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Continuity News W. J. Sidis Mimeographed newsletter, 3 pages, found in Helena Sidis's files in 1977. |
No. 8 December, 1938
Issued by the Successors of
Shays
(Boston Branch)
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THE PAST IS THE KEY TO THE PRESENT A journal of current events presented on the basis of the
theory of social continuity.
______________ Temporary mailing address, c/o Parker Greene,
905 Central Sq. Bldg., Cambridge, Mass.
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Subscriptions, $1 per year, 50˘ for 6 months. Issued monthly. For discussion
groups, each subscription after the first is 25˘ a year in addition.
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We attempt to explain rather than to advocate.
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News contributions and constructive criticism welcomed.
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BIG BEANS AT LIMA
At present the various republics (so-called) of the Western Hemisphere are holding their regular biennial conference at Lima, Peru. Much nonsense has been written concerning the alleged prospect that this conference would arrange some program of "hemisphere defense." The fact is, however, that the independent countries of this hemisphere have already signed and ratified treaties (at their conference at Buenos Aires two years ago) providing for internal peace in the western hemisphere and common action towards any outside threats to the peace of the hemisphere. Central and South America would hardly care to go much further in the way of a united action than has already been done, for fear that North American domination with which they have already had too much sad experience. So far, war-mongering seems to be having as little influence with the delegates of Latin-America as it has had with the rank and file of this country's population, and the Pan American Union appears agreed on the general principle that no nation is justified in interfering in the internal affairs of any other nation.
It is quite likely, however, that the Lima conference might take the step of taking the Monroe Doctrine out of the hands of the U.S.A. in order to have it administered by the entire group of western-hemisphere powers―which would really be bringing it back to its original intent and purpose, and prevent the occasional spurts of imperialism (which, luckily, are generally temporary) in which this country has occasionally indulged under the cloak of enforcing its interests in some vague extension of the Monroe Doctrine that has never been defined. The Monroe Doctrine was originally, when it was announced in 1823, a policy for the protection of the independent Americas against Eurasia; and, though the United States has repeatedly tried to extend the policy of protection into a protectorate, the doctrine has a sufficiently powerful continuity to be able to jerk the U.S.A. back from imperialism. The Doctrine itself goes really much farther back, as, in 1776, when the United States negotiated with France for an Alliance, it was specified that France must not annex any territory in North America or on islands in this part of the world. Thus some form of the Monroe Doctrine is really as old as the United States itself, and really belongs to the American continent rather than [illegible] one country. It seems quite likely, therefore, that sooner or later it will be placed on a Pan-American basis.
Much nonsense has also been written about the Monroe Doctrine (or the Adams policy, as its original form should be called) requiring a particular form of government on the part of all American nations; but it is obvious that nothing in the Monroe Doctrine was ever originally so intended, as John Quincy Adams, the originator of this policy, extended it a few years later, when he became President, to cover what was then the Empire of Brazil, merely because it was an independent nation of this hemisphere; the Doctrine was similarly invoked by the United States in 1831 to force Great Britain to withdraw its forces of occupation from the Kingdom of Hawaii (which the English insisted on calling the Sandwich Islands).
There seems little doubt that this hemisphere will actually keep to itself. General defense plans, however, are not likely to go through because little actual danger of invasion from across the Atlantic is anticipated, either in North America or in South America.
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Politician- My boy says he would like a job in your department.
Official- What can he do?
Politician- Nothing.
Official- That simplifies it. Then we won't have to break him in.
―Stray Stories
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The committee investigating un-American activities wants $200,000 more from Congress. That's a lot of money to give someone to say "Boo!" with.―Arkansas City Traveler
When one can say "Bah!" for nothing.―Boston
Globe
And "Bah" expresses it much better than "Boo!"
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JEFFERSON ON THE THIRD TERM
The following statements are attributed to Thomas Jefferson, author of the
Declaration of Independence, in regard to the issue of whether a President
should be allowed a third term in office.
"The danger is that the indulgence and attachments of the people will keep a man in the chair after he becomes a dotard, that reelection through life shall become habitual and election for life follow that."
"A few more precedents will oppose the obstacle of habit to anyone after a while who shall endeavor to extend his term. Perhaps it may beget a disposition to establish it by an amendment of the Constitution."
"That there are in our country a great number of characters entirely equal
to the management of its affairs, cannot be doubted. Many of them, indeed, have
not had opportunities of making themselves know to their fellow-citizens; but
many of them have had, and the only difficulty
"If some period be not fixed, either by the Constitution or by practice, to the services of the First Magistrate, his office, though nominally elective, will in fact be for life; and that will soon degenerate into an inheritance."
The cause of democracy has in late years --------- many recruits, from quarters until then highly critical of democracy -------- converts write books defining their ideas of democracy ---------- they are finished the elephant does not look very much ----------.
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CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATIONS
During the third week in November, at a convention held in Pittsburgh, the organization formerly called the Committee for Industrial Organization, (better known by its initials, CIO), placed itself on a permanent basis under the title of Congress of Industrial Organisations, thus retaining the same initials.
At this convention, the organisation’s leader, John L. Lewis, publicly announced himself as a dictator, and was wildly cheered by the delegation, who thereby indicated to the entire population of America (both the announcement and the cheers were shown in newsreels) that the organisation taken a firm stand for dictatorship.
The organisation, in its temporary form, was ruled by a self-appointed committee which held no responsibility to the membership, and the committee’s leader was elected president of the permanent organisation in a way that, by continuity, was quite as much a foregone conclusion as the results of an election in the dictatorship countries.
The organisation itself was originally an offshoot of the A. F. of L., and thus its continuity is that of the European type of labor organisation, which makes no recognition of, or allowance for, individual rights. In this respect, the CIO has outdistanced its parent organisation to the extent that its policy is a persecution of non-members which is closely similar in nature and extent to the treatment of "non-Aryrans" by certain dictators abroad―but fortunately America does not allow anybody the extent of power that would permit the CIO to inflict as much persecution as they plan for. As for the changes in organisational form which distinguish the two labor organisations, the CIO claims to have derived their specific form from the prewar "IWW" organisation; however, this is not the correct continuity, as the IWW was not ruled from above, and the CIO has in many was failed to follow the IWW forms except for adopting the name "industrial union." The correct derivation of the CIO forms is directly from the Congress of Fascist Unions in Italy; and Lewis’ claim to being a dictator is, from the point of view of that continuity, only what was to be expected. (Pope Pius, in bestowing his blessing on the CIO, gave special recognition to the CIO’s copying of Fascist principles of organisation.)
There have been in the past, up to about fifty years ago, labor organisations of American origin, which did not attempt to deny the right of life to non-members, and did not try to set themselves up as monopolies or "job-trusts." That these organisations have been replaced by the European type is largely responsible for the amount of antagonism which they have created among American workers. It is this which is responsible for the fact that the A. F. of L. long ago outlived its usefulness; and the CIO, clashing much more directly with American continuity, is already faced with large-scale defections within its ranks.
The European type of organisation, of which the CIO is an exaggerated instance, has as its main object the raising of its members’ rate of pay by starving out everybody else. This fits with European continuity, which treats personal rights as being parcelled out from above, where the American continuity regards individual rights as inherent in everybody by their mere presence in this hemisphere. The wages issue, as thus raised, is not on behalf of "the workers," as frequently claimed, but for a minority of workers against the majority. We may note that, while the universal and equal right of all to employment (to which the CIO is unequivocally opposed) is part of the right of life and equality as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, the wages issue in any form is a property question, which can therefore not be an issue of fundamental rights because property is not one of the American fundamental rights.