SOCIALIST APPEAL DECEMBER 9, 1939 SOCIALIST APPEAL Vol. III, No. 92 Saturday, December 1999 Their SPARKS IN THE NEWS Government Published Weekly by the SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASS at 116 University Place, New York, NY.
Telephone: Algonquin 8547 Editors FELIX MORROW MAX SHACHTMAN General Manager MARTIN ABERN Assistant Manager SHERMAN STANLEY Subscriptions: 00 per year: 00 for six month.
Foreien: 00 per year. 50 for six months. Bundle orders: cents per copy in the United States: cents per copy in all foreign countries. Single coples. centa Reentered as second class matter December Act of March 3, 1879.
e post office at New York, under the beer FIGHT WITH THE SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY FOR: Job and a decent lying for every worker. Open the Idle factories operate them under workers control. Twenty Billion dollar Federal public works and housing program. Thirty thirty 80 weekly minimum wage80hour weekly maximum for all workers on all Jobs Thirty dollar weekly old age and disablisty pension. Expropriate the Sixty Families. All war funds to the unemployed. people referendum on any and all wars. No secret diplomacy.
10. An Independent Labor Party, 11. Workers Defense Guards against vigilante and Fascist attacks.
12. Full social, political and economic equality for the Negro people.
Roosevelt vs. Labor The systematic starvation of the unemployed, of which the examples of Toledo, Cleveland, Chicago, Colorado, the South, are merely the most glaring: the Federal persecution of the unemployed in Minneapolis who dared to protest against hunger; the frameup engineered by the men against teamsters union leaders in Sioux City, Omaha and Des Moines; Attorney General Murphy prosecution of the Chicago and Washington, C, teamsters; Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold announce ment of forthcoming widespread prosecutions of labor unions under the anti trust laws, and Murphy flat answer to the AFL that Arnold is acting under orders from him all these incidents are part of a single pattern: the war of the Roosevelt Administration against the working cording to a plan. The CIO and the AFL are disunited, not even joining hands against the By Dwight Macdonald common enemy. Neither of the national labor orBy James Burnham ganizations is solidly getting behind the local labor movements which have been picked first for persecution by the government. Nor have the CIO and AFL gotten it through their heads that the fight of the unemployed for relief is a direct responsibility of the labor unions. Franklin Roosevelt, Union Buster has almost 200, 000, 000 worth of new contracts for planes on its books) and naval shipbuilding The Relief Crisis To understand that the starvation of the unAs the Appeal has pointed out editorially, the (where the War Deal recently, without any pubemployed, the frameups in Sioux City and Mineral Thurman Arnold that the Department of licity, gave up competitive bidding and restored The relief crisis in Cleveland, rapidly coming to a the old cost plus 10 system which produced head also in other Ohio cities, serves to remind us neapolis, the anti trust prosecutions, etc. are all Justice is preparing to prosecute trade unions such scandals in the last war) these especially in a very grim and dramatic manner that the war part of one general war against the unionsfavored sectors are coining money right and left.
is not an isolated symptom of the frightful decay But there is something phoney about this boom, of capitalist civilization, and that the United States To understand that this war is part of Roose the American labor movement. This is the first just as there is something phoney about this war.
is in no way immune from the international spread velt preparations for entry into the imperialist Justice has dared thus to pervert the anti trust This is shown by the peculiar action of the stock of that decay. 16, 000 persons with no resources and warlaws. It marks a new high point in the War mraket in the last two months. In the opening no chance for any public or private, have been Deal current offensive against workers organiz. weeks of the war, there was a wild rise in stock cut entirely off home relief. They and many tens of To understand that the fight for labor rights ations. First the trial of scores of WPA strikers prices. Then this hectic boom slowed down, stopthousands more are subsisting on a diet, provided is at one and the same time the fight against the in Minneapolis, then the Sioux City frame up ped, and for many weeks now the stock market by the Federal Surplus commodities Corporation, war makers of teamsters union officials, carefully staged by has been hanging in the doldrums no great ac.
whleh is demonstrably unable to maintain a minimum FBI agents, and now, after this skirmishing, All this will have to be understood by the la comes the full dress legal onslaught.
tivity, prices Auctuating back and forth without health level, in many cases not even life itself getting anywhere. The Times average of The Mayor of Cleveland, the Governor of Ohio and bor movement if it is going to survive and Epstein on Arnold stock prices, which shot up to 114 in the opening the Federal government are engaged in a vigorous throw back the Roosevelt assault.
days of the war, has now declined to 110. game of three cornered buck passing, each trying to In the Times for November 26, there is month or so ago, when the corporations were reget rid of the responsibility. It can hardly make much The American revolutionists and labor mili a lengthy communication which thoroughly ex porting huge earnings for the quarter, the Dow difference to the unemployed under whose auspices tants bear the responsibility to explain, patiently poses the reactionary nature of Attorney Gen. Jones index of industrial stocks stood at 156. Its they are condemned to starve and freeze.
reaction to these reports cline slowThe fact of the matter, of course, is that during and clearly, to every worker, the meaning of eral Amold proposal. It carries especial weight ly to a present level of 151.
the past year, at the bidding of big business, comRoosevelt moves. That responsibility is also a trade unionist, but by the Solicitor General of This odd behavior of the stock market seems bined drive against the unemployed has been pushed steadily forward by federal, State and local governgreat opportunity to tear the workers away the State of New York, Henry Epstein.
to have two main causes. 1) Wall Street, which One must read and reread Mr. Arnold from the grip of capitalist politicians and their menta, Republican looks beneath the surface in such matters, knows Democratic parties alike.
letter several times before its terrific impact that there has not been enough of a rise in doAt the head of this drive stands Franklin Rooseagents in the trade unions, once and for all.
on the development of a bill of rights for mestic consumption to support the rise in provelt, who, a little more than a year ago, began the American trade unions can be fully appreci duction and earnings. 2) Therefore, unless rapid transformation of the New Deal into the War ated, writes Mr. Epstein. Sugar coat it war becomes serious and large orders from the Deal.
how may, it remains a throwback to the bory Allies flood the American market, the industrial Cain Stalin Danbury boom will collapse in the next few months. At Plans for the Next Congress Here might parentheticaly interject that present, this boom is as phoney as the war There is nothing to be astonished in the Clevethe editors of that great liberal organ, The New For the first statement in his own name in Republle, didn get below the sugar coating. Beland crisis. It is just one more blow in a long and since it is based on the expectation of huge war orders and not on any large amount of actual linked series which is by no means ended. It ties up nine months, Stalin chose a task appropriate to lieve it or not, in the issue of November 29, they orders.
plainly with the way in which, last November and December, Roosevelt dropped 300, 000 from the WPA his nature: the whitewash of Hitler. We quote editorially approve Arnold letter, complacently Will the War Solve Unemployment? rolls, and, in March of this year, threw. 50, 000 forfrom the Daily Worker, Nov. 30, the ineffabie remarking: We think sensible people will agree with Mr. Arnold plan of attack. Recent propaganda from Washington has eign born residents into the streets. It is bound closewords of the Master: Solicitor General Epstein letter destroys spread wide the impression that the present war Roosevelt demand, is a billion dollars less than last ly to this year WPA appropriation figure, which, at It was not Germany who attacked France completely the legal alibi for Arnold plan. He boom in industry is giving jobs at a rapid rate to year. It is related directly to Roosevelt slashing of and England, but France and England who at point of including in the Clayton Act sections the nation jobless. In a few months, one gathers, the huge total of the unemployed will have been WPA rolls by 1, 700, 000 between November 1, 1938 tacked Germany, assuming responsibility for the and 20, expressly exempting unions from the opwhittled down to reasonable proportions.
and September 1, 1939 (they have risen only slightly eration of the anti trust laws. He also shows in present war.
from the low point of 1, 600, 000 which they reached This is propaganda. The fact is that already detail how almost any trade union activity could the 1929 level of production has been passed, and in September. It is comparable, plainly, to the dropAs late as September 17 the Stalinist press be legally attacked under Arnold interpretation there are still at least ten million unemployed ping of all WPA workers who had been on the role was still denouncing Hitler as the aggressor. As of the anti trust laws.
workers. And even if the war boom reaches more than eighteen months, to the elimination of the late as October 31 it was calling both camps This warning of Mr. Arnold s, he conheights which at present seem unlikely, even theater projects and most of the arts and cultural cludes, gives evidence of some careful planprojects, to the smashing of the wage scales on the equally guilty. Until November 29, Dimitrov then there will be no important decrease in the ning. Scarcely hidden, however, is its actual building projects.
total of unemployed. Howard Hunter, a WPA formula of two stages the first one in which threat to labor unions and their only effective And, when anyone actively resists the process, we cfficial, recently estimated that even if our exHitler was the aggressor, the second in which weapons. The danger lies in the fact that ports to Europe increased by 1, 000, 000, 000 in the know already what happens: the current Minneapolis labor cannot know when its acts will run into trials, prepared by the and directed by Roose.
next year, which would mean a 100 increase, Britain becomes the aggressor prevailed. On criminal prosecution, to say nothing of civil velt favorite, Frank Murphy, are samples of the this would employ only 600, 000 more American that day Stalin spoke and completed the whiteSeits.
workers which is about the net increase (after answers that the administration gives to its serious washing of Hitler.
warning is equally applicable to AFL deaths, etc. have been allowed for) in the councrities. According to Murphy and the Minneapolis and CIO. Here is an issue on which they can Brutality towa judge, unwillingness on the part of the unemployed the weak servility to try labor force every year. If exports to South unite, to combine forces and prevent the nulAmerica were similarly increased, another 600, to starve and freeze constitutes conspiracy ward the strong a gangster mentality: that is lification of labor gains through distortion 000 wokers might find jobs. Add in another milLet no one imagine that what is happening in Ohio will suggest to Roosevelt that he has perhaps gone Stalin. He never serves his ally half way. He and misapplication of anti trust laws. They.
lion who would be employed because of the inlicks the boot all the way up and down.
ternal expansion that would probably accompany too far and that more adequate appropriations for the unemployed should be restricted. He hasn startsuch a rise in foreign trade, and you still have reIn the midst of his invasion of Finland, he This Peculiar Boom duced the unemployed only to 8, 000, 000. We ed yet. The present plan of the administration is to turns with a beatific smile to assure the world Since the Reichswehr crossed the Polish fron should have done with the will of the wisp notion recommend to the next session of Congress a total that Hitler is an angel of peace.
WPA appropriation of one billion dollars a further tier on September 1, American industrial pro that a war boom is going to wipe out unemployis ment. Hunter concludes cut, from the figure of this year budget, of approxCain only slew his brother. Cain Stalin slays very nearly the largest increase in such a short Politicians who talk about the tremendous efimately half a billion dollars his brothers and makes of their bodies a pedestal period ever recorded. The steel industry, back fect a war boom would have on unemployment The size of the WPA and other public works apare really thinking the more sophisticated propriations is necessarily related to the home relief on which he raises their enemies. No infamy in bone of our industrial system, is now operating conditions in the cities, since less public works money at around 92 per cent of capacity. Between July among them, at least in terms not of neutral means more home relief needed; and the bankers who history approaches his and November of this year, the number of blast America selling goods to the Allies, but of an furnaces in operation increased from 40 per cent America that is itself in the war as a belligerent.
control the city and State finances are not prepared to meet the additional financial strains.
of the total in existence to 80 per cent a more When they speak of the labor shortage in the rapid rise than took place even during the last last war, they are really talking about the period Relief, WPA and the War war.
Britain and the Jews Steel prosperity has spread to all the other equipping an army of four million men and had The cartoonists of the boss press are fond of showsectors of our economic system. Third quarter extended unlimited credits to the Allies.
ing us that the slogan of Goering and the other Nazis On the day that Britain declared war, the Lon earnings of the big corporations are way above All this talk about a war boom solving the unis Guns, not butter. That is what Nazism means, employment problem, therefore, is no more and they tell us: you get armaments and war instead of don office of the World Zionist Organization those for the same period of last year. Even the no less than propaganda to ease the working food. They say this today in order to ask us to fight sent a letter to Chamberlain, assuring him that railroads are making money these days. As for class into the war, in their war tomorrow.
But the cartoonists, like Roosevelt seem to be sufthe differences between the Zionists and Britain such Industries as airplane building (which now would be shelved before the greater and more fering from severe cases of far sightedness. They can distinguish events much more clearly at 4, 000 miles pressing necessities of the time. the Zionists than in their own front yards.
would place ourselves, in matters big and small.
And their far sightedness seems to affect not merely their eyes but their feelings. Their horror, symunder the coordinating direction of His Majespathy and indignation are most easily and immensely ty Government.
aroused at the plight of Marshal Mannerheim murderer of tens of thousands of Finnish workers and What happened then? Taking Jewish support for granted, the British turned to negotiations peasants and the plight of Polish colonels and landlords inventors of modern pogroms (not to mention with the Mufti, reactionary Icader of the Arab men, smoking their cigars, last Chinese cities bombed by planes and ammunition connationalists, and with the Arab kings, in order Friday, had no more idea of the structed in their factories. but they have only men and cops for the conspirators in Minneapolis and to assure their support of Britain in the war.
employed than you could know Cleveland who want, of all things, a little food, and The deal is to be made at the expense of the how a drowning man feels by medicine for their children.
Jews in Palestine and of the Arab peasants.
In Cleveland putting your foot in a bucket of And while quietly preparing the new WPA bill with water.
the half billion cut, the administration announces So the honeymoon between Britain and the Relief to those parasites is not so quietly that at the least half a billion will Zionists is already over. Stephen Wise is aljust a form of riot insurance. But (Continued from Page Continued from Page 1)
have to be added to the armament appropriations, Hitler ready whining that Jewish hostility it about time that the workers This contrasts with the heavy Somehow, when you stop to think about it, it not 80 easy to see just exactly where this whole policy should not be seized upon by the Colonial of childless couples, have been ruth march before these gentlemen In number of persons actually in differs from the Goering guns not butter principle.
fice and made an excuse for driving a bargain caly cut off relief entirely. An one huge mass body and cry, needs riot Insurance Almost Incredible Inadequacy Doubtless we should sympathize with Roosevelt: with the unspeakable Mufti that will still further cases have been reduced to a day then we re here to tell you that Last May, the Association with all the mighty events in Europe and Asia to made public a systematic survey disadvantage the loyal Jewish population of Pal to day starvation diet that is but your premium is too low.
keep him busy, he probably has no time left to worry Republican of the conditions of the more about a dozen unemployed and their families estine. But we have heard such language from mal relier budget which in turn, mayor of the city, who has been than seven million unemployed at home. But the unemployed themselves, not having Rabbi Wise before, every time the British move has been cut twice this year al boasting of his economy pro families on relief.
jobs to waste their energies on, can profitably devote against the Jews in Palestine and each time he ready gram, returned from a trip to The almost incredible inadesome time to the question of how they are going to the and the other Zionist spokesmen go on to make chase up and down the state to handed. City Fathers Washington yesterday empty quacy in the relief provided was continue living politely but authoritatively docu In reply to Roosevelt weekly declarations to the an ever more slimy compromise with Britain.
the state capitol in Columbus or He indignantly repudiated any mented by that report.
world about democracy and humanity, the unemTo the eternal honor of the Jews of Palestine, to Washington, to request suggestion of touching any of the Today the millions dependent ployed might well issue statements of their own on not all of them have followed the dictates of the additional funds from the very city remaining operating funds on reller are refugees just as such subjects as job and a decent living for every Zionist leaders. How much resistance to Britain so recently for their economy did the high salaried council repression. They are American thirty dollar weekly minimum income for every worker, employed or unemployed. Expropriate the Sixty war is developing in Palestine is not easy to as programs, crowds of starving un members in the City Welfare refugees with no place to go.
Families, and use the money for a gigantic scheme certain, for a rigid British censorship has stifled employed are besieging the vari. Committee Friday when it was said Walter West, executive Secof public works. And if the statements did not most of the news from there. But we learn from the celler stations at all hours of proposed by the Federal Workers retary of the Association, in isreceive the notice that Roosevelt is granted in the Hashomer Hatsair, organ of the Zionist youth, ly herd the desperate workers the salaries of all politicians The same report stated that press, militant action under the banner of such statemaking over 3, 000 per year of even at its peak WPA had failed ments will be sure to do so.
that when, in the early days of the war, the around.
the city and using these funds to to absorb the bulk of the unem Nor will such action by the unemployed be sepZionist organizations mobilized men and women Union Calls Demonstration feed the unemployed.
ployed. Since the report was arated from the struggle against the war itself. The for certain tasks, at least ten per cent of all the Tonight, despite a heavy rain. The present relief crisis is the made, Roosevelt has cut WPA to fight against the war is the fight against the warmakers and their whole rotten system. The War Deal mobilized Jewish men and women refused to sign to the Federal meetings Wichela latest stage of a continuous proc the bone, one of the main causes worsened relief situplans to reduce the unemployed to an outlaw, coolie to the third point in this call, namely, the clause new independent union of WPA lief breakdown of two years ago, ation throughout the country.
caste. Successful resistance to these plans by the unaid to the British army.
workers, and the call is going out when velt made big employed will be their heaviest blow at the war.
for a demonstration at the City slashes in WPA and threw thouThis anti British minority must become the Council meeting Monday night. sands of WPA workers upon the honeymoon before the Stalin Hit Party Members! Attention!
majority. It would be a disgrace to the Jewish Principal speaker at the meet tender mercles of local charity ler pact, gave the tip off to the Special membership meeting of the Socialist workers and farmers of Palestine if they remaining was Art Preis, who last Fr. relief. Included in the present city officials that they could cut Workers Party will be held this coming ed loyal supporters of the British army while the copye water en comfort before starving workers are thousands relief to the bone and get away it SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10th, at P. SHARP at the that army is launched against the revolting mass Relief at its best has always WPA by the Roosevelt Woodrum trayals, however, the unemployed es of India. The refusal of the India peoples to been not enough to live on and hunger bill of last summer. are in a fighting mood and beSTUYVESANT CASINO, 9th St. and 2nd Ave.
New York City give any support to Britain in the war that is an emergency relief is only afty controlled Workers Alliance to banner of the Federal Workers The failure of the Stalinist ginning to rally around the new Admission by membership card only. Members also the road for both the Jews and Arabs in percent of what always was a put up any fight for the unem Union which offers a program of of the also admitted through memberPalestine.
starvation diet. Those sleek, fat ployed during their pro Roosevelt fighting mass action.
ship card.
class.
realize Hunger Stalks in the Cities As the War Machine Grows 1, 000 Protest NO JOBS, RELIEF IN WAR BOOM Murphy hypocritically refers to Supreme Court decisions as his guide in employing the anti trust laws against the unions. But those decisions were there all these years. Not since the notorious days of Attorney General Palmer in the post war years, however, has the Department of Justice been as sytematically directed against the unions as today. Moreover, at least as expert a legal luminary as Murphy. New York State Solicitor General Henry Epsteinhas declared that the Clayton Act specifically exempts unions from anti trust prosecutions and has denounced Arnold announcements as a deliberate plan against the unions. No, the actual legal texts are no guide to what is happening.
We must look elsewhere for the explanation.
The explanation is clear enough, if we that the anti trust prosecutions are linked to the other events we have listed above; and if we study them in the light of Roosevelt gigantic armament program, his open leaning to the side of Anglo French imperialism in the war, and his campaign of war incitement against the Soviet Union.
Roosevelt is preparing to plunge America into this war for the re division of the earth. Six years of internal measures have failed to end the economic crisis and provide adequate markets.
Roosevelt therefore is taking the external way out. the only other alternative which capitalism permits.
To fight a modern war means dictatorship at home. The labor movement, both AFL and CIO, is a potential menace to that dictatorship. Strong and healthy unions will fight against the dictatorial measures of a war government and, in the course of that fight, will learn to understand that the fight for labor rights is also the fight against the war and its makers.
To make that fight organized labor impossible, Roosevelt is conducting a preventive war against the workers now. That is the explanation for the mounting number of anti labor moves of the government.
And to conduct the war itself, money and cannon fodder are needed. Both can be had, the Roosevelt government conceives, by starving the unemployed. The money taken away from WPA and relief goes into munitions. The starving unemployed will be glad to cat in the army until they are killed in the trenches.
These are the plans of the government. They are well thought out, and are being executed according to schedule.
But organized labor is not fighting back asmillion