Tuesday, March 28, 1939 SOCIALIST APPEAL By Dwight Macdonald RUMANIAN PACT PLACES HITLER AT OFF THE Senate Committee Bares RECORD Terror Against Workers SOVIET FRONTIERS Liberty La Roosevelt The Wallace Plan Several months ago, in my New International column, quoted a Washington confidential News Letter on an embryonic New Deal scheme. Idea, ran the report, is to find ways of enabling more people to eat more food.
It appears to be a fact that 3 of our people, perhaps even Yu, don get enough to eat. So, step up consumption, ent up surpluses, thus aid farmers. That the basis idea. How? One way might be by socialism or communism. Another way is by improving existing distribution methods WITHIN the profit system. What interested me at the time was the frank admission that (1)
the American masses don get enough to eat under capitalism; and (2) communism would mean, for them, more food. But now the other way, WITHIN the profit system, has material ized. It makes a neat rounding out of the story.
The alternative to communism turns out to be Secretary Wallace ingenious orange and blue food card system, which was lately saluted in an Appeal editorial. On the surface, the Wallace Plan is designed actually to give the unemployed, in this seventh year of the New Deal, enough to eat. General Hugh Johnson, an admirer of the Wallace Plan, admitted recently in his daily column: Government studies of wages have shown that, while the amount available for food for a family of four, for example, is enough to prevent starvation Who says democracy doesn work. it is not enough to provide a minimum balanced diet, especially for children, in some of the foods of which there is a surplus dairy products, eggs, fruit and vegetables. And let it not be forgotten that wages, just above the starvation level, are much higher than home and local relief. For their above starvation foodstuffs, the unemployed have had to depend on the erratic bounty of the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation, which buys up big lots of surplus farm products and gives them to the unemployed. The system is designed to stabilize farm markets rather than to meet human needs, and so the unemployed function as a sort of refuse dump for whatever our insane economic system overproduces at any given moment.
The Wallace Plan continues to use the unemployed as a dump for surplus farm products.
But instead of the Government giving the food direct to the reliefers, it gives them blue cards, which are exchangeable at their grocers for whatever foodstuffs are officially designated surplus that week. The beauty of this new arrangement is that every one except. of course, the ultimate consumer gets his cut of profit, from wholesaler to retailer.
Nor is this all. Secretary Wallace has decided the unemployed cannot be trusted to spend their nickels wisely, and so he also proposes that the amount of each relief check which he and the other New Deal supermen in their all wisdom decide should be spent for food that this amount be paid not in cash but in orange tickPITTMAN SEEKS TO PREPARE FOR COMING WAR MEN AND WOMEN OF LABOR (Continued from Page 1)
left in the hands of Hitler and just what his plans are the imper.
ets. Like the blue tickets which apply only to (Continued from Page 1) tioners, but according to the la Lalist chancelleries apparently do surplus commodities these will be redeemable a law enforcement agency (read Follette lists their basements are not know, if we are to believe Augur, the well known mouthin any store for food. The same Washington strike breaking agency) was the filled with enough tear gas, shotNews Letter from which originally quoted, in Ohio National Guard. It loaded guns, and rifles to keep the Amer piece of the British Foreign Or a later issue revealed that the Wallace Plan will up with 20, 231. 59 worth of the ican flag flying over the cash fice, who writes in the New York be tried out first in a few selected cities and poison. But much larger pur register no matter how many emTimes.
then, if it chases were made by the Repub ployees in the district may deseBy his successive coups of the Clothing and will be extended everywhere.
other necessities are not included ic Steel Corporation, the United crate American institutions by last two weeks, Hitler has placed in the plan now, but it is freely said they may States Steel Corporation, the asking for a rise in pay or recoghimself in a position from which be added later, IF the plan works on food. Youngstown Sheet and Tube Com nition of their right to organize.
he can either continue his easthope the unemployed workers of the country pany, and the General Motors. The law enforcement agencies ward drive or else turn, as his ally listed as purchasers of weapons Mussolini would like him to do, will show by demonstrations and by other suit Corporation, able action that the Wallace Plan doesn They Armed the Police of violence for use against worktoward the rich colonial empires work, that they are still adult enough to buy Over 80 per cent of these purers are in almost every instance of Britain and France and press their own shoes and hats and food even if this chases were made during or in agencies under the control of corfor a new partition of Africa and cockeyed economic system prevents them from anticipation of labor trouble. porations in the vicinity: Youngsa revision of the spheres of in working productively. For their banners, sug states the report and goes on to town, Ohio, Flint, Mich. Salinas, fluence in which the imperialist Wis. Mahoning gest two Inscriptions: Mother DOESN Know explain that corporations not only Calif. Kohler Eest! And this sentence from the Washington armed private guards but supplied County, Ohio, the Ohio National masters hold subject their hun.
dreds of millions of colonial Letter: Purpose of Plan is primarily farm re arms and gas to police departGuard each one recalls specslaves.
lief, secondarily human relief.
ments.
tacular attack by the employers War In Either Case Virtually all the weapons used against the workers and the In cither case the end result Luxemburgite Objects in the forcible dispersal of a pick shedding of their blood.
will be mad plunge into a new Some one who wants to remain anonymous et line at Monroe, Mich. during San Francisco, for example, Imperialist world war, with its writes in to endorse, on the whole, my recent equipment the Little Steel strike were fur bought 20, 000 worth attendant death, privation and remarks in this column on the hartnished to law enforcement au during the months of May, June, misery for the masses of the dling of the Anti Bund demonstration outside thorities by the Republic Steel and July 1934 during the maritime world. The capitalist war makers, Madison Square Garden. But he also adds: Corporation.
and longshoremen strike. That purchase of arms was climaxed of the democratic and Fascist Right of Free Speech that the stripe alike, are the instigators of wish to register, ILS Orgite. coes a comparison with Fascist The employers exercised their by Bloody Thursday, the day pothis war. The last word will not bit too far, because there are limits to left show right to free speech in order to lice shot down strikers in the belong to them, however, but to manship that do not restrict fascism. These lim bring the workers around to their back on the San Francisco waterthe masses aroused against the its relate to the degree to which a genuine so point of view. purely in the front. Wreathes each year still insane butchery for bonea profits cial revolution is in its actual occurrence as traditional democratie American keep fresh the memory of those To arouse, organize, and lead distinguished from demonstrations, meetings, way. During the Little Steel stains on the sidewalks.
the masses to the transformation strike, for instance, the La Fol Secret Diplomacy in Industry thing, as Rosa said, led with a baton. The fas lette Committee reports that Re: proud of their armed struggle for munitions companies are not even The employers themselves are ing terms, and sometimes the of the imperialist war into a war for the liberation of mankind cist coup etat is always accomplished under the publie Steel exercised the right the democratic right to exploit informed of the identity of the from all tyranny is the task inbaton, and this is one of the signs that it is not of free speech with 562 revolvers, workers among their own class. actual purchasers.
scribed on the banners of the a social revolution. While the socialist revolu rifles with 1, 325 rounds of sam. But they are more cautious about Fourth International.
tion, no matter what role the Party plays as a And circumstances surrounding gear, overflows the rim of the ordered and as rounds of shotgun shells, 143 gas what information reaches the payment for gus equipment furbill paves the way for repetition workers. After all, the workers nish an extraordinary example sumes a ragged, uneven character with even guns with 1, 083 gas projectiles will soon have to go to war to of political intrigue and blackof the events in America of 19141918.
the most conscious elements running around wild and improvising. And this has to be preThe fundamental drive of Amer These facts, which are as plain it is smart diplomacy to keep some tice of private purchase of muni and ungilded as a crate of gas things secret pared for, too. Continued from Page 1) ican imperialism to war in 1917 So, while agree with your general criticism, bombs, sound more like a violent The fact that industrial pur use. of course, is not to be taken neutrality legislation was finally from far more basic causes than tions for public use. Public hoo, the bill to abrogate existing and now, flowed and still flows suggest you add to it the thought that if all Hearst editorial denouncing chasers of munitions frequently re as meaning that these munitions introduced into the Senate on its status as a creditor of the thinking of the total effect of their act, they terrorism than the cautious un sort to al manner of subterfuge are used against the employers. March 20 by Chairman Key Pitt Ango. French bloc. To the extent The Only Answer would, even without preliminary preparation, derstatements of a capitalist in to conceal their purchase and man of the Foreign Relations that this factor facilitated entry which would have been preferable, have thought vestigating committee. But Re possession of arms and gas from Excerpts from letters written by Committee. In blandly hypocriti into war, however, it is now to be of various improvised means for letting the public Steel does not stand alone report, is significantly indicative show vividly that the business of Act of 1939.
their own employees, states the gas salesmen to their companies cal fashion, it was entitled, Peace eatin America In Uniform crowds know about the the Appeal, etc. unique and isolated instance of the purpose for which such these munitions outfits depends again.
In short, just want to strike one note for the The purchasing and storing of More frankly, Pittman in a ramunitions are bought.
Another important Roosevelt individual side, along with your chord on the arsenals of firearm organizational. Both ought to develop together. sickening was weapons states their business methods, accept statements: Wish a hell of a expansion of the private muni governments of American reputa and tear and The munitions companies, in aispute. Here are a few of the cribede its main function as the Pittman resolution to assist the of course, this is a big subject, and m just poking around in it here.
But ra like to ask my Luxemburgian lover of bargain collectively with legiti approximates the secrecy and eva matures and that it will be a amounts of arms in this country. ing them with material unavail by large employers who refuse to their trade in a manner which hope that this strike develops and ligerents to purchase unlimited naval establishments by providspontaneity and m all with him there, myself labor unions.
son that characterizes bootles damn bad one we need the adopted, the bill will immerbes In a word, with the most. just how the demonstrators, on their toes or Respectable Business Outfits ging ards out of thin air, or could have conjured up not could have improvised banners and plac The buyers of poison gas listed Publle Use of Munitions strikes but they are too porceful of the munitions industry, for the basic military secrets of the Amercopies of the Appeal when none were sent from by the Committee constitute a Deliveries are made and into suit me.
Who Who assembly of solid re. voices are mailed to the homes of British and French governments ican armed forces.
headquarters?
The La Follette Report shows are ready to place enormous or This type of assistance is only spectable American business con officials far from the plants; rec as clearly as the company wie ders but have hesitated for fear given by one government to an cerns and organizations. The ords are kept in blind or in frag hence it describes that there can that, under existing legislation. other on the basis of the closest Chamber of Commerce in many mentary form; payments are be only one answer to the private the orders would not be delivered possible military political alliAmerican cities ostensibly exists made through disreputable inter armies of the American stock. It war broke out meanwhile, Like ances, and indicates the real in order to publish slick paper mediaries and are in cash; in holders and that answer is wise munitions manufacturers meaning of the Lima Declaration blurbs to beguile moneyed vaca voices are written up in mislead Workers Defense Guards.
have hesitated to accept orders of continental solidarity which under these conditions.
government spokesmen use to Fake Safegaards justify the Pittman resolution.
As a sop to the anti war senti: Relations Committee of the Senate In hearings before the Foreign ment which originally forced March 22, spokesmen for the adoption of legislation forbidding State, war and Navy DepartBY EMANUEL GARRETT export of munitions in wartime, ments for the first time publicly Pittman new bill contains a advoented such assistance to utive Committee of the Socialist Labor Party. cash and carry provision where the Latin American governments.
Disagreeing with Daniel De Leon, leader of the by prior to export in wartime all over some questions of policy, he joined right, title and interest in the It means nothing less than the the newly formed Socialist Party, for which he war materials must have been military organization of the Westworked as a national organizer transferred to the purchasing ern Hemisphere under the direction of the government, placEngland Crisis. Ireland Opportunity government.
Returning to Ireland in 1913, he arrived at the It is contended by the bill ing at its disposal the manpower sponsors that this provision, plus countries in the fight for mastery and resources of the semi colonial very moment when the great strike battle, led by the Trish Transport and General Workers another prohibiting wartime loans Union, against Dublin united bosses was get.
to belligerents, will prevent Amer of the world. Democratie Dictators ting under way. 20, 000 workers fought for six ican interests from becoming The government spokesmen months to assert their right to join a unlon welded to the Anglo French bloc Jim Larkin, a striking figure and orator, was and resulting in a repetition of played upon the phrase, the the best known leader of the strike. Connolly America entry into the war on this signifled a hemisphere of demtwenty one republies as though worked as Larkin right hand man.
their side as in 1917. But this is ocracies. Actually the governConnolly Judged crises according to their rev.
not true.
olutionary possibilities. In England war criThe fact is that the cautionary istration thus proposes to arm.
ments which the Roosevelt adminsis, he saw revolutionary Ireland provisions can in no way prevent and especially Realizing that collaboration of all the pportu those most subia repetition of 1917. First of all, ence movements was absolutely vital, Connolly large scale cash orders from the servient to the administration united, in preparation for action, the Anglo French bloc in the first plans, are almost all military dicthe Socialists, the Citizen Army the Sinn Feinmonths of the war will result in tatorships typified by such butchers, and the Republican Volunteers American Industry organizing its Batista of Cuba. These are the ers as Vargas of Brazil and Both sides mobilized. April was stormy with production on the basis of these much touted forces of democpreparations and preliminary skirmishes. Fiorders, Workers were so great that the Cops Admit Frame of these orders such as impor provides the mechanism whereby Any threat to the continuation The Pittman resolution simply nally, the British moved in to disarm the Volracy. unteers and the Citizen Army. Connolly, who, trade union burenueracy, with the ng the most popular and undoubtedly most able aid of the socialist and communist Up Was Ordered ant victories by Germany, per the enslaved masses of Latin person, had been appointed Commander in. fective submarine warfare by Ger Americk shall be employed as Chief of the revolutionary forces, gave the order doomed 24 hour demonstration Against Pickets many, or for that matter the for the rising on April 23. The petty bourgeois cannon fodder by the pare general strike in order to help ability of the Anglo French bloatators at the betrest of leaders of the Volunteers rescinded the order. Spear to the Socialist Aprel to continue paying in cash would sus of the North but the rising went on their cowardice was spirit of revolt among the masses. NEW YORK Police testify result. in. Irresistible pressure by too late. The Provisional Government of an In War Without Profits (Continued from Page 1) As was to be expected, Daladier American financial and industrial ing in the case of Peter Shopes, dependent Irish Republie was proclaimed.
As window dressing for all this, interests for American entry into there appears again the old figthe crushed that strike, because the der the direct control of By the morning of April 24, virtually every Murray Nerewitz, and Abe the war on the side of her cus leaf of war mongers, a bih to important point of Dublin was in the hands of state, although of course, private workers leaders kept it from beDollinger, who were arrested Itomers, capital preserves its full equity coming generalized struggle tax the profits out of war.
the rebels, so carefully had Connolly laid his at the Feb. 20 anti Nazi demEvasion Made Easy and will profit enormously from against the regime. Since then plans. Facing the ruthless bombardment of BritIntroduced into the Senate in onstration admitted to the terrific speed up imposed upon the erstwhile hero of the French the ish artillery which destroyed the center of the Secondly, the cash and carry the name of 50 Senators more the workers.
People Front has steadily in court that the arrests had been creased the iron hand of state city, the rebels nevertheless fought flercely for provision could easily be evaded than a majority the lack of sea week with inferior weapons. The uprising was This week Daladier is under control, made on the order of superiors, from the first. The Pittman bill riousness of this move is indiitself provides a number of loop cated by the fact that the bin, crushed, and the democratic British immediate stood to be planning to issue a No Opposition that none of the defendants holes. Although it formally pro as drafted, would result in Federal ly imposed a bloody reign of White Terror. second set of decrees which will Today the official leaderships of had been seen committing the hibits loans to belligerents, it and state income taxes amounting under score the end of parliaOurs. Fighting and Hoping mentary democratic institutions the workers organizations give no crimes with which they had gives the president the discretion in the higher brackets to total The moment may not have been fully ripe for in France, imposing on capital sign of even attempting to resist been charged.
ary power, in extremely vague and of more than the income to be revolutionary action. But the vallant action led certain rules and regulations in the installation of the Daladier Magistrate broad terms, to permit extension taxed. Sponsored also by the reKross, before whom the case was heard at lents of ordinary by banks and Industry to belliger actionary Veterans of Foreign valueless stroke. Like the Russian 1806, it was bosses, and infinitely more rigid socialist and Stalinist deputies the 54th Street Court, discommercial Wars, the bill is signed by New a preliminary battle, preparatory to the Anal credits and short time obliga Dealers, conservative Democrats struggle. Weak kneed traitors, and Told Youand costly restrictions upon the feebly protested and engaged in missed the case after the adtions. and the bill does not apply and Republicans allke in other mission of the police. The So cowards can dismiss Red Easter as an adworkers also in the common in futile verbal arguments and Asti terest of all the bosses.
cuffs with rightist deputies while to renewal or adjustment of words it is a meaningless gesture.
police testimony adds another venturistie putsch; but in the words of Lenin, outside in the mills and factories segment to the picture of Feb.
auch indebtedness as may exist war tax of 99 on big in those who can term such a rising putsch are Daladier will move steadily, es the millions of French workers, when war breaks out.
20. when LAGuardia Anest comes is a nice bit of pap beeither the worst kind of reactionaries or hope pecially as the international altu deceived and befuddled and diswere order 1, 700 strong less doctrinaires, incapavle of imagining the soation worsens, toward suppression couraged by this outcome of the Ordinary commercia! credits fuddle the workers while the to protect the fascists, and to can be expanded to mean great enormous appropriations for arcial revolution a living phenomenon.
of all the remaining freedom of two year People Front regime, prevent the workers from exdeal, while renewal or adjust maments are being made. Not Connolly was held prisoner in Kilmainham press, organization, and assembly. still await a new leadership that Jail (Eamon De Valera was privileged to be Strikes will become a crime pun will show them the way to save ecuting their democratic right ment of indebtedness enables the one signer of the bill really takes to picket.
Anglo French bloc to arrange in it seriously.
there with him. On May 12, wounded, carried ishnble as trenson against the themseves from falling under the out on a chair, fighting and hoping (he alDefense was provided by the advance for any amount of bank State.
heel of Fascism at home on the American Fund for Political loans which will actually become Get Your APPEAL ways ended his lettera thus. courageous beyond Last year when Daladier began pretext of defense against FrsPrisoners.
operative only when war starts.
flinching, he faced a British firing squad. This open attack on the 40 hour cist dietatorships abroad.
Thus, at bottom, the Pittman At Your Local Newsstand JAMES CONNOLLY (June 5, 1870 executed May 12, 1916)
The newspapers report the resurgence of the Irish independence movement. Up the Rebels, is again heard in the streets of Dublin this time directed against a one time rebel, Eamon De Valera, as well as the British tyrants. The anniversary of Red Easter Week is only a few weeks away FRANCE SPEEDS TREND TOWARDS DICTATORSHIP seadmed din care Jim Connolly was once asked at a lecture how it was that he knew so much about revolutionary and military matters. You forget, he replied, that revolution is my business.
And that it was. For though he worked at any number of trades in Ireland and in this country as baker, shoemaker, tiler, machinist, linotyper, etc. Jim Connolly was primarily a revolutionist, in the words of his blographer, Desmond Ryan, the first builder of an insurgent barricade in war wrecked Europe.
Irish Question is a Social Question Himself a worker, and the son of a worker, Connolly sought to free the movement for Ire land freedom from the petty bourgeois and nationalist elements who dominated it at the time; he viewed with distrust the official nationalist leaders who had, he said, bowed the knee to Baal. student of Marxism, and proud to acknowledge that, he insisted that only the Irish working class remains as the incorruptible inheritora of the fight for freedom in Ireland. For As we have again and again pointed out, the Irish question is a social question, the whole agelong fight of the Irish people against their oppressors resolves itself in the last analysis into a fight for the mastery of the means of Nife, the sources of production. His great book, Labor in Irish History. based on that thesis.
Back in the 90 when Connolly first began his socialist work, the nationalist movement was in pretty bad shape. The British, riding the wave crumble and developerity, tossed the Irish a few devitalized the movement for liberation into a mere plea for Home Rule. Connolly was especially bitter against the Home Rulers. Such revolutionary work as was being done, was done secretively. Connolly broke through this ridiculous secrecy, and brought the socialist movement into the open. In 1896 he founded the Irish Socialist Republican Par ty, and became editor of its paper, the Worker Republie. The paper bore on its masthead this legend: The great appear great only because we are on our knees, let us arise. Emigrating to the United States in 1903, he immediately enrolled in the trade union and socialist movements of this country. An industrial unionist all his life, he became in America one of the earliest organizers of the For a time he was a member of the National Exec