Municipal groceries, taxing the rich, and outrage over police brutality are not new things. With obvious differences between then and now, is it not only remarkable how many of the concerns of New Yorkers are the same today as in 1909, but also that many of the proposed solutions are also. 1909 saw another Hearst candidacy along with the Democrats and Republicans in the much more divided city, by political party, than today. The S.P.’s candidate Ed Cassidy received only 2% that year, a low-point for the Party which often did quite well, in U.S. terms, in New York City elections.

‘Municipal Platform of the Socialist Party of New York City’ from The New York Call. Vol. 2 No. 256. October 23, 1909.

Adopted July 4, 1909.

The Socialist party of the City of New York, in convention assembled, reaffirms its adherence to the principles of International Socialism and declares that the only real issue in this campaign, as in all other campaigns, is the contest between the working class and the capitalist class, for the possession of the powers of government.

This conflict is world-wide. The toilers the world over are rising in one great revolt for the overthrow of wage slavery. Against them stand arrayed the mighty powers of capitalist society: the powers of government, legislative, judicial and military, the church, the schools of learning, science and art–all are used by the capitalist class to hold the workingman in bondage of wage slavery.

Between these two classes there can be no peace, no compromise.

The strife is increasing and grows ever fiercer and in no country more than in this. The capitalists are open, brutal and relentless in their methods of exploitation. They have seized control of the legislative assemblies and courts and have turned them into marts and exchanges where the rights of the people are chartered away. They have formed huge combinations for the control of all the resources of life, holding the people at their mercy by giving or withholding employment at their pleasure. By increasing the prices of necessities of life far above the increase of wages, they have paralyzed every effort of the working class to better their condition, the subsidized colleges and newspapers prating all the while about the law of supply and demand. They keep millions of men and women out of work, driving thousands into a life of crime and vice, while their servile police officials boast of the increasing list of arrests and convictions. They have met brutality with club and bullet every attempt of the working class to throw off this intolerable tyranny. And behind every club, behind every bullet, there is always found a Republican or a Democratic office holder.

For as the interests of the two classes are irreconcilable, no capitalist political party can serve the working class, Republican or Democratic, Reform or Fusion, they all serve their capitalist master, they all make the workingmen their dupes. Exploited and oppressed by the capitalists, betrayed by the capitalist parties, the workingmen formed a party of their own, composed of workingmen and controlled by workingmen–the Socialist party.

The tide of the social revolution can no more be stemmed. The Socialist party is advancing, marshalling the proletarian host for the conquest of the public powers, with the ultimate object of overthrowing capitalism and establishing the Co-operative Commonwealth. With this final object ever in view, the Socialist party enters this campaign with the following municipal program:

MUNICIPAL PROGRAM.

1. Home Rule.

No man can be truly free whose livelihood is owned by another. There can be no real self-government as long as the workingmen are deprived of the opportunity for self-employment. The Republican and Democratic parties have stripped the city of New York of its right to establish municipal industries and to give the workingmen an opportunity to earn a livelihood.

The Socialist party declares for the fullest measure of self-government for the city of New York; against government by undemocratic boards and commissions: for the introduction of the initiative, referendum and recall: and it demands that the city charter be amended accordingly. It demands that the powers of the city government shall be so extended as to enable it to engage in any industry or public works it may see fit to undertake, especially during industrial crises, for the purpose of giving employment to those thrown out of work.

II. Municipal Works.

The industries on which the life, health and comfort of the whole people depend should be owned and operated for the whole people. The Republican and Democratic parties have voted to the capitalists franchises of immense value. The Subway “lease” is only one instance of the robbery of the city by its corrupt officials. The Tammany-Republican- Wall-Street-Mayor of this city refrained from collecting the huge sums of money due to the city from private corporations for the purpose of surrendering the city, through a system of bond issues, to the financiers and of keeping it near its debt limit. The Socialist party demands that the city reclaim all franchises and public grants now held by private corporations, and that industries requiring a franchise be owned and operated by the municipality itself for the equal benefit of all citizens, the city to acquire and operate all street railways, ferries, gas and electric lighting and heating plants, telephones, ice plants, coal yards, milk depots, etc., the income from such industries to be applied for the improvement of the condition of the mass of employees by the reduction of working hours, the increase of wages. the protection of life and health, and to the improvement of the now inadequate public service; any surplus remaining after such ends have been provided for, to be applied to the reduction of charges. It demands that the millions due to the city from private corporations be immediately collected and that the income-bearing properties of the city be offset in estimating its debt limit.

III. Work for the Unemployed.

One of the chief duties of a municipal government is use all its resources and credit for the extension of public works and municipal industries for the relief of the unemployed in times of industrial depression. The past and present city governments have all utterly failed in this duty. The Republican, Democratic and all reform parties have met the just demands of the working class with scorn and contempt. The Injunction and the police club have become the symbols of the rule of these capitalist parties.

The Socialist party demands that the city should at once commence work on the proposed subways, bridges and other public works. It preference, and that the wages and conditions of work be at least as favorable to labor as those prevailing in organized trades: that no city employe should be required or permitted to work more than eight hours a day; that in all departments men and women receive equal pay for equal work; that the city shall secure protection to the life and limb of the workers on public works; that every public employe shall be insured by the municipality against sickness, accident, and old age.

IV. Courts and Police.

The Socialist party denounces as tyrannous and infamous the use of courts and police to delay and prevent public relief of the unemployed and to intimidate workingmen enduring industrial disputes.

V. Recreation and Free Speech.

The Socialist party condemns the police interference with the right of free speech and with the fullest opportunity for recreation and amusement, especially on Sunday, the only day of rest for workingmen.

VI. Schools and Kindergartens.

No other question concerns the municipality so much as the rearing and education of the children. While the workingmen constitute the bulk of the population of this city, even the elementary education which their children receive is grossly inadequate and tends to prejudice the minds of the children against the interests and ideals of the working class. Thousands of children are deprived of a place in school or given only a half-day attendance, while the average school life of a workingman’s child is being gradually reduced. At the same time capitalist greed drives the child into the factory to grind out ever more profit by the low price of child labor.

The Socialist party demands that public kindergartens and playgrounds be established in connection with every school; that ample school accommodations and an adequate force of teachers be provided: and that meals, clothing and medical attendance be furnished to all school children who may require them.

VII. Homes for the Toilers.

The capitalist class has possessed Itself of all the habitable land of this city, covering much of it with hideous tenements, “homes” so-called for the workingmen. With a mind for profit only, the capitalists have penned up the workingmen in these breeding places of disease, where air and light can only be had at a high premium. The frequent fires with appalling loss of human life show how low the capitalist class values the lives of the workingmen. Any political party that stands out as a champion of the present system of exploitation, as the Republican and Democratic and Reform parties do, can and will offer no remedy for this most crying wrong.

The Socialist party demands that the city shall reclaim sufficient habitable land and erect modern dwellings with ample provision for air, light and privacy, to be let at cost.

VIII. Equal and Unrestricted Suffrage.

The Socialist party condemns all legislation to curtail the election franchise and demands equal and u restricted suffrage for men and women.

IX. Hospitals.

The Socialist party demands an efficient and complete system of municipal pal hospitals and medical service.

In offering this municipal program the Socialist party warns the workingmen against the false pretenses of so-called reform and independent parties. They have only one object in view–to abolish the professional politicians and give the capitalists a direct control of the government. In voting for reform, business or independent administrations, the workingmen will not lighten the burdens that weigh them down, for, as experience has shown, a government controlled by the capitalists directly is even more obdurate in resisting the demands of the workingmen than a government by professional politicians.

Workingmen, do not be deluded into the belief that the capitalists will permit any measures of real benefit to the working class to be carried into effect by the municipality so long as they remain in undisputed control of the state and federal government and especially of the judiciary. Every workingmen should bear in mind the long list of court decisions nullifying every important measure for the relief of the wide-spread suffering of the toilers.

We call upon the working class to curb the high-handed tyranny of the courts which arrogate to themselves ever more power to abrogate existing laws and make new laws. The Socialist party is pledged to abolish government by judicial usurpation, show of power, by an increased vote of the Socialist party and the election of some of its candidates will be an effective warning to the capitalistic courts that will make them pause in their despotic course.

It is time that the workingmen call a halt. We have had meat riots and rent riots under a reform administration; bread riots amidst a revelry of corruption with Tammany in power. While the exploitation of the producers grows ever more oppressive, strikes ever more frequent and the city officials ever more servile in arresting and clubbing strikers, the existence of the toilers grows ever more precarious, the outcasts and unfortunates ever more numerous, the bread line grows ever longer, and the riches wrung from the toil of millions of men, women and children, and amassed in the hands of a few, grow ever vaster.

Workingmen, on our class devolves the great historic mission of freeing mankind from capitalistic misrule and tyranny. This we can achieve only by banding together into a political party, distinct from and opposed to all political parties of the capitalist class. Such a party is the Socialist party, a party whose only motive is to serve the interests of the working class, whose only aim is to abolish the capitalist system of exploitation and to establish the Co-operative Commonwealth.

Workingmen! Vote as you strike–for your own interests!

Vote for the candidates of the Socialist party!

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1909/091023-newyorkcall-v02n256.pdf