Issues of the Day - Politics,Food, the Mines
Issues of the Day - Politics,Food, the Mines Portrait of an Under-Fed World By T. SWANN HARDING U B I N G the last generation or two we have been trying to adapt a a relatively inelastic...
...We may well look bock with a feeling of humble pride that one important reason for the* birth of the A L P was to strengthen the hands of the man who saw the grave menace of the Nazis across *tba...
...they not only preach the smashing of the Ne* Deal, they are brazenly introducing measures ia Congrae and in numerous State legislatures to take the heart em substance out of the labor and liberal laws...
...They have grown in power sei boldness...
...From this had to be deducted a consideraab amount for equipment, dues, etc...
...BETTER-FED people in the United States, the United Kingdom," New Zealand, and Australia had from 3,500 to 4,000 calories daily and derived only 30 to 40 per cent of them from cereals...
...We were sure then that the mad in the White House wss seeing straight in his foreign policy...
...The report, of the Mixed Committee on the Problems of Nutrition, established by the League of Nations, issued August 14, 1937, -was a melancholy commentary on a world which has made great advances in medicine, sanitation, and nutrition science, but had dismally failed widely to apply the results practically...
...the right of free organization and assembly as against the spirit of bookburning— these are our proudest spiritual safeguards...
...Below the top-income 20 per cent diets deviated widely from adequacy...
...Speaking: before the National Grange in 1941, Henry Mergenthau said: "We decided eight years ago that every citizen should have protection against unemployment, or old age, or disability...
...We are fortunate that our party has come of age . ? this period of great challenge...
...This political progress alooe...
...To us the New Deal ? more than « philosophy of government...
...They are raising the fourth term issue as a bugaboo for the coming presidential campaign...
...New Deal Is Key Issue of 1944 Election By DAVID DUBINSKY President, International Ladies Garment Workers Union A MONG the gratifying results of the last campaign two things stand out First that no party has a mortgage on our allegiance and policies, and second that no individual leader or set of leaders carry our votes tucked away in their vest pockets...
...The next stop is to power iteelf...
...If the people realty desire in a statesmanttke manner to guarantee both the continuous flow of soft **el in this acute crisis...
...The New Seal, to us, is not the property of the Democratic Party or the occasional war paint of some Republican politicians...
...This has been true in both •vngriculture and industry...
...their concern has been merely' with their own immediate profits and losses...
...Income and food prices were closely correlated, and t h ey directly affected food purchases and the nutritive status of peoples...
...But our last campaign has won for us more than votes...
...A Brookings Institatioa sue> of a few years age estimated that, while productivity per miner increased from 1923 to If38 by 89 per cast, the hourly wages of misers increased «y leap t f i f 2 per coat, while their weekly wages actually *»· creased by ? per cent: Prior to the present war emergency, the miners aver-* aged about 182 working days a year...
...Though Asiatics spent 85 per cent of their incomes on food, at least three-quarters of them had diets far below what we wquld call a standard of decency...
...If our people and Otiier people are to be guaranteed a minimum standard of nutrition...
...spirit of book-burning which has forever disgraced Nazi Germany...
...ocean, and created a foreign policy to prepare otirVountry for total war and total victory...
...If we do not do it, we cannot regard the war as really woo...
...i.i,.-'.This order was issued with one object in mind, that of preventing the bitter controversy over wages from resulting in widespread and prolonged stoppage of cool production in the midst of war...
...We showed our faith when others picketed the White House.- We ihowed our faith when others assailed his policies end lis motives...
...states of the union have wantonly wasted these valuable resources needed to -turn the wheels of industry, to heat and, indirectly, to light our homes...
...The world can progress as it should «nly if all of its inhabitants start from a platform of efficiency based, upon sound diet...
...And against this ugliest manifestation of totalitarianism, against this book burning in every form, we in the American Labor Party are associated to resist and fight to the utmost...
...After the war, tat number of days worked increased a good deal, aitooarj the miners claimed that leas than 60 per cent bad ban operating on the six day-week...
...He should be assured of a minimum standard of shelter, clothing, and fuel...
...The administration of • the industry would be in the hands ef s Nations...
...If we do it...
...Muting begins...
...But if, at the end of the Great Global War, we produce all we can and divide all that can be produced equitably among all who are alive in the entire world, a very good standard of living will be possible universally...
...The Aznar=*» Labor Party is the party of all who can exartis* heir own political judgment—who can be constte*\, ? ^dependent, critical, and free...
...In China there never had been enough food...
...this will be the most important material thing that has happened to the human race so far...
...These small men averaged only about 2,600 calories daily, and derived at least 80 per cent of them from cereals, indicating great dependence on biologically inferior proteins...
...on the horizon...
...Practically every student of the soft coal Industry during the past few decades has thoroughly agreed that the nearly 1500 bituminous coal companies operating the 10,000 to 15,000 mines in the two dozen of the...
...in my judgment, the fourth term involves no principle, nor is it a true issue to the men and women who constitute oar party...
...Freedom from want is the fundamental freedom...
...The...
...Mergenthau went on that "we must recognize the citizen's right to have a minimum standard of food with which he can live the life of a free man...
...It was born, ana jew...
...We ought to be grateful to the Communists who, while still continuing the Trojan horse tactics is ?at-, party, had a candidate of their own in the last campaign, were not able to poll enough votes to get them on the ballot in New York State...
...We showed our faith when clouds hung...
...IN the United States," continues the National Resources * Planning Board, "we are prone to ignore the loss in mining because coal seems so abundant, but the facts are that, while our reserves of lignite and low-grade bituminous coal are indeed enormous, we are exhausting our best bituminous coals at a rate that makes their conservation a serious national problem...
...First and foremost, we have got to do everythba in our power...
...Perhaps the most carefully worked out plan for nationalisation has been that of the Nationatisauou Research Committee of the United Mine Workers, composed of John Brophy, William Mitch and C. J. Golden, formulated in the years following the first World War...
...Properly to feed itself, the United Kingdom required 125% more fruit, 87% more vegetables, B0% more milk, 55% more eggs, and 30% more meat...
...In 1942, at least two-thirds of the world's people were on inadequate diets...
...Still, while we adhere to the New Deal and line up -our full strength behind it, we have always .reserved to ourselves the right to criticize, and disagree whenever we thought that it was deviating from its rightful coarse...
...It was because of conditions of the industry and of the miners similar to these desci rbed above that, time after tin**, miners and students of the mine situation—with s view to scientific and efficient mining, to balanced production, te reasonable prices and to a good American life for the miners—have urged the nationalisation of -the mines...
...This means,'' declared the National Resources Planning Board's report, "that the avoidable lode amounted to 150 million tone a year, left behind ander conditions thai virtually prevent its being recovered...
...The prevailing type in the majority of communities is tke house built of wood, finished outside with weatherboard nailed directly to the frame roof of composition paper, post foundation, no cellar Not only are the houses poorly built, but they are often in disrepair...
...A Federal Interstate Ceamission of Mines, similsr te the Interstate Commission, WOULD be created as e FSCT-fndinc agency...
...because the democracy that is the very heart * America called for it—needed it Hundreds of ekeo«»de of workers, liberals, working farmers...
...F4ESPITE the fact that it is a long way to the nomina* ~ tion of candidates, many political medicine men, especially on the Republican side, are already worrying themselves sick trying to learn who will not be the next presidential candidate...
...Today many >f them are engaged in a vicious anti-Labor conspiracy hat is the gravest single threat to our war effortfhey are endeavoring to drive a wedge between the toldiere of production and the soldiers on the battle-* 'rent The A L P will play its part in destroying that onspiracy.1 G? our party, representatives of the American Fed- 'ration of Labor, the CIO, the Railroad Brotherhoods, ire guided by one policy and present one front New, nore than ever, do we need euch unity in the entire -abor movement The attack on Labor is part of a concerted drive ? smash the New Deal...
...In terms of energy it woe equivalent to twice the production of natural gas in the United States...
...Geoffrey Crowther, editor of the London Economist, has written: "The citizen of a democracy should be guaranteed, as of right, enough food to maintain him in health...
...Tinder private control, not only has coal been mobs and left unmined in a tragically wasteful fashion, 3 _r has been impossible to plan the mine operation ? 'am sane and sensible manner...
...And tonight, when victory si >n the march, we reaffirm our faith in our ComraasdernChief, Franklin Delano Roosevelt The isolationists who were blind to the sinister designs of Nazi tyranny endangered the freedom and lecurity of the country before the war...
...The present controversy has abed a food of light not only en the tragic plight ef the mines, bot on the continuous eJckasas of the bituminous coal industry, aa industry which boa been ailing for...
...As I see it the dominant issue hi the costing campaign will again be the New Deal against the old— the issues ef progress, liberalism and international cooperation against reaction, selfish interests and monopolized wealth...
...5) a large labor representation in all departments of government: (?) s political labor party...
...These things, he declared, constituted the "essential economic substance of a decent life...
...It is unnecessary to describe here in detail other paeon of the working and living conditions of the miners during the last generation—the insecurity of their life, their low wages, the constant threat of accidents—many of the accidents being du* to criminal neglect by mine operators of modern safeguards—the high cost to the miner of necessary mining equipment, terrorism to which miners have so often been subjected, the exorbitant prices charged for necessaries of life in many company stores, and-bad housing, educational, health and recreational conditions...
...It is part of an offensive by eactionaries, desperately trying to get into the saddk ? control our Hves after the war...
...we have to give our utmost aad oar A on the basis of unconditional surrender of our casnihe and to the assurance of a true and lasting democrat* peace...
...3) a hundred per cent organized union...
...But, among the general public, poverty and ignorance of sound nutrition principles abounded...
...The mine is run port SgT Costa are high, competition bitter, wages low...
...Exhaustion of coal' accounted for but a small port of these shut-downs...
...A world of such gross inequalities should not be stabilised...
...The five day-son yielded them about $36...
...a a ? * * * strong in the state...
...So, instead of concentrating on domestic, economic and political issues and post-war and international programs, they are planning to scare the American voters in advance against the pos- . sibility of the President's renominatkm...
...Mining Council te be made up ef three groups, the •dfuintstrstlve heads of the industry—financial technical and managerial—the miners snd the eensamers...
...We have a job to do, an important historic job ? tar State...
...had been made in laboratories...
...But the opeMem—· another mine, though insane from a national...
...of the La,ted States Bureau of Mines, was 35 per cent...
...Something over 40 per cent of our draftees had then been rejected for physical reasons, and about a third of these rejections were attributable to faulty nutrition...
...The Case for Public Ownership of Mines By HARRY W.LAIDLER s? May 1, 1943, ?? ? ? ? ? production of cool necessary to win the war," President Roosevelt directed Secretary Ickes to take over the bituminous coal mines at the COUntry...
...We ess sWa^j Je future with confidence...
...I cannot speak for the ALP...
...4) collective bargaining puhlidy accepted as a basis for wage agreements...
...Nutrition scientists knew' a very great deal...
...Under private control, the owners have shown little concern with how future generations might fare...
...attempt to interfere with its showing...
...In the United Kingdom, only the top - 1iu0 ppeerr cceenntt rreeaallllyy aattee well...
...To us the New Deal is the practical expression of the age-old dream of militant, aggressive democracy and social justice as opposed to social reaction...
...Men and their families are brought Z B other fields...
...But you just ?* and imagine a similar film, as "Mission to Washing**" being permitted to run in any totalitarian country...
...We fought with all our might against isolationism...
...Modem sanitary convenience* are ususlly lacking...
...Today our heroic soldiers and those of our gallant allies have swept Tunisia and cleared the Mediterranean life line...
...2) a competent technical staff...
...In a number ef industries technological an- ' provemeats, with their accompanying increased an», declivity, have meant mach higher Hviag suadaren Not so with the miners...
...But when they attempt...
...Happily, even such a falsified ami distorted film as *Mb> sion to Moscow," eon be freely shown in America, anc « would be among the first to condemn as book burning as...
...Mr...
...A full diet for all would merely carry the process a step further...
...It was well enough to talk of Asiatics living on a handful ef rice a day, but they did that from necessity, not from choke...
...abuse and slander, to muzzle the American right of free men to protect and criticise, they attempt to introduce the...
...Many of the houses in which miners ihre," wrote tke United States Coal Commission some year* ago, "are unspeakably bad...
...The arguments for public ownership and democratic operation of the bituminous coal mines are overwhelming...
...The Nationalization Research Committee maintained that the conditions of success for nationalization were these: "(1) administrative organizing minds in the public services...
...Men cannot achieve what they should or even maintain world peace and build democracy, so long as so many must start from near starvation in striving to get ahead...
...The quantity of coal lost in these old workings through collapse of roof, crushing of pillars and stamps or through permanent isolation of odd acreages of unmined coal," declared the N.R.P.B., 'is unknown, "but must certainly run into hundreds of millions of tons...
...We fought for it in the pest...
...Issues of the Day - Politics,Food, the Mines Portrait of an Under-Fed World By T. SWANN HARDING U B I N G the last generation or two we have been trying to adapt a - a relatively inelastic Price-and-Profit system to make ft act '3i^reaigbicbi for the enormous material wealth created for as by scientific and technological progress...
...That, incidentally, also exposed their weakness and proved that they represent more noise than substance once they are compelled to face the American voters on their own...
...Why should not the nation take over the mines, net temporarily and partially as aa emergency measure, but permanently, with the view of running them in aa efficient, democratic manner for the common good...
...We found that it was not fair and that it did not pay us as a nation to leave millions of our people at the mercy of economic cycles over which they had no control...
...A private company eoumfl possession of a coal propeity...
...If men are undernourished, they are fearful, as lack of certain protective foods produces fear and fatigue as well...
...Private operation ef mines has meant niaerahb working and living conditions on the part ???, miner...
...Twice in the past six years we helped to carry our State for Presdient Roosevelt and for Governor Lehman, and we helped in two elections to reelect Mayor LaGuardia on a platform of sound municipal government, besides aiding in the election of a number of liberal and progressive legislators and judges...
...The wage rata at $7 a day thus meant a very modest income of less tan $26 a week...
...A world half starved and half fairly well fed, but in which only a top 10 per cent is really well fed, is an anachronism in this age of advanced technology...
...With this yardstick, it measured the diets of the world and found them universally wanting...
...Besides these groups...
...The Republicans apparently believe that they" have scored such a fine success in 1940 with the third-term issue that they would attempt to stage a comeback in 1944 on the issue of a fourth term...
...In May, 1941, our own National Nutrition Conference for Defense gave substantial proof that our experts were not incorrect in asserting for so long that more than a third of our people were undernourished...
...which I believe is their right, then we, in this country, will have to produce the food that will make that standard possible...
...Conditions were much worse in eastern and central than in western Europe...
...Of this toe* about 20 par cent, it was estimated, could have been avoided if the best known standards of iffieianry had been used in all mines...
...But, to be fully fed, the world then required a 100% expansion in output of meat, poultry, and fish...
...f » I...
...when they attempt to suppress the publication of s book like Mark Aldanovs "Fifth Sear because it treads on some of their tender toes, they are trying to introduce book-burning in America Tolerance as against book-burning...
...Under the national council wowM be created regional and mine committees...
...We print here two other addresses made at the dinner, one by- David Dubinsky, President of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the other, following below, the opening remarks by Samuel Shore, chairman of the Dinner and Vice-President of the ILGWU.—Editor's Note.] By SAMUEL SHORE Only a few months ago the war news was grim and gloomy...
...The very beet and the very cheapest coal had often been mined, and then the mines we're shut down under conditions which made it impossible ever to recover the cool left therein...
...The enemisi a! labor, the enemies of the common people have not bad idle during these years...
...A new mine is opened at cooajjba, able expense...
...of the country stood idle over a third of each year, apt in atony instances, for a mach longer period...
...freedom of speech and thought as against book-burning...
...It defined an adequate diet as one , which contained sufficient energy and protective foods to enable individuals to maintain health...
...Their depletion will handicap not only steel itself but all industries depending on steel...
...In most of Africa and the islands of the Pacific, animal proteins were all but unattainable luxuries...
...Thanks to the constructive campaigning of Dean Alfange, and the untiring devotion and loyalty of the army of active workers which...
...decades past...
...Vice-President Wallace, at the dinner, outlined the government's ideas in combatting a post-war depression...
...In the free world of tomorrow we most dare to permit our farm aad industrial pleats to ran at capacity, with fail employment, while we devise methods of fairly distributing the products to all...
...surrounded him and worked with him in every county^ and borough, our prestige and our position have risen 'immeasurably during and since the last campaign...
...Even in the better communities there is little variety in the houses and it is almost impossible to get a house with adequate accomodations for a family of five...
...if in want, they care little about freedom of expression or of religion...
...In Western Europe we are told before the second World War that the average leas of coal ia the beds then worked was from 5 to 10 per cent...
...In the thirties, that was coal enough to supply the entire requirements of the German Reich...
...The present struggle, like former struggles, might be patched up, but if private owners remain in the saddle, the miner, the consumer, the general public will continue to suffer...
...f*r mortar ? and civilian uses, end to assure s fair price, and decent, humane and democratic condition(• far the miner, we must proceed to the nstionsl ownership snd the democrstie snd ef ftcient operation of this great and vital industry...
...Today we are the bated* $; Ipewer...
...smeD raineas men, and professional men have their pot*" · *«*ee in the American Labor Party...
...mm symbolize the A L P and all it sfitnB»Mlor^lzf9e^renent world'crisis, the A L P signifies to us all that W genuinely true ia American democracy and free from every "totalitarian and anti-democratic influence . Last week, the world recorded the tenth anniversary of a tragic event which embodies the ugliest and most barbaric feature of Fascism...
...Challenge THE annual dinner of the American Labor Party, held last Sunday, brought nationwide attention, for the A L P in this state holds the balance' of power, and the tantalizing threat of a Labor Party in other states is throwing a scare into the old line politico* of both parties...
...V...
...It m · wbsg, growing force...
...limited, and, ia the end, the company may have to ebm the mine In the early thirties, the capacity of mines in the ?o$oJ States was mora than doable their production...
...shall fight to preserve it for the future...
...We are proud of the contributions we have made to the New Deal since 1936...
...The basic needs—food, shelter, clothing, education, and medical care—must be met as our global social obligation, if the ideal of democracy is to be realized ia the post-war world...
...Asiatics, Africans, aad most Sooth Americans and colonial natives simply did not know what it was regularly to have enough to eat...
...the consumers in other allied industries and the community...
...Under the ntsn proposed, the ownership ef the mines would reside in the national government...
...J —- — servative elements in both major parties were determined to scuttle the New Deal and that labor would have to organize politically in many states...
...We have achieved some very substantial results is est party, but our job is far from complete...
...It was the anniversary of the burning of books on the This book burning, in my mind, represents the essence of Fascism, the entire philosophy of repression of the individual, the enslaving of the human soul...
...The myth of the invincible "master race" lies buried in the sands of Africa...
...a 125% increase in vegetable oils, and increases of 300% in fruits and vegetables, and 50% in cereals...
...view, might promise to pay a profit to the riamOaf the mining industry...
...During the ten year period from the early twenties to the early thirties, nearly Ave thousand mines were shut down or abandoned...
...large among these commodities and, at no time * in history, has the world produced enough food to give all its inhabitants an adequate diet...
...Progress...
...In all periods of world history, except the present and the recent past, a miserable standard of living would have been provided for all if men had taken everything they were capable of producing and divided it evenly among all who were alive...
...This committee was created in 1935...
...By 1929 this effort failed miserably and since then we have { done something to adjust our social and economic system so that vo...
...Mayor...
...Public ownership and democratic administration of the country's soft cool mines could be depended upon to eliminate the ruthless wastage of a valuable natural resource— a resource which, in the present crisis, ie„bound up so intimately with the winning of the war...
...There was widespread malnutrition even in the most enlightened and advanced nations with the highest living standards— tie United States, the United Kingdom, aad Sweden, for instance...
...It is impossible to enaggerate the conditions in the worst communities snd indeed it is impossible to describe them...
...Those who keep ? • » taeir freedom of thought and action, taam , "ware the tools of a party line—those have no pi** j »3* American Labor Party...
...17OOD will, bul...
...It raises again the aasoHoa, "Why should this industry and this tremendously valuable natural resource be left hi the hands of privat* owners, to be waatefoBy exploited to the detriment of miners, consumers aad the general public...
...Our second objective is: to make this peace dsehly safe in our lend, we must remain steadfastly, untiraoW on guard to defend the New Deal against its enemies sM traduce re, against the would-be book burners, from an totalitarian right as well as from the totalitarian left * our country...
...could utilize for constructive ends more of the wealth of goods and commodities science enabled us to create than "heretofore...
...Yet that sentiment was scientifically sound...
...When in 1942, however, the leaders of the Democratic Party nominated a candidate for governor whose loyalty to the New Deal we had reason to doubt, the A L P boldly asserted its independence and entered the campaign with its own candidate...
...We of the American Labor Party know that the battle for Tunisia began'years ago here at home...
...That is what science and technology have enabled as to do...
...I J E N R Y WALLACE was abused mercilessly by some for once **>'• casually remarking'that we were fighting this war to guarantee to every person in the world his right to a quart of milk a day...
...Fortunately, our own home-bred totalitarians have neither the force, the number, nor the influence to burn the books of their opponents in order to suppress free thought and to silence the free word...
...Too many mines' ???-2 already in full or partial Operation...
...a the United States, under the inefficient operation of the mining properties, on the other hand, the average lies, according to the careful investiga-?a...
...separate committee woeM be formed for the purpose of collective bargaining, a committee consisting ef representative* of miners and ef management...
Vol. 26 • May 1943 • No. 21
