December 19, 1968

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128

The

Nation

[Vol.

127, No.

3292

ping

off so

successfulacareer.And hat,say he “boys,”

is Fra nk Hague’s game.

These are a few of th e chief reasons why independent

Democrats and “Smith Republicans” n New Jersey are so

keenly disappointed in Governor Smith.

It

would have been

bad enough to retain Hague as vice-chairman of the Demo-

cratic National Committee. But for A1 to place a fond arm

around his shoulde rs and murmur, “Hello, Francesco,” and,

quite needlessly, tomakehimanEasterncampaignman-

ager-such thingsarebitterpllls or hinkingmenand

women.

Can A1 Smith carry New Jersey? Well, in order to do

so, it

will be necessary for hlm o overcome a normal Re-

publican

plurality of morehan

300,000.

PerhapsBoss

Hague will be able to secu re asufficiently large foreign vote

perhaps he will find

it

posslble t o swing an unheard-of num

ber of Smith ballots in Hudson County, where t is said they

don’t count the votes but welgh them. Even then, it s hard

to see how Smlthcanwinwithoutmakinggreat nroads

upon the Republican strength and without keeping n ine

the independent Democrat s, many of whom are thoroughly

disgusted with the Hague regime.

To sum

it

up, Hague will getmanyJerseyvotes or

the “happy warrior.”

B u t

he will be responsible for the los

of many others. And the ones he loses will be those

of

pro

gressives who love Smith bu t ha te h is company.

Norman

Thomas

By McALISTER COLEMAN

A

ANKYsix-feet-two of Ohio-bornboneand muscle

unlimbers itself above

the

speaker’s platform at the

corner of Avenue

B

andHoustonStreet, on New

York’s

East Side.Flare-li ghts hrow he ong hadow of

NormanThomasacross heheads of hisaudlence, quat

little tailors, for the most part, with here and there smudged

mechanics, ruck-drivers,andasprinkling of womenand

children.

The speaker holds up

a

huge enlargement of

a

photo-

gra ph of a working-class apartment erected by the Socialists

of Viennaand henproceeds owonder loudly and vehe-

mently ow it comes thatn omparatively overty-

strickencity ikeVienna olkspayaround wodollars

a

room

a

month for such splendid quarters, whereas in “pros-

perous” New York a worker

is

hard put to

it

to find decent

housingat ifteendollars.

Hls

audiencebegins owonder

withhim.And henThomasgoes on to alk of thing s as

they are and things as they mighte ; simple things llke gas

bills and rents and pay envelopes and the youngsters’school-

ing and the price s the women pay in the stores ro und about

Avenue B.

One night last year towar d the end of a hot campaign

in heEighthAldermanicDistrlct a truck oadedwith

a

Tammanybandand

a

collection of children rmedwith

rattlers and other noise-making horrors drove through the

crowd in front of the platform where Thomas was speaking.

The chieftain in charge of the invasion raised a pudgy hand

as a signal to his youthful braves to cutoose and drown out

Thomas.Tohisconsternation, hekids,afterone look a t

thepeaker,ipedwithhrillusto,YeaaNorman

Thomas ”That’sa amlllarenoughwar-cryon heEast

Sidewheneverhegoescampaigning.Thechildren,asyet

unterrlfied by Tammany’s elaborate and subtle machmery of

fear, uspicion, ndgreed,have no hesitancy nvoicing

their love forNormanThomas.Battalions rudge rust-

ingly after him as he goes from one meeting-place oan-

other, hang on the running-board of his campaign car, and

besiege his headquar ters he minute school

is

out. And at

least hree

o r

four imeswhenThomaswas unning or

alderman,mothersappearedwithamazingly vocal inf ant s

whose last names ended in “ski” o r “baum” but whose first

two names were Norman Thomas.

Sometimes a former classmate of Thomas’s at Prince -

ton “respectable” hangover from the Brick Church

days, passing by

a

street meeting at which Thomas is won

deri ng aloud, stops to do some wondering of his own. How

does ithappen hat

a

man

of

suchobviousability,mag-

netism,and iery orcecanstoop oconquer he magina-

tions and hear ts of th e city’s most submerged-the workers

on the East Side, in the Bronx, and in Brownsvill e?

If Thomas is interested in the labor movement, all wel

and good. Ever

so

many ntellectualsare“takingup he

movement,” writing pieces about it for magazines and ews

papers, evincing an ntelligently alert awareness of Its ex

istence. But here s Thomas runni ng his good head

off

a

the beck and call of every ittle union organlzer, every So

cialistwho is gettingup a meeting nsome emotehall,

every rank-and-filer who has a crowd o reach and a cause

to preach. In last autumn’scampalgnThomasmademore

thansixtyspeeches n womonths,mos t of themout-of-

doors, andhewroteenoughwords o fill a double-decke

novel-all because he had been nominated for alderman by

a small local of the Socialis t Party n a strong Tammany

district.When hevoteswerecounted,an gnorantTam-

manyoptometrist,whoseboastwas “I never

g o

outdoor

during a campaign,” was sent back to the aldermanic cham

ber with a blg majority . And now Thomas

is

running

f o

President of theUnitedStates,as he eader of aparty

whosedeathhas been officially announced imeandagain

these past few years by conservatives and iberals and ex

treme radicals allke.

No one need feel sorry for Norman Thomas. There s

littleglory nwhathe

1s

doing.Longnightsn tuffy

sleepers, long days filled with speech-making in labor halls,

at farmers’ picnics, at Socialist rallies; party conferences;

newspaper Interviews ; pamphlet-writing hand shak ing (at

which, by th e way, in spite of long practice Thomas is stil

singularly nept)-this is not most people’s idea of a goo

time.ButThomas is having a magnificentime.Hes

doing what he wants t o do and doing it well.

It is in heTho mas blood from hedayswhen he

Welsh preacher-menThomases xpoundedheirvlgorous

doct rine s n he old country-thisbusiness of articul at

ing ideas and ideals. The

first

of the Thomases

t o

arrive in

thiscountrycame romWales n 1824. HewasThomas

Thomas,

a

parson with a hill hunger on him which took him

to hemounta ins of Pennsylvania,where he preached he

forbidding doctrines of Calvin with a cer tain mellow touch

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8 19281

The Nation 129

thatmadehim hemost beloved man of all hecountry

round. He had found time to work his way through Lafay-

et te College. Hi s son,WellingEvanThomas, followed in

hls footsteps and found himself, of all places, i n charge of

thePresbyterianChurch n he ateMr.Harding’s home

town of Marion, Ohio, where Norman was born on Novem-

ber

20

1884.

The two-story brick parsonage was on Prospect Street,

a

home shel tered by huge old maples, with

a

grape arbor

in

the rea r, an d woods and pasture- land right outside the door.

Even when they moved further into town, and added a cow

andabathtub o heestablishment, ife at th e Thomases’

was still argely rural. Norman, he eldest of six children,

soon learned what hard work meant. A ministerial income

of 1,200 a year for the clothing and feeding of four boys

and wogirls,especiallysuchupshootingchildren

as

the

Thomases,wasnad need of supplement. verybody

worked in that family, and mingled a keen respect for the

fatherwithadeep love for hemother,whobeforeher

marr iage was Emma Matoon, adescendant of the French

Huguenots who came to hiscountry n 1650. Her father

was a missionary to Siam and later became American con-

sul .

On his etu rn o hiscountry, mmediatelyafter he

Civil War, he sta rted one of t he

first

schools for Negroes,

nearCharlotte,NorthCarolina.Start ing schools fo r Ne-

groes in the South in the turbulent days of reconstruction

was no light undertaking.

Normanwasobviouslypredestined for theministry.

He took the Marion High chool in his long stride, being one

of the youngest ever to be graduated from that institution,

And hen, when he family moved to Lewisburg, Pennsyl-

vania, he entered Bucknell. He was a long, gangling fresh-

man, sticki ng out of his clothes, a nd outof his class as well,

for he had read greedily all sorts and varieties

f

books back

in the Marion parsonage and easily led his fellows in class-

roomwork.Bucknell n hosedayswasaboutas igidly

orthodox a place as one could find, but already the youngster

was beginning to doubt and question the validity of creeds

and dogmas. An unexpectedly beneficent relative gave him

the chance to enter Princeton.

He eft he small Pennsylvania college in a mood ap-

proachingexaltation.Princeton, ohim,hadbeena place

todreamabout.

“I

was so afraid

I

would flunkout,”he

says, “that worked like a trooper, tutoring at nights, work-

ing n

a

chair actory nsummer,andsellingaluminum-

ware.”

S o

he stuck n he first group of his class f o r the

next three years, and he was valedicto rian of th at class of

1905 and one of the most popular men in college. He was

on

the debating team, took all the cour ses in economics and

politics which Princeton offered, and was moved, a s were so

many of the young men of those days, by the Princetonian

Wal ter Wyckoff’s pioneer abor book, “The Workers,’’ an d

by he great strike

of

the anthracite miners ed by John

Mitchell. Hewascaught n heThomas radition,andhe

made the best compromise with it tha t he could by taking

a

job in the Spring Street Settlement, in New York‘s slums.

A trip around the world with the dire ctor of the settle-

ment laid the foundations for his international outloo k, but

it

was the World War which finally took him clear out of

church circles into the heartf the labor and Socialistmove-

ment. He was in

a

church in East Harlem, working among

the oreign-born of tenementdistrict,whenhe

war

brought tschallenge ohimas tdid oeveryChristian

minister.

He

answered that challenge by flatly refusing to

haveanything o do with he bloody mess. instantly“pa-

triotic”pressureswerebrought obear on him romall

sides.Contributionsoisocialworktopped. here

were ttempts,mainlyutile, at social ostracism. Then

Morris Hlllqult started his crusading campaign for mayor

of New York City, and Thomas, to the utter consternatior.

of all his respectab le flag-wavmg assoclates, stood up with

Hillquit n hat historic struggle. At he close of th e cam

paignThomas ound himself

a

full-fledgedcard-carrying,

dues-paying member of the Socia list Party , with no church

and only theslendereditorialsalary romhispaper, he

World Tomorrow for t he su pport of a l arge and husky fam

ily. His brother Evan was ugged off to Jai l as a conscien-

tious objector. Snoopers and spies,official and self-appointed

dogged Norman night and day. Postmaster General Burle-

son paid him the compliment of saying that Thomas was

a

moredangerousman han Debs. Hewas dangerous-for

those who were attempting to make a clean sweep of civi

libertie s; who used the war to exploit labor; dangerous for

the peace of mind of every militarist mmister.

With Roger Baldwin and HollingsworthWood he helped

form heAmer ican Civil LibertiesBureau.What a hated

insti tutio n that was After the headquarters of the bureau

had been raided, and the magnificently defiant Baldwin had

been ent o ail,much of thepioneeringwork ellon

Thomas’sshoulders.Andwhenhewasnotbusywithedl-

torialandcivil-libertiesaffairs,hewasgoingamong he

colleges, speakingfor heIntercollegiate SocialistSociety,

the predecessor of the Le ague for Indus trialDemocracy.

To hese wo organizatlons, he one with

its

program

of freedom of speech, press, and assemblage, and the other

with

its

goal of production for use rather than profit, and

tohe olitical xpression of thesedealshroughhe

medium of the Socialist Party, Thomas has devoted his sur

prisingly varied and rich talents.

I have aid hatThomas’sempiricalphilosophyhas

unityandconsistency,and hisdespite he act hathis

usual activities in the course of a day cover what seem o

be a bewildering range of subjects. When the Chinese Na-

tionalists cable for funds, Thomas is on the Committee for

Justice oChina.When hePullmanportersorganize

pioneerNegro ndustrialunion,Thomas s called on or

counsel. When the textile strikers in Passaic are prohibited

frommeeting,Thomas s hemanwhogoesover oNew

Jerse y and speaks under the menac e of high-powered rifles

in the hands of the operators’ gunmen, and goes to jail with

hishead up, s that from hen on he strikers may meet

unmolested.Whensomeadequate eply o hepropaganda

of thepower lobbybecomes apublicnecessity,Thomas s

the driving spiritof the Committ ee on Coal and Giant Powe

which makes that ringing answer.

Always in the back of Thomas’smind s he unda-

mental necessity for he organization n his country of

politicalparty epresenting hehopesandaspirations o

those who produce the country’s wealth by work of hand o

brain. He was one of those who were instrumental in swin

ing his party’s forces into the La Follette campaign, despi

th e opposition of many artySocialists. I have eard

Thomas speak under all sorts

of

circumstances, and o all

sorts of people, but I cannot remember his ever having used

thecredalMarxiandialectic“proletariat,”“bourgeoisie,”

“the economic interpretation of history’’-these are not in

hisvocabularywhenhegoesout o alk oworkersand

farmers, college students , and professional men women

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130 The

N2tion [Vol.

127, No.

3292

Stillhe emainsan nternationalist passionately fol-

lowing the poignant dreamof bread peace and freedom for

people. Whether his speech or pamphlet or statement to

thepressbeginswith a discussion of the ntric acies of

municipal government

t o

which he brings expert knowledge

or

a

headlong attack upon the corruption

of

both old parties

o r the deepdamnation of imperialism hegenerally con-

cludes with

a

compelling plea for a peacefulworld.

When Thomas told the convention which nominated him

in New York that he did not expect to be elected P resident

this year many veteran hands were raised In horror. That

was not the sort of t hing that a candidat e says to his con-

stituent s. A sense of proportion a richly mellowed under-

stand ing of reality is not f ound in the arse nals f most cam-

paigners.

It is

to the credi t of the old-timers in the move-

ment hat knowingvery well NormanThomas’s requent

departures from the faith f the fathers they chose him for

their leader and are givmg liberally to make his campaign

a success. And a success it will be if the re

is

found in this

country by next November a collective intelligence powerful

enough to present to the united front of the two old parties

an opposition worthy of the name.

The

T r u t h

A b o u t Tsinanfu

By H.

J.

TIMPERLEY

J

June

6

APAN’S statement to the League of Natlons concern-

ing heTsinanfuaffair we are old nGeneva dis-

patchespublishedhere hascreated

a

favorable m-

pression. This may well be

so,

for the Chinese side

of

the

argumentwasbadlybungled.

I t

is

improbablehowever

that this impression would be long sustained if the League

took a notion o nvestiga te horoughl y he whole circum-

stances surrounding the case.

One aspect which such an inquiry could hardl y fail to

reveal wouldbe theprovocativeattitude of theJapanese

milit ary all through heaffalr.Neutraleye-witnesses n

which category I take the libe rty of including myself agree

that he Nationalist occupation of Tsinanfu was as peace-

ful as could be wished for. The leading Nationalist columns

whichentered hecity on themorn ing of May halted

quietlya block away from he Japane se barrie rs and dis-

played very little exciteme nt about it. Senseless truculence

o n

the other hand was shown from he beginnmg by he

Japanese oldiery.Not ontentmerely o emainquietly

watchfulbehind heir andbags sAmericanorBritish

troops would have done they ofte n were to be seen stand-

Ing on top of thebarricadeswith heirbayonets hrust

almost under the noses of the Natio nalist troops that went

marching by. “Hereweare come along and hit

us,”

they

almostsaid.Except orapercepti ble ift of theeyebrow

the Southerners made no response to these demonstrations.

It became increasmgly evident during the first two days

of theNationalistoccupation however hatahighly ex-

plosive situat ion radual lywasworking p.Foreign s

well as Chinese civilians were handled on occasion wlth un-

necessary roughness by he Japanese sentries on post. One

suchepisode nwhich

I

waspersonally involved occurred

wlthln an hour or so

o f

the Southerners’ entry. I had gone

across to the Tientsm-Pukow station just in time to see the

la st of theWhiteRussian rmored ars uardinghe

Northern retreat pull out slowly as he Nationalist ro ops

appearedalong he allwayembankment.Chattingwitha

group of thenewcomers I found hem peaceably disposed

and riendly.Stein’sHotelwhere I was taying had

Japanese barricade around it. The sentries stationed here

had let me go across to the station and return through the

barricadewithoutquestion butwhen I returned rom

second sort ie o he elegraph office a Japanese oldier

clubbed me viciously in the small of th e back with the butt-

end of his rlfle. It wasamostuncalled-forexhlbitlon

of

Ill-tempered violence and wit hin a very short space of

time

was elling he Japanese Consul so. Subsequentnegotla-

tions duringwhich twasexplained that myname nad-

vertentlyhad been omitt edfrom he ist of fore ~gne rs o

whom permits o pass hrough he barriers had been sup-

plied ended in

a

verbal apology being offered by

a

Japanese

staff officer to the Br iti sh Consul as well as o mysel f. In

fair ness it ough t to be mentioned that the Japanese Consul

was visibly distressed by the incident and spared no effort

to see hat proper amends were made.

I

was aro und he cit y good deal on the morn mg of

May

2

and took special interest in the actrviti es of the Na-

tlonalistpropagandists.Littlesqua ds of themweregoing

quletly about the business of plas tering the town with post-

ers setting forth the aims of the Nationalist campaign and

denouncing heNorthernmilitari sts. One poster showed

Chang Tro-lin whispering sweet nothings into the ear of a

coyly smiling Japanese geisha while another depicted him

and J apa n tug gin g at opposite ends of a chain and stran-

gling China between them. How the walls of Peking would

totter when the Natlonalists got there was demonstrated by

another heet.Pictures of SunYat-senandChiangKai-

shekweredisplayedsidebysideandpropaganda leaflets

were broadcas t in the streets. Intereste d groups of Chinese

coolies gazed at the posters or listened open-mouthe d to the

street ecturers.Some of the atterwerearrested by the

Japanese urmghemorn ing. Nobody seemedo know

why. I saw hembeingmarchedalong hestreet

in

cus-

tody.Theywent long uite ood-humoredlywithhem

unsmilmgguardsand even salutedaJapanese officer who

cantered p on

a

horse. Some were eleased fterward

but the m aJority wer e detained and no information could be

obtainedabout hem.Thisaroused

a

good deal of resent-

ment among the Nationalists though so Chiang Kai-shek’s

staff officers told me news of

it

mas suppressed norder

not oexcite he roops.Chlang’sstaff also old me th at

on this day Natio nahst officer descri bed by them as being

th e Chief of Tran sportatio n wasshot by Japanese roops

in ron t of the

sinan

Pa o newspaper office. Theywere

notable o ellmeanything of thecircumstancesand I

could get no confirmation of it from any other sour ce.

By

the night of May 2 the Japanese apparently felt the

situation tranquil enough to Justify the withdrawal of the

barrlcades and hesewere emoved owardmidnight.

M y

understandmgas a result of inquiriesmade at the ime

was that thls step was taken purely on the initiative of the

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December 19, 1968

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