WANTED: A LEFT-WING PARTY FOR AMERICA
Villard, Oswald Garrison
Wanted: A Left-Wing Party For America By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD OUR American press was too deeply concerned with the war to pay much attention to the astounding political overturn in...
...There are some good planks in the platform, but when did a platform in the last 30 years mean anything the day after it was written...
...The national CCF leader, M. J. Coldwell, is no impassioned orator and no fiery radical, and the platform is a right-wing Socialist one, though it frightens all the Tories and the great business interests...
...The portents are unfortunately for a great swing to the right, toward conservatism and-reaction, if not fascism...
...For example, they have never compromised at any time on any point...
...For all the signs are that many of our soldiers overseas and at home are embittered, primarily at labor, also because they were picked to face wounds and death while others were not, and will have lost precious years as well as fine jobs and, by the hundreds of .thousands, their opportunity for a higher education...
...That is an evil outlook, especially because there is no safety valve such as the CCF for any strong Left-Wing party to oppose the trend backwards, to give an outlet for the expression of the feelings of those who are dissatisfied, who want what the Canadian millions now flocking to the CCF want— that is, a new political outlook, more and better labor and social legislation, prevention of panics, the encouragement of cooperatives, higher minimum wages, real protection from threats of monopolies and cartels and big business greed, from fear of unemployment and want...
...It is apparently ready to follow any lead in that direction...
...Personally it seems to me a genuine cause for regret that there is not an alternative party...
...Canadian Swing To The Left The leaders of the CCF are certain that if they do not take over the Government of Canada at this coming election they will soon do so...
...On that day the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the Dominion's new Socialist party, swept the province and won 47 out of 52 contested seats in the Saskatchewan Parliament, with several seats in doubt...
...Both our major parties are headed to the right...
...There are therefore many people who are at a loss as to how they shall vote next Fall...
...He must in any event hold it by mid-Summer of 1945—to ascertain whether the voters of the Dominion wish to swap horses crossing a stream in wartime, or not...
...Who will give it...
...Coming on top of a similar success in Ontario, when the Liberals were also practically wiped out, it is no wonder that the Ottawa Journal called this elector decision "Revolution, Limited," that all Canada was stirred by the outcome, and that Prime Minister Mackenzie King is expected by some to call a general election this year...
...They don't like Gov...
...it is only 11 years since the first apostles of the new alignment began their crusade...
...At home there is deep dissatisfaction, too, and still deeper disappointment that the New Deal has followed in the footsteps of Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom...
...Why not a CCF here...
...The Liberals dropped from 33 seats to five, and the Progressive-Conservatives did not win a place...
...This was a gain of 36 seats for the winners and insured the seating of T. D. Douglas, a former clergyman and linotype operator, as the first premier of a Socialist government on the American continent...
...Yet it does point a way from the old capitalistic, warmaking controls, and opens the door a bit toward real economic liberties...
...more and more Mr...
...Roosevelt, the ex-radieal New Dealer, leans on the "economic royalists" he has called into the Government's service...
...Dewey...
...They were preachers, teachers, farmers, and labor leaders...
...The New Deal frankly says that it is interested only in winning the war and it does not care what the social or moral or economic price the country must pay for that...
...As for the Republican Party, it has excellent chances of success, but no one would suggest that the Elephant has had a new birth or has swapped his historic tusks and wrinkled old skin for something novel and fresh...
...There is no question that thare is a tremendous swing to the Left and that it reflects the feeling of the men in the Canadian Army and Navy...
...Some he will never convert to his cause...
...How far this means dissatisfaction with the war or its management, if any, it is impossible to say...
...He wants even the name "New Deal" dropped in favor of another, and no stirring bugle-blasts come from the White House to rally the faithful to a new joust for social advance and social justice...
...They are led by singularly able and unselfish leaders of rare political wisdom...
...But he has not the power to win multitudes, and his party, which polled only 99,557 votes in 1940 when once it had a million, so well recognizes that there is no chance for it as long as it calls itself the "Socialist Party" that it has opened its campaign with a frank hope that, with other elements— though never the Communists— it will evolve into an American CCF...
...But wherever the CCF has been tested it has forged ahead...
...The Saskatchewan platform is not radical—unless in its demand for a socialized liquor industry...
...Where can they turn ? No Safety Valve Here The Socialist Party has again nominated Norman Thomas, a man of finest character, broad vision, and marked ability—really an old-fashioned American liberal remodelled for 1944...
...How different is the situation this side of the fortless boundary...
...It has grown the way a new party should—from the grass-roots up...
...he will have to show some fine cards and take a number of tricks to gain their votes...
...They have never struck hands with any other party and have, in particular, spurned all advances from the Communists, who vigorously berate the CCF now for sticking to its socialistic beliefs...
...Wanted: A Left-Wing Party For America By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD OUR American press was too deeply concerned with the war to pay much attention to the astounding political overturn in Saskatchewan, Canada, on June 15...
...That sort of vote-getting pap is canned for the duration...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 30
