ODE TO THE AUSTRIAN SOCIALISTS
Benet, Stephen Vincent
ODE TO THE AUSTRIAN SOCIALISTS (February 12-February 15, 19S4) By Stephen Vincent Benet (With the kind permission of Stephen Vincent Bci\ct and The Yale Literary Magazine, Special Centennial...
...Dull, clumsy fingers laboring a dull task And others, icriting and thoughtful, or sensitive As a setter's mouth...
...alleys...
...Between the desk and the door and the kitchen-chair...
...When you believe In parks and elections and meetings and not indeath, Not in Caesar...
...You have seen their hats and their shoes Everywhere, in every city...
...THEY shot the Socialists at half-past five In the name of victorious Austria...
...That loophole, left in deference to pleas of pistol makers, lies in the definition of firearms...
...aoslSj»j LaFollette is preparing to 1*9 his demand for facing As V problem and going heavily into* middle brackets...
...The other side of the picture is given by the Secretary of Labor, who reports for January an increase in the unemployed amounting to 660,000...
...The estimate covers recipients of relief, both direct and in return for labor, from federal, state and local governments...
...fB * * Greater Unemployment The relief rolls have been dwindling, but— As privately reported, officials of the Works Progress Administration estimate the total number of persons dependent on governmental support at 16,600,000 last month, which is a drop of 4,000,000 from the all-time high of January, 1935...
...Their faces are the faces of any crowd...
...Big banks and advertisers then gained the upper hand by coercion of the muckraking magazines, strangling some and buying out others...
...I .The Secretary of- Agrieato* 1 Will be permittee...
...It is different, with the lights out and the shots beginning . . . "THESE were ordinary people...
...It cannot accept united fronters B8r5J ".*?w*tf» *P*ittineT others...
...In such a struggle we -rill be with the working class, not with the amateur ntelhgentsujl >v*;.rw\ ¦'• —_— ROMANCE OF OUR CAPTAIN KIDS yk HUGE advertisement in the daily press this week ?>?J>*«swes that it is "one of the major misfortunes of our timeT that the "inspiring story" of big business has never been told while vulgar persons are engaged in |ffaftfcmg^ capital...
...jr is strange to go Up the known stairs to the familiar room And point the lean machine-gun out of the window, Strange to see the black of that powder upon your hands...
...Later the northern textile crowd were allied with slave owners who supplied New England with cheap cotton...
...They know of imperialism and its dangers, but they do not base their action upon one factor in the complex forces and entanglements of the world situation...
...Let us remember Karl Marx Hof, Goethe Hof, The one called Matteoti and all the rest...
...They eould hear the storm...
...Behind the Scenes in Washington By Benjamin Meiman Our Washington Correspondent I AST week was probably the quietest Washington had for a long time...
...It is due partly to these holidays that Washington had its silent week...
...It doesn't mean that the need is dwindling...
...RING no flowers here, Neither of mountain nor valley...
...A Iruckload of undertakers and cheap pine coffins Co to the disputed district...
...They were shelled by six-inch guns...
...j In order to minimize the panf* which always accompany taxes, OS program is to rush through a **" bill limited to raising about «S> ' half billion dollars to replace m, ; invalidated AAA processing SJM and sustain the new farm prop** for the time being...
...If all these persons and their dependents were added to the relief rolls, they would bring about a rise of about 2hi million...
...Where they'd built the houses for peace and the sure future...
...Vienna's the laughing city of tunes and nine Of Schlagobers and starved children . . . and a great ghost . . .) They had called the general strike but the plans Kent xcrong Though the lights failed, that first night...
...The lights are there And, if you see a man with a pistol, running, You phone the police or wait for tomorrow's papers...
...Remembering the free city) Silent or hunted and their leaders slimed, The Communists said they would not fight but they fought Four days of bitter February Ill-led, outnumbered, the radio blaring lies And the six-inch guns against them and all hope gone...
...The amendments prohibit extension of loans and credit to belligerents and exempt from operation of the law all Latin Americas countries engaged in fighting nonAmerican powers...
...February, who was treated terribly dirty by the calender makers, the under-dog of all the months of the year, was well taken care of by American statesmen, two such great Presidents Washington and Lincoln cleverly managing to be bom in that shortest month of the year...
...Lost Stage* of the Farm Bill Riding victoriously through both Senate and House, the farm bill approaches final enactment...
...They believed in peace...
...That i* P: I be expected in a campaign year...
...Four days of February, two years ago...
...It is odd to turn The switch by your bed and have no lamp go on And then look out of the window at the black street Empty except for a man with a pistol, running...
...Dead where they lived, by violence, in their own homes...
...This is education, sound education...
...One, designed to protect cttf consumers, in effect warns tat Secretary of Agriculture anus* permitting crops for domestic consumers to drop below normal ft***1 Another authorizes tha Pisitfat to fix import quotas for agrr* tural products...
...And heap them here, till the rusting of gunsj for remembrance...
...You can have room to turn around—room after the day— You can have books and clean tcaler and healthy sleep...
...Therefore teach, therefore learn, w knowledge...
...Not the sudden killing in corners, the armored cars Sweeping the square, the bombs and the bloody heads...
...It cannot tolerate the intolerance of Wtfeaajed theorists...
...k is for this reason that the organized labor forces of the world support sanctions against fascist Italy...
...The shining tin peace of Caesar...
...White flags on the Karl Marx Hof and the Goethe Hof And the executions, later...
...When you do not build To make one man rich, you can give people light and air...
...The workman at the next bench, the old...
...Aim of the Administration...
...It would be an interesting story but not an inspiring one...
...They took to their guns at last, in the workmen's quarters...
...And so...
...f . Such a story would tell of the early manufacturers spurned by the landed and commercial aristocracy when they first asked for protective duties...
...The sky * Was blue with February those four cold days And the little snow lay lightly on the hard ground...
...The other side was much readier—Fey and Doll fuss And all the shirts were quite ready...
...Nor even the common flowers of the waste field That still are free to the poor...
...No wreaths upon these graves, these houseless graves...
...The compromise is effected by the resolution, approved by both Houses of Congress and sent to the White House, extending to May 1, 1937, the present neutrality law with two amendments...
...The trade unions, Labor and Socialist parties of the world, representing.-the working class, take a different view...
...The SWeat Week ia Washington—More Unemployed, Smaller Number oe Relief Rolls...
...FASCISM CUPER-PACIFISM takes the position that no matter *T what conflict may develop in Europe, even though it involves the danger of an all-fascist Europe, the working masses should oppose both sides in the conflict...
...IT uas Monday when this began...
...After two years a* payments may be made to staw only, not to individuals, coaditieasf on adoption by the states of as* factory farm control laws...
...r^EAD, or in exile many, or afraid (And those who live there still and wake in the night...
...Without it we may have a movement, but' it> will not move...
...Our super-pacifists may, therefore, soon have an opportunity to determine whether they will ascend their towers of pure theory in the presence of a struggle by a seism to dominate all Europe...
...Without this, numbers mean little...
...Jobs are still 470,000 above levels of January in the year before.'' There seems to be nothing to brag or boast about the "dwindling relief rolls...
...Super-pacifism facing, a deadly conflict between the fascist and democratic nations is really the accomplice of fascism...
...It was the mid-February holidays: Lincoln's birthday...
...i» the only road to power...
...They were not sensible...
...You know, that little yhort fellow...
...The badge, the arm-band, the gag.the slave-tyranny...
...Have children, take them to parks, ride in trolleycars...
...Merchants of Death Sey No, a ad the Seaate Shows "Consideration"— Compromise oa Neatraiity Law Last Stages of Farm Bill—Paialess Tax...
...Valentine day and Washington's birthday...
...They wear no costumes...
...JP^Socialist Party, therefore, has no patience w4tk Impatience, rt has no use for short cuts that lead up blind...
...Thia week a report comes from Rome of a five-power agreement between Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary and Poland...
...it merely means that a smaller number of needy got what they assay even though what they need is only bread...
...Explains Secretary of Labor Perkins: "The increase is seasonal...
...We may have programs, but they-are likely to be Utopian...
...They were often compared with Shy lock...
...Paialess Tax Bill | Increased taxes seem to be * evitable, but the Administtatisew extremely anxious to make M m "painless" as possible...
...It is hard to think In spite of all oppression, all enmity That that is going to happen...
...By the end of the week the President just upped himself and left the seat of the government altogether...
...The buildings were less damaged than you'd expect From four days' bullets...
...For purposes of political OjB paign argument, Democrat* 4— deny these are new taxes...
...Great blocks of manstone...
...ODE TO THE AUSTRIAN SOCIALISTS (February 12-February 15, 19S4) By Stephen Vincent Benet (With the kind permission of Stephen Vincent Bci\ct and The Yale Literary Magazine, Special Centennial Issue, 1836-1936...
...This view has its spokesmen in the Socialist Party, mainly among the intelligentsia, while the Yipsels frankly assert that this pacifist course should be followed even if the fascist powers should combine against the constitutional countries where civil rights are observed...
...ministration leaders...
...Hands of the baker and the baker's wife, Hands gloved with rubber,mending the spittingwire...
...The more drastic proposals by the Senate Committee, whose two years' inquiry into munitions has just ended, were completely ignored...
...The trade union differs in basic aims with-both groups, but it rightly takes advantage of the division among its opponents...
...Yea, the story would be an interesting one but not inspiring.' 1 ' -?THE ROAD TO POWER -MGASH and again we have to emphasize one thing that has been basic to everything since the modern working class, began to organize more than a century ago...
...Tax r*J»*J i is to be disposed of befortigrj j Administration goes to ConfSJg j to ask for relief money—et ofl two billions—to sustain the °**|| I ployed after June 30...
...They were little cities built by people for people...
...Infertile, smelling acridly of death...
...CORRESPONDENT Of the British press remarked, when the thing was done ¦ And they let him in to see it that, on the whole...
...In the first decade of thia century the Muckrakers turned to the exposure of the new ruling class...
...It cannot support the gSMgpa "inclusive party" because it would be inclusive of wfistcannot be assimilated...
...But the buildings stood, on the whole...
...The quick hands moving deftly among machines...
...Sponsors of the bill assert that an estimated 15 to 20 million pistols are in possession of Americans and place beside this statement an authoritative estimate that the homicide rate in the United States is many times as high as that in Great Britain and other countries in which carrying of fire- | arms is forbidden under severe j •penalties...
...The Senate leaves it praetfcs&r unchanged from the form is wWo it was originally introduced, W in the House several modification are voted...
...The unfamiliar pistol cold in your fist And your mouth dry with despair...
...Anonymous, tired, good-humored, faces of skill...
...Moving toward a flank attack on crimes of violence, the Senate passes a bill for regulating the interstate shipment of all firearms...
...The President's press conferences were such that they would do credit even to' the Coolidge "deny-nothing, confirmnothing" press conferences...
...But bring alone the powder-blackened brass Of the shell-case, the slag of bullets, the ripped steel And the bone-spattering lead...
...You can walk to the corner store And never duck at a bullet...
...In a trade union struggle the organized workers welcome the opportunity to play off one group of employers against another, and they afe right in doing so...
...The strangest thing about it probably is the fact that we didn't miss him here at all...
...i>Y^*^w«P who know are worth more than a hundred gg' fkna*y^nothing...
...It is hard to realize that the day may come When you send your wife and children down to the cellar To be out of the nay of shells, and mount the known Countable stairs to the familiar room...
...After the Civil War, when the former humble manufacturers ruled the roost with their banking allies, big capital staged the loot of the western lands and its corruption transformed Congress injto a compound of an auction room and a poker table...
...Reg be known as the Soil ConservsOH Act of 1936...
...We have built our cities for lights and the harsh glare And, when the siren screams at the winter stars, It is only a fire, an ambulance, nothing wrong, Just part of the day...
...The houses were tall and fine...
...Hands on controls and levers, big square-palmed hands With the dint of the tool upon them...
...built by people for people Not to make one man rich...
...Congress did nothing important...
...Already nearly two years old is : a similar law regulating interstate ; shipment of firearms, but it has one large loophole...
...PACIFISM vs...
...The definition omits pistols...
...Are Pistols Firearms...
...to spend a jOaO* | mum of half a billion dollars yesrif ! in paying farmers who have SSSg | crop shifts found to be of serriO ' in adjusting farm production * | farm demand...
...Pursued through the big corporations, through Congress, the state legislatures and city councils, the mess revealed was revolting...
...Then came the goo-goo writers, who transformed our Captain Kids into national heroes as models for school books and Sunday schools...
...Dead in the courtyards where the children played (The child's jaw smashed by a bullet and the child dying, The woman sprawled like a rag on the clean stairs) Un-caesarlike, unwarlike, merely dead...
...A place for children to grow in, Alt over the world men knew about those houses...
...Three of these nations are fascist and two are near-fascist, and the trend is in the direction of a coalition of these powers against the rest of Europe...
...The kind thai go to the movies and watch parades...
...This inolsWjP boldness is frowned down by* fw...
...1>M merely replace those thmos SjPj by the Supreme Court...
...skillful foreman...
...Their pockets have lint in them, and tobacco-dust...
...It is argued that aa all the powers are more or lean ixnperailiet, we cannot support one imperialism against another...
...True, he had seen, before...
...Caa Wa Irao, or Boast About Iff—Are Pistols Firearms...
...These were ordinary people and they are dead...
...Four days in the Karl Marx Hof and the Goethe Hof And nobody knows yet how many dead And sensible men give in and accept the flag...
...They were slow to start, z't But they had been pushed to the wall...
...If the anti-fascist nations endeavor to strangle Italian fascism, there is ho reason why Labor and Socialism should not help to coil the noose and help tighten it...
...Good houses, meetings, elections and resolutions...
...We may have action, but it is likely to be abortive...
...They had built them well...
...It's nice to be so considerate of the business interests of the merchants of death, i . . . Compromise fa Neutrality Somewhat akin to the above is the compromise between the determination to keep America out of war at any cost and the hope of making profit from war demand when hostilities arise abroad...
...You have seen the backs of their necks a million times In any crowd, and forgotten—seen their faces...
...They had hidden arms against need, but they could not find them In many, cases, being ordinary people...
...But they'd seen what happened next door, in another country To people who believed in peace and elections And the same tide was rising here...
...when it does happen, your plans go wrong...
...ft may weal be that the basic aims of the anti-fascist nations and of Labor and Socialism differ, but if they agree to destroy a pestilence it would be stupid for Labor and Socialism not to cooperate...
Vol. 19 • February 1936 • No. 9
