Open forum, vol. 2, no. 19 (May, 1925)
Primary tabs
~ THE OPEN FORUM
`"`Rarnest for the Freedom of Others.'' --- Lowell.
Vol. Di
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, MAY 9, 1925
No. 19
BALDWIN'S CRIME
THE TEXT OF A SPEECH SUPPRESSED AT
THE PATERSON TRIAL
By Roger Baldwin
This introductory statement from the New Leader
of New York City will serve here to explain why
we are publishing Baldwin's address.
* * *
That Roger Baldwin, the courageous director of
the American Civil Liberties Union, has been sen-
tenced to six months in jail because of his insistence
on exercising his constitutional right of free speech,
is known to New Leader readers. Some of the
unsavory details of this arbitrary conviction are
still unknown. The daily press has done little to
bring them to light.
-Not content with a wholesale flagrant violation of
the Constitution, the Paterson court rode roughshod
over the elementary rights of the defendants in the
case, refusing them permission to speak on their
behalf before sentence was pronounced. The follow-
ing was prepared by Baldwin as his statement to
the court, but the presiding judge would not hear
it. For this reason, and for the additional reason
that the daily papers have refused to print any part
of Baldwin's statement to the court, the New Leader
is especially gratified to present it herewith:
* * *
Your Honor, before you pass sentence on me I
desire to make a statement of the facts and issues of
this case as I see them. There is no stenographic
record of this case, nothing indeed but our own dif-
fering memories of the evidence submitted three and
a half months ago, together with the citations of
law. And yet it is a case remarkable from the fact
that it is the only one of its kind tried in all the 126
years during which the statute creating the offense
has been on the books. In view of that situation,
I desire to say what it is my privilege to say be-
fore sentence is passed on me. ;
You have found all of us eight defendants guilty
of the crime of unlawful assembly as charged in
the indictment. That indictment was based on a
statute of 1798, reenacting the old English. common-
law offense of unlawful assembly. We understand
this crime to consist of gathering together in a pub-
lic place for the purpose of creating disorder and
disturbing the peace.
The indictment, in the quaint language of 126
years ago, charges us "riotously and routously" with
making "great and loud noises' and with using
force of arms" and with intent to commit `assault
and battery on police officers" and "to wreck the
City Hall.
All of us have denied any such intent or acts,
`nd no evidence was submitted, contradicting us.
We therefore assume that your Honor sustains the
bia doctrine that we intended the consequences
tip act-namely, the breaking up of our meeting
police with its attendant disorder.
ae believe that in assembling on the City Hall
oatee the night of October 6 after the Chief of
see ad closed our private hall we were within
Deacef Beg one rights. The right to assemble
a y for a redress of grievances is to us clear.
cise toe be no more appropriate place to exer-
City fae at the seat of local government, the
not oa, That the exercise of such a right should
Seems upon the notions of a Chief of Police
conceptio us equally clear. If submission to police
guide Sats of constitutional liberty is to be our
Tights will not exist when most needed.
I stated to your Honor during this trial that the
City Hall meeting, in the face of the Chief's ban on
strikers' public meetings, was held to test out the
legal rights involved. We welcomed such a test to
end the intolerable police dictatorship over freedom
of speech and assemblage. We had endeavored un-
successfully to settle this issue by getting an order
from the Vice-Chancellor restraining the police. We
had sent our attorneys to plead with the Chief with-
out success. There was no recourse left but to
submit, or to protest by a meeting in a public place.
It now appears that in view of the statute of 1798,
as construed by this Court, we had no such right.
Now I desire to call your Honor's attention to the
fact that as a practical-not a legal-matter, the
right of peaceful assemblage during the silk strike
was achieved by that meeting. When we announced
the day after the City Hall meeting that we would
meet in Turn Hall the following week with Bishop
Paul Jones of the Episcopal Church, the Rev. John
Nevin Sayre and other speakers, and notified the Chief
of Police, he abandoned his arbitrary and lawless
position, and told the strikers that the police would
not interfere further with their meetings in Turn Hall.
We held our scheduled meeting the following week.
continuing the City Hall meeting from the point at
which the police broke it up. Two days later we
held another meeting at which the principal speaker
was the Workers' party representative, whose at-
tacks on local officials had caused the Chief to close
the hall. From that time on during the strike there
was no police interference with freedom of speech
and assemblage. There was no violence or disorder.
Our practical purpose had been accomplished.
But the Chief of Police was not satisfied to let
matters rest there. He went to the Grand Jury
and secured this indictment on which we have been
tried before you, the first trial on this ancient charge
ever to take place in this State. Although, by his
surrender after the City Hall meeting, he admitted
his error, nevertheless he sought to vindicate police
brutality by punishing our defiance of his orders.
We believe that the evidence showed that what-
ever riot or disorder took place at the City Hall
meeting was caused solely by the police in violently
dispersing a peaceful meeting held to protest against
their high-handed abuse of power. There were scores
of officers there, ready with drawn clubs to act. The
testimony clearly shows that the procession from
the strikers' hall arrived with the flag at its head.
and that Mr. Butterworth was attempting to read
from the Bill of Rights when the police began swing-
ing their clubs. Two men were brutally assaulted,
and their scalps split open. The testimony shows
there was no resistance worthy of the name by the
crowd, which was dispersed in a few moments. It
was stated that a few men struck back at officers
in their indignation at this assault upon a peaceful
meeting, the effort to tear the American flag from the
Kimball sisters and to prevent the reading of the
Bill of Rights. Those cases are incidental. They
are covered by another indictment, and have no ref-
erence to the purpose of this meeting. The undis-
puted testimony clearly shows that the meeting was
held with the declared purpose to protest grievances
in orderly fashion, and that the chairman, speakers
and flag-bearers were instructed, and had agreed in
case of interference, to submit quietly to arrest in
order to test the issue out in the courts. One officer
alone could have dispersed that meeting by an order-
ly arrest of the chairman and speakers. I say again,
your Honor, that the police and the police alone
were responsible for the disorder; that whatever law-
lessness attaches to that meeting was committed by
them.
We elected to try this case on clear-cut issues of
law. We, therefore, waived our right to a jury in
order to avoid the inevitable prejudices which are
always aroused in a jury trial. We have hoped for
a decision which would make it clear for the future
that citizens of Paterson have the right, so long
abused by the police whenever industrial conflicts
have taken place, to take such steps as we took.
We are disappointed that, in your Honor's view, the
statute of 1798 impairs that right.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which re-
sponded to the strikers' appeal to handle the test
of their rights, assumes full responsibility for the
meeting and for the litigation growing out of it.
It ig virtually that organization which is before you
for sentence, an organization whose sole aim is to
help maintain freedom in exercise of those rights
guaranteed by the Constitution, and so often flouted
by the police. We serve impartially all who appeal
to us for help-strikers, radicals of all sorts prose-
cuted for their beliefs, the victims of mob violence
and of the Ku Klux Klan-equally, for instance,
Roman Catholic school teachers whom the Klan has
sought to oust from public schools, and the right of
the Klan itself to meet unmolested on private prop-
erty against the unlawful prohibition of a Roman
Catholic mayor. We have been involved many times
in meetings forbidden by the police, in order to
test out the legal issues in the courts. We have
followed in other places precisely the same tactics
which we followed in Paterson, and in such cases
our belief in what are our rights has been vindicated.
Accepting as I do full responsibility for this meet-
ing, it is clear that my fellow-defendants who attend-
ed at my request and direction are not equally re-
sponsible with me. For them, I ask the utmost leni-
ency of this Court. As for myself, I was acting
officially for my organization, not from any personal
motive or interest. My personal views and my im-
prisonment during the war as a conscientious ob-
jector, of which the prosecuting attorney endeavored
to make an issue, have, I believe, nothing to do with
this case. Any one of the officers or members of the
Civil Liberties Union might as well be before you
for sentence.
What is really behind. this case is, of course, the
struggle between two classes in society-the working
class and the employing class. This indictment
would clearly never have been brought unless this
assemblage had been held by strikers to get their
rights. | venture to say that the police would not
even have interfered with the strike meetings had
they been conducted by an A. F. of L. union with
its powerful political and industrial backing.
But because these strikers happen to belong to an
independent union without affiliation elsewhere, and
are chiefly aliens, they were easy to attack. Fur-
thermore, the strike issue was aggravated by the red
bogey of Communism and revolution, because the
strike committee was assisted by a representative
of the Workers' party from New York. Yet none
of these factors offers any moral or legal justifica-
tion for the action of the police.
This trial is, of course, merely an incident in the
long struggle of the working-class for the rights to
organize and strike. In this struggle the police al-
most everywhere side with the propertied employing
interests as against the workers. We were, there-
fore, not unprepared for the conduct of the police.
We have not ever looked to them to protect any-
one's rights. But we hoped that your Honor's de-
cision might be in conformity with our conception
of our Constitutional liberties. It is our belief that
Section 18 of the Constitution of New Jersey assures
us the right which we have taken. This section
reads:
"The public have the right freely to assemble to-
gether, to consult for the common good, to make
known their opinions to their representatives, and
to petition for redress of grievances."
Though you have decided against us, we believe
that our position will ultimately be vindicated, and
that those rights by which alone industrial conflict
can be settled peacefully will be fully established.
'
TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?
By R. W.
II
The Appeal To The Ballot
The United States was not born of the ballot. Free-
dom from England did not come by way of the
franchise, nor is there any probability whatever that
if the ballot had been universal and the issue had
been submitted to a vote that the majority of the
people in the British dominions as a whole would
have voted to allow such separation.
Neither is the United States what it is today, a
union of forty eight states, because of the ballot. The
issue as to whether certain of the states were to be
allowed to secede from the Union was not voted upon.
Abraham Lincoln was not elected on the straight
issue of secession, or no secession, and if he had been
he was not a majority president. Even in Novem-
ber 1864 eighteen out of every forty voters, all of them
from northern states, voted against him.
The thirteen colonies fought for their right to se-
cede from England, and won. A slightly lesser num-
ber, with a total population three times greater than
that of the thirteen colonies in 1776, fought for the
right to secede from the rest, and lost. In neither
case was it a determination of the ballot, but of
plain, outright force. Quite possibly in both cases the
ballot might better have been used, but it was not.
With all our talk in defense of the ballot we are
exceedingly chary in the use of it. The issue as to
whether we prefer to operate under a Constitution
made up by fifty-five men, sixteen of whom refused
to endorse it after it was debated and opposed the
adoption of it after it was done; made up behind
closed doors and with the utmost secrecy of council;
made up by property owners, money speculators, and
lawyers; and made up before the industrial order of
our day was born, one hundred and fifty years ago;
the question as to whether we prefer to continue
under such a constitution or to make a new one more
in accord with the conditions of our time, that ques-
tion has never been submitted to the ballot in these
`United States, and the proposal to submit it to the
voters would be denounced all over the country as
Bolshevism of the worst kind. Yet if we believe in
the ballot why should we not vote on just such a
real and serious issue?
If we believe in the ballot why should we use it so
rarely, so indirectly, and so inconsequentially? Why
should we not vote for our presidents directly, and
recall them if they do not carry out the people's will?
Why should we not vote for the nine men who sit for
a life tenure on the Supreme Bench, and who cau
reverse the decisions of both Houses of Congress,
even with the President's veto on the side of what the
people's representatives have voted, and what the peo-
ple themselves obviously want? Why should they not
be subject also to recall, that is to the continuous
exercise of the people's ballot if the ballot is some-
thing in which we really believe?
As a matter of fact the folks who talk the loudest
about the American people having the ballot are the
folks who believe the least in it, and are the most
terrified at the prospect of any real use of it. The
only reason they favor it in appearance is because
they have fixed it so that the people have very little
real use of it in fact. A proposal to set the people
really free to vote at any time on any issue of import-
ance, and to determine by a direct expression of their
will what they would do in any given case, as in the
matter of making war upon another nation, owning and
operating for themselves mines, and water power, and
key industries, and public transportation, and like
items of everyday importance, such a proposal would
set the Chambers of Commerce, Kiwanis Clubs, Ro-
tary Clubs, Better American Federations, Sons and
Daughters of the American Revolution, American
Legionists, and all the rest of the "safe and saners"
off into worse hysterics than they had during the
world war, All their talk about believing in the bal-
lot is the shallowest kind of bunk. They have no in-
tention whatever of allowing the people a real vote
on any real issue.
Nor could they really give the people the ballot
without giving them a good deal more than a chance
to vote oftener and more directly than is now the
case. It would be necessary for an actual exercise
of the franchise fairly and squarely that the people
should have the same opportunity to present their
side of every issue as have the special interests at
any time. In other words the press would have to be
open to the people's cause on equal terms, as would
the public platform, and the schools. The ballot is
not just a piece of paper, with some bits of print
upon them. If the ballot means anything it must be
a real vote, and to be a real vote it must represent a
fair opportunity to get at the facts on which the
vote registers decision.
There are churches, clubs, fraternities, and other
limited organizations in which there is a real use of
the ballot, and where actual faith in the ballot pre-
vails. But in these organizations all the members
vote; they vote on real and not just on sham issues;
they vote after full and free discussion, and one side
is heard as openly as the other. Only under such
conditions has the ballot any real existence. And
such conditions have never prevailed in any Ameri-
can State, or in the American Union as a whole. The
ballot there has always been witholden from large
masses of the people. Where it is not witholden
now, it is so hedged about with artificial conditions
and so manipulated by mechanistic devices, and so
handicapped in the hands of the common people by
the barrage of falsehood directed against it from the
batteries of press, pulpit, platform, school, movie
screen, radio, in the hands of the Big Interests in
nearly every instance, as to be one of the biggest
humbugs on the face of the earth today.
The patriots, profiteers, and politicians generally
have no more intention of letting the people of these
United States pass judgment, easily, continuously,
intelligently and effectively than have the Great
Powers of Europe the intention of establishing a real
world democracy over. there.
And even if all this were granted, the appeal to
reason under any conditions of ballotting, would still
be limited where a man's living is in another man's
hands. _
atin tis Oe
THE PARASITICAL PLANT
(Translated from the Dutch of `"`Multatuli."'
By Alfred G. Sanftleben
It was winter. Over there on the wide canal
folks enjoyed skating. The ice was on an even level
with the road. One had only to step up.
But a bridge was laid over a broad gully free
from ice which I had not noticed the day before.
Each one passing the bridge paid to the man one
cent who, as he said, had made the bridge "on
account of the gully." Yet there were those who
whispered "he has made the gully for the sake of
the bridge!"
Is it not a shame that means have been found
to make a profitable profession out of the interpre-
tation of the law?
Everywhere human society is traversed by such
gullies, and mostly only in order to keep alive just
such a "bridgeman."
What would become of the teaching profession if
we were to write plainly like an educated human be-
ing? ;
What would become of the soldiers if we could
grasp the truth that the smallest people is stronger
than the largest army?
What would become of the lawyers if we had
lawgivers capable of expressing their thoughts in
a plain everyday language?
What would become of the preachers if we could
conceive the truth that each has to seek for religion
in hig own heart?
And finally what would become of the teachers
of morality if we. knew how to re-discover these
moralities in communion with dear nature?
Ah, what a mass of bridgemen in unproductivity?
--_ -____-_.
On full investigation it will be discovered that
there is scarce a departure from order but leads to
or is indissolubly connected with a departure from
morality. AARON BURR.
=
The Third Degree
The proposed law abolishing the third degree hay
been defeated. This is sad news both for crooy
and a justice-loving public. The legislative commit
tee, after hearing various police chiefs, decideq ty
table the act. Now there is no need for cops to let W
in their attacks of men and boys suspected of Using
slugs in gum-vending machines or of some Othe
hideous crime.
Once upon a time I was a night police reporte
The little work that I did consisted of hangin
around the detective bureau. It was during that
period that I learned what third degree methods ay
I have seen big, stupid hulks and nervous, unde
nourished, repulsive little rats covered with blooj
from the wounds made by cops with their sap stick
or their fists.
I have seen two brothers, guilty of a minor crime,
but accused of something far worse, all battered api
bleeding, and have seen the walls of the room whey
the bulls administered the beating bespattered with
red.
I have seen timid little men, without sufficien
mentality to know what it was all about, bein
grossly manhandled by cops who believed they coulj
wring a confession of some terrible crime out
them. And I have seen hardened crooks sit in chair
and take all the blows that were given them withou!
spilling a word.
These beatings all are part of the third degre
methods used by the police. They are a part of the
theory of justice prevalent in our courts that a man
is guilty until proven innocent. You may remember
that in the histories of the land it is stated that the
courts were founded on the premise that a man is
innocent until proven guilty. That has all been re
versed. A criminal in court is regarded ag guilty
or he wouldn't be there. It is this law that an
innocent man must surmount before he can get back
on the street.
Douglas Churchill in the Daily News,
Who Says Class
Strussle?
CHICAGO-Class lines, drawn partly by pride anil
partly by suspicion, are showing in the nationwide
response to the needs of the tornado victims of
southern Illinois and adjoining states.
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners
announces from its Indianapolis headquarters thal
$500,000 will be raised from its subordinate unions
so that no union carpenter in the storm area neel
depend on stranger charity to rebuild his home. The
brotherhood takes pride in caring for its own.
The Chicago carpenters' district council has appre
priated $1,000 from the district treasury and is call
ing upon its affiliated local unions in Cook and Lak
counties for the remaining $49,000 fixed by the inter
national as the local quota. The Chicago districl
is expected to raise 10 per cent of the entire hall
million.
More outspoken in its class-conscious plans fo!
storm relief and more suspicious of the usual chal -
ity mediums is the Chicago Council of Labor Defens?
and Relief.
"The storm that has just visited inexpressible sul
fering on a large section of the union coal miners
and other workers in southern Illinois and the at
jacent fields," the Labor Defense appeal reads, "i
likely to be seized upon by the capitalist class t
further beat down the workers' resistance and dcent
stroy their union organization." The appeal there
fore asks that labor relief funds be sent to the Intl
Workers' Aid, 19 S. Lincoln St., Chicago, as a meals
of counteracting "attempts to use the capitalist chal
itable agencies to discriminate against the mole,
militant workers.
Federated Press.
_
Urges Strikes To Resist Wage Cuts
CHICAGO-"A sweeping offensive of wage-cuttine
is under way, which will spread to every indust!!
where the workers do not resist it,' the Workers
Monthly declares. `The workers must have thei!
Strike weapon ready for use, and they must use it."
=
=
Ook
mit:
dt
st Uy
Si
they
T'tey
ity
thaj
are
Lder
Loo
Licks
`ime,
anil
here
with
"lent
eing
oull
t of
Lars
hout
er ecent
the
mall
aber
the
n is
| re
uilty
, all
yack
ews,
and
vide
3 of
ners
that
ions
ect
The
pro"
call:
ake
tel:
rict
hali
hat
nse
sul:
1e!'5
sig
; t0
ere'
(ntl.
ans
hal'
ore |
SAY SO
We want letters.
Lots of them.
From lots of people.
On lots of subjects.
BUT NOT LOTS OF WORDS.
Make them "Century Letters,"
that is letters of not more than
One Hundred words.
Write on subjects of general
interest.
Typewrite your letters,
if possible. If you are
interested in anything worth-
while, say so. But say it in
as few sentences as you can.
| Sign your name. It will not be
used if you do not wish it
published, provided you say so.
Let's make "SAY SO" the best
page of this paper. Mind you,
be brief. And again, BE BRIEF.
DD mmm comm
More About Prohibition
May 1, 1925.
The Open Forum:
I have just read the letter written by Clarence Lee
Swartz in reply to Upton Sinclair's letter on Pro-
hibition. Mr. Swartz must have always lived in
very fine neighborhoods not to have seen the harm
done by the use of alcohol. I wish I could pick my
homesites as well. For his sake I will say that there
are thousands of cases where the individual, while
perhaps not being a "dangerous criminal' is a great
menace to the happiness and liberty of others and
forgets all respect to his family. If we can pre-
vent this in the future, ig it not' worth sacrificing
a selfish desire on our own part? To anyone who
has seen the harm that drink has done, it is.
In spite of all the violation of this law, it has
done a great deal of `good already.
As for comparing the use'of alcohol and burglary
with carrying I. W. W. cards, I do not see the con-
nection.
MRS. W. C. KEMBLE.
* * * *
Editor Open Forum:
Noting that an article by B. C. Forbes in April
25th issue gave the annual increase of wealth in
this country as around eleven billion dollars, I took
occasion to look up some figures given by the Fed-
eral Census Bureau. Here they are:
The national wealth in 1904 wags $107,104,211,917.
In 1912 it was $187,739,071,090. In 1921 it was esti-
timated at $300,000,000,000. In 1922 it is given at
$320,803,862,000.
These figures give an annual increase of at least
six and a half per cent in wealth, or five times the
increase in population. In the meantime 10,737,843
savings accounts averaged $600 in 1921, and 13,340,-
333 accounts averaged the same in 1923. And while
the increase in number of deposits from 10,010,304
in 1912 indicates that an increasing number of work-
memen are exercising a little forethought, the fact
that the average account of $450 of that year had a
greater actual value than the $600 at present, does
hot indicate that it is doing them any great amount
of good.
L. O'DELL.
%* * *
Beaumont, Cal., April 27, 1925.
Editor Open Forum, Los Angeles:
Practically every civilized nation except the United
States is now on an 8-hour basis, and it has proven
a success wherever tried. We, the richest nation,
Surely Can afford it if others can. The time is ripe
for it right now in California.
h Organized labor, with its usual short-sightedness,
fal ee either apathetic or opposed to an 8-hour
sult in it ee that any recuetion of hours must re-
hewone oo PACT RARS of wages seems to be quite
there jg 7 grasp of the leaders of unionism; and
litle probability of any action from this
quarter,
{
fh
"Eventually! Why not now?' There seems to
be no good reason why a sanely written 8-hour in-
itiative measure should be defeated at the polls.
-W.A.H.
* * * *
What About The Younger Generation?
However excellent may be the elders, they have
bequeathed to youth a world scarred by wrong and
festering with danger. Thus youth must either step
into the pitfalls prepared or install sanitary pro-
cedure and create better conditions of living.
Many signs indicate that youth will clean up on
rather a large scale. Unnumbered thousands have
glimpsed the desirablity of a new standard of suc-
cess and basis of satisfaction. Instead of getting
money and honor for individual attainment, they will
work together on so vast a scale as to insure well-
being to an ever-increasing proportion of humanity.
Groups are saying, even in the words of ancient seers.
"While others want, we can not wholly enjoy com-
fort; while others suffer, we are not without pain;
while any are in prison we are not free'.
With courage and patience large groups in many
countries have united in the determination to live in
such a manner as finally to free each other from
financial and social tyranny and to secure fair dis-
tribution of earth's bounty.
If it is only a beautiful bubble, yet,is it blown of
the finest aspirations, and if it must burst, let it burst
of its own gas-not ours.
Alice Anderson
Chico, California
Paaade Pater Abe PAs
Dear OPEN FORUM:
I enclose for publication the enclosed which is
not a product of the imagination. Please send me
a copy of the publication. I will become a sub-
scriber when I can for I wish to assist with this good
work. I am a personal acquaintance of two of the
contributing editors and realize the support that
the personnel is to the cause of freedom.
Yours for. success,
ELSIE LONG
* OK
INASMUCH
A generous friend treated me to "Manna" last
week. The theme-lines of the play were these, "In
ag much as ye have done it unto the least of these
ye have done it unto Me." I was instantly aware
that my hostess need not wince at their ennuncia-
tion; but mentally I proceeded with this drama:
I saw the Master stand beside the electric chair
and I heard him say, "In as much as ye have done
it unto the least of these ye have done it unto Me."
He sorrowfully witnessed a "turnkey" brutally
scoff as he thrust through the gate one who should
be treated as innocent till proven guilty; and I
heard him say, "In as much as ye have done it unto
the least of these ye have done it unto Me."
He watched detectives follow their despicable busi-
ness of providing victims for "`shysters" and sighed
as they split the proceeds, "In as much as ye have
done it unto the least of these ye have done it unto
Me."
Invisible He stood in a psychopathic ward, watch-
ing a helpless, mental patient, guilty of no more
heinous an offense than that of being a nervous
wreck in the delirium of brain fever, the result of
privation, struggle and hunger, knocked flat on the
floor by the brute fist of one supposed to be ``sane"';
but the brute did not hear The Master say, "In as
much as ye have done it unto the least of these ye
have done it unto ple."
He observed the `wise' defraud the undeveloped.
He saw the magnate rise from prayer to turn the
full power of his mind and soul on the laying up
of riches "where moth and rust corrupt" and some
other thief breaks through to steal; and again the
unheard admonition, "In as much as ye have done
it unto the least of these ye have done it unto Me."
When little unwelcome children toil and are de-
prived of their birthright, play time, surely then
He says, "In as much ag ye have done it unto the
least of these ye HAVE done it unto Me."
And so on ad-infinitum, till we realize there are so
many of "the least of these" there should be as many
great enough "to do unto others as ye would."
With the poet I can say, "I only know of life what
life has taught me."
ELSIE LONG
Ten Years Ago
In the Los Angeles Public Library I found a few
days ago a volume entitled, "GREAT RUSSIA," by
a Professor Sarolea, It is a very readable book,
whomsoever this Professor Sarolea may be, and
throws much light on natural conditions and their
influence in the shaping of Russia. The book was
written in 1915, that is only ten years ago. The
writer, though conservative, appears to have been
fair-minded and at many points far-sighted. But
the following passages taken from different sections
of the book are an interesting exhibit of the diffi-
culties of prophesying. The whole thing reminds me
of an incident that Henry Drummond gives, I think
in his famous lecture on "The Greatest Thing In
The World." He says, in substance, that an eminent
scientific teacher in one of the Universities of Scot-
land instructed the janitor to go into the library,
and take every book dealing with a certain special
science which was over ten years old, and retire it
into the basement. There are certainly a lot of books
that have gone out of date in the last ten years.
Reawe
* * * *
"To imagine that those one hundred and twenty
millions of Russian peasants, thus riveted to the soil,
thus living under the pressure of poverty, in igno-
rance and insolation, should be mature for revolu-
tionary utopias, seems to me to be the wildest of
dreams. However prodigiously fertile the Russain
soil may be, and however gifted the Russian people,
political discipline does not grow in a day like the
grass of the steppe, it is not a plant without roots
in the past, in the traditions and manners of the
people. No doubt the peasantry may be got to rise
in some bloody `jacquerie.' They might be drawn
into some agrarian revolution-like the Pougatchef
revolt in the eighteenth century-which would sat-
isfy their craving for possessing and extending the
soil they cultivate. But the hunger for land once
satisfied, the peasantry would again become conser-
vative, like the French peasant proprietor after the
French Revolution, and so far from joining any
mere `intellectual' revolution, they would dread such
a revolution as a possible reaction and as a menace
to their newly acquired rights."
2 1 * *
"No doubt the political awakening of the rural
masses is coming. Popular instruction is spreading.
Proprietors will be induced more and more to re-
side on their estates. Religious freedom and the
threefold struggle against Catholicism, Non-conform-
ity, and rationalism will compel the orthodox clergy
to emerge from their ignorance and their subjection.
The priests will receive a better education and there-
by acquire a moral authority which will enable them
in turn to educate their flocks, hitherto so sadly
neglected. And above all, with the progress of trade
and industry there will arise a middle class, and
with the middle class a strong and independent
opinion, which is the prime condition of all political
liberty. But.even when these changes are accom-
plished, when a ruling class and an independent
class are constituted, the rural masses and. their
leaders, the clergy will continue to respect the estab-
lished authorites. For generations to come the
peasantry and the clergy will continue to see in the
Hmperor and the Church their spiritual and temporal
Providence, a patriarchal and beneficent despotism.
In one word political reform in Russia shall be con-
servative, or will be a failure."
oe
Cultivate Farm Deficit
WASHINGTON-(FP)-American farmers actual-
ly ran behind in 1924 at least $5,144,000,000 despite
all the hue and cry about their restored prosperity,
says Benj. C. Marsh, Farmers National Council, ana-
lyzing reports from the federal department of agri-
culture.
Marsh shows that the combined value of crops and
livestock was $12,404,000,000 in 1924, while the ap-
proximate cost of producing them exclusive of labor
of farmers and their families, was $8,248,000,000.
This left an average of $671.93 per farm family.
Federal taxes, payments on interest and principal
of $13,000,000,000 of mortgages and short term debt,
payment of insurance, purchase of clothes and food
not produced on the farm, upkeep of farms and build-
ings, support of churches, ete., and savings for old
age had to be covered by this pitiful sum. Figuring
the minimum average return for the labor of each
farm family at $1,500. for the year, the total due for
this farm labor was $9,300,000.000. Taking from it
the $4,156,000,000 received, we have an unpaid differ-
ence of $5,144,000,000.
Federated Press.
THE OPEN FORUM
Published every Saturday at 506 Tajo Building,
First and Broadway
Los Angeles, California, by The Southern California
Branch of The American Civil Liberties Union.
Phone: TUcker 6836.
MANAGING EDITORS
Robert Whitaker Clinton J. Taft
LITERARY EDITOR
Esther Yarnell
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Upton Sinclair Kate Crane Gartz J H. Ryckman
Doremus Scudder
Ethelwyn Mills
Fanny Bixby Spencer
Leo Gallagher
Subscription Rates-One Dollar a Year, Five Cents
per Copy. In bundles of ten or more to one address,
Two Cents Each.
Advertising Rates on Request.
Entered as second-class matter Dec. 13. 1924, at
the post office at Los Angeles, California, under the
Act or March 3, 1879:
SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1925
COMING EVENTS
RR KK RE OK
Los Angeles Open Forum, Music-Art Hall, 233
South Broadway, Sunday evening at 7-30 o'clock.
4.
EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT-OPEN DISCUSSION
At Eight O'clock
A Free Education is Offered at
EDUCATIONAL CENTER
INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD
224 South Spring Street, Room 218
aN
I. B. W. A. FORUM
At the Brotherhood Hall, 508 East 5th St.
Sunday Afternoon Meeting 2:30 P.M.
All are Invited to Attend
John X. Kelly and J. Eads How, Committee
tt
Mob Attack In West Virginia
A mob attack led by officers of the law is only a
"simple assault" in West Virginia, according to the
Pocahontus County authorities, who have reported to
Governor Howard M. Gore that the beating adminis-
tered to Lawson McMillion at Marlington on April
10, against which the Civil Liberties Union protested,
"has been taken care of."
The report, which was made in reponse to an in-
quiry by the Governor, did not relate the events
leading up to the assault, the injuries suffered by Mc-
Million nor the manner in which the assault had been
"taken care of', Governor Gore accordingly announ-
ced that he would investigate further.
According to information received by the Civil
Liberties Union, McMillion, who is a world war vet-
eran, was ambushed by a mob led by Lincoln Coch-
ran, town Sergeant of Cass, and beaten up so Ssever-
ely he had to be removed to a hospital where "he is
in a critical condition." Upon receipt of this infor-
mation the Civil Liberties Union wired Gov. Gore,
urging an "immediate investigation and prosecution
of the leaders of the mob which attacked Lawson
McMillion.
"The brutal attack on MecMillion", the Union's tele-
gram stated, "presumably resulted from the dismiss-
al on April 8th of charges against him growing out
of the Ku Klux Klan attack on him at Cass last Oct-
ober." According to the Civil Liberties Union McMil-
lion had received permission from Cochran to ans-
wer the Klan's warning to him "to get work or leave
town." When he started to speak he was assaulted
by Sergeant Cochran, Justice of the Peace J. B. Sut-
ton, and Constable James Belcher. The case was dis-
missed April 8 by order of Mayor Brice of Cass.
a ne
NEW YORK-(FP)-Immediate investigation and
prosecution of the leaders of the mob which attack-
ed Lawson McMillion, world war veteran, at Mar-
lington is demanded of Gov. Howard M. Gore of
West Virginia in a telegram by the American Civil
Liberties Union. According to the Liberties Union
McMillion was ambushed by a mob led by Lincoln
Cochran, town sergeant of Cass, W. Va., and beaten
60 severely that he had to be removed to a hospital.
Federated Press.
A Tory `Talks
The following article, forwarded to us by Upton
Sinclair, is one of the most extraordinary utterances
the present extraordinary world situation has
brought forth. When whilom tories talk this way
who shall wonder at a little outright speech now and
then from radicals. And if our American tories will
not listen to those whom they esteem "reds" let them
weigh well what one from their own class has to
say.
* * * *
LONDON, April 4.-J. Lort Williams, K. C., form-
erly a Tory member of Parliament, has issued a
warning to the leaders of the Conservative party
which is attracting much attention, and, incidentally,
giving the members of the Labor party a lot of sat-
isfaction.
The voters, he says, "have been driven to the con-
clusion that no hope of thorough reform, no com-
prehensive attack upon the intolerable evils of our
social system, can be expected from either of the
older parties."
Then this Tory statesman proceeds to castigate
the existing social order in the following remark-
able fashion:
""Tranquility' in 1923 has become `Stability' in
1925. But tranquility in a slum is the silence of
death, and a workless, half-starved, hopeless people
means stagnation or worse, not stability. This is
the moment rather for action and service and sacri-
fice-for a national uprising as great as in the war
years.
"One and a half millions of willing able-bodied
working people can not earn the means to live. The
law forbids them to work.
"They may not build themselves houses. nor
grow their own food, nor make their tools, nor clothe
themselves. They may not even anticipate death.
"The only right which the law gives them is a
claim to a charitable dole just sufficient to sustain
life, but in a country teeming with wealth no part
of it ig theirs.
"A further two million people are dependent on
the poor law, and one million are qualified by pov-
erty to draw the pittance of an old-age pension.
"According to Prof. Henry Clary, two and one-half
million people out of a population of forty-seven
and one-half millions, own the entire wealth of the
country.
" Property,' said Bacon, `is like muck, it is good
only if it be spread.' Ten years ago the national
income was 2,000 million pounds. One million per-
sons had incomes over 160 pounds per annum, and
their aggregate income was 1,000 million pounds, or
half the entire national income.
"Half the land of the British Isles is owned by
2,500 persons. Out of the 300 million pounds left
at death in one year 4,400 persons owned 212 mil-
lions pounds. Out of 670,000 persons who died, 594,-
000 left nothing or under 100 pounds. Today these
monstrous discrepancies of fortune are even worse.
"Tf a future Labor government orders a: capital
levy on estates over 1,000 pounds, 95 per cent of
the electorate will be untouched by such taxation.
`The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind ex-
ceedingly small,' and, surely, even a child can ap-
preciate that such conditions can not persist in a
democratic country, where eventually the little man
has the last word.
"It is stupid to suppose that you may conspire
to encourage a rapid increase of population in order
to provide cheap labor and plentiful cannon fodder,
a conspiracy in which even the churches are actively
involved, and then be allowed to turn round and say,
`there are too many of you; the resources of the
country are not sufficient to enable you all to live.'
The obvious answer would be a wholesale massacre
in which, as Mr. Chesterton says, `the gutters will
be running with the blood of philanthropists.'
"The real truth is that there would be abundance
for all if all were owners and producers, and pro-
duction were efficiently organized.
"Elimination of waste alone would feed half the
nation-the production of unnecessary things, the
performance of unnecessary services, the payment
. unnecessary wages to a huge parasitical popula-
`ion.
"It is not only the rich who are parasites. Com-
paratively few are. The great middle classes are
the greatest parasites-lawyers, pressmen, account-
ants, agents, middlemen, brokers, bankers, financiers
company promoters, money lenders, bookmakers and
toastmasters, in fact, nearly all the `respectable'
people."
Los Angeles
OPEN FORUM
MUSIC ART HALL
233 South Broadway
SUNDAY NIGHTS, 7-30 O'CLOCK
Program for May
May 10-DEBATE on the question, "RESOLVE,
THAT CONGRESS BY A TWO-THIRDS Vong
SHOULD HAVE POWER TO REENACT LAWS,
MAKING VALID ACTS DECLARED UNCONSq,.
TUTIONAL BY THE SUPREME COURT." Affirms.
tive, University of Redlands, Mr. Andrus, Mr. Ortop
Negative, University of Southern California, Mr, Nei
Lewis, Mr. William Barber, both students of the
University of Southern California, who have returned
from an extensive trip among the colleges debating -
this question. Music by HOWARD GRIFFIN, violin.
ist, accompanied by MISS CLAUDE WILLIAMS 0)
the piano. :
May 17-"THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF THR
MODERN WORLD" by EDWARD (CAnt)
RELL. Our audience is well acquainted with the
lecturer who has twice before appeared on the Forun |
platform. He knows how to handle his subject well, .
|
|
|
Music by J. M. FIX, a violinist of the old school,
He made his own instrument and will play pieces
that were popular a hundred years ago.
May 24-"FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYSIS" by
PROF. ARTHUR BRIGGS of the Los Angeles Lay
School, Everyone should be familiar with the Freud.
ian philosophy whether he takes any stock in it or |
not. Dean Briggs is ably qualified to make this a
most interesting evening. Music by BHRNARD
COHN, phenomenal boy pianist.
May 31-`THE PRICE OF LIBERTY" by ROBERT
WHITAKER." During the days when America was
carried away with the World War there was much
talk of liberty, from `Liberty Bonds" to "Liberty
Steaks." Of recent years liberty and democracy
both seem to be at a discount. What is liberty?
What is the movement of the world today, toward
liberty, or away from it? Are we ever going to
get liberty, and when, and how? All who know M. -
Whitaker know that what he has to say on these
lines will be outright, and interesting. Nobody is
asked to agree with him, but everybody is welcome
to hear him.
}
|
rH
CLEVELAND.-Confronted by the Republican con-
vention last June, Cleveland city fathers halted a
street railway strike on the promise of a square deal.
An arbitration board later awarded the union mel
a 12c an hour increase. The Cleveland Railway Co.
appealed, and has' so far been sustained in refusing
to apply the award. Now nearly a year after the
city's promise, the car men are formulating a new
demand for the 12ccent raise. The company offers 5cent.
EXPIRATION NOTICE
Dear Friend: If you find this paragraph encircled
with a blue pencil mark it means that your sub:
scription to "The Open Forum" expires next week.
We hope that you have found it indispensable, and
will therefore immediately fill out the blank below
and send it in to us, together with the money {0
the continuance of your subscription.
EIMClOSCda fing) oo ummeanie aoe for which continue
subscription to the paper for
NAMM Cie io ease eae ea aes
Address See
WILSHIRE UNDERTAKING
and Ambulance Company
Atlantic 1698 --Phones-- Atlantic 3709
717 West Washington St., Los Angeles
Walter C. Blue Ella L. Purcell Blue
Our Sympathetic Understanding of the needs of the Work
ing People Enables Us to Give You the Best Ser vice
FREE VIOLIN LESSONS
To Talented Children of Parents who
are unable to pay
MAX AMSTERDAM
Prominent Violin Teacher and Solcist
2406 Temple St. gia tn gt at E
Reasonable Rates to Beginners |
Linotyping and press work done in Uniot
Shops. The make-up is our own.
---- t