The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 1, 1924, Page 8

j THIS TIME IT’S REALLY TRUE » can: ness Y neighbors are a cool-headed, weil-balanced pair; she is Ger- man—a veritable Brunhilde in stat- ure and demeanor—and he is a dig- nified,. bearded Russian professor at the Academy, who endured and worked and suffered in Turkestan Trans-Caucasia during all the dan- geroug years of the civil war. When I brought to them the news of Lenin’s death, they: both went pale. Brunhilde gasped and reached for support, and said in a quavering voice: “I don’t believe it. They have said it too often. Only last week the health bulletin was so cheerful.” But her behavior showed that she believed only too well. And the dignified professor—he who has always seemed so distant and reserved—quivered thruout his whole frame as he repeated ovpr and over again in a bewWdered manner: “But I. just dreamt abcut him last night. It can’t be true, it can’t be true.” He was a pathetic figure. “I dreamt that someone tried to assas- sinate him and I threw myself be- tween him and the assassin.” And when I left the room I could hear the professor mumbling away to himself, “And I dreamt about him last night, just last——” The official news came at 4 o’cl§ck in the afternoon, but everyone on the streets knew long before that. The co-operative on Iversakaya, which had been closed for the day in commem- oration of Bloody Sunday of 1905, opened its doors in the middle of the afternoon for the sale of black crepe and ribbon only. Each of the show windows contained Lenin’s picture draped in red and black. The buildings of Moscow had been decorated with red and black flags in memory of the unsuccessful revo- lution of 1905, and as we wandered aimlessly thru the streets, from square to square, seeking for kin- dred spirits with whom .to share our grief, the red flags without the black borders were hauled in, to be hung out again a moment later at half- A NEW UNITED FRONT mast with black crepe tied to their staffs. Before the Dom _ Soyuzov, the Trade Union Hall, the soldiers were clearing away the heaps of snow on the roadway. Here. Lenin. was brought the next day; here he will lie until the funeral in the Red Square on Sunday; and here thous- and upon thousands of people are coming to look at him for the last time. The peasants and villagers from the neighboring provinces are pouring into the city. . They ‘are sleeping anywhere and everywhere, but they must see their beloved leader. The workers instinctively flock- ed to their factories to get the least details as soon as they heard of the news. .The theatres’ were crowded with grieving people, secking con- firmation and listening eagerly to the speeches made to them by Soviet officials and by the delegates from foreign countries to the Comintern. Hundreds of these spontaneous meet- ings were being held less than two hours after the official news was an- nounced, The concert that had been planned for the evening by the Comintern workers in commemoration of Bloody Sunday, gave way to a demonstra- tion of mourning. It does not mat- ter what the speakers said—what is there to say on an occasion like this? When the first speaker finished and said: “Let us honor our beloved lead- er’s memory,” the people rose in a body and deep silence prevailed. Then the chairman, in a quavering and unsteady voice, started singing the revolutionary funeral march; a féw women’s voices joined in for a short time; but the singing petered out; no one moved and no one spoke some minutes; no one knew what he was doing or where he was. Every- one was dazed and carried away— then gradually the people resumed their seats. But a working woman rose from the audience and spoke in a strong, “J work in a factory far from Mos- | out of the lines toward the hall, The cow and I came here on factory work. | crowd gets beyond the control of the When I heard of Comrade Lenin’s |men now and then, and the crushing death, I came to the Comintern, |and seething of the mob is terrific. where I was sure of meeting people | But gradually the lines proceed in who would understand what I was| orderly fashion toward the hall. feeling. I have just suffered a be-| Qnce inside the hall, the silence reavement in my own family and I} and gravity, compared with the say to ron ey: Do not sit down|fphting scramble on the outside, and weep! Our leader was a man|have an immediately subduing ef- of action, and the way to honor his | fect, Two columns of people march memory is not to collapse and give | quickly past the bier, get a fleeting way to grief, but to carry on his |jook at the body whieh is lying in work, ‘to follow the road he has|the middle of-a brilliantly lighted pointed out for us, to spread his gos: | hall, and march out. at another en- pel thruout the world, and to realize | trance, steady voice. “Comrades,” she said,;keep the throngs from stampeding his aspirations.” ; - oe mK ke At night the situation is no better And that is the spirit of all the! than in the daytime. Thousands of people. They are stunned by the| people stand in line two and three news, but they are not afraid of the | hours during the night in this bitter future. Fer over a year his grip on | colq weather waiting their turn. The the wheel. had gradually slackened, employes of institutions, the work- and now that he will never again |ers in factories, the children from lead the people, they mourn the loss |ihe school march in -groups behind of a beloved friend but they have |their~red banners draped in black. no misgivings of the future, Night and day, night and day, the As soon as the news spread that|endless stream flows uninterrupted- Lenin’s body would arrive from Gorki at one o’clock the following day, people thronged to the station. They were prepared to wait thruout the night in the bitter cold for the sake of a glimpse of the bier. But when it was announced that no one but the elected delegations from fac- tories and institutions would be al- lowed to come near the station, the waiting people dispersed. On the morning of Jan. 23, the day after the news spread, and two days after the calamity, all the ap- proaches to the Dom Soyuzoy were cleared of traffic and pedestrians. , The streets were crowded with people, and after the procession had passed, they poured into the square in front of the Dom Soyuzov.— _ And night and day, ever since the hall where the body lies has been open to the public, thousands of people have been thronging to look for the last time on Lenin. Solid walls of cavalry police are needed to _ < on. In a proletarian family, two chil- dren were whispering to each other in bed the evening the news was an- nounced, “Things will be very bad in Russia now,” the little six-year- old boy said. “Things will never be bad in Russia again,” said his ten- year-old brother with great confi- dence. And that seems to be the feeling of the Russian people now. The first reaction is one pf despair and bewilderment, but a little ma- turer thought makes them realize that Lenin’s work has already pro- gressed so far, that his disappear- ance from their midst is no perma- nent blow to the work before the Russian people—his death is the death of a well-beloved friend, and as such he is deeply mourned. And everyone is agreed that the situation is to carry on the work of this man of action--to spread the gospel of this man of genius, By CARL REEVE. only way te behave in the present - nm cam a oll oe 7 should be a good combination. Both idiotically Utopian as the ideal of{ground” criticism of Oneal and STUDY of the initial issues of | publications are gentlemanly and po-| Alcott, a Marx or a Bryan The |Mencken. It is easier to criticize lite in hurling from their frigidly | American Mercury will devote itself |than create. The DAILY WORKER, critical attitude their thunder at the |to exposing the nonsensicality of all | also born in January, goes the Amer- Communists. The New Leader “Re- such hallucinations.” ~ ican Mercury and ‘the Leader one sents this method (cheap, political) ot | Here we have the spectacle of an better. Realizing that the workers attacking a group which, after all, | official socialist paper praising an edi- |are the historically rising class, the is insignificant.” But the Leader) torial policy characterizing Marx as DAILY WORKER is seeing to it that “Has seen many who left us adopt |“idotically Utopian.” The socialist that class gains the supremacy as programs in anticipation of imminent | organ commends a magazine which | quickly and efficiently as possible. social upheaval in the United States. lhas no set program, either destruc-| While the Mercury and Leader are We observe them now as the raost | tive or constructive,” which “believes | politely theorizing about the workers incorrigible of petty opportunists. | that the world is down with a score |in mincing terms that the workers We shall urge the recognition of Rus-!of painful diseases, all of them | will never read, the DAILY WORK- sia, at the same time we shall avcid | chronic and incurable.” Further, we ER is putting into effect the prograin those droll humorists, the Commur {have the renegade ‘socialist editor, | of “all power to the workers.” ists, and their bizarre programs.” | James Oneal, giving up his last claim The DAILY WORKER will con- And now listen to what the “one | to being a scientific economist, by |tinue to be a potent factor on the editorial” in the American Mercury, | supporting such a magazine with a|side of the American workers in the praised so highly by the New Leader, leontribution, characterizing, among says about Marx and the Commur.- | other mis-statements, the Communist ists: “In the field 6f politics Utopian- | movemeént of America as an “emo- ism is not only useless, it is also dan- | tional reaction.” j gerous. The ideal realm imagined by| The Communists certaimly are will- an A. Mitchell Palmer or a King|ing to admit that their tone and A two new. publications which first saw the light of day this month, the “American Mercury,” edited by H. L. Mencken and G. J. Nathan, and the “New Leader,” edited by the renegade socialist, James Oneal, re- veals a striking similarity in edi- torial policy and in the class of read- ers appealed to. Oneal in contribut- ing to the Mercury a series of in- sinuations entitied “The Communist Hoax,” relinquishes all claim to being a scientific socialist or Marxist. He has sunk at last to the level.of the frothy, indiscriminate cynical Mencken. Birds of a feather flock together “The editors,” says the American Mercury, “view the capitalist sys- tem if not exactly amorously then at all events politely.. The reader they have in their eye, whose woes class struggle. The New Leader and the American Mercury will continue to produce artistic criticism of ‘the workers as they fight their life and death struggle. As observers, Oneal and Mencken, knitting their knowing they hope to soothe, is the normal, educated, well disposed, unfrenzied, enlightened citizen of the middle min- ority. There is no middle ground of Kleagle of the Kg Klux Klan is as brows into a frown of disapproval, will entertain the “middle minority” ly critically analyzing—always in a polite and aesthetic manner—the tactics are different from the “middle consolation for men who _ believe neither in the socialist fol-de-rol nor the principal enemies of the socialist fol-de-rol; yet such men constituto the most intelligent and valuable body of citizens that the nation can labor pains attendant upon the birth cf the workers’ state. STATIONERY The Day of Days By WILLIAM MORRIS What's this? For joy our hearts stand still, Each eve earth falleth down the dark, boast. Good work is always done in 4 the middle ground between the As thd its hope were over; R With Nikolai Lenin Photo also theories.” Yet lurks the sun when day is done Soviet Russia and Workers of the World flags. Show your loyalty and respect for the greatest leader of the workers, and adorn your fellow worker by writing a letter to your friend. Dozen sheets 20c silver, sheets with envelopes, $1.25. Agents: Wanted. NATIONAL PRESS 8 Vine St.- Montello, Mass. Special Reduction on Books at — “The New Leader,” says the first Behind to-morrow’s door. editorial of this official socialist week- ly, “Is not ‘liberal, or ‘radical, or ‘progressive.’ The New Leader is socialist in its point of view. We shall not make the mistake of glorify- ing the working class.” After thus giving a new definition of socialism, the New Leader in this same issue— Jan. 19—tries to prove how similar it is to the American Mercury by re- |; viewing that magazine in these words, “The American Mercury can- not be classified as ‘liberal,’ as ‘rad- ical,’ as ‘progressive,’ or as ‘revolu- Grey grows the dawn while men-folk sleep, Unseen spreads on the light, Till the thrush sings to the colored things, And earth forgets the night. 100 No otherwise wends on our Hope: E’en as a tale that’s told © ‘ Are fair lives lost, and all the cost We've toiled and, failed; we spake the word; tionary.’ oe one — promises Sy war on hokum, political, economite None hearkened; dumb we lie; VINSON’. BOOK TORE me pgest that the American Our Hope is dead, the seed we spread £ ~ W. iid Road, —_ Fell o’er the earth to die. Mercury change its cover to read ee ee Ota oe rae “Edited by H. L| Mencken, George J. Our Advertisers help make pos ay m i eorgar ee What's this? For joy our hearts stand still, this Paper possible. Patron- “To caaetelis aor tell the truth”— And life is loved and dear, ize our Advertisers — this board of editors would better please the “middle minority.” This