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From The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 42, 18 October 1948, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
To make campaign speeches within the space of two days in places as far apart as Seattle and Milwaukee is possible because of “the miracle of modern aviation.” A much bigger miracle in our circles is that the Seattle Branch was able to raise the money for the plane ticket and organize such fine election rallies in such a short space of time.
I wasn’t scheduled to appear in Seattle, but the branch there saw a few doors opening up and they wanted a Trotskyist candidate to stick her foot in these doors. I know we cot in some good socialist sales talks to many new friends during this Seattle trip. And we sold the Socialist Workers Party program to one railroad worker who. joined the Seattle branch after one of the election rallies.
We had another very important group of customers at a campaign meeting at the University of Washington. This meeting was sponsored by the “Students for Dobbs and Carlson,” which is a small group with big ideas – and a lot of know-how! I’m sure that it will become a big group with big ideas in the near future!
The “Students for Dobbs and Carlson” members aided by Seattle branch members passed out hundreds of printed leaflets announcing the meeting, issued press releases and took a big ad in the University of Washington Daily. Despite competition from the Democratic Party’s election rally, we had 55 students at our meeting, including a reporter from the campus daily. We had a long discussion period and afterwards several students took Militant subs so that they can continue to make an intelligent investigation of social and political problems. The next day, the University of Washington Daily carried a long story with the headline, Trotskyist Speaks Here, to tell to the whole student body that Trotskyism is alive on the U. of W. campus.
Although one might have thought that the members of the Milwaukee branch would have been laid low by the job of collecting 20,000 signatures on the election petition, they were bouncing all over, looking for campaign possibilities. And they found many. I was interviewed by reporters from both large Milwaukee dailies as well as by the editor of the Deutsche Zeitung, a German language daily which goes out to many thousands of socialist-minded workers and farmers in Wisconsin.
A radio interview over Milwaukee’s independent station WEXT offered the opportunity to give a 16-minute presentation of the Socialist Workers Party platform to Milwaukee housewives. Called the “Lady of the House” program, the interviewer is a young, idealistic radio worker who told me that she wants to bring housewives more than “fashion chit-chat.” In marked contrast to most radio interviewers, she asked questions for the sake of getting answers and not just to fill up the time. Even more unorthodox, she departed from her script completely so as to get at points which she thought the listeners would like to have developed – how does the SWP differ from the SP; do we believe in just “dividing everything up,” etc.
We also had a radio interview in Kenosha, an old Socialist Party stronghold. Through all this work, Wisconsin workers and farmers are learning that there is a real socialist party functioning in Wisconsin, the Socialist Workers Party and that it’s here to stay!
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Last updated: 25 March 2023