WHY I AM A SOCIALIST
w h y i am a SOCIALIST 'Jke Princeton Alumni Weekly," i few weeks before he nas nominaj,-d for tit,- presidency, asked tftrmen Thomas to tell why he is i Socialist. Mr. Thomas complied raith...
...Today it has been estimated that each of us Americans has the equivalent of the labor of more than thirty staves In the energy of steam, elecmcity and internal combustion engines...
...lot this be proclaimed loudly and clearly in the United States on May Day of tola presidential year...
...Socialism would end the monstrous and absurd injustice under which generations of men and women can live in luxury without useful labor of any sort because they are wise enough to pick an ancestor who in his day had been clever enough to pick, let us say, a farm in New York City on or near which some six million people now have to live...
...We need to oppose the rather shabby capitalist religion of Babbitt and the Rotary Clubs with a higher religion of Intelligent ^operation in the use of the world's vealth for the abolition of poverty and war and the realization of freedom and brotherhood...
...the waste of the protural resources, without a profound modification of our system of private ownership of basic resources and their operation for private profit...
...This does not mean that most Socialists are complete pacifists...
...Science displaces our need of sole reliance upon nature's supply of many things...
...No April 31 can prevent the First of May affirming the united interests of the wortaem of she whole world against capitalist exploitation...
...We are so callous, so indifferent to our social responsibilities that we do not have adequate figures whereby we can check up unemployment in dull times like the present...
...What do the Socialists propose to do about this situation...
...The" "terrible" Italian strikes did not cause the loss of one-tenth as many work-days as did the British miners' lockout of 1925...
...But while in America it is a question of excessive individualism in the development Of the youngest of all civilized countries, in Italy, on the contrary, it is a question of the throttling of individualism by a band of Pretorians—or, if you prefer, of Pinkertons...
...fjaB, even in an age of confessional literature, of tabloid psychologists and Hybo-anaJytic biographers, I must disappoint the Editor, the readers, and a possibly palpitant psychological department of the University by acknowledgty my Inability to reveal those hidden springs of action which turned a more or hss reputable clergyman into a Socialist...
...The first is pobecause it gives men an excuse for •moying whatsoever advantages they may ' 10 a day when to read the Amt**0 Mercury is the mark of member™* m the modern intelligentsia it is ^ no kmger fashionable to affirm that^hto Is the best of possible worlds...
...Labor saving machines crowd one another in their appearance on the industrial field...
...The First of May cans out to aU-the workers across frontiers guarded by armies and by diplomacy...
...What misleads Americans is the purely external resemblance between the savagery of the Italian reaction and the harshness of American social struggles...
...His right will rest on use and not on a title deed...
...Even worse than the suffering earned by routine conditions of poverty is the misery of insecurity due to unemployment and old age...
...No one has yet shown bow we can eliminate the waste if idle men...
...By C. E. Modigliani IT IS almost a "crime1 against the * state" that you are inciting, comrades of the New Leader, when you invite an Italian Socialist to participate with you in the celebration of the First of May...
...Fascism Is therefore the enemy both of modern capitalism and of Socialism—the two great social forces of our age...
...And those who are sequestered in Italy listen eagerly with heart and spirit to catch the echo of the proletarian demonstrations in the Old World and the New...
...Fascism aims to sat its class nationalism in dramatic opposition to proletarian internationalism...
...The energy thus available for the work of men is increasing by leaps and bounds...
...When, therefore...
...However jasch we may differ on many things we tksll probably agree that only today or yesterday at the earliest, after the long Millenniums of man's life on this planet has he acquired the technical skill, the sommand over the forces of nature, the physical power to produce enough and to spare for all his children upon the owe of the earth...
...The regimentation of ideas thru a property-controlled press and the economic fear under which most workers live, whether they wear overalls or white collars, makes real freedom an almost non-existent commodity...
...Socialism...
...As for old age, the estimate that one-third of the population sixty-five years old and upwards is dependent upon some form of charity in prosperous America suggests that for the workers the evening of life has a terror past any eloquence of a Cicero or a Browning to assuage...
...is a movement of men, not of supermen...
...ready to adopt a they rough-going Socialist philosophy believing thai such a party must more.' if Mr...
...The Italian railways were running very badly...
...A still more dreadful indictment of our existing institutions is the constant menace of war inherent in that union of capitalism and nationalism which brings forth imperialism andl out of imperialistic rivalry war itself...
...This is characteristic of the two parties which fight only for office...
...Nevertheless there is a great deal to be learned from the Russian experiment—a great deal, I believe, that is encouraging...
...Socialism as an organized movement here and abroad to a movement of men, not of supermen...
...To give a blunt answer to the question wherewith this article begins, I am a Socialist because in our modern world it Kens to me that Socialism affords our , bast hope of utilizing our immense re- I (purees of material and skill so as to | I abolish poverty and the terrible insecu- j 'dty of the workers, reduce the menace of war, and increase the measure of freedom and fraternity in our world...
...hi other words, the old excuse of the classical philosophers for human slav«7 no longer exists...
...It will advocate lower tariffs for International as well as national reasons...
...The Brotherhood of Man is still a dream far in the distance...
...Only in Fascist Italy does the state, in Ua tyrannical "militarism" try to prohibit the workers of city and country from associating themselves with those of other lands on this day of the universal communion of Labor...
...Nevertheless there is a sense in which we can describe the capitalist system as characterised by an emphasis upon private ownership of property for power and the operation of that ownership for the profit of the owners...
...The new attitude of the United States toward foreign problems, the shifting emphasis on the relative Importance of "liberty" and "law and order" in the territories of our neighbors, our repeated military intervention in the Caribbean countries, in short, our general imperialism, is due to the fact that we are today a creditor nation bushy engaged in the guest of markets for goods, sources of supply for the Investment capital which piles up in the hands of relatively few people at a ttane when the many cannot buy enough to maintain a proper standard of comfort...
...The senior Senator from New York was once the Republican Mayor of Ann Arbor, Michigan He is now the Democratic Senator from New York and all he ever changed was bis address...
...It is quite true that the problem of the relation Of the Individual to society wQl not fee automatically solved by Socialism...
...The reliance of Socialism is upon the working class, not because of peculiar virtues possessed by the working class but because it is peculiarly in its interest to end exploitation and waste...
...And alas...
...There were no more disorders in Italy after the war than there were in Germany at the same period...
...The voice which comes to them from afar is to them a comforting and Joyous promise of emancipation, which fills their souls with new hope...
...They do not desire that imperialism" out of which war arises...
...They welcome all those who will honestly strive for Socialist...
...Serious Problems of Unemployment and Old Age Those of you who have had the patience to follow me thus far will not demand of me that I take much space to prove how much tragic poverty still persists among us...
...It means that they are profoundly anxious to avert the wholesale madness of war with its Incalculable consequences...
...They like to think of Socialism as the aiternattive to the imperialist wars which capitalism left to itself inevitably brings forth...
...B is applied to machinery of marvellous ingenuity...
...If they must fight at all they prefer, If possible, to fight In defense of rights otherwise won against the counter revolutionary violence of a class unwilling to be dispossessed by any process whatsoever...
...MAY DAY GREETING By William Kohn YJfE live in the greatest period of the Machine Age aad on this May Day, celebrated by a large group of workers as the universal day of International solidarity and hope, we can do no better than to take stock...
...In free itates the social consciousness of all the various groupings can find expression without conflict and without ostracism...
...it to a backward movement of capitalism toward all .that it baa formerly had to get rid of in order to flourish...
...But within the country...
...Indeed, we American BwcuUkua tat wintag, to throw in our lot with a labor parts, even before It la...
...That pressure *>es not exist today if the world is token as a unit, and the decline of the "birth rate and the increasing knowledge of sdentifio birth control gives some hope that this ultimate danger may be avoided...
...Let us begin by examining the situation in which we find ourself...
...3. It will urge social Insurance against unemployment and old age, not only for humanitarian reasons but as a condition of effective labor organization...
...Fascism flatters itself that by arbitrary decrees it can conquer a'movement which has its roots In the very nature of capitalist society—a movement which, growing out of and standing in opposition to international capitalism, comprehends the highest and most universal ideals of humanity: Justice,- Peace, Liberty...
...The principle to be followed here is that which J. A. Hdbson has ably expounded...
...The means by 'which Socialists hope to make progress Include the organisation of labor industrially through labor unions, of the power of consumers thru consumers cooperatives and of citizens thru a labor party...
...the waste of the production of "tilth" rather than wealth, the waste of uncoordinated industry, the waste of idle men...
...Socialists unlike single taxers object not merely to economic dynasties founded on ownership of land and natural resources but to similar dynasties founded on the ownership of stocks and bonds passed from generation to generation by inheritance...
...But, back of this picture, we still must face the lack of progress m the field of humane activity...
...Even the occupation of factories never had a revolutionary character...
...But the brigands who were commissioned to carry out this suppression, refused to lay down their arms after "order was restored...
...In the best of tunes there is a reserve of one million unemployed in the United States...
...world-wide fellowship instead of expoitatlon and strife...
...There is truth in the argument...
...By Norman Thomas (Socialist Candidate for President) QtMB years ago the esteemed Prince9 Ionian, if memory serves me, refer0ft to me as "Princeton's most dlstingg^hed Socialist...
...Importance of Averting War Reflections upon the World War, moreover, and upon the even more disastrous consequences of new world war have made most Socialists aware of the supreme importance of averting such disaster...
...rnqvea at aO, b> the direction in which Socialists would go...
...through and through...
...These failures of our civilization in spite of its tremendous mechanical competence are, I repeat, the natural consequence of the economic principles and their corresponding ethical ideas on which we operate...
...Fascism opposes aU this...
...Hoover's estimate of an average annual wage for American workers of $1,280 is not only insufficient on the average to maintain the minimum budgets of health and decency which have been set forth by various authorities, but implies a tragic amount of suffering for the large group below this average...
...Lack of space must again excuse dogmatic assertion...
...NORMAN THOMAS Exiled Leaders of Italian Soeialism Make May Day Vows to...
...It to Mr...
...Certainly Ricardo or Adam Smith would not recognize the child of their economic dogmas...
...P« cent receive 40 per cent of the •otal income, while the poorest 26 per receive only 3 1-2 per cent, this state of affairs there are today *•* two possible explanations...
...Gtolittl himself who, a few weeks ago, made statements in the Chamber which conclusively prove (what Mr...
...Nothing in our American Ufa seem to me mora important than the forma-' tJoa of a vigorous labor party...
...As for brotherhood in other than a sentimental Y. M. C. A. sense, that is denied by the very nature of a system based on The good old rule, the ancient plan That he should take who has the power, And he should keep who can...
...But whatever the historic necessity for capitalIsm, it is not today giving men the bread, the security, the peace, the freedom, the brotherhood which they have a right to expect...
...Society compensates him with meager and contemptuous charity...
...From the first dawn of human life, poverty has been principally due to man's imperfect knowledge of natural forces...
...It h possible that the pressure of popula"oa upon food supply may bring about » new age of poverty...
...In place of the First of May, Fascism has decreed that the holiday of labor shall be celebrated on April 21, the fabulous anniversary of the foundation of Rome...
...One our fate on human nature...
...Such are some of the Immediate Issues...
...By this provision...
...To recurring cycles of unemployment due primarily to under-consumptlon (or, if you like, to the Foster-Catchings "dilemma of thrift") we have the present unemployment due to the great increase in the productive efficiency of machinery...
...a the class...
...It must be admitted {gat there is not very heavy competigw...
...Ohio, to have known the gBinent Warren Gamaliel Harding, and Mar to have sat at the feet of Woodnnr Wilson in Princeton Itself, should gave wandered as far from the fold...
...The party it the movement which undertakes it will often falter and fail...
...It will be destroyed by both...
...But was not Italy one of the signers of that convention...
...Socialists in the United States as in England speak of a labor party they do not confine its membership to -industrial or agricultural workers...
...Take, for example, Stuart Chase's brilliant study of "The Tragedy of Waste...
...Each country has its own traditions and its own economic situations...
...but this was due much less to strikes than to the lack of coal, in place of which lignite and even peat was being used...
...The madness of our civilization may arise less from our unalterable biological inheritance than from the system—political and economic—under which we live, a system which lags behind the demands of our interdependent society...
...I do not mean that any considerable class of men deliberately wills war, at least not large scale wars...
...With' all «our ma;'«hlnery and with all the natural energy •tour disposal we do not produce enough *fly to banish poverty even were we to ™fc*ute what we produce by a system *¦* equitable than that under which ¦f**r cent of the receivers of income ob'™ 20 per cent of the national income...
...And have not Italian workers the same right aa all others to demand the eight-hour day...
...A hundred million souls or more listen to the weak voice of mortal man and hear it as distinctly, (barring static) 5,000 miles away as if they were sitting next to the spokesman...
...Here I have space only to remark that this dogma of the incapacity of men to control for social advantage the machinery they have had the wit to create is as unscientific and as yet unproved as the optimistic faith of early radicals in the "infinite perfectabllity" of human nature...
...Brit it is also a fact of history that very valuable sympathy and leadership have been given to the exploited classes down through the ages by men of more favored groups to whom Justice and the ultimate good of Bociety are dearer than any immediate class interest of their own...
...Unemployment stalks through the land with seven league boots, ami bong its victims right and left...
...Turning against these who had hired them the weapons which had been so freely given out, they have seized power and held it, to an ever more oligarchic manner, by an increasing terrorism, following only the suggestions of their own interests as a minority, organized on-military lines and quartered upon the country...
...Men are still trying to justify economic practices by an almost religious faith in, let us say, the "automatic working" of those markets with which they themselves spend many of their working hours rather successfully interfering...
...This does not necessarily mean that no man will have a home that he can call his own...
...Our failure is part of the ethical and humanitarian price exacted by our indivldualisUo capitalism...
...But beyond any immediate program lies tha necessity of a philosophy of life...
...Thomas complied raith the following article, which (itftared in the April 6th issue of the college iecekly...
...The wonders of man's creative ability applied to the gifts of nature, overwhelm us each day with newer and greater inventions and discoveries...
...They are inherent in the system and not excrescences on it...
...Now, as from the very beginning of the machine age, the under-dog pays the bitter cost of these improvements in machinery which in the long run benefit society...
...The class struggle may not be as simple or clear-cut as some Socialist agitators have supposed...
...It is, nevertheless, a fact of history...
...Socialists propose to bring about as rapidly as possible the social ownership o.f land, natural resources and the principal means of production, thereby abolishing the possibility of the existence of any class on an income derived not from work but from ownership...
...Yet how far we are even to "prosperous" America from the abolition of poverty...
...I know that it is customary to attack Socialism as the foe of individual liberty...
...But among other things the Russian experiment, no less than the experience of Socialist parties in Western Europe which have got some degree of power, shows clearly that not even the most cataclysmic revolution can create overnight those habits of mind and that social machinery necessary to the successful functioning of a new social order...
...The religion of nationalism makes It easy to persuade the exploited themselves to fight the battles of the investors whose adventurous dollars have got in trouble abroad...
...Both parUtes belong to the same general set of masters who pay their Mils...
...At the very least wc should not adopt it without further examination into social institutions and ideals...
...This is a system which has played its part In human history—a part nowhere more sincerely eulogised than in the famous Communist Manifesto itself...
...4. It will seek to use taxation to promote social Justice...
...likewise I must disappoint the Department of Economics by telling its learned professors at the very beginning that I shall not furnish them with arguments in behalf of the Marxian theory of value and surplus value and other points of the pure Marxian word for them to attack to the edification of future bond salesmen innocent of flrstlmnd acquaintance with any of Marx's yolnminous...
...Since the notf&ttion of I liamas by the Socialist forty, the journal of the college of iWoodrow H'ilsnn has expressed its "ptide" at the honor done tlie institution by the Socialist Party...
...It needs free struggle, it needs discussion, it needs Individual development, in order to produce better and to consume more...
...It is not modern capitalism...
...What utopianism of reaction I In an free eountrtoa the days consecrated to the nation or to religion can be celebrated without excluding the observance of Labor's day, the First of May...
...Socialism has need of high wages...
...The hope of peaceful and intelligent progress depends in large degree upon increasing the number of these men and women who thus transcend class lines...
...Never, never would the "menaced individualism' 'of the Italian bourgeoisie have led to the complete sweeping away of all organization of labor, of all democratic organisation, even of all Liberal or Catholic organization that did not rally to Fascism, but for the fact that, at the start, the government threw into the balance the weight of its by no means individualistic intervention...
...Nowkere except in the Social' ist movement do I find any heartening answer ia that great challenge of our day and generation: how shall we, men of aR races and nations, forced by development of our . machine civilization into dependence Upon one another, work out our destiny in terms of world-wide fellowship instead of exploitation and strife...
...They think that the rise of Fascism was simply a revolt of bourgeois individualism against the communism which threatened to stifle all freedom of human personality—and that in the country whose whole history has been, so to speak, one great flood of personality, from Romulus down to Marconi.—Well, that formula is false...
...That ¦as all...
...Intelligent Socialists do not expect to reach Utopia by one leap...
...It will sharply Increase inheritance taxes and super-taxes on Income...
...That is why, wherever there are free Italians—emigrants and exiles—they participate with enthusiasm in the celebration of May Day...
...R to a question of repelling the British attack, launched at Geneva, against the Washington Convention...
...For unnumbered genenaoos he wrestled for a living with a capricious and often unfriendly Nature "armed only with the power of his own bands and the muscles of the few animate he had been able to domesticate, •Wed by a Very imperfect utilization of the weight of falling water on primitive mill wheels and of the winds of heaven to sail his boats and turn his mills...
...He would have to look for a free man with a searchlight in our modern age...
...Even the charity of children is no adequate substitute for independence for the man with, perhaps, some years of vigor still before him, but no job and no pension...
...It wishes to suppress the great words of Karl Marx: "Workingmen of all countries, unite...
...By common decision of the International Federation of Trade Unions and the Socialist and Labor International, this May Day of 1028 is specially dedicated to the defence of the eight-hour day...
...All the workers who meet secretly in Italy to observe the First of May do so at the risk of being dragged before the redoubtable Special Tribunal, which guards the "safety" of the state...
...It is our duty to take heart once more in that mission to which the workers of the world are dedicated as the chosen people to make that dream a reality...
...National hatreds and racial prejudices are to be overcome...
...In Socialism as in every great historic movement there are divergencies of opinion and Ideas between Socialists and Communists, principally on the Important question of method and tactics...
...Giolittl was responsible for this initial error—the governmental support of the savage recation of the Italian agrarians, who have that same slaveholder's | mentality with which Lincoln had to deal...
...It will oppose the collection of private debts in weaker nations by the arms of stronger nations...
...Fascism pretends to lift Italy out of its economic crisis by means of wage-cutting and anti-socialism...
...The Socialists" Immediate . Objectives C What we need, what the Socialist Party seeks to supply, is organised disciplined intelligent action in cities, states and nation through a party based consciousy on the interests of the great producing masses...
...SockJtao, as I hope to make it clear, is .qs Infallible panacea, but it does afford our best hope of comparatively peace• fjA progress toward that fellowship of freemen which is the only Utopia worth VaUc Socialism may propose changes ttetaay correctly be called revolutionary.' Yet the more widespread is the acceptance of its point of view, the more lately are we to escape that violence which heretofore has popularly been associated with the notion of revolution...
...Destroy Fascist System By Claudio Treves rJ1HERE are persons who, having seen in some comic paper the figure of Uncle Sam, with his chin whiskers and his stovepipe hat, or the figure of a Neapolitan street arab eating his macaron without a fork, as in Murillo's famous picture, think themselves qualified to form an opinion about Americans or about Italians in general...
...namely, that we should proceed tfc) take over those economic processes in which already the engineer is more important than the enrepreneur...
...In general, however...
...Man today can see with almost equal clearness, the image of a person or an object many hundreds of miles away Alladin's Lamp was productive of no marvels that could equal the wonders we enjoy today...
...3. It will stand for a wider and fuller measure of civil liberty, for the right to organize, for the reform of our judicial procedure which works such graea hardship on the poor and exalts property above life, and especially for tha ' abolition of injunctions in labor disputes...
...Modern capitalism makes a policy of high wages...
...The real social revolution, as Veblen pointed out, will come when engineers and administrators work for society as they now work for absentee owners...
...Salandra had said, much more courageously, almost three years before) that the Italian bourgeoisie made the most colossal fool's bargain in all Italian history, when it let loose the most barbarous invasion that has trodden Italian soil for many centuries...
...You must know that all powerful Fascism was stricken this day out of the Italian civil calendar...
...It would appear that we select residents as we select Jurors on the ground that they hare no opinions that can be discovered...
...I am aware that to speak of a capitalist or any other system is to invite the scorn of those who insist that in the changing process of our economic life there is no rigorous system...
...The rental value of land belongs to society and not to the individual...
...5. It will earnestly and vigorously seek to put in operation a progressive system for the acquisition and democratic or functional control of natural monopolies and basic industries beginning with coal and super power which for varying reasons especially demand nationalisation at this time...
...and at the end of the occupation .the workers, being obliged to pay damages, had to give up, in the majority of cases, only from five to ten per cent of the wages which were paid then for work done during the occupation...
...And I suppose that ths Editor of the Alumni Weekly is aananted in a certain curiosity as to the reasons why one who had the good jortnne to be born In no less a town (Bin Marion...
...We still have people who suffer want and hunger...
...This is a criticism not of individuals but of the social system which heretofore we have collectively tolerated...
...The bitter toil of the .many is not the necessary basis for the tulhire of the few...
...It to as pioneer, prophet and teacher of those wbp some day W form that party that the American^ Socialist Party finds tbt chief functkmT Even conservatives who still have some faith in democratic political processes should, I think, welcome a party mtfa ideals- and a program...
...the superficial commonplaces which such persons deal out go a long ways in forming what is called public opinion, but is often nothing but public prejudice...
...Diogenes might find an honest man with a lantern...
...Idea...
...Certain immediate issues are ready to hand: 1. Our party will stand resolutely against imperialism and for international cooperation...
...Indeed, they do not envisage any static Utopia whereto all social problems will have been satisfactorily solved for however many million years life may last upon this planet...
...R is their business to obscure Issues and to amuse and distract tha people...
...Capitalism itself cannot long accommodate Itself to such a regime...
...Yes, and a capacity for brotherhood but not the reality of that "fellowship which is life...
...It will consciously seek peace...
...Our present < two-party system lives on tha strength of organisation rather than of principle...
...But one may without any strain en the intellect or any demand upon energy or will declare that It is the beat of possible worlds and go about his own business or pleasure with a sense of intellectual superiority...
...Kindness there Is among us and charity...
...works, I am too much an admirer of the real services of Karl Marx to want to honor him by a theologkal orthodoxy which, to tell the truth, I have never professed...
...It has Its own disappointments and failures, but nowhere except in the Socialist movement do I find any heartening answer to that great challenge of our day and generation: bow shall we, men of all nations and races, forced by the development of our machine civilization into dependence upon one another work out our destiny in terms of...
...It is one of the worst reproaches on our American civilization that neither for unemployment nor old age have we applied such alleviation as the present system would permit...
...This holiday stands side by side with those others as a symbol of the autonomy of the working class...
...Diogemaw asx) His Searchlight It is scarcely necessary to elaborate the statement that men under our present system do not enjoy freedom and brotherhood...
...In the words of Pro'tonor Simon Patten we have passed from ¦ necessary "pain economy" to a pos8*le "pleasure economy"^ as a basis for *tYtHzation...
...the J"™* Upon the inadequacy of "human ¦~ata ^d institutions...
...They know their game well enough carefully to present to the outside world the disguise of "saviors of the nation,"' so as to get from the "respectables" as much sympathy and as much money as possible...
...The long age of Markham's "¦tan With the Hoe" is gone forever...
...I think therefore that it is high time to say very clearly, in an American journal such as the New Leader, that nothing could be farther from the truth than the conception of Italian Fascism which has been set forth by certain business men and so-called intellectuals, in the United States...
...The experience of Russia is not, as the Communists believe, a norm to which the experience of every other country must conform...
...Man has learned to wing his way over the vast spaces of the earth with such rapidity that Verne's fabulous story of "Around the World in Eighty Days" is today just a story of a snail's progress around the globe...
...So great a task outvans •be life of one generation or the funotons of any political party...
...But it is not the champions of the present order who have a right to pose as the defenders of liberty in a society where property is so much bettar defended ttaaa lire, and where freedom is too generally the possession of the man who is strong enough to take it for himself...
...They do not expect to abolish them with the stroke of the pen or of the sword...
...They seek to strangle the trade-unionist and cooperative organization of Italian labor, which is in fact, here as everywhere a great movement to elevate the Individuals of the working classes by united tffort...
Vol. 7 • May 1928 • No. 20
