Libera! Vote Will Speed Nat'l Realignments
DUBINSKY, DAVID
Libera! Vote Will Speed Nat'l Realignments Dubinsky Sees New Progressive Movements Emerging in Postwar Era By David Dubinsky -A<5 the campaign drawi to a clone, it appear* quit* certain that...
...For labor this means—jobs, work standards, living conditions, reconversion, adjustment of veterans to civilian life—and for thia the organized workers need Roosevelt, they need the progressive mind and hand of the architect of the New Deal, not the deadening hand of the Tories who art sponsoring and promoting Mr...
...And while it is true that we still had millions of unemployed in 1939—that Hoover heritage—before the wartime economy absorbed all the jobless in America, there is this essential difference we cannot forget: under the, Roosevelt New Deal Administration we had no Hoover breadlines and no apple-selling on street corners by the jobless—we had unemployment benefits, public works and other social measures to help the jobless people in their plight...
...So I repeat my appeal to you, vote for Roosevelt, Truman and Wagner on the Liberal Party line...
...Francis Boltpn...
...With figures still incomplete, Seattle had qualified in 308,865 voters at against 271,504 in 1940...
...A big vote for the Liberal Party will help not only in electing President Roosevelt and Senator Truman, it will do a great deal more...
...When you vote for them on Row F you will make your vote count twice—because you vote for them on the Liberal Party line will help not only their election, it will help to establish on a permanent basis a practical political movement dedicated to the preservation and extension of liberal and progressive government in America...
...Fight years ago we helped in the formation of the American Labor Party to achieve such a merging of labor and liberal forces for political action...
...That is an amazing claim from the party of Sewall Avery, Krnest T. Weir, Eddie Rickenbacker, Tom Girdler and Joe Pew—all sworn enemies of free organized labor...
...The Republican Party platforms, to be sure, have always been generous in words and just as stingy i n performances...
...The four article* on the political scene in California, Michigan, Ohio and New York have not followed the conventional reports on regional politics...
...f * "Til K Republican Party platform this year claims that it is "the historical champion of free labor...
...Even the Chicago Tribune editorially advised the Republican Party that tht new crop of votert must be considered pro-Roosevelt and that the servicemen's vote will be largely Democratic...
...Ohio's PAC, refuting the desperate charge of Dewey's speech writers that PAC is nothing more than an appendage of the Democratic Party, endorsed three Republicans, including two incumbent Congressmen, Rep...
...Murray Everett is a staff writer on The New leader...
...George Bender and Rep...
...He is intimately acquainted with the labor movement of America, and his story of PAC here hat been gathered first-hand...
...Stephen Hill it the pseudonym of a veteran newswriter...
...J. C. Rich is the editor of The Hat Worker, His crisp, pungent style of writing has earned him the sobriquet of the "left-wing Pegler...
...He points out that tome ational realignment mutt emerge after the war, and that a strong Liberal Party vote in New York will help to bring about that realignment...
...earnings of five, eight and ten dollars a week for millions of working people, with present wage scales guaranteed through collective bargaining and law from which even unorganized Wokers benefit in all American industry...
...President Roosevelt is holding the Democratic Party together by the sheer force of his personality...
...In the Coolidge-Hoover •period the trade unions were oppressed by injunctions, by police and court persecutions...
...Similarly, John L. Lewis' miners will vote en masse for Dewey, another influential paper predicts, forgetting conveniently that •Lewis supported Willkie in 1940, but the miners voted overwhelmingly Roosevelt...
...At itt head are independent liberals, trade unionists, butinessmen tnd professionals, all working for a postwar America when there shall be no poverty or insecurity...
...Not even Dewey or Sticker dared declare that they would attempt to destroy the New Deal legislation...
...Instead, they proclaim they are ready to adopt the great Rooaevelt reform...
...We believe, however, that the New Deal is much safer in the hand* of it* parents...
...unlimited hours of labor, with fixed work hours under contractual relations with employers...
...Thia party is owned by no one, and it owet no favors...
...Although no final coast-to-coast tabulation has been made (several states have not completed registration yet), experts believe that a sizable soldiers' vote will swell the total of eligible voters well over the record-breaking 1940 figure, r-** • » • New York City registration soared more than 200,000 over the record registration of 1940, with PAC and AFL pro-Roosevelt groups putting on a high-powered registration campaign that made the old-line Tammany vote-herders blink in amazement.- Chicago easily surpassed its 1940 registration total of 2,282,487...
...Tho.sk trade unionists who, like myself, are interested in independent political action, believe that labor needs the close cooperation of all independent ritixena— of the liberal group* in the middle rlaases, progressive-minded businessmen, farmers as well a* professionals— in this all-important atruggle to preserve a liberal and progressive America...
...We have been interested in the role of labor in theae areas, and the poasibilities of postwar labor activity...
...i \ * *» Eastern Republican newspapers, grasping at straws, are attempting to turn every labor tore spot into a turmoil of Roosevelt disaffection...
...The trade union movement was looked upon a* something unrelated to the mainstream of American life...
...The, railway unions criticized Roosevelt for his handling of...
...Republican promisee and Republican flattery of labor in the 1944 campaign have as much substance as their promises in the Harding and Hoover campaign platforms...
...What the millions of men and women belonging to the trade unions remember is that twelve years ago when Roosevelt was first elected, our country was in the midst of the most devastating economic depression in our history...
...They said in 1920, "We recognize the justice of collective bargaining," and then, H a r-ding's Attorney General, Harry M. Daugherty, proceeded to smash the railroad shopmen's strike by i n j u n e-imns...
...We have tried to maintain a balance amid the usual campaign oratory and present the is sues as fairly and cleanjy as we could...
...Dewey, the Tribune reported, received 112 per cent of the vote as against 45 per cent given to Wendell Willkie at the same place in 1940...
...The Republican Party, by it* treatment of the late Wendell Willkie, has demonstrated that it hat neither room nor use for liberal policy or liberal leadership...
...One chain of papers, in an orgy of wishful thinking, finds the Steelworkers turning against Roosevelt because the Little Steel formula has not been junked...
...To those who are trying Ut make some capital - out of the fact that organised labor-has, on occasion differed sharply with the Roosevelt Administration, our reply is (hat while organised labor, en the whole, has given its hearty support to President Roosevelt, it has never given the Democratic Administration a blank check of allegiance withoat reserving for itself the right to criticize or object...
...We remember and we compare organized labor's status in 1932 with its status in 1944...
...For the coming postwar years, by general admission, will be crucial for America and for the world...
...Nathaniel Coleman ia a CIO official in Ohio, Willard Martinsen haa been an educational director for the UAW, and Mary Martinson ia state secretary of the Michigan Commonwealth Federation, whose activities are described in the report...
...We compare Hoovervillea With planned housing...
...In New York, therefore, this urgency to meet tht needs of our timet has found expression in the forms-tion of the Liberal Party...
...7 national elections...
...The New Leader supports Roosevelt—certainly it would be a naion»l calamity if Mr...
...In the Hoover campaign, they also favored "freedom in wage contracts," which worked out to be freedom 'for employers to cut wages below the stsrvation point...
...The Fortune Magazine poll, found more accurate in the past than any of the others, including Gallup, gave Dewey 44 per cent of the vote in the pivotal State of Pennsylvania...
...In 1932, the labor movement had dwindled to less than three million members...
...Vote Will Speed Nat'l Realignments Dubinsky Sees New Progressive Movements Emerging in Postwar Era By David Dubinsky -A<5 the campaign drawi to a clone, it appear* quit* certain that working America ia aa definitely determined to preserve and to expand the New Deal al it i* to re-elect the man who initiated it and championed it President Roosevelt...
...Election Round-up This issue of The New Leader, appearing on November 4, is largely devoted to election affairs...
...Carter Good it a labor official on the West Coast...
...In Boston, Springfield, Worcester, New Bedford and other industrial New England cities, regittrationt are expected to hit new all-time highs...
...And, realizing this, and appreciating the force* President Roosevelt ia compelled to contend with, our admiration for him increases and the urgency for retaining him in office for the next four years becomes even grester...
...No daily paper headlines appeared when George M. Harrison and other RRB leaders endorsed the fourth te*m...
...Ohio's total has exceeded its 1940 mark, while startling registration increases were recorded in the Pacific Northwest...
...A big vote for the Liberal Party will also serve as a signal to all trade unionists, liberals and progressives all over the country to organize their forces and to assume their rightful place in the alignment of political strength everywhere...
...Collective bargaining in most of the basic industries of our land was practically outlawed...
...Organized labor has no faith in Republican election promises...
...Spokane and Tacoma have left the FDR-Willkie totals far behind...
...the railway wage controversy, and that made headlines to the effept that the Brotherhoods would vote against him...
...Dewey...
...It will help to re-elect Senator Wagner, the President's closest associate in sponsoring the most important New Deal acts...
...It ia no secret ti all those who are watching the American political scene that a new alignment of political factors is aot far off...
...In all candor, the trade union movement has never failed in it-ali/* that the President stands head and shoulders above his party in liberalism and that it is his personal influence which Is the most dominant factor in American life and American progress today...
...To i», of the labor movement, the New Deal is something very definite and concrete^The great body of social and labor legialation which has been enacted under Roosevelt in the past twelve years has come to stay...
...Regrettably, however, the ALP today is the instrument of the Communists who, after they had dissolved their own party, made sure during the last primary election to capture the ALP...
...And while it is true that there are some non-Communists in the ALP, the party remains under the influence of the Communists...
...Mr...
...Dubinsky't article in this issue is an ini ortant statement from one of America's leading iogres.live labor leaders...
...Dubinsky in lis article obtervet about the hard-headed sections f labor, given a blank check to the Democratic kdministration...
...It would be tolly to entrust the administration or expansion of the New Deal to the party which bitterly opposed and fought it from the day of its origin...
...Political Crosscurrents WASHINGTON (LPA).—Reports\om all over the nation reveal record-breaking registration for the Nov...
...A Chicago Tribune poll likewise found that the GOP wat "lagging in the Negro wards," with a sample poll in the heaviest Negro ward showing 228 for Roosevelt and lo8 jot Dewey...
...Dewey were elected—yet, at pro-labor paper, we have not, at Mr...
Vol. 27 • November 1944 • No. 45
