Behind the Scenes in Washington

...because it cant' be helped...

...This is the contradiction...

...If he did nothing but introduce resolutions demanding the "revor lution," he would be regarded as a fool by the masses who elected him and he would not be returned in tilt next election...

...Under either 'name they were a bad lot, and ought to be s u p p ressed...

...They recall the period of 1912, when the old was paraded as new not only in the labor and Socialist movement but outside of it...

...At the same time, the Senate in a burst of speed ratified two treaties which had been gathering dust in committee for years—ont for obligatory arbitration among cations of the Western Hemisphere...

...This is always more or less inconvenient, but there is no Use regretting it...

...In theory it lives in a 'vacuum above the struggles in society and demands the "revolution,' hut it is dragged out of the vacuum by arte sheer force of material necessity in order to avoid complete isolation . Old age and unemployment insurance, to take only two examples, are reforms and (he nutward trend shrieks lor diem and, yet it roars against "reformism" and "reformists...

...The Nazi revolution has placed the necks of its mass following in a noose...

...Each "new" idea harked back to something old...

...and as they either leave the party ' or get assimilated by it, others take their places at the edge...

...A powerful body of opinion, including Chairman Biddle and former Chairman Garrison of the labor board, and Senator Wagner, are emphatic in contending that the board, to be effective, must be independent, like the ICC, the Federal Trade Commission and other such bodies...

...They took every opportunity to .denounce us in print and on the platform...

...the other an international agreement on shipping...

...Well, Monday came and Congress was in a worse mess than ever, with some of the works conferees threatening to quit in high dudgeon and further delay in prospect...

...Tne revival ol the new today is "reformism" and reformists...

...The editors, mai7n7.in...

...it practically requires that this money be so distributed...

...Surely, they argued, the Anarchists have a right to their opinion, as w* have a right to ours...

...In theory it is one thing, in practice another...

...preachers, college professors, anc other "molders of' public opinion,' with a few honorable exceptions either shared this view or pretended to share it...

...The committee is emphatically cpnvinced," it said, "that no bill which contains only general authorizations to the President to fix prices, or to commandeer industry or to arrange for priorities and licensing, is at all adequate to equalize the burdens and take the profits out of war...

...If we live long enough we may still see the $4,880,000,000 bill become a law...

...1 If 24 billion dollars spent in three years cannot pull j eleven million jobless men and women out of the pit, how many billions must be spent and how many years will it require for New Deals to provide new meals for the workers of the United States...

...To the politically ignorant and indifferent sections of the population —a much larger proportion then than now—there was no real difference between S o c i a lists and Anarchists...

...Munitions Quizxers Submit ¦apart *?*HE Munitions Committee in* formed the Senate in a preliminary report that it was in "substantial agreement" on a plan to eliminate war profits but would require more t>me to complete its inquiry into various phases of the arms business...

...There is some possibility that the Senate Conference Committee might decline to serve any longer, but as long as there is life there is hope...

...A Bit of Our Party History Which Is Paralleled Today ¦y Aioemoa Lee CORTY years ago...

...St did all well informed Socialists There was no love lost between them and us...

...but neither are we as numerous as we could wish...

...Between Anarchists and Socialists there could be no real peace...

...From time to time, however, there came a truce—a one-sided truce, which was decidedly uncomfortable for us...

...Nazi rule has simply produced the old Junkercapitalist regime of the pre-war period with Hitler in the boots of Wilhelm...

...Ickes replied immediately, declaring himself "still of the opinion that the limiting language not only puts a premium upon waste and extravagance and reckless dissipation of public money...

...We would add one still lower, one belonging to the swine level of our animal ancestry...

...why not add their little to our little...

...ur r i tars...

...But for us te ignore them altogether would have seemed to our public like a tacit confession that the Anarchist attacks were well founded...

...Apparently enactment of the hill depends on whether President Roosevelt says the word...

...There was the "New Unionism" and "New Socialism/' the advocates of which have completely disappeared...

...This type will be found in the author of a circular issued by the New York State Economic Council, Inc., on March 22...

...This lattej* decision represented a major defeat for the government, whose counsel in arguing the case contended that the injunction had caused irreparable harm to the RFC...

...We could not permit that...

...The Anarchists know tide, aad all thoroughgoing Socialists knew it...

...When a Berkman or a Johann Most got into trouble with the law, we felt that, fundamentally as we disagreed with them, rightly as we considered them our irreconcilable enemies, yet we must do our part to save them from the vengeance of our other enemies, the captalists and their henchmen...

...It must be remarked that the Anarchists seldom felt any corresponding obligation toward us...

...Besides this, we had to fight them continuously in the trade unions, where their influence always made for chaos and disruption...

...would it not be better to conciliate them...

...This was considered tantamount to instructing conferees to eliminate the Senate amendment which limits loans to states and municipalities on projects that will spend at least one-third of the loan as wages to workers...

...The present powerless board is under the Department, and Secretary Perkins wants this status continued...

...The other big battle ahead is whether the proposed new Labor Board is to be in the Labor Department...

...Yet the logic of the situation compelled us at such times to suspend or at least to tone down our controversy with them on questions of theory and tactics...

...Mayor Jasper McLevy, State Socialist Chairman Martin 1. Hoe* kett, and other Socialist spokesmen appeared at a legislative hearing in Hartford last week ia favot of hub that would facilitate the municipalization of public etilraes, and that would ereats * special commission for the invesrkjetsoa of utility votschsrgs...

...Glass made public a letter he wrote te Secretary Ickes, advising the Public Works Administrator the best course would be to seek separate joint legislation, effecting the changes he favors, rather than hold up the conference report...

...In June last year Hitler staged his blood purge of a aurnber of the Storm Troop leaders...

...Most'* book, "Revolutionary Welfare...

...The Anarchists knew better...

...At the very least, every Socialist paper had frequently to publish articles explaining that in principle and in practice Socialism and Anarchism were diametrically opposed...

...Soma of these near-Socialists linger la or with the party for a while aad then fall away...

...These was quite a literature on this twenty and thirty years ago, but today only the words are revived, lite nutward trend it opposed to reformism and fights for reforms...

...Senator Glass declared the House "has yielded to the dictatorship" of a public executive...

...But it is true history- And if* throughout this article, you substitute "Communist" for "Anarchist," it becomes contemporary history— with the difference, perhaps, that the Communist attack has been more vicious and our Socialist response to it less sharp and clear...

...that her parents are dependent upon her, and that there would be no family income unQl the child obtained a job...

...Outstanding in another field was an opinion holding constitutional the Railroad Reorganization Act of 1933 and upholding the validity of...

...Anarchism is much more advanced and radical than Socialism...

...occasions recently the administration has threatened to discontinue relief and to shut up shop at COC camps on account of relief funds being completely, exhausted and that Congress' will just have to ^put the work-relief bill through right away...

...The A. F. of L. leaders, however, sepfert Miss Per etas Socialists Protest Defeat of Child Labor Amendment IJARTFORD.—The Senate has * * concurred with the House ia defeating ratification of the Child Labor Amendment, by a vote of 20 to 13, despite the vigorous efforts of the three Socialist senators...

...Surely, you cannot deny that they are sincere and courageous, seeing how they stand up under obloquy and persecution...

...Senator Secor declared that "when profits become destructive of the finer instincts and aspirations of humanity, then it becomes necessary te call a halt to this destruction through such instruments as a child labor amendment to the federal constitution...

...J" That this collection of organized Babbitts should cooly send out such a statement simply shows how low the profit motive will drag human beings...

...It was a yet more stupid blunder for Anarchist spokesmen to excuse or glorify these deeds...

...We were misleading the workers by telling them that it was possible to improve their condition under capitalism, we were killing their revolutionary spirit by our stupid or corrupt reliance on "bourgeois parliamentarism...

...meet relief drafts for a week or so longer...

...W* must feed them for a while with the half-truths of Socialism...

...They were to be the Swiss Guard of the Nazi heaven and enjoy its fruits...

...some develop into faithful and effective comrades...

...All that they and we had in common was hostility to the existing social order...

...Socialists and Anarchists Naturally, we Socialists replied —and not always in the gentlest terms...

...The lines were drawn between us and the Anarchists...

...This represents nearly $1,000 for each family in the United States or $12 for every man, woman and child in the work...

...Labor Measure Dope ads aa Ward from F. D. t. THE Wagner Labor Relations bill, biggest question-mark of Congress, enters a new phase this week with the closing of committee hearings in both houses, and the start of committee deliberations about its final form...

...Hitler and his gangsters organized these mercenaries out of the despairing sections of the middle classes, uninformed workers and the criminal elements of the'population...

...Of course, they ssid...

...Perhaps it would be rnore correct to call them "nutward" organs, as they do not bring forward anything new...

...It was the second time the tribunal had snatched the boys from the hangman...

...A PROBLEM IN ARITHMETIC F.OM 1789-to- 1913 the total federal appropriations were 24 billion dollars...

...We were doing al...

...It is all ancient history now...

...Supreme Court Gives Good Performance IK one of the busiest days this term the Supreme Court handed down more than p score of opinions and rulings which profoundly affected recent legislation designed to alleviate the pressure of the depression and further defined civil and political rights...

...We admire the uncompromising attitude of the Anarchists...

...a a ' a Some Did Not See So Clearly 11/E had among us, however, some ™ who did not see so clearly...

...attests* THEORY AND MATERIAL NECESSITY ITOR many months we have noticed a curious contra* diction ia "leftward" organs...

...For three years of the depression—1934-1936— the total appropriations are over 24 billions, the United States News points out...

...She does not, however, ask power to review the board's decisions...

...A snag was hit again last Monday when the House by a vote of 249 to 110 sent the muchcontroverted bill hurtling back to conference again, on the strength of Secretary Ickes' and White House protests against the labor restriction...

...But though they were not numerous, their utterances and sometimes their actions were sufficiently spectacular to commend more public attention than did the words and deeds of the plodding and prosaic Socialists...

...The Anarchists are noble fellows, but they are ahead of their times...

...was a blunder...

...most of them very wellmeaning persons, but neither wellgrounded in Socialist theory nor well-trained by experience in the class struggle...

...That work-relief bill seems to be jinxed...

...Among these, at the period of rwhich I speak, there were many who thought the "Old Guard" of that time very narrow and intolerant, because of its attitude toward the Anarchists...

...This is known as the "direct work" amendment, which Secretary Ickes claims will cripple his Public Works Administration...

...It was a blunder to stab the Empress Elisabeth to death...

...And our parly marched prospering—until Anarcho-syndicalism arose, and aqshn the lines had to be drawn...

...we could to perpetuate the capitalist system...

...Insisting that there was no basic difference between the position of Marx and that of Bakunin, that in principle and purpose the two movements were identifies, they gently lamented what they called the blundering of the Anarchists...

...It declares that "one of the best arguments" against the Child Labor Amendment is contained in the letter of a girl of 15l/z years, who wrote that her father ¦ is 65 years old and unable to work...

...The report, submitted by Chairman Nye, said the committee also had agreed upon a ; "principle to govern the export of munitions and contraband in case of a major war...

...True, there are not many of them...

...But each time Congress didn't put the work-relief bill through right away the administration managed somehow to find a few million dollars tucked away in some stocking that could be pulled out to tide over the relief work a little longer...

...Our approach to the problem was different from theirs, our understanding of it was different, our ideal of future society was different, and it was therefore oat of the question for us to agree with them as to Immediate aims or methods of action...

...They remind Us of O. Henry's remark of the man who "only" burned down an orphan asylum in order to get the pennies of the children...

...Since then die Brown Shirt uniform has practically disappeared and the Storm Troops have been succeeded by the Reichswehr arnvy...

...On the other hand, in another decision the court upheld the legality of barring Negroes from Texas Democratic primaries...

...the Anarchists still played something of a role in this country...

...According to them, we were mer« talkers, incapable of resolute action...

...but, after all, at this stage of the game, compromise is more practical...

...Organized industry is bitter against the whole principle of setting up a quasi-judicial board with power to stop coercion by employers and to conduct worker elections [for selection of collective-bargsinjing representatives under the majority-rule principle...

...If only the Anarchists would stop making blunders, bow gladly we would fraternise...

...Whether He helped to defeat such measures or whether the measures he favored became law, he would not get the "^i^olufloss.'*" Whatever success he would have in representing the masses, his successes would fall within the realm erf reform and nothing else...

...Others took a somewhat different line...

...In urging passage...

...Well, the views of the bigoted Old Guard prevailed...

...Taking the floor, he charged "there are some officials who "hot only want to ad-, ministrate but to legislate...

...HITLER STRINGS THE BROWN SHIRTS NEWS from Berlin shows that the last remnant of the Nazi revolution, the Brown Shirt Storm Troops, has almost disappeared...

...an injunction against the RFC restraining that agency from selling or disposing of collateral it held as security for loans to an insolvent railroad seeking a reorganization plan...

...And then there were others whs, while agreeing that we mast keep ourselves apart from the Anarchists, did so for opportunistic reasons of their own, regretfully aad even remorsefully, and soothed their regret and remorse by carping st the othodox old-timers for treating it as a matter of principle...

...Bakunin's phrase about appealling to-the "evil passions of mankind" was a blunder, and ad were his violent attacks on religion...

...Such defence campaigns not only cost us much money and much time and energy, but it exposed us to public odium and supported the general belief that we Socialists were only Anarchists in disguise...

...Knowing that we were on the upgrade and they on the decline, we tried not to pay too much attention to them...

...But true to form, late ia the day word reached congressional leaders that another chunk of money had been found lying around in some odd corner—enough to...

...In capitalist politics there was the "New Nationalism" of Teddy Roosevelt, the "New Freedom" of Woodrow Wilson, and the "New Know-Nothingiam" of the religious fundamentalists in politics...

...if one of this type were heaved into a city council or a state legislature, he would also have to fight for reforms that are of interest to the workers...

...Foremost were two granting new trials to Heywood Patterson and Clarence Norris in the Scottsboro case...

...and for the former, persistent attack was a matter of self-preservation...

...j He would also be faced with reactionary measures in' such a body and be compelled to fight them...

...why should we quarrel with them as to the manner ia which capitalism is to be overthrown...

...The people are- not yet prepared to accept such truly revolutionary doctrine...

...There were not very many of them, tor neither here nor anywhere else had the doctrines of Bakunin and Rropotkin ever got mttch hold on the minds of wage workers m the great and growing industries...

...I Living in a vacuum of theory, the nutward gentlemen may get away with demagogy, but the moment they face practical responsibilities, material necessity will make fools of diem'if they do not fight for the reforms which In theory they reject...

...It was a blunder to throw a bomb ia a crowded theater...

...Specifically, the President served notice that the United States is considering denouncing treaties of agreements with Germany, Denmark, Italy and Portugal and its colonies, which now bind this country to extending to these nations the same benefits given Belgium...

...It is a condition that unavoidably accompanies the party's growth...

...The government contended that if the injunction in this case were upheld the value of all collateral held by the RFC and PWA for railroad loams, aggregating about $500,000,000, would be jeo pardiz ed* U. S. Warns Europe aa Trad* Treaties IN proclaiming the reciprocal trade * agreement with Belgium, President' Roosevelt sharply warned other countries that this Government will withdraw "moot-favored nation" treatment where discrimination is practiced against American commerce...

...We shall have-to come to it sooner or later...

...Labor leaders are hopeful he will, and the Senate and House Labor Committees are embarking on the difficult task of reframing the bill to suit as many of its advocates as possible...

...A LOW BABBITT LEVEL fY^E historian declares that the human mind is comV/ posed of three layers, the lowest being an inheritance from our savage ancestors...

...There was a fringe of Socialist sympathisers and new recruits, just outside the party or just inside it...

...a Apoloqlxinq te Themselves COME of these were always apel¦^ogizing to themselves for not being Anarchists...

...Despite the fact that most Senate eorfferees voted against the bill, he sale they fought vigorously for' every Senate amendment...