TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 1939 SOCIALIST APPEAL Points of View on Issues Confronting the National Convention On the lasks of the Convention Resolution of Houston Some Suggestions for Building And the Political Resolution Branch on Moving Nat The Party on a Mass Base Headquarters of Party (3)
is By HAL DRAPER done about it, not even some tasks and our organizational By WALTER SHIPMAN consider themselves the party are even careless. Imagine!
In his report for the in extremely elementary steps. means.
Suggestion No. 1: itself. And above all, it edu Say if 000 leaflets are printed New York, Comrade Burnham The task of the national leader The Labor Party If the leaders will lead the cates the membership wrongly. and only 100 workers read proposed that our work in the ship in this period is not only to It is with some regret that party will follow And of course the same mis. them then 15 minutes reading next period be concentrated put the national office in order, the largest section of this dis ADOPTED BY THE HOUS AND WHEREAS the Ameri Let them welcome criticism take might be repeated or be time 100 equals 25 hours around campaign activity on but it is its responsibility to see cussion article must be devoted TON BRANCH OF THE SO can workers do not yet recog and ask for it and demand it not even discovered and the workers time. circular six issues. These, he suggested, to it that the local sections do to the labor party question, alarmed when leadership should have its ac should be prepared ten times should be: war; jobs; demo likewise.
which comrade Burnham pro CIALIST WORKERS PARTY poze their own problems in the there become.
tions clearly recorded so as to more carefully than a speech cratic rights; fascism; the Aside from organizational poses be one of the six issues to SUNDAY, MAY 28, 1939 York City, but tend to regard Let them do things on time judge them.
because you can write so much and the labor party. This machinery, our members are be headlined in our work. It is WHEREAS our party is ap. New York with hostility, as a then make others do the same. best teacher is by example, and start meetings on time, them remember that the less, the receiver may take it approach in my opinion is cor not individually prepared. One not question of merely reproaching point where it foreign place; home to his family, keep it as ot in contradiction thing this means is training. peating the previous discus. must pass from a small nu. AND WHEREAS the longer One tends to be intolerant to the ranks with the sacred ne people and above all more outLet them, by example, imbue a record, and it reaches more with our international or other Not training in understanding ston; wish to point out: tasks. In this article wish to of our political program am (1) that the labor party sec. and difficult struggle for or depends upon the New York wards a person whose opposi cessity of speaking the truth side people who are naturally make some remarks on how taking this for granted. but tion of the political resolution ganizational existence to a po. comrades to manage its vari tion opinion we don value. But and expressing their honest more critical. Every word, these objectives can be imple training as propagandists un sticks out of the document like itical movement of wide influ ous activities, the more diffi it just the opposition opinion opinions and combat the feeling every phrase must be immented der war conditions. We tend to a sore thumb and is completely ence: cult it will become to move and which we should value and that the end permits one to hide proved and studied when even War rely too much today on indi out of place in our general view AND WHEREAS it must shift the party apparatus; welcome And we should not things from or be unfair to op a few thousand are printed.
The overshadowing task of vidual comrades to act as our of our tasks.
realistically face the problem AND WHEREAS the natural fear to change our minds. ponent comrades. It will in. Furthermore a one or two this Convention, and of the Par mouthpieces, speak for us at (2) That the labor party post of winning the masses of Am. and normal location for the na Above all we should not fear to crease faith and trust in the million national leaflet coming ty in the next period, is prepar street corners, etc. Each of us tion given in the political reso. erican workers, farmers and tional headquarters of any re admit that we have changed leadership and also activity of out regular would probably be ation for the war. Is the Party will have to be our own mouth lution is a departure from that middle class to its program, so volutionary American working our minds or even that we have the members 100 times more attacked and publicized by the geared to the needs of this pre piece, ourselves react to situa put forward by the majority in as to envisage the seizure of class party would be in some made a mistake. When a polit. than stale orders or discipli newspapers, and the fascists war interval? No. Why not, and tions, etc. to a vastly larger the last discussion and adopted power in the time of social industrial city of the middle ical or other position is changed rary threats from above. The and police would no doubt want what must be done? This is the extent under war conditions. by referendum.
crisis west: cvernight there must be a good training in defending one dir. tn stop it all of which would major pre convention problem with the best central machin That our experiences AND WHEREAS the party BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED explanation. It is not merely to ferences with one courage. in what it says.
tended as a contribution to this ternal education and training invalidate the majority line in colored by the problem of the ty National Office and publica eins to suspect that the leaders and sell Appeals and speak and activity of the members, espethe following remarks are inery. What this points to is in the referendum serve to press and activities tend to be that the Socialist Workers Par. Put the leadership on the spot. increases more friends also make workers more interested But unless that is done one be Let them go into the streets Also, it would increase the problem.
for every rank and file party that discussion.
city where national headquar tions be removed to some more ere more interested in their hand out leaflets. They will cially those isolated from the First, think we must make member.
This is the first convention ters are located: suitable city a rectification in the direction after the adoption of the labor own record than in the party learn a lot.
The Communist Party of our agitation and propaganwelfare and that in fact they Let them not mistake Bol.
party line by referendum. The It should be emphasized that party has right to expect Some may say the Socialist da on the war question. Up to Transitional Program as the shevik hardness for petty Labor Party did that. But the now. percent of it has been the section on the In the from the or at least from Disgusted with positive line for the party, the bourgeois rudeness. did little else and beLet them develop new young sides they wrote very dry.
what has happened. Where we less open war mongers: the pola chanse, not merely a matter attempt to draw up a balance leaders. Give them responsibil. These are critical times and icies of the Roosevelt adminis. of emphasis, Perhaps not sheet of the 10 months or so ist Workers Party have put the Transitional Pro Salesman at Work ity. Responsibility develops workers will read. Each issue, tration, the collective security change in policy for the party that have intervened a balgram into action as we have ability with dramatic headline and advocates. Since this is in fact officially. but certainly a ance sheet of our work in the Declaring his break with partially in the case of the Out in Los Angeles, Calif.
Workers Defense Guard. the the actual policy of the change in the defacto attitude field, as well as of the develop the decrepit Socialist Party, Then we may get somewhere. content, could discuss one specific question in each issue, for government, it would be ab of most party members. This ment of the labor party move Oliver Williams of Fitchthere is a star Appeal saleseffect on the party has been Suggestion No. instance: War, Coughlin, man.
surd to dispute the importance change is overdue.
ment. Both sides made predic burg marked. It is the slogans of the Mass. joined the Print about one million (to The History of Capitalism.
This comrade sells In understandable reaction tions, put forward arguments ranks of the Socialist Work Transitional Program which average of 12 papers per of this kind of attack. But conan begin with) leaflets every two Defend the Trade Unions!
sider: the great mass of the against the tradition of the that perhaps can now be more ers Party this week and have been repeated at the end hour by working his way American people, and especial. Trotskyist movement, and ac concretely tested, etc. In the weeks. Size about x inches The Moral Right to Overthrow called upon all militants still of Appeal articles. not, per from house to house. He puts in small newspaper type. The Capitalism, Support the Auto ly the workers, are not collec companying a healthy turn absence of such a balance in the to follow him and haps not once. Build the labor in an hour each day and in cost is about as much as two (or any big struggle) Strike, tive security advocates, but in toward the masses, the com sheet by the limit my.
the issues of the Appeal. The Survival of the Fittest, one form or another are under rades have obviously let sell here to some cursory and banner of the Fourth Inter ticle in the Appeal, Comrade this way sells 60 papers per We stand on street corners Revolution is Evolution, the influence of isolationist and work slide more than it should preliminary remarks.
national.
Lieberman mentions Shachtand speak. Yet we doubt the When Force Is Justified, pacifist ideology. Turning to the To underline the point made in Williams, who had been a man speech in New York on Manny Fishler the com effectiveness of the written Demonstrate Against Relief masses means turning to them, the resolution: since the founA Side Dish?
member of the since May Day, in which the Transi rade we have in mind un word. This leaflet could have a Cuts Don Beg. The Stalin large part. In fact, there is dation of the there has The political resolution be1934, voiced his disgust with tional Program was translated derstands that the job of small permanent masthead inists Are Traitors, The Ist.
a smaller percentage of collec been no seriously organized gins with the indisputable the refusal of the lead into one of the best mass selling the paper is a firstcalled The Guide, or The 2nd, 3rd, 4th Internationals.
tive security ite among the work nationally or in any statement that Every politiership to break with the so speeches have heard. Neither rate political task for all Light or The Truth, etc. Democracy, What is a masses generally, than there is locality. In recent months a cal, and economic and social cial patriotic Second Interna I, nor other comrades have members of the Socialist But the written word, just as Class? Progressive Trade. asked, can remember shacht Workers Party. The Appeal the oral, may be effective, neu Unionism, etc.
ers. In this am not thinking in New York, that is all. subordinated to the war prep Ing conducted between the man mentioning Build the is the chief organizing weap tral or harmful. Two things But where is the money comabout the professional isolationThis is the elementary or arations. And the resolution and the Old Guard, and labor party. What part has the on in the struggle against must be taken into considera ing from? One issue would cost ists and pacifists of the various ganizational conclusion from rightly links each one of the isthe party politics in the labor party position played in the War Deal and the grow tion. 1) There is a tendency about as much as two issues of leagues, but of the more naive the resolution: national and lo sues discussed to the present Keep America Out of War the agitation and action of the ing fascist danger. It is our among some comrades, espe. the Appeal. It seems to me too and inarticulate sentiments of cal machinery, committees and pre war situation, shaping our Committee.
party? None. Or if this is not means of letting the Ameri cially some intellectuals and much importance is given to line of attack into a rounded Williams declared that the so, am waiting for the the man in the street or the directors, for this work!
can workers know why we those not in contact with work the twice and now the times worker in the shop.
program revolving around the oppose capitalism and what to tell us.
Socialist Party remains life.
Party Organization ers, Why have we devoted so litto think workers minds a week. Appeal. The and less and Inactive in the face State of Labor Party they can do about their situ are simple and crude and su times will reach after all pracThere is a good deal of loose war question. That is, with the ation.
of the world crisis and that the attention to this, the pre, talk about the party being in exception of the labor party perficial and dull. That tenden tically only the same circle of Is the labor party position a the masses? an organizational crisis. Al for example: section! Burnham six points.
only the Socialist Workers Let build up a crew of dead dog? No. Now, says the cy produces propaganda which people. The arguments in favor First, perhaps. because we armist as most Manny Fishlers from coast this is, there Party has the bold revolu resolution, is the time for a exaggerates, hides unpleasant of a good page weekly are by War is coming. Struggle have felt that, as against the is no doubt that there is no po against war!
tionary program that can ofto coast!
general campaign. What truths, uses rough language no means exhausted. Besides if fer any hope to the world there a resurgence in the labor and slang War is coming. Fight to words. belleyes the whole country would be they are the lesser evil, not as vention which overshadows in preserve the workers demoproletariat in the threaten party movement? Well, an lower level of organizational workers are too tired or even covered with such leaflets condangerous, have a more cor importance the task of ready. cratic rights! Fight against fasing periods of war and reac swers the resolution care form which the Minnesota too lazy to read many words, tributions would possibly pay rect position, etc. If it were ing the party organization for cismi tion.
fully. the organized interven workers have had to resort to and spends too much time try for it. Besides if it no good it merely a matter of intellectual its tasks in the next period.
tion of labor in politics has con for political actioning to convince the unemployed can be stopped any time.
conviction or passing a resoluI do not expect that this win War is coming. Jobs, not There was the trade union that unemployment causes sufswered No. 10 months later, the tinued and in some respects inMichi tering (something every worker tification but the question is receive its due share of atten. War is coming. Fight the answers: No, it would be creased during this same year campaign for Murphy during which labor party senti gan and Olsen in California.
Is tion at the Convention, because Jingoes in the working class academic and irrelevant.
sees himself) and how bad it SENTENCE FOR rather one of mobilization to ac of lack of pre Convention preptlon along the class struggle aration and the conditions un War is coming Build a laranks, the above all!
ment has remained inert: and This certainly represents con is to be without money, etc.
path. And it is not news for us der which Convention is held What happens to the despair: the present situation is rais tinued mobilization to sbor The workers want a way outs; PLEADING CASE OF to be told that the role of pack ing cries that rose up from the ing or beginning to raise once behind capitalist politicians. An example of this attitude. JOBLESS WORKERS fism and isolationism is pre. be filled by: would propose that this gap bor party!
Try that on your street cor majority ranks and spokes. more in the minds of the work but how is it increased per belleve is the leaflet put out ers questions about political ac ticipation as compared with the for the Madison Sq. Nazi meetNEW YORK Arrested in the cisely that of a soporific, of a brake on militant action. Sec. ences of the delegates during rounded (1) Holding special confer ner speech. How does a labor men to the effect that the labortion. To begin with, to say the labor campaigns for Roosevelt. ing. It was praised by many 53rd Street relief bureau for party ondly, it is harder to come to the Convention on specific or de of agitation Weath matter for the party. called the fascists scum and Ble men from the city relief grips with these strata they and action against the war, or the party could not go on dent assertions in the 10 month al?
ganizational problems: old labor party resolution: slime and filth. The words in rolls, one woman and two men, The labor party movement in themselves are are not as organized, not as work; educational and agit. 18 it merely a side dish with no stewing in its own juice and The workers have begun to America is already reaching they convince nobody. To con employed and Project Work the truth but members of Local of the Unrepresented by spokesmen in prop work; etc. Whether this connection with the rest of the that a labor party campaign 1s was the answer to our isola turn in million masses toward the end of its blindolley. The vince the workers that the fas. ers Union, were sentenced to a political action, We can with takes the ebb for the flow. cists are fascists and that total of 40 days in the Rikers the public eye, less noiet Trensible, of course, depends on menu?
eous. This is true, but tion? Change In Line sufficient assurance predict am interested in here is to the physical and time arrangeWhere is the argument that that the resistance of the burII. The first two sentences of The many comrades who agents of big capital and to Andrews of the New York point out that there has been ments.
no deliberate effort to over (2) Organizing the delegates the labor party section read as the labor party issue was in eaucracy (to the move said they wanted to expert convince them that it is their county Me Court on at the formal close of the Con follows: During the past year. dissolubly connected with the ment) will be broken. The ment with the majority labor moral right and duty to attack Wednesday.
come these obstacles.
Transitional Program or was movement in favor of a labor party position have had their e 21 It is not enough to decide to vention, into a special organize the sentiment among the work asider ers for labor party has re general campaion. concethe party will continue to grow. noble experiment. Now what thing. Those who preach social. nounced by Judge Andrews, he them physically, that is the After sentence had been propay attention to the naively an organizational problems only. mained inert, held back by Transitional Program academtl war masses. We must learn Such a gathering can be use Roosevelt, the labor bureau to and frrelevant too? Comrade Burnham has kind must be given a realistic esta ism are wrong if they in their remonstrated with his prisonhow to approach them. We do ful as a preparation for: crats and the Stalinists. Any Another question revealed to me what it mate of the labor party situa. the class enemy exaggerate them. That you are people not know. We cannot approach ul way that we have attacked the Izational conferences after the our part around the labor par yesteryear? In the discussion, continued and increased year which corresponds with truth) or what is more imporant of the sage magistrate adthem, by and large in the same delegates return home, for dis ty slogan would have been on comrade Crux argued that agi intervention of labor in politics. the facts.
tant, seemingly exaggerate. It vice, a member of the courtcollective security ites.
may be so with some varieties etc. with members presThis cussion and exchange of ideas, the whole academic, and our tation for the labor party was According to him, the 2) It must place the empha is better to understate and be room audience retorted, So of pacifist isolationists, ent at each one. The organiza largely, and correctly. con objective situation, and many in Noor york destes comunes en sis clearly on independent par conservative in this respect. cemuuden Their Crime with others we must work to tonal end of war preparation fined to specific and local situ. and forceful were his remarks con very modestly put at ticipation by the party in elec we must raise the party pais: lead them from their present should be an important aspect ations where it was relevant. about basing our policy of the ally in a state of suspended an. lines of the issues featured in when among workers is one strators, Rhoda Pearson, Mey.
attitudes towards ours, not only of these gatherings.
In these two sentences the mood of the workers. For him imation, which the hypodermie the resolution, under the sign thing: using the same language er Drucker and Brown, were on the basis of the proper propP. manages to throw out of it was a race against time to For the Convention itself, the window 90 percent of the raise the political level of the of the coming elections may or of the war question We must in an official appeal to gain members of a committee of six agandistic approach but also may not Jerk it out of utilize the elections and the par their confidence and support who had gone to the 53rd Street through action. This means should like to emphasize one argumentation they and their workers as it is and the la. There is the trade union lamentary field to put our for an organization to lead their relief bureau to plead the case training, and shall return to proposal, which it seems to me supporters used to justify the bor party slogan was to be a this point.
puts the finger on an outstand majority resolution 10 months stout weapon to this end. It campaign in Minnesota selves before the masses as lives is another thing Date and continuing lack in our ago. allow a residue of 10 per Comrade Crux approach had ruptoy of the and the selves to no social patriotic po used by good orators to raise from the relier rolls, face star Just as the spoken word is as a result of their dismissal of two young single men who Organizational Preparation The second point that has to work.
cent out of good will.
be made with regard to prepar litical formations whatsoever. the emotions by spurts of vation. One of the young men There is not one comrade in Were we not told then that position, what difference Section 23 should be rewritten drama so can the written word. is a member of a family of ation for war is of course or the National Office whose task precisely because Roosevelt, does it make whether Roose ganizational, Indisputable as it it is to oversee and direct and the labor bureaucrats and the velt, the labor bureaucrats and BRONX CALLS from this pole should be com eration enters: Very often com father, now employed at thirof view.
But here the second consid four whose only support is the (3) Section 22 18, it is more than disquieting aid the organizational function. Stalinists were against the la the stalinists have worked to OUTDOOR ANTI pletely cut out of the resolu rades assigned to write up teen dollars a week. The other to realize that with war so nearing of the local sections. Com bor party that the revolution. hold back the workers? All the We have no organizational ma rade Cannon, as the political 18 mcampaign to mobilize the paign! As we pointed ists must throw themselves in more necessity for a stiff cam COUGHLIN RALLY tion, to be replaced by a sec. leaflets do so in a hurry and young man has group of then, tion in the spirit of point brothers and sisters who are cated and ripped apart on the and should not be expected to workers over the heads of these all this is academic and irrel. Aroused by the fascist prov. above. 4) This does in effect mean ccations of the Coughlinites in themselves on a near relief lev.
Just Out!
day that the government M. nin this gap. This is especially gentlemen? Surely the evant to the position.
el and are unable to care for day machine gets going if not important since in few locali knew in advance that these What remains as the decisive the Fordham Road District of ditching the labor party thesis THE TRUTH him.
before. And of all our weak ties have we a local organiza forces would seek to keep the justification for the labor party the Bronx, the local branch of adopted in the last discussion Backed up by a large nesses, what can compare with tlon which does not need con workers from Independent po position we now have on our the American Labor Party has more than ever, would pro ABOUT picket line outside the this weakness in its import stant aid and guidance and litical action and confine any books?
sent out a call for an Anti pose its replacement by the KRONSTADT bureau, the committee of six ance? have complete confi which can be independent of manifestations to specific and Transitional Program Coughlin, Anti Fascist outConvention with the minority went inside to state the case of dence that the Fourth Interna the center in this respect. The local situations. In practice. to keep away door rally to be held on the cor labor party resolution put be. by their clients. Stalled by the tionalist movement will stand necessity of this is testified to When the then minority coun from the academic and irrele ner of Fordham Road and Val fore the party last year.
John Wright bureau heads, the committee out against the war more firm. once more by the eagerness terposed fraction work within vant what has pushed the par. ertine Avenue Wednesday eve.
demanded that the two young CONVENTION NOTE ly than any movement in the with which comrades in the the labor party movement to ty forward in the last period? ning, June 28.
New unpublished source mamen be reinstated on the Several carloads of auto history of the world Including field grasp at organizational the slogan Form a labor par. In the discussion we pointed Michael Quill, president of terial in refutation of antiThe bureau heads answered by the Russian Bolsheviks in 1914 directives, advice, suggestions ty. we were asked the so em to the campaign around the the Transport Workers Union, workers are on their way from Bolshevik slanders concerncalling in the cops, who arrest In a political sense; but, to of any sort which come from barrassing question: If you is expected to be the main Detroit to New York to attending the 1921 Kronstadt Rebel ed the committee on a charge quote the Bible, what shall it the center.
agree to agitating for indepen. Challenge Out speaker, Quill recently led five the National Convention. Gen Hon.
of disorderly conduct.
pamphlet.
thousand workers at an anti ora Joohnson, leader of the printed cover. 10 cents. profit us to gain the anti war this means is an organ dent labor party candidates in The arrest at the 53rd Street monopoly and lose our own or izational secretary and depart specific and local situations The first issue of the Twice Coughlin outdoor rally in the Women Battallion in the Flint cents in bundles of 10 or bureau is not an isolated inciganization?
ment in the National Office. It where it was relevant. like the a Month CHALLENGE OF south section of the Bronx, 1937 strike will accompany more 15 cents for single dent. During the last two weeks am aware that this task has is not a utoplan proposal; on Kennedy movement in Pennsyl YOUTH is off the press. Read. contingent of the Anti Fas them.
copies by mail.
twenty six unemployed dembeen considered of the highest the contrary, it is an absolutely vanta, does this not necessarily ers are urged to buy, read and cist Labor Guard will particiNational Educational Dept. onstrators have been arrested More discussion articles will importance by both the mem necessary contribution by the entall a campaign to link up help distribute the attractive pate in the rally. All anti fasSocialist Workers Party at various relief bureaus bership and the party leader national center toward closing these local situations into a na newspaper of our youth organist workers are called upon to appear in next week issue of be present for the meeting.
throughout the city on similar the Appeal.
116 University Pl.
ship only nothing has been the gap between our political tional labor party? We anization.
flimsy charges.
the rely but olls.
Mimeo.