Why La Guardia Is Stopped
Why La Guardia Is Stopped He Can Get the Funds He Needs for City Work, But His Backers Won't Let Him 1*HE LaGuardia reform adminis* tration plunged head first into trouble in its first week,...
...In' the English-speaking movement numerous attempts have been made to build up a chorus...
...The very men who hold the city by the throat...
...For carrying on the city's work much money is needed...
...Only regular members of the group will participate under the direction of Nadja Abeles...
...On that the city was per-, mitted to borrow $840,081,254...
...it is a fact, however, that the debt of the city is a legal obligation, whether honestly contracted or not...
...Gertrude Weil Klein tried it years ago...
...Now, in a certain sense a debt is an obligation to be repaid, as one repays a quarter borrowed for lunch the day before payday...
...Before they can draw a breath they must figure out some way to meet the hundred million interest charge and two-hundred-odd million debt service charge...
...In the meantime, Mr...
...He denounced the code as paving the way for a destruction of wage and working standards when the task of signing a new agreement is jcgun...
...Pietro Lucchi, International President of the union...
...Lucchi has not ceased his efforts to make the strike unnecessary by brii.gtag the various employers into line...
...All sections of the Dance Groups will hold an organization meeting next Tuesday after class...
...Why, '¦he bankers...
...The assessed valuation of the city's realty and other property is an arbitrary figure...
...In other words, with certificates of indebtedness totaling two and a quarter billion dollars outstanding, the city administration starts with a full-sized anchor around its neck...
...Finland pays us in full...
...Now the Fusion reformers, with the best intentions in the world, will have to do something about that pesky debt problem...
...Membership is still open...
...In fact, Harry and Abe Belsky, who might be called the impresarios of the affair if you cared to use that sort of language, appear tickled pink over the instant response evoked by the announcement of the debate...
...The furnace has been fixed and the rooms are now warm again...
...Darrow-Holmes Debate Will Surpass All Records "I'M afraid wc have a big success on our hands," said Harry Kritzcr, who is in charge of the Darrow-Holmes debate to he held January 19tn, at Mecca Terrible, hut the way he said it indicated that he wasn't so very badly frightened at the flood of mail with money enclosed and at the steady stream of people coming to the party office at 7 East 15th Street to get their tickets...
...besides which money borrowed for enterprises that pay for themselves is exempt from the debt-limit...
...Aik them to submit, to a drastic revision of principal and slash*' in interest, and they will discover that Business is Business...
...On Monday last he concluded an agreement with the Mendoza fur Dyers of 712 E. 133rd St., an organisation employing over 200 people...
...In 1932 the debt had just about doubled, and was fixed at $2,246,100,994...
...During the bonanza days before 1929 money was always available and the Tammany rulers spent lavishly...
...When the strike is called, the first organised protest of the fur workers against an NRA code will be under way...
...There must be separate influences upon the separate commodities...
...The controversy between Mayor LaGuardia and Governor Lehman is merely the,outward form of the problems Beneath the surface rages a struggle that goes right to the heart of municipal government, and every day—every hour— it rages the Socialist Party is vindicated in the position it took during the municipal campaign...
...Either way, the common man paid the piper...
...And no wonder...
...Tell them that Tammany is corrupt and they will heartily agree...
...With the very moment of taking office the Fusion administration was faced with the problem of making ends meet, and right there the issue was drawn...
...Inflation Is No Solution for Big Problems, Writers Agree *"PHE first of what promises to be * a notable and distinguished series of events took place last Saturday at the Rand School when three important writers discussed the whole problem of money and currency as it affects the working people...
...Who owns those bonds...
...The interest the city, was required to pay in the latter year was $94,048,051...
...Tell them that much of the money upon which the city is paying interest was used for fraudulent and corrupt purposes, and they will «gree...
...1\he Germans have 'em, the Finns have 'em, the Yiddishspeaking movement has them—and they're good choruses, too, serving the cause, expressing its aspirations, voicing its determination...
...But when we run into hundreds of millions and billions...
...Flynn sa*(' that by their handling of financial problems both the Hoover and the Roosevelt administrations delayed recovery rather than hastening it...
...when we deal with city, state, national and international .Inances, we stand on different ground...
...The next in the series will be held Saturday, January 20th, on the subject, "Is War Imminent...
...The price of steel is too high, whereas the price of grain is too low...
...Lucchi said...
...The debate Is between two of the greatest platform figures in America, Clarence Darrow and John Haynes Holmes, and their I subject is, In effect, a reflection I of the characters of two distinguished men...
...succeeding meetings to forums, projects and business...
...The speakers will be Nathaniel Peffer, world traveler and writer, Kirby Page, editor of The World Tomorrow, and James Oneal, editor of The New Leader an American member of the Bureau of the Labor and Socialist International...
...To increase that assessed valuation all you need is a Board of Tax Assessors who know how to play ball...
...This does not, of course, include the sums borrowed outride the debt limit, used for such enterprises as building subways, turned over to the transit companies for private operation, in return for which the city gets just enough in rent to pay the interest on the debt and the annual amortization...
...Shops Are Being Organized By Aleck Miller THK date of the contemplated * general strike of the International Fur Workers' Union against the NRA code imposed upon them has been postponed indefinitely, according to a statement it-sued by Harry Begoon, secretary of the union, at organization headquarters, 28 W. aist St...
...The days have leng passed when the problem can be airily met by again increasing assessed valuation, again skimming off the constitutional ten per cent, again issuing short-term bonds for the future to worry about...
...The city slaps an added six hundred million in valuation, for example...
...no one else does, or can...
...In 1915 assessed valuation of New York's property valued for tax purposes was $8,460,812,542...
...Some prices are too high already in relation to other prices...
...The Dance Groups will resume Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday sessions at headquarters this Friday evening...
...Georgia and the Dartmouth College Case...
...The code does not annul the agreement which expires January 81, Mr...
...We are the future...
...They will hire the greatest lawyers in the world to put up a scrap, and thev will fight like tigers to safeguard their share of the cream of the Tammany grafting...
...John T. Flynn, noted financial writer and author of "Go.'s Gold," agreed with Soule that inflation will solve no economic problems...
...And we'll have It," interrupted Harry...
...Louis Waldman, state chairman of the Socialist Party, was chairman and toastmaster, and he will preside at all forthcoming luncheon discussions...
...We're going to havo Mecca Temple jammed to the last inch of standing room, and there are going to be thousands turned away...
...But there has been no real permanent trained organization, singing in four parts and producing melody akin, say, to the Workmen's Circle Chorus, under a capable director...
...Labor Marches On" period Saturdays...
...If there is tc be a change in prices, they must be designed to make exchange of commodities easier...
...Why La Guardia Is Stopped He Can Get the Funds He Needs for City Work, But His Backers Won't Let Him 1*HE LaGuardia reform adminis* tration plunged head first into trouble in its first week, and from present indications ii will sink deeper and deeper as time goes on...
...Well, it is hard to disagree with Harry Kritzer when he overcomes his usual caution and becomes enthusiastic...
...By the agreement, Mr...
...Their profits are sacred—AND THEY ELECTED LaGUARDIA...
...Begoon explained, but the union is awaiting a more suitable time to put them into effect...
...The Writers' Group of Rebel Arts meets Mondays at 8:80...
...Tell them that the ridiculously swollen valuations upon which the colossal debts were imposed were tainted and they will agree...
...i Fannie Hurst, no less notable as a fighter for justice than as one of America's great novelists, win preside as chairman...
...Sam Friedman has led numerous groups of young and of older folk, and has taught perhaps thousands of youngsters the songs of labor and of Socialism from all over the world...
...This plant had been operating as an open shop...
...The One-Act Play Group, which meets Thursdays at 8:30, has started broadcasting labor sketches over WEVD during the L.I.I...
...In addition, he secured a ten per cent increase in pay...
...Lucchi explained, calls for a 85hour week and only two hours of overtime a week, payable at the rate of time and a half...
...New Workers' Chorus Holds First Session on January 20 PERHAPS more than any other cultural activity, the Englishspeaking labor and Socialist movement of New York City lacks a chorus...
...Plans for the strike, however, have not been halted, Mr...
...Indeed, they contributed money to oust Tammany (and thus to safeguard their interest...
...They are the people who calmly collect close to a hundred million a year...
...How much of the sum realized from this colossal increase went into actual improvements and how much stuck to the dirty fingers of Tammany thieves we can only guess as yet...
...the big real estate operators loaded the increases upon the backs of the tenants...
...Isn't the debate Itself the greatest Intellectual treat—outside of strictly propaganda and Socialist educational work—we havei ever undertaken...
...An attempt to build such a chorus will be made January 20— a week from Saturday—at five o'clock at Rebel Arts headquarters, 22 East 22nd Street...
...General inflation," he added, "would bring about no general improvement...
...Harry W. Laidler, v. ho represented the Socialist pom1 of view, likewise decried inflation, and argued that only by a greater and greater application of Socirlist economic ideas with Socialism as the objective could the economic issues of the day be solved...
...And so on, to the tune of eleven and a half billion in eighteen years...
...In a recent statement to The New Leader, outlined the reasons for the contemplated strike...
...The present agreement of the unions with the employers, Mr...
...George Soule, editor of the New Republic, said that inflation will not resolve the great issues that are plaguing the public...
...Fur Workers' Strike Date Is Temporarily Postponed...
...The first of the luncheons attracted a capacity crowd, and close to 100 late-comers were unable to get Into the dining hall...
...They're going so fast I'm getting dizzy opening letters and tabulating checks and money orders...
...He charged that the code as adopted cut wages more than 50 per cent and permitted "inordinately long hours," whereas the 35-hour week is now the rule...
...It's the biggest thing of its kind Harry, who is notorious in party circles for his caution and conservatism In such matters...
...And maybe that is the nearest we can get to a selfsustaining city enterprise under capitalist and Tammany rule...
...Thin Mondny will be devoted to the Workshop...
...and on it borrows an additional sixty million (upon which interest is paid...
...We do not want a rise of all prices," he said...
...Upon the basis of these improvements real estate valuation is again raised, and a year later one-tenth of that increase can be skimmed off in additional debt...
...A magazine Is definitely going to be launched...
...Instead of polng right to the place where the fight should be waged—and would be waged by a Socialist city administrationhe is trying to get powers to cut the wages of city workers and in other ways to install economies...
...What we want is a complete sell-out before the doors open...
...But LaGuardia isn't starting that fight...
...The increased valuation is loaded upon the backs of the little home owners...
...We cannot speak of ten billion, twenty billion, thirty billion raised during a war as a debt in the sense that a borrowed dime is a debt For further information as to how to handle an embarrassing situation created by huge international debts one is referred to Herr Geheimrat Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, of the Reichsbank...
...Tell The New Leader readers," he said, "that if they want to be suro of getting into the hall they had bettor hurry up and get their tickets...
...they will discover Paragraph t, Section 19, Article I of the Constitution of the United States, and will dig up John Marshall's decisions in Cohen vs...
...Lucchi not only unionized the plant, but also had the working hours of the employees reduced from 46 hours to 35 h urs per week...
...In 1915 the city owed a bonded debt of $1,124,020,221, which is another way of Baying that there were outstanding certificates, or bonds, to that amount...
...The very people who so enthusiastically supported the LaGuardiaCunningham ticket...
...The people," he said, "are sidetracked by discussions of money questions...
...During the boom years the assessed valuation went up steadily, and by 1932 had gone up to 119,977,095,815, on increase of $11,516,273,273, upon which the city was permitted to borrow $1,151,627,327...
...Abe Belsky seconded him...
...The great problems created by the depression cannot be solved by discussions of side issues...
...with that sixty million pavements and sewers are built (not forgetting juicy contracts and graft to insiders...
...Together with installments on the fund for redemption of bonds and amortization paid into sinking fund the debt service for 1931 amounted to $218,900,000...
...That is what is called a self-sustaining enterprise...
...The code fixes 65 cents an hour as the minimum wage, whrreaa the present agreement calls for $1.27 to $1.60 an hour, depending upon the type of work performed...
...It worked out this way: Under the state constitution the city may borrow money up to ten per cent of its assessed real estate valuation...
...That is why LaGuardia wants a dictatorship to cut wages, not to cut interest charges or to impose taxes that will pay for what the city needs...
...They are the people who won't permit steeply graded taxes to meet the needs of a new day...
...For the bankers will not allow their interest to be touched, regardless of changed circumstances...
Vol. 17 • January 1934 • No. 2
