POLITICAL NOTES: Ex-Symbol

Unique among followers of Karl Marx in the U. S. are the 3.000 members of the Socialist Labor Party. Unlike either Norman Thomas’ plain Socialists or Earl Browder’s Communists, the Socialist-Laborites are incorrigibly consistent in refusing to make any temporary concessions to capitalism in the hope of long-range gains. Last week the Socialist-Laborites achieved the absolute in consistency. The party’s Weekly People printed an open letter to Labor’s recently freed Hero Tom Mooney:

“. . . Tom Mooney, the class prisoner, was a symbol of labor’s intolerable servitude. But Tom Mooney, pardoned and free, is a symbol no longer. He is an ex-class prisoner, who, to win his own freedom, led the workers into the enemy’s camp [by advocating the election of Culbert Olson, who pardoned him], repudiated the class struggle and helped to elect to office a man who stands squarely upon the precepts of capitalism—a champion of private ownership. Before and since you [Tom Mooney] gained your freedom, you have expressed your intention to labor for a better social order. And how have you begun? By registering as a Democrat, as reported by the press!”

Polls

Significant results of the week’s polls conducted by scientific testers of public opinion:

¶90% of the electorate favor some law against “allowing anybody to influence the vote of persons on relief either through coercion or promise of reward”; 70% favor prohibiting campaign contributions by Relief clients or officials, 60% would extend the ban to all Federal employes. (Dr. George Gallup’s “Institute of Public Opinion”)

¶Taxes seem “too much” to 49.2% of taxpayers, “about right” to 41.6%, “too little” to 2.3%. (FORTUNE)

¶Germany is the most unpopular foreign Government, disliked by 56.2% of U. S. citizens; Japan’s Government is disliked by 11.9%; the Japanese people by 19.3%; Britain is the most popular foreign nation, its Government liked by 45.3%, its people by 40.3%. (FORTUNE)

¶The “best” Republican Presidential nominee in 1940 would be Racket Buster Tom Dewey, picked by 12.2% of all adult citizens; next, Michigan’s Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg or New York City’s New Dealing Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, each liked by 11.5%—choices from a list of eight possibilities among whom 38% of the voters declined to choose; not included in the list were such recent Republican celebrities as Ohio’s Senator Taft and Governor Bricker, Massachusetts’ Governor Saltonstall, Minnesota’s Governor Stassen, Pennsylvania’s Governor James. (FORTUNE)