The Chicago star., November 16, 1946, Image 1

About The Chicago star. (Chicago, Ill.) 1946-1948

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
Sllllf tOe
■TIOB^fI
By
Howard
Fast
Let’s not be drawn, by the re
cent defeat of the Democratic
Party, into giving aid and sub
sistence to Herbert Hoover's
smug theory
w of a swing to
fSr Let’s not get
«Y|f metaphysic a 1
((■? jjt either, ab'iut
/ what really
iy\ J, happened. If
the Republi
cans won the
\ election, tiien
v * as su r e as
God, the De-
FAST mocrats lost
it, not passively, but actively.
If the Republican bosses had
said to the Democratic bosses, be
ginning a year ago: “We would
like you to do this and that, and
that and this and by so doing
you will sweep us into power,”
they could not have outlined to
what was once Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s party a better plan
for defeat.
This is not to minimize the de
feat, nor is this to say as too
many people have been foolishly
saying that there is no appre
ciable difference between the two
national parties. There is a dif
ference, and with the Republican
victory, we took a long and om
inous step toward fascism. That
must be understood but there
must also be some understanding
of the grotesque betrayals and
blunders made by the Democrats.
* # *
TRADITIONALLY, the Republi
can Party has been the anti-labor
party, the party that says to the
workers, historically and cur
rently: “You are the scum of the
earth, and I will crush you un
der my heel until you scream for
mercy!”
But it was the Democratic Par
ty that put forth and backed thg,
notorious Truman Slave - Labor
Bill. And by virtue of that, there
were hundreds of thousands of
railroad workers who could have
nothing but hatred for the Tru
man Administration and its meth
ods with organized labor. It was
the Democratic Party that threat
ened to smash the trade unions
forever.
It was also the Democratic
Party that found itself unable to
face the challenge of price con
trol, and so crassly and stupidly
betrayed the people to the trusts.
It is the Democratic Party that
gives the worker’s wife a token
of itself every time she pushes a
dollar across the counter of a
butcher or a groceryman.
# * #
AGAIN, this is not to say that
the Republican Party was for
price control; but the entrance
for immense confusion lay in the
simple fact that the Democratic
leaders were not for price con
trol either.
The veteran who lives with his
Inlaws, his wife, and his two kids
in a three room apartment is not
given to the working out of com
plicated puzzles. He may suspect
that the Republican Party would
have done no better by him
but he knows that the Democrats
did not do well, by no means
well. Give him excuses, if you
will, but he saw the barracks go
up, he saw the tremendous fn-
See Page 16
THE CHICAGO
★
Vol. 1, No. 20
i Published
1 Weekly
(See Page 3)
The six “squatter” veterans, against whom a test eviction case
has been directed, get some support in their fight as they appeared
in court Tuesday. Left to right: Elmer Longfellow; -lohn Davidson
and Sven Anderson, of the Chicago Council of Labor Veterans;
Prepare packing strike
See page 3
Chicago, November 16, 1946
~
5<
Kenneth Kennedy, national commander of the United Negro and
Allied Veterans of America; Ed Charvat; Paul Principaio; Fritz
Oest; and Willis Abeln. Nick Principato is hidden from the camera
by his brother Paul.
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