The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1922-02-10
NEW PROGRESSIVE
ORGANIZATION
to AIT IAR0R

New York, Jan. PA counter
attack on the autocratic forces"
which it charges are in control of
American industry and "practical
work for the specialization of indus
try" were announced here yesterday
by the League for Industrial Democ-
racy, a new organization of engi-
neers, publicists, technicians, econom-
lists, lawyers and members of other
professions. The league is a suces-
sor to the Intercollegiate Socialist
society, which has been in process of
reorganization for some months. The
officers are Prof. Robert Mores Low
EFT of Chicago, president; Charles P.
Steinmetz of Schenectady, Evans
Clark, Florence Kelley and Arthur
Gleason of New York, vice presi-
dents; Stuart Chase, treasurer; Har-
ry w. Ladder, secretary and director
of research; and Norman Thomas
chairman of the executive committee
The executive work of getting the
new plan under way is in charge of
Roger N. Baldwin.
The leagues statement which out
lines the new program shows why
a reorganization of the Intercollegi-
ate Socialist society was decided up
on after fifteen years of it's work
in the colleges arousing interest in
socialist principles. ''Prior to the
World war. the form of organization
adopted by the society was admirably
fitted in many respects to current
intellectual needs. The large ma
iority of American collegians were
either utterly ignorant of the exist
ence of socialism and the socialist
movement, or regarded socialism as
mere utopian theory, remote from
the practical realm of politics and
economies. The war came. Old
economic systems collapsed. New so.
cial forms developed. The socialist
and other movements of labor made
and remade history. Even educated
men and women in provincial Amer
lea We're compelled to acknowledge
the existence and power of these
movements; thousands learned to re-
gard them as the one hope of civil
cation.
"In spite of all their activities our
liberals and radicals have had little
have left the labor movement I'M
touched. They have created little
literature of the new social order
The pamphlet, that instrument of So
cial change, has gone rusty from
disuse. The socialists have been so
splendidly busy that they haven't
worked out a plan of naturalization
for the mines. The syndicalists and
radicals have been so active that
they have not shown the next step
in workers control in factory COM
mittees.
"Only one main idea is in sight
with driving force and the power to
capture the imagination of these
groups. The idea concerns itself
with changing the basis of civiliza-
ton. 1t is the idea of production for
use, of work for service. But an
idea like that does not descend from
heaven and travel on it's own momen-
tum. 1t is hammered out by the
faithful in close thinking.
"Our first objective is the tech
nician, the teacher, the social worker,
the brain worker generally included
in the great middle class'-a class
which may be counted upon to OBJ
struct social change until an effort
is made to bring its need before them
in their own language. Our final OBJ
jective is the worker and the farmer
"Our job demands that added to its
primary educational work, the league
shall stimulate the hardest kind of
thinking on the concrete problems of
social ownership and democratic con-
troll of our industrial life. 1t de-
mands that the league shall do its
part to utilize in constructive tasks
the hundreds of young idealists who
have aligned themselves on the side
of the new social order"
Among the immediate aims is the
thorough study of industrial disputes
in order to arouse the public to the
evils of the present system. The
two basic industries to get first at
tention are coal-mining and railroad
transportation, in which national
strikes are threatened in the near
future.
Any person is eligible to member
ship in the League for Industrial
Democracy, whose national head
quarters are 70 Fifth avenue, New
York City.