HOOVER FAITHFUL TO THE PLUTOCRACY
HOOVER FAITHFUL TO THE PLUTOCRACY Undisguised Big Business Government Continues In Washington J5JOME foreign observers have expressed amazement at the ease with which a plutocracy of great...
...So Ions...
...Not that Socialists are ne«*»arily so superior to them In qualities of decency _BCT THE SYSTEM THEY SUPPORT AND PROFIT BY INVITES DISHONESTY AND GRAFT AND CORRUPTION AND MURDER...
...we have seen the nauseating Equitable bus business...
...j 1 • • » * is not a matter of the lndivduala who happen to ¦fSy into one party or another...
...Not that the old line politicians are s» desperately dishonest...
...j*** h* the vast moss of people, the rent payers, the ;2*rs, the subway riders, tike creators sad producers, gtort the Sort*] 1st Ideals and support the Socialist That is where they belong...
...AN OLD ROMAN VISION Aside from his references to the widespread existence of crime and insistence on more rigid enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment, the references to equal opportunity, public ownership and imperialism are the outstanding features of this address...
...It is this marked historical change in industry which the Socialist movement empliasizcs...
...can be done...
...This American Steel Foundries decision, against the Tri-Cities Labor Council, was handed down by Chief Justice Taft on Dec...
...His way of answering it is of interest...
...Planters and slave owners never ruled more confidently in the days of Pierce, Polk and Buchanan than bankers, trust kings and imperialist investors in the days of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover...
...The great masters of finance and capital are certain to be supreme in a nation where this idea of politics prevails...
...Today we observe the National Civic Federation boosting these industrial pension plans and Matthew: Won, heading tha Federation, raising no Objections...
...it would purify the city and convert all its vast "¦¦srees to the benefit of the people...
...With the ascension of Herbert Hoover to the Presidency last Monday these observers of the American scene will find no change...
...invade and police Haiti and San Domingo...
...would only have to change the rules to make this jP greatest city in the world in soul as weU as in ^» sad in wealth...
...The membership of the Hoover Cabinet as evidence of their success...
...The contractors wont like it It would drive them •st of business...
...It is therefore the duty of every lshortts sad Socialist to take a keen interest is the movement...
...With the Department of Commerce having become an invaluable nursery of all forms of big business, trade and investments, Hoover has selected as his Minister of Commerce Robert Patterson Lamont, head of the American Steel Foundries since 1912 and an important figure in many industrial and financial institutions...
...This view cannot be reconciled with the Socialist view of transforming governing powers into agencies for human betterment * and emancipation of industry from the domination of all-powerful owners...
...There is to be no public ownership...
...They find it difficult to understand the blind acquiesence of a big majority of workers in the present order and their asking for legislative doles at Washington...
...Is it ssy wonder that witnesses called to testify in graft Investigations are found mysteriously murdered In borsoghs and counties controlled by the henchmen of contractors whose misdeeds their testimony would amass...
...The present kings of industry and finance are to rule the economic world and thus assure "equal opportunity...
...They are ¦j* Parties of the real estate speculators and the enactors and the racketeers...
...Of course, this is consistent with.the vote of last November, but the stressing of "equal opportunity" as between the millions who work and the powerful oligarchs who control the opportunities of employment is absurd...
...They believe m honest business...
...When the market was a local one and was reached with an ox-cart it would have been absurd to insist on government ownership of that means of transportation, but when the ox-carts have become transcontinental railway systems, intimately related to the welfare of every human being, it is equally absurd for private masters to own them...
...On accident compensation the labor movement did arouse itself to take an active interest in its promotion...
...Although the movement for old age pensions Is now on the front pages of every newspaper there Is no activity on Iks part of the official labor leaders of New York, Thm Trade Unionists 5a#ar rhe members of trade unions have paid the pesos of this attitude...
...Our new order is the system of the imperialist investors and bankers who insist that government power shall follow their dollars into other countries and this is the fundamental basis of modern imperialism...
...Its philosophy lies in its acceptance of private possession of the great powers of production and distribution, government nursing of corporate enterprises, enrichment of their owners, continued dependence of the working masses upon the masters of industry, and policing the seas for the modern imperialists in their search for new lands and other peoples to exploit...
...It will remake our city five an••after an election...
...J*ses would be built by the city and operated by *• tity, and no cheap little grafters would get theirs h exchange for a franchise wangled out of the Fathers J» wise-cracking little mayor...
...JP IS A MATTER OF THE FUNDAMENTAL 22»CrPLES UPON WHICH ALL PARTIES ARE •^BONDED...
...The residence sad ettts* enship qualification* should be reduced to a mtsil n 11— sad the right to a pension should be sit as sad sa aa...
...support the Republican party and the Democratic J**y...
...That is the dominant ideal...
...In fact, it is precisely because of our new social, economic, and political system, which is not yet thirty years old, that weak nations in this hemisphere have reasons to fear American might...
...The tab that the mighty city of New York cannot do for itself must be turned over to creatures like Gentleman jack Phillips, Sir Angelo Palno, and their henchmen...
...Jf a party made up of men and women devoted to •¦Jdeal took charge of the city, rather than parties y^** members panted with tongues hungry out of •sar mouths to get something cut of it, political life •sold become honest in five minutes...
...The two old parties are capitalist parties...
...So one might enumerate many important functions now accepted as collective and social in character that were once subjected to the profiteering and gambling motives in previous eras of our history...
...In such cases there is no private corporation to compete in the railway industry...
...In s recent issue of the New Yorker is an article <ihcu3sing possible candidates for Mayor, and of a attain borough president it says that he is unpopular trltn Tammany Hall "because news of orojected public improvements get into the offices of the wrong real istale firms...
...We have seen political leaders seek to hamstring the onest for honesty by elected officials of their own party Jscause those officials would not turn their offices into s sie counter...
...Jou wouldn't have to change the nature of people...
...The shop proprietor of 1:0 years ago has become the financial or industrial king of today with tremendous power oyer our lives...
...That is Mr...
...While representatives of unions hawa inveighed against Socialism and stats action la behalf of security for the workers and preached the capitalistic doctrine of thrift and individual provision, the employing class knew that this was the best means of winning the worker away from the trade unions...
...The avenge life is now around 58 years as against U years In the beginning of the century...
...AH this sad history is passed over in silence...
...The statement implies something that is not true...
...We are actually producing more and more wealth with fewer sad fewer workers...
...This whole situation is a measure of the political illiteracy that prevails in the United States...
...thus making the problem more sad more scats as time goes on...
...Hoover's ideal...
...the fact of interference with the business of Lamont's firm was described as deliberate injury to his property rights...
...The nations are today so interrelated that any war that breaks out is now likely to involve all, so it is almost certain that we are "committed in advance" to participation in the slaughter and m the settlement as well...
...THE SOCIALIST VIEW Other institutions of American life still remain in private hands although they have become social in character and for that reason should be the collective enterprises of the nation...
...This interest in a movement which Is fundamental to social progress and to a reawakened labor sad SocUSat movement in the country is encouraging...
...It is the only way The Battle For The Aged Social Reform and the Labor Movement fjvaw old age pension issue bss at last com* to the forefront The movement for the security of the workers In old see is now a leading Issue throughout, the United States...
...The protection of the American workers against tha economic hazards now facing them is paramount to aa awakened working class In the United States...
...In this displacement the older wests* era naturally are affected most...
...Coolidge's ideal...
...Even if a borough president'were as honest as George U. Harvey seems to want to be, the very existence of the contract system would Invite favoritism and graft...
...Carrying the mails was once a matter of private contractors but it has become a collective enterprise...
...It is postulated upon profits...
...We have been treated to sewer scandals...
...Although logically unemployment insuraace should have come first, it is obvious now that fas* lowing compensation, old age protection wffl be the next step in American social legislation...
...From K» very inception the Socialist Party has ds—dsi that all workers who by their labor have added to the wealth of the nation should be retired on a pension sufficient to enable them to spend their sunset days in coastal and happiness...
...They believe in the great, robust system of American enterprise, but no business to government...
...It is a characteristic of American politics for the voters to regard government as a means for individuals to get something for themselves, not as a social power capable of being used for the general welfare...
...Housing **»4 be considered from the standpoint of the dwellers •ahar than those who are real estate dealers to make 'Bring out of the needs of the people...
...Even if a borough administration wanted to be bonne, it would invite crookedness when snow removal ja turned over to contractors, when the building of schools is turned over to contractors, v ' • • • The contracts for sewers and schools and streets are worth millions...
...Humble folk who toil on the farms, in the mills, mines, factories and transportation industries are given a message of "self-help," no looking to government as a nurse, while capitalist and financial interests sup to satiety on legislation, administration and court decisions...
...The Land af Insecurity In the United States the necessity tor these peetoetive laws are of even greater importance...
...Jt the contract system were abolished there* would be no more contractors and no more graft scandals...
...This case is cited as one of the leading precedents for all anti-picketing injunctions in time of strike throughout the United States...
...Since there ware no other means of security against the emergencies wtth which the worker was confronted, he could not help bat ts) turn to the employer as his "benefactor...
...If the city undertook to build sewers, not for the IWfltof a Phillips or a Paino, bat for the ase of the **h*os there would be a revolution more profound than the overthrow of Tammany by the G. O. P. If the city hired the beet engineers and the best workers jsder civil service rules, with politics strictly barred, "ONE MOMENT MORE HONESTY WOULD wTER INTO CITY AFFAIRS THAN WOULD BE «3"EVED BY THE JAILING OF A THOUSAND CONNOLLYS...
...The fact that we have a governmental paternalism supporting all these powerful economic interests while their political agents talk to us about "individualism" and "self-help" is evidence of how much education is necessary before the masses oust the privileged pigs who are dining at the government table...
...The professional political leaders ¦»»*t like it, because it would compel them to go to *** political hangers-on won't like it, because they '•old be deprived of the "gravy'' that is their one exfor political activity...
...HOOVER FAITHFUL TO THE PLUTOCRACY Undisguised Big Business Government Continues In Washington J5JOME foreign observers have expressed amazement at the ease with which a plutocracy of great wealth gets a mandate from the American masses to rule the country...
...The legislators should be flooded with letters and telegram* demanding the passage of am effective old age pensioc law...
...HeBoa's ideal...
...He declared that "we have no desire for territorial expansion, for economic or other domination of other peoples...
...THAT IS WHERE THEY BELONG...
...American government must aid business but must not go into business...
...All great industry will then be collective in ownership and management and we will' be emancipaled from the mastery of the longs...
...We have seen four men mysteriously die when their ea-Unued existence would menace the easy racket of STgangsters who have plundered a great subdivision sf our city...
...Not only Is this number growing constantly larger but the expectancy of life in this country has grown by leaps and bounds daring the past quarter of a century...
...The adoption of stats or national old age fsmatoa - laws will be one of the greatest factors tn removing a barrier to efficient unionism...
...Host corporations today have set an arbitrary deadline of employment at the age of 40 and sometime* even at S& This Is do* not to s decline la the physical capacity of American workers but to the development of private industrial welfare schemes which some labor men helped to encourage by thetr Ignorant opposition to state social insurance...
...yMt the contractors and racketeers and those who *l*t*r and thirst for political pabulum, for political...
...At least half of the members of his Cabinet are in the millionaire class with one of the richest bankers in the* country continuing in charge of the nation's finances...
...The employing class introduced various mesas of IfAiatrml welfare in their plants which have been reftictaathy accepted by many workers- because of the great need of such relief...
...SS...
...Fully appreciating the practical difficulties lafUUed in the passage of this legislation we cannot forego to point out the woeful insufficiencies of the present btne In Albany as well as In most of the 35 states sh which bills have been introduced...
...Is it ? Why since the rise of the new capitalism in the days of Roosevelt did we tear Panama from Colombia...
...That is the ideal that has given us Jack Phillips C* *12,000,000 Queens sewer thieveries, the four mysterious Queens deaths, and all the rest of our munl<=pel corruption...
...New York City, which has done « : _h splendid work tn bringing the srigject to a head in a Fhcrt time, ehould be helped immediately, morsJry and financially...
...tell Mexico that she could have no constitution unless it was ratified by Washington, and send marines to Nicaragua to interfere in a purely domestic quarrel of political factions...
...There is a picture of American polihei—specifically New York politics...
...Governments that own their own railways are not "in competition with their citizens...
...Only after the Worken' fears and anxieties ware removed from his economic life did he begin to take sa active Interest In pou> ical and social questions...
...This dominion of a financial and capitalist plutocracy is accompanied with repeated assurances that we have no classes and, as Hoover put it last year, diat American government is an impartial "umpire," not a benevolent nurse taking care of commercial, industrial, financial and foreign investing interests...
...There is so que-'t on of party principles...
...While the Socialist Party has constantly urged these laws for the worker some sections of the labor movement have been lukewarm...
...as the worker is dally confronted with the terrors of unemployment, sickness, old age and death ha casaet be.expected to take a keen Interest In either social at political questions...
...There was no such international organization during the World War yet we became not only "involved in the settlement" but in the war as well...
...If prVtical parties were held together by the loyalty of their members to their principles there could be s» nngodry squabbles after jobs...
...The verdict last November certainly was against entrance of the United States into the League but the new President objects to affiliation because " it "may commit us in advance as a nation to become involved jn the settlement of controversies between other countries...
...only a question of who gets the gravy...
...A RVUJSG DIRECTORATE Hoover and his Cabinet constitute a business and financial directorate for the United States but in this respect his associates do not dirler from those whom Coolidge retained as advisors and department heads for seven years...
...XO0CMWO of the appwarmiataty SyOao.poo aged persons la the United States are now depending upon their friends, relatives or charity for their maintenance...
...That Is Mr...
...These industries have evolved from a private to a collective character...
...A Cohesion of Plunder The Two-party Grafting in New York TS THE muck and mire of New York City corruption I that is being uncovered day after day, one great fact ^ans out aa a warning to the people, if they are wbeedit...
...The pensionable age ¦fining not be higher than 65...
...Across the Atlantic they are accustomed to powerful parties of the working class with fighting groups in the parliaments to express the will and the claims of the masses...
...If we took over the superpower industry there would also be no citizen competition to contend with...
...Hundreds of thousands St* workers are being displaced every year tn the United SUtes by the mechanisation of Industry...
...5, 1921, in consequence of a bitterly contested strike in die steel plant at Granite City, III...
...The city needs sewers, but it has been deemed imsiacHrsM* for the city to build sewers Itself...
...Altbraigb we have become the land of the greatest Insecurity tor the wage-earner we have the weakest labor movement to protect his Interest...
...Despite the persistence of the old gambling and individualist view the social concept has made headway even in this country...
...Active members seek places at the pie counter, either inr job holders or recipients of favors...
...It will be revoked when the masses understand their best interests...
...It is an old Roman vision that has come to our ruling classes and it is no accident that an engineer identified with the mass production of capitalism has come to the headship of the republic...
...Once these terrors are removed from the mind of the American worker ha will be free to think and take an Interest in other social and political questions...
...This has tied them to the corporations and the company unions...
...That is Mr...
...That mandate can be revoked...
...The pension should be at least $50 a month for each pensioner, thus allowing a finiiptt sa income of $100 per month...
...Schools would be JjJB °a ground secured at cost, not at prices raised */holders for the occasion, and erected by well-paid J**hen employed directly by the city...
...It mocks the millions of the unemployed, the part-time employed, the ill-paid and the unpaid workers in urban and rural industries...
...Tn the later stage 'hey should be publicly owned and managed for the general welfare...
...Every President that has come intr> of^.ce in the past twenty years has had to consider the charge of imperialist intentions respecting other nations and President Hoover is no exception...
...The old parties are held together in one way only...
...They know of ss other way of holding parties together...
...We have seen the ballot tampered with...
...As the period of old age Is growing longer the period of remunerative employment is growing constantly abort* sr...
...The* American Association for OM Age Security, of 104 Fifth Avenue...
...The reference made to the League of Nations is a dubious one both to those who favor it and those who do not...
...Education was once a private enterprise but it is today chiefly a public function and supported by public" funds...
...Is it any wonder that sewer contractors seek to become active and prominent in politics, seek to become close friends of public officials, seek to finance successful political campaigns...
...It forbade the presence of more than one picket at the entrance to the plant, and forbade "persuasion...
...Transportation j *ss would be run directly by the city without regard •the profits of holders of securities representing in T cases water and theft and corruption...
...The trade union leaders lined up solidly with the National Civic Federation sad tha Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in the fight against health insurance in New York a few years ago* The A. F. of L has not changed Its policy of apposition to this measure although health Insurance has proved one of the greatest blessings to European workers and in its general benefits to the nation has gone even farther than workmen's compensation...
...The great Socialist and labor movements abroad have followed paralleled courses with the development of social Insurance...
...It would have been ridiculous 150 years ago to urge government ownership of the thousands of small shops in which were produced the variety of needs of that period, but when these shops disappeared and in their place came the mammoth industries that employ thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, logic rebels against these collective industries being exploited by private owners...
...The new President should point out the "citizens" who compete with the government in carrying the mails...
...President Hoover returned to this theme again by expressing a "denial of ownership or operation of business by the Government in competition with its citizens...
...The kings rule at Washington and the voting masses have given them a mandate to so rule...
...In the early sta^e they should be privately owned...
...Such purposes are repugnant to our ideals of human freedom...
...SAD HISTORY IGNORED .Here would be the opportunity to review our history to refute the charge, but the President went on to say that we are building a new economic, social and political system which is "the negation of imperialism...
...Once pensions for the egad are established, Insurance against unemployment and sickness are bound to follow...
...Moreover, Lamont is the head of the company which secured the most drastic anti-picketing injunction ever upheld by the federal supreme court...
...The employer took advantage of this fear by warning the worker that all "benefits" are eontlgent upon many years of "loyal" services and upon his staying away from trade unionism The late Samuel Gompers realised the) danger of these schemes sad attacked them bitterly, He knew that In strike after strike the threat of the loss of the right to a pension was sufficient to defeat It...
...EQUAL OPPORTUNITY" The Inaugural Address of the new President is in keeping with this interpretation of contemporary America...
...The old age pension must go together with a complete program of social insurant* which* should also include better protection against a«ldentsv provisions for sickness, unemployment insurance, sad provisions against invalidity, widowhood .orphanage and death...
Vol. 8 • March 1929 • No. 8
