The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-26
Rev. Thomas Post MOrtem Appeal
to PrOgressives

The "progressives" and liberals need not
despair So thinks the Rev. Norman Thomas.
There is still hope if only they rally behind
the right savior. Although most of them
were stunned into silence when they realized
that their idol in the person of Tammany Al
Smith was buried under the Hoover land
slide, and though they cannot even yet speak
for themselves, there is one of their number,
the Rev. Norman Thomas, late standard
bearer for the socialist party, who can still
speak for them.
Those liberals" and 'progressives" who
went on the warpath behind the happy
warrior" chief of Tammany Hall need not
sulk in dependency waiting for another de-
liverer to appear four years hence.
The Rev. Thomas calls upon them here and
now to cast off their detection and face the
immediate task of IAN effective opposition to
the republican party" The socialist party
spokesman declared before a meeting of the
League For Industrial Democracy:
Some of you good liberals must stop wait
ing for the Messiah and resting until the
next campaign. We must start the work of
organization now. We cannot expect the
labor movement to take the lead considering
the leadership it has"
Is anyone so blind as not to see behind this
liberal gibberish, the socialistic theolo
gian's idea-that the political party of which
he dreams must not hope for "the labor
movement as its base, We know that the
socialist party in the recent campaign spoke
less of the working class than did even
Hoover or Smith, and that the Rev. Thomas
went out of his way to make his written re-
nunciation of Marxism. Now he says 1--WE
cannot expect the labor movement to take
the lead" and that the good liberals" must
start the work Of organization" of some
sort of political party which will not be
of the working class.
His reverence dreams of political party
of the petty capitalists, third-rate lawyers
and confused intellectual hacks. 1t is true
that this is what the existing socialist party
already u.s. but the reverend thinks to en-
large it by devices such as dropping its name.
The Rev. Thomas is rather hazy about just
what is to be done at once in the way of de-
veloping a body of theories, philosophy,
program and skeleton of an organization,
but promises that he will soon propose plan
on which those good" progressives and lib
erals who supported the other two parties
of capitalism may ''get together"
The offer to sacrifice himself in the cause
of liberalism and progressivism was not fully
appreciated by such good liberals as DR..
Henry Moskowitz, husband of Al Smiths ad-
visor. The good doctor prefers to remain in
the Tammany wigwam. Ex-Congressman
Chandler, liberal republican, considered
the election of the imperialist, Hoover, a
triumph of liberalism.
The Rev. Thomas was sadly Inundated at
the reception accorded his offer The lib
erals and progressives in the camp of the re-
publican and democratic parties seemed to
resent the proposals of the socialist" leader
as somewhat impudent After all there is
no fundamental difference between the lib
erals in the democratic and republican par
ties and the liberals masquerading as So
cialists. Thomas party is only the tail end
of the kite of the capitalist liberals For
these middle class liberals to accept the
Thomas proposals would be for the dog to
agree to let his tail wag his body.
The claim of Thomas that he does not ex-
pect the labor movement to take the lead is
only an expression of the fear that the So
cialist party feels for the working class. In
alliance with the trade union bureaucracy
against the workers, the socialist party is
obliged to speak of the reactionary bureau
cracy of the American Federation of Labor
as the whole labor movement
For the benefit of the eminent socialist
pulpit-pounder it is necessary to repeat that
the interests of the labor movement are not
represented by the A. F. of L. officialdom,
but by the vanguard Of the working class of
the United States, the Workers (Commu-
nist) Party.
Furthermore it is not the task of the labor
movement to organize the liberals in the
three capitalist parties-repubican demo-