Labor and the Constitution
Levy, Matthew M.
Labor and the Constitution By Matthew M. Levy SOMETIME at the end of last May, shortly after the preme Court declared the Codes unconstitutional, I^esiaefrt Roosevelt held a pre^s...
...Organizer Pauli reports that during the month of August 53 public meetings were held in this County...
...Instead, however*, there has been a curious silence from the White House...
...in a symposium on "143 y«Ojrs of the Federal Constitution...
...I will give but a lew out of a long list of social welfare measure passed by Congress and by the Legislatures of the several states struck down by judicial pronouncement of alleged "unconstitutionanty.* in the Lochner case the Supreme Court held that a State could not limit the working hours of bakers to 10 per day or 60 per week...
...Coroner, Harry Schoyer...
...She adds the following brilliant criticism: •ij a matter of fact, there is nothing which so easily and so gdr hands over a still youthful labor movement to the private ^idees ef the intellectuals as forcing the movement into the str ait - jamt sf S bureaucratic centralism, which debases the fighting workers M t pliable tool in the hands of a 'committee.' And, inversely, -mag se sorely preserves the labor movement from all opportunistic on the part of an ambitious intelligentsia as the revolutionary Bf<iiliithei of the working masses, the intensification of their kjkg of political responsibility...
...to take over, own and operate natural resources and public utilities, and finally to enact laws for the social and economic welfare of the workers, farmers and consumers...
...A Momentous Issue The misnamed American Liberty League bas organized a Lawyers' Vigilance Committee to scan "alt^Paderal enactments favorable to labor as the beginning of a Tory fight on their constitutionality...
...tm we quote: *K is not by adding on to the discipline impressed upon it by the ptahst State—with the mere transfer of the baton from the hand i the bourgeoisie into that of a Social Democratic central committee as by the breaking up and uprooting of this slavish spirit of discimm, that the proletariat can be prepared for the new discipline, the Mpy self discipline af the Social Democracy...
...A selected group of workers is invited to aetmgs from time to time to approve by unanimous vote the reso¦n hid before them...
...The oligarchy of a ruling intelliaitsia became a fact, she observed, and "the exchange of experiences ¦Bains only in the closed circle of the officials of the new regime...
...Alton R. R. Co...
...Prior to coming to Pittsburgh he did organization work in Ohio, where he also actively participated in trade union work, and was instrumental in helping to launch the Onion Workers' union, the first agricultural local chartered by the American Federation of Labor...
...And by way of conclusion, let us say openly imrselves: Mistakes which a truly revolutionary labor movement msits are, in historical perspective, immeasurably more fruitful 4valuable than the infallibility of the very best 'central committee.'" The Bolshevik revolution in Russia disclosed to Rosa Luxemburg I fruits of Lenin's teachings and she wrote: "The implicit pressssition of the dictatorship theory in the Lenin-Trotskyist sense aat the Socialist overthrow is a matter for which there is a readymt recipe in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which has only i >st it into practice vigorously...
...The Pennsylvania Front YPSL Encampment and Convention at Reading "THE Young People's Socialist * League of Pennsylvania will celebrate Pennsylvania Socialist Youth Day Sunday, Sept...
...For further information communicate with the office of the Young People's Socialist League, 122 9th Street, Pittsburgh, Pa...
...Communists 2*u7 ignore this period of Lenin, although R. Palm Dutt, a British Spri, devotes a page or two to it in a small book on Lenin...
...A discussion on the National Youth Administration will be the feature of the afternoon session...
...In a country of tremendous p o s s i bilities for security and wellbeing, millions of workers and their families find themselves engulfed in misery and poverty, crying for relief and for a remedy...
...School Directors, Mrs...
...It brought a split in Russian Marxian the following year...
...Among other programs to be thus condemned are those of social insurance, government ownership, and the like...
...Thus will we all enjoy a fuller, richer life—of peace and plenty, of joy and justice, of freedom and democracy...
...She quoted Lenin's "Bureaucratism as against Jeratism" and analyzed the proposal with its necessity of blind ^—* of party members to the orders of a central executive comKS She declared that this ordering of "all party organizations, JJtaeir activity, down to the last detail, under a central authority, 5a akme thinks, acts and decides for all—as championed by appears to us for that reason as a mechanical carrying over I He organizational principles of the Blanquist movement of confiagial circles into the Social Democratic movement of the working Em...
...and in the Adair case Congress was inhibited from the enactment of similar legislation for the protection of the workers...
...George W. Hartmann of State College, candidate for Judge of the Supreme Court, and William Adams of Pittsburgh, candidate for Judge of the Superior Court...
...Its, requirement of blind obedience fmi to the growth of the movement as its living ceils are paralyzed...
...Roosevelt Bucfc "overwhelming evidences that the country wants constitutional revision...
...Workers' Rights Amendment There is a clear conflict, growing ever mdre acute, between specific provisions of the Constitution and the welfare of the people...
...The decisions of the Supreme Court have brought the American people face to face with the most momentous issue which has arisen since the Civil War...
...She did not jocpM* st that time that the Bolsheviks themselves would later Sy Skis role of the bourgeois class, but when it did occur she again rotated against Leninism...
...Register of Wills, John Ocamb...
...Lenin had worked out its basic idea in a fjflTuf published in 1902, sometimes translated aa "What is to be ?> ^d as "What to do...
...In spite of the legislation prohibiting the raiding of party tickets, there "are still ways open for unscrupulous old .party politicians to secure nominations on the Socialist ticket...
...Karl Pauli has been on the Socialist platform since 1911...
...In the case of the R, R. Retirement Board vs...
...J. Henry Stump, Socialist candidate for Mayor of Reading, George Rhodes, President of the Federated Trades Council of Reading, Harold Libros of the Student League for Industrial Democracy, Milton Weisberg, State Secretary of the Young People's Socialist League of Pennsylvania, and others will speak...
...Where it was significantly stated, "If* President is by no means convinced that constitutional questions which have been raised I strike close enough to the average citizen to fight a campaign over...
...Friday, September 20th, Franktown and Station St., East Liberty...
...Outdoor Campaign in * Pittsburgh PITTSBURG...
...Socialists Must Vote ffl Primaries Tuesday ALLL Socialists who are en. rolled members of the party must vote at the Primary Elections Tuesday, September 17th...
...Hartmann to Speak at Johnstown Picnic JOHNSTOWN.—Socialist candidate for Judge of Supreme Court, Dr...
...Even when that forgotten man of rugged or ragged individualism, Herbert Hoover, challenged Mr...
...Even though there may not be a local Socialist ticket in your community, do not neglect to vote for the two state candidates, Dr...
...The morning will be devoted to the annual state convention...
...Laurens Hamilton, up-state RepUb' can assemblyman and a desetMkant of Alexander Hamilton, wiH also speak...
...Kansas, the states were forbidden to make "yellow dog" contracts criminal...
...And so I could go on...
...rO ALL REGISTERED SCCIALISTS IN PENNA...
...oppression of free elections, free assembly and speech crushed the se hfe of the workers...
...In the Adkins decision the Supreme Court held invalid a minimum wage law for women...
...A real Socialist economy "must proceed at each step with bsjfive participation of the masses, be subject to their direct inmee, stand under the control of unlimited public opinion, proceed m the growing political education of the masses...
...Hartmann at New Kensington NEW KENSINGTON...
...United, disciplined, militant labor will proceed to establish and maintain a truly democratic system of social justice, where the means of production and aistribution will be owned and utilized by and for the public and not for private profit...
...Drexel) or interstate commerce (Hammer vs...
...Presto and East Liberty, Allegheny County...
...Then, as now, the Constitution of the United States was the instrument upon which the ruling power relied to justify a system of slavery which time and progress had outlawed...
...Bale of an Intellectual Aristocracy WEADE LUXEMBURG declared that Lenin's thought "is pat' teraed upon the CONTROL of party activity and not upon its mamas, upon narrowing and not upon unfolding, upon the hemming iwt upon the drawing together, of the movement...
...ggaa Luxemburg, in a pamphlet entitled "Leninism or Marxism," ^atfed Lenin in 1904...
...George W. Hartmann, Socialist candidate for Jndge of the Supreme Court, will speak here Sunday evening, September 15th at the Garibaldi Hall, 11th Street...
...As an increasing obstacle to progress it is the Constitution which must yield to social change...
...George W. Hartmann, will speak at the annual Socialist picnic to be held at Zolbi Park, Lorain Borough, on Sunday afternoon, September 15th, at 3 P. M...
...It required a Civil War to abolish physical slavery...
...Readers are welcome to a copy...
...Thursday, September 19th, Unniversal...
...Poll Ticket in Erie ERIE.—Local, Socialists will be represented with a full ticket in the forthcoming election...
...No Socialist candidate can appear upon the ballot unless he is nominated at the Primaries...
...have learned the bitterness of a narrow, oppressive and excessive constitutionalism...
...For the evening athletic contests and recreation of all types are being planned...
...Roosevelt to state his position, there was no response...
...H —The following outdoor meetings are scheduled in Allegheny County: September 14th, Flower and Second Streets, Hazelwood...
...In the Schecter Poultry case it was held that Congress could not, through the NIRA Codes, fix the hours and wages of employees in intra-state business...
...City Treasurer, Ray Blakesly...
...and my purpose here is to ask you to give Mr...
...Solomon on WOR Sunday On the Federal Ccmstitutioo Charles Salomon will speak over WOR Sunday afternoon at 4 P.M...
...The amendment to the Federal Constitution legalizing that abolition followed the Civil War...
...Labor Day in Brookville BROOKVILLE...
...Monday, September 16th, Pearl and Liberty, Bloomfield, and Ingomar, Franklin Township...
...Ben...
...These things and more can be achieved by the organized strength of labor...
...It is now bvfcnm of its own despotic Utopian ism...
...This campaign to legalize so Hal legislation and public ownership measures—"to make freedom constitutional"—is being st .ported by a growing number of labor unions, unemployed organiz&uona, workers' fraternal societies, farmer groups and others...
...Tuesday, September 17th, Universal, Penn Township and at Band Stand, Grandview Park, Mount Washington...
...Labor and the Constitution By Matthew M. Levy SOMETIME at the end of last May, shortly after the preme Court declared the Codes unconstitutional, I^esiaefrt Roosevelt held a pre^s conference during which, according to the) New York Times, "Ins listeners drew the plain inference that the President fdt that H the (Su.preme) Court made his Federal program for regulating economic conditions impossible, the Constitution must be changed...
...Pauli Arts Tour Through Srate in October Special to The New Leader PITTSBURGH.—The State Com* mittee is planning an extensive speaking and organization tour for Karl Pauli, organizer of the Socialist Party of Pittsburgh...
...and we must apply it unchanged to our present airplane conditions...
...The tour will begin October first...
...It is urgent that every registered Socialist vote on Primary Day, September 17th...
...These considera•sked to a passage which even the author, when she wrote it, did §*fjpeipate would have tragic fulfilment.' We quote: _ •pi this frightened effort of a part of the Russian Social Democ*71* preserve from false steps the aspiring labor movement of mm th-ough the guardianship of an omniscient and omnipresent ami committee, we seem to see also the same subjectivism inM by which Socialist thought in Russia has frequently been imad spon the past...
...Editor's Corner Review of and Comment on Events Here and Abroad, Critical and Otherwise -ly James Onear The Origin j>t^olshevism_ B^Ttbst"Bolshevism as a theory and a movement'is decaying, it |? important to emphasize that it did not have its origin in the ¦ iflr- -evolution of 1917...
...29th with an all-day encampment at the Reading Socialist Park...
...Congress was forbidden to establish a retirement and pension system for railroad employees in interstate business...
...And what is the answer of our ruling plutocrats: We are bound hand and foot by our 1780 horse and buggy Constitution...
...Registered Socialists are advised to secure the list of Socialist candidates in their district through the offices of the Socialist Party...
...Voters should ask for a Socialist ballot, and in the booth mark a cross (X) in front of every name, whether candidates for nomination for public office or for party committees...
...Perhaps we can help abolish industrial slavery by the enactment of a proper amendment to the Federal Constitution, without going through an ordeal of blood and fire...
...Par these reasons he favored rule of the party by an oligarchy of Actuals and rule of the state by a similar clique...
...Branches throughout the state are urged to arrange meetings and take advantage of this opporturdfy to have an experienced campaigner at the cost of expense only...
...Was the President truly interested in the overhauling of our constitutional machinery to meet the requirements of changed and changing conditions ? Then he, as the leader of ids party aad as the head of our government, was called upon to institute a vigorous attack upon existing governmental annaehronisms...
...Workers' Rights Amendment pro- I pose...
...Qualified primary voters are j those who enrolled as Socialists at last year's registration of j voters...
...The ego which has been beaten down...
...Socialists and Trade Unionists cooperated in an outdoor Labor Day demonstration...
...George W. Hartmann, Socialist candidate for Judge of the Supreme Court, was the main speaker...
...The occasion awl mark the fall opening of ana, WOR weekly forum...
...Polls are open from 3 to 10 p. m. Voters who do not know where their polling places are should call the Socialist Party at ALgonquin 4-2620...
...Corrigan, the states were forbidden from adopting .certain regulations favorable to labor limiting the use of injunctions against labor...
...County Commissioner, Leon Harris, Thomas Linday...
...Kesseh-ing, Carl Larese and Edith M. Rosenthal...
...to provide for old age pensions, sick relief and unemployment indemnity...
...Ther are no contests in the Socialist Party...
...Dr...
...la short, Bolshevism transferred the idea of bureaucratic intelOjojs ruling the party to the state, exacting blind obedience of the Mis, and crushing the independent life of the workers...
...As stated in The New Leader of June 29th, 1935: "Then, as now, the question which confronted the American people was whether new forces brought into being by industrial progress were to be thwarted aad held in check by legal conceptions which had become obsolete...
...City Council, Ralph W. Tillotson, Joseph Kaiser and Walter E. Lund;* County Treasurer, Lewis Harris...
...He Km the idea that the movement must be "led by professional JJJjBtwniBts" into whose hands party power is centralized...
...Lenin's idea was oligarchy as a principle tagfty control on the ground that the working class is incapable of LSjgent control of the party and, while it would reach a certain fge'oi class-consciousness, it is also incapable of emancipating itself...
...The recently signed National Labor Relations Act will be the subject of the first report...
...Dagenhart) clauses of the Constitution...
...State Secretary Weisberg reports that from all indications a large representation of young people will attend, many by autocars van from all parts of • the state...
...Labor is aroused as never before by the use of these assumed constitutional limitations to thwart human progress...
...In the case of Coppage vs...
...What we have, then, at bottom, is a clique assay...
...17th and Carson Streets, South Side...
...This policy is meerd with a know-all intelligentsia which has no faith in a selfuraec working class movement...
...There is but . one candidate for each nomination...
...Recorder of Deeds, Howard Harris...
...She reminded Lenin to "not forget that the revolution which we K in tjae offing in Russia is not a proletarian but a bourgeois revomsa" sad that the less scope conceded to the initiative of the working ass, "tbtmore it is politically bell-weathered and drilled by a Social (jjBOCradft central committee, the easier will be the game of the oargeoa demagogues in the renovated Russia...
...Child Labor was held not to be the subject of Congressional legislation, either under the taxation (Bailey vs...
...Send requests to the Socialist Party of Pennsylvania, 122 9th Street, -Pittsburgh...
...Rand School Press Issues Catalogue The Rand School Press, 7 East* loth St., New York City, bas just issued a catalogue in which is listed important books on economics, Socialism, sociology, philosophy, current affairs, fiction, u-ama and poetry...
...What, specifically, • does the...
...by ¦Hat absolutism takes revenge by setting itself on the throne in ifweiutionary thought-world and declaring itself omnipotent—as a aptratorial committee in the name of a non-existent 'popular will.'" She closed her rejection of Leninism by saying that the working m rightly insists on "making its own mistakes and learning hissed dialectic for itself...
...Perhaps the reason for this silence may be gleaned when reading between the lines of an inspired dispatch from Washington, under the headline, ''Preempt to Avoid Constitution Issue...
...Roosevelt has not had overwhelming evidences that the country waste cdjBftiltbnal revision-*" . Tactics such as these stamp Mr Roosevelt with the politician's aptitude, rather than with the statesman's vision...
...The Socialist Party has proposed the adoption of what Has come to be known ss the Hillquit Workers' Rights Amendment to the Constitution of the United States...
...Then, as now, the Supreme Court was the' last resort and bulwark of those who thought that the future would surrender to the past...
...I deny most emphatically that the subject of social revision of the Constitution does not "strike close enough to the average citizen...
...Invitations have been issued to young people affiliated with Labor Fraternal groups, such as the Workmen's Circle, and the S.N.P.J., the Yugoslav Youth organization...
...New Branches Formed PITTSBURGH...
...The meeting proved to be the most successful ever held in the district...
...Wednesday, September 18th, West Park, North Side...
...to establish maximum hours and minimum wages for the workers...
...Congress is given express...
...The following is a list of candidates: Mayor, Emil Kesselring...
...The state office announced the formation of the following branches: Elred, McKean County...
...power (concurrently with the several states) to regulate or prohibit child labor...
...In Truax vs...
Vol. 18 • September 1935 • No. 37
