Hoeppner Socialist And Only Challenger To Dwight Evens
By Bob Small
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is one of at least 20 communist/socialist parties listed in Politics1.com
Why so many? The factions run candidates as a way to get their message out.
The separations started in 1938 when CPUSA (Communist Party of the USA) expelled all Trotskyites, under orders from Joseph Stalin. who was then halfway through his dictatorship. Stalin allegedly ordered the assassination of Trotsky less than two years later.
The three Communist/ Socialist Parties had received over one million votes in the 1932 election, a high water mark for the Left in this country, with James Hudson Mauer of Pennsylvania being the running mate of Norman Thomas.
Chris Hoeppner is the only surviving member of four SWP members originally on the Pennsylvania ballot, a story that the Constitution, Green and Libertarian Parties are all too familiar with and requires a separate post.
He is the only opposition to incumbent Democrat Dwight Evans in the Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District as the Republicans neglected to put up a candidate. The district includes most of center city Philadelphia, along with parts of North and West Philly. It is the most Democratic congressional district in the nation. In 2020 it gave Joe Biden 91 percent of the vote.
Hoeppner is a freight rail conductor and a member of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation union (SMART). He lives in South Philly.
Chris was quoted in a September Article of the Militant, the offical newspaper of the SWP regarding the looming railroad strike strike.
“Railworkers need to get our voices heard. The big-business media is only going to tell the companies side of the story,” he said . “The problems we face, particularly the challenges of having a life outside of work, of spending time with our families, is widespread in the working class”.
Hoeppner Socialist And Only Challenger To Dwight Evens
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
Thomas Jefferson
Sure you know that the doughnut cutter was invented by John F. Blondel of Maine in 1872, but how about giving a little credit to Sea Captain Hanson Gregory who actually invented the doughnut hole itself. That was in 1847.
The Acerra’s All-Brothers Baseball Team: Italian-American Heritage Month
By Joe Guzzardi
In 1997, the Cooperstown Hall of Fame honored the Acerra family, an all-Italian, 12-brother semi-pro team that played .700 winning baseball from 1938 to 1952. Between 1860 and 1940, 29 baseball teams were made up entirely of brothers; the Acerras played longer than any other.
Honored isn’t the same as inducted, so the brothers didn’t join the powerful Italian-American contingent that has Hall of Fame plaques: the New York Yankees’ Joe DiMaggio, Tony Lazzeri, Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto. More recently, Joe Torre, Tommy La Russa and Craig Biggio joined the Cooperstown greats. Among the Italian-American baseball standouts born too soon to benefit from today’s watered-down Hall of Fame standards were Sal “the Barber” Maglie, a New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers and Yankees pitcher, and Rocco Domenico Colavito, a nine-time All-Star with 374 career home runs.
The Acerras’ wonderful story is one of strong family ties, and exceptional baseball skills. Louis “Pop” Acerra coached his sons, part of his family of 17 children. The team consisted of Alfred and Edward as catcher, James and Robert on the mound, Charles at first base, Louis Jr. at second base, Fred at shortstop, Richard at third base and sharing outfield duties, Paul, Joseph, William and Anthony. Back then, girls didn’t play baseball, so Pop’s five daughters rooted from the sidelines along with the family dog “Pitch.” Neighbors couldn’t remember a time when the brothers weren’t out in their yard playing catch or hitting fungos to each other.
The age difference between oldest brother, Anthony, to the youngest, Louis Jr. was 25 years. While being scouted by major league teams, their playing ages were as young as 17 and as old as 40. For 22 consecutive years, the Long Branch High School baseball team fielded an Acerra brother.
The Acerra Brothers Baseball Team
Officially formed in 1938, and under Pop’s watchful eye, over the next 14 years, the team played throughout the East Coast. In 1948, the sibling squad challenged the New York Yankees to an exhibition game, an offer the Bronx Bombers rejected. During World War II, the team temporarily disbanded. Defending America’s freedom was more important than baseball. At different times, six brothers enlisted; when they all returned, the team resumed playing. The brothers turned down college scholarships and offers to play professional baseball. Alfred, the catcher, continued to play after losing sight in one eye. Attempting to bunt, the ball bounced off Alfred’s bat, and struck him directly in the eye. Within months, Alfred was back behind the plate. Brother Freddie said: “He was a pretty good catcher for a guy with one eye.”
In 1946, the Acerras joined the Long Branch City (New Jersey) Twilight Baseball League, and during the next six years, won the championship four times. When the Acerras played, the stands were always packed with fans.
Along their road to success, the Acerras became the talk of the town. In 1947, Life and Look magazines and Ripley’s Believe it or Not ran features on the brothers. The Acerras also appeared on the popular “Once in a Lifetime” nightly radio program.
By 1952, the brothers had married and were raising children. The team’s playing days were over. But 45 years after their last game, the seven still-living brothers accepted the HOF’s invitation to participate in its annual ceremony. James M. Accera, pitcher Jimmy’s son, donated his Dad’s uniform and glove which now are in the same museum with the artifacts of the lives of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Willie Mays.
Acerra said, “This just touches the surface of a family that stayed a family, behind all the baseball and athletic achievements. A family that never allowed sibling rivalry and infighting or success to tear them apart. Their team was a reflection of something greater, something that 14 years, many hardships, the lure of professional contracts, and even a World War could not destroy.”
Acerra’s loving memory stands as a reminder that the team’s accomplishments were more about family values than baseball, and how the national pastime unified them in brotherly love.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
America was built on courage William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 10-13-22
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Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S Truman
America was built on courage William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 10-13-22
Clinton’s Post 1994 Mid-Term Immigration Awakening
By Joe Guzzardi
Every now and again, both during and after his two-term presidency, Bill Clinton espoused sound immigration thoughts that focused on the nation’s best interests. Most recently, Clinton, without naming Joe Biden, took direct aim at the sitting president’s open border fiasco.
On a CNN podcast, and in response to a question about economic migrants who are, in the host’s description, “gaming” the asylum system, Clinton replied that “there’s a limit” at which point open borders will cause “severe disruption.” Clinton added that the established immigration protocols, presumably a reference to the traditional agencies that assist incoming immigrants, function on the assumption that border conditions would “be more normal.”
“Severe disruption” may be the kindest way to describe the chaos in the Rio Grande Valley and other entry points along the Southwest Border. And severely disrupted is an understatement to define the conditions in sanctuary cities New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. where the mayors are grappling unsuccessfully to accommodate the migrants that Texas and Florida governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis send north. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul summoned the National Guard to help Adams with his plan, still in flux, to relocate the migrants to a Randall Island tent city. Adams, who declared the incoming migrants’ need for assistance “a humanitarian crisis,” pleaded to no avail with Biden for a minimum $500 million emergency aid infusion. Having no money to deal with incoming migrants is as disruptive, to use Clinton’s word, as conditions get.
Clinton has long been aware of over-immigration’s effect on American citizens. In his 1995 State of the Union address, given shortly after Republicans picked up eight Senate seats and a net 54 House seats post a GOP mid-term rout to win congressional control for the first time in four decades, Clinton spoke about the anxiety Americans experience during periods of unchecked immigration. Clinton listed many dangers that illegal immigration presents to Americans that included illegal hiring, the subsequent U.S. job losses and providing costly social services. Clinton’s word-for-word conclusion: “It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”
During his SOU speech, Clinton mentioned Barbara Jordan, the former U.S. representative who chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. The commission’s goal was to establish “credible, coherent immigrant and immigration policy.” The African-American Democrat from Texas endorsed significant legal immigration reductions with an emphasis on high-skilled admissions, fewer refugees, more deportations and a chain migration overhaul that would limit sponsorship to nuclear family members. Jordan distilled her immigration vision in a sentence: “Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.
However, Jordan died just months after releasing her report, after which a civil rights, Hispanic advocacy coalition opposed to Jordan’s immigration goals strong-armed Clinton into backing away. Had Jordan lived, her presence would have kept Clinton committed to her commonsense immigration reform rules.
Should the GOP manage to recapture Congress, no sure thing, the results won’t spawn a 1995-style immigration awareness in Biden similar to Clinton’s. As Vice President, Biden continuously hailed “constant” and “unrelenting” immigration stream “in large numbers” as America’s source of strength. Given the red carpet welcome Biden has extended to millions of illegal immigrants and got-aways, complete with, in many cases, parole and work authorization, a presidential immigration awakening is highly improbable.
Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Clinton’s Post 1994 Mid-Term Immigration Awakening
