Keynote Address to the Thirteenth National Convention

The world crisis and the two Americas

Announcer: Delegates to the 13th National Convention of the Socialist Workers' Party, friends and fellow workers of the radio audience, it is my great privilege now to introduce to you the keynote speaker of the convention, the National Secretary of the Socialist Workers' Party, James P. Cannon.

Comrade Chairman, delegates, and friends: we meet in national convention at a time of the gravest world crisis, a crisis which contains within itself the direct threats of a third and more terrible world war. The basic causes of this world crisis are no mystery. The first cause is the breakdown of capitalism throughout Europe and Asia and the colonial lands. The working people want peace and bread, and the capitalist system cannot give it to them. The colonial slaves don't want to be slaves anymore, and capitalism cannot live without colonial slaves. The working people, the poor peasants and the colonial slaves are in revolt against the continued rule of landlords and bankers. On the other hand, American capitalism, the last solvent stronghold of an outlived and doomed world system, is trying to prop up the hated regimes of capitalists and kings and landlords by economic pressure and military force. These are the two main elements of the present world crisis.

The Wall Street money sharks and the brass hats of Prussian mentality are riding high in Washington these days. The masters of America, drunk with power, are threatening and terrifying the people of the world, seeking to dominate and enslave them, striving to transform the other countries of the world into colonies of the American empire. Their program is a program of madness and is doomed to failure, for the great majority of the peoples of the world do not want to be slaves of America. That is to their credit, and we applaud them for it. The attempt to enslave them would be profitable only for the small group of monopolists and the military caste who dream of careers as colonial administrators of conquered peoples.

But the criminal adventure would encounter such ferocious resistance that the American people at home would have to pay an enormous cost: in living standards ruined by inflation, in the stamping out of democracy by military rule, in misery, and in blood and death for the young sons of America. The American people will be among the first victims of the insane campaign of American imperialism to conquer and enslave the world. To avoid this calamity, it is necessary now to show the people of the world the other Americans. For there are two Americas, and millions of the people already distinguish between them. One is the America of the imperialists, of the little clique of capitalists, landlords, and militants [?] who are threatening and terrifying the world. This is the America that the people of the world hate and fear.

There is the other America, the America of the workers and the farmers and the little people. They constitute the great majority. They do the work of the country. They revere its old democratic tradition, its old record of friendship for the people of other lands in their struggles against kings and despots. They appreciate and love the once generous asylum once freely granted to the oppressed who came to these shores from other lands. This is the America which must and will solve the world crisis by taking power out of the hands of the little clique of exploiters and parasites and establishing a government of workers and farmers.

A workers' and farmers' government

The workers' and farmers' government will immediately proceed to change things fundamentally. Throw out the profit and rent hogs and increase the living standards of the people who do the useful work. Assure freedom and democratic rights to all, not forgetting those who are denied any semblance of them now. Call back the truculent admirals from the seven seas and ground the airplanes with their dangling bombs. Hold out the hand of friendship and comradely help to the oppressed and hungry people of the world. These people don't want to fight anybody. They only want to live. There are two billion people in this world, and more than half of them don't get enough to eat. These people should be helped, not threatened, not driven back into slavery under the social system that has kept half of them hungry all their lives.

It's well to recall now that America was born of revolution in 1776. And America secured its unity as a nation through another revolution, the Civil War, which smashed the abomination of chattel slavery in the process. Our great, rich, wonderful country was once the light and the hope of the world, but our America has fallen into the hands of a small and selfish group who are trying to dominate the world and to set up a police state at home. These Wall Street money sharks are just as foreign to the real America as were the despots who ruled the land before the Revolution of 1776. They are just as foreign as were the traffickers in human flesh and blood, the slave owners whose power was broken by the Civil War, the blessed Second American Revolution.

These imperialist rulers of America are the worst enemies of the American people. American democracy, under their rule, is slipping away. The fear that oppressed Mark Twain, the fear that America would lose its democracy, is steadily becoming a reality before our eyes. The Taft-Hartley law is but the most recent instance of this ominous trend. The divine right of kings has reappeared in America, disguised as the divine right of judges to issue injunctions and levy fines against labor organizations. Only three years have passed since the imperialists finished the slaughter of the last war, and now they are drafting the youth for another. Militarism is becoming entrenched in America. Militarism, so long synonymous with goose-stepping Prussianism, is now to be made synonymous with Americanism [inaudible].

Socialism as the way out

A large section of the sturdy immigrants who helped to build this country came here from foreign lands to escape the militarism that oppressed them there, and now their grandsons face the same brutal regimentation in the United States. All this is part and parcel of the development of capitalism, the system which puts profit above all other considerations. The capitalist system of economy has long outlived its usefulness. Capitalism offers no future to the people but depression, imperialist war, fascism, universal violence, and a final plunge into barbarism.

To avoid such a fate, the workers of the United States must go into politics on their own account, independently of all the capitalist politicians. They must take power, establish a workers' and farmers' government, and reorganize the economy of the country on a socialist basis. Socialist economy in the United States, eliminating capitalist wars, profits, and waste, would be so productive as to ensure a rich living for all who are willing and able to work and provide security and ample means for the aged and infirm. We should also try to help the hungry people of the world to improve their standard of life. Socialist America will rapidly make that possible by helping them to secure their own freedom and develop their own economy.

Eventually, the economy of the entire world will be united and planned on a socialist basis. This will bring universal peace and undreamed-of abundance for all people everywhere. The real upward march of humanity will begin. The American working class can open up the way to this new world. They are the majority. They have the power in America. All they need to do is to use their power. We firmly believe they will do so. We firmly believe that the real America, the America of the workers, of the people, will help to save the world by saving herself. We, the [inaudible], we, the National Convention of the Socialist Workers' Party, summon our America to her great destiny, not as a conqueror, but as a liberator of the world.

Announcer: You have heard the keynote address to the National Convention of the Socialist Workers' Party by James P. Cannon, the national secretary. You can obtain copies of Mr. Cannon's speech and the party's election platform by writing to the Socialist Workers' Party, 116 University Place, New York 3, New York. [The Internationale is sung.] The preceding 15-minute period was made available to the Socialist Workers' Party for the keynote address of the party's national convention. You heard the keynote speech from Mr. Cannon. He was introduced by the chairman of the convention, Vincent R. Dunn. This program came to you from New York.