Commonwealth v. Goodman

16 Pa. D. & C. 253, 1931 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 30
CourtPhiladelphia County Court of Quarter Sessions
DecidedSeptember 28, 1931
DocketNos. 95 and 96
StatusPublished

This text of 16 Pa. D. & C. 253 (Commonwealth v. Goodman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Philadelphia County Court of Quarter Sessions primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Goodman, 16 Pa. D. & C. 253, 1931 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 30 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1931).

Opinion

Reed, P. J.,

O. C., forty-seventh judicial district, specially presiding,

The defendants were jointly indicted and convicted of sedition. At the time of the trial the Commonwealth adduced evidence that these defendants were distributing certain circulars, to which was attached a slip of paper which reads as follows:

“Unemployed Workers

Employed Workers.

“Come to The

DEMONSTRATION

on International Unemployment Day.

■ “Wednesday, February 25,12 noon, “Assemble at Independence Square to March to City Hall.

“Join with WORKERS throughout the World.”

And the circular to which the slip was attached reads as follows: “UNITE THE MASSES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UNEMPLOYED!

“An Open Letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of America

[254]*254“Unity of action by the working masses in the struggle for the unemployed millions requires first of all united action of the workers vanguard. The National Committee of the Communist League (the Left Opposition) is in favor of such a unity of action. As a means of bringing it about we submit to you the following analysis of the problem and a concrete program of action. We ask your serious consideration, and that of all Party members and class conscious workers, to this appeal for a common struggle.

“Unemployment is increasing and with it increases the inability of the capitalist system to provide the workers with the means of existence. The number of workers who search in vain for a job mounts ever higher. This is a problem of great proportions for the American working class movement, and particularly of its revolutionary section, the Communists.

“The crisis still continues in its downward sweep. As yet there is no change in this course. Even the bourgeois economic experts are extremely cautious in their predictions. But they have with brutal frankness demanded a further reduction in the general cost of production, which means essentially further wage cuts. The capitalist owners of industry utilize the unemployment situation to play the unemployed against the employed. They see in the situation an opportunity to force downward the standard of living of the workers in order to increase their own profits. From the standpoint of the proletariat the organization of a militant movement of resistance, uniting the' widest masses of workers, stands first on the agenda.

“It is not only America’s involvement in world economy that has produced the present crisis. It grows, the same as any former crisis, with deadly precision out of the capitalist system of production itself. This must not be forgotten. Ever so often a crisis recurs when the production cycle reaches the saturation point and the market is glutted. This is a fundamental contradiction of capitalism. In recent years rationalization and speed-up of the workers has rapidly increased the productive capacity. This only made the contradiction more acute. The result has been a great excess of means of production on the one hand, and an excess of laborers without employment and without means of existence on the other.

“To present this as the final crisis of American capitalism would be false. It is still the world dominant power within a declining capitalist imperialism. It is preparing now by all possible means to climb out of its economic difficulties upon the backs of the workers of America and abroad. But so much more, in order to maintain its existence, does it need an industrial reserve army — the unemployed. This army will hence be with us as a permanent phenomenon; millions of workers condemned to remain without work and without means of existence.

“There will be more crises of capitalist production. They have already become world wide in character. The ranks of the unemployed are augmented everywhere, except in Russia where capitalist unemployment has disappeared. Within the capitalist world the contradictions are thus growing and multiplying; the class struggle will increase in intensity. There can be no solution to the unemployment problem under capitalism. The solution can be found only in the socialist revolution, and finally only on a world scale.

“In its ruthless efforts to find a way out American capitalism has embarked upon its savage campaign of slashing wages and crushing any workers’ resistance. Its main fire is concentrated on the Communist vanguard. In the serious matter of correct Communist policy for the unemployment problem this outstanding feature of the moment must be given first recognition. Sec[255]*255ondly, we must recognize the present defensive character of the general working class movement. There is not a ‘widespread workers radicalization,’ nor a ‘revolutionary upsurge of the American masses’ at the present time. To proceed from such a fictitious analysis can lead only to fundamentally false conclusions and isolation of the Communist forces. But the situation is full of promising potentialities for a rise of the labor movement, for its entering into more active resistance and struggle for its needs. By means of a correct policy the Communist forces can connect up with this main stream, they can help to prepare effectively for this new rise and give to it a positive direction.

“The endeavor to keep the unemployment movement within the narrow bounds of the Trade Union Unity League is wrong. This policy hems in the movement instead of broadening it. It is false to center the unemployment program, and the activities and demonstrations, around the deceptive opportunist petition campaign to Congress. And it is doubly false to represent the Social Insurance bill as a panacea for unemployment. Such departures from Marxism only create reformist illusion. A militant struggle for real and immediate relief is indispensable, and this requires the closest unity of employed and unemployed. The slogan of ‘hunger marches,’ at a time when this unity is far from established, may tend to separate the unemployed from the employed and thus to narrow the struggle.

“The net result of these errors is a situation in which the demonstrations become demonstrations only of the small Communist vanguard as an easy target for policemens’ clubs, while the main body of the working masses stands aside as passive bystanders. We must follow the opposite road, we must first of all endeavor to unite the working masses, with the Communist vanguard in the lead, in the struggle for the unemployed. In this struggle, those at work, suffering under the ravages and degradations of the capitalist offensive, must have their place side by side with the unemployed. Given such direction, no policemens’ clubs can beat back the movement.

“Our principal object is and remains the proletarian revolution. Our agitation and tactics must naturally vary to correspond with the objective developments, with the rhythms of the ebbs and flows, the upward and the downward curves of the working class movement. In each specific stage of development, our tactics must lay the basis for correct preparation and direction of the next one. Correct tactics lead toward the revolutionary goal. Wrong tactics lead away from it and strengthen the enemy. A correct approach to the problem of ameliorating the working class needs of today, and now so acutely pressing, prepares for the battles of the rising labor movement tomorrow. Agitation slogans and immediate demands can present no solution in themselves and should not be so designed.

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16 Pa. D. & C. 253, 1931 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 30, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-goodman-paqtrsessphilad-1931.