Marxists’ Internet Archive: ETOL Home Page: Trotskyist Writers Section: Farrel Dobbs
Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 44, 1 November 1948, pp. 1 & 2.
Transcription & Mark-up: Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
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The following is the text of the speech delivered by Farrell Dobbs, SWP Presidential candidate, on Thursday, October 28 at 10:15 p.m. over station WNEW in New York City. |
Friends of the radio audience:
I want to begin my talk tonight by making a prediction? When the returns are announced on Nov. 3, regardless whether Truman or Dewey is elected President, Big Business will be the winner and the American working people the losers.
The great wealth, the natural resources and the productive system of America will remain under the domination of giant monopoly corporations.
The decision on war and peace – a decision which means life or death for the human race – will remain in the hands of a tiny group of industrial overlords and brass hats who control the bi-partisan government in Washington.
Prices will continue to rise un ess a new depression substitute unemployment for the high cos of living as the main evil plaguing the American people.
The offensive against the labor movement will grow in scope and fury. America will become the scene of bitter class warfare and the unions will fight for their very existence against repressive legislation, government-by-injunction and police terror.
The Congressional witchhunters and inquisitors – now safely in office – will continue their dynamiting operations to blow up the precious democratic rights of all the American people.
This prediction – I am certain – will not startle millions of American workers who have had enough of the capitalist two-party sham. They know that the people wanted a change and were prepared – if necessary – to struggle and to sacrifice for this change.
What was lacking can be summed in one word – leadership. I should say: intelligent, far-sighted and courageous leadership because there is no lack of stupid, cowardly, yes – and even treacherous leadership
The labor movement is the longest numerical force in this country today. The tens of millions represented by the unions institute the majority of the people.
Organized politically in a class party based upon and controlled by the unions, the working people ould soon win the reins of government and start America on he road to peace, freedom and plenty.
But the leaders of American labor have neither the stomach nor the guts for such a bold, independent policy. The Murrays, the Greens, the Reuthers and the Whitneys have sold out the interests of the American workers for a mess of promises. They have traded the votes of labor for the unreliable word of a man who smashed the railroad strike, hamstrung and fined the miners and who has issued more injunctions than any other President, including Herbert Hoover.
These labor leaders have no one to blame but themselves for the emergence of the party of Henry Wallace. When they abdicated political leadership, Wallace stepped in to head the growing opposition to the bipartisan policies of war and reaction.
Yet Wallace’s leadership is more noisy than genuine, more apparent than real. The Progressive Party only talks about a break from the parties of Big Business.
Its program is not fundamentally different from the Democrats except in the tactics to be used in foreign policy.
It supports dozens of Democrats who oppose Wallace even on these tactics, betraying its own pledge to support only opponents of the Truman-Marshall Doctrine.
Its aim of reforming capitalism is indistinguishable from that enunciated in the Democratic platforrd.
It is controlled by a millionaire capitalist politician and not by the democratic vote of the rank and file through their organizations and unions.
The party of Henry Wallace does not and cannot provide leadership for American workers and independence from the parties of Big Business because it too is a capitalist party – the same old corruption disguised by brave words and radical promises.
How shall the lost battle be turned into a winning war? Where shall the American working people find new leadership ? These are questions of the hour.
If you seek among those who now lead – or rather mislead – big organizations, then the quest shall be hopeless. You must look elsewhere – among those who speak the truth at the cost of personal sacrifice and the hostility of the powers-that-be. You must look to those who fight for every inch but refuse to trade the great aims of peace and abundance for temporary and doubtful gains. You must look to the Socialist Workers Party.
Wallace, we admit, has more followers. Murray, Green and Reuther have more influence and control in the union movement. But history demonstrates that progress is never made by those who stand for the status quo even though they represent large numbers. Minority groups who speak and live the truth have always been the instruments of great changes. They become majorities with the help of events and experience. Eventually their ideas penetrate through a fog of lies and deception into the minds of the people and become a power.
The pioneers of American liberty – men like Sam Adams, Tom Paine and Patrick Henry – were a small and persecuted minority until British tyranny convinced all but a few of the American colonists of the need for a Declaration of Independence.
The foes of human slavery – men like Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and John Brown – were a little hand of idealist greeted with indifference and hostility. Yet their cause was finally adopted by the government itself, bringing fame and immortality to Abraham Lincoln who led a civil war that abolished slavery.
The trail-blazers of industrial unionism were reviled, as radicals and visionaries, expelled from their unions and deprived of their livelihood. But we have seen in our lifetime how the CIO conquered the fortresses of monopoly capitalism, planting the banner of industrial unionism inside the factory gates.
The Socialist Workers Party – the Party of American Trotskyism – is built on the lines of this heroic tradition. We represent the present interest and the future hope of the American working class. Our program alone can give guidance to the struggle against Big Business dictatorship, war and poverty.
The Socialist Workers Party scorns the plan of union leaders to reform the Democratic Party. Like a company union it cannot be reformed. Nor can there be a new progressive capitalist party any more than there can be a progressive company union. We will not compromise on the principle of working class political independence.
The Socialist Workers Party denounces the leaders of the Communist Party for betraying the interests of the working people to protect the privileges of the Stalinist rulers in the Kremlin. Changing with every wind from Moscow, Stalinism has forfeited leadership of the struggle for the emancipation of labor. Wfe have no interests separate and apart from the working people. We have never faltered nor deviated from our aim to establish n Workers and Farmers Government as the transition to socialism in America and throughout the world.
The Socialist Workers Party has unmeasured contempt for the party of Norman Thomas which seeks respectability and favor by supporting the bipartisan war plans of Wall Street. We prefer the consistent socialist internationalism of Eugene V. Debs and we have followed in his footsteps from courtroom to jail.
Ours is a party of struggle – a party composed of fighters. And it is to the fighters that we want to address ourselves tonight.
Do you want peace? Then don’t waste your time explaining the horrors of war to the billionaire merchants of death. Stop begging the imperialist Caesars to reform their U.N. war circus into a world government. Join with us in the fight to let the people vote on war and peace.
Do you want to safeguard your democratic rights? You can’t do it by appealing to the witchhunters against witchhunting, to Pontius Harry against Pilate Truman. Get behind our legless veteran, James Kutcher, who is leading the fight for civil. liberties. Fired from his job with the Veterans Administration for his political views, Kutcher has proudly proclaimed membership in the Socialist Workers Party and demanded his constitutional right to belong to a party of his own choosing.
Do you want to bring down prices? Then stop pleading with the Big Business Government to enact price control. Mobilize the unions, the housewives and the working farmers to set up mass committees to examine books of the big profiteers and to police prices. Fight for an escalator clause in your union agreements to guarantee automatic wage increases with each increase in prices.
Do you want to stop the anti-labor offensive? Then you must go beyond agitation for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Law. The organized workers must gather in a great Congress of Labor which will unite their forces and will set into motion great actions to declare the independence of the trade unions from the Taft-Hartley Act. That’s the way to defeat the union-busters.
The Socialist Workers Party summons the American workers to the struggle against Big Business plans for war and dictatorship. A vote for Farrell Dobbs and Grace Carlson is not a wasted vote, not a mere protest vote. Every vote for Farrell Dobbs and Grace Carlson is a vote for struggle, a vote to galvanize the power of all the working people into a mighty force for action.
If you are not afraid to stand up and fight, then strike a blow for peace, plenty, freedom and socialism by voting for Dobbs and Carlson on Nov. 2nd.
And then strike a second blow by joining the ranks of the Socialist Workers Party.
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Last updated: 26 March 2023