The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 8, 1924, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER THE DAILY WORKER. Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING.CO,, 1640'N, Halsted St., Chicago, Ill. (Phone: Lincoln 7680.) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail: $6.00 per year $3.50..6 months $2.00..8 months By mail (in Chicago only): $4.50..6 months $2.50. .3 month $8.00 per year Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1640 N, Halsted Street J. LOUIS ENGDAHL......++06 WILLIAM F. DUNNE MORITZ J, LOEB...... Entered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1923 at the Post- Office At Chicage, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. <i 30 Advertising rates on application. Chicago, Illinois «Labor Editor -Business Manager Fruits of Imperialism Attentive observers of current politics know that trade follows the flag. It is also gradually becoming a commonplace that the flag follows the dollar. : The why and wherefore of the United States spending more than three million dollars an- nually on maintaining a fleet of battleships and torpedo boats, called the “banana boats, in the Caribbean in order to help certain Amer- ican capitalists exploit the weaker Latin re- publics are put in the bold relief of the dollar sign in the latest reports of the Cuba Company and the United Fruit Company These corporations are amongst the greatest beneficiaries of the imperialist policy the United States is now pursuing in Central and South America. Their last financial reports disclose some facts that are never told the working masses when they are called upon to finance punitive naval and military expedi- tions to these countries/in order “to save civil- ization.” It is also rather instructive coinci- dence that the two corporations were born in the very years in which America launched its offensive imperialist campaign. Since 1900 the United Fruit Company, operating in these Latin republics, has already paid out nearly $150,000,000 in dividends alone. In the last seven years alone it has al- most doubled its assets. Last year it made a net profit of more than 23 per cent, or $23,- 097,330. The story of the Cuba Company, which owns many miles of Cuban railroads and sugar- fields, is no different. This corporation has recently come under the thumb of the New York Central Railroad. Last year the Cuba Company’s railroad profits alone exceeded the 1922 figures by more than five million dollars. These are some of the sweet fruits of im- perialism garnered by our capitalist class. Our school teachers never tell our children about these-cold dollar and-eents-advantages of im- perialism to the empoying class. Our dollar democrats and dollar diplomats are usually silent about this side of our “‘civilizing” activi- ties in the Latin countries. But every one of these dollars has come into the world “sweat- ing blood and. dirt from its pores,” as Marx would say. Every one of these dollars of titanic profits pocketed by our leading citizens is only the congealed sweat and blood of the exploited and suppressed masses in these so- called backward countries. More than that. The sweet fruits of impe- tialism are the fruits of death to the American working and farming masses. The continua- tion of this system of capitalist imperialist plunder is dependent on the maintenance of huge armies and giant battle-fleets. These sweet fruits of imperialism have within them the germs of war and all the fiendish destruc- tion of working class life that war entails. Honoring an Enemy of Labor The Chicago Federation of Labor_at its last meeting passed a motion expressing the sorrow of the organization over the death of Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the champion political mountebank of the world and the grave digger of what little freedom escaped the attention of the capitalist class before this country en- tered the world war in 1917, to serve the in- terests of the American plunderbund. The motion might not have passed had not John Fitzpatrick, former “progressive,” shut off discussion before the class consgious dele- gates could. take the floor and expose this charlatan Wilson as an enemy of labor. Fitzpatrick has not alone brazenly taken his place with the lackeys of Gompersism but he has not even the courage to allow those who oppose his backward crawl, the right to ex- press their views on questions involving the honor of the labor movement. The Chicago Federation of Labor expressed no regret over the death of Nicolai Lenin, the leader of world labor; a man whose name will stand out on the pages of history when Wil- son's will be lost in the abyss of oblivion. Lenin, the foe of oppression and the brilliant strategist whose every thought was for the emancipation of his class, passed away with the Chicago Federation of Labor as silent as the Chicago Chamber of Commerce. Woodrow Wilson, the double crosser, the intellectual tin can, the man who violated every principle he ever stood for, the man who issued injunctions against the workers, loosed a horde of stool pigeons among the American workers, invaded Russia without authoriza- tion of Congress and committeed other crimes too numerous to mention, is honored in death by the representatives of the workers he cruci- fied when living. The twenty-three delegates who voted against the motion deserve the| have to secede so that warrants can thanks of all honest workers, Klan Democracy Amongst the most vehement and raving de- fenders of pure American democracy, as en- jyyed by the employers, is the hooded horde of Kleagles and Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. The principles of this pure democracy and hundred per cent Americanism are supposed to be founded on the bed-rock of the inviola- bility of the ballot box. It is customary for the Klan hooligans and gangsters to parade about the country as the defenders of this sacred American institution of peace and civilization against the force and violence of the wild-eyed labor agitators, “reds,” and foreigners. Fortunately the great mass of workingmen and farmers has not fallen for this hypocritical talk of the masked maniacs of capitalist re- action. But perhaps the most damning evi- dence yet offered to unmask the dangerous pretensions of the Klan is the survey sent to the United States Senate by Hume Graves, the Texas Senate Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, on the election of the Klan Senator Earl R. Mayfield. The findings show that the Klan was able to send its agent to the Senate oniy thru commit- ting the worst frauds and outrages against the very ballot box institution they have been de- fending so vociferously in the open. Ballot boxes were found unopened. Only ten of the 165 precincts checked up so far have been found to be within the law. Many election officials have admitted tNat they wrote in May- field’s name before handing out ballots. In one county the ardent democrats even went so far as to burn the ballots. This conduct of the Klan is typical of all the loud-mouthed capitalist enemies of the work- ing class. The fraud and violence committed by the Klan in the Texas election of Mayfield to the Senate show that all the blatant talk by the employing class agents about the blessings of democracy and the dangers of proletarian rule is merely a smoke-screen of poison gas behind which is hidden the iron rule of the capitalist dictatorship over the working and farming masses. Salvaging the Farm Bankers In an eleventh hour, desperate attempts to stem the tide of dissatisfaction amongst the farmers of the Northwest, Coolidge called a “relief” conference. At this conference there were gathered God’s and the President’s chosen noblemen of finance and industry. An examination of the specific measures proposed by the Coolidge agents convinces one that this is merely an effort to save the farm bankers who have been hit hard by the depres- sion in which the farming masses now find themselves. _ The spirit of this conference was manifested in the President’s declaration that to help the farmer, who was helpless before the mortgage *TIS SAID, “PRAYERS WILL BE ANSWERED” February 8, 1924 The Prayer, “Permit the Timbers to Stand So We May Make More Money for the Boss.” THE UNITY OF THE LAMB AND THE LION By MARTIN ABERN In the January issue of the Labor Herald, Earl R. Browder, writes of the recent moves of the yellow lead- ership of the trade univns*to-get to- gether with the bankers, industrial- ists, and other capitalists in a policy of pulling the wool over the eyes of the working sheep. He points out sharks and credit Shylocks, would be bad busi- ness and therefore useless. This is the funda- mental feature of all capitalist relief plans. They are all calculated to help those who need help least and to neglect those who need help most. Diversified farming, that hackneyed hoax the repetition of which tends to make one’s nerves raw, was blazoned on high as the prime pana- cea. But not a word was said to show that this exalted remedy cannot offer immediate relief because it would take several years to develop new farm enterprises. One might add that this proposal is also an immediate relief mea- sure only for the bankers, to whom Coolidge proposes to lend fifty million dollars in order to help start the new farm enterprises. Not a word was said by Coolidge and his aids about the fact that this diversified farming would in effect mean, for the farmers, only a transfer from their present bondage to grain and stock gamblers, to the milk trust and com- mission merchants. : Then the President’s much-vaunted Wat Finance Corporation was put forward. This institution’s record to date shows that at least 75 per cent of the funds it has expended have ‘gone to powerful capitalist onganizations and not towards the relief of farmers and workers in distress, Finally the utter lack of sincerity charac- terizing the whole Coolidge fit of charity is most clearly evidenced by his offer to extend the period of existing indebtedness of the farmers. The President well knows that a creditor can get ag much money from a bank- rupt farmer as he can get blood from a stone. More than 15 per cent of the farm owners, and more than 120 per cent of the farm ten- ants in 15 northwestern states have already been granted such an extension of credit by their creditors and saved from formal bank- ruptcy simply because the money lenders could do nothing else. Economic necessity settled this policy of leniency for these creditors. The farmers will not be fooled by the Cool-! idge maneuvers. The farmers’ strong protest of disapproval of this program at the con-| ference is the best sign of the fact that Cool- idge can’t pull the wool over their eyes. The farm relief program proposed by Coolidge is only an attempt to salvage some of the bank- ers who have been drawn into the slough of some of the features of class unity, such as Johnston’s ‘‘co-opetation” scheme for making the unions into efficiency bureaus for capitalist pro- duction, and the “Itdustrial demo- cracy” program of Gompers and Berry at the Portland convention of the American Federation of Labor. The sell-out of the worker by the bureaucratic machine of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor seems al- most complete, The capitalists them- selves feel quite confident that thru these lap-dogs employed by Labor but serving capitalism, that every- thing will be lovely, and that they need expect no real fuss or distur- bance from Brother Johnston, or Gompers, or Berry, or any other of their ilk. “The January bulletin of the Na- tional City Bank of New York, one of the most influential banking insti- tutions, not only in the United States, but in the world, speaks quite warmly and reassuringly of their alliance with the reactionary trade union leadership. Here is what this influential organ of capitalist Amer- ica has to say: “The labor situation is; more encouraging than it has been. The prospects are regarded favorable for the maintenance of good Tela- tionship between the railroad com- panies and their employes. WITH- OUT MATERIAL ADVANCE UPON PRESENT WAGES. (The emphasis is ours). The most serious wage dis- putes in prospect is that in the bitu- mious coal industry, which is the na- tural result of the settlement of tae anthracite strike. Labor in this coun- try, however, shows a growing sense of social responsibility and in the past year has been vigorously root- ing out the radical elements from its councils. It has a growing apprecia- tion for the fact that the real gains for the wage earning! class do not come from mere wage advances— which come back severely upon the wage earning class in the cost of liv- ing, but is in improvements in pro- duction which increase the supply of |h comforts for distribution. Once this truth is fully comprehended industry will go forward with great strides.” The meaning of this passage is quite plain, Evidently the capital- ists feel quite safe it the trade union leaders will deliver their. trade unions bound hand and foot and gagged, to them. “Prospects are r¢- garded favorable for the mainte- nance of good relationship between the railroad companies and _ their economic depression that has overwhelmed! the farmers. If Florida wants to become really popular as a health resort for cabinet officials it will there, 't be served tends employes, without mat advance upon present wages.” oe no doubt, is the kind of service Mr, Johnston, resident of the International Asso- Tiahion of Machinists, had in mind when he spoke of his seheme of “co- operation” between the and unions. Mr. Johnston’s scheme in- price, even as others deliver “arch brick, super heaters, stokers, or lubri- cating oils” at the lowest’ possible price. Of such is the service of the Johnstons and the Gompers to the labor movement, . “ “Labor in this country, however, shows a growing sense of social re- sponsibility, and in the past year has been vigorously rooting out the wadical elements from its councils,” A growing sense of social responsi- bilities of labor, eh? What is meant, rather, is the service, of the labor lieutenants of capitalism, Johnston, Gompers, Berry and Co.; to the capi- talist class. The National City Bank state- ment is clear. Capital and labor leaders have united firmly, closely, aye, organically, it might be said, against the workers and those striv- ing to better the conditions of the workers, This is the new “industrial democracy” that the comrades-in- arms of the Civic federation, the Na- tional City Bank and the like, Mr. Berry of the Pressmen’s Union, John 'L. Lewis and Samuel Gompers, etc., so loudly proclaim. “That all workers, including man- agers, get proper compensation for what they put into industry,” is one of the principals governing indus- tries,” says Major Berry. This means “without material ad- vances upon the present wages,” as the National City Bank of New York puts it, else how could there be, as Mr. Berry has it, “adequate compen- sation on investments, for the em- ployes?” There is no need for Mr. Woll, speaking before the City Club of Chicago, to say “It is labors’ hope that there will come into existence an economic and industrial chamber in which aii facturs of industry shall be fairly represented to determine rules and regulations, shall impose upon themselves and confine political to deliver the union men to the | government for the functions which ‘it is best qualified’ and best suited.” Mr. Woll and his comapny have joined the economic and indus- trial chamber of capitalism, in which it can be surely stated, they are fairly represented, but certainly not the workers, whom they supposedly represent: If this is the “economic and industrial Chamber” and the new! “industrial democracy” which these labor leaders would give us, then, in- deed, must the workers call “God elp us and save us from our friends.” Yet, this is-not so humorous as it all might appear. The fact remains that these lackeys of Wall Street, in the ranks, and, most unfortunately, at the head of the trade. unions in America, are going ahead holdly and swiftly with their plans for “class collaboration” or tying the la- bor unions to the boot of capitalism. This can only mean to the working class lower wages, longer hours, harder working conditions, lower standard of living. Surely the work- ers can appreciate that or do they think too, as Johnston of the Ma- chinists, Woll, Gompers, Lewis, and the National City Bank? The Na- tional City Bank has this to say about wages: “It (labor) has a at ng ition of the fact that class do advances, which come. back heavily upon the wage earning class, in the cost of living, but from improve- ments in production which improves the supply of comforts for distri- bution. “Surely not the National City Bank, nor even Samuel Gom- pers, can kid the working class with such stupid economics, The worker knows quite well that if wages fall, profits will rise, and if wages rise, profits will fall, and, further, that for the most part, improvements in production, instead of bringing more comforts and a higher standard of living, have only brought lower wages relatively and absolutely, and a lower standard of living for the wage earning class. Only under Communism can an improvement in the means of production mean a real advance for the good of the working class. Whenever the workers insist upon a raise in wages, whether they know it or not, they are only making an attempt to get value for the in- creased value of their efforts, or la- bor power. If they did not get this rais@ their standard of living would sink at once. All the “co-operation” schemes of Johnston for capital and labor, and the “Industrial democracy” of Gom- pers and Berry, the banking schemes of Sigman, cannot blind the workers to the fact that the only way they ever get. anything from their em- ployers is thru fighting. They never got anything handed to them on a platter, and they never will. Rec- ognizing it or not, they engage in a class struggle’ with the employing class whether it be for an increase in wages, shorter working hours, or for the abolition of the capitalist system of society itself. They know that every time they “co-operate and collaborate” with the employers, they find themselves getting the dirty end of the stick. It is the co-operation of the shearer and the shorn that Brother Johnston proposes, which is all right for Mr, Johnston who has joined the side of the shearers, but this is not for the fighting trade un- ionists or for ‘any class conscious worker, Their’s is to battle. The moves of the American Federation of Labor. bureaucrats, for unity with Wall Street and Big Business, or in other words, the sale of the mer- chandise, the laboring class, to the capitalists, must be combatted to the limit or very vestige of working class independence and strength. in the United States will be destroyed. Not class collaboration. but cless strug- struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist svstem must be the answer of the militant rank and file in the American Federation of Labor and all the workers to the pernicious schemes of their yellow leadership, No worker, young or old, can foll for this cheap gaff. So far as the Young workers are concerned, they will raise the ery of greater organ- ization of the workers; not unity with the bosses, but unity collabo. ration of all workers, young and old, in the unions, and on the political field against the capitalists is the an- swer of the young were and the and the Natoma mal City Bank. gle, not unity with cavitalists, but |. AS WE SEE IT _ By T. J. O'FLAHERTY. Samuel Gompers believes that some day machinery will do all the heavy, laborious work now performed by human beings, according to a feature story in a recent issue of the Boston Globe. The labor leader declared that the world has not yet produced one tenth of what it is able to produce. When machinery comes into its own, people will not starve even tho they may have to do very little work, Mr. Gompers saya. * * 8 Gompers decided to devote his life to the service of labor we are told after he witnessed a parade of starv- ing silkweavers in his native land, England. The introduction of ma- chinery threw them out of work. Gomyers does not say how those who are thrown out of industry. thru the speeding up of the productive power of machinery are going to be pro- vided for. Will the capitalists pro- vide for them? * * * Gompers believes, according to the Globe writer, that there is enough for every one and then some, and that each receives what he deserves. J..P. Morgan once declared that the longshoreman who worked for $10.00 a week, was not entitled to any more if he was’ satisfied with that meagor wage. Will Mr. Gompers say that the werkers who produce all the wealth of society and receive back in wages only a small portion of it get what they are entitled to or de- serve? If Mr. Gompers is a3 he claimed, devoting his life to the workers, it would be a happy day for the latter if he got disgusted with their ingratitude and joined the near- est Chamber of Commerce. Sam has no solution for the problems that face the workers today. The devel- opment of the machine surely will relieve mankind of the drudgery in- volved in producing the necessities of life but only when that machine is owned and controlled by the workers themselves and not used to swell up ithe profits of individual owners will the machine be a real blessing to humanity. This is communism; the ownership of the wealth producing machinery by the producers and the mtrol of society by the workers. Gompers does not like this because it makes no provision for labe ' |fakers or labor lieutenants of cap’ talism_as the late and unlamented Mark Hanna called them, ee 8 The $15,000,000 suit brought by the shopmen’s organization against the Pennsylvania railroad system was dismissed today by the federal dis- trict court on the ground that the United States courts h@i no power to enforce the decisions of the United States Railroad Labor Board. It ap- pears the only function this fake board served was to fool the workers into the belief that it could serve them. Whenever the board rules. against the pworkers the latter must obey its decisions else injunctions fol- lowed by armed troops will be hurled against them, but when the railroads defy the Board’s decisions the courts are powerless. Yet we are told all are equal under our laws. . * * An English worker may now go to sleep just a common piece of clay and wake up an ‘aristocrat with a string of titles and the privilege of wearing a garter and taking a bath. Since Ramsay MacDonald became prime minister he and the king have ibeen busy manufacturing peers of |the realm. Under the British consti- tution certain offices cannot be filled ‘except by peers, so instead of look- ing around for a peer who might be 1100 per cent regular, they simply ‘turn out a brand new one. Thus it ‘happens that Thomas Griffiths, a for- jmer tin plate slave who worked for ‘eight cents a day, is now treasurer of the king’s household; John Park- inson, a coal digger, is now control- ‘ler of the royal household, while John Davidson, whose career started in a bootshop, is His Majesty’s Vice Chamberlain. The duties of Vice Chamberlain are said to lack dignity tho it is possible the newly created aristocrat, who must see to George’s personal requirements, may have an assistant to do the dirty work, » * * se. It would be interesting to know how the king feels when his three labor attendants sing the Red the leaders of the British Labo; party don’t take revolution as seri- ously as they do in Russia, for in- stance. The English may try to free the workers by elevating them to the |peerage. The Russians abolished all ‘titles and hereditary distinctions and ‘made the title of “worker” the most* honored in the land. And we believe that the British workers have their toughest fight ahead of them while the Russians are over theirs, How many of your shop-mates read THE DAILY WORKER, them to subscribe today. Get one of vee =| ps |He will probably thank his stars that\, y