The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 11, 1924, Page 6

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‘THE DAILY WORKER. contradictions arising from the capitalist sys- _vialism as Poland and Czecho-Slovakia. SHE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO., 1640 N. Halstad St., Chicago, Ill (Phone: Lincoln 7680.) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail: $6.00 per year $8.50..6 months $2.00..8 months By mail (in Chicago only): 98.00 per year $4.50..6 months $2.50. .8 months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1640 N. Halsted Street J. LOUIS ENGDAHL | WILLIAM F. DUNNE 5 MORITZ J. LOEB. nd-class mail Sept. 21, 1923 at the Post- Bisse at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. <a Advertising rates on application. The Disaster in Utah The coal mining industry affords the most harrowing proof of the destructive character of capitalism. Coal mining, like all other in- dustries today, is run on the principle that dollars come first and lives come last. Unless the unexpected happens 175 miners working eleven thousand feet below the sur- face shall have lost their lives digging coal and dividends for their bosses. As the charred bodies of the Utah miners are taken out of the ghastly pits, the families and friends of the entombed coal-diggers ary giving way to despair and giving up all hope for the rescue of their beloved. The miners are continually exposed to gas and dust explosions, to the falling of slate and coal, drowning and electrocution, mine damp and fire. Coal mining is an especially hazard- ous industry and extra steps must be taken all the time to prevent the loss of life and limb amongst the miners. But to take these safety measures would entail an expense of dollars. It might mean a reduction of profits. Conse- Chicago, Illinois ee eberecenscnces Editors .Business Manager quently the coal capitalists, like all other | capitalists, do their best not to spend any money for the protection of the lives of the workers. Last year more than two thousand miners were killed while at work for their bosses. The horrible conditions arising out of capi- talist control in the mining industry is char- acteristic of the criminal state of affairs in every other capitalist-controlled industry to- day. In the year following the war no less than 28,000 workers were killed and three million wounded in the “peaceful industries” of America. This horrible toll is a gruesome monument to the efficiency of the, profit-hungry employing class running our industries. Ten per cent of all railroad men were either killed or injured while at work in 1922. Close to thirty thousand metal miners were injured or killed at work in the same year. In New York - -$tate-one out of every three thousand workers is killed or crippled in industry. . The Utah mine disaster, the moans and cries arising out of the hell holes at the Castle Gate mine, the broken hearts and the shattered lives ofthe families of the murdered workers in the coal pits are the sordid picture of life as the workers live it under the tyranny of their capitalist exploiters. ; Not until the working class takes matters in ~ its own hands and assumes full political power and reorganizes the management and control of our productive system along social lines so as to eliminate the private profits of the indi- vidual capitalists, will this huge toll of life taken every year from the working masses be saved. Not until the mines are owned and controlled by the coal diggers, the railway workers who haul the coal, and workers and farmers who use the coal, will we be spared of the calamities and disasters, the wholesale murder of workingmen as have occurred in this Utah mine disaster, at Spangler, Pennsyl- vania, Pekin, Illinois, and many other places where the workers sweat blood to enrich their capitalist masters. ‘“‘Battle Around the Franc’”’ Recent days have seen a headlong, perpen- dicular collapse of the Belgian, English, French and Italian exchanges. ‘ But the center of the great politico-financial battle is now the franc. In the demoralized foreign exchange markets the franc has dropped to about three and a half cents or almost one-sixth its normal value. Judging from the atmosphere prevailing in financial circles it is safe to conclude that the French ¢ £xrency has not yet hit the bottom and that t..e hext few months will see a further collapse. This tragedy that has befallen the franc, the symbol of the haughty French imperialists, is one of the most important political factors in European and hence in world politics today. To the workers of France it means a further rise in the cost of living. What the increase of dissatisfaction among the French masses, already crushed by military burdens, will bring, no one can tell at this moment. The May elections in France should prove of great service to the Communist Party. ‘The basic reason for the fall of the franc is to be found in the unsound, unsatisfactory con- dition of the financial state of affairs of the government. The French imperialists are face to face with one of the inextricable, insolvable tem of production and exchange and all its political implications, The French govern- ment has been doing a lot of borrowing and raising the taxes in order to be able to finance the armies of such outposts of French ye e cy of French capitalism on the conti- is contingent upon the support of these reactionary puppet governments. Thus within the last week alone. nearly one billion francs in paper money has been issued by the gov- ernment. Here we have the dilemna. Politically French capitalist imperialism must squander these billions of francs. Financially, it is sui- cide for them to continue piling up huge mili- tary expenses and to support their military outposts and buffer states against Soviet Rus- sia and Germany. No matter which policy the French imperialists pursue, they are up against it. There is no middle of the road in sight for them. The note circulation legally must not exceed forty-one billion francs. It is already more than forty. The advances of the bank to the state must not exceed 28,200,000,000 francs. This has already reached the perilous sum of more than twenty-two billions. France, capitalist France, is on the brink of financial ruin, despite the outward appearance of prosperity. When France totters many more will. (The crisis in the Belgian cabinet is merely an echo of the crisis of French finance. Belgian capitalist policy has been interlaced with French imperialist policy in the Ruhr and against Soviet Russia. “The battle around the franc” is one of the decisive struggles in Europe. The workers of the world trust in the working class of France, the: working class that has distinguished itself so often in struggles against oppression, °to bring to a successful conclusion for interna- tional Communism, fer the Communist Inter- national and the workers and poor farmers whose class interests it represents, the battle now raging around the franc. Business in Government The story now being unfolded before the workers and farmers of the unity between the big capitalists and all the governmental de- partments and administrators is more gripping and stirring than the best of our best sellers. Within the last year the Treasury Depart- ment of Mr. Mellon of Aluminum Trust, Steel Trust and banking fame, has refunded to tax- payers the meagre sum of almost $125,000,- 000. These millions were supposed to have been collected “illegally or erroneously.” This is just plain balderdash. The whole transaction is as crooked as a corkscrew and as corrupt as the manner in which Mr. Mellon has been handling the internal revenue de- partment in so far as prohibition enforcement is concerned. No worker or farmer will or can believe that taxes were “erroneously or illegally” collected from such humble citizens as John Hays Hammond, the millionaire min- ing engineer, Edward L. Doheny, the notorious oil thief, and such captains of industry and finance as Charles R. Crane, Cornelius Vander- bilt, Oliver and Joseph W. Harriman, and Payne Whitney. These men have had years of experience in aiding and abetting fraud against the masses and can teach the poor government clerks the great national game of corruption in tax evasion. These men are past masters in the game of skinning their own government and the workers and no one will By IURY LIBEDINSKY Published by THE DAILY WOR, ER thru special arrangement witn B. W. Huebsch, Inc., of New York City. Coyprighted, 1923, by B, W. Huebsch & Co. *_* #£ ® (WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE) The Russian Communist Party branch is governing this frontier city and fighting the counter- revolution. Earlier installnrents tell of the fuel shortage that. pre- “ vents seed grain from being fetched on the railroad. The Party meeting ,decides to send the Red Army far away for fuel, at the risk of leaving the city open for bandits and counter-revolutionists. It also decides to conscript the local bourgeoisie for wood cutting in a near-by park. Varied types of party members are flashed on the screen: Klimin, the efficient president of the branch, who. still finds time to have a sweetheart; Robeiko, the consumptive, whose devotion is killing him; Gornuikh, the brilliant youth of 19 on the Cheka; Matusenko, the luxury- loving place-hunter and Stalmak- hov, a practical 'workingman revo- lutionist. | Gornuikh, disguised as a peasant, overhears talk in the market place about a plot of counter-revolutionists to seize the town while the Red Army is away getting wood. The Communist company is summoned but, perhaps, too late. Robeiko is dragged out of his house and shot, Klimin’s sweetheart is butchered and Klimin and Stalmakhov are overpowered and hurled into a dungeon. The counter-revolutionaries are in pos- session of the town, with the Red Army away. Klimin and Stalmak- hov are butchered before the Com- munist company led by Gornuikh allow the wool to be pulled over his eyes and believe that such powerful capitalists were thus victimized. This huge tax refund is simply another link in the already long and powerful chain of evi- dence showing that the United States govern- ment is owned outright by the capitalist class and that its primary function is to protect the rich and hound the poor. Mr. Mellon can talk himself blue in the face and Mr, Coolidge can punctuate his over-advertised silence with frantic declamations about his purity and integrity, but harsh, cold facts confront the workers and farmers. There are more chances of the workingmen and farmers believing that the moon is made of green cheese than that such giant corporations as the Singer Manu- facturing Company, the General Electric Com- pany, the Merchants Loan and Trust Company, the estate of Marshall Field, Coca Cola Com. pany, New York Life Insurance Company, and the American Steel Foundries Company made mistakes or were fooled in their last tax pay- ments. It is mighty corporations of this class that received eighty per cent of the refunds. Truly, this tax refund scandal is a monu- ment to the menace of business in government —capitalist democracy. Soviet Frees Women In the early days of the Russian revolution the lying scandal sheets of the capitalist press, that revel in unloading filthy stories on the people of this country, flooded their columns with lies about the manner in which women were treated in the new Workers Republic. Our readers have not yet forgotten the fake stories of the nationalization of women. But the Chicago Tribune, the leading sinner in peddling the nationalization yarn, is now obliged to publish conspicuously, because it is good news, a story sent by the Associated | Press from Moscow to the effect that the women of Turkestan, the Kirghiz Republic and the Bashkir and Kalmuck regions of Russia, who have suffered for centuries under. terrible inequalities, are now granted full equality by the Soviet Government at Moscow. ‘This is but another example of the splendid spirit that animates the Communists who to- day rule the greatest republic in world his- tory. Unlike its capitalist contemporaries, the Soviet Government has lived up to its promises and fulfilled the hopes that its coming to power raised in the hears of lovers of freedom all the we Jd over. can arrive. The Red Army ap- pears at last with great reinforce- ments and the big battle js about to start— (NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY). *# @ CHAPTER XII—Continued. A ND the telephonogram received in the morning had been for Seletsky what a light pressure of the bridle is for a good and met- tled horse; he had instantly pulled himself together, carried out all the instructions, had waited all day expecting the alarm, and had been in no way surprised at the arrival of Karaulov. : And now, every half hour, he rode up to Karaulov, reported briefly on the progress of the oper- ation, set out his hypotheses and asked respectfully: “Will there not be such and such orders, Comrade Brigade Com- mander ?” And all the time Karaulov be- came less and less suspicions, and thought to himself: “Well, this one will not betray us.” No. Seletsky will not be a trai- tor. To be a traitor is to break the rules of the game. Once you have chosen yourself a place in the game, stick to it. Otherwise there is no interest in playing. The first company was advanc- ing on the left flank. A dark mass of people was mov- ing forward, but in that mass, in that*row of silhouettes, was its own system and internal organiza- tion, . . . Each man knew his neighbor and his chief, each obeyed the quiet command. _ Political leader Spitsyn marched in the ranks, his rifle firmly on -his shoulder, From time to time, in a whis- per, he shared his ideas with his neighbor, Fidein, a short, snub- nosed fellow, with sharp, bright blue eyes. Fidein remembered everything and understood everything. . . . He was as greedy of knowledge as dry sand is of water. Spitsyn was forever boasting of his pupil who was already a can- What Do You Think of Our First Story? The DAILY WORKER wants to know what its readers think of the first serial novel it offers to its rea We have published many installments of this gripping story. Another app: today. What do you think o! e story, its setting, its charact s far as we have gone? We want our read> ers to let us. know. Write down your views and send them in to the DAILY WORKER, 1640 N. Halsted St., Chicago, Ill. We publish as many of these letters as we can find space for. Don’t de- lay. Write today. didate for admission to the Party. Yet, when his relations from a neighboring village came to see Fidein, his father, a stout peasant with shrewd eyes and a brown beard, or hig sisters, taciturn and gloomy, blue-eyed like their broth- er, and there began long, whispered talks somewhere in a corner of the barracks. Fidein grew gloomy Are You Reading “A Week”? and morose, kept himself ‘to him- ; seif, and would no longer talk with the Political Leader... . And Spitsyn waited and knew in. ad- vance; the moment would come, and the lad would break out, all red, with shining eyes, gesticu- lating uniformly and energetically with his right hand, and would start talking of the improper col. lection of the corn-toll,’ of bribes taken by. the local committee, of the misdeeds of the militia and of the district food commissar, of the whole miserable muddle of village life. ; i" And Spitsyn would listen with- out interrupting, and would then begin to explain, and would talk for a long time about the difficul- ties of revolution in Russia, of how the peasants were themselves. to blame for not knowing how to deal with abuses, of how many had joined in for their own ends and, were consciously putting diffi- culties in the way. And suddenly a group of atten- tive Red Army men would collect about them, would listen, smoking their cigarettes, and would ask questions. . . . And the Political Leader would find what to say to each one of them: it was not for nothing that he was himself from the country. ] In questionnaires, oposite the question as to social origin, Spit- syn was accustomed to write him- self down as “village inhabitant.” He was a village tailor, and did not know whether to call himself - @ peasant or a workman. Tall, narrow-chested, round-shouldered and bald, his face was pale and freckled, his step even and light, and his little eyes looked always openly and straight before them. The Red Army men liked his” talks, only his voice was very squeaky, and they were slway# shouting to him, “ opie: louder,” but Spitsyn could rot talk very loudly, for if he tried. to he im. mediately lost the thread of his argument, and began to use for- eign words which the Red Army men did not understand, and to which he himself gave cloudy and approximate meanings. And now, in the ranks, in these quiet, dread minutes of waiting for battle, first one and then another scome up to him, smoked, talked, and asked him to explain more defi- nitely: ‘s “Against whom are we marching? And why?” And, conscious of the perplexity in those peasant souls, perplexity from the fact that ... tney nad to march against their own folk + ++ against peasants... Russjans . +. brothers . . . Spitsyn with careful, clear, sharp words, spoke of rebels and reminded the men Tuesday, March 11, 1924 about Denikin, about Judenitch, about Kolchak ... And again the lines moved on over the dark coun- try, under the deep blue sky and the few stars, and with each verst, ever louder and louder was heard from the town a_ distant, clear fusilade. They marched on, until from man to man, from squad to squad, from platoon to platoon, from company to company, ran the command: Dress the line by the “Halt! right!” Alteady the rare lights of the town were twinkling before them, and on one side the yiver showed, dim and white. And Karaulov’s mare, which carried him sleeping on her back, also stopped, half a verst behind the line. The Mili- tary Commissar of the battalion, riding beside him, caught her by the bridle and checked her care- fully: “Let the old man have his sleep,” he thought. But Karaulov instantly started sharply, woke up, and standing up in his stirrups, looked keenly ahead and listened carefully... . He knew at once the place, the light of the town, the’ river, the ravine. The Battalion Commander rode up and reported in a whisper, his hand respectfully at the salute: The reconnoitring party have re- turned. They have been to the outskirts of the town, and have seen a big band coming in our di- rection. ... Better for us to await them here. We have a good posi- tion here.” “Yes, yes,” said Karaulov. “The shooting over by the rail- way station,” continued the Bat. talion Commander, “means that some of our side are there. I have sent to get in touch with them. But so far no one has returned.” “Right, Comrade Battalion Com- mander,” said Karaulov. “You, ,Danilov, stop here, while we have a look at. the position.” os But they had not ridden off more than a few yards, when they saw before them the quickly growing silhouette of a horseman, and heard the loud beating of a horse’s hoofs, “Another. scout,” said the Bat- talion Commander. The three horsemen rode to meet each other, The Army men, looking behind them, saw a fan- tastic, many-headed, living mass. . . Suddenly three of the heads disappeared and nothing was left | but the silhouettes of the horses, as the horsemen hurried on their way. “Lie down,” ran along the lines. «+. “Prepare for action!” And the order had not reached the left flank before, on the right +++ tok, tok, tok ... tapped out a machine gun, and one after an- other, interrupting, pursuing each other, light shots flew by. Karaulov hardly had to inter- fere with the progress of the operation. He nodded his head approvingly at all the orders of the Battalion Commander, saw in the seanty light of dawn his face, un- shaved, with a growth of red hair, AS WE SEE IT — By T. J. O'FLAHERTY. Ambassador Geddes, on his return to England, told an audience of Pil. grims at a dinner given in his honor that if he were an American, he ‘would be a prohibitionist, but he was glad he was not. The best minds in his tight-closed lips, and listened to him with more and more at- tention, while his voice at the same time grew more and more friendly. Karaulovy arrested only one of Seletsky’s orders. He forbade the use of machine gun fire on the little houses of the outskirts. “But what if they are firing from there ” asked Seletsky in surprise, “We mustn’t, all the same. ... Might hurt peaceful inhabitants,” replied Karaulov. “The first company, slowly, running forward a few yards at a time, advanced towaras the town. The place was open and low, and a lot of snow had stayed there, half-melted, and falling in under the heavy feet of the soldiers. The grey figures made good marks on the blue snowdrifts. (To Be Continued Wednesday.) The Sharpening Conflict in England iow but surely the class con- flict in sg om is Ped gd sharper, The Tories are ming rag aggressive against the Labor Party Cabinet. The condition within the Labor Party itself is the best in- dex.to the sharpening of the strug- gle that is impending. The mass of the membership is being driven further to the left by the repeated flirtations and illegitimate marriages of some of the Party leaders with the reactionary capitalist Tory interes‘. Some eee ~~ being driven further to the right; ers are ing - long to the left. The flight of the latter is naturally precipitated by the fact that their colleagues in the Cabinet are throwing overboard, lank by plank, the program of the bor Party, limited and reformist as it is. A crisis is coming to a head. Two events of recent date show which way the wind is blowing, The other day forty-three members of the Labor Party representation in Parlia- ment v against the measure of the Cabinet to guarantee an addi- tional 3,500,000 Pounds for the com- pletion of irrigation works to in- crease the Bi of a ae Sudan. ese opponen united front of Conservatives, Liber- Is, and ‘government ites seis Catia noes ee ing the workers weaned in the big infuatrien of their dis This Gosek "hy thn, Lae POO tater Slection Lge mi there- ge JOIN THE WORKERS PARTY ~@@) Trade who new apologist for capitalism.” Before MacDonald took office he de- nounced the imperialist plan to build a powerful naval base at Singapore as “a wild and wanton escapade” and “colossal folly”. Now the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, Beatty, and other sea chiefs are threatening to resign unless MacDonald permits the building of this Gibraltar of the Far East. The Premier must now choose. He must either accept the dictation of the imperialists or call upon the masses of the Labor Party to stand behind him in a battle with the reac- tionaries. The capitalists feel that the question of navalism is of too vital importance to their class inter- ests a! they will not allow. the Labor Party to play with it, Mac- Donald and his Cabinet members cannot straddle this, issue. These Laborites must eithe; \go to the left and call upon the kers to support them, for the workers are the onl ones who would dare fight im - ism, in a struggle with the réaction- aries or they must go to the right and commit suicide by lining up with the navalists and the capitalist class’ served by the navy. There can be no center, middle posi- tion, for long at that e of the conflict when the alternatives are a strike by Admiral Beatty and his capitalist clique rainst the working class and a fn working class against Admiral tty and the employing class. To the left and forward or to the right and backward! The Cabinet Socialists must soon make their decisive choice. British Unrest Grows. Labor unrest is increasing in Eng- lJand. Hundreds of thousands of workers are demanding increases in wages. MacDonald is swea: them under his tee Brailetord edit tor of the New Leader, Independent Labor Party organ, says the trade ‘unions are Hons tactumtlersd . They | Hera! government should should not embarras the Labor Party, |’ bn ine ep A pbs abe ct is on! enhance Donald the workers the United States were strong for prohibition, he said. One would never believe that after reading the inves- tigation of the Veterans’ Bureau. He said the conditions of the workers in America were better than in Eng- land. This remark was received with cold politeness, The best minds in Washington are too’ busy dodging jail for national burglary to waste any valuable time jailing boot- leggers. s oe The Chicago Tribune is doing pretty well with its Moscow upris- ings, splits. and civil wars. Red army .officers are being arrested. Trotsky is being watched and all kinds of irresponsible devilment -is taking place. In the meantime Trot- sky and Zinoviev engage in a verbal duel as to the best means of perfect- ing the Communist organization so that it can overthrow the capitalist system. A report of the “civil war” is now running serially in the DAILY WORKER. We confess that it is so interesting and it makegyus almost wish that our Russian comrades would stage a fight like it frequent- ly to break the, monotony. * But it takes the Boston Herald to publish a yarn that would make Messrs, Ananias and Munchausen give up their leadership in the art of prevarication. In a recent issue of that organ of the United Shoe Ma- chinery Company, a fellow by the name of Eaton, whose mind, judging from his picture in the Herald, stop- ped growing after the boy vagy ‘the age of ten, telis a story that would be scoffed at even in the hectic days when Lenin died hourly and Trotsky spent his spare time, when he was not slaughtering children and priests, cutting off Lenin’s head and assuming the dictatorship. * _ Now, this moron, Eaton, adds a sinister feature to the far-famed Cheka machinery for punishing “gal. lant anti-Bolshevists.” There ap- Pears, it seems to use for the first time, “the blonde woman Simanova, the great terrorist.” Those of us who have had the experience of being apprehended by a dog faced fink of capitalism would rather welcome a resort to extreme devilish ingenuity on the part of the Department of Justice and install some Nietchean blondes to at least save other vic- tims from the torture of having to gaze on the hunran caricatures that the underworld’ of capitalism spews into the maw of the Dz of J. * * Mr. Eaton sat in a Boston hotel while some reporter no doubt sport~ ing a mind of the same calibre as the Harvard graduate discovered that he “revealed a keen insight into Euro- pean affairs as a result of three years of newspaper investigation and correspondence.” He opined that Lenin’s death would have a damag- ing effect on the fortunes of the Soviet Republic, but unfortunately for Mr. Eaton as he was speaking, Europe was making a grand rush to recognize the Soviet government, the various governments stepping on each other’s toes, in fact. eo His analysis of the discussion which recently took place in the Commun- ist Party, however, deserves honor- able mention. It shows that some- times a fool can outdo in the bril. liance of his stupidity the most ser- ious efforts of genius. “He tells us that the crisis in the Communist Party. was revealed when Trotsky fell in love with a beautiful young woman, and (curses, as Desperate Desmond used to say) was obliged, owing to the puritanical moral code that exists in Russia, to ask Grand Duke ee eat passport ir every cou in , So that he could take the dady fair with him.” * * In return for this favor, Trotsky agreed to turn over the Soviet gov- ernment to the Grand Duke. But the cursed Cheka intervened. Before Trotsky had a chance to scoot with the woman, he was exposed and what do you think the bloody Cheka did to him? They told him to take a Mrs dence Crimea. They are surely a gang to fool with, Rather disconcerting that Mr. Eaton did not have the job of offictal ad. viser to Trotsky. He could have told him, for instance, that here in America it is not necessary to turn over the U. S. to an oil baron or even to secure a divorce in order to enjoy the company of other “bea women.” The. bankers are masters in that manly art. Old James Still- man and hig successor as head of the National Bunk knew a thi: or two abat BEare such ‘affairs, Shad Roe ae the Caliph himself could have seized power and then did what he pleased without having to rebagsn Grand Duke for favors? id the way, fe any body, hear of the Grand y Soi & aH een is yet to come. Read- ing last Ih from the clipping sent oe the Boston ld we notice that Mr. Eaton was =—

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