Page SOCIALIST APPEAL APRIL 27, 1940 How May Day Began The Unions Must Lead the Youth Or Fascists Will ter To Organize Fight Against the Wage Tax being drawn into war on account of the Far SOCIALIST APPEAL Eastern situation, Admiral Taussig said.
He cited the famous Tanaka Memorial outlinVol. IV, No. 17 Saturday, April 27, 1940 ing Japanese expansionist aims and declared. In (Continued from Page 7) loyalty to their holiday. The AFL ers would remain at work for Published Weekly by the the Far East, a situation has arisen which defin international working class solid their power to divert the celebra Not so in the United States.
most gigantic demonstrations top leadership did everything in the defense of their countries.
SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASS itely threatens our national interests. can arity the world has ever seen. In tion of May Day on May to In 1917, with the United States at 116 University Place, New York, NY.
Telephone: Algonquin 8547 not see how we can escape being forced into most industrial centers in Eur. May Sunday. They tried to already in the worlawar, the ope and the United States, the change the character of the day workers and revolutionary eleeventual war by the present trend of events.
workers poured into the streets, from one of strikes and street ments within the Socialist Party Editorial Board By our interests the plain speaking admiral ready for the inevitable fight with fights with the police to picnics, went into the streets to protest FELIX MORROW ALBERT GOLDMAN means the interests of American investments, an international holiday with the eants. But the workers wanted in Cleveland was set upon by the General Manager: trade, imperialist power. Just what these have to blood of many workers to baptize May Day to remain what it was police. One man was killed and GEORGE CLARKE do with the interests of the workers the it.
a mass demonstration for politic another wounded.
United States nobody troubles to say, because Day became a day of dread for between the workers of the Through the next decades May al, social, and economic solidarity May Day is the Workers Day.
Subacriptions: 00 per year: 00 for six months.
they have nothing to do with them. The whole all of the governments and their world, and that is what it mea it will never be, by the bosses. It It has never been legalized, and Poreign: 00 per year. 50 for six months. Bundle orders: cents per copy in the United States: centa country is to be asked to line up for the slaugh police. Every year the demonstra mained. Finally, the AFL leaders is the one day on which, above per copy in all foreign countries. Single coples: centa ter to defend and expand the interests of the tions grew larger than the year tried to shift altogether to Lall, the workers demonstrate their handful of bankers and big business men in the before, more political in charac bor Day, in September.
class consciousness, their realizaIn 1915 the social democratic tion that they have only one road Reentere det neconde se vorstter. December the Far East, six to ten thousand miles from our Het thereotomet New York, homes.
The Gompers regime in the leadership of the European work to freedom and that is struggle AFL did its best to stifle the May Day strike. They pledged of the world and the economic ing class succeeded in averting a to the death against the bosses Of course, both Hull and the Navy depart spirit of the workers, and their their governments that the work system under which they rule.
ment immediately issued disclaimers of responFIGHT WITH THE SOCIALIST sibility for Taussig plain talk. But just imagine of WORKERS PARTY FOR: like that without the nod from Roosevelt. job and a decent lying for every worker Open the Idle factories operate them under The government isn really going to rebuke workers control.
Taussig for declaring that we are going to (Continued from Page 2)
Labor Caught Asleep for four months. It time to call Twenty Bulion dollar Federal public works have to fight Japan and should, to that end, make gan to make things hot for the The labor movement, the trade a halt. The Socialist Workers and housing program a pact at once with Britain, France, and Hol Republican bosses Thirty thirty 80 weekly minimum wage 80with one unions had been caught sleeping Party calls upon all unions and round after another of demon at the switch. No demonstrations, workers organizations to organland, and spend a couple of billions more of the strations, mass meetings and no actions, no picket lines as ize a mass movement that will bour weekly maximum for all workers on all Jobe. Thirty dollar weekly old age and disability people money for bigger and bigger warships. other pressure actions. The sales there had been at the time of the throw the wage tax in the ashpension.
The government isn going to rebuke him besales tax. They just tried to get can and along with it the City 6. Expropriate the Sixty Families.
cause, the fact is, he expressed the real inten works was put in hock to the was all. The City Council fustigIn 1939 the city owned gas a few petitions signed and that Stepfathers who made it law. repeal the Wage Tax Al war funds to the unemployed.
tions of the government, and his public state tune of 42, 000, 000 and the crisis nored the workers and went on to movement can sweep the city by people referendum on any and all wars.
ment was probably deliberately designed to test was staved off for a time. But dig deeper in the pork barrel. storm. Every union, every work9. No secret diplomacy.
public reaction.
not before Cooke had stuck his The wage tax still hangs where poor people live and work ers neighborhood, every place An Independent LaborParty.
hand into this soft pie and ex around the necks of the work can be organized for the antiWorkers Defense Guards against vigilante and Let that public reaction be made plain and tracted for himselt 100, 000 in ers like a millstone. Nothing is wage tax movement.
Fascist attacks.
made fast. The workers Can it be done?
Fall social, political and economic equality for have no interests to defend in the Far East. deal. That man will get ahead. ports of civic groups urging It was done with the sales tax!
the Negro people.
Their interests lie with the Chinese and Japan hewnever steals anything under to substitute for the wage tax.
It can be done with the wage tax!
ese workers who will defend them in common five figures.
And that just the point! No The Socialist Workers Party, against the capitalists of those countries, and Now They Try This body has forced the City Council Philadelphia local, calls upon the will defend them all the better if the American to do anything. Labor leaders workers of this city to set afoot workers concentrate on breaking up the imper taxes by the time 1939 came to have suffered in silence.
still they had to find more have done nothing. The workers the picket lines, mass demonstra.
tions and mass actions that will ialist war plans of our own boss rulers right a close. Taxing property and real War in the Pacific The wage tax has been wring finish the wage tax just as it here at home. And we can do that first of all by cstate in the higher brackets was ing the working population dry once finished the sales tax.
Step by step this country is being shoved by organizing to fight the vast drive of union re ple who hadis plenty hát theo meg: pression that the government has already started and that would never do! Sud GREETINGS ARRIVE FROM THE the Washington government closer and closer to as a wartime measure and by fighting for jobs denly they hit on a grand idea: war against Japan in the Pacific.
and for the 30 hour week at a 30 minimum. sition that discriminated against the wage tax. Here was a propo FRENCH SECTION OF 4th INT Secretary of State Cordell Hull last week That OUR fighting front. Let get busy on it! no one. treated rich and poor Greetings: warned Japan not to occupy the Dutc East Inalike. The man that made ten THE COMMITTEES OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL dies and on April 24 the well informed Washingmillion and the WPA worker, the billionaire and the relief slave(French section of the Fourth International) address their fraton columnists, Pearson and Allen, said in their ternal greetings to the workers of all countries who are strugIT WASN NAILED DOWN!
all of them had to pay the same gling to transform the imperialist war into a civil war. Merry Go Round. Herbert Fleishhacker, 68 year old former president percentage. The principle of We salute our brothers of the Fourth International everyequality no less. The Hull warning to Japan is subject to vari of the Anglo California National Bank, is given a where in the French Colonies, the British Colonies, and PARclean bill of health by Harry Young, his attorney, The next job was to put over TICULARLY OUR BROTHERS, THE FOURTH INTERNAous interpretations, but that given it by estabwho is defending him against the federal indictment the 14 tax painlessly without TIONALISTS OF GERMANY, OF BOHEMIA, OF POLAND lished usage is that if Japan does not heed the charging him with misappropriating 55, 000 from fuss or commotion. Citizen AND OF THE warning it means war. Nations do not usually the huge bank he once controlled. He has taken committee was formed with We greet especially warmly Leon Trotsky, in whose person stick their necks out to tell another nation what nothing to which he is not entitled, declared Young. Gates, member of the Board of Stalin, Hitler and Daladier hate the living symbol of the revDirectors of the Penna. as olution in progress!
to do without the risk of war. So, write it down its chairman. Representatives of We call upon the comrades in America and in all sections in as certain that if we get into war, it will be labor unions were invited to par those countries which have not yet entered the war, to come to through the back door of the Pacific. Lent, says the Minneapolis Star Journal editori ticipate. The committee inves the support of the revolutionists of the belligerent countries to ally, teaches many things to those who observe it, tigated and investigated un render them the aid which they sorely need.
But far more specific and authoritative was the and among the most important, is self denial, the dis til the day came to balance the We reaffirm our profound faith, more than ever, in the problunt statement made on April 22 before the cipline of oneself for a 10 day period. It is a beneficial budget. It conveniently had no letarian revolution which will soon sweep from the world that form of therapy to make ourselves, once in awhile, other idea than the wage tax. rotten capitalism which is leading the workers to slaughter. We Senate Committee on Naval Affairs by Rear do without to refuse ourselves certain pleasures we Whereupon the City Council call upon all the sections of the Fourth International to close Admiral Taussig, a former assistant chief have learned to accept as our own. It overhauls our passed the tax by a 17 vote their ranks more closely than ever and to prepare for the revof naval operations and at present commander of habits, puts backbone in our character, proves we with no discussion whatever. Un olutionary battle!
can say no to ourselves and be obeyed. Aren the like other taxes, this one has no Paris, France CENTRAL COMMITTEE, the Fifth Naval District at Norfolk, Va.
reliefers and other unemployed the luckiest persons time stipulation. It must stand COMMITTEES OF THE cannot see how we can ultimately prevent ever! They have Lent all the time.
untit repealed.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL 10.
11.
12 By LOU COOPER In a recent poll in San Francisco, unemployed youth were asked what they considered to be the cauee of their unemployment. surprisingly large group answered that they considered the trades unions to be the cause of their unemployment. Is this the attitude of many unemployed youth throughout the nation. Every labor man should be vitally interested in the answer. Why? Because the lesson of Germany, in particular, is that the unemployed youth, locked out by capitalism are the easiest victims of fascist demagogy and propaga? ide. This fascist propaganda directs its lying attack not ga nst the real cause of unemployment, capitalist chaos caused by private ownership of the means of production but against the labor unions. The fascists say, the trades unions with their clused shops and seniority rights have locked you unemployed youth out of industry. Trades urions are a racket, they shout.
The end result of this lying attack in Germany was that Hitler built ap an army of young unemployed who hated the trade unions with all the fierceness of their untamed emotions and who ruthlessly took the lead in the merciless crushing of the trade uniona when Hitler came to power. The trade unionists in Germany learned too late that it was the elementary duty of every liberty loving labor man to combat the vicious lies of the fascists.
How Youth Can Fight for Jobs What the first thing we should attempt to have unemployed youth understand? Capitalism, in its present period of stagnation and decay, provides too few number of jobs for labor, and that where the fault lies! Unemployed youth must understand that it the greed and profits of the Sixty Families that responsible for their locked out condition. The wheels of industry are not rolling because under private ownership industry must work at a profit or else it rots and men starve.
How can unemployed youth alleviate this condition? By attempting to fight the trade unions that are attempting to maintain the present number of jobs for labor and get some security for the men on the jobs. Absolutely no! The unions are not responsible for the existence of the huge army of unemployed.
Unemployed youth must direct all their fire against the owners of industry, the Sixty Families, and their government in Washington.
Open the idle factories of the nation and give us jobs! That the slogan around which the unemployed youth should rally. And once they want to put teeth into that slogan they ll realize that only union control of newly opened factories could insure a decent standard of living and security on the job.
demand that the Sixty Families provide Three Billion Dolars for jobs for all youth. The attack must be centered on those who have locked youth out and can afford to pay.
Unions Must Accept Responsibility Who will present this program to the unemployed youth? Obviously not the Sixty Families nor their stooge Roosevelt who keeps on cutting appropriations and hasn even thought of putting the idle factories to work. There is only one force in the land today that can and must present this program to the unemployed youth and their unemployed organizations. The giant force of organized labor must rally the unemployed youth into a solid front with labor against the Sixty Families!
Why must labor do so, aside from honest humanitarian reasons. Because jobs for the unemployed are the best guarantee that your job will be secure from an army of desperate men who in their desperation will be ready to accept crumbs and unhesitantly break down all living standards built up by the unions. Further, and what is possibly more important, because these unemployed youth might be the easy victims of a fascist leadership bent on destroying the trade unions.
Unions must further solidarize themselves with the unemployed youth of the nation with the understanding that only through joint agitation and struggle will the unemployed learn to respect the trade unions as a necessary bulwark of decent living standards for all workers, employed and unemployed. Unemployed youth will only accept the closed shop and seniority rights (both obviously vital and elementary needs to men who have jobs) as necessary needs for men on the job, when they feel that the men who have jobs are also concerned with those who are less fortunate.
The plight and needs of unemployed youth must become the concern of the organized trade union movement. Organized Labor must extend a comradely hand to the unemployed youth of the nation if it wants to save itself from fascism.
Why We Publish Fourth International (REPRINTED FROM FOURTH INTERNATIONAL. This is the first issue, Volume I, No. 1, of Fourth International, the new monthly theoretical organ of the Socialist Workers Party. Fourth International will defend the program, ideas and tradition which the New International can no longer represent.
We owe our readers an explanation for changing the name of our official magazine.
The New International was the official theoretical organ of the Socialist Workers Party, American section of the Fourth International. The magazine had been in existence since 1934 and was published regularly with the exception of the period when the Fourth Internationalists of this country held membership in the Socialist Party. At all times The New International was the property of our organization. It voiced in its columns the official position of the Trotskyist movement, as a section of the International Communist League and later as a section of the Fourth, International. The policies of the magazine were determined by our National Committee. The editors and business staff of the magazine were appointed by and subject to the decisions of the Party. The New International was financed by the nickels and dimes and dollars of the worker members of the party and its sympathizers. Its deficits were paid by the party. The New International was an integral part of the international Trotskyist movement and its American section, the Socialist Workers Party.
By a breach of trust, morally and legally equivalent to a misappropriation of funds by a financial officer of a workers organization, Burnham, Shachtman and Abern, who held posts on the New International by party appointment, and who were trustees for the party in The New International Publishing Company, have usurped the name of the magazine and attempted to appropriate its mailing rights as their personal property.
These turncoats, defeated in the party convention after a free and democratic discussion in the party, have sought to revenge themselves on the proletarian majority of the party by stealing the name and the mailing rights of the magazine entrusted to Statement by the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party their management, and attempting to cash in on its tradition. An less, we have decided to forego any legal action. We are washing issue of The New International has appeared under the auspices of our hands of The New International and launching a new magathese ex Trotskyists. casual reading of the forged copy is zine, Fourth International, for the following reasons. sufficient to convince any reader that it is not The New Inter It is not worthwhile for us to spend time and effort in legal national they have known, but a miserable counterfeit.
struggles over property rights which could only divert energies The old New International defended the program of the Fourth and resources from more serious and important activity.
International; it was the chief medium for the publication of the We do not want our irreconcilable political struggle against the theoretical contributions of Comrade Trotsky, and was honored turncoats to be obscured or confused by squabbles over a throughout the world as the theoretical protagonist of the Marx magazine name and property rights. Our aim is, in every ism of our time, e. Trotskyism. The counterfeit New Inter respect, to distinguish ourselves from the ex Trotskyists, and national, stolen in sneak thief fashion from the party that owned to eliminate every possible point of identification with them.
it and paid for it, and published behind its back in the dark of The once glorious name of The New International has been night, has nothing in common with the traditions of its name and irretrievably sullied by its appearance for one issue under the its past association auspices of these betrayers of its tradition. The program of the Those who know the revolutionary traditions established by the Fourth International, the great theoretical contributions of magazine, those who appreciate its great work in the ideas of comrade Trotsky, the Marxist message of our party, cannot. Marxism throughout the world cannot fail to be revolted by the appear under its dirtied name. We want no deception, no conpublication of The New International under revisionist and anti fusion, no mixing of banners. We need a clean banner which Trotskyist auspices. This feeling of revulsion must have been will truly express what we stand for and at the same time augmented by the appearance from the pen of Burnham under sharply distinguish us from the prostituted New International.
the heading Archives of the Revolution, of a foul attack on the They stole it. They have already identified its name with their Marxist doctrine and method and on the author of most of the own treachery. Let them keep it, and let the whole world know rich material in Marxist theory which in the past appeared under it is henceforth their magazine, not ours.
this heading Our magazine is Fourth International. There is no doubt that by every political and moral right The It alone is the theoretical organ of the Socialist Workers Party New International belongs to the Socialist Workers Party as rep and of the Fourth International!
resented by its convention majority. There is likewise no doubt, Fourth International will fill out all the unexpired subscriptions competent attorneys have assured us, that all legal rights to the of The New International. The subscribers of the New Internamagazine, its name, its subscription lists and its second class tional are entitled to get what they paid for a theoretical organ mailing rights belong entirely to the Socialist Workers Party, and of Bolshevism. We feel politically and morally responsible to give that Burnham, Abern and Shachtman would stand in any litiga it to them by sending this magazine for the full time of the tion as betrayers of financial trust and common thieves. No class unexpired subscriptions.
conscious worker would censure us for taking legal action to pro We appeal to all readers who sympathize with the principles we tect our rights in this case. Obviously, we are dealing here, not stand for to help us maintain this magazine by subscriptions and with an ideological dispute but a case of petty larceny. Neverthe contributions.
MORALITY PLUS have no desire to enter into any controversy with Mr. Bertrand Russell, said Supreme Court Justice John McGeehan, who scornfully refused to match his private life with that of the British philosopher and mathematician, whose appointment to a chair of philosophy at City College of New York he rescinded because of Russell views on morals.
At the same time, Justice McGeehand refused to reopen the case to give Russell an opportunity to come to New York to state his side of the case.
On Maundy Thursday, at the conclusion of the Sistine chapel mass, Pope Pius himself took the crystal chalice containing the sacrament and bore it in a brilliant procession to the Pauline chapel altar. Which proves that even popes work and thereby earn their living.
In London there is a prominent man of letters who was asked why he wasn at the front saving clvilization. quoth he, am part of the civilization they are trying to save.
MAY DAY MASS MEETING! Wednesday, May 1st JAMES CANNON IRVING PLAZA Irving Place and 15th Street FARRELL DOBBS MURRY WEISS SPEAKERS: New York City P.
ADMISSION 25 cents