The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 25, 1924, Page 6

Page Six «HE DAILY WORKE THE DAILY WORKER. |The Public Ownership Myth Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO., 1640 N. Halsted St., Chicago, Il. (Phone: Lincoln 7680.) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail: $3.50..6 months $2.00..8 months in Chicago only): $2.50. .3 months $6.00 per year By mail $4.50..6 months $8.00 per year By carrier: $10.00 per year $1.00 per month Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1640 N. Halsted Street J. LOUIS ENGDAHL MORITZ J. LOEB Entered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1923 at the Post- Office at Chicago, Ill., under the act of March 3, 1879. eH 104 Chicago, Ilineis Advertising rates on application. Archie and Teddy- Office Boys Political reputations and prestige of those involved in the Teapot Oil Dome Steal are suffering and will suffer more. The morality of capitalism penalyzes those who are found to have sinned against their fellow-plunderers by coarse work and carelessness. A presi- dential year has made it impossible to smother the smell arising from the oily mess or to ad- minister the usual coat of whitewash. Of all the revelations that have been made, however, none so shattering of a carefully cul- tivated myth as the connection of the offspring of the toothful Teddy wih grafters on both the giving and receiving end. Theodore Roosevelt is assistant secretary of the navy department whose head, Edward Denby, approved the leases to Sinclair and Doheny. He signed the leases for Denby. Archie Roosevelt, until a few days ago, was vice-president of one Sinclair company and director in many others. His actual work seems to have consisted, by his own testimony, of buying steamship tickets and running other errands for Harry F. Sin- clair. Young Teddy fills a similar berth in the navy department. He attends semi-official func- tions as a representative of the administration, makes the most asinine speeches in the memory of man and has his picture taken for the roto- gravure sections—wherein the Roosevelt name is prominently displayed. For Theodore Roosevelt alive we had no more respect than we have for any other polit- ical mountebank; dead, we do not mourn, but this we will say: he stood on his own feet and did not live on the memory of others. os ET tone ce his reputa-., tion ana have used the family name to add what lustre it could to the tarnished tinsel of the Coolidges, Denbys, Mellons, Falls and Daughertys. A Roosevelt heir running down to the dock and buying steamship tickets for an escaping grafter is not so strange after all. The dynasty that the father planned to found has found its niche; the heirs are now the office boys of the real rulers—and they are a little frightened at the company in which they find themselves. _ The Roosevelt tradition has been drowned in oil. Our Mistake A department of justice agent tells the senate committee investigating Communist propaganda, that members of the Workers Party of America were instructed to join the American Legion so as to get arms and am- munition for a revolution. Having in mind the major activities of legion posts thruout the country, we had supposed that about all one could get by being an active member was tickets to prizefights. /What a representative and responsive form of government we are blessed with! In any other country in the world with a so-called democratic form of government, The Teapot Dome scandal would have caused a cabinet crisis, resignations of Coolidge henchmen would have been the order of the day and the administration would have been forced to form a new cabinet dr call an election. In the United States the officials involved instead of going to the country go to Europe until some other outrage crowds them off the front page. Samuel Gompers is so delightfully practical compared with the communists. He inspires the unemployed miners by telling them that electric power, will in a few years, be pro- duced right at the mouth of the mines and that this will be a much cheaper source of power. It will be cheaper—for the employers—but this is what passes for constructive thinking in the great American labor movement. General “Hell and Maria” Dawes is in Europe representing the American bankers, and, inci- dently, the American government. He pro- poses an international gold bank as a solution of the German financial problem. The Chicago Tribune co-operates thusly: “It is possible that a big American financial man will be chosen as head of the bank.” Judge Hanby of Los Onglaize (correct), in holding hearings on the Dines shooting in Mabel Normand’s apartments has established the needed ment fon é cedent of a bedroom environ-| ponent of law and Tribune, Had the scheme favored in the article on a proposed public super-power system published on this page been advocated and adopted twenty-five years ago perhaps it would have had some possibility of success. Today, the water-power, the oil and the coal upon the possession of which the success of any scheme of public ownership of power depends, are in the hands of the most powerful indus- trial and financial groups in this nation. Just why any group of citizens should pick out, at this late date, one natural resource on which to make what can be nothing but a de- fensive fight conductéd by scattered groups is a mystery but not an unsolvable one. There are, among the citizenry, quite a large number who can work up a heated enthusiasm for re- forms of this character when the position of the enemy has become almost impregnable and complete victory would interfere in no way with such basic problems as low wages and un- employment. One has only to learn that Samuel Gompers and other labor leaders who support the capitalist parties have endorsed this scheme to know that it is a harmless enter- prise for which, however, money may be ob- tained and jobs for friends created. The public ownership of water-power, oil and coal or any other natural resource presup- poses that the government friendly to such enterprises is in power and so far as any sane person can determine most of the sponsors of the publicly owned super-power scheme are extremely hostile to the only movement that might be able to put such a government in power—the Federated Farmer-Labor Party and other farmer-labor parties such as those calling the May 80 conference in St. Paul. We doubt very much if any group of work- ers in the United States can be induced to strike to secure public ownership of water- power. (The only organization that functions in this field to any extent is the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; they have endorsed the plan as an organization but the sober truth is that under McNulty, late presi- dent, and Noonan, his successor, organization in the light and power—to say nothing of tele- phone and telegraph—industry has practically disappeared. The struggle, then, must be a parliamentary one. In the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States great water-power corporations not only have grabbed the available and easily developed power sites but actually control the state governments. Their interlocking direc- torates bind them to the national plunderbund and they have nothing to fear from any demo- erat or republican administration. In California, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the Great Western Power Company and the Southern California Edison are the state government. In Washington, the Stone and Webster interests enjoy similar power; in Montana, the Montana Power Company, a Standard Oil subsidiary, controls every power site and has complete monopoly of the light and power market in the third largest state in the union. In Idaho and Utah, the Telluride Power Company and ‘the Utah .Light and Power rule as they please. In Colorado meet- ings of the State legislature are little more than board meetings of directors of light and power companies. The political influence exercised in the in- dustrial east by light and power companies is typically illustrated by the dominant position of the Commonwealth Edison in Chicago and its great manufacturing suburbs. {With the in- crease of railway electrification the strategic position of power concerns becomes more ap- parent. To believe that initiatives and referendums can overcome combinations of this character is to confess that one is a political infant. Neither can the Liliputian forces of democracy be rallied around one such issue in sufficient strength to do more than irritate the giant light and power monopoly. When the advocates of revolution by capture of light and power plants thru state gg and republican-democratic sympathizers in congress and the senate begin to understand that matters of this kind can be handled ef- fectively only thru political mass movements of farmers and wage-earners organized in a class party challenging private control of nat- ural resources and public utilities in its en- tirety we will begin to accord them something more than an amused tolerance. ‘At present such proposals serve only to di- vert attention from the crying necessity of the masses—organization around their own eco- nomic interests in preparation for a smash at the head and front of American monopoly— the board of directors of American capitalist enterprise that children call the United Staves government. Safe America We are glad, indeed, that we live in a coun- try where life and property are sacred and not in some other country where anarchy reigns. We are reminded of this boon by some re- marks of a Chicago municipal judge who has been releasing traffic violators on their own signature to a bond rather than force motorists to at all times carry $100 on their persons. It is absurd to think these persons desired to violate any law in taking advantage of this ruling, said the judge. “They have merely acted prudently, be- cause one’s life is not safe who is suspected of having $100 in his pockets.” The judge knows his Chicago—a typical American city, whose bible is that great ex- order—the Chic: Ame Here is the Proposed Public Superpower System Explanation—(1) The figures in boxes indicate the number of muni- cipally owned electric light and power plants in each state and province. They are 2,318 in the United States and 401 in Canada, (2) The stars indicate the hydro- electric power plants owned and oper- ated by the U. S. government in con- nection with the reclamation projects. ERE is arising in America the mightiest monopoly the world has ever seen—the power trust. This monopoly will be more powerful than any that has ever existed before be- cause it will include them all; it will own and control the power without which none of them ean exist and without which modern civilization cannot proceed. Electric power is the key to the coming civilization. The power trust is monopolizing the elec- tric power and the source of electric power of the continent. * The private electric power com- panies already boast of their chain of interconnected power systems that stretch like mightly tentacles from southern California to northern Washington, from Niagara to the factories of Massachusetts, from Min- esota to Tennessee, from North Caro- lina to the Everglades of Florida. Over 650 municipally owned electric light and power plants in warious parts of the United States, they say, have succumbed to their superpower organization’ within the last few months. 3,000 Municipally Owned Plants There are first of all the 2318 municipally owned and operated electric light and power plants in the United States and 401 in Canada. (Indicated on accompanying map by the figures in squares). In these is the nucleus of a nation-wide, publicly owned superpower system. True, searcely a day passes now that pri- vate companies do not announce the “taking over’ of some municipal plant. cipglly owned plants are holding their own or gaining a bit. In Ontario, there already exists a successful, firmly established public Read Editorial on Superpower on This Page. Capper Lines Up With Coolidge It is evident that a campaign is about to be launched by the big dailies of the country to convince the mass of people that everybody is for Coolidge. Already there are rumors being circulated to the effect that Coolidge’s popularity is growing especially in the Western States. This wave of popularity that is threatening to overwhelm the Presi- dent is attributed to the great im- pression that the President's mes- sage has made on the farmers, The dullest fifth grade school ex- pert can refute this ridiculous con- tention with very little effdrt. The fact of the matter is that certain gentlemen of the Senate and House who have arrogated to themselves » unwarranted and unwarrantable it to speak for the farm! mas- ses are lining up with Cooli as was to be expected. Gentlemen of the type of Senator Capper the mil- lionaire newspaper-farmer from Kan-' sas and a few weak-kneed mid-west- ern Senators are the only farming masses rallying to Coolidge’s sup- port. It is an open secret in Washi that Senator Capper is very itkely ing be the reactionaries’ choice as Coolidge’s running mate in No- vember. Appropos of this, the fol- lowing bf of the leading New York pa is very instructive. The facts as cited show precisely where Capper stands and who he is, Sen- ator Capper has abandoned support of a bill which was advocated ' ers of wool, farmers and organizations and opposed by woolen manufacturers, Instead he one introduced by Senator But on the whole, the muni-) There are 11 of these besides the Muscle Shoa!s plants, (3) Circles indicate the hydro-elec- | tric resources in each state; the shad- ed portion indicating roughly the pro- portion that has been developed and the unshaded portion that which is still undeveloped. Every state has some water power altho in the smal- ler ones the circles have been omitted. superpower system. Here 265 cities and 77 rural communities are co-oper- ating together in a system operated on the principle of service at cost. Seattle has interconnected her muni- cipal power system with that of Ta- coma, and these two in turn have arranged to interconnect with Aber- deen. Los Angeles, Cal.; Spring- field, Ill.; Wahoo, Neb.; Granite Falls, Minn., and scores of other cities have caught the superpower idea. 12 Plants In 10 States. Besides the municipal plants there are 12 hydro-electric plants that are owned by the U. S. government, 11 connected with reclamation projects in the western states. The 12th is the government plant at Muscle Sheals. (Indicated by stars on the map.) On or adjacent to these pro- jects, located in ten states, are over 1,500,000 horse power of hydro-elec- ; tric energy available that may be de- veloped. Next are the water resources of jthe nation that can he used to de- velop electric power: Rivers like the }Columbia, 6,000,000 horse power; great cataracts like Niagara; the rapids of St. Lawrence; Muscle Shoals, and literally hundreds of ‘other streams, rapids and falls of smaller potentialities, (Indicated on Inap by circles, w ed portion un- developed.) Probably less than one- eighth of the total potential hydro- electric power has been taken by pri- _vate companies, Finally, there are the fuel re- sources of coal and oil. (Indicated _by shaded patches on map.) Tho these resources are largely privately owned, some still remain under pub- The latter bill was less drastic than Senator Capper’s proposed measure and less objectionable to the woolen interests, After having introduced his own bill, Senator Lodge then went ahead to substitute one including some pro- visions of the Capper bill, it is al- ieged. Now the woolen manufactur- ers are opposing it. They are hinting] try. bad faith on the part of Lodge. But the men on the inside of Washing- ton’s great game of politics look upon the allaged understanding be- tween Senator Lodge and Senator Capper as only an ordinary episode! im the scheme to make use of the latter’s socalled progressive label in| There ~ intersts of the reactionary Cool- ge. Whatever doubts one might have had as to where Capper really stands are dismissed in tie follow- Beck, U. S. Solicitor, Looks Backward Speaking at the Hamilton Club, Chicago, with one exception perhaps the richest and most reactionary clique in America, James M. Beck, solicitor general of the United tates, mournfully sighed for the “good old days.” And his audience, composed almost exclusively of those who already have their swag, sighed with him. “The times are moving too fast,” was the burden of his lament. “We are moving with 6S. train rv eri!) It A a Be gs of ion. Shakespeare with a hand press could do more good to- day than a string of rotary presses | Privileges Profits 50% On Chewing Gum A ti weal Series vanes i ee fimancial or wileles a acini chewing gum the the kind of solidarity For 1% of that amount co Tovarish Lenin By ROSE KARSNER, National Secretary, Friends of Soviet Russia. “Have you any official statement |, to make about Lenin’s death?” asked © the reporter. No, of course I had none to make. Lenin was not a man. He was Premier, He was not a Dictator. Lenin was an Institution. And that institution has NOT died. That in- stitution will keep growing until it will prove to the world that life can be made as beautiful as Lenin dreamt it, In Russia Lenin was just plain “Tovarish Lenin” or “Illyitch.” The children loved him. Not as a hero who is always pictured with a halo over his head, but as a human being who had strong convictions and the courage to put them into practice, As a man who dreamed dreams which would benefit mankind and had. the genius to-combine them with prac- tical application. Many of these children live tn School Communes over in Russia, There they practice self-government, under adult supervision, Among other methods of self-expression they conduct what they call a Wall Paper. Here they post little news items and stories of interest to the school. In one of these School Communes the following item was found. It expresses most beautifully the gen- eral feeling about “Illyitch” in all the School Communes. A copy of it was sent to The Friends of Soviet : Russia some time ago. It has re- ! ceived much publicity. Just now it is very appropriate. It reads: ILLYITCH! “Children! There is not @ single person in all the world who doesn’t know who Illyitch is. This name is known to all peoples. Many speak of him with love and pride, while otpers, on the contrary, with a sneer ing laugh and with hatred. The black, yellqw, red and white oppressed peo- ples see in him a leader and liberator and teacher who prophesies their freedom. But he tells them, that freedom does not come down from heaven but must be fought for and one must always be ready to defend one-self. Lenin calla upon every- body to create a paradise here on earth. Illyitch is well known to the Russian workers, the people already weave a legend about c One com rade told of a peasant in the Urel who saw. Lenin and said to hims “Why, look here! Look how dressed! Your shoes are tied with strings instead of with laces’ But we know of course, very well, that Lenin has laces in his shoes like everybody and not strings. The legend is most of all interesting be- cause it shows how the imagination of a peasant works, a peasant who knows very well that Comrade Lenin is a man like everybody and as much of a worker as all the rest. We children know it-very well; we-— that Lenin is a great leader of | (4) The shaded portions of the map indicate the location of the principal fuel resources of coal and oil which are already being utilized to some ex- tent but which mav be much more fully and economically utilized in the super-power system. (5) The heavy lines merely sug- gest the plan of general interconnec- tion of the super-power system. SST TER TSR tlic ownership and the public super- | power system must negotiate with |private owners for fuel needed for jdevelopment of fuel driven plants. ; These steam plants, together with the many thousands of similar plants owned and operated by the cities, must be interconnected with the water power plants and made a part of the national system. In the Dakotas, Montana, and Wy- oming alone there are 600,000,000,- 000 tons of lignite coal as yet almost untouched; not commercially prac- tical otherwise but which can be used at the mine mouth to develop electric power, Such a U. S. government mine near Williston, N. D., produces electric power for pumping on the reclamation project and lights and supplies power to the city of Willis- ton. Indorsed by A. F. of L. The American Federation of Labor, League of Municipalities of Cali- fornia and Georgia, The Intl. Broth- jerhood of Electrical Workers., Assn. | of Mayors and other City Officials of New York, Natl. Grange, Michigan | State Grange, California Water and |Power Acte Campaign committee, Bouldér Canon Assn. of the South- |west, the Washington and Oregon | Public ownership leagues, and the | South Dakota Hydro league, these are a few of the forces already mobi- lized and fighting for public super- power. The matter will go to referendum vote of the whole people in at least three states during the coming year, ‘and will be strongly pressed in the state legislatures of at least @ dozen more, as well as in congress, Wd “aa s oleate Recognition Necessary to Trade, The State Department’s argument ee ir an ed of Soviet Rus- a has nothing to do with tunities for le between that sah try and the United States ia abty hla ae the Picgemnomenins Guar- lan.’ must recognized that Great Britain has had official trade relations with the Soviet ment for some months, while our government will not tolerate even ths basis for commercial intercourse, The position of the British news- paper is that not even the half- cient to, establish, normal a ient esi ish normal and mu- tually beneficial intercours: instead, full “i ing from an editorial in the Sen- ator’s paper: “The Topeka Capital,”: “Thers is nothing in sight now to prevent the nomination of Coolidge. Ge is strong ard growi and his support is > in not being factional or sectional, It is general among all elements of the party and all sections of the coun- - It is no stronger anywhere than it is today in Kansas.” leedless to say the big mass of farmers who are having the devil’s own time making their most limited ends meet will not take Capper seriously again. Capper and his tribe have betrayed the farmers too often, comes a time when even a first consign- ment of Russian grain since the armistice is due to arrive at Hull this week. Others will follow. But it is ing to hope that nor- mal le, even on a small scale, can be established between the two countries so long as their political relations remain on the existing and highly precarious footing. The con- ee ee Senator is known his» deeds nection between politics and trade well as his words. t time has pc, is not, perhaps, obvious, but it is ready come for Ca; in the eyes} none the less real.” of the Orerwlelnitg majority “of ‘ the working farmers. YOU SAID IT In answer to Lord 's re- ie s] ave not even a triotie song,” the Manchester Guar. stretching from New York to San Francisco—because Shakespeare had a soul and something to say.” in ‘weapons | our duel with capitalism we should certainly give Beck his hand press, his Shakes; » and his soul, Bring on rotaries, The weak- ness of the workers is that they are compelled to use the hand press against their enemy's rotary.) : bromides about” the ‘principles of Guar- oon bgt) gpl rently ei a ‘or al ics m /” they write, “love of or. comune tates essentially a part of us that it seems to us a moral indecency it. The hesitancy to si is vealed as the’ BD at Britta ge: triotism. ‘ In Russia soldiers and workers al- wi ‘ing, whether go to fi ogg aie a pemeia # Pond ne F —ee Y Hamilton,” always good for a hand| ithort bathing cuits,” 5 at the Hamilton Club, and some] The same article contains this fear at ped Fi eo0 lo i Meeks gem: our fathers,” Mr, Beck] “We suffer acu! under “The constitution does not tempt to put Race A per ea In the memory of the “songs” oving| —you sald it. ig