frankenlies.com
Addendum A: Franken and Norman Thomas
This author wanted to include a section that addresses Mr. Franken's blasé, passing reference to Socialist presidential candidate, Norman Thomas. On page 20 of Lies (pp. 9-10 in the paperback), Franken innocently labels Thomas as one who "first [ran for President] in 1928 with a radical proposal for something called 'Social Security'." Unfortunately, Norman Thomas represented much more than that, and Franken's indifferent (if not positive-sounding) attitude towards an avowed Socialist is far too common nowadays.
Was Norman Thomas simply a well-meaning politician with a fresh, liberal agenda for America? Not exactly. Thomas once wrote,
I believe that the hope for the future lies in a new social and economic order which demands the abolition of the capitalistic system. [bold and italics added]1
Thomas' words closely echo those of the Socialist Party's founder Eugene V. Debs, who said, "The Socialist Party stands fearlessly and uncompromisingly for the overthrow of the labor-robbing, war-breeding, and crime-inciting capitalist system."2 It was Norman Thomas who succeeded Debs as the Socialist Party's presidential candidate following Debs' death in 1926.
But didn't Thomas support Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which essentially carried out a Socialist program that made Social Security a reality in America? When a reporter asked Thomas this very question, he retorted, "Roosevelt did not carry out the Socialist platform, unless he carried it out on a stretcher."3
Most disturbing, however, is Norman Thomas’ seeming association with one of the most abhorrent and racist movements this nation has ever witnessed: the eugenics movement of the early part of the 20th century.4 At the time this "science" was growing, Webster defined eugenics as "the science of improving stock, whether human or animal."5 Most recently it has been defined as "the study of methods of improving genetic qualities by selective breeding (especially as applied to human mating)."6
Among the several repulsive platforms of the eugenics movement of the 1920's and 1930's were the forced sterilization and segregation of the so-called "human weeds" of society, which supposedly included "morons, misfits, and the maladjusted" and "genetically inferior races."7 The movement’s targets were also labeled as "unfit" and "feebleminded."8 It’s no wonder that Adolf Hitler, in his book Mein Kampf, looked to the eugenics programs in the United States as his model for what he ultimately desired in Nazi Germany.9
Midge Decter, in "The Nine Lives of Population Control," has cited Norman Thomas as having spoken "with passion of ‘the alarming high birthrate of definitely inferior stock’."10 Gregg Easterbrook, in "The Scopes Monkey Trial," wrote that Thomas "had announced that childbearing should be restricted among ‘inferior stock’."11 In January of 1923, Thomas addressed the New York Legislative Conference.
"Birth Control will not automatically regulate this question of proportionate increase of population as between nations, races and classes, but it will make possible such regulation without the practice of cruelty and without the appeal to a restraint that will not be widely practiced ... Eugenics cannot produce supermen; it can eliminate certain manifestly unfit types, and improve the general physical standard."12
A synopsis of Thomas’ address was later printed in Birth Control Review, a publication established by Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood (originally called the Birth Control League). It was Sanger who wrote of the "human weeds", "morons," and "misfits," as referenced above. Among those who later contributed to Birth Control Review were individuals who either had a direct role in Hitler’s eugenics program (Ernst Rudin)13 or praised (!) the Third Reich’s abominable "race purification" programs (Leon Whitney).14 Margaret Sanger was an avowed Socialist.15
Franken correctly notes in a tiny endnote on the last page of text of Lies (page 379, (paperback, p. 407)) that Evan Thomas, Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, is the grandson of Norman Thomas.
__________________
Notes:
1 W. A. Swanberg, Norman Thomas: The Last Idealist (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976), p. 58.
2 Francis X. Gannon, A Biographical Dictionary of the Left (Belmont, MA: Western Islands, 1973), p. 317.
3 W.A. Swanberg, p.204.
4 By no means is this author implying that eugenics was ever part of any official platform of the Socialist Party.
5 Webster's Dictionary, 1913, according to http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/eugenics.
6 NewWorld Dictionary, according to http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/eugenics.
7 Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization (New York: Brentano's, 1922), p. 101.
8 Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), p.4.
9 Joseph Collison, "Weaving the Tangled Web," New Oxford Review (Berkeley, CA: January 2001), pp. 16-25.
10 Midge Decter, "The Nine Lives of Population Control," First Things (New York: December 1993), pp. 17-23.
11 Gregg Easterbrook, "The Scopes Monkey Trial," http://www.beliefnet.com/story/2/story_228_1.html.
12 Norman Thomas, "Some Social Aspects of Birth Control." Synopsis of an address at the New York State Legislative Conference, Albany, January 23, 1923. Birth Control Review, Volume VII, Number 4 (April 1923), pp. 90 and 98.
13 George Grant, Killer Angel (Nashville, TN: Highland House, 1995, 2001), pp. 86-87.
14 Ibid, p. 87.
15 Ibid, p. 44. [Again ... By no means is this author implying that eugenics was ever part of any official platform of the Socialist Party.]