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University Daily Kansan Thursday, April 22, 1965
Norman Thomas Still Active As Socialist Elder Statesman
After 60 years of lecturing, writing and campaigning, Norman Thomas can safely be called the older statesman of American socialism. But despite his 80 years, he is not yet ready to fade into the background. Witness his busy speaking schedule, twice weekly syndicated columns, magazine articles, and books.
By William Lynch Jr.
Thomas was scheduled to speak here at 1:30 p.m. today.
From his college days, Thomas has been in the forefront of liberal movements, crusading for human dignity and well-being under the Socialist Party banner. He is pledged to Christian liberal socialism rather than Marxism, having become disenchanted with the Soviet experiment in the late 1930's when the Soviet-Nazi pact was signed.
THOMAS was taught by Woodrow Wilson while at Princeton University, where he also excelled in debate, orchestra, and chorus. He wore a Phi Beta Kappa key as he delivered the valedictorian address to his 1905 graduating class. He was later to be ordained a Presbyterian minister at New York's Union Theological Seminary, although he left the ministry in 1931.
Conservatism was Thomas' political credo until he spent some time in work and had taken a world trip. In these first experiences he came to regard colonialism and poverty as serious roadblocks to the development of the common man.
The outbreak of the Great War drove Thomas to pacifism and socialism. He joined the American Union Against Militarism in 1917, and cofounded a branch of that group that eventually became the American Civil Liberties Union. He attributes his conversion to socialism to "the grotesque inequalities, conspicuous waste, gross exploitation and unnecessary poverty all about me." He came out in favor of public ownership and democratic management of the means of production, but rejected the Marxist emphasis on changing the social order by force.
In 1924, Thomas' name appeared on the gubernatorial ballot in New York. He later ran two more races for governor and one for alderman, all of which he handily lost.
AFTER THE death of Eugene Debs in 1926, Thomas ascended to the top place in the Socialist party, although factional disputes in the thirties challenged his leadership. In 1928, he headed the Socialist ticket in his first bid for the Presidency, and got 268,000 votes.
The depression revitalized the Socialist image, but President Roosevelt's New Deal cut short the party's mass popularity. However, Thomas continued his presidential campaigns until 1948. He has never held public office.
Thomas stood almost alone among prominent Americans as he expressed immediate shock and horror at the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs. He began immediately to crusade for universal disarmament, saying that the advent of nuclear weaponry had made war an obsolete means for settling disputes between nations.
His final campaign in 1948 was full of anti-Russian statements. He attributed most of the dangers of World War III to the Soviets' actions and policies. He also criticized Henry Wallace's Progressive party for being communist-dominated.
After the 1948 defeat, Thomas
Senior Wins Wolfe Award at Dinner
Kris Berg, Leawood senior, was presented the Jack Wolfe Award as the outstanding senior physical education major at a banquet Tuesday night for physical education students in the Kansas Room of the Kansas Union.
The Jack Wolfe Award was started last year by Mrs. Wolfe in memory of her husband, Jack Wolfe was basketball coach at Colby Kansas Junior College. He was killed last year in an airplane crash at Norman, Okla., on his way to a KU-OU football game. The award money was given to the KU Endowment Fund by the friends of Wolfe.
urged that the Socialist Party be remolded into primarily an educational and research institution rather than a vote-getting party. That trend continued until 1960, when the party decided to abandon hopes of getting socialists elected to high office.
NORMAN THOMAS, however, has continued as a popular dissenter, criss-crossing the nation with his message.
be able to sleep at night with reasonable satisfaction . . . to have had a part in some of the things that have been accomplished in civil liberties, in the field of better race relations, and the rest of it. It is something of an achievement, I think, to keep the idea of socialism before a rather indifferent or even hostile American public. That's the kind of achievement I have to my credit. As the world counts achievement, I haven't got much."
A writer once asked Thomas what contributions he felt he had made in his long career. The octogenarian reflected that "it is an achievement to live to my age and feel that one has kept the faith, or tried to . . . to
Mr. Thomas is not an unfamiliar speaker at KU. He has spoken here previously at least six times. His talks have been in 1927, 1934, 1936, 1941, 1944, and 1945.
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