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No. 15                                                                                                                 July, 1939

Issued by the Successors of Shays

                Subscriptions, $1 per year, 50¢ for 6 months. For discussion groups, $1 a year for the first subscription, 25¢ a year for each additional.

                Issued monthly. Send subscriptions, news contributions, etc., to 905 Central Sq. Bldg., Cambridge, Mass.

                This paper is not the property of any individual, and no individual is authorised to determine its policy.

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END OF THE HAGUE TERROR

                Continuity News having led in giving reports of the reign of terror recently indulged in by Mayor Frank P. Hague of Jersey City―with emphasis on his suppression of individual rights rather than his fights on certain organisations―we may at least report what seems to be an end of at least the current chapter of that story.

                When, two months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court finally confirmed an injunction against him on behalf of a couple of organisations claiming the right of free speech (though at least one of these organisations has done more to intimidate expression of opinion than Hague ever attempted), we did not at the time carry the report of the Supreme Court decision, though most civil liberties advocates hailed the decision as a wonderful victory. And, as anticipated, the dictator of New Jersey met the Supreme Court decision with a thoroughly defiant attitude, and the Supreme Court victory remained, for about a month and a half, merely something to look fine on paper. The complete surrender, however, finally came on Thursday July 6, when the city council, including Hague, passed an ordinance finally recognising the Federal Court ruling, and throwing the streets of New Jersey (except Journal Square) open for all but the largest public rallies, for which four parks were reserved. Hague's statement in the council meeting on that occasion was: "I am turning the streets over to the people."

                The CIO and the various "liberals" who have been fighting, not for individual rights in New Jersey, but for the rights of certain organisations, have no call to congratulate themselves for the victory of freedom of speech. Two years ago, these forces and these organisations were fighting viciously to deprive the courts of the right to pass on the constitutionality of legislation, and are still snarling and snapping at everyone who at that time fought for the protection of individual rights against governmental usurpation. Had they succeeded then, the Supreme Courts hands would have been tied on this occasion. The victory is due, not to these organisations that falsely claim to "liberalism," but to the great surge of American opinion against them in 1937, which came to the rescue of the limitations which the American people have always carefully set around their governments. American liberties were broad enough to come to the rescue of the very groups that sought to destroy them root and branch, and that later begged for the protection of the very things they tried so hard to wreck.

                It was eminently fitting that Mayor Hague of New Jersey, finally forced to surrender on these point, should next turn his attention to officially launching a boon for a third term for the present President; in this attempt to break down another safeguard of American liberty, he was strongly seconded by a Boston politician who, after unsuccessful attempts to establish a political dictatorship here, was repudiated by the people of Massachusetts―and by [illegible] the new Hague move received its strongest support from the very group Hague has been fighting.

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DID YOU KNOW THAT―

                One half of the states of the United States (just 24 out of the 48) have names of American Indian origin?
                The other 24 names are distributed as to origin, somewhat as follows:
                7 Spanish
                6 French
                4 from English place-names or family names
                3 artificial Latinisations
                2 from “given” names
                1 Dutch
                1 Celtic

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        A curious phenomenon took place this month when a faintly extensive strike took place in the WPA (sometimes pronounced "whoopah"). Its ultimate end was that thousands of "whoopahs" received a final layoff, and, in New York City, where the strike started and was strongest, most of the strikers are being refused relief on the ground that they had it and rejected it.

                The United States has been put, for over six years, to the burden of supporting a vast army of parasites who have made a career of living off public funds. This has always been done by a sizable army of politicians, and it has always been the effort of many Americans to throw off that army of leeches; but the New Deal has brought parasitism down to the level of "the forgotten man," and enabled millions more to make a career of doing nothing than was ever possible before. The WPA strike of this month was essentially a strike of small-scale political grafters against having to do full-time work for their money. Most of the strikers have been doing nothing useful―hundreds of thousands have objected to taking regular jobs because it might "injure their relief standing"―the rest have been engaged in doing public work that would not normally be undertaken (in other words, what in industry would be called "created jobs"), and doing them slower and less efficiently than anybody else could. Naturally the public has not been sore about their quitting, and the higher-up politicians (including possibly the President) are only too glad to get out from under the problem of finding an everlasting supply of the vast funds needed to keep this horde of panhandlers going.

                Attempts were made in Congress to modify the new law to make it easier on the "whoopahs," until the strike became serious enough to make Congress feel that the relief given by the government was not appreciated by its recipients anyway. Public sympathy was usually stirred up by people asking for relief, but was only alienated by people demanding relief as a right―or else; especially when they were offered relief on condition that they would do full-time for full-time pay. Useful work in the United States has been held back for six years, and prevented from making a recovery, because it has become possible for workers to get more money doing nothing; but the American people did not like to take the initiative in tormenting this arrangement; but, now that the beneficiaries have voluntarily terminated it, the situation is immensely relieved. And hundreds of thousands of laid-off whoopah strikers are likely to blame the administration for their own act, and a considerable part of the WPA vote (without which Roosevelt would not have been reelected at all) will go against him or any of his followers this time.

                In Boston, the strike was extremely limited, nearly the only project seriously affected being the Huntington Avenue subway construction. Contractors were called in, and the unfamiliar noise of electric drills and endless-chain shovelers was heard on the avenue for a week, during which time more work was done than the WPA had managed to do in six months. Again it proved very much to the public interest for the WPA to get off the job. The work had been done with picks and shovels instead of machines, to make more work; why did not the government make them dig with spoons and forks, as it would undoubtedly have created still more work?

                In a previous issue of Continuity News, it was noted that Maine had become the first state to take definite action on the legal technicalities that make it easy to railroad innocent people for crimes they never committed. In Massachusetts, it has now been made possible to appeal cases on issues of fact as well as of law―a slight step, it is true, compared to the revision made by Maine. Had Massachusetts had such a law in 1921, the famous Sacco-Vanzetti frame-up might have been averted.

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                One of the President's sons has lately been shooting off his mouth in a most remarkable way. After stirring up an argument by suggesting that a certain Catholic priest's utterance be censored, he followed it up the next week by stating that Congress had outlived its usefulness.

                Continuity News holds no brief for either the priest or Congress, and does not intend here to go into the merits (or demerits) of these objects of criticism. Nevertheless, if it is part of the Roosevelt policy that all opposition utterance or activity be silenced and muzzled, it is just as well that the American people know it. The President has made no move to repudiate his son's statements―no move to deny intention to censor political expression of opinion or to abolish Congress; and, under the circumstances, the presumption would seem to be almost conclusive that the President has thereby openly announced his intention of becoming a dictator, suppressing opposition opinion, and destroying everything in the new government except his own supreme power.

                The activities of the third-termites―the meanest sort of termites that ever undermined an important structure―would unquestionably directly bring about such a dictatorship.

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                During the recent drought that has affected many parts of the United States―including most of New England―it was reported that a flood-control project had to stop operations due to lack of water.

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NEUTRALITY

                To our list of topsy-turvey "New Deal Definitions" we may add:
                NEUTRALITY: Choosing sides in a war or prospective war.
                The President celebrated Independence Day, July 4, by announcing his allegiance to England, and expressing his attention to take sides with that empire in any coming war. This does not mean, however, that the people of America have any more sympathy than before, or have any desire to get entangled in any more transoceanic wars.

                The dispute recently came to a head when the Senate refused to appeal the 1935 Neutrality Law, which represents the outgrowth of a native American growth going back before the Declaration of Independence. The substitute the President offered―and actually attempted to force down the Senate's throat―was intended to restore the munitions export business, in which Franco DelLano now has a direct interest, and to favor one side in whatever disputes might arise. It was correctly denounced as "the road to war," and defeated. The President's attempt to sacrifice millions of American lives for the profit of the big munitions interests has been averted, for a while at least; but "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

                True neutrality should have no concern with anything except keeping this country out of war; it should pay no attention to whether the result will incidentally favor one side or the other, and should wave aside all such arguments as irrelevant, incompetent, and immaterial. It should simply "[illegible] to the line, let the chips fall where they may." Best of all, Americans should become really neutral by ignoring the details of European quarrels.

                And it would hardly be an exaggeration to state that anyone supporting the President since his utterance of July 4 is really guilty of large-scale attempt at murder.

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