American Guardian

              If Ham & Eggs Won't Work, Why the Jitters? This Mess Isn't Working Either
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Gain 36 THE AMERICAN GUA
This Number Is 1849.
FEARLESS AND TRUE
OUR COUNTRY
Not the richest and most
powerful on earth; but the
leader in all that's good,
true and beautiful on earth.
VOL. 22—No. 42 OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA., FRIDAY, JULY 21,1939 PRICE FIVE CENTS
t b c rCUVJAm
t i ?
WASHINGTON
« — » if 1
By Stage-Hand
On July 8, we were given a report issued by the WPA
warning the public against relying too heavily on rising
production in industry as far as a corresponding increase
in employment of labor was concerned. The warning was
not needed in the case- of this writer nor in the case of
most of the readers of the Guardian. For over three years
now the Guardian readers have been told in this column
and by Oscar Ameringer that even if we went back to the
production figures of 1929. we would not have the same
amount of employment that we had in that year.
There is no theory about this either on the part of
Ameringer or myself. Both of us have been using simple
arithmetic to find out what has'
1
Y
happened since. the depression
came upon us. We both knew that
the last three years of the boom
had only .not registered a corres-ponding
increase in employment
with the flood of goods which
were being poured out, but that on
the contrary it had registered an
actual decrease in the amount of
employment in factories.
We both knew that from 1920
to 1929, with the increase of pro-ductivity
on the part of each per-son
employed in industry, there
had been an actual decrease in the
number of the employed in the en-tire
manufacturing industry. What
we knew was no secret. But it
was the business of those in au-thority
to keep it a secret.
The late Commissioner of tabor
Statistics, E t h e l b e r t Stewart,
knew it and had the courage to
tell the truth about unemployment
in 1926 before a congressional
committee. His chief, however, the
then Secretary of Labor, Puddler
Jim Davis, took it upon himself to
make the Congressional committee
a statement which gave a false
picture of employment conditions.
A few of the correspondents tf
it upon themselves to expose if
falsity right after he did this.
Boom in the Robot
Foundries
The few of us who specialize in
Tabor iiiatters have been matching
now for nine years the develop-ment
of labor-saving devices which
means, of' course, an increase of
productivity on the part of each
worker. We have noticed that
those factories which have kept
their workers most steadily on the
job during these years have been
those factories turning out labor-saving
machinery. This of course
could spell only one thing, a con-stant
decrease in the number of
producers for the amount of com-modities
turned out and this state
of affairs is not confined to the
factories by any means.
You will find all sorts of labor-saving
devices in banking estab-lishments;
what are known as the
service trades; in the accounting
offices of all the factories, etc. In
other words, the white collar
groups are now being hit by labor-saving
devices. If you don't believe
it go and look at the exhibits found
in the great financial centers of
the various business machine cor-porations.
In some cases, one
clerk can do the work where four
were formerly employed.
If there is one place in the coun-try
where you can see the whole
thing focused, it is at the World's
Fair where a myriad of labor-sav-ing
devices are being hailed with
all sorts of ballyhooing. The few
wage earners who can afford to go
to the Fair (and mighty few can
except where they live near it)
could actually watch some of the
exhibits destined to take away
some of their jobs in the very near
future.
Nobody Tells
Of course, the report which is
handed us has a lot of technical
phrases—"man hours" etc. That's
part of the jargon that so-called
experts indulge in. The only
remedy which those who wrote the
report can point out is naturally
shorter hours. And this, of course,
must in the very nature of the
case be temporary, unless we have
a real planned industry. But even
this will not do the job of giving
a producer the wherewithal to be
able- to consume in proportion to
what he produces.
It's all right, of course, for the
WPA to warn us and to read in
some of the papers such headlines
as "Rising Output Spells Few
Jobs," but what is really needed is
someone who would tell the people
over the radio that millions of
them will not be given jobs be-cause
they cannot be given them
until the people themselves decide
to use their political and industrial
power to wipe out the whole in-sane,
chaotic economic system and
If 1849
the number of this Issue, or a
smaller number, appears at the
end of the first line of your
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subscription has expired.
At least, renew at $1 for the
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The American Guardian
Postoftice Box 13S5
Oklahoma City, Okla.
put a sane, orderly oàe in its place.
A system so sane and orderly, that
its basic principle will be—that a
producer must be able to consume
what he produces.
WPA strikes had been going on
a few days when Senator Murray
of Montana arose one day last
week and said:
"On my own behalf and on be-half
of a group of senators, I intro-duce
a bill to amend the Emer-gency
Relief Appropriation Act of
1939 to provide for the re-estab-lishment
of the prevailing rates of
pay for persons employed in work
projects. I ask that the bill be
referred to the Committee oh Edu-cation
and Labor."
At once, the bi-partisan Tory
Dem-Rep combine went into ac-tion.
Dem. Tory Adams of Colo-rado
at once arose and said, "I
inquire of the senator from Mon-tana
why a bill amending relief
legislation should be referred to
the Committee on Education and
Labor." Murray renlied, "Because
it was a matter of legislation and
the Committee on Education and
Labor is the appropriate commit- J ? to which to refer thè bill."
Stacked Cards
Then Tory bem. Senator Byrnes
piped up, saying that "all the leg-islation
with, reference to the
Works Progress Administration'
was handled-by the Appffoprc«t£Sk"s.
Committee." Just look at "these
two senatorial gentlemen for a
moment. You saw i picture of
them a few weeks ago in the
Guardian. Do you remember what
they were doing ? They were shak-ing-
hands and laughing, congratu-lating
each other for having been
(Continued on' Page 3)
Lewis Recalls
Demmie Pledge
On Work Relief
Congressmen Repudiated
1936 Platform, CIO
President Shows
By John L. Lewis
The helpless men and women
who are unemployed have suffered
a terrible blow in the passage of
the 1940 WPA appropriation. This
blow will be profoundly resented
by all of labor.
Labor does not forget that in
1936 the Democratic platform
promised work for the unemployed.
That platform stated: "We believe
that unemployment is a national
problem, and that it is an ines-capable
obligation of our govern-ment
to meet it in a national way.
. When business fails to supply
. employment, we believe that
work at prevailing wages should
be provided in cooperation with
State and local governments on
useful public projects, to the end
that the national wealth may be
increased, the skill and energy of
the worker may be utilized, his
morale maintained, and the unem-ployed
assured the opportunity to
earn the necessities of life."
The relief bill which was passed
is a clear repudiation of that plat-form
pledge. The measure will
throw out of WPA employment a
million WPA workers in the fiscal
year. Five hundred thousand of
these will be thrown out by the
end of July. This happens at a
time when there are at least 11 to
12 million employable unemployed.
The bill seriously discriminates
against a number of groups of our
citizens, especially ' the artists,
musicians and theatrical workers.
The bill introduces a starvation
period for those who have been on
the WPA for more than 18 months.
This is one of the most vicious
provisions that has ever been im-posed
by a democratic government.
We believe that the citizens of this
country will deeply resent this
provision when they realize its
effect.
The measure openly slaps labor
by wiping out the prevailing hour-ly
rate on WPA. It further carries
a -'device by which the present
meager and . inadequate monthly
Security wage will be severely cut
all through the industrial areas.
The total effect of this bill upon
the economic situation cannot help
but be depressive. There are
grounds for the fear that such a
terrible cut in WPA jobs and in
wage rates will touch off a definite
downward movement.
BLOODY HARLAN TAKES A TOLL
Marching on their way to jail are some of the 250 strikers of the United Mine Workers (CIO)
who were arrested in a clash between strikers and' national guardsmen in Harlan county. One striker
was killed and six were wounded. :
Michigan Senator
Urges Probe Of
Goughlin Finances
DETROIT. — An investigation
into the financing of Father
Coughlin's pro-Fascist broadcasts
has been urged by State Senator
Stanley Nowak, chairman of the
Detroit Civil Rights Federation.
Duncan Moore, a local radio
Executive, estimated that Cough-lin
spends between $19,000 and
$25,000 every week for radio time.
This amounts to a possible $1,300,-
000 a year. The magazine pub-lished
by Coughlin is also a cost-ly
venture, according to the esti-mates
of Detroit printers consulted
by Nowak.
"Perhaps Coughlin's connections
with Henry Ford have something
to do with the financing of this
Nazi propaganda in the United
States," said Nowak. "The fact
that he has been arranging meet-ings
for Ford company officials
with certain' union wreckers indi-cates
there is some connection.
Everyone knows that Ford has
received the highest decoration giv-en
by the Hitler government."
Nowak believes that a federal
probe, especially dedicated to look-ing
behind the scenes for Cough-
St. Louis Guts
Relief to $3.31
For Food Monthly
ST. LOUIS.—The wave of
Tory reaction which is riding
high in the country struck this
city with full force last week
when politicians announced that
the 22,037 persons on the dole
here would have to get along
with $3.31 each for food during
July.
As if to add insult to injury,
the politicians announced that
an 11-cent allowance for rent in
July would be made for each
person!
Although the Missouri sales
tax law was passed on the plea
that its returns would be al-loted
to relief and pensions, the
politicians are cynically using it
to pay interest to bankers hold-ing
state bonds-
Local liberals hold up their
city as a hoirible example of
what will happen elsewhere
when Tory Republicans and
Democrats who cry "Economy"
get full power.
Amid life's quests there seems
but worthy one, to do men good.—
Perfect Specimen
Of Red Herring!
AUSTIN, Texas. — Testimony
that a Goose Creek, Texas, bank-er
demanded that a teacher be
fired because he helped organize
a school credit union, was intro-duced
in a reinstatement hearing
before the state superintendent.
Twenty teachers are taking action
under their teachers tenure agree-ment.
Teachers said that the Goose
Creek superintendent admitted
the banker's objection to a credit
union was responsible for the dis-charge
of one of their number.
The reply of the superintendent
at the hearing was that the teach-ers
"tried to set up a little Rus-sia.
It was communistic in every
respect. They thought they were
to run the school."
FREEDOM TO LIVE
Ï do not believe it was contemp-lated,
by the framers of the Con-stitution
that only certain indi-vidvial„
pglits—i;freedom of. jiggem-bly,
frSe "speech, free press, and
freedom of religion — should be
guaranteed, and that the people
should be abandoned and permitted
to suffer in an emergency.—Mayor
La Guardia of New York.
Congressmen Give Up
Fight to Amend WPA
Bill; Strikes Fizzle
The WPA strike appeared to be
at an end Tuesday except in a few
scattered communities.
At the same time the move in
Congress to amend the WPA bill
was abandoned, some senators
claiming that they had been em-barrassed
by the strikes. However,
Washington observers are certain
that their efforts would have been
m vain in any event.
Some of the strikers have been
dismissed for being absent five
consecutive days; others returned
to the projects, according to WPA
officials.
Now that the prevailing wage
provision has been abolished, the
next step will be lay-offs to fit
the reduced appropriation and, be-ginning
in September, lay-offs for
all those who have served WPA 18
months or more.
The most astonishing feature of
the turmoil resulting from putting
into effect the new regulations was
the statement by the President
Roosevelt that "You cannot strike
against the government."
The President conceded there
might be a difference between the
recent Mississippi barge line strike
in St. Louis, or a hypothetical
strike by TVA employes, because
in such instances the workers
would be striking against a subsi-diary
of the Government engaged
in business activities. He said he
frankly did not know what the
employes' rights were in such in-stances,
but where fundamental
functions of government were con-cerned
there could be no strikes.
According to this, interpretation,
work relief is a "fundamental func-tion"
of government.
Commenting on the WPA strikes,
Attorney-General Murphy declared
that while the strikers would be
treated sympathetically, the law
would be enforced.
"We can't look on these people
as criminals," he said, "but a crim-inal
situation may arise, and we
will do our best to enjoin them
to obedience of the law."
He explained that his use of tha
word "enjoin" did not contemplate
formal injunctions.
District attorneys, he continued,
has been instructed to keep in
mind the unfortunate situation
created by the new law and to re-member
that common sense must
be brought into play.
Seller of Handbook
Beaten on Street
Wins Case in Court
lin's financial backers, is required. Bailey.
Ignorance is the mother of fear.
—Lord Karnes. '
A Guardian reader of Alliance,
Nebr., who is an advocate of the
Abundance-for-All plan, was as-saulted
on the streets of his city
while selling the Handbooks, he
writes to the Guardian this week.
His story, somewhat boiled
down, follows:
I was standing on the corner of
Third and Box Butte in Alliance,
Nebraska. I had in my hand six
copies of the American Foundation
for Abundance Handbook. One B—
L—, who is the announcer for the
broadcasting- station of 'Ailiairjp,
walked up to me and said: "What
is that you are selling—some of
that propaganda advocating the
overthrow of our government?"
"No," I said, "that is the Abund-ance
For All Plan." "You are a
damned liar," he said. "I know
just what it is—I have a notion to
The Paradox of Poverty
By Oscar Ameringer
(Part I of Speech Delivered at Raleigh, N. C., AAA Conference, July 4)
Let us forget the abstractions of right, wrong, justice,
law, democracy, ethics, the glorious personalities of Jef-ferson,
Jackson, Lincoln, and the founding fathers for the
time being, and focus our minds on the imbecilic realities
of the existing state of affairs in these United States of
America. Well, here are the facts:
On the one hand:
America is the richest country on earth.
America has a larger amount of arable land per capita
than any other country on earth—not excluding Russia.
If as efficiently cultivated as Germany, Holland, and
Denmark, America could support three times its present
population.
America's known mineral resources surpass that of
any other country on earth with the possible exception of
Russia. 6
America's industrial equipment is acknowledged the
best in the world.
America contains more available water power than the
whole of Europe, Asia and Australia combined.
America's scientific and technical equipment is the
ideal and envy of the world.
Man for man the American farmers and industrial
workers produce more wealth per man hour than the farm-ers
and the workers of any other country.
There is no known enemy or combination of enemies
able to menace seriously the existence and well-being of
the American people.
Lastly, America possesses a form of government per-mitting
its people to bring about any political, social or
economic change they deem fit.
* * # *
On the other hand:
According to the President of the United States, one-third
of its people are ill-nourished, ill-clothed and. ill-housed.
According to the Department of Agriculture of the
U. S., nearly one-half of our farmers are tenants and share-croppers
tilling alien soil, while the others, complimentarily
alluded to as farm owners, carried a mortgage burden of
$9,000,000,000 in 1931 which, according to the farm prices
of that year, would have taken more than the entire wheat
crop for interest, charitably assuming that the cotton crop
paid the taxes.
According to the census of 1930, six out of seven farm
homes had no electric lights. Five out of six had no run-ning
water. Eleven out of twelve had no bathtubs. And
one out of three had no telephones. At the same time
these farmers are so confoundedly hard-working and effi-cient
that as far back as 1914 to 1920 they were already
ible to feed and clothe the greater part of Europe with a
goodly portion of their boys in the army.
So efficient in fact that, according to a recent release
from the pen of my friend Will Alexander, Farm Security
Administrator, in 1930 90% of the farm products going to
market came from 50% of the farmers, from which we
may reasonably assume that by now half of all farms
could fully supply the market, leaving the other half cul-tivating
the arts and sciences and hard roads of God's
country.
In brief, here we have all the economic elements for
the highest degree of civilization, culture and well-being
ever achieved since man descended from trees, and we
behave like shipwrecked sailors fighting for drops of water
and crusts of bread.
^ - ^ -ir
To visualize this glaring contradiction, think of
want in the midst of plenty. Go further, think of want
because of plenty. Go still further and think of both
business and government moving heaven and the other
place hamstringing plenty in the hope of making less
go further, spread thicker and bless greater numbers.
However, while the farmers are the chief sufferers of
the moral, economic and intellectual bankruptcy implied in
the foregoing I most emphatically deny there is a separate
and distinct farm problem.
America is not a crazy quilt composed of colored
patches called states. The American people cannot be divided
by arbitrary lines on paper. Still less can they be pigeon-holed
by words such as farmer, wage worker, baker,
butcher and candlestick maker.
There is but one America. One wheat field, cotton
patch, truck garden, orchard, hog pen, cow lot, weaving
room, clothing shop, blacksmith shop and market.
America is a living, breathing body composed of 130
million cells in which the well-being of each cell is depend-ent
upon the well-being of the whole. Today none of us are
working for ourselves unless we belong to the tribe of
getters of something for nothing. Everything we do is
made possible only by what others do, have done and
will do.
^ ^ i!* ^f*
There isn't a single solitary individual in the whole
of the U. S. who could exist for a week without utilizing
something that others have produced. Beef is raised in
Texas, fattened in Iowa, slaughtered in Chicago. The hides
are tanned in Milwaukee, made into shoes in Haverhill,
Mass. The finished product is consumed by 130 million
people scattered over 48 states. And in this process are
involved every industry of the United States from match-making
to turbine building.
In a completely interdependent organ, such as this,
state's rights and rugged individualism are as dead as
Balaam's ass.
Today the production and distribution of the goods
and services on which the well-being of the American people
depends may be compared to the flow of a river continu-ously
renewing itself. Rain falls, nourishing plant and
animal life. The surplus departs through rivulets, brooks,
streams and rivers to the ocean. From there evaporation
lifts the water into the air. Clouds are formed. Air cur-rents
transport the clouds over the land. Rain falls again,
feeding plants and animal life. It is this endless distribu-tion
of moisture that alone makes life possible on earth.
Now let us assume that for some reason the surplus of
water remained on the land on which it fell, what would be
the result? We'd have deluges that would make Noah's
celebrated affair look like a frog pond. Or supposing the
ocean would refuse to return the water to air, wind and
land—what then? We would have a drouth that would
convert God's footstool into a Sahara desert minus a sin-gle
oasis.
Well, then, strange as it may seem to some of our
certified economists, just as life on earth is dependent upon
the continued distribution of moisture, so the life of the
American people is dependent upon the continued produc-tion
and distribution of the goods and services necessary for
their existence. If this continuous process is interrupted so
that the surplus goods and services flowing into the market
are no longer consumed, we have over-production on the one
hand and under-consumption on the other, or what is called
want in the midst of plenty.
* * * *
Now the manner in which goods and services are dis-tributed
is two-fold. First, through wages, salaries and divi-dends
and farm income. Secondly, through the acquisition of
new capital goods, that is goods employed in the production
of more goods. The distribution of consumers goods need
cause little worry because wage earners, salaried people and
farmers, who constitute the vast majority of producer-con-sumers,
usually spend their income as fast as they get it,
while many of them have it spent before they do get it.
Neither would it cause any gray hairs if the receivers
of dividends and interest bould spend, waste or invest their
earnings. In either case the surplus goods in the market
ocean would be restored to producers by way of wages, sal-aries
and farm income, thereby assuring the continuous flow
of goods and services from producer to consumer.
The bottleneck in the flow is savings, because the class
which receives the largest income is able to spend only part
of that income in the form of consumer goods such as food,
clothing, housing, travel, entertainment and amusement for
instance. The balance or unspendable part of their income
becomes savings and when these savings cannot be invested
in capital goods business goes on a tailspin, ending in the
sort of crash experienced in 1929. Followed by the sort of
temporary business depression whose tenth anniversary the
American people can celebrate next October.
(Continued Next Week)
hit you, you damned son of ."
I said "I would advise you not to
-do that." Then he said: "You
damned son of , I will hit you
anyway," and he hit me in the
face with a brief case full of books.
I warded off the next lick with my
left hand. He struck me several
times over the head and arm. I
made up my mind that I had bet-ter
stop him, so I handed him a
haymaker to the left eye which
changed his mind" about running
me off , the street. After stag-
.gering around a. bit' an'd shed-cling
a quantity of patriotic blood-on
his shirt front, he went away
feeling much better I suppose.
ORDERED TO
POLICE COURT
It was bad enough to have to
listen to the Townsend plan, but
when it comes to advocating an
Abundance for All plan, it was just
too much for this Tory to stand.
He simply boiled over and pro-ceeded
to stop the sale of this most
terrible book.
I was ordered to appear in police
court at 9:00 o'clock the next
morning. A few minutes after tha
disturbance a stern white-haired
police judge met me on the street
and demanded to see the book that
I was selling, which he was told
was advocating the overthrow of
our government. I gave him the
one book that I had left, having
just sold the other five. At 9:00
o'clock the next morning, the police
chief questioned me about the
fight. "Where is the book that you
were selling?" he asked. I said
that the judge had taken the book.
The judge handed the book to
the chief. The chief looked at the
book for a minute and then asked
the judge if he had read the book.
The judge said, "Yes, I read tha
book through last night, and I find
not a word in it which advocates
violence." The chief told me that
would be all, so I went away. I
saw the judge on the street a few
minutes afterward and asked him
about selling the book. "Sell it in
the church or any place else," he
told me. However, I was advised
to take orders for the book and
deliver-the book at a later date.
GENT WITH
A SHINER
The next morning after the
trouble Mr. L— appeared on the
street with a very black eye. One
of the business men asked him how
he got the black eye. "I got that
honorably in defense of my country
and my flag." His defense sounds
a good bit like Maj.-Gen. George
Van Horn Moseley, who was
caught red-handed and waist deep
in the German Bund spy plot. The
announcer used up a good bit of
his time the next morning telling
the public that I should' be de-ported
to Africa, where I recently
spent a year with Charles Cottar
hunting elephants and other big
game. However, I would welcome
the change, for in Africa I would
not be attacked on the streets by
wild beasts—and as I am past the
three score and ten mark, it is
time to move from here anyway,
before the Maj.-Gen. Dyer idea
(euthanasia) goes into effect. How-ever,
if I do have to stay here, I
think that Dyer and Moseley will
get caught in the Abundance For
All snowslide that will bury tha
above-named varments and their
class so deep that they will not get
out in time to hear Gabriel toot
his long horn in the early morning
of a new day.
A soldier of the Abundance-For-
All army.
F. S. McM.
IS STARVATION "ORDERLY?"
For appeasing their hunger by
catching and eating cats, two men
at McAdoo, Pa., were arrested on
charges of "disorderly conductl"
y