The Death and Birth of a Party
The Death and Birth of a Party The last weekend taw the apparent demise of one radical political party and the birth of another. The two events were not unconnected. The act of public harikari...
...It did believe in sudden violent overthrow, as the Trotskyites, and various othre sectarian splinter groups, still do...
...The war, naturally, changed the picture, but by 1924 Robert M. LaFollete and the Farmer-Labor Party were able to boast of 5,000,000 votes...
...For more than 15' years, then, we had in this country a political group bidding for votes on the strength of the proposal to destroy oar form of society and institute the dictatorship of the proletariat Whether it was Marxian or not, sincere or hot, is beeide the point...
...The American political stage is now cleared for now developments...
...The Communists are threatening now to capture the California State Democratic Organization...
...It called for the complete, immediate and violent abolition of capitalism...
...It had all the prestige which a clever propaganda machine could build up around Russia's great experiment...
...The way seems to be clear for the new Liberal Party...
...But it was only after the great events hi Russia that ths men and women of this group were able to split the Socialist Party and to forge their own political instrument...
...It never at any time had a vote which approached that registered by the Socialist Party 40 y»»r» ago...
...It is true that the communists now have control of the American Labor Party...
...They have Bade deep inroads with the help of the CIO Political Action Committee...
...It was the expression of ultra-radicalism...
...The point is that it was ultra-revolutionary...
...Thus the Socialist Party was justified by its fruits...
...Rath bone rose to prominence on the creet of the CIO wave in 198* as head of the Communist-dominated Ship Radio Telegraphers Union...
...Nevertheless, Rathbone will sit in the Democratic National Convention as a delegate from the Democratic Party of Calimam...
...and when, as it happens, there is a switch of political allegiance, it is an honest switch, a clemi break with the old man and an open allegiance to the new...
...WASHINGTON, D. C—Last week the Liberal Party convention in New York wrote into its rules a proviso barring membership to Nasis, Fascists, Communists aad all other totalitarian* by whatever name they might call themselves...
...Everyone knows that no matter how they twist and turn they remain forever the same—subordinating American to Russian interests...
...And, so, forward-looking leaders of the Democratic Party are wishing they could find some way, as the literal Party did, to bar entrance to the Communists, ft is pointed out, however, by legal experts in the Democratic Party, t h a t democracy anfortanately is net ««• II-equipped to deal efficiently with such unprincipled political rogues as the Communists...
...Like Dr...
...In reality we have had communists with us almost from the beginning of the Marxist movement...
...The Stalinists are a foreign element in the American political system...
...Capital Comment By JONATHAN STOUT Will Communists Infiltrate the Democratic Party...
...It may be able to gather into one fold, behind one banner and one set of principles, all those who are genuinely progressive, all those who want to go forward in a sane and realistic way...
...They believe that, having...
...For much of the humane legislation which has been written into the statute books, from Wilson to Roosevelt, constituted the "immediate demands" for which Socialists pioneered...
...They are aware that under the cloak of the CIO Political Action Committee the Communists are infiltrating into key spots m the Democratic Party organizations in many States...
...In that same year the Bull Moose Party gathered in millions of discontented citisens who were ready for radical political measures...
...Some of the more intelligent leadership of the Demoeratic Party is of the opinion that dissolution of the Communist Party, as such, has as its ultimate objective the capture of the Democratic Party machinery, as in C (JONATHAN STOUT CONTINUID) tut of the ALP...
...That lesson has not been lost on Democratic Purty leaders...
...By the year 1912 the Socialist Party garnered 6 per cent of the national vote...
...During the thirties these were, of course, siphoned off into President Roosevelt's New Deal following...
...The history of radical political movements in this country is one of apparent futility but actual achievement...
...From that year, also, dates the real beginning of the socialist movement as a going political concern...
...Another reason is the quent ion raised hy the dieseUtioa last week of the Commanist Party as an open political party...
...The need of important social progress is now more dramatically evident than ever...
...This week that clause has been the subject of earnest conversation in high Democratic Party circles here...
...Politically it enjoyed the powerful advantage el being backed by Russia...
...They rebelled the manner in which th"e Communists captured -the American Labor Party in New York State...
...It is their opinion that as soon us possible IBCommunists intend to merge the ALP into the New Terk State Democratic Organisation, using the ALP u tat coin of their entry fee to posts of power...
...To its propagandists all reforms, including those of Roosevelt, were capitalist tricks designed to weld more securely the chains of exploitation on the limbs of the toiling worker...
...The question that is troubling some Democratic Party leaders who are cocking an Intelligent eye at the future is: How many more Rathbones will there h» at the Democratic Convention ? • • * Democrats Worried by Communists IT'S the political portent for the succeeding years that is giving them pause for thought...
...The act of public harikari on the part of the communists marks the verbal abandonment of a political method...
...Ultra-radicalism had failed to gather a political following of any decisive importance...
...The Communists are like typhoid germs...
...John L. Lewis was the "Typhoid Mary" who loosed the full fury of the infection on the American Labor Movement...
...But their touch is always a touch of death...
...They are political thieves who steal by night and by subterfege into the political homes of other folk . . . and promptly set a p light housekeeping...
...That of 1924 went into the making of the New Deal...
...Maybe—just maybe— the new party can do the great task that needs doing...
...Therefore, it was stated, such membership clauses as that written by the Liberal Party and sighed-after by the Democratic Party, break down in practical effect because here is nothing to prevent the Communists from registering at the polls as members of whatever party they are planning to burglarise arid to vote in that party's primaries...
...The astounding fact is that this party, with all of the its special advantages and led by vigorous and resourceful men, could never gain a large following...
...Those with short memories may not readily recall what this party.was up to 1935...
...They are marauding free-booters who have no standards, of their own, no honest identity with which to fare the world...
...That has quickened certain National Party officials to the nature of the danger...
...What party will win their faith and their votes...
...In the old-fashioned ways of honest American democracy, Republicans are Republicans and Democrats are Democrats...
...The formation of the Liberal Party indicates an effort to rather all genuinely progressive citisens into a party of a diametrically opposite sort...
...Thus history repeated itself...
...But the Liberal Party starts with a magnificent program and with a leadership that inspires faith...
...tasted | | a r y in the minor leagues of the ALP, the CommuHm ere now after bigger game in the major leagues Bfce two dominant parties...
...The Wilsonian reform movements evaporated in World War I. It is not, unlikely that the New Deal will fail to survive World War II...
...At every convention of the Socialist Party there was a militant minority which contended vociferously that the only thing to do with the capitalist system was to destroy it root and branch...
...They foresee the meed of it...
...They are convinced that jlKDemmuniats do not intend to maintain the ALP a i •Kamnent Third Party, nor to expand it beyond New mB State...
...that there was a time when one Marcantonio—or a dozen Marcantonios—did not dijstuib the leaders of the ALP...
...How shall these men and women be marshalled...
...they need a "Typhoid Mary" to carry the infection...
...without convenient "carriers" they nejfer would have graduated beyond Union Square...
...The number of voters alive to the need of change must exceed that on any previous period...
...Om of the reasons is typiled by the election of Mervya Rathbone of San Fran. cttce as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention...
...Belt* Dodd of the Communist-dominated Teachers Union In New York City, who last week publicly annouaced she was joining the new Communist Political-Association although previously sha had always refused to admit Communist affiliation, Rathbone never ha> publicly admitted membership in the Communist Party, despite all the sworn evidence to that affect .There is as much doubt about Rathbone being a Communist as there is about Bella Dodd...
...The ALP'under their ausices must fail as have all of their other political ventures...
...It is an error to suppose that the party with these principles was exclusively the result of the Russian Revolution...
...The Socialist Party has since then been able to salvage only a fraction of the discontent and readiness for change registered in the LaFollette vote...
...The year 1900 marked the coming of age of our big business structure...
...It did not believe in gradual reforms...
...The discontent of 1912 was crystallized in President Wilson's program of reforms...
...Seme Democratic Party leader* would like to have a similar membership qaalifleaUoa...
...When, the other day, this party bowed itself off the political stage—verbally at least—it had nothing but a reoord of political failuri behind it...
...How does the Communist Party fit into this history of more than 40 years...
...Later this union got a foothold on kind through an organisational campaign in the Postal Telegraph System and emerged as the American Communications Association, CIO...
...just as today Sidney Hillman is the "Typhoid Mary" who is spreading the infection from the minor leagues of a Third Party Movement in the major leagues of the Democratic Party...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 22
