TIMELY TOPICS

THOMAS, NORMAN

By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS A Dtaffluaioaod Nation AS recently as six months ago I did not think it possible that the adjournment of Congress and the end of the first year of NRA and AAA...

...Over ten million people are still unemployed...
...Actually only a billion dollars was spent in- public works the first year...
...Socialist predictions concerning both AAA and NRA and, indeed, concerning the whole New Deal are being obviously fulfilled with great rapidity...
...We go on to say that this democracy is not an "end in Itself" but that we fight for "complete emancipation from class rule...
...It is not Roosevelt or the New Desl but a disintegrating capitalism which is primarily responsible for our present position...
...But some things must be said...
...These decisions were a tragedy, an absurd compound of the groupings mentioned above...
...The children of the men who raise cotton have no underclothes I Party Family Matters CO far as possible I want to discuss other things than party controversy in these columns...
...Possibly he might...
...if "open or covert attempts" are n.ade to destroy our freedom of action (and that is what we mean by democracy) our answer will be "resistance by all meant available to tho working class and other democratic elements of the population...
...State Treasurer, J. A. Kimbar, Wray...
...in 1904 the impossibility would never think of eliminating from a platform how and why the working class is exploited by the capitalist class and also eliminate a clear ttatement of the class antagonism and tho elato struggle...
...With all the immense volume of legislation passed by Congress labor did not get unemployment insurance or any other form of social insurance...
...Is it not true, Comrade Thomas, faot every fateitt movement in the world declaret that democracy it "bogut"T Then how does it come that a Socialist Party is an ally of this view...
...M To Comrade Thomas By James Oneal (Continued from Page Three) to My that it it limited and not satisfactory and mutt ever remain ao under capitalism...
...Open-price provisions were present in most of the important industries, especially those in which, like steel, prices had fallen relatively little anyway...
...There are occasions when a Coeialiat movement to remain Socialist cannot svoid illegality...
...He wrote: "It is a strange case of class collaboration...
...Soule is right: "The most striking gain—indeed, the only gain of really magnificent proportions—in the first months of the New Deal was the gain of the recipients of profits...
...I can see opportunities lost for lack of a man to send in...
...Capitalism wants to suspend democracy...
...The unemployed did not get adequate relief and the public works program Ik hopelessly inadequate for the purpose of really stimulating production...
...To make the sweeping statement that democracy is "bogus" is to do the very thing that reaction itself is doing all over the world...
...Lieutenant...
...COLORADO NAMES STATE TICKET - f\ENVER.—The convention of */ the Socialist Party of Colorado has registered its approval of the Declaration of Principles adopted by the party in Detroit...
...it ia another thing to say that it is "bogus...
...The Congressional platform and the Farmers' Brogram correlate with the Popullst-semi-CommunistPacinst-Socialist character of the Declaration...
...Still less is it justified in boasting that it has raised $5,000 and can raise $50,000 for a party fight when New York is so far behind in its local and state finances and in raising its quota for the National Fund drive...
...Despite the attempt of the administration to subsidize scarcity, the farmer's dollar did not hold the gains it made last summer...
...Immense Congressional and presidential activity and in the end great economic insecurity...
...It would have broken down even if the drought had not done on a big scale what the administration tried to do on a small seals...
...It is, therefore, in its interest to discredit the idea of democracy...
...Governor, Paul L. AlbrighVTort Collins...
...I am not stressing legality although I would not ignore it...
...It is an almost criminal madness which lesds the government even to discuss reducing the amount of milk in a country where children have too little milk...
...It need surprise no one that, due to the compound of ideas contained in objectionable statements in the Declaration, we have, had to set up a supreme court W four lawyers to tell us really what these statements mean...
...first year, however} it is perfectly clear that the tendency of NRA is to give legal plsce to company unions, to discourage strikes and.to encourage governmental intervention in labor affairs...
...No wonder, then, that 810 large industrial corporations in 87 industries managed to change an aggregate net deficit of 145,802,000 in 1932 into an aggregate net profit of $440,648,000 in 1938...
...The prices of articles under codes which contained outright price-fixing provisions were, on December 16,1938, not much more than 1 per cent below 1926 and were 3 per cent higher than in 1929...
...thewish to be super-revolutionary is li|ely to make them unconscious and unwilling htlptrt of the capitalist class in the latter'* fight against democracy...
...Neither do I think it fair to criticise the New Desl from the standpoint of the sideline Liberal or academic observer who ssys that at this or that point Roosevelt might have done thus or so...
...Ths figures will be presented next week...
...It will purchase less for him than it did then...
...But instead of defending, the Militants help discrediUitnd disparage democracy...
...By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS A Dtaffluaioaod Nation AS recently as six months ago I did not think it possible that the adjournment of Congress and the end of the first year of NRA and AAA would see such general disillusionment with the principal features of the New Deal...
...It is not encouraging at a meeting of tho party in New York to see good comrades wildly applauding a clever demonstration of the parry's weakness...
...This document will be found on another page of this issue...
...There is no threat but a direct pledge that the party will defend those who tngagt in sabotage and other irresponsible aett of tht members...
...I have pointed out previously that it is true that there is not effective demand for the cotton that has been raised or can be raised...
...Average weekly wages for men employed' in June, 1933, sre a little lower in June, 1934, in terms of purchasing power...
...What shall it profit any of us to capture the Socialist Party unless ths Socialist Party itself it equipped to educate, agitate and organise for tht capture of power...
...Whether the acts are wits or,foolish, whether fat accord with party decisions or not, tht Declaration pledges support of those who commit them...
...The Farmers' Program is a hodge-podge of Populism, current dirt-farmerism and pseudo-Marxism...
...The gains for farmers and workers, such as they are, were mostly made before NRA and AAA went into effect...
...State Auditor, Alvin Baltser, Denver...
...The following" nominations were made: Governor, Paul S. McCoraick, Denver...
...I turn to the opinion of one who supported the Declaration at Detroit, Comrade Kantorovitch in the Socialist Quarterly for April, 1982, in discussing this same idea...
...There is a desperate need of cotton in the World and even in the United States...
...At ths same time, although according to Keynes tht government has not been spending fast enough, it has spent so fast that it has Incurred tnormooa debts which still invite the danger of real inflation and which impose upon as a terrific burden of interest The government is net trying to meet this situation by adequate taxation, by a capital levy on wealth, or by the attempt to finance productive public works by treasury notes secured by the value of the works instead of by.interest bearing bonds...
...not because it chooses this status but because external conditions compel it...
...Finally, it is not encouraging to see that the party which has not yet raised a fifth of its quota of ths National Fund Drive can raise so much for factional controversy...
...I quote the summary of the findings contained in George Soule's interesting new book, "The Coming American Revolution": "Tho prices, of those articles which were under no codes or under codes free from price fixing provisions were on December 15, 193&, 18 per cent below 1926 and 7 per cent below 1929...
...When we say "all means" we have in mind a period of acute crisis when all forms of freedom of action (democracy) are being closed to us, but nowhere do we pledge to support membert who engage in irresponsible acts...
...Ours is a Socialist resolution which considers organized and disciplined forms of action as opposed to emotional and hysterical acts committed by i n d i v i d u a 1 s. To guard against this individual Irresponsibility, we warn against police spies and provocateurs, although this warning is made in relation to proposals for secret organization...
...It is true that within certain limits we shall have to bring about crop control It is not possible to bring about a satisfactory crop control under the price and profit system, absentee landlordism and the rule of great dairies, trusts and packing houses which stand between the farmer and the consumer...
...That Is a humiliation which I doubt ever came to any other working class party...
...The housing program is but an elaborate system of governmental underwriting of private capitalist housing...
...Moreover, we are still so weak that a police sergesnt and one cop...
...The prices of articles under codes containing open-price provisions were, on December 15, 1933,11.2 per cent higher than in 1926, and actually 23.3 per cent above the boom level of 19291 Meanwhile, pricesof farm products were not much 'more than half oJ;the 1929 levels...
...Of course, if we are always to be too weak for that, we wi]l be too weak to achieve Socialism...
...No less an expert than John Maynard Keynes has pointed oat that tho government is not spending enough or fast onought to do tht Job ho and other economists have in mind when they commend public works...
...And the Farmer* THE attempt to make the farmers prosperous by * subsidisng scarcity has broken down...
...I can see the campaign for giving to the disfranchised Workers in the South .the elementary rights of democracy neglected, all for lack of funds...
...8. New Yorkers should know that comfortable assembly rooms can be obtained cheaper in some large hotels than by renting tht usual haUe^BsUAesy...
...If attempts are made to destroy this democracy, we say that we favor mobilizing the united power of the workers "in organized and disciplined resistance," including the general strike...
...It would, therefore, follow that it is in the interests of the proletariat to defend and uphold democracy...
...Henry Fruchter has been in charge of it and Ths Nsw Leader has vigorously supported it Comrade Fruchter is certainly not a partisan...
...There is no threat that ws will abandon our present tactics for sabotage...
...So is the assurance of the able committee of lawyers headed by William Cunnea of Chicago that the Declaration of Principles imposes no present legal difficulties on Socialist organization in any state...
...1. The membership has, net dropped in New York City or stats...
...Again Mr...
...On the other hand, to choose vague language which even many of our own members do not understand is folly...
...Moreover, it was not the states in which Socialists are fewest 4n which a majority was rolled up for the Declaration of Principles...
...It did net get a legal outlawry of company unions or a genuine guarantee of collective bargaining and the right to strike...
...Does not reaction in all its forms, including fascism, say that democracy is "bogus"T Do they not urge its destruction for this very resson and pursusde workers to accept this view...
...2. If tht drive quota hss not been raised it has not beta due to neglect...
...Regents of Stats University— Ruth Sulthart, Goldfleld, and MarJorle Bond MeCormlck, Denver...
...Comrade Thomas asks us for our alternatives...
...As I write these words I can see districts all over tho country where Socialist literature or Socialist organisers would make an immense difference...
...The codes have encouraged monopoly and price fixing in behalf of big business...
...It is not encouraging to find reckless snd abusive personalities substituted for arguments and principles...
...Roosevelt's personality, his energy, his optimism, his capacity for action produced results especially in the first months of his administrstion...
...We have them in the resolution on "Democracy" adopted by Local New York and the State Committee of which the writer happens to be the ruthor...
...Back to the Declaration...
...Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ida Crouch-Haslttt, Denver...
...The Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party which represents ths minority in the convention is not justified in choosing a name which implies that everybody else wsnttto destroy the Socialist Party...
...in each of a dozen cities with two whifs of tear gas could destroy the whole ^movement / am for a revolutionary party of the working class but not for playboy revolution...
...The declarations of loyalty to the party coming from all sides are encouraging...
...i w linos' vNo working class party in the world ever gave such a blank check to its members, not even the, Bolsheviks who slways insisted on an iron discipline of its members...
...It declares that for us to hint that it is "bogus" would be to "make the working class the accomplices of fascist reaction which fears the free action of tht workers...
...But tsking one thing with another, Roosevelt did about as w«U as one could expect any President to do at long at that President sticks to the capitalist order...
...The only party that ever followed the course now recommended to our members was the Social Revolutionary Party in the old Czarist Russia and it was always regarded as a party of the peasants and petty bourgeoisie by both Mensheviks snd Bolsheviks...
...Tht individual decides M* courts 0/ notion, not tho party, and the party it to defend ait courts whatOver it man fee...
...Comrade Thomas Misinformed Comrade Thomas is misinformed...
...Unquestionsbly Mr...
...No intelligent Socialist or labor man can criticise the New Deal from the standpoint of the reactionary Republicans...
...But comrades can meet at expensive hotels to plsn a campaign which, alas, has not so fsr confined itself to the discussion of principles but to attacks oa persons...
...Theoretically, this was supposed to prove that we were too weak, to give power to our declared purposes in the event of war and the like...
...What is that position...
...The platform reverts back to the impossibilism of 1004 with this difference...
...that is to say, demands in terms of purchasing power...
...School...
...The congressional platform passed by the national convention was adopted as the state platform...
...It should be remembered that in New York State, where the party machinery has been pretty well controlled by the group most opposed to the Declaration of Principles, there has been a drop in membership at a time when in general throughout the country there has been a very encouraging increase...
...The Detroit platform does both...
...It is a form of united front that few of us ever anticipated...
...At the end of the...
...In 1928 New York Socialists also took over the financial burdens and management of the national campaign...
...Secretary of Stats, V. B. Bowten, Colorado Springs...
...What has been happening is well shown by statistics gathered by the Mail Order Association-^ America...
...The fsct that dirt farmers were consulted does not save it A farmer may know much about his special occupstlon in agriculture, ,hut it does not follow thst he understands the agrarian question as a whole and its setting within the structure of capitalist production and the evolution of the agrarian class in this system...
...The condition of the share-croppers proves that a hundred-fold...
...NRA and Labor AT the, beginning, at least, NRA did encourage " labor organisations and did abolish or minimise child labor...
...Besides supporting ths party, it should bo remembered that New York Socialists also carry the main burden of supporting Ths New Leader and Rand...
...There' we say that democracy is limited and unsatisfactory, but that workers must fight to retain it, that the working class obtained it not as a gift of the ruling classes but won it through decades of bitter, struggles...

Vol. 17 • June 1934 • No. 73


 
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