No, that's not a reference to the just-completed Democratic Party telethon produced in a control room there. There's no reason to infer anything about the politics of the guys in the control room.
Rather, it's a historical reference. The Socialist Party of Norman Thomas (they'd likely be cancelled by any of the sectarians who call themselves socialist, communist, or Marxist these days)
held their 1932 convention in Milwaukee.
When the Socialists gathered in Milwaukee in 1932, the White House seemed up for grabs. The Republican incumbent, Herbert Hoover, was flailing against the Great Depression. The Democratic front-runner, Franklin D. Roosevelt, faced opposition from conservatives in his own party.
And the Socialists, whose candidate Norman Thomas barely made an electoral dent in the 1928 election, believed their message would register with voters faced with a capitalist system that seemed to be crumbling.
Milwaukee was a logical place for the party to meet. Milwaukee Mayor Dan Hoan, Milwaukee's Socialist mayor since 1916, also was considered a serious presidential candidate — even though he said he wasn't running.
Yes, there was sectarianism. You might expect a spat over how closely to align with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Ukrainian famine still a secret and the Kirov purges in the future, but it's only a socialist who can object to
advocating in Milwaukee for the repeal of Prohibition because fighting hunger is more important. "But for the Socialist Party to mouth such platitudes as 'food is more important than beer' is to evade an issue of interest and importance to the American people." So said New York Times columnist Heywood Broun, a delegate to the convention. Socialist Party operatives with bylines. Imagine that.
No comments:
Post a Comment