TIMELY TOPICS

...The Socialists are bringing out in the open a matter that has aroused bitter labor resentment, not publicly voiced to any extent...

...At Ravenna, a political prisoner was compelled to stand barefoot on a cake of ice...

...There were 8,861 civil disobedience prisoners at the beginning of this month, as against 34,600 persons at the end of April, 1932—a decrease of 30,639 political prisoners in nineteen months...

...What Is a Socialist's Duty...

...The Board will probably also have to have the right to guarantee fair play to minority groups in labor ranks itself...

...His men are still locked out *s they have been since the end ef September for no other crime than that of organisation...

...As every thoughtful well informed labor man knows, at this stage of proceedings labor racketeering will simply result, unless labor cleans its own house, in the government clamping an iron control down upon the unions...

...Our principal concern is with what will make labor organization intelligent, aggressive, inclusive and clean...

...Peek, who recently split with the Tugwellites in the Agricultural Department and was appointed head of a Government organization to promote foreign trade, took advantage of a speech before the American Farm Federation at Chicago to reassure timid souls who fear the Roosevelt program spells revolution with a big R. Said he: "There is great apprehension in the minds of many business men today about the relations of government to business...

...Workers in general would overwhelmingly reject it in the trades where they work...

...There is abroad in the land propaganda for doing away with the institutions under which we have grown and prospered...

...Civil service or certain other expert work for government in definite fields does not necessarily involve support of a non-Socialist party...

...That means that the holders of debt certificates are swallowing up the national income...

...There is aa more dangerous economic fallacy than that sometimes advanced to the effect that if a debt is held entirely within a nation it doesn't matter much because the total spending power of the nation is thus kept within the nation...

...binding conferences are not—certainly not under conditions that prevail today...

...If you want my opinion, personally, this apprehension is unwarranted...

...There is grave concern about the expressions of a few ultra-liberals about the government taking over private business...

...Mayor LaGuardia here in New York City will find that he can do practically nothing unless he can break the bankers' hold on New York and drastically reduce the burden of debt charges which consume something like a fifth of the whole city budget It will be necessary to have lower interest moratorium on some of the debts, refunding or something of the sort...

...The Republican Delfini was so beaten after his arrest as to cripple him for life...

...Roosevelt recovery program does not aim at the abolition of the capitalist system and the Tugwell "radicals" in the Government service are not the big, bad wolves they have been painted by Wall Street, says George N. Peek, former head of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration...

...The basis of our trouble is that we are always paying for what we have had or are alleged to have had and not what we ought to have...

...By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS The Labor Board IT is good that the President has bestowed a * degree of legal power on the National Labor Board which apparently it had heretofore lacked...

...The A. F. of L. has been demanding labor representation on the code authorities, as urged in the Socialist statement...

...The code for hotel workers has already been signed and is one of the worst of such documents...

...The important thing here is to preserve the Integrity of the Party...

...Not only in the matter of injunctions but in dealing with government agencies labor will have to be unusually careful not to sell its birthright for a mess of pottage...

...The taxi industry is run as an aid to the P.R.T...

...The tipping system tends to make panhandlers out of the best of folks...

...1 of the Waiters' Union, that tips be abolished and a minimum wage of $30 a week be granted instead should evoke support from labor and from that thing vaguely called public opinion...

...by a piece of highhanded arrogance locked out the taxi drivers for the sole crime of organizing in an A. F. of L. union and contemptuously refused all negotiations before the Labor Board on the ground that there was as yet no code anyhow in the taxi industry...

...Jhat this is not so may be seen _from a number of recent evctifB^ reported on reliable information by the Labor and Socialist International...

...Peek believes in striving to cure the symptoms, not the disease itself...

...There is, however, a real problem in the extension of the power of the Labor Board...

...He will hold a kind of balance of power in a Senate evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats and he will do a whole lot more in any real and effective fight in behalf of New York City for deliverance from coupon clippers than any Repulican-Fusion candidate...

...ORGANIZED WORKERS AND SOCIALISTS AGREE Organized labor and the Socialist Party are in close agreement in their criticism that the NRA has fallen far short of its original aim...

...Turmoil in Many Fields "T" 11K general labor situation as it is developing m under the Codes is far from satisfactory...

...Anything can happen in this rapidly changing world and anything may happen if the Roosevelt experiment is not markedly successful...

...Among other evils it permits a 54-hour week...

...Here is one more good reason for electing Samuel Orr to the Senate from the Bronx...

...How to secure that advantage and not to create precedents which eventually will lead to compulsory arbitration and the outlawing of strikes is not altogether easy...

...The Furriers "THAT is why it is so important that in these • times when things are changing fast we should look beyond the ends of our noses...

...Any job connected with policy-forming does imply such support It is hard to lay down a general rule...

...Today labor's outstanding interest in the field of the Codes probably concerns the projected restaurant code...

...It looks as if the restaurant code would be at least equally bad...

...Our national debt will soon pass its height in the World War...

...Like Hoover, Peek thinks that doing away with the worst evils of the capitalist system is all that is called for in the present crisis...

...Labor knows that some of the deputy administrators are biased against the workers...

...I am against the racketeers of high finance and the racketeers of the underworld...

...To say that is to ignore the fact that the distribution of spending power is the vital question and that to keep the masses toiling to pay past debts is one of the surest imaginable ways to keep them from enjoying the products of their toil...

...Mr, Bassett Jones shows that the rate of debts has been in* creasing about three times the rate of production...

...Ever-Mounting Debt Burdens S\NE of the amazing things today is the degree to ^"^ which the Administration and a large part of the public manage to dodge the issue of ever* mounting debt In reality it is this issue which lies behind the dangerous cry for enormous inflation...

...At Rome, Arlstlde Clcotti was beaten on the soles of his feet with a whip armed with steel wire, and so maimed that a month later he wbb not able to stand...

...Actually there is no hundred per cent satisfactory adjustment of strikes, no advantage for workers without certain dangers, so long as the system of absentee ownership and production for profit dominates the situation...

...We shall merely antagonise our present and our pro* spective members and arouse a certain suspicion in the organizations themselves...

...I know of no substitute for such traits...

...it is another thing to call on capitalist courts to aid you by an injunction got in collusion with employers against another union...

...Legitimate profits have always been regarded in this country as a proper reward for individual initiative, industry and thrift...

...Peek's words hark back to the regime of Herbert Hoover and "rugged individualism...

...Peek intimates...

...On the other hand, as matters now stand, I think we may fall into certain Communist errors and into Communist unpopularity if in labor unions, farmers' Societies, cooperatives, or other organisations, not involving political action or any repudiation of fun* damental Socialist principles, we bind our members to act only on one line...

...Bronx voters have a rare chance to help the city, the state—yes, the whole nation...

...And, in the opinion of most capable observers, that is the most the recovery program has in view...

...Nothing will rat more heart into the Socialist cause than Sam's election...

...Stotesbury...

...But labor has made no public protest against unfriendly administrators and other NRA officials, though it has objected strenuously to certain rulings of these officials at code hearings...

...My friends who wrote last week in The New Leader about the crimes of the left wing furriers missed my point It is one thing to call a policeman to protect you against the strong arm man...

...It should have power of interpretation of agreements made so that never again will it be possible for manufacturers to stall, bluff, and sabotage an interpretation of the Codes while they seek to break the spirit of the men, as they did in the silk strike...

...monopoly and the monopoly is run for the benefit of the financial underliers who are Morgan's allies, the banking house of Droxel, and in particular Mr...

...TPIIK defection of Sinclair in California and of *_ Blanshard in New York has naturally revived considerable interest in party discipline...

...Conference between Social* ists is in order...

...Obviously the Socialist Party ought not to have room in it for men who directly or indirectly support a non-Socialist party...

...Another was tied down on a table, an inverted glass placed on his bare chest, and a live scorpion imprisoned under it An obscure news item from London registered last week some sign of civil peace progress in India...

...At present such strengthening of its power is probably to the advantage of labor...

...It is an issue that cannot be dodged...

...In Western Pennsylvania in some of the coal mines company unions won, probably not aolely as the result of company propaganda but perhaps partly as the result of the unpopularity of certain high officials of the United Mine Workers...

...Not long ago it was reported that General Johnson, Recovery Administrator, had agreed "in principle" to this at a conference with the NRA Labor Advisory Board...

...But apparently this report was not well founded, though there is little doubt that Johnson will be compelled in the end to acknowledge the justice of labor's demand...

...The Tugwell "radicals" may think they are bad wolves, but their howl is worse than their bite...

...The Socialist statement scored a point in charging that "in the making of codes, outside of the top, the NRA has been packed against labor...

...This attitude has been made manifest on several occasions...

...It's a job that can be done if we work hard enough...

...Most of those in charge are men who are either employers or whose connection with employers makes them more sympathetic with the views of the employing groups," the statement added...

...Clearly the Labor Board and other administrative agencies of the NRA should have power to compel corporations to live up to the collective bargaining agreement fairly, as it is stated in the Codes...

...Vinciguessa, a monurchist anti-FasciRt, who Suffers from tuberculosis, was last whiter compelled to spend a whole night half naked on an open terrace, Spartalotto's hands were slowly crushed between the plates of a copying press...

...What some few men who hold subordinate office under the Administration may have in mind, or what will be the outcome of the Roosevelt program and policies is another matter...

...The requirements that Socialists in unions, for instance, shall act like Socialists and not like Republicans and Democrats, is not a requirement for rigid caucus action...

...This ought to strengthen its position in dealing with the defiance of the Weierton Steel Company and the E. D. Budd Manufacturing Company in refusing to obey its order to reinstate union men and to hold proper elections...

...Both point out that the maximum hours are too long and the minimum pay too low under the codes...

...We have to consider acts as possible precedents...

...The proposal of Benjamin Gottesman, secretary-treasurer of Local No...

...In the name of his property rights the spirit of the code is defied, gangsters are employed to scare taxi drivers, and all Philadelphia thrown into turmoil and confusion...

...Torture of Opponents Continues in Italy The fact that none of the leading newspapers or press agencies takes the trouble to get any news from Italy these days except what is approved by Mussolini's government, creates the impression that the Fascist rule in that country has become more decent and humane...

...In Philadelphia the P.R.T...

...President Green of the American Federation of Labor has been hammering away at the idea that the 30-hour week must come and wages raised without delay, if purchasing power is to be increased sufficiently to bring recovery...

...Abolish the racketeers of high and low degree and everything'will be well, he thinks...

...Honest Business Needn't Worry Under the NRA Peek Reassures His Hearers That "Legitimate'* Profits Are Safe—Socialists Protest Biased Administrators By Observer Washington, D. C. "1*1 IF...

...Taxi drivers in Philadelphia work 60 hours for a minimum of $12 a week, which minimum is usually the maximum...

...The remedy lies not in destroying our institutions but in reaching these racketeers...

...This is stressed in the recent statement of Norman Thomas and Louis Waldman, in behalf of the Socialist Party's Public Affairs Committee...

...Only on the threat of a general strike in the transportation field has the Labor Board at last begun to act At Chester and in Kdgewater, Ford still successfully defies the spirit, if not the letter, ef the Code...

...The Labor Board ought to have the most extensive possible powers of mediation, conciliation and arbitration up to the point of actual compulsion...