WHERE THE NEWS END
LYONS, EUGENE
WHERE THE NEWS ENDS By EUGENE LYONS —------ m^^^^^t^*Emm FED E. BEAL. who led the Gastonia, N. C, textile worker** strike nearly a decade ago and drew a twenty-year prison sentence as payoff...
...But what was the cause of the first depression of which the second ia its heir...
...Its program t is that unreasoning pacifism which l would today serve as first aid to the fascist international...
...K. recent issue contained: 1) John Dewey's warning, 2) Barnim's leter, 3) columns on Russian eiecions, 4) editorial on Mr...
...Hitler and Mussolini would consider an American referendum on war as direct assistance to them while our neutrality policy, which is supported op the theory that we' must not help either Japan or China, actually aids Japan and weakens China...
...That is history...
...The unions were weak and far from aggressive in the "prosperity" period that ended with the crash in 1929...
...They made he tone of the paper too bitter, oo negative...
...Harold G. Moulton, president of the Brookings Institute, who has discovered the cause of the new depression...
...The dictatorship devours its own partisans...
...The crash came late in 1929...
...12, 1933...
...The economi system based- on black slavery ii the United States blew op with th Civil War in 1861...
...Whether the flight of the Gastonia boys, and of leaders like Big Bill Haywood before them, was justified or not is a large disputable question...
...Live industries do not compete with the dead or with those existing in a comatose state...
...Why should we not begin to think of public shops, factories, plants, mines, etc...
...j Stewart Way...
...Like Hashimuro Togo, "we like to know...
...The central committee of the Communist Party denounces "careerist Communists trying to advance their own interests by expelling members...
...Full credit for th use of the material will, of coursi be given both to you as author an to The New Leader...
...Your guess is as good as ours...
...This applies to organizations no less than to individuals...
...5) Pursuance of a policy by the I State Department which will sup. port complete neutrality and not u oppose it as is being done at the e present time...
...Neutrality in such a i struggle would in reality be aid to ! the fascist countries...
...It is essential, at least, that such people be exposed...
...The* persons have dumped their wealtl on their heirs, none of whom knowi how to distribute it for proper so cial benefit...
...I am delighted when ve publish things like that...
...They are always instructiv and never boring...
...Gerson...
...FRED BEAL, while free pending court action on an appeal in his case, jumped bail along with the other defendants in the case...
...rOO MUCH PANNING...
...To uild for the future we must re?ove the barriers to its realization, t is a battle on two fronts, and either front can be neglected.:— Iditor...
...All that ia needed is nine words in the constitution— 'congress shall have the power to limit private fortunes.'* Each generation could fix its own limit...
...They are a dead give-away...
...Why not nationalize its real equipment and let its masters have the huge "water" it carries...
...Nothing Beal or his comrades did or might still do after their unjust conviction could miraculously whitewash the Gastonia courts and Gastonia anti-labor forces...
...Th New Leader is our grand oppoi tunity...
...Comlunism stepped into force Anrchism's shoes, and it is just as ecessary to fight it...
...and it is now suggested that the anthracite fields at least be nationalized...
...Owning capitalists will object that they want no government competition...
...Wasey & Company, Inc., advertisers...
...He took that step at the direct instigation of the Communist Party, of which he was then a member and whose decisions he then accepted unquestioningly...
...Several of the Gastonia strike leaders themselves have revised their views on basic political tactics...
...Corporate industry is a failure...
...They consist of chairs warmed by loafers for decades, and the jobs are about as useful to the city as fleas are t? a dag...
...The present affair...
...In each instanc lives were sacrificed and pro pert...
...The ' principles of justice and civil rights which drew them into the defense at the beginning are just as clearly at stake now...
...One may disagree with tbe Communist Party policy at the time while recognising the nature of the Gastonia trial and the innocence of the strike leaders...
...I should like to compliment Mr...
...4) Redetermination of our mili. tary defense policy to one of deL fense of the nation against inva, sion, and not of foreign wars...
...And there you are I Virtue eternally at war with vice, j We suggest one way to fool the .Old Man...
...Bohn, Charles Edward Russell, ] Eugene Lyons, and your other features...
...Marion E. Lewis...
...EXPOSING COMMUNISTS IS HALF OUR RATTLE editor of The New Leader: We are spending too much of tur time panning the Communists...
...WANT TO REPRINT ONEAL SERIE Editor of The Now Leader: With your permission we wool like to reprint in COLUMN RE VIEW, your column, "The Amer can Labor Conflict Over Industrii Organization...
...The unions reduced hqUrs of labor and increased wages without regard to increased efficiency in methods of production, says Doc...
...Good work again...
...Unions should quit employing "swarthy" organizers wearing "black mustaches...
...Wilkinsburg, Pa...
...A DEPRESSION MYSTERY SOLVED J^EET Dr...
...That ' is at least a consistent point of view...
...ANTS HEW LEADER TO ABANDON POLICY OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY 'ditor of The New Leader: The New Leader in espousing the rogram of "collective security," hich means in the last analysis a illingness to apply military sancons against an aggressor nation, ould find itself in disagreement ith the point of view held by the ational Farmers Union...
...He's going to follow in the footsteps of the Old Man and own a great enterprise too some day...
...why not limit fortunes...
...Who or what was the goat in 1929, Doc...
...As a dramatic exemplification of class justice the Gastonia case ranks with lhe Mooney and Ettore-Giovanniti affairs...
...What next...
...If th* Gastonia charges, trial and conviction were an insult to the name of justice, they assuredly remain such today and through all eter- ¦ nity...
...There may be issues when items eferring to Communism may apiear to be too numerous, but this annot always be avoided...
...The decline continued to March, 1933...
...This is no ordinary depression...
...Good...
...time to stress the need of public industries...
...Nor is our course negative...
...We wfll wttaaeU teats If reuseelaa...
...All :hings in life are limited...
...They are "masked enemies" and are to be purged...
...WHY NOT PUBLIC INDUSTRIES...
...Not since the wave of indignation over the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti had the sense of justice of socially conscious Americans been so deeply outraged...
...The economic sys tern based on private monopoly i; Rome blew up with the assassins tion of Caesar in 44 B.C...
...Since then there was a sharp and rapid decline for five months which was only arrested early this month with another upward trend...
...With idle or half-paralyzed industries...
...TAMMANY'S HEROIC SACRIFICE JT is too bad that Tammany "statesmen" in the City Council cannot stage their heroic struggle next year at the World's Fair for the instruction of visitors...
...Think it over...
...Welcome to the politbureau, Comrade Roosevelt...
...THE industrial depression has entered its ninth year...
...Marshfield, Mass...
...I should also like o compliment Mr...
...The first one runs to a full page in New York dailies...
...Many of those who rallied to the defense of the Gastonia boys are no longer ia the same political and sociological alignments...
...Th present chaos is due to the fee that a handful of persons control the bulk of wealth in most nation and that commercial rivalry ha provoked world hostility...
...Or is it better for the big boys to own what they do not produce while we continue producing what we do not own...
...In magazine articles and in his autobiographical book "Proletarian Journey" he has recorded the circumstances in ample detail...
...Beal's views on Stalinism certainly do not affect the fundamental picture...
...Take your hand out of your pocket*—wake up...
...Tartak on his method in reviewing ?hamberiin's recent books...
...If they merited the support of honest liberals, progressives, and radicals then, they merit it no less today...
...The case of the Gastonia boys, and of Beal as the outetaodmg personality among them, became a rallying point lor radical and liberal opinion in its day...
...Then industry began to sicken, and we traveled the road to a new depression...
...They most be nationalized...
...Italian "Volunteer" Dies) LJERE is a story that has reached us about how "volunteers" -~are mobilized by the Italian authorities for service with the armies of Franco in Spain : * The murder of a young Italian dignation Vergaaai stepped tot* workman Camillo Vergnani, by the ward, protested against the deceppolicc of Genoa, as a result of his tion, and declared that he refused refusal to join a draft of "volun- service in the army of Franco...
...But all other organizations and individuals have no such valid excuse for indifference...
...Already it seems clear that many of those who defended Beal in 1929 are pleased to see him stuck into prison for the rest of his Hfe in 1938...
...In his recent speech to the Japanese Parliament, Foreign Minister Hirota said: "The attitude of the Japanese Government toward the present affair has been clearly set forth...
...Official communists who now seem minded to throw down Beal, and encourage others to use the bail situation as an excuse for throwing him down, are behaving obscenely, cynically, disgustingly...
...Editor, Column Review...
...This may seem to be a grotesque turn of the dictatorship, and yet it is the logic of arbitrary power...
...Men nave changed their views, move, ments have altered their direction, American attitudes toward social problems have undergone a rapid evolution...
...Yet it is his fall from "grace" in that respect that is costing hist the support of certain former champions of the Gastonia boys, • whatever other explanation may be advanced for public eonsump' tion...
...Already, I am informed, certain liberals formerly active in the Gastonia case have advanced their opposition to bail jumping as an alibi for abandoning Beal to an undeserved fate...
...3) Removal of our soldiers and ? ships from the Asiatic war zones...
...f21 Pausa» Jot c.nnm-amm ~* — absolute compulsory neutrality law which cannot be nullified at the e will of any administration, and the stopping of shipments and sales of munitions and war materials at f any and all times...
...When you meet a madman armed with a gat you do not hand him a pacifist sermon or take a referendum among your friends, you smash him before he can smash you.—Editor.] URGES ALL LABOR MEN TO BOOST NEW LEADER Editor of The New Leader: You are doing a splendid job...
...A Methodist bishop who owned slaves was ordered in a resolution not to get rid of the slaves but to get rid of his "impediment...
...destroyed...
...Nevertheless, the council chamber has again and again been in sn uproar because of the Tammany fight for chair warmers...
...The railroads are breaking down because they still carry the burden of old financial swindles of a generation ago...
...The masters cannot operate them...
...He was a union organizer trying to lead the men into sin...
...No two opinions on this matter seem to be possible...
...It was •ight, just right...
...Priming the pump and unemployed relief have helped, but they have not repaired the old sysi :m so that it will operate continuously...
...He admits in effect that the shouting about justice and freedom was no more than a convenient camouflage concealing purposes in no way related to those principles...
...There "may be groups whose defense of the Gastonia strike lenders was frankly an opportunity for propaganda for their, political ideas, and whose interest in the whole matter was automatically "liquidated" when Beal changed his mind about those ideas...
...Even the most "disciplined" communists did not for that reason sabotage his defense in that earlier and cleaner period of communist thinking...
...It's all about the "Old Man" who started as a poor boy, saved his money, never said damn, and eventually became the owner of a great enterprise...
...However, the picture is not all black, even if the mustache ia A young man is eating a sandwich, and this child of God will have nothing of the "swarthy" guy...
...Make your own comment...
...In other words, the idea of public industries is emerging out of the terrible economic mess...
...destined for Spain "in the Service To Fascism lying and deceit is * of the Dace...
...normal part of Government...
...The upward trend was evident by the Fall of that year, and it continued to August, 1937...
...Such affirmative techlique as theirs can hardly help but * fruitful...
...For 25 years I have advocated i constitutional amendment limitinj excessive private fortunes, the sur plus to go back to tbe government If the constitution can be amendec for purposes such as prohibitior and woman suffrage, it ought to b< amended for a fundamental pur pose such as limiting excessive private fortunes...
...i [Well, we disagree with the Na- tional Farmers Union...
...Bohn on an aricle he wrote about Dorothy Thompson...
...Let's get busy...
...Commonwealth Southern wants to sell its utilities empire to the government...
...But the facts of the Gastonia affair remain unchanged...
...Much water has flowed under the bridges of our national and international life since 1929...
...Anyone 'who defended Beal in 1929 and refuses to do so mow, admits that his to-do about civil liberty and court justice at that time was a | fraud and a hoax...
...CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH IS DANGEROUS Editor of The New Leader: Jan...
...So. cial Democrats in America would, f in the opinion of the writer, do well e to adhere to the same general principles rather than to follow the will-o'-the-wisp of "collective see curity" in its present form, which a in the end will lead us only to the abyss of war...
...The economic systems alway reach a climax...
...It is a breakdown of capitalism...
...The fascist powers would > become even more bold with the : knowledge that the United States ! could not aid semi-Socialist na- tions like the Scandinavian coun¦ tries and the democratic countries ¦ until after a referendum had been taken...
...Indeed, honest conservatives who at that time objected to the misuse of the machinery of justice, though they , disagreed with the political views of the defendants, should object on the same grounds today...
...BEDTIME STORIES FOR THE JOBLESS IF you are locked out of industry, if you cannot pay the grocer and butcher and have to dodge the landlord, be consoled with the bedtime stories of Erwin...
...Ind the same goes for Charles Sdward Russell on the needy raiload presidents...
...Will this continue...
...If the Gastonia boys were innocent then, they are innocent now...
...The New Leader's excellence pre sents a challenge to every S.D.I member—to put a copy of ou splendid paper in the hands c every trade-unionist and of ever member of the A.L.P...
...It is a < delight to read the articles of 1 Dr...
...The learned man declares that it is due primarily to the "aggressive labor movement" which began in the first quarter of 1936...
...Yet these obvious facts need underlining...
...Its primary idea is compulsory neutrality in any conflict abroad even though the issue be a death grapple bes tween the democratic and the fas- cist nations...
...have you received your daily orders from Stalin...
...He teers"/for Spain, has aroused tre- was arrested and conducted to the mendous feeling in his native town police station...
...who led the Gastonia, N. C, textile worker** strike nearly a decade ago and drew a twenty-year prison sentence as payoff for his valiant leadership, has jast been arrested in Lawrence, Mass-, his home town...
...He used the same nethod of pointed, but friendly, riticism...
...ALL of which is so obvious that insistence seems superfluous...
...The alibi is transparent If they fail to help save Beal now, their claim of - disinterested non-partisan passion for the principles of civil liberty and justice will lose all validity...
...Whatever the subsequent opinions or conduct of a Mooney or Vanzetti or Fred Beal, their arrest and conviction remain a challenge to those who fight against injustice, to those who recognize the importance of safeguarding civil rights, including the right to organize workers into trade unions...
...Ours is unfit to print JUDGES BECOMING EDUCATED THE new depression seems to have washed some new ideas right into the presence of two Federal courts, and the ideas were accepted...
...By that time, however, Tammany will have a tombstone by the side of the dead it used to vote in elections...
...One day he observed a "swarthy little man with a black mustache" speaking to the Old Man's workers...
...At the 35th annual convention of lis organization, recently held in klahoma City, a resolution was iopted urging the following steps pon our government to avoid pos- i ble foreign conflicts: (1) Immediate invocation of the i listing neutrality law...
...Let's take advantage of i Jack L. Afros...
...Bartolomeo Vanzetti, in fact, did eriti' cize the totalitarian aspects of Russia sharply while in Charles town Prison...
...Uso I liked the articles by Amlie ind Teigan...
...I Amid toe general dismay and in- London Labor News...
...Permit me to prophesy that ur less excessive private fortunes ar limited in all so-called capitalisti countries, there will be world wa followed by world anarchy...
...Club-house lizards have occupied over sixty county jobs that are to be wiped out...
...They will either pretend to ignore his plight or find some bogus technical excuse for throwing him to the baying dogs...
...The mining industry is also in a bad way...
...Is it not...
...They should know at least that their attitude toward the defense of Fred Beal is under scrutiny sa a decisive test of their sincerity and their political independence...
...body w»» unostentstioosly carries Xrrgnani has.applied, together to the cemetery, with many others who had been Now consider the value of delong unemployed, for civil work in mocracy, under which such a bsv* Ethiopia...
...Only one thing appears certain...
...With forty companions pening would be almost impossibiche arrived in Genoa—where they The authorities would fear te dc were divided, the married men only such tilings for they would at once being shipped for Abyssinia, the be challenged hi Parliament, the rest being informed that they were Press, and the Courts...
...Next morning h» of Monghidoro, near Bologna...
...5ne of these should have been hosen and printed—for, after all, re have a right to show the world hat we don't hold with dictatorhips—the rest should have been crapped or postponed...
...Philadelphia...
...If the power companies, why not the big industrial giants when we decide that we want to socialize them...
...THE LOGIC OF DICTATORSHIP J^OW that most of the old Bolsheviks in Russia have been killed it appears that quite a number of the killers are to be ' killed...
...This magazine is a monthly r« view of columns that appear in th periodical press.—Ed...
...They decided that investments in private power companies in the Tennessee Valley may be legally destroyed by the Government if thought necessary...
...Eugene Lyons' comments on the ¦early spree of truth-telling in the iew York Times were splendid...
...If they made a mistake in jumping bail, it was * mistake in policy—nearly all the responsibilty for which rests oath* Communist Party which decided and arranged tbe Bight...
...As clearly as in these two celebrated labor trials, Beal and his comrades were being punished for their championship of exploited, unorganized workers...
...Washington at Valley Forge, Ethan Allen leading his Green Mountain boys, ware pikers compared with the braves who are making their last stand for "principles...
...Merwin K. Hart, president of the New York State Economic Council, declares that President Roosevelt is "the major factor in the coming of communism...
...e This is a program of sanity...
...Letters to the Editor: Fleaet intlod» fan mm saS tudre...
...Why not...
...6) Passage of an amendment to the Constitution giving the people the right to vote, except in case of , invasion, before Congress shall des clare war...
...If Tom Mooney, to draw a purely imaginary parallel, bad become convinced that the Stalin regime and its American extenakn were pernicious and had said so publicly, that would not alter the facts of his case in the slightest...
...It would still be a blot on the record of American justice...
...The very fact that they ventured into such hostile territory, in the face of threats and local hatreds, to agitate among miserably exploited black and white factory hands is a measure of their courage...
...Our movement had to ight force Anarchism for three ecades because of its disruptive nd destructive character...
...A referendum on the question of t war, except in case of invasion, , would also prove first aid to world i fascism...
...If they were victims of a labor-baiting North Carolina crowd then, they are its victims still...
...THE PRESENT AFFAIR" ^ENDELL PHILLIPS, the famous anti-slavery agitator, once used a hypocritical Methodist organization as an example of cowardice in dealing with the issue of slavery...
...Beal .himself, for instance, has turned sharply against the Stalinist brand of communism after a long draught of it in Soviet Russia...
...The Doctor sayeth not...
...D. G. Redmond...
...It's just dreadful...
...Competition with what...
...Dictatorships act without 1 delay and in military strategy free' dom to act on short notice is a ¦ tremendous advantage over those nations that cannot so act...
...Even those who disapprove of the flight from America are not thereby relieved of the duty to defend Beal and to save him from the twenty-year incarceration...
...The eco nomic system based on feudalist (concentrated land wealth in Eu rope) blew up with' tbe Frend revolution in V789...
...They were being made scapegoats and object lessons to warn off other pesky labor agitators who might take it into their heads to interfere with the masters' divine right to press gold out of human beings...
...He faces the likelihood of extradition to North Carolina to begin serving that inhuman sentence on absurd, framed-up charges...
...I find The New Leader informa- ' tive, interesting, dignified, educa- 1 tional and never dogmatic...
...No one familiar with the heroic behavior of Beal and some of the others in Gastonia will dare charge them with ordinary cowardice...
...The United States has just passe through the bandit period durinj which those bent on accumulatioi appropriated the wealth of others no matter how they got it...
...On the ther hand, the Communist movetent has wrecked everything it as touched, even Russia itself, nd it has contributed to fascism verywhere...
Vol. 21 • January 1938 • No. 5
