York, 1903...
...Old Pals' Corner Joe Wants to Punch the Editor's Mug for an Insult but Finally Decides That He Is a Tomato By Autolycus "OEY, Bill, wait a minute," Joe yelled as he ran after Bill who had just left the Rand School...
...What's the excitement all about...
...Have a heart, Bill," said Joe, throwing up his hands...
...1 For this purpose Italy has hired the lervktsfl Austrian Heimwehr, for which she pays and oh arms...
...How long wilkthe public opinion of civilized man stand this sort of thing...
...When the convict is discharged he tries to avoid the penitentiary...
...Oh, I suppose there is a likeness," said Joe, "but how you can transform the tomato into a convict gets me...
...You tell the boss how old you are, whether married or not and, if married, how many children you have...
...And Austria is tumbling along the path which may lead to most disastrous events...
...Instead of reasoning about it you get mad...
...Hillquit vanishes at the moment when better prospects seem to open up for the creation of a great independent party of labor with Socialism as its solid kernel, as in England...
...you will then at least ask what hit you...
...Under the pretext of fighting the Nazis the Heimwehr it in reality seeking to overawe the Socialists...
...The following article by Otto Bauer ie of the utmoet importance, and gives a clear picture of the situation ae it shape* itself today...
...When in September the Heimwehr came out clamoring for a Fascist Constitution to be imposed by decree, for the destruction by force of the self-government of Red Vienna, for the dissolution of the Socialist Party and the Trade Unions, the Joint Executives of the Party and of the Trade Union movement i.iet to declare that they would answer the carrying through of each of these Heimwchr de-manda by calling a general strike...
...Among those who entertained him was Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University...
...It did so because it feared that a general strike against the Dollfuss Government might end in the victory of the third party to the strife— the Niza...
...don't get excited over unpleasant truths," said Bill...
...Trapped between two ambitious Fascism*, the Republic erected by the Socialists following the collapee of the Austro Hunganan monarchy it the target of enrage assaults from with** and without...
...At the age of sixty-seven, with the brown-shirt terror rsging on every side, Hildebrsnd had hot given up his Socialist faith...
...It would make little difference...
...In hit home the police found over 400 pounds weight of "illegal" literature...
...Another 30 per cent, have gone Nazi, and 40 per cent, in the country, more than 60 per cent, in the capital, are supporting the Socialist Party...
...Wage Worker, Tomato, Convict "UAVING filled out that document the corporation will have you listed and branded and classified like any other commodity it uses up in the production process," Bill continued...
...If you sell your labor power to the owner you fill out a long application...
...You would be eaten Just the same," said Bill, as they parted to return to tbeir rooms...
...Perhaps you will have to be knocked down...
...whether foreign of native born...
...Y^U seem to be bones from toes to noodle, with a vacuum above the ears as well," Bill replied with s taunting look...
...Socialists Alert as GRAVE AUSTRIAN CRISIS NEARS Otto Bauer, Valiant Led in this Article Tells J Facing the Y EVERY day, every hour the crisis near* in Austria...
...Said we were commodities like the tomatoes the housewife buys at a store...
...When that editor compared us with "tomatoes he told the truth...
...Joe Will Be Eaten Anyway...
...By Otto Bauer *pHE struggle which is going on in Austria at the present time is by no means only an internal fight between political parties...
...There is, however, this difference...
...As this would mean the de facto union of Austria with Germany, a Fascist victory in Austria must entail a serious danger to peace in Europe...
...Baths Jewish Hps, among ¦jjtavoraMe recruiting ground...
...They will not submit to Fascism without fighting...
...But the Dollfus Government thinks of defending Austria against Germany only by relying on Italian support...
...With him has disappeared one of the survivors, who are becoming so rare, of the first years of the Second International...
...That is why the recent visit of British I^abor leaders like Comrade Citrine, Hicks, Hayday, W. R. Smith and Compton was greeted with so much joy by the Austrian workers...
...Complete records are taken of both...
...At least he will have had the comfort of having seen a whole legion of men arise to carry on his effort, men whose intellectual prestige and influence upon the masses has not ceased to increase in recent times...
...who your last boss was...
...Joe stared for a moment, and then cooled down...
...In spite of all their efforts the Socialists of New York never succeeded, for example, in securing the return to Congress either of Hillquit or of Algernon Lee, nor, with the exception of the brave Meyer London, of any other of their best speakers, who were endowed with all the gifts of greet parliamentarians and would hsve been the qualified spokesmen of a powerful Socialist or Labor Party in any of the countries of Europe...
...The boss ha| inspected you as the storekeeper inspects his vegetables...
...The Aus-itrian Party defenda democracy against both...
...War b Narrowly Averted...
...Fritt Adler, hie eon, Secretary of the Labor and S rialist International...
...Have some brains, Joe...
...As you are tagged and branded by the boss of the private bastille, so the convict is when he enters the public bastille...
...For, if Germany were to swallow Austria, she would become Italy's neighbor, and this might consequently mean a danger to Italy's German-speaking provinces in the South Tyrol...
...They have obtained an assurance of diplomatic and—in the case of an attack by the Austrian Legion, which is formed and trained in Germany—also of military assistance from Italy...
...But, although tbe peasants' group within the Christian Social Party may desire such a solution, the Government, under Italian influence, and under the pressure of the Heimwehr, has repeatedly rejected it...
...Chancellor DuUfuss, seeking to hoop Austria independent *f Hitler, it accepting financial and moral support from Mussolini...
...Every day the danger grows that the Socialists will have to take up arms to defend their City Hall and their great achieve' meats on behalf of the Vienna workers...
...Germany and Italy are in dispute over Austria, just as Austria and Russia were fighting over Serbia before the war, or as Great Britain and Russia did over Persia...
...Many private bastilles are surrounded by stone walls and barbed wire, the same as prisons, and some are so built that they can be transformed into forts...
...You have slipped back into your bourgeois cave again...
...The Austrian Socialists have repeatedly declared their willingness to come to an understanding with the Christian Social Party (the largest of the Government's parties) about a peaceful solution of the present conflict, on the basis of democracy...
...Under present conditions a general strike would most likely lead to civil war...
...In 400 factories ovjr 100,000 worker* defied the ban and held meeting* to celebrate the day...
...But as the Government is mutiplying its attacks on ^democracy, on the Socialist Party and the Trade Unions, the Austrian workers naturally grow more suspicious...
...I wish I were a tomato now," said Joe...
...when the worker is fired from one private bastille he looks for another one and hopes to crawl in...
...Your carcass would hardly bring ten cents" for fertilizer, you cheap skate...
...The Government's reply to this resolution of the Socialist Party and the Trade Unions was to gag the Socialist Press and to decree new measures against the Railwaymen's Union...
...It should disturb you that the comparison is possible," Said Bill...
...The company union plants have their slaves meet under the direction of company guards, as convicts meet in a penitentiary...
...Therefore, in Austria, H i 11 e rism has been outlawed, the Nazi Party dissolved, their papers suppressed...
...your height, weight, health and color'of eyes and hair...
...Our comrade was at that time what he remained until the end—frail and slight, delicate and smiling, but as supple and resistant as steel In action as well as in thought, giving tbe impression from the beginning that he had an obstinately tenacious will which would not flinch at any obstacle or let itself be discouraged by any reverse or disappointment When we see in detail from Nathan Fine's hook, for example, what have been the conditions under which our American comrades have had to struggle before and since the war, we realise that men of this temper were needed who would hold out in spite of everything and never despair of the future of Socialism and the labor movement in the United States...
...Wage worker, tomato, convict," said Bill J "One is not transformed into the other...
...Is there much difference between serving the warden and his guards in a penitentiary and serving the capitalist class and their guards in a plant...
...In view of this dangerous situation, the Austrian workers are delighted to learn that in the double fight which is forced on them they may count on the sympathy and the solidarity of the great Labor Movement in the countries of Western democracy...
...C I President, IT was with a feeling of sadness that we learned from a telegram by Algernon Lee that our good comrade Morris Hill-quit, a member of the Executive of the L.S.I., had died...
...They have learned the German lesson that the losses even, of a desperate fight are slight compared with the sacrifices which the victor impose;, on a working class beaten without resistance...
...They pay for it by direct mg Austria's home policy according to Italy's wishes...
...Bill, if you talk like that to me it will take seven doctors eight days to dig this bunch of bones out of you," said Joe with a menacing «Jiake of his fist...
...Daily the Fascism of the Crutch-Cross, Dollfuss' emblem, it growing mora arrogant...
...For thirty years he had been present at practically all our Congresses —st Amsterdam in 1904, at Stuttgart in 1807, at Copenhagen in 1010, and, later, at Hamburg Msrseilles, Brussels and Vienna...
...Many a capitalist factory does not differ so much from a penitentiary...
...As Socialism Regarded...
...Two paragraphs of the address are worthy of reprinting for those who care to quote Nicholas against capitalism, militarism snd war...
...Hildebrsnd was, of course, arrested, and what has become of him it riot known...
...And soon the Nazis would gain the upper hand, as they have done in Germany...
...The ftaj tunity efj Hide of tM war) Vjjl seemed sM «iali»m ¦ Kugene ¦ for the nj Statet^P clesr dji at imm««J quarter™ more thsj whom H I World Over frris Hillquit ¦Hat International Men, German MMI* for that ¦ ¦lay an baft labor and * the United §Mn 1*28, he ¦W salient f ea-taroaghout Ms ¦•sat effort to Steiahst moveHH** opport****" (I saw ¦sSn time of Hi that' Soil ¦ IU sails...
...In the eyes of the Socialists in Europe Hillquit waa the incarnation, par excellence, of the Socialist Party in the United States...
...If There Is • Dictatorship If the Government forces the working-class to come out in open fight, and if such a tight should result in a Fascist dictatorship being established, this dictatorship could only survive if supported by the Nazis...
...Butler Speaks Out Bravely-Between Wars SOME thirty years ago Prince Henry of Prussia visited the United States to be wined and dined...
...That bum editor last week compared workers to tomatoes, and that's going the limit...
...The address shows a very chastened man fearing that hell may be pepping soon...
...The Heimwehr, although they have no support in the country, are strongly represented in the Governments* The democratic institutions, i.e., i Austrian Crisis Nears Jm the Austrian Socialists, L Fearful Alternatives p of His Country HfcrUament, the Constitution, the liberty of Press and p| meeting are suppressed...
...I am simply establishing striking smilarities...
...Recently he broadcasted in behalf of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace...
...Parliament hoe been cut' ponded...
...Ms candidate it the UniUi fttki magnifl-P"» singularly PJJatellectual...
...The Fascism of Dollfuss threatens liberty, democracy and the very existence of the labor and Socialist movement fully ae much as did Hitler's a year ago...
...Germany is out to annex Austria...
...It is a fight between two external Powers...
...By this time your likeness to the tomato die housewife buys at the store is evident...
...Fgjcutl ganization, which aims at destroying democnnl Austria and establishing a Fascist dictatorship a] the Italian model...
...Both lose their identity,* one in the factory and the other in the prison...
...On the other hand, Italy does not want a democratic Austria, but a Fascist one, which would take its place within the Italo-Hungarian alliance directed against Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia—so that Italian guns may be running freely over Austrian railways into Hungary and the sons of the Austrian people should go out to die for Italian and HuajJ interests against the Little Entente...
...Oh yeah...
...Should another war come— which God forbid—every munition-maker, every military and naval lobbyist, every politician and every journalist who has expounded and defended this incredibly false doctrine might well be carried to the place of greatest danger and left there in order that he may learn for himself, snd not merely by the testimony of widows and orphans and stricken parents, what that mass-murder which is called war really means...
...The freedom of the press it banned...
...Dr...
...reason, m portent m Hut, as m out la sM farmer n States" m himself m tore ef M» career M "America* mcnt...
...Martial law is threatened...
...Don't be a tomato I' That's what he said about us...
...J The Dollfuss Government defends Austria's & pendence against Hitler's aggression...
...The fact is he might have compared us with convicts as well as tomatoes and found much that is similar...
...It need not l>e explained that a Government with so small a backing is unlikely to win a war on two fronts: against the Nazi and at the same time against the Socialists...
...whether you left him or he fired you...
...Later he paid high compliments to Emperor Wilhelm, and still later during the World War he "kept the home fires" burning at feverish heat in support of the imperialist struggle...
...And they will never forget that the historian of "Socialism in the United States," the author of "Socialism Summed Up (1912), and of "From Marx to Lenin" (1921) was their prophet and their master, and that if they are able to march today along easier roads it is because he opened them up for them by his inde-fstlgsble labor...
...Ladies and gentlemen, Nicholas Murray Butler at the microphone: "Each government, it is urged by the militarist and naval lobbies in every capital and by the munition-makers snd their allies smong politicians and in the press, must be kept in position to defend Itself and it canr t defe.d itself u-' s '* is rea y to prevent a attack by attacking first on its S part This Is the cruel, the stupid snd the Irrational argument by which hundreds of millions of dollars and pounds snd francs are taken from a country's Income and poured out upon favored militaristic classes and munition-makers as doles for the maintenance of the one and for the profits of the other...
...Victor Adler, the great Socialist who died immediately thereafter, woe signalized by a ban on all meetings and the arrest of Dr...
...On November ltth, the lbth anniversary of the proclamation of the Austrian Republic by Dr...
...And st the moment when his great and noble life hss come to an end the International communes with them with a profound feeling of appreciation, sympathy and admiration...
...Throughout his life Hillquit devoted himself to ungrateful tasks, without ever being able to reach a political position in which it would have been possible for him to give his full measure...
...Well, it riled me for a moment to be paired with a decayed tomato," he said, with a trace of indignation...
...asked Bill...
...Meetings are outlawed...
...Millions of workers receive a check with a number and the convict receives a number...
...Now you are exaggerating," said Joe...
...Well, let's take a look at one of these corporation bastilles...
...A Nan Government in Austria, taking its orders from Berlin, would transform Austria into a German province...
...NAZI HEROISM The police at Steglita recently raided the home of Karl Hilde-brand, who was a member of the' Prussian Landtag before the Nasi victory...
...Many of us aren't worth even the price of a decayed tomato...
...Everything points in the Ejection towards an Italian-bred and Italian-controlled ?^Austrian Social Democracy is fighting Hitlerism as ¦pelt at an Italian-modelled Fascism...
...In the face of serious provocations, the Socialist Party, during six months, has shown the utmost restraint...
...The Socialists, brave and eager to defend their great movement and to safeguard the peace of the world, have to fight a Fascism armed with powerful foreign tupport...
...Liks so many Jewe he was and Russian with almost equal familiar with all the great European lMW wrote mm facility...
...MOW observe what happens," Bill continued...
...Both work under overseers whom they do not«choose...
...The Heimwehr are 100 per cent...
...I hope that I am not exaggerating...
...whether you ever belonged to a union...
...Get that, will you ?" "If you get it you won't be excited," said Bill...
...Italy does not want to see Austria fall under German domination...
...Only 30 per cent, of the Austrian population are backing the Government...
Vol. 16 • November 1933 • No. 21
