DEMOCRACY AND OUR MAJOR PARTIES
Thomas, Norman
Democracy And Our Major Parties By NORMAN THOMAS EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of two articles by Mr. Thomas analyzing present and future political trends in terms of the results of the recent...
...For they did make it clear that they had to find and support the lesser evil—this, despite my arguments from logic and history to prove that votes for a minor party with a program were not thrown away...
...The new Michigan Commonwealth Party made a negligible showing...
...As for free enterprise, the very fact that everybody from Earl Browder to Wall Street monopolists favored it showed how little meaning it has...
...But what if anything can those who think so do about it ? A Role Of The PAC Before we face that problem, we should note two further factors in the 1944 election which may have bearing on it...
...The lesson from recent elections would seem fo be the paradox that by custom, even more than by law, America has become a two-party country although the majority or at any rate a decisive minority of the voters have a decreasing trust in, or affection for, either party...
...Despite their opposition to the Democratic Party and their sharper opposition to each other, the ALP and Liberal Party offered the voters the same hash under different labels...
...The new party can begin with a comparatively few representatives in Parliament and, if they do good work, their numbers can be increased...
...But, the failure of various attempts to do this has been at least as complete as the failure of any minority party since the rise of the Republican, to achieve major status...
...The Communist Party, for its own reasons (which were Stalin's) went all out for Roosevelt...
...The very existence of these parties would have been unlikely except that New York State permits candidates to appear an indefinite number of times on the ballot with different labels...
...It is a peculiar feature of human nature and politics that many who are now liberal supporters of Roosevelt —a number of them office holders—in 1936 were members or supporters of the Socialist Party, although they, had far better reason for supporting Roosevelt then, after his first term, than in 1944...
...The strength of the Political Action Committee of the CIO, the larger National Citizens PAC which it organized for legal and other reasons, and corresponding activities of the AFL, is more important...
...And the hash was essentially Democratic...
...Nowhere in my varied contacts all over America did I find popular enthusiasm for Gov...
...He was the beneficiary of strong feeling against President Roosevelt...
...To be sure, Mr...
...The primary system, the fact that we must deal with - 48 sets of election laws, the subordination of all issues to the choice of a President, and the Constitutional requirement that the President must get a clear majority in the Electoral College, all favor the existing two-party system...
...It was a case of time lag, I suppose, plus, perhaps, the war...
...The unions then would have organized to get out the vote for that ticket as they did in other states...
...It was Roosevelt's dramatic success in the crisis of 1933 which blocked on the one hand the growth of the Socialist Party and on . the other the rise of a definite American fascism...
...The Contrast In Canada Some political amateurs who are also optimists, look at the situation I have described and profess to find in it ground for hope that we can rapidly emulate our Canadian neighbors who have built up a progressive or, more accurately, a democratic socialist party, called the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation...
...that Dumbarton Oaks marked a good beginning of internationalism...
...But the election results make immediate success in any such project very unlikely...
...At best, we face difficulties scarcely paralleled in Canada...
...Nothing so clear and simple is the case...
...The once powerful Farmer Labor Party of Minnesota merged with the Democrats...
...This is true even if as now seems probable a large part of its vote in a great many districts was never counted for it at all...
...The Socialist Party is openly committed to the effort to build a party like the CCF with mass support...
...But here the Republicans overplayed their hand...
...The fight turned on personalities, past records, and plain veracity...
...Moreover, Mackenzie King of Canada is no Roosevelt...
...Roosevelt with the support of a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress...
...and that under it either of them could guarantee that he—but never his .opponent—would provide 60 to 65 million peacetime jobs...
...namely, nominate the Democratic candidates for all important offices...
...Dewey...
...Thomas analyzing present and future political trends in terms of the results of the recent elections...
...But before we accept that conclusion, we must remember these New York parties were legally able to do what a great many states forbid...
...It was played down by press and radio and ignored by spokesmen t>f the major parties' who kept on repeating phrases like unexplained incantations...
...In many areas, however, it was better organized through the Political Action Committee...
...It became outwardly a mere political association...
...that "unconditional surrender" must stand...
...They seem to enjoy the process of debating who or what is the lesser evil...
...It is problematical what might have happened in domestic affairs if attention had not been centered on the coming of World War II and if the war boom had not done temporarily for full employment what neither Mr...
...I need not further elaborate the failure of both parties to develop a program or substantial differences of policy...
...Both Roosevelt and Wagner apparently owe their election to them...
...Hence recurrent talk about capturing one of them for a progressive program...
...But its existence is not the answer to the problem of better techniques for our democracy...
...Altogether, it's a bad situation for democracy...
...I think that both Roosevelt and Wagner would have carried New York if they had appeared only on the Democratic ticket...
...Logically this situation should have invited a big third party vote...
...The PAC and its tactics will have to be reckoned with...
...Against this self-righteous mood, I want to raise two closely related questions: (1) What did the election settle...
...Nevertheless, there is a significance, probably hopeful, in the fact that more than 700,000 New York voters preferred to take their medicine under something else than an old party label...
...Roosevelt got no progressive legislation of importance after 1937...
...One was the considerable strength shown in New York State by the American Labor Party (controlled by the Communists and Sidney Hillman) and the new Liberal Party, organized by the former right wing of the ALP with strong union support...
...On the contrary, the differences within both parties remain greater than the ostensible differences between them...
...On the face of it, these parties hold the balance of power in New York...
...The Progressive Party, repeatedly a winner in Wisconsin, polled barely six per cent of the state's vote...
...Confusion And Evasion At first glance, it would seem then that the electorate accepted these policies and preferred to have them carried out by Mr...
...But Sen...
...The two articles constitute the first installment in a series The Progressive will publish on the political prospects ahead for progressives...
...In two large meetings when I met better than average representatives of the old parties, their failure to reply and the strength of my support from audiences, by no means socialist, amazed me...
...and (2) what did it tell us about the adequacy of our political parties to the service of democracy in difficult years ? The outstanding fact about the campaign was that there was such general agreement on issues in the major party platforms and the speeches of their leaders, mixed with such emotional bitterness about men...
...Roosevelt and Dewey were agreed that the war must be carried on until our enemies are "crushed...
...The party can grow like a snowball...
...La Follette's impressive challenge to the Administration's foreign policy, a policy which Dewey blessed, was reported, and provoked practically no intelligent reaction...
...The PAC endorsement was not an unmixed advantage to Roosevelt partly because Sidney Hillman, its leader, was for reasons good and bad, politically vulnerable...
...On the face of their own statements, the Messrs...
...There was indeed such criticism...
...let the others show enterprise...
...The latter had positive and affectionate support, but it was neither as extensive nor anything like as deep as in 1936...
...It is the governing party in Saskatchewan, the second party in Ontario, and may win the next general election...
...Why...
...Even if I'm jobless he'll do more for me than another Hoover...
...These organizations unquestionably helped get out a big vote for Roosevelt and for many Democratic—and a few Republican—Congressmen...
...The old parties could hardly have done less to enlighten us on these issues if there had been a conspiracy of evasion between them...
...There is no general agreement as to what "internationalism" means or requires, or concerning the significance of Dumbarton Oaks...
...They agreed in praising social security but presented no comprehensive program for it even in outline...
...Was it because the voters were intellectually satisfied with what they were offered, or was there no pointed criticism from any minor party...
...AS I WRITE, the fashionable line to take with regard to the election is one of self-congratulation that •we Americans, alone of great nations, dared to risk an election in the midst of a great war...
...that our economic hope lies in "free competitive enterprise...
...If possible their joint confusion or evasion of economic policies was worse...
...Well, there's something in that, and we are inclined to make more of it because not many of us were proud of the level on which so important a campaign was conducted...
...What faith they have, they put in individuals...
...The fact was generally admitted...
...In scores of speeches before audiences in all parts of America, and over many local radio stations, I earefully developed the socialist alternative to policies that I charged were unnecessarily prolonging this war, and leading us to chronic depression and to a third World War...
...For one thing its own future strategy is uncertain now that it has accomplished its unifying purpose of reelecting Roosevelt...
...In some way not definitely determined, America is to agree to help enforce a peace concerning which we are kept in darkness except for obvious evidence that it will perpetuate and perhaps accentuate imperialism and power politics...
...Neither in the questions nor in the general attitude of the audiences could I sense any strong support of the things I criticized...
...for another, as a CIO creation, it is not enthusiastically welcomed by the AFL or the Railway Brotherhoods...
...It got so that I would tell my audiences that I would feel better about America if they would defend the candidates for whom they apparently expected to vote...
...It is always easier to build a new party in a country with a parliamentary form of government...
...Basically as I discovered the argument ran like this: "All I know is that I've got more money in my pocket than ever before and Roosevelt is President...
...The Socialist Party, which looked to politicians like something of a threat as recently as 1932, despite the increased monopolization of the ballot by the old parties through legislation, and its own organizational weakness, got on the ballot in 25 states—fewer than in 1940 ¦—and waged an active campaign...
...Roosevelt nor any other man could do under our economic system in time of peace...
...Every single group wants something free from the Government...
...Seeking The Lesser Evil Nothing of the sort happened...
...In most of our meetings we had forums after my address...
...With us the all-important thing is always the election of a President, and, as we have seen, law and custom "make it increasingly difficult for a third party to do well in a Presidential election...
...In most of those states it slightly increased its vote over 1940 but not enough to make it a factor in the national election...
...And succeeded...
...Which, as they did not stress, is 15 to 20 million more than existed before the war when we had that same {so-called) free enterprise...
...A second will appear in an early issue...
Vol. 8 • December 1944 • No. 49
