A. L. P. Legislators Responsible For Progress at State Capital
HOSE, ALEX
A. L. P. Legislators Responsible For Progress at State Capital By ALEX HOSE State Executive, American Labor Party *1*HE 1938 Session of the Legislature was one •* of the most liberal that has...
...those demanding a fair trial for the Bolshevik leaders accuses at heinous crimes, and an open trial for those secretly put to death, it has ever been easier, more comfortable, to side with those in povar...
...And it was precisely as...
...Consider the case of Nicholas Wirth, the managing editor of the project and Stalinist No...
...Nevertheless a good many Democrats made a lot ef noise about these cases...
...Every sentence is a falsehoaf and an evasion, t"^" Prof...
...Of coarse, there is a lot of false testimony in a trial sf this kind...
...This was because the Labor Party minority, having no political axe to grind, was ready to go before the public and expose any attempt to practice* political obstruction...
...They most reeara time when the world's conscience was touched even by isolated eat#: of injustice such as the Beilis and Dreyfus and Sacco-Vansetti iissaj The victims opposed Stalin and his ways...
...Since the endeaei consisted exclusively of confessions, he asks us to believe that thoafk a lot of the confessions is false, the rest of it iS true...
...On vital legislation to strike at flagrant evils in the cost of milk, high utility rates, high rentals, low-cost housing shortages, runaway employers, consumer protection and other measures dealing with the basic welfare of our people, the Legislature sidestepped action as neatly as it could...
...There is no doubt in my mind that Washington is fully aware of the conditions on the F.W.P...
...carriages of justice, it proves nothing about the success or failwt of Bolshevism...
...By asking any lawyer he will discover that in .not mm of oar at States is a plea of guilty in connection7 with a capital crime accepts*' Without a trial and corroborative evidence...
...all the queer alliances in this period of European tragedy, ; the supporters Qf the "Christian" Catholic General Franco ** Speja.a»e the queerest...
...We therefore urge that each unit get this work under way without delay...
...John Dewey...
...The analogies are false...
...Social Democracy never rated higher than it does today because of the revulsion of feeling against the terrible deeds of dictatorships in recent weeks Whatever our plans may be, full advantage should be taken of every opportunity for publicity regarding our program and aims, and we should try to get the cooperation of trade unions, Workmen's Circles, and other reliable organizations that share our ideals...
...if that is false, how s|l the man's lesser and vaguer admissions be credited...
...Bad as conditions are in the United States, the language quoted is an exaggeration...
...A DISSERVICE TO DEMOCRACY JUST why John L Lewis of the Miners chose/ last week to broadcast an address on American economic conditions to the British Isles and British dominions throughout the world is beyond our comprehension...
...In the same year the Communist Party of Germany complained that Hitler was building a "higher wall between the na(io"a> socialists and anti-fascists", and pleaded for a "reconciliation" between the two...
...Trotsky admitted in tide morning's paper that he was carrying on secret work With the Germaai back in 1921...
...Practically the entire Soviet diplomatic corps, the outstanding Soviet journalists, literary critics, foreign trade directon, all but a few of the surviving Bolshevik Old Guard, and hundreds of Stalin's own lieutenants of the new political generation turn hosacidally anti-Stalin...
...To remain silent in the face of the abuses is to further embolden the Stalinists to even greater excesses...
...We look toward the future confident that we can make good our program which is to place on the statute books of the Empire State a body of laws which will be a worldwide model of social legislation...
...It is natural that under the war hysteria which not prevails in Russia, all sorts of things should be believed...
...Moreover, the Labor Party will be active from now until Election Day to see that the voters do not forget...
...Is it not crystal clear that the Stalinist supervisors will, purge the nonStalinists...
...We are sure that state and local organizations will, from tone to time, receive information from the national office regarding plans as they develop, but in the meantime affiliated units should lose no time in planning in their states and localities...
...British fighters for democracy who head such statements must have been filled with despair, and if any fascists heard them, they must have re jo iced'that the Giant of the West has ¦feet of clay...
...His statement that the pleas of guilty were "hacked by evidence* is sheer nonsense...
...France and England have appealed to the Pope to use his influence toward the abandonment by Franco his hideous bombing of Spanish cities, and 61 Protestant bishops in this country have also appealed to the American hierarchy to use its influence to the same end...
...The contents are the same...
...This was especially true of pre-Hitler Germany...
...WORKER...
...In lesser crimes the prosecutor, in the interests of the public, is expected to investigate the troth of a guilty plea before accepting it, and particularly spay tat prisoner confessed...
...In the first place, if workers remain silent any longer in face of the brutalitarian regime, the struggle against the G.P.U...
...If the falsehoods had been of a kind calculated to save tat prisoners, to mitigate their guilt, or even to save a few shreds of their reputations, they would have been natural and understandable...
...This lordly bureaucrat, who climbed to his present position- by serving an apprenticeship as packagewrapper for the Daily Worker, has arrogated to himself the powers of complete censorship of all material posted on the non-administrative bulletin board...
...Merano in a given month...
...The rest is too clearly police invention, the most luwuUiB of these inventions—Broun and Davis cannot have failed to note IM is that the trials have turned political opposition into low-down crhusl They have framed up principled opposition, whatever forms it Jaf| i?Yli|mnu 10 i°0k lik* unprincipled assassination, espionage *»| The distinction between political and ordinary crimes was reeajS nized even by the Romanoffs...
...I can personally affirm that many workers have kept their peace because they have been infected by the semi-Stalinist argument that an exposure of the conditions would play into the hands of the reactionaries and force Washington to liquidate the Writers' Project...
...The persecutors of Dreyfus and Mooney had the same excuse of "jitters" which Mr...
...projects of New York City have disturbed the Stalin agents very much...
...Nothing less should be expected...
...is just the same as it is in Moscow...
...But Stalin retains power, his regime becomes increasingly totalitarian, its political methods increasingly Violent— therefore, by the logic of the Brouns, everybody's loony except Stalia But even granting Mr...
...blackmail sheet on the job) which vilifies by name project workers as "stool-pigeons," "rats," "loafers," "spies" and "disrupters of project unity...
...There is not a court in the world which would not ¦ coast the pleas of guilty backed by evidence such as these man have gives...
...Jf...
...And anyhow, even if the trials are ma...
...a champion of that democracy that Zola demanded a clarification of the truth...
...A united front of cross and crescent and swastika dropping bombs upon men, women and children, the sick, the crippled and the blind...
...The interests of Stalin's nationalistic program and...
...Thus The New Leader, in exposing the tactics of the G.P.U...
...Broun trots out to justify the Stalin reeuae'i persecution of its revolutionary foes...
...A BLANKET apology for Kremlin terror at an even lower leve: of *¦ mental and emotional confusion is contributed by Prof...
...system of government...
...Granting for argument's sake that the intense Communist opposition to the current brand of Communism is neither proof nor symptom of the trend of the Kremlin regime, does it relieve the Brouns of the moral obligation to protest against injustice...
...This was due to the presence of the five members of the Labor Party...
...And he justifi* the wholesale slaughter of the leading figures in the revolution on ** basis of confessions that are only partially true...
...The Legislative Commitees no longer showed the same ruthless disposition to kill measures indiscriminately, and more progressive legislation came to the floor of the Assembly and State Senate for action...
...j See "Red Pen" Through the- hands of this pompous nonentity pass all -recommendations for transfer, re-rating and assignment of 350 writers— yet the most painstaking research fails to reveal one published line of writing to the credit of this all-powerful commissar...
...That is the cents* troth...
...And dictate they do...
...Tat guilt or innocence of Dreyfus mattered, quite aside from its * polities} setting...
...This year, such gestures, designed to win votes without positive accomplishments, carried more solid implications...
...It requires imagination, organization and team work to do this important job, important for the program and for the S.D.F...
...will be yielded to the reactionaries of the Hearst type who will utilize this struggle for their own.ends...
...They rear that the exposures may lead to an investigation by Federal authorities and the abolition of their terror which does not differ from Nazi-controlled public agencies in Germany...
...of the two banners...
...Put Hitler, Mussolini andStalin in the same sack and label it "Terror and Dictatorship...
...German Nazis have organized them in the United States in imitation of the ^qaaaaasaita and both pose as representatives of " 100 per cent Afftrri...
...on the Federal Writers' Project, serves the cause of the workers and acts in the defease of the future of the jobW.FJi...
...We are encouraged by the knowledge that it will • be easy for them to remember...
...Wherefore, he cautions, let's not be astonished if they breed murder plots on one side and official lynchings, with and wftheat public trial, on the other...
...The entire non-controversial character of the Session, disturbed only by the insistent demands of the five Labo rites, is testimony to the influence of our delegation...
...eration of revolutionary leaders is in itself the final proof of ta» failure of Bolshevism...
...To remain silent in /ace of the Stalin terror is to jeopardize the future of the Federal Writers' Project...
...In October, 1936, the organ of the Communist International also declared that the Communists "must support those fascist leaders who, wholly or partially, undertake the defense of the interests of the mass of the people...
...The Assistant Commissar sf Foreign Affairs, Krestinsky, "confesses" to having met Trotsky Jl...
...Such a campaign will not automatically develop by mere announcement of it...
...Those who rant snout the case are therefore a lot of idiots and enemies of democracy...
...Tss Dreyfus trial did not suggest to me that France had better go bask to a monarchical system nor do I think the Mooney ease indicatss that Ca'ifornia Should forthwith torn to Communism...
...Broun's fantastic assumptions, dost it relieve him and others like him of the moral duty to get at the tnaa in the trials...
...Merely to quote these curious puerilities is to expose the flabeiness and bankruptcy of such thinking...
...But Mr...
...For the first time ih many years the Republicans quietly accepted the Governor's proposals, and even went so far as to cooperate...
...On the basis of his own analogy he should have been esses...
...The miscarriage of justice in the Sacco-Vanxetti case, too, vu natural, all too natural...
...Davis's attention...
...This served to put the sponsor's colleagues- "on the spot...
...The heads of the Red Army and Navy, the heads of mast constituent Soviet Republics, the principal Commissars, the leaders at the Civil Wars, the architects of the Five-Tear Plans, even the chief instrument of a decade of terror, Comrade Yagoda, are opposed to Stalin's policies...
...The do-nothing members of the Legislature will have a difficult time explaining themselves...
...He would have done better to reach back to the French Revolution and the Thermidorean terror for parallels, Class justice against dan enemies is hardly in the same eattgS with a revolution turning on its own makers...
...But dees Prof...
...t: AN INFIDEL-PAGAN-MCHRISTIAN,,W IDEAL...
...When firings come...
...A.L.P...
...The failure of tat court to seek such evidence—repeatedly and publicly offered by peose outside of Russia—could scarcely have escaped Prof...
...But one expects it in the direction of self-defense, of exoneration...
...Does he think it natural that these falsehoods, moreovtt, are not in relation to minor matters, but to the very heart and est* of the alleged plots, namely the supposed contacts of the prisoaae with the arch-criminal and inspirer of the whole business, Trotsky...
...as well...
...Plots aad strange occurrences involving those high in authority have not been unknown ia democratic nations," he writes...
...to set up a dictatorship at 235 East 42nd Street...
...Bruralitarian Regime The fallacy of this point of view grows more obvious each day...
...It is the nwsf important single admission by Krestinsky...
...Davis's "belief" that the men are guilty we can dismiss as beside the point...
...Having administered a few gratuitous kicks tithe hundreds and thousands of corpses piled up by Stalia, they feel a sense of revulsion at their* own smugness...
...Davis really think that false self-accuse: ten it natural...
...BROUN finds it too much trouble to investigate the imphcattom *** of the fact that nearly all the Soviet leaders are out of step excsjt Stalin...
...Especially in the Assembly, where the Labor Party delegation, ably led by Nat M. Minkoff, was ready at every turn to step into the breach and fight strenuously in the interests of the people of the entire state...
...As progressive as the 1938 Session has been, it still left much to be desired...
...It did not in itself invalidate the America...
...A larger delegation of Labor Party members is needed in the Assembly...
...THREE SOULS THINK AS ONE P*ROM a number of sources word has come to The New Leader that our exposures of the infamous dictatorship established by the Communist Party in certain WPA...
...Francois supporters, however, simply do not make sense...
...Moreover, in nations suffering from post-war monomania, the Communist passed to fascist ranks and the fascist to Communist ranks in large - numbers with equal ease...
...We have every reason to believe that the issues will be intensified, and we intend to leave the responsibility for inaction on the doorsteps of the members of the Legislature who refused to perform their obvious duty to their constituents...
...Jerome Davis...
...If the time was ill-chosen, so was the text...
...In these days when the electorate is again acutely aware of the fact that the business of government is the business of the individual voter, and that discrimination must be exercised in the voting booth, it is not likely that both the halfhearted progress made in this Session and the glaring omissions which occur in this year's new laws, can fail to impress the citizenry...
...It is denied by Stalin, Broun and DatHf In this they have joined the company of the "patriots" who rsw m distinction between Eugene V. Debs and a paid German-spy...
...The two movements are also alike in their organization of "innocent clubs"' in due and other countries...
...In an article on Trotskyina, Hey wood Broun attempts to justify the trials and executions of on Bolsheviks, and to ridicule these who, like Prof...
...Yet it is not an incidental matter...
...it also gives-the impression that we are on the edge of an abyss and that it is futile for Europe to look to us for sympathy and encouragement in her dark hour...
...Be argues that the intense political hatreds in the Soviet Baku are quite natural—look ejt the Civil War hatreds still alive in our oak country...
...Although I cannot verify all of the charges made against individual Stalinists, I can state the general substance of the article — terror, racketeering and discrimination against non-Stalinist militants — is more than true...
...The lack of independent corroborative evidence » precisely the most glaring fact about the trials...
...In the face of a widespread public support for the ratification of the Child Labor Amendment, the Legislature snowed it under by a vote of 107 to 42...
...Advice was also sent to young Communists to join fascist youth organizations...
...Out of "their own mouths they condemn themselves as partial and unfit to judge the merits and accomplishments of the writers under .their supervision...
...Each has as its fundamental aim a brutal dictatorship, their only difference being whether .the swastika or Ac hammer and scythe shall fly over the prisons and concentration camps...
...A gentleman who in his more hay vears spoke op eloquently for a couple of anarchists named Saceo as* Vanzetti, now gropes through all history to avoid speaking up ? political prisoners in Stalin's country...
...How is it that 350 writers and administrative workers have remained so silent all these months under the whip-lash of the Stalinist bureaucrats...
...The Dreyfus case and the Mooney case did not prove the fsilar* of democracy...
...He added that "cavilling and confusion prevails," that our statesmen and others revile "each other with an anger and bitterness that defiles, sears and destroys...
...Emile Zola did not say complacently, "Plota and strange occurrences in high plaices are quite natural...
...UIS citation of Trotsky's statement is a shocking misrepresertatioi * * of the facts...
...the American imperialism donlt inevitably mesh at all times...
...In fact, our American courts require no evidence if a plea of gouty a entered into...
...Let's look at one such falsehood...
...The speech, we are sorry to say, was a disservice to the fighters for freedom at home and abroad...
...L*R...
...More progressive legislation was passed, and again the presence of the five Labor Party members is more than sufficient to explain this change of heart...
...In fact...
...That will require earnest planning and work...
...Printed versions of the address do not indicate a word of sympathy with or understanding of what has been happening in Europe...
...A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC JOB BY the time that this issue of The New Leader reaches our , readers, state and local organizations of the Social Democratic Federation will no doubt have received notice from the national office of the nation-wide drive for unemployment relief and for a $10,000 fund to help make it effective...
...The freedom of the great majority fighting for democracy was destroyed because of the cooperation of the two dictatorships...
...Broun did not take it lightly in nil stride...
...Even more striking evidence of the three souls with a single . thought is the fact that as soon as Hitler came to power, Stalin signed a favorable commercial treaty with him while Russia also supplied Mussolini with the oil without which it was impossible to conquer Ethiopia...
...Communism has become so like Nazism in methods and aims that it is impossible to tell where the Communist ends and the Nazi begins...
...This "confession" is a deeeonstrsble 8*> Neither the court nor any one in behalf of the defendants makes till slightest effort to obtain the available proofs—the French polka dossier—of this lie...
...Both movements provide studies in social pathology...
...Maf iiiei, nc on* it ha senses has argued that the systematic extermination of the first gas...
...1936, adopted a manifesto which declared: "Only the brotherly union of the people of Italy, brought about by the reconciliation of fascists and non-fascists, will be in a aneitioii to break down the power of the bloodsuckers in our country...
...What more proof is needed than practically any issue of the "Red Pen" (anonymous CP...
...Hcil Franco, bearer of the infidel-Pagan-"Christian" crusade...
...In a letter to Upton Sinclair he writes: il "I believe that in the main these trials are genuine and the met are guilty...
...hsv« sought to get at the truth of the accusations against Trotsky as* nearly all the rest of Lenin's closest associates...
...In the past, a member of the law-making body was fairly safe in introducing progressive legislation, knowing full well that the measure would die in committee...
...j \hfHERE THE NEWS ENDS ; By EUGENE LYONS P)R an extraordinary sample of the mental name induced ia tie minds of liberals of the my-Kremlin-right-or-wrong type, tan « The New Republic, March 23rd...
...The obscene haste of the government in killing off ssstiitlsl witness* knowing that further trials involving their testimony are scheduled, needs no underlining...
...But because of the fact that decentminded men and women keep their mouths shut while Stalinists scream and shout, Washington has taken the , course of least resistance Washington Aware Washington is aware of the conditions...
...Take the matter ef bang an agent of the German government...
...As proof of this is the statement made by one representative from the National center who declared before a group of supervisors (90 per cent Stalinist) : "In my mind the struggle between the 'Stalmists' and the 'Trotskyists' on the F.W.P...
...The English people were then racing a tremendous crisis that meant possible destruction and death for millions and were not interested in our economic woes...
...The Trotskyists' are those who have ability and can write and the 'Stalinists' are those who can't but dictate...
...Still more objectionable was the statement that the United States "drifts with terrifying and deadly sureness to . . . financial bankruptcy, economic collapse and human tragedy...
...The monstrous character of this situation becomes apparent when it is remembered that the Communist Party on the job demands from each worker what hi in practice a Loyalty Oath to the principles and practices of the Third International ! Proof...
...A. L. P. Legislators Responsible For Progress at State Capital By ALEX HOSE State Executive, American Labor Party *1*HE 1938 Session of the Legislature was one •* of the most liberal that has been seen m this state in many a year...
...It is no more than a single element in • eoo> plex picture: a corroboration and dramatization of that failure, oai of the myriad products of the revolutionary reaction...
...The condi* tions which the Labor Party tried to correct by its bills are acute, and there is no reason to believe that they will ease off as time goes by...
...The Dreyfw affair proves nothing about French democracy...
...Davis's ¦ ihraitf'"' that 'there is a lot of false evidence" in these trials...
...1 man on the job...
...These include "infidel" bandit Moslems, Pagan Nazi* of Germany, and his own Catholic following...
...Trotsky said there were secret negotiations, with tat knowledge of Lenin, in the interests of the giiTeminent which it altogether different from espionage and plotting against the gesainiBiat The crudest touch of all, however, is Prof...
...Certainly one 'expects false testimony in a trial involving nana"* lives...
...MINORITY HAS STRONG INFLUENCE "TPHE sidestep was not neat enough...
...In the last few fateful years before the triumph of Hitler, Nazi and Communist members of the German Diet and in the Reichstag voted for measures to destroy the Weimar Republic Both were successful and the German slave state with all its horrors was the result...
...T*HE Brouns and the Devises are much too intelligent to batiM •their own...
...PUTS UP GOOD FIGHT BUT NEEDS MORE MEMBERS LJOWEVER, this change of heart was too slight ** to bring to the people of the state any substantial benefits...
...Letters to the Editor: Stalinlte Control Endangers WPA Projects Editor of The New Leader: I read with interest a letter from one of my co-workers on the Federal Writers' Project published in your- issue of March 19...
...And why is it Washington has allowed the G.P.U...
...The Italian Com'nmaoists in August...
...words...
...But even this difference is passing and one may anticipate the eventual merging...
Vol. 21 • March 1938 • No. 13
