TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1939 SOCIALIST APPEAL Not Our Kind of Job. By Dwight Macdonald Threaten SPARKS IN THE NEWS To Spread Strike in Auto Plant Protests Hounding of Literature Salesmen by Police CAPITALISM CUTS Bank Report The big news in the press this week, bigger than Danzig, bigger than the strike, is a table buried in the financial pages of the Times under the not too thrilling headline. FEDERAL LOANS UP IN BANK PORT FOLIOS. The table, based on the newly issued second quarter reports of the fifteen largest Wall Street banks, shows the percentages of these banks total assets invested in various ways. It is worth reproducing Junie 1938 June 1939 Cash 35 40 Chov securities 29 31 Loans, discounts, etc. 25 19 Othet investments assets 11 10 3080 ON WAGES 00 PER DAY TRIES TO SQUIRM OUT OF DISGRACEFUL STRIKE STAND en egentligen heter NEW CASTLE POLICE BEAT NEGRO WORKER Totat assets 100 100 The big news here is not something unexDOG for example, but precisely DOG.
BITES MAN AGAIN! trend which was alarming enough to the bourgeoisie a year ago has become even more serious in the past year Banks make money and keep the capitalist system going either by loaning their funds to business men or by investing them in business enterprtses. But this table shows us that both loans and investments have in the last year shrunk even beow the alarmingly again, to the bourgeoisie. low levels of 1938. On the other hand, there has been a decided rise in the percentage of assets held in the form of cash that is, lying idle in the vaults, produce ing no income for the banks or for any one else and in Government securities, which yield a very low rate of interest.
In short, only a little over one fourth of these great banks total resources of 15, 240, 000, 000 is at present invested in profit making enterprises. The rest is either idle or else is siphoned out of the field of private enterprise completely into Government securities.
Bond Addicts The banks aren making much money, but there is a great deal more to it than that. Their economic base has been shifted in the last ten years from private to state capitalism, from business enterprise to government enterprise.
In 1930, the national banks of the country had 21, 800, 000, 000 out on loan to their customers.
and 34, 100, 000, 000 invested in government securities. In 1937, they had 12, 700, 000, 000 out on loan, and 12, 300, 000, 000 in Government securities.
Srail wonder that the conservative Senator Barbour, of New Jersey, recently described the banks as bond addicts. which have been all but ruined as lending agencies. The Senator admitted, sadly, that no outlet for bank funds exists in private industry, and that the or MEN AND WOMEN OF LABOR OUT OF THE PAST 50, 000 WPA Strikers Keep By EMANUEL GARRETT Minnesota Projects Closed banks, therefore, are helpless and cannot break the habit of putting surplus funds into Federal security issues.
Protesting the continued po. the policy governing these ar.
The resulting situation is a curious one indeed. The huge annual deficits of the New Deal lice hounding of persons selling ests.
have been met not by increased taxation but literature for the Socialist This letter merely confirme by selling government bonds and short term (Special to the Socialist Appeal)
Workers Party, Edward my conversation with Patrol notes to the banks. Thus the New Deal has DETROIT, July 13 As the Frank, Local New York organ ter and my request that an inman Boles concerning this matborrowed the money it needed for its spend strike of skilled workers and izer of the on July 13 vestigation be initiated.
ing programs from those very citadels of il maintenance men turned into demanded that Police Commisnance capitalism most violently opposed to its ninth day, 11 General MoFor your further information, any such program. The banks have lent the tors divisions in Detroit, Ponsioner Valentine investigate these cases were booked at the money simply because there has literally been tiac, Saginaw and Cleveland these actions and put a stop to Magistrates Court of the Secnowhere else except a safe deposit vault remained at a standstill in all them. Comrade Frank letter 103rd Street; Judge Thomas ond District, 6th Avenue and they could put it. The New Deal is dependent die work and retooling on the reads: on the banks, and the banks are dependent on new models.
Aurelio presiding.
the New Deal. So far, the political implica Strike votes have been taken Commissioner Valentine, Trusting that you will make tions of this increasingly closer relationship in the Fisher Body, Chevrolet Police Department, an immediate and complete inbetween finance capital and the state have re and Buick divisions in Flint New York, vestigation into this matter, mained simply implications. But it is in this and in the Pontiac Motor plant Dear Sir: and awaiting your early reply.
sector that we may expect, in the es in Pontiac. general On May 25th communicated am, pecially clear warning signals of the approach was also threatened by union with Mayor LaGuardia, reYours truly.
of an American form of fascism.
spokesmen in the Jobbing shops questing that the Police DepartEDWARD FRANK working on parte Money Goes on Relief ment refrain from arresting Organizer, The corporation has finally There are two major indexes of the success acceded to enter negotiations people who were selling litera Socialist Workers Party.
of the New Deal attempt to save capitalist with the under ture for the Socialist Workers Local New York Party, while at the same time democracy: idle men and idle money. The last whose auspices the strike is betwo years have been heart breaking ones for ing conducted. Unless definite allowing followers of Father the New Dealers because, after some progress progress is made in these negoCoughlin to sell his magazine in 1935 6, the whole business collapsed again, tiations, all other planta ence from your Department.
and unemployment and excess bank reserves working to meet the new prohave been steadily mounting ever since. Un duction schedules will be closed was assured, by representaless new fields for profitable private Investdown, union leaders declared.
tives of your department, that ment are opened up in a hurry, the outlook for no discrimination would be Hide Behind Martin capitalism as we know it is not bright. The made against people selling litlatest report on new security issues, With the help of government erature for the Socialist Workfor May of this year, is not encouraging.
Only mediators the corporation con Under Rank and File Pressure, Workers ers Party, and that the civil 31, 200, 000 in all were registered, only a little tinues to hide behind Homer more than half the May, 1938, figure. and to deny a renewal of contract rights of our people would be Martin fictitious organization Security Federation Reconsiders Decision respected. Nevertheless, last over half of this measly 31, 200, 000 was ac. and the improvements demandMonday, July 10, 1939, two perDefense Committee counted for by new investment trusts, which By MCKINNEY nounced to the capitalist press, sons who were selling pammeans a mere reshuffling of existing invested by the only legitimate repIs Formed as Wave of ments rather than creation of new outlets.
Mournfully ylelding to the re the Socialist Call appeared with phlets for the Socialist WorkMeanwhile, money keeps piling up in the er Martin along with his cor turn to work on pros. Dowell was writing about the were standing side by side with the Strike break fusal of the rank and file to re a piece by Art McDowell. Mc ers Party in front of Macy Police Terror Swells banks just as new thousands keep swelling the ranks of the unemployed. In the last three ruption ridden cronies of the ects, Lloyd Leith, secretary of formation of the Workers Se three other people selling SoA. building trades and the Workers Security Federa curity Federation and brazenly (Special to the Socialist Appeal)
months alone, deposits of the fifteen largest Prank XX Martel have ordered tion, has announced that the announced that he and the SP cial Justice, Father Coughlin Wall Street banks jumped Chase National, their men to walk through the leadership of the federation has and produdid take almost as booked on charges of disorder. mittee for the defense of Negro that Socialists magazine, were arrested and NEW CASTLE, Pa. comgreat Midland Bank to become the world picket lines.
biggest bank, has just reported an all time Pontiac has been the crucible dering their members to scab great a lead in this new move ly. conduct and violating the high of almost 3, 000, 000, 000 resources, which of the struggle. Picket lines on the strikers. While as in the once proud and prom. anti noise ordinance. Not a rights has been set up here folis 500, 000, 000 more than it had last year. Chl running into the thousands have the leadership is still in favor ising Workers Alliance. And finger was laid on the vendors lowing a wave of police terror of Social Justice. On Tuesday, instituted against Negro people cago has two billion dollar banks for the first luught off scabs, local cops and of the return to work, Leith ad what are McDowell and the July 11, 1939, another arrest by the local administration, time in its history. And while deposits mount State police. Doddering. senile nits that they couldn get proud of? He tells us in his was made under the same cirloans dwindle, investment in new enterprises for his Pipe Line to God (and Sition, to return to work, was its declaration of principles placstances and at the same followed the iges Governor Dickinson, famous away with it. The previous po article as follows: the first in Formation of the committee beating of tions of capital once were reservoirs from ing the threat of a state police cause of the pressure of the was a section barring from Henry Bell, Worker and Deliberate Policy a former member of the United affiliation Obviously, these arrests are Mine Workers of America by of thousands of profit making enterprises. the militant picketing for continuance of the strike. any advocate or supporter of the result of a deliberate policy six white city policemen severThey have become in our day stagnant pools, persists and gives lessons in unbreeding places of disease for the whole caption organization to While the Norman Thomas any brand of dictatorship do o discrimination against the al days ago. Bell is still suffertalist system.
Martin Socialist Party leadership of the mestic or foreign. This was Socialist Workers Party and in ing from painful Injuries.
goons and finks.
new Workers Security Federa aimed, says McDowell not favor of the followers of Father The committee is composed As sentiment runs high in tion was attempting to escape only at Stalinite Communists coughlights do not know how or Negro and white members than state cops to smash the bership, and the disgraceful their ilk but also at all the petty Father Coughlin that 5, 000 of representing a number of trade picket lines.
sell out which they had an Communist sects with their his followers are members of organizations in the city. It deone and only leaders solu various police departments, but mands the arrest and prosecutions.
in view of the open discrimination of the police culprits as Still Proud. tion against the Socialist WorkNow McDowell and the ers Party in favor of Father spect for the civil rights of the Coughlin followers in these ar. Negro people.
have something further to be rests, and the violation of the proud of. They do not have to civil rights of Bell was resting in his home our people, our to stop at being proud that they attorney has asked a postpone. when he was startled by the Marat demanded the safeguarding of the Revhave formed a mass organiza ment of the case involving unexpected entrance of several olution by the general arming of the people. Continued from Page 1) Enact a twenty billion dol tion that excludes workers Tuesday arrest until August. policemen. Fifteen minutes lahear cries of agony coming by the disarming of the counter revolutionary the most popular strike wear housing and public works from membership because or Pending an investigation into ter neighbors were shocked to leaders even by dictatorial means if neces have ever had in Minnesota. program, political belief. They can be from Bell home as he was sary. To crush the spirit of the masses, the National Assembly ordered bloody massacres. strike spread from the Twin Last Friday and Saturday the Teamsters Refute Roosevelt clubbed and blackjacked at the The Northwest Organizer, or proud of the scabbing and sellhands of the police.
European powers, working with royalists in Citles and Duluth to the Iron gan of the Minneapolis Team out roll of Waldron and Leith, Bell was so badly beaten that France, declared war against the French. Ex Range and to southern Minne sters Joint Council, comment members and leading offhe had to be taken to the Jamplaining the meaning of the war and the massota, making the shutdown ing caustically on Presidentials of their workers Security ison Memorial Hospital where sacres, Marat called for the overthrow of the practically state wide.
Roosevelt assertion that only Federation. They can be his wounds were treated. After King and the completion of the Revolution The Federal Workers Section of the workers were spending a night in jail he was Eventually, in October, 1791, a Legislative of Local 544, apart from the striking. estimated on July 13 proud of the fact that the discharged the next morning Assembly elected by privileged suffrage re wage rate cut issue, has enun that at least 500, 000 had joined capitalist press used the cowwithout a hearing. The unwarplaced the National Assembly. But, wrote Marciated a four point program the national strike army. crdice, the stupidity and the noranted attack aroused wideat, The second legislature is not less rotten which it has called upon Minthan the first. Prices and hunger were mount. nesota congressmen and sena strike has compelled The importance of the strike order of the leaders of spread indignation and the dethe federation, to initiate an atfense committee was organing. Force, he told the workers, would be tors to introduce into Congress. Special to the Socialist Appeals necessary for the creation of a Republic. Do Provide each able unem trade union activities and on us to omit many articles on tempt at a national back toized.
you really believe that you can change the in ployed worker a decent Job at world politics. It is neverthe work movement among the flying squadron of strik ST. LOUIS, Mo. July 12 clinations and habits, the manners and pas. union wages and hours. strikers.
sions of the ruling class by the preaching of Get funds for this byl correspondents, less our hope that our fiela The members of the Workers St. Louis area, paling muboro Rican Rally Flay ers cruised through the East Speakers at Puerto moral principles?
especially Security Federation have made than 600 workers off the job to transferring all war funds to Louis was taken prisoner in 1792. new the unemployed.
those whose contributions Communal Council was elected in Paris. Mar. Open the idle factories. continue sending the matea good beginning. They refused join the militant strike move, Yankee Imperialism have been squeezed out, will at was made a member of its Committee of under union control, to produce rial in.
learn, however, that this does operations 100 per cent.
Public Safety which disposed of the counter consumer goods for the masses.
not complete their task. They Even Fred Austin, district revolutionary ringleaders. His influence in the will learn that they cannot de administrator, was NEW YORK Bitterly Paris Commune was decisive.
velop into a militant unem forced to admit that more than nouncing the regime of Yankee National Convention was called. The ployed organization with a lead 110, 000 workers have Imperialism, and demanding masses, who worshipped him, elected him a ership whose militancy is only come out.
freedom for their island homemember. To indicate the change that had been in the direction of scabbing and effected, he changed the name of his journal running to cover when a fight one project after another, and tion of the Puerto Rican NaThe motor caravan visited land, the New York organizato Journal of the French Republic by Marat, is in progress.
despite the Roosevelt adminis tionalist Party celebrated on Friend of the People. The legend under the tration threat to hand out dis July the inauguration of its masthead of this journal read: In order that missal notices to all new executive board. Before a misery may be diminished, the property of the Workers Swelter, workers who went on strike, packed audience of anti imperwealthy must be abolished.
the pickets were greeted enthu ialist members of the large Pu Never silent, never willing to compromise. Society Opens siastically by workers ready to erto Rican colony of this city, Marat continued his battle against the weak. Continued from Page 1)
strike against the new relief raassed in Lexington Hall, willies, the vacillators in the Convention. The Swimming Pool law.
speaker after speakes flayed latter who held the whip hand in the Conven simple one. The Constitution would be amended so that At Lake Park, East St. Louis, the democratic importatist tion for a time finally had him brought before war could be declared by the United States government Police Chlef Walter Vincent hypocrites in Washington, and the Revolutionary Tribunal on April 24, 1793.
But he was acquitted, and the masses carried only through a direct vote of the people, a direct popular BOSTON, July Fea tried to stop the motor cara reminded the very sympathetic tured on the society pages of van, but a meeting held beyond oudience of the many martyrs him home triumphantly through the streets of referendum.
the entrance to the project suc who have fallen in the struggle Paris. leading spirit of Jacobin Club To an ordinary human being, this proposal seems most local papers today are stor(the Bolsheviks of the French Revolution. he ies of a new swimming pool ceeded in pulling 350 men oft for independence, heroes whose reasonable, modest and democratic. It is the people and that job.
martyrdom was not in vain.
organized the defeat of the Girondists (the opened by the exclusive Meanwhile, at Scott Field, vacillators. and helped establish Jacobin rule.
Longwood Cricket Club. The speakers were: Antonio all the people who must fight and suffer from war (they The years of persecution had, however, their do not fight and suffer by representation. Should not the swimming and diving exhiarmy air base near Belleville Rodriguez Berrios, president of III. where 650 men out of a the Nationalist Junta in Hertoll. Marat became too ill to attend the Con bition attracted an enthusipeople themselves, then, decide whether a war is worth vention, Daily from his home he sent the Con astic gallery. Many enforce of 800 are out on strike, lem; Lorenzo Pineiro Rivera joyed tea on the veranda.
the strikers ranks stood solid. secretary general of the United vention a letter of advice and opinion. Afflicted fighting and suffering for? The United States is supposed with a serious skin ailment contracted in the Desperate attempts are be States organization of the parto be a democracy. What could be more democratic than later an orchestra played ing made by the authority; and Gilberto Concepcion de dank sewers, he spent the greater part of his to decide the most important of all questions, the question for dancing. cool breeze ities to stampede the workers Gracia, president of the day sitting in a bath, the only relief he had.
blew across the tennis courts into a back to work movement organization.
On July 13, Charlotte Corday, an agent of the of war, by a direct vote of the people?
Mr. Herbert Bramwell by spreading fake reports of against imperialist oppression, The struggle royalists, asked to see him. She was admitted This is, indeed, what the people of the United States Shaw played a game of tenworkers returning to the job. for the freedom of Pedro AlblApproaching, she pulled a knife and stabbed think. Authoritative surveys, such as the Gallup poll, nis after watching the swim him ming. The poor coupon Strike leaders point to the en zu Campos and the other NAthrough the heart.
Charlotte Corday became the heroine of the show that an overwhelming majority, two thirds at the clipper! he must have been thusiastic picket lines and the Lonalists who are kept in Atidie projects in the 10 county lanta Penitentiary counter revolution when it wrested power from exhausted. At any rate, we by the very least, favor the war referendum. In a democracy, you the Jacobins. Marat name was besmirched, feel sure that the workers area as the best answer to Roosevelt government, and for would think that such a majority would get what wants.
the from whose sweat Mr. Shaw Administration accused of the vilest crimes, his ideas disphoney immediate independence was claims.
the keynote of all three torted. By the same token, however, his name Why not? What has happened to the war referenduni stole his leisure are not a was revered by the masses, treasured with all proposal?
part of that enthusiastic speeches as well as of the songs Subscribe to the and recitations presented by those other martyrs who lived in the cause of Continued in next issue: The Opposition to the Ludlow gallery emancipation Referendum. SOCIALIST APPEAL Pedro Vareas and Puolta Flying Squadron Pulls St. Louis Projects de JEAN PAUL MARAT (May 24, 1743 July 13, 1793)
The Bastille, prison symbol of the old regime, fell on July 14, 1789 under the surge of the aroused Parisian masses. The Great Frenck Revolution had begun. The struggle between the hereditary privileged and the newly powerful masters of trade which had been brewing for the greater part of the century reached its climax, and the former had to give way. On August feudal privileges were formally abolished There were those who were quite content to let things stand as now established. The wealthy merchants, satisfied that the reins of government were being transferred to them through that section of the nobility which had aligned itself with new class power as well as through their own direct representatives.
sought merely to consolidate the gains achieved and to stop the revolution cold at that point.
These plans were spiked however by a small group of far sighted individuals who stood at the head of the masses, notably Jean Paul Marat, champion of the propertyless whom the rich call canaille (dogs. Seeing the Revolution as of benefit only to the rich, Marat jumped into the fray with the publishing the most important Journal of the sharpness of his pen, the vigor of his ideas, day, Ami du Peuple (The Friend of the People. In it he attacked the proposed limitations on the people sovereignty, charged the commercial potentates with using the National Assembly created by the Revolution)
for their own advantage, predicted the treason of the liberal nobles, Trained as a scientist, a well established, re spected physician with a large practice among the English and French aristocracy, the writer of several important treatises on optics and other scientific subjects, Marat had even before the actual outbreak of the Revolution given up science for revolutionary agitation, Prom a writer of philosophical tracts, he gradually became a practical revolutionist, an advocate of class struggle Persecuted by Counter Revolution Directing his blows in a series of great pol emics against Necker, representative of the new regime, he articulated the demands of those who have nothing on those who have everything. For higher wages, for equal rights, for abolition of bread and consumers taxes, for a general supply of cheap bread.
Ever vigilant he didn hesitate to speak out, call a traitor a traitor, warn the masses that today friend will be tomorrow enemy Those he attacked in Ami went after him violously. Marat became the most persecuted man of the Revolution. For two years he lived Illegally in dark cellars, sewers, constantly hunbed, working alone with only loyal Simonne Evrard standing by him throughout. His writings were confiscated, his presses destroyed.
As the counter revolution grew stronger, Let the People Vote on War!