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Continuity News W. J. Sidis Mimeographed newsletter, 4 pages, found in Helena Sidis's files in 1977. |
No. 7 November, 1938
Issued by the Successors of
Shays
(Boston Branch)
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THE PAST IS THE KEY TO THE PRESENT A journal of current events presented on the basis of the
theory of social continuity.
______________ Temporary mailing address, c/o Parker Greene,
905 Central Sq. Bldg., Cambridge, Mass.
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Subscriptions, $1 per year, 50˘ for 6 months. Issued monthly. For discussion
groups, each subscription after the first is 25˘ a year in addition.
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We attempt to explain rather than to advocate.
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News contributions and constructive criticism welcomed.
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OH NUTS!
A law regulating wages and hours in everything even remotely connected with interstate commerce has just gone into effect, giving the Federal government a degree of supervision within the States that is absolutely
unprecedented in American
history―much greater than was done by the Prohibition Amendment, which was ultimately repealed in spite of the good it did, mainly because it violated
A
One immediate effect was to close down many industries, mainly in the South, where
maintenance of the Federal
wage-hour standard would mean
operating at a loss. The President's reply was that this was done by "wreckers"―a term mainly used by dictators and their followers, and in this case used by a would-be dictator that never arrived. The main industry closed down by
this law being the pecan-shelling business, the only appropriate reply to the "wrecker" charge is oh
nuts!"
Our economic system is screwy enough that the availability of work is dependent on profits not being interfered with, and the effort to enforce
by government action a standard different from that called for by the system's natural development may have the actual effect of throwing many people out of work in order that the privileged ones
who are left may
get more at their
expense. There are, of course, racketeering labor unions and "closed shop"
advocates who are aiming for just exactly this objective (we name no
names,
but any of them may put the shoe on if it fits); and they will doubtless be pleased with legislation that throws enough population out of work to
give the racketeers a better chance to collect from those
who remain.
We
naturally do not oppose higher
standards of
living
for Americans; but, from the American tradition of equal
rights, it
is much more important to see that everyone gets equally the right to have a living than it is to bargain for dollars
and cents; and this cannot possibly be done
without
certain fundamental changes in all existing forms of organisation,
considering
the screwiness of present forms, as explained above.
The American principle of
equality is this hemisphere's golden rule,
firmly embedded in tradition: Grant to others all rights
you expect others
to grant to you.
And any attempt at solving problems in ways that defy this principle must inevitably come across
opposition in
America that does not need
propaganda to inspire it.
It may be a common failing, when anything is found wrong, to
demand
that "there oughta be a law agin it."
But it may frequently be questioned whether that is the right answer to every problem under the sun; and
legislation, often
well meant, can sometimes lead to contradictions and
absurdities, as in the case of the law once passed by a state legislature:
"When two railroad trains approach a crossing of their respective railroad lines, both shall come to a full stop; neither train shall start until the other
has passed the crossing." The railroad-crossing problem
would in this case
have been better off without legislative interference.
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Teacher: What is the chief objection to wars?
Schoolboy: Because they make history.
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DICTATORSHIP AND INJUNCTION
"Franco" Hague, the dictator of Jersey
City has at last met up with
an injunction from the Federal courts; and some elements have been hailing
this as a victory for civil rights.
Continuity News, in its first few issues, gave news concerning the
Jersey City terrorism; but it
was
thought inadvisable to continue harping on the same string, because of misunderstandings that actually did arise. The
main misunderstanding among some readers was the notion that that meant that
we were endorsing the
Committee for Industrial Organisation in its personal fight
against him on issues involving far different things than
civil liberties for unattached individuals holding and expressing individual opinions.
On the contrary, we called attention to the fact that Hague has repeatedly
sought to
confuse the
issue by claiming that it was the
C.I.O. that he was
fighting and covering up the civil liberties issue thereby; and that taking
him up on that issue of personalities rather than principle was actually playing into the dictator's hands.
It would seem that this view was borne out by the sort of injunction that was
granted which merely gave special speaking privileges to the C.I.O. and its ally the
Civil Liberties Union, without increasing by
one
iota the
rights of the ordinary citizen to voice his opinion in a private conversation
on Jersey City sidewalks. In fact, the judge who issued the injunction
actually advocated that Hague continue with a restricted form of public censorship;
and there is no reason to believe that general freedom of expression of
opinion under C.I.O.
supervision would be a fraction of an inch wider than it is now on the sidewalks of
Hudson
Boulevard.
Issues of principle as fundamental as that of free expression of all varieties of opinion can hardly be settled through disputes of a purely
personal nature, such as that between Hague and the C.I.O., where both
sides are agreed that their
opponents must at all costs be suppressed.
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MORE SPYORRHOEA
The
attempt to work up a spy
scare―spyorrhoea, as one
newspaper columnist has
named
it―has proceeded to the point where a
bunch of
alleged German spies was put on trial, and where the prisoners came out
with a
remarkable set of confessions
that sound as if concocted by New
York police in
a "third degree." One prisoner claimed he sent a code message in the same
envelope with the key to the code; another, that he tried to walk on board
a large ocean liner with a large
bundle of military plans under his arm.
It is hard to believe that any government needs to employ
anyone quite so stupid for spying purposes; it is still harder to believe that
America could ever be in any danger from such spies. Luckily the United
States failed to take fright very seriously from this source, in spite of
persistent efforts by "liberal" and
"radical" war-mongers to stampede the people
into
a panic.
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NOVEMBER ELECTIONS
On November 8, the regular state elections were held in all States except Maine,
which insists on holding its elections in September to be different.
The most conspicuous result of these elections this year was an extensive and almost
nation-wide setback for the New Deal. Continuity News has pointed out that the primaries indicated a strong trend against the tendency towards one-man government as represented by the
New Deal; that there was a strong revulsion against the idea of unlimited government and of
governmental regulation. This diagnosis of American tendencies as a continuation of
historical tendencies of America towards individual liberty, has been thoroughly
borne out by the November elections. Republican victory was not anticipated, and did not come; but the election ran against the New Deal almost
everywhere, and was an insistence on the principle of limited government rather than a
victory or defeat for any specific principles of legislation. "Screwball
economics" measures were upheld in some places, defeated in others; Republicans
staged a come-back in some regions, and failed elsewhere; but everywhere the tide set strongly
against not merely the New Deal but also against all forms of increased governmental power
and authority. It is also noticeable that, as in the primaries, candidates endorsed by the Committee for Industrial
Organisation and thereby presumably opposing civil liberties for all opponents of that labor organisation, were severely defeated with very
few exceptions.
The coming Congress is bound to be at least partially opposed to the federal executive department in
policy―enough to deadlock
legislation to a large extent for the next two years. It is at least certain that
Congressmen will no longer be just "one-five-hundredth of a rubber stamp," and that it
will no longer be possible for one man sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to
dictate laws to the nation and also be the one to enforce them. The days of "must"
legislation, of that approach to dictatorship at which America was balking, are definitely over.
As foreseen in the September issue of Continuity News, the effect of disaster on the hurricane belt turned out to be similar to that of
Maine and Vermont in the election of 1936, and nowhere did the anti-New-Deal tide set
stronger than in that thickly populated strip of territory which suffered damage in the hurricane of
September 21.
In Cambridge, Mass., the city where Continuity News receives its mail, a certain comedy effect was given to the post-hurricane campaign by the
introduction of a flash-in-the-pan quarrel between the city and Harvard
University, revolving about "Plan E," a plan for a one-man municipal government,
which the city blamed on the college and refused to place on the ballot though state
law required such action after the petitions signed, until forced by order of state authorities. Then the city council came back with a proposition to separate the college into a new
municipality―which would leave the city divided clean in two,
and raised the question whether a "Polish corridor" would be needed to
enable North Cambridgites to go to Central Square. Harvard students then
conducted their own "plebiscite, mainly taken in a comic vein, with such
questions on the ballot as
"Are we an oppressed minority?" Student preference for mayor of their college city was the screen star Myrna Loy; and
Harvard appeared so much more anxious to be separated from Cambridge than vice
versa that the question of separation was never put to vote in the main election.
"Plan E," however, being felt to be on the hated principle of one-man government, was
defeated in spite of its vaunted efficiency, not only in Cambridge, but also in Quincy and
Northampton, the two other Massachusetts cities where it was submitted to the voters.
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WAR SCARE
In the evening of Sunday, October 30, a radio drama, too realistically enacted,
created a panic in most of the United States and many parts of Canada, in the belief that an
army of Martians had landed in New Jersey and were capturing New York. It was actually a radio version of Wells'
"War of the Worlds," with the scene placed in America instead of England. Thousands of persons in New
York and Philadelphia, and surrounding regions fled their homes in a hurry, and in far-off California offers of
enlistment for the "war" were received, While people in New Jersey in many cases claimed they could
actually see the fire. According to one version, a few units of the New Jersey National
Guard went on duty on what they conceived to be a summons by radio, and wasted their time in a vain search of the
spot where the "invasion" was supposed to have started.
The only part of America comparatively immune from the scare was the east coast of New England, saved from the nation-wide panic by the
fact that the Boston station of that particular chain was at the time busy broadcasting a debate between two rival political candidates. In various
parts of America, also, many people were saved from panic by the fact that they preferred listening to "Charlie
McCarthy" broadcasting at the same time over a rival hook-up.
This incident has created considerable demand for radio censorship, a proposition that sounds bad, on general
principles, to most Americans. However, it seems abundantly clear that such play-acting over the radio
could not have stampeded a people who had not just been already put in a panic by deliberate war propaganda which frightened them over a
European invasion; and an invasion from Mars is much more likely and feasible than
one from Europe. A well-known woman columnist whose writings are syndicated all
over the United States took the trouble to analyse how irrational the panic was, when it was her
own howling for blood a couple of weeks previously that contributed greatly to the unreasoning fright that made
the stampede possible. Let propagandists quit presenting Eastern Hemisphere squabbles through a telephoto lens
that makes them look like next block, and people will be less likely to go off half-cock about wild
tales of Martian invasions. It is an interesting commentary that the best work done in this country toward stemming the panic was done by two orating politicians
and a ventriloquist's dummy.
The United States was the first nation to adopt laws protecting its neutrality, and it seems possible that,
without instituting any form of censorship, an attempt to enforce some of these neutrality laws might catch some of these
irresponsible journalists and propagandists in its net.
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First Man: Where I come from, all the crooks have been expelled.
Second Man: Where I come from, they just get suspended.
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Why not start a discussion group among your friends―get together every month to discuss Continuity News and the events taken up in our paper?
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The term "libertarian" that we suggested for advocates of the American idea of civil rights of individuals has met with the objection that the name has already been taken by a different sort of group. May we suggest "Libertist"? How about it, readers?
