Thrill, Shock

Hooverites thrilled last week, to hear the voice of the busy Beaver Man, himself, coming to them over the radio. It was not that he said very much--just a few well-chosen words spoken in Washington in connection with a national oratorical contest for school children which was won by one James R. Moore, 17, of Somerset, Ky.

A few minutes later Hooverites who did not switch off their radios after the Beaver Man had finished, were startled, shocked, prodded into indignation by another voice which denounced Candidate Hoover as a "tool of the capitalists."

The new speaker was William Zebulon Foster, famed U. S. Communist. He was speaking in Manhattan, where some 250 delegates to the Workers (Communist) party convention were about to nominate Comrade Foster for President of the U. S. His speech constituted a sort of premature acceptance oration.

Like any other politician, Candidate Foster was careful to omit none of his party's time-tested cliches. Another "tool of the Capitalists," he said, was Democrat Smith. The Workers party, he explained, was part of the Communist International. It was a revolutionary party. Its aim was to overthrow the capitalist order in the U. S. Capitalism bred war. Capitalism would involve the U. S. in the "next war," etc., etc.

Before Candidate Foster was half through his speech, the broadcasting station (WEAF) which was transmitting his sentiments received ten telephone calls demanding that he be shut off at once. But Candidate Foster was interfered with in no way. He finished, happily of his own accord, well within his allotted time. The Communist campaign was on.

Planks in the Workers party platform include:*

1) Overthrow of the existing social order.

2) Social insurance laws.

3) A five-day forty-hour working week.

4) Repeal of Prohibition.

5) Independence for U.S. territories (Philippines, Porto Rico).

6) Withdrawal of the U. S. Marines from Nicaragua and China.

7) Abolition of strike injunctions.

8) Abolition of child labor.

9) Recognition of Soviet Russia.

Communism has never won political support in the U. S. as it has in some European countries (see page 15). Its ablest figure, the late Charles Emil Ruthenberg was a longshoreman's son who worked in factories and newspaper offices. The new leader William Zebulon Foster, 47, was a wandering slum boy of Taunton, Mass., who obtained a haphazard education in public libraries. First he was a Socialist, but in 1919 that party "expelled" him for his part in the I. W. W. steel strikes of that year. He was later convinced that the I. W. W. program was too radical to be practical. He became an organizer for the American Federation of Labor, unionizing railroaders, stockyard workers, steel hands. His program for Labor included education of trade-union members to make them fit for political action. He turned Communist about five years ago.

*The Workers party is not to be confused with the Socialist party, whose candidate is fair-haired Norman Thomas, Princeton graduate, one-time minister. The Socialist platform is virtually identical with the Communist platform except for the revolutionary plank. Because Socialists do not favor overthrowing the existing government, Communists lump Socialists with Democrats and Republicans as "tools of Capital."