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From Labor Action, vol. 5 No. 44, 3 November 1941, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
When Israel Amter, Communist Party candidate for City Council, almost bursts a blood vessel and the microphone denouncing Tammany Hall Candidate O’Dwyer as receiving the active support of “every reactionary and pro-Hitler force in the city,” it’s time to dial another station.
Similarly does the program get boring when this same political acrobat melts into sweetness and almost kisses the microphone in his enthusiastic love for LaGuardia.
No doubt O’Dwyer wouldn’t mind getting some of the “reactionary and pro-Hitler” votes. Neither would LaGuardia be overcome by moral revulsion if some of the “reactionary and pro-Hitler” forces should get a brainstorm and cast their votes for him.
But just as in the presidential election both Roosevelt and Willkie saw eye to eye on the matter of ramming the imperialist war down the throats of the people, so do Tammany Hall Candidate O’Dwyer and Wall Street Candidate LaGuardia have the identical view on the momentous question of the war.
The Workers Party can say this to the working people of the city because IT IS NOT INTERESTED IN GETTING EITHER CRAFTY POLITICIAN ELECTED.
BUT NOT SO THE COMMUNIST PARTY.
That dishonest flip-flopping outfit has instructions from the Kremlin to get behind LaGuardia because as a pro-war politician he has certain advantages over O’Dwyer – one of them being that LaGuardia is an insider of the pro-war Roosevelt gang.
You are supposed to forget that before Hitler’s unkind attack on his loyal partner in the Kremlin, Amter and the other Stalin stooges did not regard the Hitler forces as devils, but as inseparable boon companions.
On the contrary, in those days the Roosevelt-LaGuardia gang was poison to the party-liners.
But Stalin cracked his whip – AND THE AMTER CROWD JUMPED. Whatever uncomplimentary things one can say about Stalin’s American agents – and there are plenty – one has to admit that for political agility they .are rivaled only by that daring young man on the flying trapeze.
O’Dwyer accuses LaGuardia of spending $1,000,000 on his campaign – which is not unlikely. LaGuardia retorts to the effect that O’Dwyer is a liar.
LaGuardia shouts that O’Dwyer is bringing in “racial issues.” So O’Dwyer retorts to the effect that LaGuardia is a liar.
President Roosevelt comes into the fight as a self-appointed referee and declares LaGuardia the champ.
Whereupon Governor Lehman – a good member of the Democratic Party, of which the President is also a good member – steps into the ring, counts LaGuardia out, declares O’Dwyer the champ – and in effect calls his political chief a liar.
LaGuardia challenges O’Dwyer to clean out the bosses from his political machine. O’Dwyer counters by calling LaGuardia the worst boss New York City has ever had.
Neither candidate bothers to prove his accusations and counter-accusations. Each one hopes that by appealing to ignorance and prejudice he will win the fight for votes.
THIS CRAZY, DISHONEST MESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING CLASS.
Thus daily the intelligence of the working people of the city is being insulted EQUALLY BY BOTH O’DWYER AND LaGUARDIA.
At this moment the most important issue before the workers of this city and of every other city – an issue growing out of the greater. issue of the imperialist war for world power – is the THREAT TO THEIR RIGHT TO STRIKE.
In no uncertain words President Roosevelt in his Navy Day speech indicated what he has in mind. His audience of army and navy moguls applauded the anti-strike portion of his speech as they did no other part. In Congress the anti-labor contingent is again up in arms. Radio commentators try to whip up anti-strike sentiment. Those in the know in Washington predict that in a few weeks the crackdown will come.
WITHOUT THE RIGHT TO STRIKE, LABOR WILL BE TIED HAND AND FOOT TO THE WAR CHARIOT OF THE AMERICAN IMPERIALISTS. The workers will have no means of combating profiteer prices, increasing taxes, forced loans to the warlords, and the other hardships of war.
Without the right to strike, LABOR WILL BE REDUCED TO INDUSTRIAL SLAVERY NO DIFFERENT FROM THAT IMPOSED ON EUROPEAN WORKERS.
But to LaGuardia and O’Dwyer THIS IS NO CAMPAIGN ISSUE. To the disreputable horse-trading American Labor Party, THIS IS NO CAMPAIGN ISSUE.
To the dishonest somersaulting Communist Party, THIS IS NO CAMPAIGN ISSUE. They are all out for the same thing – TOTAL WAR.
They are all behind the President’s war program – and labor’s rights be damned – FOR THE DURATION.
If labor had its own independent class party, the war, the right to strike, the high cost of living, would be among the vital issues behind which the workers could rally.
SUCH AN INDEPENDENT CLASS PARTY IS LABOR’S CRYING NEED.
This shameless municipal campaign proves it to the hilt.
MAX SHACHTMAN, WORKERS PARTY CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR, champions labor’s cause in this respect as in all others.
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Last updated: 26 August 2014