SOCIALIST APPEAL JANUARY 20, 1940 In the World of Labor The Christian Front Arrests Fight Fascism Roosevelt Latest resolution into the Senate, calling for an invesSOCIALIST APPEAL tigation of the validity of the sale.
Finally, on January 16, Oficial quarters reVol. IV, No. Saturday, January 20, 1940 vealed today that the State Department was lookPublished Weekly by the ing askance at approval by the Maritime ComBy Paul Stevens SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASSN.
mission of the proposed transfer. To make at 116 University Place. New York, NY it look still better, the New York Times pub Political Strike Another Solution Telephone: Algonquin 8547 By GEORGE STERN lished the story the next day under the headline: in War Time London for the Indian Controversy Without relaxing for a single instant their main task of ferreting out and framing up militant unionEditore State Department blocked ship sale. Tucked away in obscure corners of inside Trouble in India seems to have no end for ists and unemployed workers, the men have turnFELIX MORROW MAX SHACHTMAN Query: Why did it take the State Department pages in the daily press we find a little item the harassed British imperialists. Even an ared up in New York City a conspiratorial band of Pas16 days to make public its askance. Are we that is nevertheless of considerable significance. tificial enthusiasm for the war is difficult to cists of the Christian Front, which had actually beAssistant Manager: General Manager stage manage. On the other hand, we have such We refer to the strike of 3, 000 black coated gun to collect an arsenal and to train men for the GEORGE CLARKE SHERMAN STANLEY really, really and truly, being asked to believe (the British equivalent of our white collar. outbursts as that of the strikes of the Lascars, that the State Department didn know that the civil service employees in London. They are reported here last week. Reliable sources also avowed purpose of an armed campaign against radical report that about a month ago a one day strike Jews, and the government, striking against their evacuation to BlackMaritime Commission was doing it? Who can Seously the same Federal body indicted 44 Subscriptions: 00 per year: 00 for six months.
against the war was successfully carried out Foreign. 00 per year, 50 for six months. Bundle labor leaders in New Orleans and a score of others in believe that such moves are made without agree pool. Their action is directed against the governin Bombay, involving in the main some 60, 000 ment. Their complaint: the wages they receive orders: cents per copy in the United States: centa Chicago, making a total of 400 indictments, mostly of ment, especially after the Panama uproar?
textile workers of the Garni Kamgar unions. unionists in the anti trust union busting campaign per copy in all foreign countries. Single copies: cents To allay these disturbances, the Colonial of And these people talk about Stalin morality! Hiving standardli ale inadequate to meet the fice is working overtime. Rumor has it that of the Department Justice.
Only the other day Chamberlain called for Sir Stafford Cripps, noted millionaire Labour If the men have gone after this Fascist gang it Reentered as second class matter December 1939, at the post office at New York, under the is because the American capitalists do not feel as sacrifices from the nation to meet the emergency lawyer and outstanding advocate of the People Act of March 3, 1879.
created by the war situation. As is usually the Front in England, is currently engaged in putyet any need for help of this kind in crushing working case, although sacrifices are demanded of all ting over a radical seeming settlement in close class protest in this country. They have sufficient conclasses alike. the brunt has to be borne by conjunction with the government. Meanwhile, fidence so far in the ability of their Army and Navy.
FIGHT WITH THE SOCIALIST How those in the lower income brackets. That the the papers announce that the Marquess of Lin.
police and men, their courts and prisons, to keep latter realize this and are by no means reconworking class protest in check.
lithgow, Viceroy of India saw many political WORKERS PARTY FOR: ciled to their fate that is what the strike of leaders and the feeling is growing that these Purpose of the Arrests There is plenty of hokum in the publicity sur the blackcoated workers shows.
meetings will assist toward a settlement of the For our rulers the exposure and arrest of this job and a decent living for every worker.
current disagreement over Indian support for Fascis rounding the arrest of the 17 rats of the Chris. Open the idle factories operate them under The dislocation in economy brought about by ng serves a double purpose. First of all, at the British Government in the war.
the present time they have no need of such gangs workers control.
tian Front who are charged with an attempt to the inter imperialist struggle is bound to create The political leaders here referred to are ob and suppress them just as Daladier suppressed Twenty Bullion dollar Federal public works overthrow the government. There is also a wave of struggle on the part of the workers.
viously none other than the usual colonial toadies them in France. Like the French bosses, they expect and housing program.
much that must be taken with dead seriousness. section of the working class the usually timid, The fact that it is among the most backward of the imperialist masters who have always put to be able to chain the workers to the war machine their rubber with the state power already at their disposal and Thirty thirty 80 weekly minimum wage 30Nobody takes seriously the fanfare of Edgar submissive and patriotic clerks who most readily expresses as Indio whatever the Viceroy hour weekly maximum for all workers on all jobs.
goal. According to a re with the aid of their lieutenants within the working Hoover, killer diller champ No. of the accept the national and democratie ideology cent speech by the latter, that goal is now Thirty dollar weekly old age and disability class itself, the reactionary labor leaders.
government, that he nipped in the bud a plot to first symptoms of this wave are in evidence. dominion status at the earliest practicable mo Secondly, the small scale man drive against Fascpension.
ment. That is, the same vague, paternal proExpropriate the Sixty Families.
overthrow our government. Hoover is a shows the elementary force the class struggle ists helps take some of the curse off the large scale mises that have always characterized British drive being conducted against militant workers All war funds to the unemployed.
skilled hand at self advertisement even if his will break through the sham of this war for policy democracy with extraordinary speed and viothroughout the country, right now especially in the knowledge of history wouldn get him a passing lence. It is an indication of the degree of decay people referendum on any and all wars.
Not even the extreme Right wing of the In ranks of the unemployed The Minneapolis WPA trials mark in a high school examination. Twenty three and disintegration, incomparably greater than dian nationalists the All India Congress can No secret diplomacy have focussed attention of workers on the real meannow be expected to be in the slightest satisfied ing of the anti radical drive which the Department An Independent Labor Party.
men didn overthrow the Czarist government during the last war, that capitalism has actuwith such promises. Thus, Gandhi, the foremost of Justice has launched. The arrest of a handful of u. Workers Defense Guards against vigilante and as Hoover ignorantly lectures, and seventeen or ally reached.
spokesman of this conservative wing, recently un needed fascists helps give this drive a false apFascist attacks.
declared in a statement to the British press: seventeen thousand won overthrow the An American Legion pearance of impartiality.
12. Full social, political and economic equality for The proposed Constituent Assembly is the But whatever the motives or the calculations of the the Negro people.
only body that can evolve a proper and lasting Federal agents and their bosses, the uncovering of an upheaval of the overwhelming majority of for Finnish Independence solution. Any other can only be a makeshift this Fascist band in New York is a grave warning to the masses in the first case; it will take a far Another modestly displayed item in the press carrying no popular sanction. No wonder the workers of the whole country. Times January 15) announces that Hitler has challenged the British Government That such a band should have come into existence, stronger movement in the second. American volunteers who have been arriving to prove her sincerity by recognizing India as that it acquired arms and conducted military training It can safely be predicted that before the trial in Finland by the hundreds since the war with free nation. Whatever may be his intention is fact that should stand out before the workers is over the fascist comic opera revolutionists Soviet Russia began, are being organized into in issuing the challenge, it cannot be denied like a blazing red danger signal that it is pertinent.
will be transformed from beer hall putschists a separate legion. Apparently the Hoover Com.
It is not an isolated phenomenon. This New York mittee is getting down to brass tacks.
The reference to popular sanction is the key gang is blood brother to the Bund, the Black Legion, Let no one be lulled into security by the cau into deadly foreign spies in the pay of Hitler to an understanding of the problem. The masses the Klan, the scores and hundreds of vigilante gangs tious and rather queasy letter that Roosevelt Already the New York Times headlines sabot In line with their policy of giving Indepen are on the move and anxious to take advantage dent support to the Finnish people. shall we which have come into action in as many strikes, the of British difficulties in order to settle accounts sent on January 16 to Garner and Bankhead conage against American supply and transport of Silver Shirts, and their like. It was directly linked to soon see a Lovestone Brigade and a Norman with their oppressors. Not even a Gandhi has Father Coughlin and his Christian Front although cerning aid to Finland. It demonstrated that munitions in the event of war as the real motive Thomas brigade helping Mannerheim indepenany hope of strangling their will to struggle, the Detroit Fuehrer quickly disavowed the gang.
Roosevelt doesn believe the claims of his own of the plot. This makes better propaganda for dently against the Soviet Union. And will the without first yielding to it. No matter what while admitting that he received contributions from it.
crowd that the American people are overwhelm Roosevelt war drive. Hoover angle would Soviet Union or will it go right on with the the instigation, no matter what the intentions of a Hitler in this matter may be or what the pur Government Make Believe ingly desirous of government aid to Finland.
have made a personal side show.
American Legion and the doughty baron towards pose of the Stalinists who are active in direct It would be a mortal error for any trade unionist It was, indeed, a tacit confession that six weeks The Christian Front was organized by Father the liberation of the Russian people too? And support of Indian rebellion may be, storm to believe that the government proceeds against these Coughlin as his fascist storm troops. During the for the restoration of Western civilization in 1f Mannerheim and Hoover afterwards declare is brewing in India whose explosiveness is bound of incessant propaganda have not gotten very gangs in any serious manner. Its pressure against to sweep aside not only British imperialism, but them is nothing compared to its pressure against far. As ardent a partisan of the Finns as Arthur last several months, they conducted intensive ac Russia, Lovestone and Thomas can always re its German opponent as well and with them militant workers and working class revolutionists.
Krock was constrained to report from Washing tivity against Jews and communists serve their right to an independent interpre the Gandhist leaders of the bourgeoisie and the And its pressure against the Fascists decreases as ton that opposition to Finnish aid springs from Stalinist leaders of the unions.
its pressure increases against the workers. Let us throughout the country, particularly in New tation of this boon.
make no mistake about that an intense popular wish, especially noticeable beYork Coughlin thundered over the radio on Think of any single strike and the way the police yond the Alleghenies, to avoid any acts which July 30, 1939: The Christian Front is no longer and vigilantes work TOGETHER in perfect harmony could possibly lead to entanglement in the Europ a dream, it is a reality in America. defending against the strikers, and you get a real idea of what it will be like when things really get tough on a ean war. New York Times, January 17. ourselves against the invaders of our spiritual national scale.
Nevertheless, Roosevelt and his cohorts have and national rights, the Franco way.
The Example of Germany not abandoned for one moment their intention At the last moment, when the FBI picked up This is not plain guesswork. We have before us the to join England and France in financing the Fin his seventeen lieutenants, Coughlin issued a cowexperience of workers in Germany, Austria, Spain, nish spearhead against the Soviet Union. Popu ardly public disavowal. That only proved that By DWIGHT MACDONALD France, and other countries. The Fascist movements The Stalinists Discover rose in those countries for the same reasons that it is lar opposition represents to them only a problem the yellow streak is the outstanding moral charbeginning to raise its head here. Out of an insoluble to get around. The lengths they are ready to go acteristic of the fascists including their fuehrWho Roosevelt Is economic crisis, growing mass privation and starvawere made clear Tuesday when Majority Leader ers. It did not in any way change the fact of tion, out of the inadequacy of all existing forms of capitalist rule, the Fascist movement rises, like an Rayburn rose in the House to say that Finland Coughlin known leadership and direction of ugly reptile rising out of the slime.
could exchange the agricultural products pro the Christian Front. The eighteen men in the Where, as in Germany, the bosses realize they have vided by American loans for other products dock of the Federal Court are tools and dupes.
no other way out and no other way of effectively came anywhere near providing for all the unemcountering the rising storm of working class protest abroad, e. arms. By hook or by crook the cap The real criminal is not under indictment: his Jekyll into Hyde.
italist rulers of this country intend to strike ployed was during the four months of November against such conditions, they seize upon the Fascist name is Coughlin In the past year, President Roosevelt has openthrough February, 1933 1934, when the Civil slime and use it to suffocate the working class movethrough Finland a blow against the Soviet Unly put himself at the head of the reactionary Equally significant is the fact that the investi crusade to cut down relief and reintroduce Hoover Works Administration works program gave jobs ment and indeed all freedom of thought and action gation is deliberately overlooking the very place starvation for the unemployed. Hoover gave to some 4, 000, 000 of the 8, 000, 000 then unemion. They will utilize to the utmost Stalin inin every sphere in order to perpetuate their rule.
ployed, while Federal grants in aid to the states In Germany for years the official police proceeded vasion that should be investigated. the National Guard them breadlines and played with the idea of took care of most of the rest. MOST, by no against the Fascists just like Roosevelt G men Efforts must be redoubled in the trade unions and the Police Department of New York. The processing and sterilizing garbage for use by the means all. are doing now. They arrested them, imprisoned them, nation jobless. Roosevelt gives them surplus to secure adoption of resolutions denouncing the suppressed their organizations, and newspapers but fascist arsenal was admittedly stolen from the commodities and they have to dig out their own (2) Roosevelt has been for years trying to cut Federal relief expenditures. Opening shot in the in the end they joined hands with the Hitler hordes propaganda for Finland as a deliberate move to National Guard armory. One of the chief ring garbage, unprocessed and unsterilized. to crush the workers, to enslave them, and hurl them campaign was fired not in his budget message of drag us into war. The Minneapolis Central Labor leaders was an officer in the National Guard. This has provoked a great wailing and gnashing of teeth among Roosevelt friends or exa few weeks ago, but in the one he sent to into the horrors of war.
Union and other bodies have already adopted How could the arms have been stolen excepti friends in the labor In France the same combination of elements workvement Congress on January 4, 1935. This proposed that ince budget Federal relief ald to the states be discontinued ed out a little differently but the end result was the such resolutions and shown the way for the labor collusion with more important men at the top? message, advocating drastic WPA cuts, there andthat the Government limit itself to WPA work same. The Fascist gangs grew like a festering store movement.
Today paper reveals that a Lieutenant of the has begun in some quarters a campaign to put relief. This new program was laid down at a in the sick body of the nation. The workers, organized Police Department had been investigated on yielded to reactionary pressure on relief, that joint meeting of the National Industrial Conin mightly millions and ready and willing to fight for charges of adhering to the Christian Front. He up to 1939, he was and establish their own power, were bamboozled by peerless champion of the ference Board and the National Association of Manufacturers. The keynote of this 1985 relief the left and pro labor People Front government was cleared on his own assertion that he had unemployed. This line is now being peddled in message was the flat statement by Roosevelt: of Leon Blum, Daladier and Stalin French lackeys, the Daily Worker and the CIO News. It is an atdropped from membership. How many other tempt to get out from under. These papers now The Federal Government must and shall quit into leaving to the government the task of suppresscops were and are members of the fascist Chris claim the Roosevelt they so loyally supported for this business of relief.
ing the Fascists. Drastic decrees were adopted, voted for with both hands by Blum and his Socialist so long was a different fellow entirely from the tian Front? Why aren they investigated and On December 31 the United States Maritime (3) In theory, WPA was to provide jobs for all Party and Thorez and his stalino Communist Party Roosevelt of today. The good Dr. Jekyll has sudable bodied unemployed. In practice, it has never prosecuted. Commission, a Roosevelt appointed body, apSo what happened? The Fascist gangs were put denly changed into the wicked Mr. Hyde.
provided more than 3, 500, 000 jobs, while the toThat reason is easy to find. The American tal number of such unemployed has varied beconveniently in the background because the easy proved an application of the United States Lines compliance of the working class leaders made it untween 8, 000, 000 and 12, 000, 000. At no time has capitalist government is not seriously interested Nothing Left But the Smile for the sale of eight of its ships to a Norwegnecessary for the French bosses to use them. The WPA provided jobs for more than a third of the in uprooting fascism in this country. How can it, Today paper brings a report of the conven ABLE BODIED, EMPLOYABLE unemployed. and with the approach of the war in 1938 and 1939 great strikes of 1936 were crushed by the government ian dummy. It was a flagrant trick to violate the Neutrality Law, but the Commission connived when tomorrow it will utilize the fascists against tion of the New York state Workers Alliance. The This means that the great majority of the employables and ALL the unemployables have been all the decrees supposedly passed against the Fascists at it, and the press played the story down to help the organized labor movement just as the bosses velt, for reasons which have nothing to do with left to the mercies of the states and localities were turned against the workers organizations!
The the interests of the unemployed but a great deal did in Italy and Germany?
the game along. similar attempt earlier by the where relict standards are only from halt to Communist Party itself was one of the first to feel a to do with the interests of Stalin and Hitler. TENTH of even the very low WPA wage ratos.
the whip It had helped to make.
same company to switch to Panama registry in Don be taken in by Hoover grandstand There has been a drastic change in the policies The recent break down of relier in Cleveland was And when war came Daladier swept aside the last order to continue to sail the war zone, also applay. The fascists can only be undermined and of President Roosevelt in the past year, report as much due to Roosevelt policies as to the vestiges of democratic rule, established a complete proved by the Commission, had to be withdrawn ed the Alliance bureaucrats, and they led the brutal inhumanity of the Republican Governor of dictatorship, declared all strikes treasonable, supsmashed by the workers themselves and by ac convention in singing a song which began: Ohio.
pressed newspapers, dissolved working class organin face of the protest it aroused. The Commisizations, unseated properly elected working class rep.
sion and the shipowners hoped that this time tion. We saw that almost a year ago when the There was a man named Roosevelt (4) There has been a lot of plous moaning resentatives, and led the chained masses into the war about Roosevelt insistence on cutting the union New York Bundists and Coughlinites organized Began to do what the people felt: they would get away with it.
wage scale out of WPA last summer, and his British boss empires!
holocaust for the greater glory of the French and The New Deal came and stayed a while, Both the Norwegian Ship Owners Association their Madison Square demonstration. LaGuarBut all that left is Roosevelt smile.
vicious smashing of the strike that resulted. AcThis is what really happens if we put any relianco tually, it was merely a repeat performance. The in the government apparent moves against the Fasand the Norwegian government have since flatly dia cops protected the fascists and slugged the first event in the history of WPA, in the sumstated they first learned of the move through the cist gangs. It happened over there. It can happen here.
workers who had been mobilized by the Socialist Especially disillusioned by Roosevelt recent mer of 1985, was a now forgotten strike against Maritime Commission announcement of its ap, That is, it can happen here unless the workers of Roosevelt Insistence on eliminating union wage Workers Party in protest. Once again the way to retary of the Alliance. WPA is not what she America learn lessons paid for so dearly with the proval. That is sufficient commentary on the rates from the newborn WPA. At that time, too, lives and liberties of their brother workers in Europe.
used to be, he said sadly. As for Rooseveltfight the fascists was shown when the Christian he issued You can strike against the governCommission investigation of the bona fide His beautiful phrases of yesterday ring hollow And the first of these lessons must be: We rely on ment! statements, and did his best to cut strikchara organizations, our own of the Norwe corporation to Front march on Union Square in New York was today.
crs off all relief rolls, Federal or local. He lost forces, to deal with the which transfer was made. On January the stymied by the counter action called for by the Glance at the Record out that time because the union movement was raises Its head!
too strong for him. But he waited his chance and Norwegian government advised the United Socialist Workers Party. The Christian Front That is the meaning of the plank in the platform of Let look at the record as to Roosevelt and re last summer, when labor was already in retreat, the Socialist Workers Party that calls for the creaStates Lines that it would not permit the deal to never fully recovered from this defeat.
he struck his blow again this time successfully.
lief. When did he begin his campaign against the tion of Workers Defense Guards by every unlon, byr go through. The Norwegian government plainly But the fascist danger is still here big as a unemployed. told the story in great detail in (5) Finally, it is interesting to note that as every workers organization.
had no desire to provide a front for the United the September, 1939, issue of the New Interna early as October 23, 1985, Roosevelt was disap The New York Fascist gang shows that our mortal States Lines to continue sailing the war zone.
zoo full of snakes. It can be met and conquered tional, but a few of the basic facts may well be pointing his left wing admirers. The Nation of enemies are not sleeping. Woe unto us if we are repeated here.
that date lamented: The fine social consciousonly by the workers. Don trust the bosses govBy this time the thing smelled so, that Senator asleep when the showdown comes! If we awake, if (1) The only time in the entire history of the ness which characterized the early days of the we prepare now to defend ourselves, the end of the Clark of Missouri on January 15 introduced a ernment. Organize your own defense guards! Roosevelt Administration that its relief program New Deal appears to have faded. Alas!
story here will be a different one from that in Europe.
SPARKS IN THE NEWS Bit Tardy our own strength, our selst menace wherever It