This Is No Time to Give Up Our Democracy, Says Bauer
Low, Beta
By Beta Low This Is No Time to Give Up Our Democracy, Says Bauer AFTER the German tragedy the fate of Austria and Vienna, the citadel of Socialism, is a question of the utmost...
...By William Karlin To Remember the Forgotten Man Under the NRA WHETHER the forgotten man will continue to be forgotten under the Recovery Act depends upon the measures that may \>e taken by organized labor to enforce labor's side of the emergency measure...
...The powers of greed insist that even the Recovery Act —an emergency measure for their own benefit—must be enforced for the benefit of the private interests rather than for its main object to make jobs and increase the purchasing power of the people...
...Even more serious: will they really add no more to the prices of their products than the increased cost makes necessary...
...it is a battle which must be fought and into which it is Worth while to throw all our forces...
...There is much ballyhoo and display of NRA cards...
...When these goods, now l>eing bought by other manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, finally have to be sold to wage earners, must there noi be another glut in markets and another collapse ->f production ? These figures say nothing about the prices at which the goods are to be sold...
...In exceptional times the democracy may have to use exceptional measures to defend itself...
...The article is a list of Nazi atrocities, each balanced by a parallel American atrocity...
...if prices are hell down, and the enlarged amount of money in consumers' pockets leads to larger sales, the country may benefit...
...Correspondence received by the Neue Volkszeitung shows that the Dolfuss dictatorship, which many suppose to be • bulwark against Fascism, is in fact at least as hostile to the Austrian Social Democracy as to the Hitlerites...
...Dazzled by the momentary success of these dictatorships, these comrades say: It is possible to crush all opposition by brute force, to muzzle the press, to set aside the constitution...
...NO BRAINS...
...Help to Organize It is the immediate interest of the workers that work be spread through short hours and even higher wages than were paid for the longer hours, ot erwise all laws passed an I speeches made by the President and his brain trust will be only cheap talk on their part...
...KTOW, if everybody had brains • ' and a sense of humor . . . but why dream impossible dreams...
...Only through strong labor unions can we expect to enforce the Industrial Recovery Act on the side of the workers...
...Increase in manufacturing employment, 9...
...The appeal of the bankers was answered for their benefit and during the past three months many other measures have been taken by Congress and the Executive Departments to save the capitalist system...
...Even within our own movement, unfortunately, recent events have bred doubta of this truth...
...Will they really shorten hours and increase the amounts in the pay envelopes...
...Nobody can check up on that...
...The bankers who dominate all these, appealed to President Roosevelt, Governor Lehman and other powerful officials to come to their rescue by closing the banks...
...America's Ku Klux Klan wrecked the stores and houses of Negroes—also, here and there, of Jews...
...Manufacturing wage earners, of course, do not buy the whole output of factories, nor are the fortunes of other prospective purchasers, as salary earners, foreign buyers, wage earners in other occupations, farmers, public employees and capitalists, more conducive at present to increased buying of consumers' goods...
...Any material submitted will be returned in good condition...
...If everybody goes to work the purchasing power of the country will be more than doubled and then we shall go forward conquering and to conquer until every worker In the land will get the full social value of th* product of his labor...
...The statement follows: What has been worrying the Administration of the...
...To this end every delegate at this conference is called upon to reform the lines of labor unionism in his trade...
...But our Austrian comrades are willing to grant special powers only to a government which is under the control of the people's representatives, not to a dictatorial regime...
...We who have no interest at all in saving the capitalist system, nevertheless, must do everything in our powjr to alleviate immediately the sufferings of millions of workers and their families...
...Any one who heard Jean Jaures or who has any unpublished material about him that might be of interest is assked to communicate with Le Cercie Victor Hugo...
...The danger in this experiment is, of course, that there is ,io way of checking upon it : ultimately it depends on the honesty and good will of millions of employers...
...We refer to this statement on page 2 of this issue and herewith present the document in full because of its importance...
...The greed for profits, however, is so great on the part of the capitalists that their statesmen may not be able to control them...
...finally, the rule of Hitler in Germany and of Dolfuss in Austria...
...Countless employers will n it pay more unless the labor unions will assert themselves and lend greater power to the few labor representatives among the administration of the act...
...The Powers of Greed There can be no doubt that the country's crisis is severe, as only a few weeks ago it seemed as if the government piloted by leaders committed to the doctrine of laissez-faire would be compelled to meet the emergency by seizing the banks, railroads, telegraph, telephone, as well as industry and commerce in general...
...The article is* printed and seriously presented as propaganda for Hitlerism...
...These proposals do not represent a weak and timid democracy...
...It was taking too long to work out codes for individual industries and get them in force...
...Let us help the Ajnerican Federation of Labor organize the oil, steel, ar.d automobile workers, reorganize the coal miners and all the other industrial workers...
...But this is not the case...
...In a recent issue is an article "George Jean Nathan on Hitler" reprinted from the American Spectator...
...At first seme benefits, they reply...
...The answer is that victory will be on the side of those best organized even as the battle always went to the side which had the best artillery...
...that is the way to do things...
...it is the basis of all tie creative work that has been achieved in Red Vienna...
...The intention of the liberals is to be "sympathetic with labor but stern with many lr.bor unions...
...Hitler's Nazis wrecked the stores and houses of Jews...
...So that in the actual administration of the law, labor unions will be curbed unless they present their cause with such speed and ferocity that the racketeer lawyers representing organized employers will be sent scattering away from Washington...
...General Johnson who properly represents the employers' point of view though mindful of the emergency, on June 25th, in a radio broadcast, told the employers of the ni.tion that they are expected to give their workers 45c per hour for ;i2 hours per week—thus proclaiming a $14.40 per week minimum rate...
...On this score also, therefore, inflation should be curbed: prices of manufactured goods, whether made for consumers or for investors, should not be allowed to rise too fast and too far...
...Otto Bauer, writing in the latest number of the Kampf, declare* that no successful defense against Fascism can be expected from any dictatorship, not even from one which as yet is not itself Fascist In Austria, as everywhere else, he holds, the struggle against Fascism can be carried through only a* a struggle for democracy...
...By the time the goods have to be sold at retail, the chances are that retail prices will be at least as high as last year...
...As the population of Spain is about twenty-three million, our party in.the United States would have to have 480,000 duespaying members to be relatively as strong as its sister party in this youngest of republics...
...We must make it possible for Parliament to function, even though the government parties have not a majority— in other words, according to Bauer, we must adopt the "toleration policy...
...The public building program may furnish a temporary and partial substitute for the lack of new private investment in buildings and machinery...
...Democracy is freedom of organization and of assemblage, freedom to demons':-ate and to strike, freedom of speech and press...
...If the cost of the goods to the consumer increases as much as the money paid to consumers, we shall merely be chasing our tails...
...If prices were very much lower than a year ago, the employ ed w,lge earners might buy the goods, even without a greatly enlarged income...
...Such considerations explain the urgency of the NRA in pushing measures to spread employment and raise wages, as well as the haste to start the public building program...
...then a strengthening of bourgeois class rule...
...Decrease, in average per capita earnings, 1...
...if we come into power again, we must not aim at freedom for "11, but at the dictatorship of .he proletariat...
...There are listed fourteen ghastly and outrageous cri-nes officially committed by the Nazi regime, in every case balanced by an atrocity committed by the K.K.K., American Iegionaires, mobs and gangs, or in some cases, idiotic American legislatures...
...What has come, mary are asking, out of the democracy won in 1JU8...
...All Is Not So Rosy Under Good Old NRA WIHAT has been the effect of the National Industrial Recovery Act " in bringing hope to the millions suffering distress...
...The League also announces that copies of the Neuer Vorw&rts, the German Socialist paper published In Karlssbad, are available at the Rand Bood Store at the same address...
...A real revival has begun...
...Statesmen and politicians, editors and minute men keep our interest stimulated and keep up hope of "better times...
...The biography is to be issued and disposed of on a non-profit basis...
...The question is sjiall the government be swayed by the surviving Kreugers and the remaining Insulls, whatever their name may be, or shall labor sway the government...
...Depending on the locality, the cost of living for a family of five on the minimum basis this June ranged from $1,558 in Schenectady, N. Y., to $1,988 in San Francisco, California...
...Therefore the Administration decided on the blanket code with the "Blue Hawk" propaganda...
...How can nine per cent more wage earners, receiving one per cent less each than a year ago, buy 55 per cent more goods...
...To Aid Anti Fascial Fight In order to help its campaign against German Fascism, "the League Against Fascism asks all those who have copies of magazines with articles about Fascism which they do not want to .end them to the League headquarters at 7 East 15th Street, New York City...
...the problem now is to develop it soundly instead of allowing it to swell up into an inflationary boom which can lead temporarily to large profits hut ultimately only to another collapse...
...The local Hitlerites publish a rag called Amerika's Deutsche' Post, with an English page for the benefit of the sons and daughters of Germans who have been contaminated by democratic illusions...
...For a skilled worker the range ran from $1,897 in Reading Pa., to $2,603 in New York Gty...
...Democracy not worth fighting for...
...The fight to safeguard democracy is not the completion of the class war...
...If they only had a spoonful of brains and a sense of humor...
...There is much confusion within the Recovery Administration as to technical policies, and that is due to the diametrically opposed interests of the respective groups in the administration representing capital and labor...
...By Beta Low This Is No Time to Give Up Our Democracy, Says Bauer AFTER the German tragedy the fate of Austria and Vienna, the citadel of Socialism, is a question of the utmost significance, not only for international Socialism, but the maintenance of world peace and of civilization...
...The Labor Bureau, Inc., has released a statement based upon a study of industrial trends that is not so encouraging...
...Th.' concensus of opinion among the liberals in the Roosevelt administration is that collective bargaining on wages will be "encouraged," but there is already apparent a sidestepping of the issue of whether trade unions are to be specifically encouraged...
...But unless industries and real estate interests begin to invest more in fixed capital within a few months, that part of our productive machine dependent on this market cannot appreciably revive...
...Tactical considerations require, in the present situation, that the Austrian working class exercise the utmost caution, to prevent a union of the Clerical-Fascists and the National-Fascists...
...The league wants them in order that its Ales may be complete...
...New Deal is simply told in the following figures covering the year June, 1932, to June, 1933: Increase in manufacturing production, 55...
...If work is to be spread, the working hours must be cut and that can only be enforced through a well organized trade union in every line of employment...
...Le Cercle Victor Hugo, Carnegie Hall, New York City, is preparing a biography of Jean Jaures to be published soon in English...
...We can understand, Bauer continues, how such notions arise, but we m-at combat them...
...To bring about such a result requires a real enlargement of the market for consumers' goods, plus assurance that investments will not lose too much value through a fall in the purchasing power of money...
...Spanish Socialists Gain \ report submitted to the Labor and Socialist International shows that the Spanish Socialist Party trebled its membership within twenty months after the revolution of April, 1931, reaching a numerical strength of 73,857 by the close of 1932, which further increased to 81,777 by June 30th of this year...
...Along with openly Fascistic elements, the government parties contain others which we must seek to win over to the democratic side...
...Only vigilant labor organizations can check up on that...
...Using the semi-annual government figures of the change in the cost of living...
...it s parliamentary government...
...The cost of living is rising, and even in June was only five per cent under the level of a year ago...
...But if they had a spoonful of brains among the whole asylum full of them they would not be Nazis...
...NO MAINS...
...The Labor Bureau, Inc., has bsought up to date "the requirements in terms of dollars for the 'minimum health and decency' and the 'skilled workers'' budgets...
...Let the minimum wage be not $14 per week, but $40 per week...
Vol. 16 • August 1933 • No. 6
