Privileged and Unprivileged
Feigenbaum, William M.
Privileged and Unprivileged • By William M. Feigenbaum THREE ladies, two clinic dieticians and a supervisor of nutrition service for the Emergency Relief Bureau, have reported to the Xew York...
...1 By E. H. Thomas ^HEN you are going on a long journey it is very pleasant to find friends who are also starting on their travels...
...Privileged and Unprivileged • By William M. Feigenbaum THREE ladies, two clinic dieticians and a supervisor of nutrition service for the Emergency Relief Bureau, have reported to the Xew York State Dietetic Association that it is possible properly to feed a family of five "on low relief incomes" on $8 a week...
...Had he been bludgeoned into admitting that he drawa a distinction between Jewish males and females, or tall Jews and short ones, the total significance of his compromise would have been exactly the same...
...It speaks volumes for the strange state of mind induced by political orthodoxy...
...With four or five billions of government money to be spent on public works, practically "as, if...
...How About the Progressives...
...The world is giving them food and shelter, and more and more the idea sinks into them that this is a proper state of affairs...
...The Moor has done his work—the Moor may go...
...They get this princely 23 cents a day for food, more or less (32- cents for their wives when they are pregnant), and for a while they sit around and wait for relief jobs...
...but what do people expect when they are on relief...
...A large working class' ------_ . . organization was supporting hia and it seemed a* if her* en* a chance to gain these organized working men for th* Sort* Hat movement and program...
...Why should they...
...They will even consider the propriety of enacting, some time or other, some possible measures of social' legislation...
...But to achieve this thing it will be necessary to turn our system upside-down and set it on its feet...
...The whole question may be expected to reach a climax at the next convention in Atlantic City in October...
...Then they will get a dollar a week for clothing, 15 cents a day for lunch*(a filling meal of six pretzels is suggested), and carfare to and from work...
...They are inclined to think once more that God's in his heaven and all's well with the world—not quite well, perhaps, but by no means so ill as they had feared...
...The emergency is past...
...The spectacle is sufficiently tragic...
...In this coaa...
...A solemn delegation from that magazine called upon the erring Dreiser and tried to argue him out of his phobia...
...with power, through hi* appointees, to determine under what conditions any non-federal project is to be financed and carried out, and to decide with out appeal whether this or that state, city, or country administration has given satisfactory assurance that those conditions will be met...
...Some time or other— upon mature consideration—after we've got business to running well in its old grooves...
...True, they have supported most measure* that can relieve the present misery, shorter boars, bettor pay, th* right to organise, various temporary work projects—nothing that gass to the root of the matter, can relieve the present misty, east* er hours, bettor pay, th* right t» organize, various temporary work projects, nothing that gees to tat root of the matter...
...Nobody denies that the Socialists haev a hard road before them, and it is no wonder that they have sometimes sought help from the left or the right...
...The situation is, indeed, serious if the reports from Washington are true...
...Dissolution and putrefaction attacking a mentality of noble proportions is no matter for levity...
...the measures they hare always supported have been plans for regulation or at best for planned production...
...The capitalists never liked the New Deal, but they bad nothing to offer instead...
...Splits in the labor movement are never to be encouraged...
...Now we may think of "getting back to normalcy...
...I What, thus far, has bean the record of the Progressive* in Con...
...tRBfij such means of maas corrupttea, Ify his disposal, ti would be folly far Mr...
...This '"well-balanced" diet contpares favorably with the Xew Yqrk Home Relief food allowance of $2.15 for two weeks for children of five and under, rising to $3.55 for an unemployed man, $3.30 for a woman (and $4.50 for her when she is pregnant) : when a man gets a relief job he is allotted 15 cents a day for lunch and $2 every other week for clothing...
...In February, 1933, they had a rude awakening...
...Their good opinion is doubtless worth something to him and they may maneuver into confession of error...
...The Left intelligentsia here, rightly shocked, may eventually bully the old man into softening, toning down or even retracting his frank expression of anti-Semitism...
...it will be necessary to produce for use and not for profit...
...IBdividual liberals have joined our ranks and have become very use* J ful members, but no liberal party as a whole baa ever grown into S Socialist organization...
...If the delegate* were not the sort who substitute slogans and formulas for thought and content themselves with lip service to a political "line," they would see the absurdity of their behavior...
...But not this year, nor next—oh, no...
...Nothing whatever to aad the s*» pression permanently...
...They momentarily lost faith in their system and in themselves...
...Not only will you enjoy their company, but they may share the dangers or expenses of the expedition...
...They "decline to believe that it will be impossible for Theodore Dreiser to regain his traditional place as a fighter for human liberty...
...They have never proposal and never voted for any measure that goes to the foundation of sto trouble...
...whoever joins in sneering at tbe delibar* a tire slowness of legislative bods* and by emphasizing the importance of "leadership" promotes taj overgrowth of the executive power, helps to make that evil more SSaS§ and more difficult ever to be eaa> roc tod...
...The editors want to Dreiser, "hoping that he would stand by his long record...
...Luckily the tension has been considerably relaxed by some welltimed comic relief...
...At any rate, it was not chaos...
...This one contains th* p2| sibilities of food for millions at literally hungering voters...
...There isn't much variety in food possilTe either for the pregnant woman's $2.25 a week or with the three ladies' Z3 cents a day...
...said to be a Socialist at heart, although he did not const*** it politically wis* to admit it WMk his death, however, the movement fell to pieces...
...They went in hopes of "the ringing repudiation which we all had a right to expect of him" As if that would have altered anything...
...Banks and trust companies began to crack aad fall, each dragging others down with it...
...Pretty clearly, but perhaps not so fully nor with so much emphasis as it will speak later on...
...It is possible to achieve this, but no one is interested in seeking to achieve it except those who suffer and toil and are degraded by what we have today, and who will thereby gain peace and plenty and contentment and the full fruits of rich living...
...have to feed a pregnant woman for $2.25 a week, and have to be content with 15 cents a day for lunches when they get a relief job...
...Neither does the Russian idea of dictatorship of the proletariat appeal to organised American working men who believe in democracy of the true kind...
...It is right and wise for Social* ista to work with Progressives far all measures that will benefit th* working els** and humanity...
...Those who are continually talking of an imminent danger of fascism in the United Sto*a*\f^J barking up the wrong Urea...
...And whoever mocks at •parliamentarism...
...And^then what happens to them...
...Driven into a corner, Dreiser Anally composes and signs a statement attesting that he "draws a distinction between Jewish worker and the Jewish exploiter...
...The conception of a rigid "party line" and a G. P. U. to enforce respect for it carries with it unavoidably everything else that goes with an armed official religion...
...Then when it was called to her attention that she had a husband on a $29 a week relief job, she brightly explained, "We have privileged classes in this country...
...advance, Franklin D. Roosevelt is the man...
...For them, the New Deal has served its purpose...
...The three ladies report that families that are not "too temperamental" can get along "very nicely" on such a budget...
...But how about tbe Progressives T Eleven years ago wben tbe American workers seemed pretty well satisfied with tilings a* they were, and it was impossible to organize a large working class political party, some very sincere Socialists thought it best to join with the Progressives in running the elder Robert M. LaFollette for president...
...In the struggle to end the depression every politician has to lay his cards on the table...
...President, for what you've done so far, but please don't go any farther until we give the word...
...The danger ttsaffV democracy will be mere and mam undermined...
...Since then, everything has changed...
...It is the biggest "pork hasjjjfi in modern history- To match % we have to go back to aaetojB Rome, where the plutocratic aaaamfj held power by providing the mflaJH masses with bread and * ahonlJJJJ "none** et dreenmet...
...or mayl>e it is a discount for cash...
...Don't they know that they are permitted to live and now and then to gnaw at a bone just on sufferance ? Here we have Miss Alice E. Mertz, director of Social Case Work in the Home Relief Bureau ($70 a week), who testified that if she found a man and his wife both had relief jobs (at $15 a week) she would fire one of^them...
...Other assaults on Dreiser's right to hate the Jews, and to wish them safely packed off to Palestine (which is Hitler's wish too), are presumably under way now...
...Yet we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that Secretary of the Interior, undoubtedly, advised by the Postmaster General and with the President's full approval, has used his power of granting or isfnsfag geveruaaSH aid as a partisan club, in the an* ease to punish the people of Son York City for slatting a ftaafjBJ mayor, in th* other ess* to eajH f el the Louisiana Democrats ta despose a state la*d*r who dam* to oppose Whit* Hobs* policies...
...It must bo positively recognized that eaguhiriiu cannot regulate what it doe* set own and that planusil pradertiwi will toil unless the industrie* wak* produce are owned by* the people , who do th* planning and that th*** should be th* whole A a—rice* people...
...The New Masses editors promise that "a still further effort will be made to go over these questions with him and to end all such confusion as remains...
...What puzzled the capitalists and literally "scared them stiff" was the fact that the economic crisis, after running its course for three fiscal years, working ruin in the fields of industry and of commerce, had finally begun to work ruin in the financial field as well...
...But' nothing will be gained thereby—he will be doubly anti-Semitic under the surface for having been forced to do penance...
...The ladies found that it is "quite possible" to plan a well-balanced diet for 23 cents per day per individual, the total for five people reaching $8.05 per week—the extra five cents presumably being supplied out of the private fortune of the family...
...To achieve this thing it will be necessary to get rid of capitalism and to get Socialism...
...If The New Masses were in the position of the Moscow Literary Gazette and had a G. P. U. to back up its arguments, Dreiser's public statement would have been speedier and more satisfactory, but Dreiser's private phobia would have remained just what it is...
...The anti-Jewish hallucinations, especially his tell-tale hallucination of numbers, which a lucid intelligence would have resolved as one resolves a nightmare, poor Dreiser accepts as fixed premises for his "thinking" on the Jewish problem...
...And that was the way it went in Rome...
...But if you find tbat they, art determined to go to Florida, while you are dead bent to reach California there is nothing to do but to part company...
...As it is, the report can merely record as a minor victory that Dreiser "came around to see a few of the contradictions involved ia his stand" and that he signed * meaningless statement with the "adequacy" of which the editors are "far from satisfied...
...And their next wocd wiU be a fhaxx^ OB& V___, The Biggest Port Barrel Any President Has Had By Algernon Lee IF ever any President had his renomination nailed down more than a year ia...
...Even through tbe painfully careful phrases of the official report one can visualize the picture: the delegates citing Lenin and_ Hitler while Dreiser repeats his absurdities with the stubbornness of second childhood...
...The formal, legalistic wording of these regrets adds to the comic aspect of the performance...
...more and more of the voting masses depended upon free grain'and spectacular shows, until if sank into their minds that they would be fools to work so long as food and amusement were freely theirs...
...Because they feel that the executive council has failed to carry out the mandate of the San Francisco convention of the A. F. of L. for the organztation of the mass production industries, notably steel and automobiles, certain influential members of the executive council, including John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, are reported ready to lead a secessionist movement of a group of powerful organizations as a means of facilitating the organization of the mass production industries on the principle of industrial unionism...
...And those who do not belong to those privileged classes have to make $I.07J^ do for a week's food for babies of five and under...
...The diet includes meat three or four times a week, providing clteaper cuts are used...
...Of course, there are those men and women who believe that in a world so rich, with plenty possible for all, it might be less than impossible to arrange things so that there is worth-while work for all...
...In these decisive times, no hyertf political body can succeed...
...Let us hope that that convention will take the necessary firm steps for the carrying out of the San Francisco mandate, that it will facilitate the great task of organizing the mass production industries, and that the unity of the great American labor movement will be preserved...
...Yet, they are reported to be actually considering secession...
...It is their house—they live in it, •*copying, it » true, somewhat aUfSf humble apartments than the Morgans and Rockefellers, but f't'l it is their home...
...Tbe whole report ia The New Masse* is a revelation of th* Communist belief ia the efficacy of confession...
...One may as well argue against the thinning of his hair or the ebbing of his virility as argue against the submersion of his logic in the slimy morasses of race hatred...
...NIRA may be extended for a few months...
...How soften I have witnessed scenes of formal "repentance" and tearful "retraction" by Soviet writers and politicians and scientists, under threat of expulsion from jobs or exile to Siberia...
...Where is Tbe New Masses well-known talent for invective...
...Th» danger ia not that democracy ml be overthrown...
...True, thoy" support many humaaf and useful measures, a* did tk* liberals of the last century...
...Thank'you kindly, Mr...
...They endured it, because they did not know what else to do...
...try until now presidents JuaM counted themselves lucky if tasta was enough pork in the barrel ta buy a few thousand venal ItSi ticians...
...Roosevelt or any other nsmtJBf his place to think of adopting tat crude methods of a Mussolini or a Hitler...
...with a Parley to advise him, and an Ickes to do what critics will call the "dirty work"—with such opportunities as these in his hands it would be almost impossible for him to, make himself unpopular enough to lose the Democratic nomination next rammer or to fail of a huge majority at the polls...
...in the Jewish Daily Bulletin...
...The critics of the executive council within the council feel, aa do many, that certain trade union internationals within the A. F. of L. have permitted their immediate craft interests to interfere with the organization of.the automobile industry, for example, and that unless these internationals show clearly their willingness to sink narrow craft interests and avoid jurisdictional disputes the task of organizing the automobile industry will never be accomplished...
...Bines the platform adopted wa* really Socialist and since the elder LaFollette was...
...Why is the caption over the report "Dreiser Denies be ia Anti-Semitic" when the report itself proves the opTHE A. F. OF L. AT THE CROSSROADS INFORMATION from reliable sources in Washington indicate* that the labor movement may be approaching the most serious crisis since the formation of the American Federation of Labor...
...They would realise that th* more valid their Arguments, the greater the patient's resistance...
...What makes the present situation so serious is that the leaders and organizations reported as considering secession are fully aware of this fundamental truth...
...Their sea interests lie in th* other dtreethw They belong to the middle class...
...to 4& performed under conditions of decency and self-respect, leaving sufficient leisure to enjoy the fruit that they by their labors have made so abundant...
...it will be necessary to eliminate from our system all elements of profit-taking and exploitation...
...Two years have gone by...
...It would be a great tragedy if the labor movement of America should be split by the exit from the A. F. of L. of a group of its most powerful and most militant organizations, totalling perhaps onehalf of its membership...
...And we have reason to believe that they are well grounded...
...gress...
...The expedition failed, the novelist defended his right to hate the Jews and the visitors "came a/way . . . discouraged and dissatisfied...
...In the spring and summer of 1933 practically the whole capitalist class was in a state of bewilderment and panic fear...
...It included Corliss Lament, John Howard Lawson, and other intellectual...
...On the other hand, the life and vigor of the labor movement as a whole depend upon successful organization of the mass production industries...
...Good' men," a recent article reports, "with a history of steady employment, sit around the relief station all day hoping for a call to a relief job...
...It would give them time to turn around...
...The really powerful capitalists—which in our day means the financiers—had flattered themselves that, no matter what disaster might befall manufacturers and mine owners, railway corporations and mercantile houses and, of course, millions upon millions of wage workers and working farmers, their great financial institutions were safe and sound as the rock of Gibraltar...
...BLACK on WHITE By Eugene Lyons •THEODORE DREISER is no more to blame for his gradual unfoldment as an anti-Semite of > the more psychopathetic variety than he is for other manifestations of encroaching old ace (writes Eugene Lyon...
...What have they dene hi the Wisconsin legislature, where they are in a dominant position...
...Ha must vote either for or against the many and various measures that concern the working class...
...Union with Communists is therefore out of th* question...
...Those expeditions, of coarse, were wholly political and undertaken in the curious belief that a formal retraction would change something in Dreiser's mind or Dreiser'* essential position...
...The record is spread in the current issue of The New Masses and I recommend the number highly for its unconscious comedy (Adv...
...And so Rome degenerated and fell...
...Having recognized that distinction, and signed it reluctantly, he then made it clear to th* delegation that he dislikes both workers end exploiters if they happen to be Jews...
...They won't be too rough about it...
...This was not due to the outcome of the 1932 election, nor to any manifestations of popular unrest that had taken place...
...The capitalists do not understand the situation any better than they did in 1933, but they have got out of their blue funk...
...and when'' he shall direct...
...And so they raised no protest when the incoming President demanded and a frightened and self-distrustful Congress voted to him what might almost be called dictatorial powers...
...Whoever has read his letters to Hutchins Hapgood must be aware that they show neither logic nor balance, being a pitiful, floundering attempt to rationalize unreasoned prejudices...
...We Socialists are not consumed with love either for .Mayor LaGuard ia or for Commissioner Moses of New York, and Senator Long of Louisiana is certainly not one of our idols...
...Of course, there are those who do not like the gradual pauperization of vast masses of useful people...
...The performance is merely ludicrous...
...HIGH FINANCE CALLS A HALT GREAT capital has at length spoken out pretty clearly in the resolutions adopted a few days ago by the United States Chamber of Commerce...
...With the examples of Hitler, Mussolini and other human beasts before their eyes the thoughtful part of the American working class are not to be trapped by any plan of dictatorship, even if camouflaged by fine promises to the workers and lower middle class...
...But it is becoming increasingly plain, the article continues, "that the general tendency of the masses is to sit back and take what they get, and gradually lose interest in looking for work...
...But there should be a clear understanding that our goals are utterly dissimilar...
...The super-capitalists were dazed...
...A second, more formidable delegation was then sent to renew the argument...
...And why should we sxpert thssr to shake down the aUialSie of capitalism around their ears...
...Vat neither in England nor any other country have the liberals as a body 1 ever developed Socialist ideas...
Vol. 18 • May 1935 • No. 19
