Aaron Smith . . . In Memoriam (1973)

Obituary from issue number 3 (1973) of The Western Socialist

Once again it is our sad duty to report the death of a comrade. Aaron H. Smith of Los Angeles, a dedicated member of the World Socialist Movement, if ever there was one, passed away in April of 1973 after a lengthy illness.

"Smitty" first Joined the World Socialist Party in New York City in the Thirties and was a member of the N. Y Local until he settled in Los Angeles in the Mid-Forties. In L. A. he served for a number of years as local secretary and contact member in the directory of The Western Socialist. He was one of those socialists who will be long remembered by his comrades both for his socialist understanding and his wit. He had travelled a bit on the World Socialist trail, having made the scene in Canada. Britain and in Vienna as well as at least two visits to Party Conferences in Boston in his later years.

I first met "Smitty’’ in New York City in 1939 when I was but a fledgling socialist. He was one of the comrades who reinforced my own understanding. He was particularly fond of the taxation question and adept at explaining that it is a capitalist, not a working class problem. Old timers of Boston Local still remember and talk of a lecture he gave on the subject at one of their forums in the Thirties. He broke up his audience as he demolished the theory — prevalent then. too. with radicals — that the poverty-stricken working class pays taxes.

"Smitty" was an upholsterer by trade and when he settled in L. A. he earned his living refurbishing and restoring office chairs, bar stools, etc. He became, as he termed it. a "tacks expert.” I can still see him in my "mind’s eye” (I had settled in L. A. a few years before he arrived) a mouthful of tacks and an upholsterer’s hammer in his hand, plying his trade and joking about his "tacks" expertise.

But it would take much more than a necessarily brief obit to do Justice to Comrade Aaron Smith. All we can do here is bid him a sad farewell in the Journal of his Party.

— A Boston comrade