Henry Graber: "Have you thought about the homeless this week?"

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Henry Graber in his Long Beach home: "Then he'd SOCIALISTACTION AUGUST 1992 11 Henry Graber, a lifelong union militant and revolutionary socialist, died on July 5 at the age of 88 in Long Beach, Calif.

The son of a German coal miner, he was one of the union activists who organized International Harvester for the Farm Equipment Union. Henry worked for 30 years at International Harvester as a sheet metal worker.

Henry joined the Communist Party during the ultraleft period (1928-1935). When the party decided to organize red trade unions, he resigned with a statement that workers had to be in the mainstrean of the union movement.

In 1943, Henry joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). He was active in the party until 1953. He left the SWP because of its criticisms of Mao and the Chinese Communist Party.

He later admitted, however, that he had made a big mistake because, "No reform is going to come from the [Stalinist] bureaucracy."

Henry became a sympathizer of Socialist Action, and about six months before he died, applied for membership. "I want to die as a member of Socialist Action," he said.

For 12 years, Henry regularly attended Long Beach City Council meetings, denouncing the council for not helping the homeless, not demanding funding for the schools, not protecting the environment, and for not opposing the Gulf War.

A four-column obituary in the Long Beach Press-Telegram (July 9, 1992), gives a vivid description of Graber's interventions at the City Council meetings:

"At first he walked into the meetings with his cane, wearing a broad-brimmed straw fedora and black sunglasses. Later, as emphysema and old age took their toll, he came in a three-wheeled electric cart, the fedora tilted to shade his weathered face from the sun.

"He'd get to the podium, hang his cane on his pants pocket, lean on the lectern and glare at the nine council members through his dark glasses. Then he'd give 'em hell.

'What have you done for the homeless this week?,' he'd ask. 'Have you thought about the homeless this week?' "

Henry's favorite statement was, "The 'Republicrats' [Democrats and Republicans] support the corporate structure."

He ended every speech at the council meetings with the declaration, "Only a labor party can represent people and human beings. Only a labor party can be truly democratic." As a conscience for the give 'em hell" at the city council meetings.

working class at these city council meetings, where the interests of the rich take priority over the needs of the poor, Henry Graber will be sorely missed.

George Novack, Marxist philosopher, author, lecturer, and intellectual, died recently. The following statement, to be sent to the Socialist Workers Party and the Fourth International, was approved unanimously by the Fifth Convention of Socialist Action.

See the September issue of Socialist Action for an appreciation of Novack's contributions to the socialist movement.

"The convention of Socialist Action has learned with profound sadness of the death of George Novak. He played an important historic role in the founding of American Trotskyism and in the formation of the Dewey Commission, which in its hearings exposed the frame-up nature of the Moscow Trials.

He was a political leader in close collaboration with James P. Cannon, and for many years after Cannon's death continued as a revolutionary leader in the Socialist Workers Party and the Fourth International.

A Marxist philosopher and historian, he was the author of many invaluable books and articles in these fields. Those who were fortunate enough to know George as a human being found him to be a good friend and a patient teacher, always ready to give an opinion on a manuscript or to supply information. His death removes a link with Trotsky and Cannon, but his work will live on.

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George Novack: 1905-1992