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Eleanor Roosevelt — Part 22
Page 18
18 / 99
ee
4)
Soviet America Is Foster’s Goal~
By Oliver H. Crawford
fentinved From First Page
_ Poster is a danger: ous man.
Aid COMMUNIST. headquarters,
they will tel) you that “Mr. Fos-
ter doesn't give interviews.” They
fail to add, as they very well could,
“without a court order.”
Por on the occasions when the
present leader of the American
Communisis has talked for ine rec-
ord, it hes been very interesting
indeed.
It was in 1928, in accepting the
Communist Party nomination for the
presidency, that Foster said: “We
must build a Soviet government in
the United States. It will come and
behind it will stand a Red Army.”
In the same address. he warned of
the dangers of an imperialistic war
and advised workers to turn it into
a@ civil war for the establishment of
Communism.
It was in 1930. before a House In- |
vestigating commitice. that foster
testified that Communists in this
country owed first allegiance to the
“Red Flag of the Proletariat,"” that
religious ideals had no place in Com-
munism, and that social end racial;
Wality was their cardinal principle.
. s Ld
T WAS in 1930, when Foster was
asked by Representative Hamilton
ish whether the Communist Party
desired to overthrow our Republican
form of government by revolution-
ary methods, that Foster replied by
reading from the program of the
Communist International: *‘the vio-
lence of the bourgeoisie can only be
suppressed by the stern violence of
the proleteriat.”
It was in July, 1935, as a delegate
to the Seventh Congress of the Com-
intern in Moscow that he set forth
his blueprint for a radical working
lass party in the United States,
“The proposed party must be
based on mass trade unions and
Ooemmunists must. persieds the
trade “unions to join a movement
for the formation of « party,” Fos-
ter wrote. “Under present conditions
in the United States, the suggested
party no doubt would assume «
militant radical character, and, if
the Communist Party were to act
energetically, would exercise a strong
and even leading influence therein.”
* td e
T WAS in September, 1939, one
month after the signing of the
Soviet-German non-aggression pact,
that he toid a House Investigating
Committee he would not support the
United States in a war at the side
of Great Britain.
It was in May, 1540, at the conven-
tion of the Communist Party of East-
ern Pennsylvania in Olympia Arena,
711 S. Broad st., that Foster assailed
President Roosevelt's call for 50.000
planes as “a move to get the United
States into the European war."
_ 1943, when Foster 3
addressed the F Pennsylvania Sta State
Communist Convention at Musical
Fund Hall, Sth and Locust sta., Phil-
adelphia, he was calling for the
combined forces of the United Btates
and Britain to open a second front
on behalf of Russia.
Foster's record in discuasion goes
further back than the present con-
flict, however, for he has just doffed
the harness of his second World War.
T WAS in the First World ar as a
member of the Internationa]
orkers of the orld. the “I.W.W." or
“oblies," that Foster begin his career
a5 a revolutionary and the present
trail to the Communist Party leader-
ship.
It was as an I..W. leader that he
helped organize the steel strikers
which threatened to undermine the
Nation's war effort in 1918.
He was one of the first leaders of
the Communist Party in the United
‘States, three times its candidate fqr
President, and organizer of t i
Trades Union Educational Leagug,
which served for a time as its pr
Paganda agency.
He was arrested jin 1923 on charge
of crimina) syndicalism, when Fed-
eral agents surprised him and 17
other Communists at a secret meet-
ing in the sand dunes near Bridg--
man, Mich.
e e °
- i)
E WAS jailed in 1930 on charges:
of provoking a riot at a Com-
munist rally in New York's Union
Square and accepted the Communist
Presidential nomination in a prison |
cell in a speech that lasted one hour’
and eight minutes and bored his"
jailer stiff.
But Foster's bitterest setbacks
were reserved for him by the Com-
munist Party he 50 loyally serves. \
By 1924, when he first ran for
President on the Communist ticket,
Foster had become head of the
American Communist Party, but his
Position-was challenged by Charles
ERuthenberg, one of his compan-
ions of the Michigan sand dunes.
Both went to Moscow to argue
their cases before Gregory‘ Zino-
viefl, head of the Third Interna-
tional. Foster came k. Ruthen-
berg died there and buried in
Moscow. But it was Ja estone, |
now a union officia) and danti-Com- |
munist, Who became the new Com-'
munist leader, not Foster.
e* - «@
N 1929. when Lovestone was writ-
A ten off by the international Jead-
ership of the Communist Party,
Foster again was passed over and a
virtually unknown party worker,
Ear] Browder, got the job.
But the 20 legn years gre over for
Foster. He's in command of the
American Communist Party again
and his course js set.
Hew far Foster will go in the im-"
mediate future, it is safledge ion '
York, will depend upon the cearee”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Phila. F Pa,
of co-operation the United States
retains with the Boviet Union. The
present program calls for building
and strengthening the Communist
Party in achools, unions. veterans’
groupes Minorities and poltical par-
es. r
e* @¢ @
F DIFFICULTIES or differences
arise in the post-war period, these
auxiliaries will be called into play.
How dangerous this program may
be or how far-reaching remains for
the future to decide.
In his oak-paneiled office In the
white U. 8. Court House Building on
Foley Square, E. E. Conroy, agent
in charge of the New York district
of the Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion, is smiling, affable and unin-
formative.
But it doesn't need his con
tion to learn in New York that tile
honeymoon is over. The FRI h
redoubled its vigilance over the Co:
wttintod Tee dene oe whe ee ee
munist leaders and their program.”
(Concluded Tomorrow)
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