8. Protection and aid of co-operative enterprises by national and state legislation. 9. Common international action to effect the economic recovery of the world from the effects of the World War. 10. Repeal of the Cummins-Esch law. Public ownership of railroads, with democratic operation and with definite safeguards against bureaucratic control. 11. Abolition of the tyranny and usurpation of the courts, including the practice of nullifying legislation in conflict with the political, social or economic theories of the judges. Abolition of injunctions in labor disputes and of the power to punish for contempt without trial by jury. Election of all federal judges without party designations for limited terms. 12. Prompt ratification of the child labor amendment and subsequent enactment of a federal law to protect children in industry. Removal of legal discriminations against women by measures not prejudicial to legislation necessary for the protection of women and for the advancement of social welfare. 13. A deep waterway from the great lakes to the sea. 14. We denounce the mercenary system of degraded foreign policy under recent administrations in the interests of financial imperialists, oil monopolists and international bankers, which has at times degraded our state department from its high service as a strong and kindly intermediary of defenseless governments to a trading outpost for those interests and concession seekers engaged in the exploitation of weaker nations, as contrary to the will of the American people, destructive of domestic development and provocative of war. We favor an active foreign policy to bring about a revision of the Versailles treaty in accordance with the terms of the armistice, and to promote firm treaty agreements with all nations to outlaw wars, abolish conscription, drastically reduce land, air and naval armaments and guarantee public referendum on peace and war. In supporting this program we are applying to the needs of today the fundamental principle of American democracy, opposing equally the dictatorship of plutocracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat. We appeal to all Americans without regard to partisan affiliation and we raise the standards of our faith so that all of like purpose may rally and march in this campaign under the banners of progressive union. The nation may grow in the vision of greed. The nation will grow in the vision of service. At the convention, February 21, 1925, the railroad brotherhoods announced adherence to the principle of non-partisan political action and withdrew. Socialists also left after demanding a labor party. The remaining delegates adopted the Cleveland platform and decided to organize the Progressive party in the States to meet nationally later in 1925. La Follette received 4,822,319 votes. The American Labor Party Organized in July, 1922, in New York State by a combination of Socialists, members of the Farmer-Labor Party and of labor organizations with an aggregate membership of 200,000. Its purpose is to destroy the power of plutocracy and privilege by public ownership and democratic management of public utilities and natural resources. Address, 231 East 14th Street, New York City. Federated Farmer-Labor Party Organized July 3, 1923, at a convention called by the FarmerLabor Party from which it split off, being the more radical group. Now united with the Workers' Party. Its purpose was the affiliation of trade Unions and farmers, and at the end of 1923 it was supported by organizations having 155,000 members. See American Labor Year Book, 1923-24. The Commonwealth Land Party The Single Tax Party that organized in 1920 and polled 5,837 votes for President, changed its name in 1924 to the Commonwealth Land Party. William J. Wallace and J. C. Lincoln were nominated for President and Vice-President. The party in its platform demands that the full rent of land be collected by the government in place of all direct and indirect taxes and that all buildings, machinery, implements and improvements on land, all industry, thrift and enterprise, all wages, salaries, incomes and every product of labor or intellect, be entirely exempt from taxation. The platform also states that the private ownership of land is a denial of men's right to the earth; that it restricts the conditions under which the landless must produce; that it therefore lessens the return for their efforts and compels the employment of the entire time and energy of the great mass of mankind to obtain a mere subsistence. Furthermore, that the struggle for existence is not fundamentally a struggle between capital and labor but between capital and labor on the one hand and land monopoly on the other. The headquarters are at 3 East 14th Street, New York City. The American Party Organized June 3, 1924, at Columbus, Ohio, as an antiCatholic movement. Its platform starts: "We recognize God the Father Almighty and Jesus Christ, His only Begotten Son, as the rightful Rulers of this universe. . ." Its nominees were Gilbert O. Nations and Charles H. Randall for President and Vice-President. Brent Dow Allinson In February, 1917, as president of the International Polity Club of Harvard University, Allinson spoke at a public meeting in the Capitol at Washington against the Chamberlain bill for the establishment of universal military training. Later he wrote an open letter to Secretary of War Baker explaining his position as a pacifist. After the passage of the Selective Service Law, Allinson, then a junior at Harvard, registered by mail in Chicago, his home town. In August he took the physical examination. He gave up his college course and remained at home awaiting a notice of military induction. In October, 1917, he was appointed Accounting Officer of the U. S. Fuel Administration for Illinois and served without remuneration to February 8, 1918, when he was offered by the Department of State a position in the diplomatic service in the legation at Berne, Switzerland. He reported at Washington, was given the oath of office, confidential instructions and official passports, and was informed that the State Department had obtained the necessary permit to leave the country from the military authorities, On February 22, 1918, as Allinson was about to sail, the New York Tribune published an article denouncing him as a pacifist and the State Department for appointing such a man to the diplomatic service. Allinson was recalled to Washington and was dismissed from the service. On April 1 he received an order to report in Chicago for roll call the previous day. Reporting immediately to the headquarters of the Selective Service. Law in Washington, he was informed that it would not be necessary to go to Chicago as a transfer of induction could be made. Then followed orders and counter-orders from officials in Washington and Chicago ending in a sudden arrest for desertion at the home of Dr. and Mrs. George W. Nasmyth in the capital on April 20. Without trial he was imprisoned at Camp Grant, Illinois, and compelled to work on coal cars and at road building. On June 17, he was court-martialled on the technical charge of desertion and sentenced to hard labor for the term of his natural life. This sentence was commuted to fifteen years. He was taken in hand-cuffs to the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, where he worked for two years in the steam laundry, tailor shop and rock pile, at times confined in the underground dungeon for days with no bed, covering or food, except bread and water. While imprisoned he wrote several poems published later in his book, "Youth and Singing Shadows," from the introduction to which by John Haynes Holmes this extract is taken. A LIBRARY FOR LIBERALS Some Books That Promote an Understanding of the Present Social System and of the Theories That Aim to Establish a New and Better Order Selected by OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD (Any book will be sent postpaid on receipt of the publisher's price by The Arbitrator, 114 East 31st Street, New York City.) SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL PROBLEMS: GENERAL Hall, Bolton. The New Thrift. Rev. ed. 1923. $1.50. Hinkle, Beatrice Moses. Re-creating the Individual; a Study of Psychological Types and Their Relation to Psychoanalysis. 1923. $4.50. Hobhouse, Leonard T. Liberalism. 1911. 90 cents. Hobson, John Atkinson. Democracy after the War. 2d ed. 1918. $2.00. Morals of Economic Internationalism. 1920. $1.00. Work and Wealth. 1914. $2.75. Kropotkin, Petr. A. Mutual Aid a Factor in Evolution. 1917. $1.75. Lansbury, George. Your Part in Poverty. 1917. $1.00. Martin, Everett Dean. The Behavior of Crowds. 1920. $2.50. Ogburn, William Fielding. Social Change. 1922. $2.00. Robinson, James Harvey. The Mind in the Making. 1921. $2.50. The New History. 1912. $2.00. |