Talk:Norman Thomas

Okay. I'm getting rid of my previous talk to myself about the Trotsky quote. It got filtered out of the article anyway. Now - the article's had some pretty serious changes, many of them obviously by latter-day disciples of Thomas. That gets us some information, but not compliance with WP's NPOV policy. So I'd ask - let's get some discussion going. 69.69.280.185 put up some good stuff, but badly in need of some reference. We need to think about how to re-organize the article, stop putting peoples' views on socialism in it, and flesh it out somewhat. Thomas was around into the '60s, and played a role in the civil rights movement as well, which we need to include. I'd propose breaking down the article into the following paragraphs:

1. Sketch that runs a little longer. High school, any other tidbits go here. 2. Background - university, minister, Christian socialism. 3. Entry into socialist movement. "Is Conscience a Crime?", WWI, 1920s work. 4. Involvement in Socialist Party. Perrennial candidate, etc. 5. Ideology. Thomas' anti-communism, move toward social democracy. 6. 1940s and later work outside of SP. 7. Involvement in civil rights movement.

I also want to be careful to avoid either panegyrics to Thomas' politics or outright bashing of them. There's a definite tendency in recent edits to be too glowing about the man, but I think this article can be solid. -Cadriel 04:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An Extremely Interesting Quote

I stumbled acorss this quote Thomas made, "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." That is quite interesting, because the Democrats and Socalist act like they hate each other, and yet the six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America made this commit about liberals, hmmmmmmmm. LordRevan 00:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting commit [sic], indeed. You might try to come up with a citation before you litter up these articles with your idiotic drivel and constant attempts to "swiftboat" FDR and the New Deal. I find you people ignorant and disgusting. I wish you would get your own Wikipedia of Tinfoil Hattery and BS. That is why I deleted this questionable "commit" [sic]. I had some folks look into it but I knew it to be false the minute I saw it. Go to the Radical Refernce Library on the web and it may be posted there soon. In the mean time, here are the texts of the e-mails I have received from them. You will note that it is likely paraphrasing, (distorting) something written by Upton Sinclair ( a distant relative, and I don't much appreciate that, pal), in a letter TO Norman Thomas. If you can find a credible cite for this quote, other than books from Regnery or websites like Renew America, please... feel free to let us know.

"Sorry this is far from "immediate" as your urgency note requested. About 6 of us have had no luck yet finding this anywhere except in web sites and books that do NOT give a source for it. This is a great example of "you can't prove that someone DIDN'T say something"

We can build evidence for the possibility, or questionability, of this by looking at other people's efforts to find it - for example, books.google.com search: liberalism socialism "norman thomas" gets 84 hits, including Lou Cannon. Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power. PublicAffairs, 2003. ISBN: 1586480308. (F866.4.R43 C36 2003 in most academic libraries; in 979.4... or BIO section of most public libraries). On page 125, Cannon says [of Reagan] ..."a favorite line was this supposed prediction of Norman Thomas...", and "This is a suspect quotation, and Reagan gave no reference for it". Cannon also says in a note "If Thomas said this, I have been unable to find evidence of it...."

Naturally, a thorough researcher would try to find many other such books, from people of various political bents, to build a case that such a quote is either probable, possible, or unlikely. One would think such a striking quote would make it into biographies of Thomas; try the tables of contents and indexes for "Liberalism", etc. Even statements from social and political historians (who claim to have looked for such a quote) can help build a case for or against it.

But it IS a good example of how even a false quote can take on a life of its own, because it shows how hard it is to prove a person did NOT say something - even if a "grand champion" history reference expert DOES end up finding this particular quote somewhere in unpublished Norman Thomas correspondence."

Jim Miller U of Maryland

"I wanted to elaborate on what we actually searched for the alleged Norman Thomas quote on liberalism vs socialism. We checked quotations in Bartletts (Bartleby.com), Lexis Academic, the text of news articles from New York Times and Washington Post Historical - searching: liberalism and socialism and "norman thomas"; a few biographies of Thomas, including: "Norman Thomas: The Last Idealist" by W.A. Swanberg (1976), and "Prophets of the Left" by R. Hyfler (1984).

Web searches turned up a related quote from Upton Sinclair (which ALSO should be double checked!) in Wikipedia - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair : "The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them. Letter to Norman Thomas (25 September 1951)". See also at the bottom of http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jupton.htm"

Thanks,

Jim

Jim Miller Senior Reference Librarian and

   College Park PTDL Representative

Engineering & Physical Sciences Library University of Maryland College Park MD 20742-7011