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No. 3                                                                                                   July, 1938

Issued by the Successors of Shays
(Boston Branch)

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THE PAST IS THE KEY TO THE PRESENT
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A journal of current events presented on the basis of the theory of social continuity.
We attempt to explain rather than to advocate.

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Temporary mailing address, c/o Parker Greene, 905 Central Sq. Bldg., Cambridge, Mass.
Issued monthly. Subscription in U.S., $1 per year, 50¢ for 6 months. Discussion groups intending to use Continuity News as a basis for discussions may, if they already have one fully-paid year's subscription, get additional copies at $1.00 a year for the first copy and 25¢ a year for each additional copy desired each month.

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We invite news contributions and constructive criticism from our readers.

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CONTRASTS IN RELIEF

                Recently there was considerable trouble in Cleveland and Chicago due to the fact that all local relief funds were exhausted, and the federal administration refused to aid on account of political differences between the state legislatures and the New Deal. The federal administration attempted, though unsuccessfully, to use a deliberately induced starvation as a weapon to whip Ohio and Illinois states governments into line; the actual result was rather the contrary, as the administration's deliberate attempt to sacrifice lives to the exigencies of politics caused widespread antagonism in those two states.
                In contrast to this, we have the case of Orangetown, N.Y., a small village with a few hundred inhabitants, but well known to James Aloysius Farley, and close to his birthplace. Here the local relief authorities were astounded to find their application for some more food answered by a shipment of nearly nine tons of oranges―almost enough to swamp little Orangetown, which proved to be very well named on that particular occasion. Reliefers were given their daily stint of oranges which they had to dispose of in return for their relief money, and many reliefers were brought into Orangetown to help out in the village's new industry―that of eating oranges. In addition, good oranges, which could have just then been put to better use in Cleveland or Chicago, were used as baseballs by Orangetown children, while many more were left to rot in the streets.
                We need not mention (as we have mentioned it last month) the excessive appropriations given by WPA to Jersey City as a reward for Mayor Hague's excellent services to the New Deal in suppressing individual liberties in that city.
                All this remarkable contrast is a result, not merely of ordinary political bossism on a lager scale than ever known before in America, but also of the large-scale attempt to make millions of Americans, who have formerly been used to earn a living, and many of whom would like a chance to do so again, turn to living on relief as a life career. For political purposes, a vast amount of parasitism is created, living off what is left of a ham-strung industry that is unable to provide productive jobs in sufficient quantities; and it suits the purposes of would-be dictatorship much better to force people to depend upon the hand-outs given by authorities, so that temporarily a political machine can be built up out of the people's starvation by a deliberate attempt to create unemployment. We do, however, believe that America's industry and resources are strong enough to resist attempts to starve the people out for political purposes, and that American continuity will continue to resist encroachments on individual rights to life and liberty, as it has repeatedly done before.

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               And, in connection with the above, we may note that Mayor Tobin of Boston, after due reflection, has refused the WPA's offer of a large appropriation for building an expensive new City Hall which Boston does not really need. Secretary Ickes recently made a radio speech denouncing Tobin for refusing this bribe, and making the misstatement that Tobin asked for the appropriation.

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NEUTRALITY

               The question of American neutrality has been raised again, by way of moving pictures. Reports from different parts of the country indicate that many state and local censorships, such as that of New York State, have severely slashed a picture entitled "Blockade" on the ground that it is propaganda in violation of American neutrality. In Boston the censorship was limited in this instance to elimination of the title "Spain―1936," though the location could easily be inferred from the picture itself. Propagandists for both sides of the present Spanish civil war seem to take it for granted that the picture is loyalist propaganda; it is difficult, however, to see how anyone but a hopeless bigot could see anything of the sort in the picture, especially as nothing in the picture even indicates, except by remote inference, which side is which. Any propaganda in this picture is definitely against both sides, is definitely anti-war, and closes with an appeal to the world to stop fighting.
               Meanwhile propaganda is still going on to involve America on one side or the other in the various wars that are always brewing in the Eastern Hemisphere, and from some sources is again raised the hysterical cry of "save the world for democracy," the cry under which, in 1917, America was drawn in to a European war that was the none of America's business and which resulted disastrously for America's own liberties. Repeated attempts are made to get rid of the safeguards of partial isolation recently thrown up to protect American neutrality in any and all overseas fights; the cry is raised that this extent of isolation is unneutral in that it is a help to one side or the other (always forgetting to add that it is a help to one side only by comparison to actual military aid to the opposite side). Such an attitude is in itself a serious violation of neutrality, in that neutrality―really taking no sides―involves not caring who wins, or, still better, hoping both lose and have to stop fighting. The cry that American neutrality laws are unneutral has so far been raised by those who are definitely taking sides, and we have yet to see one person in the United States raising any such objections who definitely is not trying to sell a war to this country. The only difficulty is that the executive at Washington is left too much discretion, and the President has actually violated the neutrality laws in the case of the undeclared Sino-Japanese war. (Incidentally, did one of Boston's congressmen get cold feet about his project of impeaching the President on that ground? Some of his constituents might like to know.)
               The neutrality laws at present are merely continuation of the traditional American policy of independence. America's only actual alliance, that with France in 1777, was opposed by the revolutionists of that time, and ended with a crash a few years later. The isolation policy of President Washington―the original Monroe Doctrine―were part of this same policy of America of keeping out of the petty squabbles of the nationlets of the Eastern Hemisphere; a policy originally announced by Thomas Paine in 1776, as a ground for advocating American independence. The embargo policy of Jefferson's administration in 1808 was part of the same bit of American continuity, and this particular form of the policy is the direct precedent for present neutrality laws; the repeal of the 1808 neutrality laws was followed by the war of 1812. Similar neutrality laws were attempted again in 1916, and, had they been passed, could have kept America from its disastrous intervention in Europe's private fight. And, once something of the sort has at least been accomplished, there are still left the war-mongers―those who are trying to sell us other people's wars―who are urging us to get rid of these safeguards of our peace and liberty. 
                Canada, having warned England that it will not participate in any wars for England's imperial policies, and having refused to participate in England's rearmament program, is now becoming more active about its neutrality than the United Sates.
                Another feature of warlike attitude is found in recent attempts at creating spy hysteria, or what one columnist has named "spyorrhoea." Generally speaking, such a case of the jitters is overdone even across the ocean where spying is about equivalent to American gangsterism; but here there is really very little damage that could be done that way, and that little could be considered as serious only if we take the authoritarian point of view that keeping a government in control is the most important thing, as against the ingrained American point of view that a government is of minor importance compared to the rights of the people.

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                One of the latest cases of an issue of academic freedom of speech came up at the preparatory school at Groton, Mass., where the school authorities undertook to forbid a student debate. The proposed subject of debate was, which of the school's graduate reflected more discredit on the school, Whitney or Roosevelt. 

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FLOOD CONDITIONS

                Scattered floods have been recently taking place over the entire eastern coast of the United States from Maine to Texas. They are not nearly as serious as serious as those that took place in the northeastern part of the country in 1936, or in the Ohio Valley in 1937, but larger centers of population and industry have been hard hit. This danger is not over yet for some large metropolitan centers, and a bit more rainy weather could cause serious damage.
                Rainfall has been almost unprecedented. In last month's issue of Continuity News, we stated that wet weather was threatening New England while all attempts at effective flood control measures were blocked by Washington politics. The floods that were threatening on that occasion have actually arrived, and not in smaller industrial districts as in the spring of 1936, but in larger population centers. The metropolitan district of Boston, the largest continually-settled area in this hemisphere, has seen floods to an extent never seen before, as flood conditions were reported at an early stage of the rains in Belmont, Canton, Needham, Quincy, and Weymouth―locations lined up along an underground outlet of the Merrimac River, whose surface course is so far unaffected by the present rains. Another underground outlet appears to have gotten jammed in a similar way, as a similar welling up of water was seen in the Providence region (the Providence Journal had a photo of rowboats in the city's main square, entitled "It Can't Happen Here"), followed by floods in Woonsocket and Milford serious enough to require evacuation of some sections. Flood crests are now travelling down the Charles and Concord Rivers, headed down the Concord for the lower Merrimac, and down the Charles for Boston. Other places in Greater Boston seriously affected have been South Natick, Dedham, and Needham. The Public Garden pond in Boston overflowed into Charles Street, and on July 21, the Cambridge police headquarters, a half block from the mail-receiving station of Continuity News, was isolated for several hours in a private pool of its own. The railroad tunnel at Salem was closed for a while on account of flood waters.
                In other places, similar conditions have been reported in the less inhabited regions of New York State, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Around new York City, flood waters seriously affected portions of the Bronx and Newark.
                It is in the Boston district that industrial losses have been heaviest, as this region is more important for manufacturing than the other regions affected. In this region, nearly all spots affected have been in some way connected with the underground outlets of the Merrimac River, one of the rivers for which flood control was agreed on by the New England states but delayed and finally completely blocked by the federal government.

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                Since the above was written, Boston's river beaches have been closed on account of flood pollution. New England criticism of flood-control policy averages up that no one has done a "dam" thing about it. And we wonder just how much more partisan log-rolling means to anyone whose home has gone on an unexpected cruise down river.
                The worst-damaged states in the 1936 floods were Maine and Vermont.

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RESCUE

                In the middle of July, a man swimming across the Charles River from Brighton to Cambridge went under when almost over, and was pulled out. One of the crowd of bathers on the Cambridge shore attempted to resuscitate the man, but was forcibly pushed away by Metropolitan District Police, who delayed aid long enouigh to be fatal. A good-sized riot resulted.
                It may be interesting to note that this occurred on ground occupied in 1775 by minutemen's camps. There is probably no connection―but???

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PRIMARY SEASON

                The Democratic nomination in Texas (equivalent to an election for all practical purposes) has gone to one O'Daniel, whose campaign was done by radio; and whose platform was: old-age pensions, the Ten Commandments, and no politicians. Outside of vagueness, the main trouble with this platform is that O'Daniel, by running for Governor of Texas, has himself become a politician, and no one knows what sort of politician he will make.
                What probably attracted the pile of votes was the promise of throwing out all politicians. It is merely a preliminary indication of how much support Americans would give something that would really get rid of that tribe of pests―that could really cut down on authority, on orders, on rules and regulations.
                Accusations of intended dictatorship have been levelled at O'Daniel, and, whether true or not, have so far been without basis.

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UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION IN MASS.

                Massachusetts, always ready to try new ways of doing things, has decided on a year's trial of its own variation of Social Security, wherein the state's portion of the tax on wages and salaries (that for unemployment compensation) is remitted all together as far as the employee is concerned. There is still a deadlock over the companion measure to raise bonds for unemployment compensation to replace the remitted pay deductions; but many thousands of workers in Massachusetts will find their pay increased by half of what has so far been deducted under the heading of "social security."
                As this falls in with the American tendency to avoid supervision and regulation of individual lives, we doubt if the experiment is likely to prove unpopular. Whether other states will have the gumption to copy it, is more of a question.
                Unemployment compensation is something that has long been needed, but whether compulsory state insurance is the right method is a question that, judging by Massachusetts' present action, there still seems to be a bit of uneasiness over.

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HOW COME―

                That one of the streets radiating from the White House is still allowed to bear the name of Vermont Avenue? (There used to be a Maine Avenue in Washington, but it has been deleted―government buildings occupy the former site of that street.