The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 14, 1924, Page 6

THE DAILY wo 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. .8 months $8.00 per year Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1640 N. Halsted Street J, LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE : Editors MORITZ J. LOEB......--.+-- Business Manager Entered.as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1928 at the Post- Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 38, 1879. <eigm 804 Communists and the Teapot A certain Mr. Marvin conducts a department against “Reds, Communists, Bolsheviks” and “dangerous” citizens of all descriptions in the columns of the New York Commercial. This organ of finance calls itself “the national busi- ness paper.” We, therefore, assume that what it says is the gospel insofar as Wall Street is concerned. In a recent issue of this mouthpiece of Lower Broadway, the charge is made by Mr. Marvin that the real forces back of the attacks on Coolidge, Denby, Daugherty, and the rest of the oil thieves is the “proletarian revolu- tion.” Mr. Marvin charges that the Commun- ists are directing an onslaught on Burns and such other friends of labor by pursuing their dangerous tactics of “boring from within.” This time it is within the government. Apparently Mr. Marvin has overshot his mark. We Communists have never hidden our purpose which is to get rid of this present government of the employing class and sub- stitute for it a workers’ and farmers’ republic. We wonder whether Mr. Marvin is such a high-priced propagandist because he is skilled in selling his clientelle the ridiculous notion that the Communists are responsible for mis- leading the masses about the corrupt character of our government. His customers know better than to accept such buncombe. The matter-of- fact proof is that-it is the Marvins, the Daugh- ertys, the Burns, the Denbys and McAdoos— the link between the stock exchange in New York and the puppet show on Capitol Hill in Washington—who have been trying to be- fuddle the minds of the workers and farmers as to the real character of the government while they were using the governmental powers to protect and serve the big banking | and manufacturing interests. “The Teapot Dome scandal, the Veteran’s Bureau fraud and corruption, the Mellon tax| steals, and the countless other instances of} graft and corruption arise not in the minds of the Communists, but out of the conditions under which the government machinery, and the means of production and exchange socially used are privately owned for private profits. No, Mr. Marvin, the Communists are not bor- ing into the government. But the Communists will not hesitate to make it clear to the work-| ers and poor farmers that the Teapot Scandal should unite them for action which will bring about a complete change in the political and economic class relations of today. We propose to do away with Teapot politics forever. The only way to uproot Teapot politics is to estab- lish a workers’ and farmers’ government which will contro] all the natural resources of the country in the interest of the great masses and to organize industry in such a manner as will insure the collective ownership and social con- trol of the means of production and exchange the Communist system. The lies and frauds of.the Marvins can’t stop Teapot scandals. Only Communism can. Sir Oracle Lodge “Henry Cabot Lodge, the Massachusetts senator, has for a score of years been adver- tised as the wisest statesman of the country. Meny reactionary republican leaders have oft told us that Mr. Lodge is a prophet and seer who can read the future even without the aid of a deck of marked cards or a crystal globe. As the leader of the republican party in the senate, Mr. Lodge has won the title, from many of his blind followers, of “Sir Oracle Lodge.” Thus, when this great historian and prophet speaks let no poor, unlettered proletariat dare question the truth of his findings. In the days when events were not dated in Washington B. F. (before Fall) and A. F. (after Fall) Henry Cabot Lodge wrote a letter, Feb. 22nd, 1921, to Mr. Herbert Welsh, President of the Indian Rights Association, regarding the pres- ently dishonorable Albert B. Fall. Said the historian Lodge: _ “In my opinion he (Fall) is exceptionally fitted to be secretary of the Interior, as it is now gener- ally understood, that he will be appointed to that post, Senator Fall is a thoroly upright and high minded man, and UTTERLY INCAPABLE OF USING INTER Chicago, Illinois Advertising rates on application, HIS OFFICE FOR HIS OWN FINANCIAL EST, which I regret to say is implied by some of the expressions of your letter.” -And in the debate on the Colombian treaty, Senator Lodge in eulogizing Fall’s knowledge of South American conditions declared on April 12th, 1921: : “His (Fall's) patriotism and fa: htedness are 4 conspicuous as his ledge, and I am sure the “i will give attention and weight to what he to in regard to this pending treaty, with ‘4 he been so ly concerned.” In view of the recent endeavors of Senator Lodge to proclaim his holiness and his com- Te olombian treaty, these tributes paid by the Massachusetts senator to Mr, Fall before the latter was caught redhanded, become particu- larly appropriate. The innocence of Mr. Lodge at the time the Colombian treaty was debated is comparable only to his present Teapot inno- cence.\ The “historian” declared then that “the indications are very strong that very large oil fields, perhaps the largest in the world, are on the point of development in Venezuela and Colombia.” What will Sir Oracle Ledge de- clare now? Mr. Lenroot Quits It is indeed welcome tidings to us to learn that Senator Lenrovt, chairman of the public lands committee, investigating the oil scandal, has at last quit. We are not particularly interested in the reason for Mr. Lenroot’s resignation which was long overdue. Mr. Lenroot’s excuse for quit- ting is illness. Perhaps Mr. Lenroot is telling a political truth for a change. It is not out of place at this juncture to. state that the workers and farmers have long ago been sick of Len- root’s crooked maneuvers on the public lands committee in behalf of the Dohenys and Sin- clairs. We know full well that Mr. Lenroot’s primary reason for beating a hasty retreat trom his office is that he has at last realized that it would be suicidal for him and his oil friends to continue in this important position. Thruout the investigation Mr. Lenroot has hobnobbed with the oil thieves. The junior senator from Wisconsin is an old-timer in the alley politics of Washington and Wall Street. He enjoys the back-door confidence of every big capitalist magnate in the country. Mr. ‘Lenroot is a man of no mean ability. Yet, at no time in the sessions did Mr. Lenroot show the slightest intention or make the faintest effort to uncover the facts of the case revealing the control and outright ownership of the government by the powerful financial over- lords. We are not surprised at this conduct on Mr. Lenroot’s part. Mr. Lenroot came to Washington as a progressive. He sold out completely to the reactionary clique. While he was on the public lands committee he con- ‘tinued to render! services to his masters with unfailing regularity. Now that Lenroot has quit it is high time that Mr. Smoot, whose record is at least as crooked as that of the Wisconsin senator in the oil investigation, should also get out of office. Indeed, we would adjudge Mr. Smoot the win- ner in a contest with Mr. Lenroot for services rendered to Doheny. The presence of Mr. Smoot on the public lands committee makes a joke out of the whole investigation. As long as this “Latter-Day Saint of the Mormon Church” stays on the committee there will be no real investigation. Everybody is well aware of the fact that the Utah senator has had in- timate connections with the “apricots and apples” in the telegraphic dispatches between McLean and his Washington friends from the White House down. The pressure of the masses and their dis- trust in the investigation, in some of its execu- tive sessions, has forced Mr. Lenroot out. Our next task is to get rid of Mr. Smoot. He should go in double-quick time. Farm Thrift and Education The Department of Agriculture has for some time been investigating the conditions of the farming population of the country. In one of its latest bulletins on this question we find the following marvelous discovery: “Average school grades reached were found to be di- rectly related to efficiency in accumulation.” In other words the best money savers had the most schooling. If this were the whole truth one would be able to say safely that the department of agri- culture has at least been able to solve the crisis that has overwhelmed the farmers. We would like Secretary Wallace first of all to tell us how a farmer can save money when he not only does not earn any, but continually loses on his produce. We wonder how cana farmer save money when he gets less for a bushel of wheat than it costs him to produce one. How is it possible for a farmer to save money for his own and his children’s education when he is unable to pay his taxes, to meet his mortgage bill, and to pay the interest de- manded by the bankers for loans advanced to him? How can one talk about saving money to a bankrupt farmer? Before a farmer can be expected to save he should first of all be provided with security of income. Only those farmers who earn more than they need to get along on can be expected to save any money. Thus the department of agriculture is deliberately misleading the farmers when it tells them that their educa- tion is dependent upon their thrift, their sav- ings account. The truth of the matter is that the education of the farmer, like the education of the average worker exploited by the .em- ploying class, is limited by his income. It is natural to find less education amongst the lower paid workers than amongst the higher paid workers. The workers receiving lower wages can hardly meet their most elementary demands. These workers cannot afford to at- tend schools themselves or send their children to the higher institutions of learning. The same holds true for the farmers. This report issued by Mr. Wallace’s depart- ment, is typical of many of the misleading re- ports circulated amongst the farmers in order to blind them regarding their present suffer- ings and the true role of the government in the agricultural crisis. The farmers have had too much experience with such agents of the lack of connections with the oil scandal, id in view of the resolution introduced into Ny senate the other day to investigate the packing interests as Mr. Wallace and with such help rendered them by the government to put the slightest faith in these reports. By IURY LIBEDINSKY Published by THE DAILY WORK- ER thru special arrangement with B. W. Huebsch, Inc., of New York City. Coyprighted, 1923, by B, W. Huebsch & Co, ana (WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE) The Russian Communist Party branch is governing this frontier city and fighting the counter- revolution. - Earlier installments 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-reyolutionists. It also decidés 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 summuned 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 can arrive. The Red Army ap- pears at last with great reinforce- ments and the big battle begins with Karauloy, a rough Cossack revolutionist, in command of the Red forces.—(NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY). *. 8 ‘6 A ND whoever mutinies now, whoever prevents us from getting things going, is our encmy,” he said with heavy hatred; “and I'd have no mercy on my own brother if he turned bandit.” _ “I do not know anything,” de- jectedly said the oldest peasant with a grey* beard and faded eyes, “but 1 feel in my soul that we shall all die of hunger if the Empress of Heaven, our Mother who pleads for us does not help us.” And, looking from the hill towards the gold crosses of the ~ churches in the town, hearing the thin, church bell ringing, he took his fur hat from his bald head and crossed himself, and, after him, the others crossed themselves also. And Konstantin Petrovitch, in aslittle old uniform coat of the Ministry of Education, also cross- ed himself with a little cross, and, looking at those grey, uneducated Wal STREET and its govern- ment are working overtime trying to make the farmers believe that they are earnestly endeavor. ing to end the present agricultural crisis. Big business and its expen- sive “rural experts” have been play- ing for many months with all sorts of fake farm panaceas while the farmers have been sinking more deeply in the sloegh of wankruptcy. To date, these self-styled friends, in reality the most dangerous enemies, of the farmers have spent most of their money and energy in fixing facts for the farmers, in circulating misleading, fraudulent, unfounded re- ports amongst the farming masses to make them believe that they are actually getting along splendidly, that the conditicws on the farms are steadily improving. One of these reports just issued ‘by the department of agriculture an- nounces “that in 1920 not more than 10 per cent of rented farms were owned by absentee landlords.” Great scot! What has this to do with the misery of the farmers? But let us be charitable and analyze this statement in order that we might get the greatest relief possible ous The Poor Fish says: Disabled war veterans are now being turned into trained detgetives. When able to bribe a jury, frame a radical or rob an orphan they will be given e: y- ment by the William J. Burns Detec- tive Agency. Greeks Eye Moscow. NEW YORK, March 13,—Reports reach this city, stating that the Greek government is now p to join the rush to recognize R 's rey Discussions, carried on between Mos- cow and Athenian deputies in Berlin, have led to agreement, peasants, at the grey town, the purple-brown distance of the fields, the misty day, his heart wept for that form of life which was grow- ing still forever, wept in time with that complaining ringing of bells, which with dejectedly lower- ed wings floated over the town in that inexpressibly simple hour when the sun, like a dull white spot, had long passed noon and was throwing the pale semi-circle of the rainbow over the purple- brown, distant fields. . . . The Red Army men frowned, looking at the mouzhiks crossing’ themselves, and then one, the youngest of all, said mockingly, “Well, well, we've prayed, let's get along. . .. And you, Mister, don’t lag behind,” he added, to Konstantin Petrovitch. The train of carts moved slowly forward, and Konstantin Petrovitch saw how from all parts of the town, across the broad square, people were coming together to the Circus Building, walking singly and in groups, young and old, men and women. Different faces, smiles, gestures, gaits, and yet there was something common to them all, as if one and the same distant, morn- ing sun was lighting them all. And Konstantin Petrovitch guessed that these were the Communists, gath- ering for the Party Meeting. This was the first Party Meet- ing after the revolt, and, for the Communists, the church bells sounded like the blowing of an enemy trumpet, an insolent re- minder that the struggle was not yet over, that the enemy had re- tired but had not been broken; each one heard it, and blinked, but then remembered that a victory had been won, that after all the revolt had been put down, and each one shared his feeling of joy with his comrades. And together with the others, Lisa Gratcheva went timorously to the meeting, came to the entrance of the Circus, but could not make up her mind to go in. In vain Lisa sought in the crowd for faces that she kriew. It was as if all of them had been kill- ed during the revolt, but there, see, in a clean great-coat, a Commun- ist star on his breast, Comrade Matusenko himself, secretary of the Politdep, drawing out of his pocket his clean ticket of member- ship, and showing it to the young secretary of the District Commit- tee, who was sitting in the en- trance to the Circus and register- ing.those who came to the meet- ing. ..< “Comrade Matusenko, Comrade Matusenko. .. . You at least are alive, Comrade Matusenko. . . . You at least they have not killed.” And Comrade Matusenko smiled with self-satisfaction. “Why should they kill me I am a small figure, unnoticeable, and have no enemies among my neighbors. My wife and I did not hear the shooting or anything else. . .. Just quietly slept thru ft our beds, hee hee... . In the night she woke up and said, ‘Ili- of it for the sorely pressed farmers. Mere nominal paper ownership of a farm does not;mean a thing to the farmer when the land is heavily mortgaged, when the average mort- gage debt per owner-operated farm practically doubled for many of them in the last ten years, when the freight rates are still at least 45 per cent above pre-war level, while Canadian and Argentinian rates have gone back to or even below the 1913 scale, and when practically 25 per cent of the farm-owners have lost their farms thru bankruptcy in the wheat belt alone. What wonderful blessings nominal legal ownership brings to the farm. ers are best evidenced by the fact that in one year, 1922, almost 4 per cent of our entire rural population, 1,120,000, fled from the country in a great exodus to the city, and that in the two-year period 1920-1922, the number of habitable farmhouses abandoned by the farmers almost doubled. Then the report goes on to say: “More than one-third (of the farm owners) are themselves engaged in agriculture. Nearly one-third are re- tired farmers. The remaining third are in non-agricultural occupations.” Here we have the tragic admission. Song of the Son Are You Reading “A Week”? usha, it sounds like shooting, .. ‘Enough, Grusha,’ says I, ‘go to sleep, you’re dreaming,’ hee, hee. . And in the morning { listened and there actually was_ shooting. I waited at home till they stopped shooting and then went to the office. There was no one but me in the Politdep, but it’s not for me to neglect my duties... .” “What's to happen now, Com- rade Matusenko? Comrades Sim- kova and Martuinov, both killed. . +’ Grief and affliction on the face of Matusenko: “I aim orphan- ed, orphaned altogether. ... There it is, popular ignorance and sayag- ery... . And why are you here, do you intend to join the Party?” he asked Lisa patronizingly. . .. “Is that why you have come, to our meeting?” And, hearing the sound of the bells calling to the Satur- day evening service, Lisa thought of how she had not gone to church today, to Mass, but to the Party meeting. ... And in generat... she would not go to church ... even at Easter... because there was no God. i And, occupied with these new ideas, she replied absent-mindedly to Matusenko: “I have business with Comrade Karaulov. . . . I promised to meet him here.” Karaulov rode up on horseback to the Circus Building, jumped lightly from his horse, and tied it to the horse-post, while he kept looking down the road, watching far away the black ribbon of the train of carts. Some one laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and, looking round, he saw Gornuikh,, broad-faced and calm, with a slight touch of weariness in his eyes, and hislips firmly pressed together: “Are they bringing it?” Gor- nuikh asked shortly, pointing down the road. . “They are bringing it,” Karau- lovy as shortly replied. And both were silent. They were remember- ing the twenty-eight comrades who were lying in their coffins, under the red flags, in the yard of the Extraordinary Commission, await- ing solemn burial. “[’m sorry for the tds,” said Karaulov abruptly. “Died for nothing. . .. And you and 1 were right. .\. . The battalion ought not to have been taken out of the town.” 4 Gornuikh was silent, thinking, and then said, speaking as if he were piling heavy, uniform stones into a solid wall: “No, Karaulov, we were both wrong. You see, there, they are bringing the wood: You just think,” he added, with rare anima- tion for him, “that wood gives us seed-corn! And corn, for peasant revolts, is like water for fire. Not for nothing the comrades died. . . . Just now I am holding and enquiry and I see... the revolt was, com- ing anyhow... .” And Gornuikh began briefly to tell him of the results of the enquiry. (To Be Concluded Saturday.) Fixing Facts For Farmers When is a farm owner an absentee landlord? Is a farm owner not an absentee landlord when he stays on the farm all year as a retired farmer doing nothing but. becomes an absentee landlord in the eyes of the secretary of agriculture and his coterie of high priced lawyers when he does not live on the farm and comes himself or sends his agent once or twice a year to collect rent and interest? In our opinion any farm owner, whether he calls himself a retired farmer or not, as long as he is not engaged in actual farming, in work on the farm, as long. as he is absent from farm work, is an absentee land- lord for whom other people must work to keep him alive.. Thus, ac- cording to the findings of the de- partment of agriculture itself, nearly two-thirds of the farm owners are Tay absentee landlords, It is this owning group, one-third of whom are bankers, merchants and profes- sional men, for whose support the mass of farmers are forced to work from sunrise to sunset. This is dismal fact which no one can deny. When the Wall Street farm experts blink this situation they are only helping to eames the present acute distress of the farmers. By JEAN TOOMER (From the book “Cane”, by permission of Boni and Liveright, publishers.) Pour © pour that parting soul in song,. O pour it in the sawdust glow of night, Into the velvet pine-smoke air to-night, And let the valley carry it along. And let the valley carry it along. © land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree, So scant of grass, so profligate of pines, Now just before an epoch’s sun declines Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee, ae iy I have in time returned to thee. AS WE SEE IT By T. J, O’)FLAHERTY. State’s Attorney Robert E. Crowe declares that he has crime on the run. Yes, very much so. Most every day a man labelled by the police and the capitalist press as a “gunman” walks into the state’s attorney’s of- fice has his picture taken with one of Mr. Crowe’s assistants and leaves to be found in the state’s attorney’s office amble peacefully around the detective bureau, city hall and Mr. Crowe's office, without, however, go- ing in. The police are prosecuting a vigorous search for them. So we are told, 7 e © Since Mr. William J. Burns quit giving daily interviews on the im- minence of a solution of the Wall Street explosion, those who buy the papers for a laugh never had more reason to be thankful than today. The police are looking for Dean ’Bannion, for instance. Tho. his name sounds rather familiar we do not know the gentleman, but we read in the papers that he is a prominent florist, bootlegger, gang leader and all-round sport: He is scheduled to appear in court today on a charge of forcibly injecting a few lead pel- lets into’ the person of one Davy ee a business acquaintance of is. *-_* * The police may discover Mr. O’Bannion if he walks into the sta- tion some day and holds but _ his hands for the cigars. Only the radi- cals are handcuffed. What we are driving at, however, is not the suc- cessful efforts of Mr. O’Bannien and others to live long and dangerously so far as thé law is concerned but with the boast of the state’s attor~ ney that he has crime on the run. The criminals are running around surely without worry, while Crowe’s officers are busy arresting strikers. Perhaps that is what he means by “having crime on the run.” .* & The Chicago Tribune has a real excuse for its daily revolution in Russia. Now, they are fighting for “democracy.” If they realized how flat that slogan falls in the rest of the world they wonld speedily drop it. The Tribune correspondents are bh A persistent. They have consist- ently predicted this revolution for over six years and they seem to be just getting their second wind now, The local papers. carry some story or other every day of convictions for conspiracy. Generally 1abor cases. The latest case is two business agents of the Candy Jobbers’ Union. They got six months in the county jail for asking another jobber to join the union. The organized labor movement in Chicago is not easily excited. Labor leaders are too busy nowadays fighting Communism to have any time to spare for the class struggle. f *- . * : The British Labor Party is very successful in exposing its hypocrisy in the house of commons. William Leach, the under-secretary for air and once an ardent pacifist who hated a gun as much as Oswald Garrison Villard, vigorously defended a large air force and while doing so assert- ed that the flying machines used in dropping bombs on the natives of Mesopotamia and Palestine were “civilizing forces.” This defense brought jeers from the house and angry curses from some of the most radical labor deputies. 7. * * The Teapot Dome scandal is act- ing like a wet blanket on business and industry just as they were about to start up, according to statements made by some of the big industrial chiefs in Chicago. Business, they say, is a good deal like a poet, tem- peramental, tho, generally speaking, it is anything but poetic. Others, however, do not see why a litle oil graft expose should cause the other buccaneers to stop exploiting the workers. Why should they ? 7. * * The American Federation of La- bor in California, the American Legion, and the Native Sons of the Golden West have joined together in defending the present Johnson fin- gerprinting bill, now before congress. A new cabinet has been formed by Premier Theunis, of Belgium, whose government was defeated a few weeks ago by a combination so- cialist-Catholie bloc. | Vandervelde, socialist leader, went to the king and hat in hand begged for an opportun- ity to form a cabinet. The ki shooed him out the door and as! ‘Theunis, the conservative, to get back on the job, Vandervelde, you may remember, thinks the manner in which the Russian workers disposed of the monarchial fetters was very 7_* © Replying to George Lansbury on a Gension relating to the freedom of India, Ramsay MacDonald replied that in view of the report made by a parliamentary committee in 1919, the government was not prepared to ‘| grant any further extension of self- government to India, MacDonald has the same answer for the Hindoo rebels that Coolidge has vor the Filipinos. "t | The Daily Worker. Send “Yes, But,” ot yorker, Baad fa your sub: scription at once. ji Y, : eA ON EEN