TIMELY TOPICS
Thomass, Norman
By INorman Thomas TI/ViCLy 1«u< % The Big Strikes FRIENDS of the New Deal have often argued ¦ that the epidemic of labor strikes is proof that there is recovery. "Labor strikes when thing's...
...But let it lead Us...
...They trudge to a commissary on Main- Street for oatneal, potatoes or gift meat...
...Even the police for various reason.s have shown In some of the strikes a surprising degree of friendship to the strikers...
...Big strikes inMinneapolis,, Toledo, Milwaukee and San Francisco have all ahown a great solidarity of labor...
...We are a committee in search of someone to cooperate with and something specific to cooperate on," writes Gretchen Garrison, chairman of the Women's Committee of the Socialist Party of Vermont...
...This system, however, strikes the snag of the justifiable fear in America of boss control in the old parties...
...It is in their work with other women's groups—League of Women Voters, etc.—that the Vermont women have perhaps made themselves felt most...
...Of course, you arel That's why we're having this struggle in the party right now...
...Nobody can set up among the unemployed a rival economic system to capitalism and succeed...
...Suppose, moreover, that he proves as able an executive and leader as he has been a writer...
...Worth bothering about...
...Never...
...Such a proposal arouses the resentment of ' tapltalUm and to carry it out will require about , the same degree of power that will be necessary -.ft asnplant capitalism with Socialism...
...Under Sinclair's plan, the farmers might J have some legitimate grounds for kicking in the ' face of the direct or indirect competition of the | state-owned farm colonies which Sinclair proposes...
...Family Matters IT is rather a relief not to feel *, any necessity to write <at this time at any length about the Declaration of Principles...
...But I'm hoping that by the early fall the women's units of New York will be able to supply the missing links, at least for the urban centers of the East, where the problems are more or less similar...
...It's too bad, because the party needs Stitt Wilson and he needs the party...
...There are no short cuts, no panaceas, no patent medicines, no Indian herbs, for our cure...
...Only so can we get a grant to cities of necessary power to serve the people...
...For one hing, a mimeographed copy of heir program, with a letter to the ditor, was sent to 36 newspapers, md at least ten printed it...
...Open party designation '¦ is likely to make it a little more difficult for the > Merchants' Association or the Ku Klux Klan oi f some racial or religious-bloc to elect its candidates...
...Now there is a small element of truth in this, but of course it is not true that labor strikes because It is well off...
...I am proud to hear of the role that the Socialists" of Toledo are playing in that strike...
...It may make it a little easier to build that party and to get adequate representation...
...A Democrat only for convenience sake, he will have to try to lead a miscellaneous lot of Democratic politicians who arc absorbed by local interests and local responsibilities...
...Proportional representation in the nation as a whole would have to be very critically examined lest it create a whole lot of blocs and hinder rather than help a Socialist Party in achieving the necessary power to change the system...
...Nothing in he discussion has made me see any reason to change or modify the arguments that I have given on the subject,of workers' democracy, the evils of capitalist democracy, and the general merits of the Declaration...
...Don't I know how they feel...
...If at the end of the poll a party is entitled on a city council to, let us say, five representatives, the first five on its list will be seated...
...Dan Hoan, the Socialist Mayor, and the strength of the Socialist ¦ ' Party have had a wholesome influence on the Police L Department, but the Police Department in Milwaukee is not controlled by the Mayor because he cannot remove'the Police Commissioner...
...Take account of it...
...It is a disciplined party, a strong movement with workers of hand and brain that we need, not the meteoric appearance of a gtood mar...
...I have listened to them tell me, first that proportional representation on the Hare plan without party designation really increases party responsibility...
...You'd never imagine how little the crisis psychology has touched these people...
...women wrote in, requesting material...
...Labor strikes when thing's are getting better, not when they are getting worse...
...Some of the women, the pleasant, well-meaning middle class and slightly super-white collar class, itill express the idea that a good nany of the unemployed are people •vho would not work if they had i chance...
...Yes...
...How long is it going to take for good Americans . to learn to get over their pathetic faith that the ' deep-seated ills of a disintegrated capitalism can ' be cured, or at any rate greatly ameliorated, by a . good man and a good patent medicine...
...Proportional Representation A FEW words may be in order for proportional representation...
...Now, no Socialist who knows anything about Socialist philosophy can regard it as anything but an evil to diminish party responsibility of the right sort...
...Let's got to work to build a Socialist Partyl t/i*w>., Some Work for Women's Party Units to Consider ¦y Gortmdo Weil Kleia "U7E are something like the play Six Characters in Search of an Author...
...If he could carry out his program, his program -would not end poverty in California...
...Cities will never get power to keep their own house in order or to build themselves a decent house unless there is a militant party fighting for the right kind of world...
...They have always been cash poor...
...They do not take their jobs, they give them help...
...They will, God help them, cling to rugged Coolidge individualism, with a curious sort of pride in their ignoring and dismissing new and different ideas...
...But we must not...
...They need financial and other help, which either the National Office or I shall be glad to pass on to them...
...At the same time, it cannot defeat capitalism...
...A society which was going Socialist might, indeed, provide work for the unemployed somewhat on the lines of Sinclair's proposal but it would be subordinate to the task of a direct drive toward the cooperative commonwealth...
...Since they hold their tenure by virtue of state legislative appointment, they have felt secure from removal while they continued to obstruct the program of the Socialist Party...
...What we have got to get is the Socialist society, and to get it we have to have effective organizations of workers with hand and brain, economic and political, organizations which know what they want ' and mean to get there...
...Already one or two minor officials have resigned because they are thinking more of the almighty dollar than they are of tha* slogan they have "flo* loved to quote— "serving the peepul" -tDer Kampf, since 1907 theoretcal organ of the Austrian SocialDemocracy, discontinued after the 'ascist massacres of February 12, las reappeared as a joint venture >f the German Social-Democratic Party in Czechoslovakia and of the foreign center of the Austrian s o m r a d e s. Die TribUnt, the nonthly magazine of Socialist Jwught in Prague, is therefore di»mUtaaccV...
...I dont' know whether Comrade Lachman's closing words were meant for me particularly...
...I am fighting for it on the Charter Commission of Greater New York along lines approved by the party in New York...
...We will then be able to go over all the available plans and material, and develop some new material in a systematic way...
...Socialists and Communists, much as now, with fa- 1 cilities for independents to get on the ticket by petition...
...let the natural wave of impatience so prevalent in many sections of the party engulf us and ride us to destruction...
...Meanwhile, I want to tell the women of the various women's sections who have written In to me that what they wtite is invaluable for us in gauging the temper and the minds of the people we must reach...
...Socialists for Civil Service Reform (Continued.from Page One) sought to cut the salaries of school teachers in excess to the cut which they have forced on other municipal employees...
...They can vote for our candidates as I their first choice, with the assurance that if they- • are not elected their second choices will be counted, a Proportional representation points the way to no a millenium...
...We're planning to organize our forces here along lines parallel to the regular party organization, with a State Executive Board, a paid woman organizer (very important, I think), and so on...
...The disunity of blocs is not solely the creature of proportional representation, but proportional representation probably added a little to that evil in Germany...
...First, the fallacy of the good man...
...No wellinformed Socialist believes that proportional representation is sacred or is a cure-all...
...The relation of the city to banking, public utilities, to milk, distribution, to housing and to taxation involve exactly the same sort of questions that are involved in the relation of states and nations to the capitalist system...
...The capitalist system may be annoyed, but i...
...b Under circumstances far more favorable than any that Sinclair can have, Roosevelt has abundantly shown the limitations on the power of the "good" man...
...Too enthusiastic friends of proportional representation often make themselves ridiculous by arguing in two contradictory ways...
...Stitt Wilson and California FROM California, along with some good deeds and* news about organization progress of the Socialist Party in San Francisco, I get the bad news that my old friend, J. Stitt^Wilson, has left the party to support Upton Sinclair...
...It is to laugh to have to listen to representatives of civic clubs who soberly tell you that there is no real political question involved in city government...
...Analyze it ? Of course...
...The unemployed have ahown real labor solidarity by the support they have given to the strikers...
...and second, that it gets rid of the evils of parties in municipal government...
...These women don't see ^read-lines, soup kitchens, strikers, rhe poor are fed by the poortiaster...
...Perhaps they still feel secure in their tenure, but the contract measure passed this week by the Board of Aldermen at the demand of Mayor McLevy may force some of the board members to resign from the board in order to bid for city contracts...
...Even so, it is fantastic to believe that without any wellorganized or well-disciplined party behind him he can carry out his program...
...I am most anxious to make an adequate reply to Marion Ress Lachman df Brookline, Mass., but that, too, will have to wait...
...That means that candi- ¦ dates for office will run as Republicans, Democrats...
...By the way, Socialists must not let Communist or capitalist critics fool them or the public on the 'police situation in Milwaukee...
...As a matter of party responsibility and of accurate, representation, probably the best plan of representation from a Socialist point of view is the so-called list system...
...For that j reason we in New York have decided, to 'favor the Hare system of the single transferable vote but with party designation...
...There is a great deal more...
...Nobody has to vote a second choice < if he doesn't want to, but the chances are that under t both proportional representation and preferential i voting we Socialists will get a lot of votes from th< l timid folks who are now afraid of throwing away 1 their votes...
...Nevertheless, the real tragedy for Sinclair would be his •lection...
...Sinclair's campaign with all its enthusiasm illustrates both these ancient fallacies...
...Suppose that Upton Sinclair is elected...
...is never going to be conquered by the rather dubious competition of unemployed colonies, even if some heavy taxation of business is thrown in for good measure...
...The basis of the program is the colonization of thi unemployed on the land and the employment of some of them in factories controlled by the state...
...But she say8: "And please don't say we're not worth bothering about...
...This is only a sketchy idea of the work of one group of women in an almost isolated part of the country...
...But let me give an idea of how heae women proceeded...
...There I is also a chance that the Mayor, the Controller and * some other single officials will be chosen by prefer- I ential votes...
...For instance, I again quote from Gretchen Garrison's illuminating letter: "The Vermont farmer's psychology is different than the middle-western psychology...
...It was not long since he was very critical of Sinclair's program...
...It has not had a similar effect in the Irish Free State and it does not seem to have had that effect in municipalities...
...They have refused cooperation with the Socialist administration on other matters on the pretext of economy, while they have been squandering money right and left on exorbitant contracts to members of their own board...
...It strikes - with increasing fervor because it is learning that no Blue Eagle but only power will get it any approach to justice...
...I only want to plead with Comrade Lachman, and in a way with Comrade William Beverlin of Salina, Kansas, and those other comrades who are being overwhelmed by a perfectly natural feeling of impatience, not to allow this feeling to stampede them...
...The order in which the names are arranged on the list is determined by the party authorities...
...1 That is one advantage of party designation...
...He can't possibly carry out his program...
...In a city the size of New York if we do i not have party designation openly we will have i' ' possibly behind the scenes...
...Tl eie is to be an exchange of goods between the unemployed in factories and those put on the I land...
...Now I want to discuss the California political situation without malice or ill-will to anybody...
...This latter move was successfully blocked recently by Mayor McLevy and Jack C. Bergen, Socialist member of the Board of Education...
...He will have to deal with a Legislature in which there is no unifying philosophy or program or party discipline...
...It does not in the least relieve us of the necessity of building a strong party...
...It strikes because it has been outrageously exploited...
...That, I am told, was the ease at Toledo and to Norman Thomas some extent in Milwaukee during the short-lived and successful trolley strike...
...The program was also sent to about 20 women's organizations...
...Wilson's attack on the Declaration of Principles, ; printed in a recent issue of The New Leader, was a kind of swan song...
...None of the answers of my friends to the statements that I have made about the party in New York and about the propriety of consulting lawyers with respect to the legal effect of the Declaration in certain states seem to me to require any particular answer...
...At present the bitterest and most desperate strike in the country against terrible conditions is in the onion fields near Toledo, Ohio...
...This would give the Socialist administration the opportunity to appoint to the board representatives of the Socialist Party, or where this is impossible because of state legislative provision that the members must be chosen from the two major political parties in the state, the administration might be able to select members of the old parties who are of a less obstructive nature...
...These vomen have never had the underlog's side presented to them____" Our job in the rural and semiural communities is a staggering me...
...Voters express their choke for parties rather than for Individual candidates...
...We believe that in the situation that prevails in New York City we may get a little more honest representative government by proportional representation, and we believe that we can add to our party strength...
...In the second place, this good man Upton Sinclair has an entirely inadequate program for abolishing poverty...
...I am willing to credit our old friend, Upfon Sinclair, and all his supporters the best of motives...
...Evidently Mr...
...for example, the Socialist Women's Club of Seattle, about whose work Stella K. Garrison writes...
Vol. 17 • July 1934 • No. 77
