Ralph Helstein Acceptance
Speech
Let me say at the very outset that I
know of no honor, other than the one you confer on me tonight,
that would move me as much or contain the same self-fulfillment.
In my youth the heavens that my fantasy created were populated
with many stars. My heroes had their place and shown there with
varying degrees of brightness. And in that constellation none
gleamed more brightly nor with greater brilliance than did the
radiant Eugene V. Debs. His career was in many ways a dedication
to the unpopular. He was keenly aware of the corruption of respectability.
He rejected success as a respectable labor leader or as a complaisant
politician. "The Capitalist Class! The Working Class! The
Class Struggle!" Debs would cry. "These are the supreme
economic and political facts of this day and the precise terms
that express them". He spent his life continuing to express
them. His radical passions spoke for the Jacksonians, The Free
Soilers, the Populists, and of course for the workers, native
born and migrant, of all ages, creeds, sex and color. From the
depths of the Pullman strike, that ugly episode in the dark history
of Class Violence in America which is such an important part
of our heritage, he resisted an injunction, and came from jail
a confirmed Socialist. He came with a vision of unity that encompassed
the human race, and that led him to say:
"While there is a lower class,
I am in it.
While there is a criminal element, I am of it.
While there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
Although no star in my personal firmament
shown more brightly that did that of Debs, there were some that
shown with as much radiance, and provided beacons to light the
path of the weary and the downtrodden, and one of them was, of
course, Norman Thomas. What does one say of the man who was believed
by multitudes to be the "Conscience of America" in
his lifetime. He has graced this platform and many of you knew
him and heard him. A minister, not a trade unionist, as a leader
in the fight for human justice he was by identification and commitment
a Union Man. All knew which side he was on. He took part in many
worker struggles and, once in the Passaic textile strike of 1926,
went to jail for defying the authorities' attempt to establish
a permanent condition of riot law. He challenged martial law
in Indiana when used against workers. He worked with the sharecroppers
in the south. He was a leader in the fight against the K K K
and Tampa, Florida, police when Joseph Shoemaker was murdered
by flogging in 1935. He was one of the leaders in the fight against
Frank "I am the law" Hague in New Jersey. It has been
said of him "that he was one of the saving few whose approach
to liberty has always taken cognizance of liberty itself".
You will, I trust, understand therefore
that an award given tome bearing the name of two of the brightest
stars that filled the heavens of my youth would move me greatly
and leave me with a gratitude that will last till there is no
tomorrow.
It seems appropriate to this occasion
to think about the doctrine that for a long time has so confidently
dominated the intellectual speculation and the political programs
of the United States. Its first principal is that American Capitalism
works, and that it is
"the truly revolutionary force
in the world, because it alone provided the proper conditions
for the flourishing of technology; and technology in turn was
the crucial factor in producing economic growth."
With growth as the master key, social
problems would be solved, social conflict avoided, and social
classes themselves dissolved. The doctrine went on to establish
modern American corporate as a system, unlike any other system,
designed for the "maximization of social power, automatically
creating 'countervailing power' to safeguard the worker, the
consumer, and the citizen". Reasonable men adopted this
doctrine and the world it created. For better than a decade the
"Best and the Brightest", all reasonable men, combining
cynicism and idealism, power and faith, sought to tidy up the
residual imperfections of the United States and, with unmitigated
arrogance, the more serious deficiencies of the rest of the world.
Well, where did it get us? Has there been a maximization of social
power, has the worker, the consumer and the citizen been safeguarded
by the system of American corporate capitalism that one can find
spelled out in pure form in Fortune magazine, and the
reports of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund?
Let us set aside for a moment the mud
and the muck of Watergate and the self revulsion and embarrassment
we feel at the ugliness of a President with a plastic heart and
an elastic tongue. Instead, I would, briefly, examine with you
the nature of our society in May, 1974. In doing this we may
better understand the challenge of Thomas and Debs to our age.
As a good place as any to start looking
at where the doctrine of American corporate capitalism has brought
us is with the comment of Lewis Mumford, social philosopher,
cultural critic, historian, authority on architecture and city
planning, who said in response to a question about the title
of Robert Vacca's book The Coming Dark Age, "The
Dark Age is not coming - we are in the midst of the Dark Age".
He then went on to examine the cities of the world and what man
has done to them. From Los Angeles and San Francisco across to
Boston then on to London and Paris, finally to Tokyo and even
Kyoto, he notes that we in the United States have been making
mistakes but that the countries around the world did not learn
from them. Every big city, he points out, has 200 cancer producing
substances in the air. Every city faces brown-outs or black-outs
as a result of energy shortages. With our water supplies so heavily
polluted there is not enough water to keep cities decently supplied.
Mumford continues with the observation that:
"Civilization is going downhill.
Two World Wars brought on violence never before practiced. Whole
populations have been exterminated. Civilized nations used the
most barbarous means to wage wars and then undermined the recovery
of defeated people by destroying their food supplies. [great
monarchs of the past] wanted to do that but they did not have
the means our technology, which we always hoped would be the
means of making men more happy and prosperous and give them full
possession of the Earth, is in danger of doing just the opposite."
Mumford deals with one phase of the
corporate doctrine that dominates our lives. Now let us turn,
briefly, to some of the economic considerations at a time when
the President and one administration spokesman after another
assures us the free market will take care of all our problems.
1. Unemployment is above 5%, probably
substantially higher.
2. The Cost of Living continues to rise each month, setting new
records for increases. In December, 1973, the index showed the
sharpest 12 month rise since 1947 1948. March, 1974, sets
a new record: up 10.2% over the past 12 months.
3. Corporate after tax profits, however, in 1973 shot up 27%
over the previous high in 1972 when it went up 16% over 1971
following a rise of 21% that year.
4. Workers' buying power, as represented by real spendable earnings,
that is gross pay adjusted for inflation and federal income and
social security taxes, has remained almost fixed since 1967.
In 1967 gross average weekly earnings were $101 and bought $90.86
worth of products. In February, 1974, gross average weekly earnings
were $148 and bought $91.72 worth of products: in spite of an
almost 50% gain in income over seven years, only an 86 cent gain
in purchasing power.
5. The above figures do not include the renewed rise in wholesale
food prices and the surge of prices for gasoline and fuel oil.
It is estimated that the consumers' energy bill alone will be
up $20 in 1974.
As we weigh the implications of these
data in the context of the doctrine that American Capitalism
works and is a truly revolutionary force, look for a moment at
the energy problem. In the current issue of Dissent, after
referring to a Wall Street Journal editorial that called
for increased profits for the oil industry, Mike Harrington points
out that:
"the Wall Street Journal
here propounds a 'socialist' theory of capitalism. The function
of profits, it turns out, is not to make money for the stockholders,
pay higher executive compensation to the managers, etc., but
to finance further investment so that the needs of American can
be filled."
Moreover, the President's Council of
Economic Advisors notes approvingly that the companies expect
their profits to be guaranteed. So, consumers provide the capital
for the investment by paying higher prices, the citizen taxpayer
guarantees both the investment and the companies' profits. This
is truly socialism for the rich and expensive, not free enterprise.
Adam Smith has been turning in his grave so rapidly that we have
even heard the bones rattle at the University of Chicago. And
this is one example of the way American corporate capitalism
maximizes social power to safeguard the worker, the consumer,
and the citizen. Concern for the consumer is expressed in yet
another way. Many banks now charge usurious, if legal, 10.4%
prime interest rates. It is, of course, only incidental that
banks' profits have skyrocketed. The increasing rate is, of cours,
not for profit. It is rather to protect the consumer's dollar
since the way to stop inflation is by tight money and that means
high interest rates. Now, of course, inflation continues as the
increased rates get passed on to the consumer, but we would be
ungrateful if we didn't recognize that it was all for our own
good.
Finally, the reasonable men, who embraced
the doctrine that American capitalism works and is a revolutionary
force, have brought us to the point where, according to heretofore
inaccessible data from the IRS, some 5 million persons (about
4.4% of the total adult population in 1969) owned an estimated
35.6% of the nation's wealth. This wealth is represented in the
kind of property that produces more wealth. For example, this
4.4% of the American adult population owns among other property,
63% of all privately held corporate stock, 78% of state and local
bonds, 74% of federal bonds and securities other than savings
bonds, and virtually all corporate and foreign bonds and notes.
Their economic power is even greater than these figures convey
because most corporations can be controlled by the ownership
of a small proportion of the stock. Wealth is so concentrated
in the country that the 4.4% of the population have holdings
that average slightly over $200,000 while about half the population,
if they sold all their assets and paid all their debts would
have no more left than $3,000.
This is a sketchy and I am sure a simplistic
view of American society today. It is, I hope, sufficient to
use as a background for the challenge posed by Thomas and Debs.
They believed in progress, but for them progress was not determined
by money and material things. It was determined by our treatment
of humanity. They understood that the evolution of man is slow.
That the injustice of men is great. That pain is part of man's
self-realization. What they sought for man, however, was neither
pain nor pleasure, but Life. Life lived intensely, fully, and
in harmony with one's fellow man. These are goals to which, I
believe, our own age is committed. The problem continues to be,
how do we respond? George Bernard Shaw once trenchantly observed,
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man". We have,
I hope, enough unreasonable "persons" (with apologies
to Shaw) to undertake the kind of political programs essential
to achieving our ends and revising our institutions.
First,
I believe we must, once more, undertake and be unrelenting in
our effort to educate on the class nature of our society. Revive
Debs' cry of the Class Struggle, and as we comprehend the fact,
we develop the strength, the resources, and the vision to carry
on the fight.
Second,
we must be relentless in our insistence on the redistribution
of wealth. Only through such redistribution can we successfully
challenge the power of corporate America. There can be no doubt
that it works well for a few, haltingly for others, and badly
for most American workers, consumers, and citizens.
Third,
I think we must organize ourselves in such a way that no political
party, including the Democrats, can take us for granted. I think
that we should demand and have a right to expect from the Democratic
Party commitment to programs, including redistribution of wealth,
that we support. Promises and rhetoric are no longer enough.
There must be a kind of action that will assure party responsibility
for enacting the program. It is important to remember George
Washington's warning:
"Government is not reason, it is
not eloquence - it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant
and a fearful master, never for a moment should it be left to
irresponsible action."
For too long this warning has gone unheeded
and today we pay a high penalty for having permitted the government
to fall into the hands of the irresponsibles.
Our job, then, is to organize and in
the Thomas - Debs tradition carry the message around the country.
And the country, I believe though doubting, is ready for it.
There is a fire sweeping the land and the people are anxious
to believe. I cannot remember, in my lifetime except for 1932,
feeling the frustration, bitterness and anger so deeply rooted
in the fabric of American society as it is today. People will
respond to a call for organization that presents them with a
meaningful program and the machinery to fulfill it. At the core
of such an undertaking must be the trade unions, essential to
any progressive drive. Women, Blacks, Chicanos, American Indians
must be at the center of this effort - at the point were the
decisive policies are made. Racism and male dominance will not
go away by its own motion but only as we act to eliminate it.
If we can find the faith and the commitment
that is necessary to meet this challenge then I believe we can
create:
A world of abundance in which all people
can live the freedom that comes from choices knowingly made;
A world in which no person shall suffer because of their sex,
the color of their parents' skin, the language they speak, the
religion of their choice;
A world free of slums and poverty in which children look to the
future with hope, living together with one another in common
brotherhood of humanity;
A world where work will evoke man's greatest emotional and intellectual
capacities and insights as he labors to create things of beauty,
amass knowledge, understand better the nature of this world in
which we live and our purpose here;
A world at peace.
To those who doubt man's potential for
greatness, to the cynical and hard headed realists who say this
is utopian, I would respond as did Oscar Wilde:
"A map of the world that does not
include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out
the one country at which humanity is always landing. And when
humanity lands there it looks out and, seeing a better country,
sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias."
This was, I believe, the faith of Debs
and Thomas and it is, I hope, ours. In any case, we have no alternatives
since this kind of faith essential to the only kind of life worth
living. A faith that recognizes that human beings live and grow
in struggle, and that the indomitable spirit of man has no horizons.
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