Some of them are desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope campaign against America's working people. Only reckless men, heedless of consequences, would risk the disruption of the hope for a new peace between worker and employer by returning to the tactics of the labor spy.
Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country.
It is the version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.
Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse- it is deceit. They tell the worker his wage will be reduced by a contribution to some vague form of old-age insurance.
They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar of premium he pays for that insurance, the employer pays another dollar. That omission is deceit. They carefully conceal from him the fact that under the federal law, he receives another insurance policy to help him if he loses his job, and that the premium of that policy is paid percent by the employer and not one cent by the worker.
They do not tell him that the insurance policy that is bought for him is far more favorable to him than any policy that any private insurance company could afford to issue. They imply to him that he pays all the cost of both forms of insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar put up by him his employer puts up three dollars three for one. And that omission is deceit. But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself.
Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy. Let them emigrate and try their lot under some foreign flag in which they have more confidence. The fraudulent nature of this attempt is well shown by the record of votes on the passage of the Social Security Act. In addition to an overwhelming majority of Democrats in both Houses, seventy-seven Republican Representatives voted for it and only eighteen against it and fifteen Republican Senators voted for it and only five against it.
Where does this last-minute drive of the Republican leadership leave these Republican Representatives and Senators who helped enact this law? I am sure the vast majority of law-abiding businessmen who are not parties to this propaganda fully appreciate the extent of the threat to honest business contained in this coercion.
I have expressed indignation at this form of campaigning and I am confident that the overwhelming majority of employers, workers and the general public share that indignation and will show it at the polls on Tuesday next. Aside from this phase of it, I prefer to remember this campaign not as bitter but only as hard-fought. There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America.
No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people. It is because I have sought to think in terms of the whole Nation that I am confident that today, just as four years ago, the people want more than promises. Our vision for the future contains more than promises. To Be Continued. Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost?
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Don't miss a brief. We have centrist Democrats like former Vice President Joe Biden who blast Republicans for the harm they have done to core American values of equal opportunity and freedom. We have a president who ridicules the Democrats and shows little knowledge of Republican history. There is so much that needs to be done to dig ourselves out of this huge dysfunctional mess, now intensified even more by the impeachment drama.
One place to start is for Democrats and Republicans alike to appreciate that the towering figure of Teddy Roosevelt was both the father of Democratic Party progressivism and the bridge from Lincoln to modern day Republicans.
Let's get our teachers educating our young people about how the 20th century got started. That will help us wrestle with our challenges in the 21st century, including the impeachment question and especially how Senate Republicans should address the issue. David M. Anderson is editor of "Leveraging" Springer, and sought the Democratic nomination in the congressional race in Maryland's 8th District.
He can be reached at dmamaryland gmail. Want more opinions?
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