Democrats With Adjectives; And About a Dead Dictator
Lee, Algernon
Democrats With Adjectives; And About a Dead Dictator By Algernon Lee [On April 26, I started something I couldn't finish m one article—namely, an informal and very elementary discussion of...
...It would put upwards of two billion dollars into immediate circulation, practically without overhead cost to the Government...
...The President can better afford tov antagonize the soldier vote than the individual congressman or senator...
...Because^ the employer has power to lay off or discharge some or all of his workers, to "deprive them of their means of livelihood, whenever it suits his interests...
...But useful forms of expression may be so employed as to breed confusion of thought...
...But, as we have said before, there is a limit beyond which borrowing must be restricaed...
...The real question now for a politician to decide is what he prefers: inflation in currency or deflation in votes...
...Not only was it deeply tinctured with nationalism...
...More government borrowing to supply more stimulant...
...They contend that the board, to fulfill its mission as a "Supreme Court for Labor Problems," must be independent of political supervision or interference...
...Behind the Scenes in Washington By Benjamin Meiman Our Washington Correspondent "THE old...
...This was their first appearance in Dutch polities,, and considering the circumstances under which they were able to conduct the election it is considered a remarkable victory for democracy and liberty that they were kept down to the relatively small vote they were able to secure...
...In the other case,, ready-made dresses net being|| basic necessity, the workers in that' industry would still be subject ta exploitation, no longer by draal manufacturers, out by those *f3 controlled the textile industry <fl| the power industry and by soma other elements...
...In the one case, the workers having monopolistic control of a commodity without which no other industry can go on, they could (and would) exploit everybody else by charging a monopoly price for steel...
...The entire burden was, therefore, put on Roosevelt's shoulders...
...Instead of going out on strike, j they stayed in the' mills and locked j the owners out...
...Senator Bob Wagner, Chairman Francis Biddle of the NLRB, and other sponsors of the measure are vigorously opposed...
...That is to say, within less than a half-century capitalism made gigantic strides in this country, developing at a faster tempo than in any other nation, and today this giant form of production is stricken...
...Civil Service forms in detail must be filled out...
...This is a substantial increase for Labor over the last parliament...
...In Queensland the government headed by E. Forgan Smith, whose Socialist achievements have won the enthusiastic praise of thai whole world, won 45 seats to 17 for all the opposition parties...
...He appears to have left no assured successor and no organization 0 pable of carrying on in an orderly way...
...Pilsudski'a desertion of the Socialist csuse was less astonishing than Mussolini's, much less than MaeDonald 's...
...Again, suppose the entire steel industry or the entire dress industry to be collectively owned and democratically governed by those who work in it...
...Nothing new is being undertaken...
...So the states will serve as retreats from the Blue Eagle if the Supreme Court favors the firm and wage-cutting can go on in poorly organized industries without even an appeal to the NRA...
...The uneasiness has spread to half of the other New Ueal''agencies—that is, to all those /established by the President under the authority granted in the Recovery Act...
...When you pat m titical power out at the dearTfl comes hock through the wiaamfl For political power is power Ojfl the people as a whole in all their relations...
...Representative Patman, author of the prevailing bill, has always been a bomisite, but primarily he is an inflationist...
...He recommended that Miss Perkins be made boss of the board...
...They were infected with the aristocratic tradition which has been the corse aft all movements for Polish independence for a century and a half...
...Communist-Anarchists, Colonisers, doctrinaire Co-ope rat ionists,' and in some measure the now sal most forgotten Guild Socialists of j played with this notion of igasr* ing political relations, treating pontics...
...In the forty-five years from 1836 to 1911 alone there were a million patents issued...
...After eight years of the Pilsudski dictatorship, Poland's interna-1 tional position is far worse than ft has been at any time since the war...
...Such a state of affairs] might be of considerable benefit to the workers in that mine or mill...
...As a friend of Miss Perkins he favored acceding to her demand...
...The Nazis, with an enormous propaganda machine lavishly financed from Germany, polled 2*4.494 votes and sleeted 44 provincial councillors...
...RELIEVING THE JOBLESS IN a report to the U. S. Senate, FERA Administrator * Hopkins declares that "There are states where the...
...They drift and hope, hope and drift, remembering the words of the Bourbon King, "after us the deluge...
...Credulity may yet inspire organization of a chain parry to abolish the depression...
...We mean to do away with political democracy, which is food for the capitalists, and substitute industrial democracy, in the interest of the workers...
...In any event, the relief problem becomes more grave...
...Commanderin-Chief Van Zandt, who led the veterans' fight for the Patman bill, has set a goal of 1,000,000 telegrams to the White House to force Mr...
...The issue involves state rights...
...In their day of triumph they ceased to be Socialists and became chauvinists toward neighboring peoples and oppressors at home...
...There is a whole field of relations between industries, as well as of relations which are not industrial at all, which must be democratically controlled in order that democratic control within any industry may have its desired effect...
...Andnow we continue to be depressed by the depression...
...Speaking of Weee Cars One of our fellow workers on the payroll of s large corporation "earns" a salary of $300,000 yearly...
...That if about one-seventh of the total population, and they have a highly organized and very efficient lobby...
...PATENTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE EARLY this month the Patent Office issued its twomillionth patent, the first having been issued in 1 791...
...The question is, skajffl he exercised by the people as a whole or shall it be, in form -Otfl fact, the rule of tile whole by s part...
...So he decided the issue in this statesmanlike manner: When his committee met to vote on the bill, the Labor Committee chairman proposed that he call up President Bill Green, of the A. F. of L., and ask him what should be done...
...At the same time, the so-called "extreme" Socialists who control the Labor Party of New Sooth Wales, second of the Australian states .substantially increased their representation as a result of elections held the same day...
...The enormous number of patents issued indicates the fertile ideas which an unrestricted capitalism fostered in this country, as most of the patents are related to production, distribution or exchange in one form or another...
...but it would not free them from | all exploitation...
...Strong efforts are being made for a reunion of the Labor Party, the issue dividing the two factions being largely an interpretation of financial obligation* of the various states...
...His policies have alienated the sympathy of _ democratic elements throughout the world...
...For example: "We are for democracy, but not the political kind...
...Till now, other matters hare taken precedence...
...The Socialists won 126 seats, s loss of one, the dissident Socialists elected 4, while the Communist* elected 12 as against 10...
...It is also estimated that the states contributed about $200,000,000 less to relief last year than was expected...
...Green was telephoned...
...old game of passing the buck is now being played in Washington with a new finesse...
...The scheme didn't j work...
...What made this a fatal weakness in the ease of Pilsudski and his associates was that neither their Socialism nor their Polish patriotism was ever wholeheartedly democratic...
...Here is a little behind-the-scenes story.jWhich proves the reconciliation...
...Counting dependent and other close relatives, this figure probably represents about 17,500,000 individuals interested directly and indirectly...
...He lives, breathes, walks and talks the easy money issue...
...Every senatorial page boy knows that Senator Thomas never ceases to let his money ideas guide all his actions...
...So long as the Poles were a divided and a subject people, every Polish movement which was more than a sect of necessity gave the demand for national unity and independence a iligh place at its program...
...Without political democracy, indeed, the inner democratization of an industrial plant, or of a whole industry, or even of each and every industry, would not put an end to class-rule and exploitation...
...And About a Dead Dictator By Algernon Lee [On April 26, I started something I couldn't finish m one article—namely, an informal and very elementary discussion of democracy...
...The President served notice on Congress that if this particular bill is adopted he will reject it...
...This logic prevailed with the Senate Labor Committee...
...The poultry fttm contends that it fabricates its product in the state and hence it is not subject to Federal law...
...If the stimulant fails, then what...
...case...
...Socialist Government Makes Big Gains The Socialist government of Queensland, third largest of the Australian states, won a notable victory in state elections early this week when its clear majority was increased from four seats to 28...
...The American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Father Coughlin and Huey Long are all in action...
...Inflation in Currency vs...
...were instructed to organize mass meetings, conduct house-to-house canvasses, contact business and social organizations and make radio addresses in the campaign to inspire the 1,000,000 telegrams to President Roosevelt, v In addition every conceivable kind of pressure, warnings against future political defeat, promises, and Lord knows what will be exerted on individual Senators and Representatives — particularly Senators since a handful of votes in the Senate will decide the final issue...
...But to do that is not to abolish political democracy...
...What then ? This question is giving the experts the shivers...
...Driven by the Russian dangers to wish for Hitler's friendship and by the German danger to wish for friendship elsewhere, she knows that both dangers are so real that either friendship would be a sham, . « Even from the nationalistic point of view, the dictatorship has miserably failed...
...Not the "send-a-dime" chain but the "send-a-quarter" chain which comes "From One Who Wishes You A Lot Of Money" and who reaches us through the "Prosperity Club...
...Deflation in Votes ©RESIDENT ROOSEVELT in all * probability is honestly against inflation, but if he wants to remain in the White House after January, 1936, he must get the votes, and here are a few interesting figures: Some 3,500,000 veterans hold bonus certificates...
...Socialist Vote in Provincial Elections in Netherlands In the recent provincial elections in the Netherlands the Socialist Party polled 792,582 votes, or SU per cent of the total, running a good, second to the Catholics, whs polled 1,029,924 or 27.6 per cent The Communist* polled 127.674, end the dissident Socialists 51,607...
...They want to maneuver it for Congress to override the President's veto...
...It was perfect inflationist strategy...
...It would relieve a great deal of distress among a large mass of Americans...
...stoppage of Federal funds as a means of forcing officials to do their duty would have no other result than to reduce the people on the relief rolls to starvation...
...No one can foretell resalts...
...NEW DEAL MAY BE UPSET 117HETHER the Blue Eagle continues to flutter in a zig-zag flight uncertain of its course or is sentenced to death by the Supreme Court we will know soon when that body hands down a decision in the Schechter Poultry Co...
...These agencies, all of which would end if a bill is not enacted by June 16, include the National Emergency Council, National Labor Relations Board, National Resources Board, Committee on Economic Security, ^Federal Alcohol Control Administrfe^ion, Electric Farm and^ Home Authority, all AAA codes, the Steel and Cotton Textile Labor Boards, the Adviser on Foreign Trade and the two Import-Export banks...
...Marriner S. Eccles, Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, before a Senate Banking Subcommittee, said that in his opinion the Patman hill calling for payment of the bonus with new Treasury notes would not actually increase the money in circulation because "the notes would replace money already being circulated...
...Roosevelt to put aside his opposition and sign the bill...
...Suppose a coal miner or a steel mill completely owned by the whole body of those who work in it, and j managed as democratically as you j please...
...Roosevelt, they say, cannot hope for a better political break than to have a Democratic Congress enact the bonus bill in" spite of his objection...
...The inflationists in Congress stole the bonus issue to pro^ mote their money ideas...
...In Denver alone it is reported that a normal Saturday mail of 90,000 pieces of first-class mail had increased to 285.000 pieces...
...If awily ideas for...
...Obviously, it is democracy, or collective self-government, in the field of industry...
...1 What is happening is that relief in a number of states has been taken over by the FERA and other states are likely to transfer the job of relieving hunger to that Fedegal relief agency...
...The company frankly admitted violation of the wage and hour provisions of the poultry code was acquitted on the ground that the provisions are unconstitutional...
...By swiping the bonus- issue and making it their own they managed to develop their maximum possible support in Congress for their real issue...
...In New Sooth Wales the Labor Party is under the leadership of the so-called "extremist" J. E. Lang, which split some time ago from the Australian Labor Party...
...Under the bill reported out the board would have an independent status...
...the mastery of capitalism for human welfare had kept pace with patent ideas, the workers would $jpve more power than they have today...
...It is an oj>en secret that many Congressmen and Senators voted for the Patntan Bonus Bill, rather than for a milder bill, because they were sure that President Roosevelt will veto it...
...Certainly we wish to democratize industry, to democratize control of opportunities to make a living...
...But just as we were ready to be promoted into the rich class, Solicitor Crowley of the Post Office Department rules tnat prosperity by the chain route is a "lottery" and a "fraud" and we are out of hick...
...The Editor permitting, I shall return to the subject from time to time.] COME folk talk about political democracy, industrial democracy, bourgeois democracy, social democracy, and 1 . maJny different HttL _ | moeracy set up *Y%jjiv^"a^ on the shelves in ' VE» jjsj the grocer's shop M 1 among which we sak^^T" may choose...
...The political maneuver outlined above probably explains the strange actions of two administration financiers: Eccles and Jones...
...They cannot live j on coal or on steel...
...rjM The work-relief program is another effort to "prime the pump" in the hope that the wages paid and the materials needed to carry on various public works projects will so stimulate industrial activity that it will continue without further government nursing...
...If the decision favors the firm it will affect the new NRA law, the Wagner Bill and emergency legislation...
...The near-panic which spread through NRA and allied agencies when the Senate Finance Committee approved the Clark resolution for a continuance of only nine months has subsided somewhat since House leaders indicated they would fight for a two-year extension...
...Charles M. Schwab polls down $250,000, not counting overtime work, for Bethlehem Steel, and Walter S. Gilford of the American Telephone Co., receives valuta to the extent of $206,000 with which to keep the wolves away from his humble abode...
...democracy as aometHjH "bogus" or worthless...
...Under present cieaiB| stances, go unfavorable to a resurgence of democracy, there may ensue a struggle among his satriS for the vacant chieftaincy...
...It is, therefore, natural for her to insist that the proposed new National Labor Relations Board, to be created under the Wagner labor disputes bill, shall come under her jurisdiction...
...It will also restrict the power of the Federal Government's power to regulate wages, hours and labor conditions in industries which can prove that they are only indirectly affected by interstate commerce...
...It is curious how this craze has spread and the faith many people have in it as a way out of the depression...
...The relation of employer and wage worker, even when modified by the influence of trade unionism, is highly undemocratic...
...She made good and labor is "reconciled...
...What has been overlooked is that this is not primarily a bonus controversy...
...2 • • * The Passion of Pilsudski THE time is long past when Ss> *- cialists could have mourned the death of Josef Pilsudski as taaj lose of a comrade...
...Now ^aPH all these expres- vT^*ik ^BB sions and per- ___™_JS=__ haps some others of the sort A»«ernea lj— are useful if rightly employed...
...Yet, he could not arbitrarily brush aside the pleas and arguments of the authors of the legislation...
...that was not to be wondered at...
...What is industrial democracy...
...It would save him and his party from embarrassment next year...
...Labor Reconciled to Miss Perkins IT has long been forgotten that * William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor, said that labor would never be reconciled to »the President's appointment of Miss Perkins as Secretary of Labor...
...If the latter, then deme*> racy within a group, or within a certain field of human relation*, can have but a limited value...
...Chairman Jesse H. Jones of the R. F. C, speaking before a State banking group in Pinehurst, N. C, said that he believed it would be a good thing to settle the bonus once and for all, and to take it out of politics...
...Now some of the administration's political strategists are trying to trick the tricksters...
...Tor only thing worse than a dictator securely enthroned is a gaag of would-be dictators warring among themselves...
...The owners could win in either of two ways—quickly, by ' calling in the political power in' the form of soldiers ^ or a little ' more slowly, by just waiting...
...In the last House the .party line-up was 33 Socialists to 29 for the entire opposition...
...The desperate relief crisis in Illinois has been temporarily met fey Administrator Hopkins finding a special fund of $1,200,000, but this sum only meets the crisis for a week or two...
...Chairman Bill Connery, of the House Labor Committee, acted differently...
...In marketing j their poduct and getting the things they need they would still not be j their own masters...
...Uneasiness Is Spreading jJAVING only one month left of * * life unless Congress acts, it's no wonder the NRA is getting jittery., Very little work is being done...
...H is Socialism had at bast been of a queer sort...
...And no one ever saw Huey Long fulminating about the soldiers before...
...Certain work- j ers in Italy found that out years ago...
...All the 5500 employees of NRA were ordered to file new applications for jobs...
...regime, he seems to havt tried tie restrain one specific form of mass-madness and class cruse —-that of Anti-Semitism...
...It would settle the bonus question for good...
...As politics is played nowadays this is considered good political strategy...
...This week I got only a little farther with it...
...Members of the V.F.W...
...4 THE CHAIN CRAZE HAVE you come into contact with the chain route to prosperity...
...Connery is a fighter, but so is Wagner...
...Yet there If little ground for hope that h|a passing will improve conditions ib Poland...
...She has lost the backing of France, upon which she so largely relied...
...The real puzzle is to guess where the buck will finally remain and stay put...
...It is estimated that 2,500,000 persons have been taken from relief rolls and given work-relief jobs and more are to be employed as the work-relief program develops...
...The character of the men who put his bill over in the Senate shows the distinction even more clearly...
...Miss Perkins, in her anxiety to make the Department of Labor mean exactly what the name indicates, insists on having under her wing all matters relating to labor...
...Not the chain gang but the chain letter?' We have received ours...
...National Commander Belgrano has appealed to every Legion post to bear down on the White House and on its Senators and Representatives...
...This was agreed to...
...One of the few things' that may stand to his credit is that, amid all the cruel tyranny of his...
...None al them got far...
...This period witnessed the birth of capitalist production, its development through its individualist phase, and also into the stage of corporation and merger capitalism...
...There the line-up of parties, following the current elections, is 66 anti-Labor to 24 for Labor...
...Not for long, though...
...In another way, he may perhaps befl gretted without being praised...
...Everybody else would soon use political power to nmfl thehr monopoly...
Vol. 18 • May 1935 • No. 20
