A SOCIALIST TRAVELER IN 'PROSPEROUS' AMERICA
Laidler, Harry W.
A Socialist Traveler In Prosperous' America Dr. Laidler Finds Middle Class Troubled By Mergers, M Power Trust Alert and Active—Sees Socialist Problem rWO months of hoveling in the course of...
...As in most countries, it can adopt broadly one of two courses: it can...
...successfully limit naval armament...
...Nevertheless any reduction in armaments will help create an atmosphere more favorable tp the settlement of the reparations question...
...James D. Graham of Montana, for years member of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party and recently elected president of the Montana Federation of Labor, maintained, during the writer's visit in that state, that the Montana workers were about ready for the Socialist message and that a good, vigorous organizing campaign in the Interest of the party would bring results...
...And in their wake are the bankruptcies of the former proud owners of the corner grocery and drug stores...
...We must compJett a» program of adjustment If we am U take advantage of the rare opportBSSf for leadership among the prognSBU forces of the country in behalf of pan* economic Justice and human lunmte1 tion...
...During the last campaign a great deal of good will was not registered at election time, partly because of the lack of or-' ganization in most localities, and partly because of the injection into the campaign of the Prohibition and religious issues...
...The Pasadena plant has similarly low rates and has today sufficient surplus to pay off all of its bonded indebtedness...
...There would still be problems of working out the relationships of a world community...
...Laidler Finds Middle Class Troubled By Mergers, M Power Trust Alert and Active—Sees Socialist Problem rWO months of hoveling in the course of which he spanned the entire length of the country, have enabled Harry W. Laid' ler, director of the League for Industrial Democracy, to gather a mass of valuable first liand impressions...
...like the Independent Labor Party of Great j Britain, become a part of a larger federation, constituting the left wing of that federation or party, or it can endeavor to become, like the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the great political [ expression of the masses...
...But many of them have little understand* ing of the way to approach the youae* generation...
...I have praised President Hoover for taking a leadership far beyond anything the Coolidge Administration or Mr...
...What is to be done about this . unemployment ? I was asked by social workers in Richmond, Virginia, in,New Orleans, Louisiana, in Los Angeles, California, in .Portland,*- Oregon, and in other large cities on my circuit of the country...
...It is a matter of satisfaction that ourj government has taken the lead at Genevai through the Hoover proposals although, as I shall explain in a minute, I wish they went even further...
...It was only after the chief of police had been called to the scene and shown that he meant business, that the company's agents retired...
...If the private corporation resisted, the fight for municipal ownership would be on...
...In Texas I visited a newly discovered oil field...
...They are no longer suffering under the Illusion that the old days of rugged individualism can be restored...
...We have moreover been tolerably generous in reducing the debt...
...what is worse, high schools, but the popularization of it by pretty girls, polo, and pecuniary rewards is entirely hostile to the growth of that spirit which alone can make the Kellogg Pact effective...
...The movie-tones hare been throwing between fifteen and twenty-five thousand 'extras' out of jobs," said a movie producer to me in Southern OaBforma, "and I ten you the situation for them Is Indeed tragic...
...It mast speed ap its work of education and organization at a much more rapid rate than it is now doing if it is going to be politically potent in the near future...
...1. A program of social meal am a, ealeufased to place wpsa the rteaMfi ef the mmuisiiHj rather than on those ef the individual the risks raraltiar from ear rapidly changing sooneaats machine...
...In nearly every capital I visited, I would have pointed out to me the lobby of the power trust—well groomed, affable, clever gentlemen who watched like hawks every bit of power legislation presented, who were ever ready with quite innocent looking drafts of public utility legislation and who were not above conferring certain seductive favors on promising legislators at strategic moments during the legislative session...
...It is (1) that very existence of armaments and great armies psychologically accustoms us to accept the philosophy of militarism in spite of Kellogg pacts, and (2) that they inevitably Increase fear and hate in the world...
...As for the colored population, only a small part of them vote...
...And so the merry game goes on, with several times as many pumps at work as are necessary, with great waste of oil, anoYwith reckless exhaustion of this priceless product...
...under these conditions, canaet t|Sp duced to become an active fore* fen...
...Any change of name bum u attended with the flmlopswnl ef sj efficient, fenaginative —fnlntlos at us center and the promotion ef aa earnus...
...I have been led to this conclusion recently against my former conviction, as a result of dozens of conferences throughout the country with those whose whole point of view is Socialistic...
...v SI Tears of misrepresentation remefk...
...It is not, therefore, a matter of legalistic justice but of common sense and good will tbat urges us to forgive debts provided by thenforgiveness we can get a just settlement j of the reparations question, better teeling between nations and a better atmosphere for disarmament...
...I do not mean by this that disarmament is possible without any other change in the relations of nations or that if by some miracle it were tried It would of Itself prevent war at a time when the great industrial nations can speedily improvise the most deadly means of destruction...
...Montgomery Wasd opened 240 stores last year and Is planning to,open 250 in 1929...
...The stores of J. C. Penny are invading hundreds of the smaller towns...
...The Reading victory Is outstanding...
...Right before leaving Buffalo I had handed to me a report of the Social Welfare Council declaring that more people had applied for help to the council during 1928 than in any year during the last generation...
...If I hear of any other Job, 111 let you know...
...In Portland, Oregon, I found the citizens there up in arms over the contrast ' between the high power and lighting rates charged in that city by the P.E.P...
...3. In its campaigns, the party should give primary attention to the uaportsat immediate issues of the day while ad losing sight of the ultimate goal...
...In other cities the power corporations are offering to pay the town almost any price it asks for the municipal plant, on the ground that whatever price is paid, it will be a basis for rate making...
...We can- j not however be proud of the position of' the American government and people on the question of debts and reparations...
...The majority of Socialist parties of the world do not go by the name Socialist—thus the British Labor party...
...To be sure, the weak nations would still be weak and the strong nations would still be strong...
...Yet we have a duty in this respect consequent upon an unenviable leadership which we have established in turning the ordinary machinery of education in high schools and colleges not to the making of competent soldiers—from that standpoint most of our military training in colleges Is a joke—but to the inculcation of the military ideal and the acceptance of war...
...but who feel that the naaaa «-> stand- in the way of any —trnslwT* cational and political —TinuU j_ years to come fan their section sag igj...
...Debts, Disarmament and Reparations Easing of U. S. Financial Domination Declared Requisite For Effective Steps Towards Peace The Paris reparations conference is attempting to pick tip its rvork uhere it left off tzio 'aecks ago when the German delegate* so startlingly bolted...
...It is far less Utopian to seek to kill the tiger of war than to file down his teeth...
...We must be a prosperous people,'* was the refrain...
...During the last few years Amelias Socialists have made marked antes* in realism of thought, and in adjufuaj party membership requirements to III potential membership...
...And yet a gradually larger number of Negroes are voting...
...They don't know what the next day will bring forth...
...that step once taken, to organise a conference of progressive, farmer-laborites and Socialists, and, following the conference, to form a committee dedicated to the encouragement «f political movements separate and apart from the Republican and Democratic parties, the first work to be done in the Northwestern states...
...Some of the Southern whites, declared a Texas professor, are taking the position that the Negroes at the present stage of the game, when they voted, were beginning to split their votes between the two major parties, "just to show that they could be trusted...
...During the last few months, as I have gone from state to state on a lecture trip to fhe South, Middle West and Far West, addressing some 130 groups in colleges and in centres of population, I have been seeking an answer to that question...
...Yellow Dog' Provision in Seattle Teachers Contract Seattle, Wash.—Weathering a scathing attack by Judge Austin E. Griffiths, who at the time of his recent election was said to be a candidate of the Teachers' Union, the school board by a majority vote has retained the "yellow dog" elause in the teachers' contract and it will be enforced...
...The quest for peace can proceed along no single road...
...But there Is likewise the mm imaginative group...
...Everywhere I went, there was a questioning about next steps in political action...
...This was being attended with considerable success...
...When ex-Congressman Upshaw ifl I a debate I heard in Columbia, South . Carolina, with Clarence Darrow, declared that "any nigger who wanted to vote in Georgia (Upshaw's own state) could vote," a cynical laugh issued from the Negroes in the gallery...
...American peace lovers who work for disarmament cannot rationally overlook the great extent and the consequences of military training In schools and colleges and the Inevitable propaganda which accompanies it...
...The distinguished owner of the city's premier department store Is afraid to go to the Wednesday luncheon of the Rotary Club lest his neighbor may nudge him and casually remark, not falling to notice the effect of that remark, "Hear the latest...
...There are very many better ways to improve health and teach citizenship...
...Reparations were morally based on the now exploded myth of the sole guilt of Germany for the World War...
...the aims of Socialists...
...The power companies sell stock to the chief citizens of a city at low prices and then go before the city council and argue for the city's disposal of its plant...
...But that is true under present conditions...
...systematic otgaasuag ana paign from state to state...
...But whether we Socialists feel -that our main political contribution will be made as a cooperating group within a larger movement, or as an independent group which gathers within itself the dissenting opinion of the nation...
...Not only the Indefensible compulsion of military training in land grant colleges and...
...They feel that the era of "consolidation has come...
...The recent Eastern conference of comrades in some of the New England and Middle Atlantic states is encouraging...
...the corner gsa»» store stories of the Irishman and 59 and the twaddle about "dividers aa/gZ to speak of nonsense regarding ''•teste violence" have created an *nu-dacha* tradition of a far deeper nature tmm many of us have allowed oumdvei a believe, and the name in any naste of cases prevents tents of thousands ft*, listening to ideas which, if sevens...
...Everybody says that we are...
...The Independent Labor party, the Belgian Labor party, the Germany Social Democracy...
...Specifically, for instance, Anglo-American relations involve the settlement of many controversial Issues if naval disarmaments is to be made complete and secure...
...well planned...
...What policy must the party adopt if it is to play its part in mobilizing the sentiment that now exists In the country in behalf of social change into an effective political force...
...The evil of armaments is not primarily their shocking economic wastes in a world that still suffers from bitter poverty...
...Powers Hapgood, Mary Donovan and others in Colorado were preparing to devote much time to the rebuilding of the movement in that state...
...In the middle and far West among the , free lance liberals one heard constantly of the need for an effective third party based on the social demands mentioned above, but an almost pathetic dependence on Eastern leadership to take the S initial step...
...The result ot all ot these changes is that a growing part of our population has a feeling that it is walking on quick sand...
...Large numbers in the South, with its rapid industrialisation, are ready "to break away permanently from the Democratic party...
...tf Progressive Ideas Abroad Tn Southern California, the private Interests are becoming increasingly nervous over the success of the Los Angeles, the Pasadena and other municipal plants...
...Any loss of revenue to our government could easily be made up by an Increase of inheritance and income taxes would fall on those classes now profiting by their private claims against Europe which they have no intention of forgiving...
...But private competition finds it hard to do otherwise...
...Now in the long run there will be no great and enduring ' reduction of armaments without a very great reduction in reparations...
...Chain grocery stores, chain cigar stores, chain candy stores, chain drug stores are galloping into every fair sized city and capturing an ever larger proportion of the retail trade...
...No one can tour the country today without realizing that all is not best in the best of worlds...
...Most of them feel helpless when confronted with this situation...
...Of course a thousand obstacles are still placed in their way by the party machine...
...Would not the problem of the freedom of the seas come close to automatic settlement...
...Old town must be becoming Important, don't you think...
...I In Minnesota a movement was on foot among the leaden of the Farmer-Labor party of that state to get the party solidly back to the Idea of a national party...
...And the same plaint I beard throughout my trip...
...There ought to s) perhaps a half dozen districts la tas United States which, with proper castvation...
...They are trying to limit the city In its operation in every conceivable fashion...
...What Next in Politics...
...They were originally calculated so as to include pensions in defiance of the plain meaning of the Armistice terms...
...It is not at present a formidable Set, but the Increasing insecurity, (he fear of war, the growing exhaustion of our natural resources, and the threat of private monopoly and industrial feudalism will bring a considerable change in the political situation within a few years...
...They know that these great aggregations of capital In the field of retail distribution have come to stay and that the days of most of tlfem are numbered...
...And as I travelled from city to city and spoke on the political and economic situation, I became convinced that millions of people in this country, while by no means revolutionists, were becoming increasingly ready for a fairly immediate pi ugi naive program, which would include in general: l. The paws* swtnrssdp and spsrsslsn ties...
...But wt must as stop half way...
...The clause was inserted In the contracts last year after the teachers had organized...
...A few such victoria indicating political success would sje) an untold stimulus to party activity, 5. The party should utilise its pmust and potential woman membership anas more effectively than it is doing at til present time...
...By Harry W Laidler teji'HAT is the country thinking socially...
...I. A drastic Increase In income and Inheritance taxes en the higher Income levels...
...ing the party burden at great petaati sacrifice, and should be given the gnu* est honor for their loyalty and derotau...
...party...
...In New York, Wisconsin and a number of other states the Socialist label is not a serious handicap...
...Socialists find the questions of debts, reparations and disarmament inter-dependent...
...And what is true of oil, Is true, although In less degree, of our coal and lumber resources...
...The World War was never our war hi the sense it was their war nor did we gain territory as its result...
...If it is to speed up that work in a way commensurate with the needs of the time and the opportunities ahead, it should do several things...
...To keep the German workers under bonds to pay off huge sums to other nations not only threatens peace but wage standards and economic conditions upon which the well be ing of the world depends...
...In some Instances...
...In dozens of other cities, branches had just been established or were about to be opened...
...In Texas I found the holding companies doing everything possible to buy out municipal plants...
...The city council had already hired experts to go over the books of the private company with a view to forcing down prices charged...
...Every argument for reducing the size of navies is logically an argument for thencomplete abolition except, perhaps, for certain police boats to deal with smugglers and those pirates who so gravely concern some naval men of my acquaintance...
...No nation yet has tolerated the burden of armament out of fear of war in general but always out of suspicion of one or more possible foes...
...Middle-Class Troubled Among the middle class another spectre is arising to disturb their dreams of security—the spectre of the merger, of the chain store, of the great department store...
...Nevertheless I am emphatically opposed to the notion that we must settle every difference between us before our two nations can...
...Is it ready for a realistic political alignment...
...Some of them are preparing to sell out to the chain stores if they get a decent offer...
...Suppose the United States and Great Britain were Jointly to propose to the nations the complete abolition of navies and the demilitarisation of narrow waterways...
...A battle royal was also I being fought In Seattle, where the Puget Sound company in competition with the I Seattle Municipal plant, was spending | thousands of dollars in propaganda against the successful municipal competitor...
...The Socialist Activities . In this situation, what is the role of the Socialist party...
...Suggests a Change of Name 1. It should consider very seriously the change of its name...
...At the present time, the party is a force to be reckoned with In only a few states in the union...
...By Norman Thomas ST1 ROWING world armaments accom^ panying Locarno treaties and Kellogg pacts simply give new proof of the truth of George Bernard Shaw's familiar state- i ment that "if the other planets are inhabited, the earth is their lunatic asy-1 lum...
...The more progressive group, however, find no hope either in the Republican or the Democratic party and are seeking for a new political alignment...
...Here is a sbance for America to take a leadership for peace even more important than the leadership she has asserted by reason of President Hoover's offer to reduce naval armament and his ingenious plan for comparing the strength of navies and ships...
...Would not these problems be far easier solved in a world rid of the rivalries or painful adjustments of competitive navies...
...Cancel the Debts But it is fantastic to assume that Great Britain, France and Italy will forgive but go on paying their debts to the United States, debts incurred In the same war in which the United states was their partner...
...These impressions he supplemented with inquiry into scores of local problems, govern' mental, industrial and social...
...In any case, the party, itself politically weak, cannot afford to ignore any sincere attempt at cooperation with industrial and farm workers and brain workers committed to a program looking toward industrial democracy...
...From this standpoint the abolition of navies is essentially more reasonable and more in accord with the Kellogg Pact than their reduction...
...At the risk of trespassing upon a topic already discussed before this body, I want to state briefly not only my position but the position of the Socialist Party on the necessity of a new American attitude on the problem of debts if we are to assert the leadership we ought in disarmament or the preservation of peace...
...One or more international unions ewmrrittsd in principle to a later party and the recently formed propaganda League tor Independent Political Action might be brought in as well as a few state federations of labor, and farmer and progressive city groups...
...Little Faith in Limitation I have little faith in the limitation or prohibition of certain kinds of armament, submarines, airplanes or poison gas, so long as war and preparation for war are still recognized...
...In California, particularly in the-Los Angeles district, a special drive was being made for the younger group...
...No sooner was the news out than the ten or twelve other companies which had leased adjoining lands prepared, to pump out their oil at the earliest moment, knowing full well that unless they did so most of the oil under their lease would be drained off by other groups...
...The long, white building which houses the new store ot Montgomery Ward almost midway between the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St...
...Moreover their lunacy is of a violent variety...
...The situation in Wisconsin, and particularly in Milwaukee, Is known...
...Nations never prepare for war but for a war...
...It must be confessed, that the advertisements of the new department and chain stores in the middle sized cities draw the crowds from all of the small villages within twenty-five or fifty miles, and so stimulate the city trade that both chain stores and small city stores are benefited—of course at the expense of the general stores in the villages, which have In most cases become mere skeletons of their former grandeur...
...Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck have both decided to honor this old burg by opening stores on Main and First Street* next month...
...Of course, the more conservative of these elements are now flirting" with the Republicans...
...Some of the ems) of our comrades in years and I rjinrtell are -the youngest in ideas and la iotastive and are the most ardent for Map ing in the new blood and giving arecomers positions of responsibility sal leadership...
...Would not the diversion of the billions of dollars spent annually on navies to the war against ignorance and poverty of itself profoundly aid in the quest of peace...
...And in this connection it should be borne in mind that numerous parties of the right and parties of the left in the Socialist movement in the last few generations have changed their names in order that they may do a more effective work in their particular environment...
...wThe machine is throwing thousands of the tobacco workers out of jobs, said my friends in Richmond...
...The city was losing industries and population to Tacoma, it was stated...
...Merger of First National and Oshkosh Bank Imminent...
...When this action was taken last year it raised a storm of protest and the recent decision of the school board shows that the reactionaries are determined to prevent organization of teachers into a union...
...In the meanwhile, we could have been 'educating' the people in your city...
...The plants has a yearly surplus of over $3,000,00, which It is j spending in part in paying off its bonded indebtedness...
...Power Trust Is Everywhere The people of the country are beginning to realize as never before the menace of the power trust and the need of social control...
...He hoped to assist soon in a conference of Socialists of the Western states...
...Legalistic ally under our capitalist system the debts of the allies are more truly owed to the United States than many other debts...
...The Mlimssofs Farmer-Labor party eould probably be counted on...
...The problem of land armaments is a little more complicated and the United States has less obligation of leadership...
...It will not be achieved until, instead of merely preventing wars we build a structure of International cooperation such as Is required in our economically interdependent world...
...the Pacific Electric Power Company— and the low rates charged by the municipal plant in.Tacoma, Washington...
...I do not east to be misunderstood...
...Merged Bank will Greatly Reduce Labor Force...
...Outside of Minnesota none, however, i except the Socialists and on the extreme left the Communists, were doing any' thing of an immediately political nature...
...4. It should select certain strategic as* tions of the city, the state, and Betas, and bend every effort to elect Hjineiiiitl tlves from these district* to local, sue) and federal offices...
...But business has been dull In this locality.'' The new phrase, "technological unemployment" — unemployment due to the very rapid change...
...I am inclined to feel that the powerful political movement of the masses is ultimately coming through some form of federation between the Socialists and other groups...
...The rates to domestic consumers in Los Angeles are five cents per kilowatt hour for electrical lighting with a combination rate for lighting, heating and cooking of two cents...
...What conceivable legitimate Interests, would suffer...
...have little realization sf tat changed methods of propaganda wan this new era of radio, movie, automate* and tabloid necessitates: dwell too nam on the glories that are gone...
...If you had been but ten minutes later," said one of the agents to the acting mayor, who had been called on the phone at five AM., "we would have had our poles within the city limits, and you then would have had to fight it out In the courts...
...The 'unskilled worker is constantly expecting the boss to say, "Sorry, Dan, but that machine which we installed over the week-end will now do the work ot twenty-five of you huskies...
...The Approach To Yowth 2. But of course the name Is not eaaj> thing...
...Laidler has summarised his imprestions of present-day America in the following article written for The New Leader...
...Some are planning to retire from business and go down to Southern California or Florida to enjoy the remainder of their days playing shuffle board or listening to Aimee McPherson or attending picnics of the pioneer families of Iowa or living partly on their income and partly on some clerical Job they may pick up...
...Gorman '1 ho mas presented the Socialist position in an address before the American Academy of Political and Social Science in Philadelphia last Saturday...
...Still others are Just swallowing their pride, closing their doors and applying, cup in hand, tor a Job behind the counter with the rest of the white collar proletariat...
...These comrades, many of then, sua done splendid service in the past at bar...
...Throughout the country there Is a growing realization of the senseless waste of private exploitation of natural resources...
...Paris And Geneva The events of the last few days in Paris and Geneva illustrate the rather paradoxical fact that at the very moment when the experts are confessing failure to meet the sore problem of reparations and debts a new hope of actual reduction of armaments has come into the dilatory proceedings at Geneva...
...too 1Mb on present day opportunities and tarn grown to regard their party locale primarily as social institutions rather ten as political organizations aiming at tat control of municipal, state and netted government...
...Every oil man in the country that you would talk to Individually would acknowledge the folly of opening new wells at the present time...
...who admire the Intellectual leadership of the Socialist movement and go to it for Inspiration...
...Its low power rates have been attracting a number of industries of late away from San Francisco...
...In the first place, millions of people are tremendously disturbed, in this richest of all countries, over the growing insecurity in their own lives and those of their fellows...
...and the selection of the rifti man or woman, would elect BortsHsa a> Congress in 1930...
...There would be no problem of parity to work out by Hoover's or any other formula...
...Many of the leading Negroes, however, should a powerful third party arise, would undoubtedly be depended upon to support that third party...
...It is the business of general staffs to have particular enemies in mind...
...Without i going into a discussion of the wisdom or unwisdom of the conduct of the German experts at Paris can we not agree that Germay cannot, will not and should not continue much longer the payment of1 reparations...
...And in every city tubs* a far greater effort should be mad* « get hold of the younger people was an beginning to think and act along auW lines than to rediscover the former eea» rades who dropped out of the goveraawa, One of the great difficulties la nsuating a movement In any city is As prietary attitude evinced towsst SB movement by certain comrades who sen never able to make the party a Htm force in their community but was an suspicious of every new dement that est ten...
...The strategy of a growing number of Democratic politicians—though still a small minority—is to allow them to vote, but to see, "as a result of timely cultivation and a certain amount of flattery and small favors that they vote "right...
...Hoover's own campaign gave us reason to expect...
...The bank clerk is getting squirmiEh about reading the ^financial section of his morning paper, lest some head-line pop out at him, such as "Big New York Interests Purchase Bank of Oshkosh...
...In probably the majority of states in the union it unfortunately is...
...That is the real purpose of the War Department and the only justification of the training it offers...
...In Georgetown, Texas, where there was a very successful municipal plant, a holding company sent its men early one morning to the city, with poles and wires and equipment with the object of setting up its equipment in the city, despite the fast that they bad no semblance of legal- authority to do this...
...etc...
...The name Aawrlen Labor, Independent Labor, Social Qss> ocracy (if that were available), FieSa ive, while not perfect, would all nasi the work of party rebuilding an east task than is at present the east...
...In some of the states visited, there were Indications of renewed activity...
...PoeeibU- Socialist Allies M present there are not many large ¦roups ready for a federation ef forces...
...Walking On Quick-Sand" Recent changes have also had their disturbing effect on the middlemen, the wholesaler...
...On this oil field, one company which leased five or ten acres of land, discovered -the oil and began to dig the wells...
...Certain offsets like German claims for the occupation of the Ruhr, the loss of territory, etc., have ; never been properly considered...
...Is it not, however, a sad thing that we have to be so thankful for so little...
...Nothing en take the place of this personal vase) organization...
...When I arrived in Denver, Colorado, I read a two page advertisement about the opening of a new, giant Montgomery Ward Store...
...And growing thousands are asking the »»y out...
...If we are to fight at all we shall fight with the most efficient weapons science gives us...
...under a different name, they would bar and readily accept...
...Following the campaign many apologised for their failure to vote as they thought and promised not to repeat their folly, but this did not augment the Socialist vote...
...Meamihile, at Genera, governmental representatives are convened again to make another try at disarmament...
...The following article is based on that address...
...In their hands, despite tail loyalty and idealism, the movement m with difficulty be lifted into the spam of potent political forces...
...Paul Is most impressive of this onward march of the retail chain...
...and jobbers, who are combining as never before, and* making common cause with the independent stores as the one way of saving themselves against the combined attack of department stores and chain store...
...And to get them to support the armaments It is always necessary to play up this fear...
...The Oregon Socialists were showing considerable activity...
...in machinery and in industrial technique —seemed to describe the situation existing in-most parts of the land...
...4. An International program directed against economic- imperialism, together with 5. A program of farm relief and ef labor legislation...
...Some are tightening their belts for a long tussle with the chain store octopuses and planning to work a little harder and work their wife and family a little harder and keep their store open a little longer at night after the chain store closes up...
...who are "sold" on an immediate program of social ownership, social insurance, social legislation...
Vol. 8 • May 1929 • No. 16
