TIMELY TOPICS

...Adolf's Election Officials Would Make Tammany Hall Green with Envy FNETAILS of the voting in the *^ Hitler-election are just becoming known...

...Anyway, they held Terzani...

...The official returns gave the Yea list 80 per cent of the total...

...Hoopes has brought forth a new minimum wage bill for women and minors and a Wage Protection Bill which aims to prevent deductions by employers from pay envelopes for any purpose except union dues check-off agreed upon between the employer and the worker through his union...

...Now he is back and here's to him and our great cause...

...In a system to unutterably rotten as the system of American criminal justice it is a pleasure to give credit to these lawyers...

...The police at first held Moffer whom Terzani pointed out...

...The Hoopes' measure also provides for no exceptions to the bimonthly pay day and provides that these pay days must be posted and set in advance over a long period...

...We Socialists have been too modest because we do not believe in running unions under party authority...

...For example, a mining town of Westphalia, a Socialist stronghold, cast 81,000 "no" votes, and it was at first so announced...

...What more could a District Attorney's office want, especially when its head was about to campaign for another job, that of Borough President of Queens...

...City Executive Committee Socialist Party, N. Y. City The City Executive Committee voted unanimously to instruct all members of the Socialist Party and its branches not to participate in this convention...

...Herein America, in view of Communist devotion, the very vulnerable state of many of our labor organizations, and the great depression, the amazing thing is that Communism does not gain more rapidly...

...The evidence revealed a detective who said that he did not even know Moffer had been accused...

...Art Smith had already been completely discredited in Philadelphia...

...Either he was perjuring himself or too stupid to be even a detective...

...The magistrate who held him acted on evidence which probably would not have availed to him if he had been charged before the same magistrate with election fraud in behalf of Tammany Hall...

...Among sections of the middle class, Communism will be thought to create more violence than Fascism, whether rightly or wrongly is immaterial...

...One method was to spread the rumor that the ballot was "not really secret" and that all "no" votes would be identified, and thus to intimidate voters...

...First: From start to finish the case was a frame-up against an anti-Fasclst, impossible save by the collusion of officers sworn to enforce the law...

...The Kxecutlve Committee informs your body that the Socialist I'arty has always opposed aggression of the capitalist mm ers asalnst the Soviet Union and has always supported recognition of the Soviet Union and unrestricted trade relations with the Soviet Union, and we continue to support these policies...

...In a proletarian district of Berlin the vote was 1,000 No to 650 Yes...

...I have praised Communist leadership of the cotton pickers' strike in California...

...The District Attorney contented himself by saying that he had invited all witnesses to appear before the Grand Jury, an empty form...

...By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS Terzani b Free...

...Welcome to Hahn TJERE'S a welcome to our good friend and com-** rade, Herman Hahn, back on the air again after two years' absence every Sunday night from 7 to 7:80 over Station WEVR Buffalo...

...Long experience has taught ua that attempts at such cooperation have proven futile...

...His triumphant acquittal by the jury on the charge of murdering his friend, Fierro, in the riot in which a Khaki Shirt meeting broke up, ought not to end the case, least of all for workers...

...We have not let it be known how great s part we have played in bringing together the shoe workers, in organizing furniture workers and a host of others in New England, in the very brilliant unionizing campaign in Philadelphia and in practically every other industrial city...

...Although the big "majority" Hitler's plan and his Reichstag list won on Nov...

...Two Conclusions "THERE are only two possible conclusions about *¦ this case, both of them illustrating what we mean when we talk about class justice or injustice...

...Yet in the long night of questioning by the police and by an assistant District Attorney named Los-calzo, this Moffer, a Khaki Shirt from Philadelphia, was allowed to go free and Terzani was held instead on the testimony of Art Smith...

...In the hope of increasing the Income from the cigarette and match industries, both of which are government monopolies, decrees have been issued which prohibit the sale or use of automatic lighters and make it a punishable offense for anyone to "roll his own" or to light one cigarette from another...

...However, we feel that we can best firomote these purposes without acceptor your invitation or having any cooperative relations with Communist organizations...

...Sacher, Weinfeld, Shapiro, and Pomer-ance, who served entirely without fee...

...Not the Only Alternatives IN many parts of America, more often among young intellectuals than among workers, I come across the singular delusion that our choice lies between Communism and Fascism...

...Of course, voters had the legal right to retire into the booths and mark their ballots secretly if they wanted to, but in so doing they identified themselves as "no"-voters...

...In Western Europe, in Norway, Switzerland, Great Britain, it has been Socialism which is going forward...

...Nothing can be more certain than that if we are going to go in for dictatorship, suppression of civil liberties, and all the rest of it, the crowd which seems to offer that dictatorship with the least disturbance and the greatest appeal to existing prejudice will win first, and that in America will be the Fascist crowd...

...Second: So far as the assistant district attorney, the district attorney himself, and the police department were concerned, one may believe that the Case was not a conscious frame-up but only an example of the way in which a political prosecutor seeks a victim (if he is a working man without funds) rather than Justice, and plays a game involving men's lives as casually as hs might play checkers and probably more callously than he plays poker or bridge...

...namely, that the fatal shot came from the gun which Terzani pointed out to the police...

...No Investigation PROM the beginning the District Attorney's office * had all the necessary leads which pointed overwhelmingly to Terzani's innocence and to the probable guilt of Moffer...

...thugs in securing that "majority" were not at first known...

...In addition to the dozen measures already placed in the legislative hopper, the two Socialists continue to add to their already extensive program...

...Clearly Stiner exceeded his authority and the union acted when the World-Telegram revealed the situation...

...Wages become unconditionally due upon discharge or resignation and the same applies in case of strike or lockout...

...It is the system that is our enemy rather than the individual cogs in it, some of whom I have deliberately refrained from naming...

...This nicely places the Democratic and Republican leaders on the spot, as their chief stock in trade is public profession of their desire to get the work of the special session done as quickly as possible...

...The judge threatened that witness with the charge of perjury, but later he refused even so mych .is ..to advise the District Attorney to hold Smith for subornation of perjury...

...Such an investigation was never made...

...That way lies absolute degradation for the labor union movement...

...Even then the results were faked In a manner that would have won the enthusiastic commendation of Tammany Hall...

...The only other important strike under Communist auspices and the only victory I know of was at Gallup, New Mexico, in the coal fields...

...That isn't all the story...

...Government Finance The Bulgarian treasury seems to be in desperate straits...

...Swedish Communists Split The Socialist papers of Sweden, and also the organ of the Trotzkist secession there, report that the official Communist Party is torn with internsl dissension...

...The old parties must now either expose the hypocrisy of their public professions about haste and economy by voting down the Socialist resolution for action, or put themselves openly on record on all the long list of working class legislation which the Socialists have proposed...

...The bill repairs obvious weaknesses in the present wage law, which have been made particularly glaring by trade union organization campaigns in Pennsylvania...

...That is no record forecasting speedy triumph...

...Here are the plain facts: When the police first entered the shooting, it was Terzani who pointed out the murderer and the hiding place of the gun...

...I believe that in promise for the future Communism is infinitely superior to Fascism, but that does not alter the fact that if we are going calmly to chuck over democracy altogether in America it is Fascism which will win...

...A Scandal Averted A VERY damaging scandal to the labor union *¦ movement was narrowly averted when the organization of Reta.il Clerks, affiliated with the A. F, of I., repudiated a man named Stiner who had outlined an elaborate plan as the authorized representative rf the union to set up with the aid of employ, ers a peculiarly yellow brand of company union and yet bless it with A. F. of L. affiliation...

...12th fooled no one, the actual methods used by the S.A...

...Outside of Russia its gains have been in backward countries from an industrial point of view,—in China and perhaps in the Balkans...

...Lilith Wilson has reintroduced her 30-hour week bill...

...If that is our only choice we are bound to get Fascism...

...It should be added, however, that his charge to the jury was fair...

...Hahn, everybody ought to know, is a preacher who isn't afraid to talk applied Christianity, and that comes mighty close to Socialism...

...The resolution, if passed, would chiefly benefit the two Socialist members, who as working-class spokesmen have introduced a complete program of such measures as unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, minimum wages, 80-hour week, improvement of workmen's compensation, protection of wage payments and anti-eviction measures—all of which have been securely locked in committee where they can die without the legislature putting its privileged class nature on record...

...Queens County pays a very dear price for this type of justice...

...Hoopes Puts Old Party Solons On the Spot 1JARRISBURG, Pa.—Darlington * * Hoopes, Socialist member of the Pennsylvania legislature, has brought a new device to bear on the reactionary capitalist party control of the Pennsylvania assembly, in the form of a general resolution instructing each committee of the House of Representatives to submit within a definite period a complete report on all the bills in its possession with recommendation for action, negative or positive...

...So Terzani went to trial...

...He was identified by other witnesses...

...But the chief victim has been the thing we call justice in America...

...The union should go to greater lengths than it has yet gone to mak* its position clear in this matter...

...But perhaps they don't read the newspapers in District Attorney's offices and they thought they were helping a patriot hold a Red...

...In the main, the strike was lost—through no fault, however, of the Communist leadership...

...that he was barred from the sir in Buffalo and no protest avsield to get him back...

...Through six long summer weeks he spent his time in a jail while his friends struggled to raise the high bail fixed in a case in which he was indicted for second degree murder...

...His amusing but outrageous boasts have revealed him to the world as probably a paranoiac with dangerous delusions of grandeur...

...But Stiner should never have been given a chance by the union or by Denise as an officer of the union to have a sort of subcontractor's job in the field of organization...

...We also do not approve the spreading of "untruthful information" about the Soviet Union, but as the Socialist Party has for a long time been assailed with "untruthful Information" by Communist organizations, you can understand why we decline to accept your invitation...

...I speak with Borne experience with that particular magistrate and his colleagues...

...It is a delusion to think that Communism is making great forward strides...

...Socialist papers should get together the story in connected form...

...His friends who have had in these hard times to raise thousands of dollars for the trial have paid a price...

...One of the high points in the trial was the testimony of a man named Wein, a former Khaki Shirt, that he had lied before the Grand Jury when he had connected Terzani with the murder and that his conscience had led him to repent...

...He's a Socialist, too, and for...

...Local New York Replies to Friends of the Soviet Union ^ Reply of the City Executive Committee at its meeting of December 13th to the request of a committee on behalf of the Friends of the Soviet Union for the Socialist Party to participate in the National Convention of the Friends of the Soviet Union: Friends of the Soviet Union, 80 I .itsi llth Street, Nrw York, N. Y. Dear Slra: The Kxecutlve Committee or the Socialist l'arly of New York City has received your call for a national convention for the purpose of supporting the peace policy of the Soviet Union, the right of the masses "to build Socialism," and to defend the Soviet Union against imperialist aggression...

...Athos Terzani has paid a heavy price for it...

...Another was to "invite" the voter to mark his ballot on the table with the eyes of the brown-shirted ruffians upon him...

...Yet that same expert had not troubled to take finger prints...

...What everybody may know is that many of the processes of justice, which disgraced Alabama in the Scottsboro case can be matched in Queens County, New York, in the Terzani case...

...It revealed a ballistic expert, head of a bureau of the Police Department, who took elaborate pains to find out what everybody conceded...

...At best it can only follow it...

...Very truly yours...

...At one period the District Attorney promised a proper investigation...

...This, with the prohibition against the payment in anything but government currency, would complete the breaking down of the system of feudal rule over workers, obtained by the great Pennsylvania iron and steel interests through checkoff for company store bills and rent, and through payment in scrip redeemable only at company stores...

...He had one victim, an anti Fascist...

...The trial revealed a judge named Downs, a former District Attorney, and, of course, a Queens politician, far more anxious to shield his fellow politician now in the District Attorney's office, by all appearances, than to guide a trial with the kind of consideration which gets truth even from witnesses who speak imperfect English...

...Under the Socialist resolution, all items Included in the Governor's call would have to be reported on at an early date...

...But the names of Judge Downs, of District Attorney Golden, of Assistant District Attorney Loscalzo and Assistant District Attorney Krogman deserve to be remembered...

...No clear-sighted believer can possibly hope that in America Communist dictatorship will precede Fascism...

...A long delay ensued, and then Berlin officially reported only 2,000 negative votes...

...By contrast it is a joy to acknowledge the excellent work done by the Socialist Party and the other groups which united in the defense committee, by Arthur Garfield Hays and by his able assistant counsel Messrs...