A New Liberal Party Is Born

...We are also confronted by grave and urgent problems of domestic readjustment...

...This reconstruction should be guided by and committed to the attainment of the following purpeses: The unrestricted use of science and technology ia the public interest...

...Gannett and Pettengill, Sabath and Patman told the House, are collecting "enormous sums of money under the pretense they will slip through the so-called 'millionaire's' amendment to the Constitution, reducing the taxes of the rich and shifting the burden to the backs of average Americans...

...Significant as these figures are, they do not disclose what the common people have suffered because of this unprecedented concentration of economic wealth, income and power...

...The progressive release of the productive energies of the nation...

...Our fag, ductive capacity can provide better homes, bets*) food and clothing, more adequate medical care, ftaej communities, and richer education and cultural opportunities for alL • » • Of/R party is resolved to maintain during timet of peace tat* level of production and employment ackiovoi to wage spar...

...We know that the interests which seek to preserve feudal power and privilege in industry and agriculture, cannot be trusted to achieve an economy of abundance...

...Fascism is a movement dominated by evil men...

...Those who are seeking to turn our country back to the economic royalists, will not give the millicns of our demobilized soldiers and war workers a square deal once the war is won...

...We know that to accomplish this supreme aim grave difficulties must be overcome, but we' also know that our country is in a position of strategic power...

...The livelihood of each of us is now dependent upon the continued functioning of this huge industrial system...

...We have so finished blueprint for a Utopian future...

...We shall oppose all unilateral and imperialistic tendencies either by our own country, or by any nation with which we are associated...

...i - "Most Sinister Lobby in History ...for Tax Grab" WASHINGTON, D. C—Wealthy Americans, operating through "the most sordid and sinister lobby that has ever been organized in the history of the United States," were accused in the House of plotting to set up a Fascist government The accusation was hurled by Congressman Adolph Sabath (Dem., 111...

...of Americans would become virtually slaves of a handful of millionaires...

...is one notable example...

...We are convinced that the American people are ready to support our government in whatever steps are necessary to supplant the ways of war with the ways of peace...

...This remarkable record calls for a revision of all previous estimates of what is possible anil desirable...

...We demand therefore that every resource of our country be used to develop a genuine system of international security at the close of this war...

...These are the roads to more wars, not peace...

...Our party believes that once the war is over America will have to undertake a drastic program of domestic reconstruction...

...Neither of the major American political parties can lead in this dusl task of reconstruction...

...The reduction of inequalities in income...

...The new Liberal Party will be controlled in these matters by a policy of democratic realism...

...The growing lack of faith in the integrity of these parties—marked aa they are by fundamental cleavages and inner con•iets—is a primary source cf the uncertainty, pessimism, and even cynicism about the possibility of winning the peace...

...Witness the building of canals, the government support of railroads, the provision of public services, the conservation of natural resources, the new housing projects, the various agricultural programs, and the power projects of which the TV.A...

...We shall strive to develop from the agency of the United Nations a lasting system of world-order...

...The task of reconstructing our civilization so as to eliminate them is the supreme responsibility of our generation...

...America is bound to play a crucial role in this task...

...Furthermore," he added, "there will be no old age pensions and no social security of any nature...

...Labor i« one of a few papers that has exposed the raid...

...The much greater loss conies from the failure to produce that which could have been available in goods and services had our economy been controlled so as to maintain a high level of productibn and employment...

...Those ¦who regard political parties primarily as means to sttain private or narrow group advantage, will not develop statesmanlike programs capable of resolving either domestic or foreign problems...

...Our party must help our nation develop a new foreign policy...

...To achieve this, the progressive forces of America heed a new political party as their organ of expression and action...

...The guarantee to the worker of the rights and freedoms of his job...

...Neither nationalist expansion nor a power-alliance with other nations will give us security...

...Any other course will mean periodic economic paralysis, mas* unemployment, lowered standard* of living, undernourished children snd youth, inadequate health service*, reduced educational opportunities, the growth of alum conditions in city and country, the spread of a mood of fear, anxiety and despair, and the embitterment of class, racial, religious and sectional relationships...

...The abolition of poverty and depressed areas in both city and country...

...We know of no other means sdequate to meet the demands of this fateful period...

...This can be accomplished if the democratic forces of city and country organise to support a program to cure the disorders from which we now suffer...

...W* offer instead a balanced program to meet current issue* and to solve fundamental problems...

...We believe that bold initiative on our part right now might prove to be the decisive factor in converting the war-time' coalition of the United Nations into an agency for lasting world-order...

...The amendment repeals the 16th Amendment, providing for income taxes, and substitutes a provision which limits the amount of tax that may be assessed against incomes, inheritances, gifts and estates, to not more than 25 per cem...

...The plain fact is that many of the factors which now condition our livelihood can no longer be controlled by individuals, by families, by locslities, or even by state and regional agencies...

...We believe that it is a mistake to assume that public planning and free enterprise are antagonistic or mutually exclusive...

...The maintenance of civil and political liberties for all, regardless of race, color, or creed...

...The reduction ef the concentration of economic power...

...It is now clear that America cannot v ithdraw from the interdependent world which modern technology has built...

...That struggle will not end with the defeat of the Fascist powers...

...In the short space of three years, notwithstanding the fact that over ten million of our most productive workers were withdrawn for service in the armed forces, we have increased the total proprod net ive facilities of our nation by nearly one-half, and have also doubled the total national income...

...W* affirm in the light of the history of the last twenty-five years that these processes constitute the only trustworthy and tolerable road to, the future...

...Entrenched in both major parties, these forces of privilege, of race-prejudice, and of patronage, are daily becoming more aggressive and intolerant...

...The conservation and rational ase of natural resources...

...The promotion of conditions favorable to small business...

...The extension of hearth, educational and cultural services to all...

...The two cceans no longer afford us national security...

...We invite all liberal-minded citizens, regardless of occupation or previous party affiliation, to join with us to forge this new political instrument—a party which will give the leadership of our country to those who really believe that world security, lasting peace, and full employment are goals that can and must be achieved in our time...

...Our convention, launching the Liberal Party of New York State, is a first step in the development of such a national liberal party...

...Under it, a taxpayer with a million-dollar income, who now pays around $800,000, would save about 1550,000, while a worker with a $2,000 income who now pays about $175, might be compelled to pay as much as $500, Sixteen states have already adopted resolutions asking Congress to 3ubmit the amendment to a constitutional convention...

...Spearheading the drive, they said, is an organization set up by Frank Gannett, multi-millionaire newspaper publisher, and Samuel Pettengill, once an anti-labor, pro-corporation Democratic member of the House...

...The last two decades have shown how insecure and precarious life for the common man has become in this new industrial America...

...The interests of our people now require sustained initiative on both of these fronts...

...The protection of legitimate private enterprise from monopolistic encroachment...

...Million...

...It is hiring people to run for office, promising to support them through liberal campaign contributions, and it has plenty of money to assist anybody who will support its Fascist program and turn the country over to the rich...

...Never again can our country return to the so-called "good old days of isolationism...

...In the year the depression began, one-tenth of one per cent of the families at the top received practically as much as forty-two per cent of the families st the bottom of the scsle...

...Since the turn of the century, a vast centralization in private control has been taking place in our economy, accompanied by a concentration of income...

...At the close of the war we will be in a position of unique power...

...The record of the war has demonstrated how great this loss has been...

...This program ia based not on a sterile, rigid attachment to dogma but on practical experienc, warm sympathy with humanity, and a desire to see a better world...

...But these men attained their power through exploiting deep economic, social and political disorders...

...Our whole national history demonstrates that the development of public enterprise in appropriate spheres may be the friend, not the enemy, of legitimate private enterprise...

...The frontier with its free land has gone from Ajmerican life...

...The maintenance ef the rights of workers to join free and independent trade anions, and to bargain collectively...

...Patman declared: "The lobby promoting this sinister proposal has been going all over the United States, collecting tremendous sums of money...

...War itself has been revolutionized by $eientifie developments...

...If the "sinister" effort succeeds, Patman warned, relief to veterans and their widows will stop, for "there will not be a penny to take care of men who lost their eyes, arms and legs and are permanently disabled...

...The hold of these minority reactionary groups on the political affairs of our nation must be broken...

...Our earlier agrarian civilization, with Its simplicities, its democratic safeguards, its self-sufficient farms, its independent rural neighborhoods and its small business enterprises has been superseded by vast complex of industrial relationships and institutions which are literally national and international in scope...

...The campaign has been waged so quietly that it has almost escaped attention...

...oldest member of the chamber in point of service, and Congressman Wright Patman (Dem., Texas), and carried in an issue of Labor, the Railway Brotherhood paper...

...We recognize the crucial role the United Nations, and particularly the four leading partners— Britain, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States—must take in the organizaiton of the post-war world...

...They are attacking the rights of organized labor, economic justice to small farm-owners and share-croppers, equal treatment of races, and every proposal or agency for the democratic, planned use of our nation's natural ajid industrial resources...

...We believe that without the continuing cooperation of the Federal Government and the great functional groups—business, labor, agriculture, and the professions—this need cannot be satisfactorily met...

...In its jrganization, its controls, its policies and its practices our new Liberal Party will be wholeheartedly devoted to the principles of democracy...

...These disorders still exist...

...We reject the defeatism of those who assert that we cannot achieve these far-reaching reconstructions in our modes cf living by peaceful, educational, and democratic political and economic processes...

...Forces now struggling to maintain the white man's supremacy in our own country, will not pioneer in efforts to get rid of the imperialism of the white man in world affairs...

...The task of developing the national arrangements by which these complex means of production and distribution csn be controlled in the interest cf all is now our supreme domestic problem...

...As the foregoing goals ipdicate, our party will be committed to democracy as both moral end and social...

...No matter where it begins, it spreads its disturbance over the lives of everyone, everywhere...

...Of one thing we msy be sure: international and domestic affairs are so inter-related they cannot be successfully treated separately...

...The future of the world will be conditioned for generstions by the manner in which this power is exercised...

...The achievement of full employment...