SOCIALISM AND THE NEW HUMANISM
An Instrument For Weal or Woe Socialism And The New Humanism By McAlister Coleman npHBRE is of course a fashion in X words. An author who parades his thoughts in outworn verbiage is...
...This is a Catholic cemetery and most of the strikers are Catholic workers...
...The Republican leaders represent the upper exclusive section of banking and capitalist interests but they have never had any real quarrel with Tammany...
...Few tricks of the unsophisticated lnteUect are more curious than the naive psychology of the business man, who ascribes his achievements to his own unaided efforts, in bland unconsciousness of a social order without whose continuous support and vigilant protection he would be as a lamb bleating in the desert.— R. H. Tawney...
...No vicious Socialist is hanging around to be charged with disturbing the old dogma of the happy family of Capital and Labor...
...Each country has a genius of its own, why not go on and develop our own method...
...Their only hope is aid from outside...
...So we are off to another campaign with the certainty that the spats and cane known officially as "Mayor" will also be heaved into the ring to carry the flag for the Tammany professionals...
...We see little to attract us in that cold automaton, "The Economic Man...
...The success of Walker or I-a Guardia will not disturb any of the corporation vampires who fatten on the city...
...I think it would be a great mistake...
...While Allentown landlords and sriS owners prosper, ita workers receive ha than an average of t20 a week in boasts, in food, in medical attention, ta meat and radios, in books and schooling...
...The owners are the cold, fearless, stS in hand type...
...Originally it was used to describe tbe "literary movement at tbe close of the Middle Ages whose object was the revival of the pagan learning of classical antiquity...
...The central organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, "The Socialist Vlestnlk" reports that tortures have again been introduced in the dungeons of the O. P. tr...
...But so far Labor has been hopelessly capitalist-minded...
...Into this situation La Guardia thrust himself...
...The scene recalls the campaign of 1840 when the old aristocratic Whig leaders like Webster stored their haughty manners in the garret, drank cider with the "mob", swore by all the gods on high Olympus that it was an honor to any man to live in a log cabin and indulged in a demagogy which they privately detested...
...Again it is useful in stimulating attitudes, in reemphaslging the necessity for philosophic synthesis in a chaotic world...
...Children who are too young to uneystand the meaning of health must aa* tect themselves against the ravages st "catching" diseases...
...IN A NUTSHELL "I tell you, and I tell every Democrat In the city, that we expect no quarter and we win give no quarter," said Mr...
...In short, an instrument which may be used for weal or woe...
...He compares the small retailer with the fcrmer'skilled craftsmen...
...Who wiU be the Messiah and be* w* he go about the job...
...Now is it quite probable that enthusiasm for his theme has led M. Merrier to make a "movement" out of what Is so far but "a promise and a hope" as Edward C. Aswell in his review of the book in the current Forum magazine points out...
...He has never been consistently "regular"' and has occasionally said things that frightened the gouty old aristocratic fossils of the Union League Club...
...If a movement keeps on the Job, things have a way of developing:—witness tbe British Labor Party...
...Company pensions, eoav try clubs for workers, periodical comptHT papers with a picture of worker tt B ft being congratulated on the birth of St seventh child, are not quantities offefsi by the owners as palliatives for pet wages...
...Ne Welfare Pretesnwi Allentown's mills are owned by in** viduals...
...A big Socialist vote alone' is feared by the parasites and their political agents who serve them...
...Work is done in two shifts d 8 and 11 hours...
...Just now the word "Humanism" Is In vogue...
...Under the existing duty," said the speaker, "eight cents a dozen, we are importing one foreign egg {.o about 7.595 domestic eggs...
...of the arias* able drudgery of Allentown workers...
...quitters, are doing wen, ¦ants you, at an average of tl5 weekly...
...Aren't they something like the Mormons...
...Labor revolts are the answer...
...I can't think of any that would do ss well...
...The gravediggers quit in protest against the discharge of the president of their union...
...So with the Socialists...
...We think that the issue between Jimmie Walker and Mr...
...The mills are their property and they wUl do with tt ss aW damn please...
...Their rivals had won two sweeping elections by these methods and the Whig leaders decided to outdemagog the demagogues...
...The faithful were warned against this sinful belief but here is the class antagonism stalking through Calvary Cemetery...
...This situation does not differ from a textile or a mine strike...
...When such wit is hurled at the southern ruling classes in the heart of their paradise their supremacy will no longer go unchallenged...
...Everyone would call us Socialists, so we might as well call ourselves what we are...
...Not that there is anything particularly new about the word Humanism It is a word with honorable traditions...
...If he takes tne road to the philosophic right he will soon find himself in the bogs of Indifferentism, meretricious stoicism, cynical sterility...
...being a venerable pickled duck egg from China...
...Make checks payable to the Relief Society and maU them to Mrs...
...La Guardia is certain to be knifed by some of the "federal crowd" in his party despite his bid for the support of the "graft payers," that is, the business men who must fill his campaign chest if he is to make any fight at all...
...An author who parades his thoughts in outworn verbiage is as fatally "dated" as a woman in long skirts...
...For this great cause they are sacrirflcing their all, even their lives...
...Humanism in fact may be nothing more than a modernized pragmatism If left to the tender mercies of such superficial interpreters ss Walter Lippman it is Just another counsel of despair...
...The tariff satirist pointed out that egg imports are less than 1 per cent of the national output...
...In fact there may be an alliance and no conflict at all...
...The sweltering delegates snickered, La Guardia promised the district captains that they will be "recognized" and the conclave adjourned...
...To them La Guardia has been a demagogue and yet they had to accept him or face a fight in the primaries...
...what is objected to by the conservatives, is not the name but the thing itself...
...La Guardia could be easily settled if their respective backers take it seriously...
...Walker and La Guardia each represent upper capitalist interests but each is compelled to put on a show for the masse...
...Louis and other cities for some forty years...
...Of coarse a working class party can't win if you indulge la the cant that it can't...
...Said Pater, summing up his brilliant Interpretation of the spirit of the Renaissance: "To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to matntatn this ecstasy is success in Hfe...
...IS The union call has been awiedbcaev...
...Allentown, In Fair Pennsylvania By Joseph Schwartr...
...The gravediggers are digging the grave of this old hypocrisy...
...a^fter um^e^mn.ym^n§^a and ao the 'misery ** of small proprietors...
...These victims of Cheklst terror," says the Internationale, "must eke out a miserable existence on an 'allowance' of 13.35 a month.'" In this connection it should be kept in mind that even this miserable "allowance" is not paid out regularly...
...The class antagonism that is ever present in capitalist society appears in the heart of a Catholic organization and the flock is immediately divided into two contending groups...
...The action win be backed by tbe American Civil Liberties Union...
...Editor, New Leader: I have been much interested in the debate over changing the name of the Socialist Party...
...Finally in its insistence upon human rather than property values it can do Invaluable spade-work across a section of American thought, ordinarily impervious to Socialist ideas...
...If he chooses the road to the left he will find it bristling with adventure, dangerous of passage, altogether a breath-taking ascent • • • In many respects the emergence of the new Humanism comes at a propitious time...
...Not even a sermon by Hoover on "rugged individualism" can comfort the little fellows who are slugged by the eedisoniic might of the big ones...
...Let us not make a similar mistake and try to imitate the British Labor Party...
...The latter may be vulgar, it may lack the polish of the Republican grand dukes, but Tammany has never been accused of betraying the interests of this upper section...
...Dti***** is, and has been for a long taae...
...Gravediggers Infer An Old Myth \ STRIKE of 350 workers employed at Calvary Cemetery, most of them gravediggers, blows up a fiction of many professional holy men...
...Tbe system is ripening for socialization...
...So he is mortgaged to that section of the business interests that is willing to invest in hi.s demagogy...
...The wage-cuts have been ,as iWf* as Jimmy Walker, speed-up has ttcreased to the best Bremen tt»et*f^ The workers seeking the way «*• (Egypt are without a Moses...
...Finally we have decided to be what we are and stick to the name which describes us...
...The grandsons have buried the "eternal principle" because their capital is now invested in mills and wage slaves instead of in plantations and Negroes...
...The prisons of Leningrad (Petrograd) and Moscow an fined beyand their oanecttr...
...terrible that many of them seek rehef to suicide...
...Deprived of clothing they are left on bare floors, and twice daily cold water is poured over them...
...We cannot stress too strongly our contention that instead of worshipping economics, the Job of the Socialist is to eliminate it, as far as Is humanly possible...
...It should serve to remind Socialists of the necessity of seeing things clearly and whole, the first law of any Humanism...
...Children are left on the streets at fa mercy of auto and trolley car...
...Would the friends of Russian freedom fan to respond to the calls for help coming from tbe prisons and places of exile of Russia...
...The farce is so apparent in New York this year that the only thing that can prevent a big vote for Norman Thomas and his colleagues on the Socialist ticket is lack of workers and literature...
...She language might well be that of a robber bkmted ougardn ksjdna> dfexjhe SttJo enterprises m the detail tstninesronl ddtfava satisfied ker pocketing one...
...Now it is important to recall that for many moons Catholic anti-Socialist agitators have solemnly affirmed that in this country we have no class interests, no class antagonism, no class struggles...
...We know that individual integrity is Impossible m a profit-centric milieu...
...The Chamber that has far n slogan "Dwell Here and Prosper" is silent, oh...
...Not one of the men who are writing on this phase of American capitalism appears to realize that this economic trend justifies the Socialist analysis of modern industry...
...The Doom of Small Business ABOUT thirty years ago some leading chiefs of big corporations that were emerging at that period declared through the North American Rcr-ietv that it was inevitable that big fish should eat small fish in the capitalist world...
...From the NEW LEADER MAILBAG FOR RUSSIAN SOCIALISTS The Rehef Sonet...
...They had in mind the field of production, not distribution...
...Paul T. Cherington offers results of a study of this trend in the New York Times and draws conclusions that recall the dictum of the big chiefs thirty years ago...
...La Guardia in accepting the nomination...
...One speaker indulged in some delicious satire relating to the appetite of these exploiters for tariffs...
...They have to said something to the effect that it is more important to know the philosophy of your enemy than the number and disposition of his troops...
...If anybody doesn't n| their method they can quit or get Si hell back to where they came frota...
...Cherington goes on to support this verdict by datagathered in a study of the retail trade...
...residents are mostly Pennsykefj "Dutch...
...Cement, wire products, paper best, clothing, boats and shoes, are some of** items that keep Allentown folks oats' mischief...
...If indeed Humanism is but pragmatism In modem clothes then we must fight it to the finish...
...Thsf yes all of it...
...why not Just be Socialists...
...The owners are on the job supervising and running their biotas* Managers for coupon clippers and brass* plants are not as yet a factor in ABav town life...
...MAUD M. GIFFORD...
...That was then—and tee again...
...far Sortahat Prtsdranss thai sgene^ftn aid to all friends and ijiiiiiaihaeis The need of aid at urgent aad lismiiiHali The number of prisoners aad exiles to Scvsst Russia runs into teas ef panaanss In Sotovkl island and Kern alone there are more than 45,000...
...No one who lived through the war-time debate between the pragma - tlsts as led by John Dewey =nd the idealists (though that Is a "dated" word) under Randolph Bourne c :i ever again look upon pragmatism with quite the same respect which the reading of William James once engendered for that philosophy...
...A few operate thtO eight-hour shifts...
...Never in American labor history has there been a more striking exposure of the myth of the "harmony of capital and labor...
...I remember a lady in Colorado asking a friend of mine, 'What do Unitarians believe, anyway...
...Italy in tbe Fourteenth Century saw the dim rise of Humanism...
...They are now demanding an 8-hour day and union recognition and other unions are supporting them...
...Many of in women are mothers and young waa compelled to work because their hebands are unable to earn enough brstt baked beans and sour kraut...
...Production offered the big prizes of that period and now that the little industrial producer is almost as extinct as the ice age the business of distribution is to be absorbed by big corporations...
...Socialists win do well to be aware of this Humanism 'They have to do business with it...
...Keynoter Buckner chimed in and the same stuff was poured into the platform...
...It certainly cannot be ignored at a time when philosophy Is in danger of becoming the hand-maiden to business adventure and the word "individualism" is taken in vain by tbe overlords of a push-cart plutocracy...
...It is an old story that has teen repeated in San Francisco, St...
...Others who «crc <JP tog for aid were intimidated, baaed!-* beaten into silence, with food to bs» ¦» money scarce, job fear spread w length and breadth of Anentownl *M workers...
...Auxiliary workers such ss btoctsn warpers...
...This single intrusive egg is hardly up to par as fresh eggs go...
...There are about 63 mills and »*» looms...
...We might add that the long hours arorked by the average s*c#keeper, bis wife, and children is a pathetic aspect of the twilight days of this disappearing class...
...so Sat mothers may endeavor to hSp fatten buy sustenance for their loved eat...
...General Harbord, the chairman, heads the Radio Corporation of America which was formed by Westinghouse interests and controls supply firms and radio stations all over the country...
...A fair exchange is no robbery...
...The gates are picketed by the strikers, nearly 300 unburied bodies lie in vaults and trenches, scabs have been hired to break the strike, the Calvary Cemetery Corporation has refused to accept arbitration, and a telegram sent by the strikers to Cardinal Hayes asking for arbitration received no answer...
...It is doubtful if many of that growing group of civilised, urbane, tolerant men and women who ride out today under the banner of Humanism would recognise their philosophy as thus defined The new Humanism has little to do with ecstasy...
...he is a'plain incompetent to be put out of his economic misery OS SfetMUy and effectually as possible...
...They make no pretenses st warfare schemes...
...Allentown's Chamber of Oonaotef boasts of an assessed valuation of tttr 000.000, with banking resources of HV 000.000...
...Contribute and get donations from others...
...there is a spriokljat« several other racial groups...
...It should be remembered that the grandfathers of the present economic masters of the South stood for free trade as an "eternal principle" and the tariff was one reason why they voted the southern states out of the Union...
...Does tt hot hsre tt churches...
...For this reason many of the Republican local leaders have, since the days of Piatt, worked cheek by jowl with the Tammany district leaders...
...Boston Bans Sacco Anniversary Meeting BOSTON—(PP) .—Curtly refused permission by dty authorities to bold a Saeeo-Vanaettl memorial meeting Aug...
...It was the dawn of the Renaissance That traditional Humanism concerned itself with fanning into hot existence the "gemlike flame" of which Walter Pater speaks...
...The solemnity of death only makes this class antagonism the more vivid...
...For, by and large and in the long run, pragmatism has tapered down to little more than a defeatist's rationalisation of the status quo...
...in the voice of brotherhood...
...The proposed masting to mark the second anniversary of the electrocution of the labor martyrs mar be moved to Shoe York...
...The Communists have made the mistake of trying to imitate Russia...
...Weavers operating one to every ttsO looms are fortunate to average $38 wanly...
...Southern Capitalism Challenged WTHEN the University of Virginia is the scene * ™ of a critical examination of the new capitalism and its treatment of the workers and speakers are frank in their criticism, that old region of slavery is not hopeless...
...It ia .the emancipation of man tram the machine towards which Socialist and sinThe conscious Humanist is st the cross-roads...
...It Is true that It has to do with success but there Is no hint of flame in the contact...
...Common religious beliefs during the struggle rank below the material stakes and issues that are involved...
...Humanism as expounded by its latter-day disciples, Paul Elmer More, Irving Babbitt and William C. Browneu, is a philosophy of life which seeks to maintain the integrity and dignity of the individual in a world suffering from giantism...
...ALLENTOWN...
...But the possibility of a new philosophic warfare is there...
...The La Guardia - Walker Show 'T'HE nomination of La Guardia by the Republicans for Mayor of New York City was made under circumstances that would have provoked the wit of Mark Twain...
...The situation of Che exiles is ao better...
...P. Baranoff, Treasurer, S West 110th Street, New York City...
...Allentown's Chamber of Comment tens the cockeyed world that it to mors) and decent...
...The chain store will eventually get him...
...They can expect little help from their friends and relatives...
...Workers who had responded warn tne...
...The eettatttoos under which the prisoners hve are ao...
...These are the conditions under which tbe struggle for the freedom and welfare of the people, for the ideals of the Russian revolutionary movement, is now being wsged in Russia...
...Will this Chinese duck egg break the American egg market...
...For such a struggle is at the heart of modern Socialism, paradoxical as that may seem to thoughtless critics who still mumble about the "service state...
...The chief industry in this town est...
...New York City...
...33 to Paneuil Ban, cradle of traditional American liberties, the Sacco-Vansetu Memorial Committee is preparing to bring suit against Mayor Nichols or Sept...
...r The silk industry employs about 1MO persons, mostly women...
...Allentown's Chamber of Oa» merce gloats with unestimabfe prist d its annual output of tl*0,830,600...
...It's a good name...
...Your party never bothered about quarters, Mr...
...It is the last word standing for a philosophy which Is steadily gaining new recruits, attracted by its very vagueness...
...Send your contributions immediately, tor the need is great and time does not wait...
...In its recent appeal to tbe workers of tbe world the Socialist and Labor Internationals oooflxms the fact that "thousands of Socialists are being arrested sad exiled in Soviet Russia without trial or preliminary investigation, while the same k true even of Communists if they fall to agree with their government aad venture to express political opinions of their own...
...And, after all...
...To compel them to give desired evidence, prisoners are led out to execution and have the black hood of death placed over their beads as a means of forcing 'confessions.' Those examined are beaten up and placed in cells...
...and blackballed...
...of Public Buildings Englert, or both...
...Brockton, Mass...
...We went through the controversy In regard to changing our name...
...If the retailer were getting rich out of the process," he writes, "then he wouW be a small scale pirate just like any other predatory villain ; but if he is taxing society unduly and isn't getting even a decent living out of it, then be is not a robber to be caught and locked up...
...Ship Jimmie to Philadelphia to head the Republican Tammany and permit La Guardia to head the Democratic Tammany here...
...Pa., is a city wss « population of about 106,000...
...For a generation its capitalists, bankers and realtors have advertised the South as having a population of workers submissive to measureless robbery...
...They not only accepted but the chairman and the keynoter also turned demagogue before the assembled party nobles...
...If, on the other head, Humanism Is in very fact tbe struggle for individual integrity in a mass-world, we Socialists must hail ita appearance...
...A society which reverences the slUinment of riches as the supreme felicity will naturally be disposed to regard the poor as damned in the next world, if only to justify itself for making their life a hell ia this.— R. H. Tawney...
...I belong to a religious denomination that In all parts of the country except New England has been subject to exactly the same misunderstandings as the Solalists...
...We, Unitarians, have been accused of believing in free love, breaking up the home and all the things people say when they are perfectly ignorant of what they are talking about...
...All funds are distributed through Socialist Parties of Russia among all prisoners and exiles, regardless of party affiliations...
...This prince royal wept over New York slums, the neglect of the poor by Tammany, its failure in housing and marketing, its looting and graft, its absentee Mayor, the Queens sewer rats, its school abominations, the Rothstein murder and other failings...
...Certainly, let us have a labor party, if we can get labor Interested enough in a party which has its interests at heart...
...in the name of Jesus st* Moses...
...If other unions are coming to the aid of the gravediggers this is countered by officials of eighteen other cemeteries who unite in an employers' solidarity against recognition of the union...
...As for what people think Socialism is, the only way they can find out ia to use their minds and find out...
...The combined casings of parents are insufficient to preen children from falling by the waysides...
...THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, Relief Society for Socialist Prisoners and Exiles in Soviet Russia...
...It is the old "mudsill theory" which the fathers of these upstarts once applied to Negro slaves...
...damnably silent...
...rarely make more than 2yi per cent, profit He is desperately holding on but the tide runs against bun...
...It is not aa a* common sight to see very young girls ev tering the shop gates...
...It is...
...And it has already been responsible for a considerable body of literature and at least one philosophic guide-book, "Le Meavement Hemansste Aex Etats-Unis," by Louis J. A Merrier, professor of French literature at Harvard...
...Italians and Hebrews masts, a large element...
...As yet there is no open clash between Humanism of the 1929 variety and Socialism as translated in terms of today...
...Russian Socialists are fighting for a free, democratic Russia...
...The mui owners are the old buttons types...
...Tea, it is true that the average wage Is higher ia this country than in others but it is also true that we produce more values that we do not get than the workers abroad...
...Tbe number of suicides is growing...
...The Soviet Government forbids them to seek say work and thereby condemns them to extinction...
...Will it have any more effect on the market than a lighted parlor match upon the polar ice cap...
...The new economic crisis in Russia has brought new privations for the political prisoners and exiles...
...L. G. Only dollars counted with it...
...The little leflow can...
Vol. 9 • August 1929 • No. 1
