The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 19, 1924, Page 11

a =m peewee: Coolidge’s whole pro- cedure in the oil scandal betrays a definite plan on his part to do ev- erything he possibly can do to save the Fells, Sinclairs, and Dohenys, without breaking his own political neck. His choice of oil prosecutors shows this very clearly. Practically every man selected by the President to prosecute the oil thieves in behalf of the government has had his record dipped in oil, directly or indirectly, in some form or other, First of all, Mr. Gregory was chos- en, A few days after this choice was made by the White House, the Sen- ate Committee on Public Lands learned officially that Mr. Gregory was smeared with oil from head to foot. No one, of course, took Cool- idge’s claims of ignorance about Mr. Gregory’s connections with oil cor- porations seriously, Corporation Lawyer Strawn, Then the lie was again given to our Puritanie President’s confessions of innocence and purity. Another one of his chosen defenders of the coun- try’s wealth against the capitalist looters was a certain Mr. Silas H. Strawn, a corporation lawyer of Chicago. No sooner had his name been annouriced tothe press than Mr. Melvin A. Traylor, President of the First Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago, gave the Public Lands Com- mittee information which immediate- ly disqualified Mr. Strawn. Mr. Tray- lor acted in this fashion in order to save the President and his reaction- ary outfit the serious embarrassments and great difficulties which would confront them when the truth about Mr. Strawn would become known af- ter he had begun work in the legal proceedings against the Teapot leases. Mr, Traylor said in part: “That his bank was trustee under a debenture agreement securing an issue of se- curities of the Sinclair Crude Oil Purchasing Company, which is owned one-half each, by the Standard Oil and Sinclair Companies.” He went on to show that this bank was con- nected with»the Sinclair Pipe Lines Co., owned jointly by the Standard and Sinclair Companies and builders of the pipe line to the Teapot Dome; and that the Standard Oil Company|to Washingt of Indiana, “had for many years de- posited funds in the First National Bank of Chicago.’ ; Mr. Strawn, the Coolidge appoint- tee, was found to be a director and stockholder of the First National Bank and the First Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago. This was the last nail driven into the coffin bearing Mr. Coolidge’s pretense at any attempt to punish the Teapot magnates. Having lost out in his choice of these two prosecutors, Mr. Coolidge proceeded to secure lawyers who might’ stand a better chance of get- ting the Senate’s approval. Our chief Executive then chose the Lame Duck Ex, Senator Pomerene and the rela- tively unknown Mr. Owen J. Roberts of Philadelphia. These corporation tools have been accepted by the Sen- ate, despite the Ni ye en of the pro- gressive group and a few stray Sen- ators. s The Case of Mr. Pomerene An examination of the services rendered by Mr. Pomerene to the big business interests, while he was a Senator and after he was kicked out of the Senate in 1922, reveals the ir- refutable fact that it is Mr. Cool- idge’s intent to make a hollow mock- ery out of the oil prosecution. As a member of the Senate, he was opposed to striking out from the Esch-Cummins Law the provision making strikes unlawful. Mr. Pome- rene voted against extending the Federal control of railroads for two years. He accepted the conference report of the Esch-Cummins Act con- ‘taining objectionable anti-labor clauses and other obnoxious provi- sions. When Mr. Pomerene was defeat- ed in the election for Senator from Ohio, he was immediately rewarded by the railroad corporations he so loyally served in the capital. Today Mr. Pomerene is one of the biggest railroad attorneys in the country. His firm is one of the strongest cor- porations in Ohio. According to his own statements before the Interstate Commerce Commission, his firm is the representative of fifteen of the biggest railroads in the country. One of these is the Pennsylvania Railroad which is an uncompromising enemy of organized labor. Mr. Pomerene is also on the pay roll of the National Transportation Institute, which is a propaganda or- ganization in favor of the united railway capitalists, Mr. Pomerene has admitted that he has been, for some time, on the platform of this organ- ization and has been paid as high as $1,000 for a few speeches delivered by him in behalf of the railroad in- terests. Mr. Pomerene’s connections with the railroads go back to the years before he was in the Senate. He tried several cases for the Penn- sylvania system before he was sent on. Mr. Pomerene is an enemy of the farmers, as well as of the workers. At one time he appeared before the Interstate Commefce Commission and denounced the farmers of the Northwest for protesting against their hardships. r:“Pomerene, in a fit of rage against the complaints of the farmers; yelled at‘several of their n, who appeared before the Commission: “You sinners up in the Northwest”. At this moment Mr. Pomerene in addition to being the government Coolidge Does His Bit - ee eee eee eon once me osrnenstanetitastentipeeaunthaneeseastsdegaiastensiiehesthsnangssuatnsnendhhes ieee erage eee ene eee feet “prosecutor” in the oil steal, is also attorney for a railway company in Cleveland that is trying to secure money from the municipal govern- ment to the extent of about half a million dollars, Roberts Just As Bad In his appointment of the other so-called prosecutor, Mr. Coclidge pursued precisely the same policy— the policy of putting the case against despoilers of the country’s resources in the hands. of individuals who could be counted on doing everything in the behalf of the guilty and noth- ing for the country. One of the advantages attached to Mr. Robert’s nomination by Coolidge is his being a comparative nonentity. Mr. Roberts record of service to the corporate interests is not well-known amongst the masses and therefore the Senate safely approved him as a prosecutor without raising a storm of protest. But Mr. Roberts has very positive- ly shown himself to be an agent of the big railway and oil interests. On February 16th,-1923, this Philadel- phia lawyer addressed the Trust Company Division of the American Bankers’ Association and denounced the LaFollette investigation of the oil industry. We reproduce in part Mr. Robert’s speech before this body of | the financial wizards, as reported by the New York Times of February 16th, 1923, to establish the character of this newly anointed savior of our oil reserves: ‘Defends High Pay Oil Officials —Lawyer Says Senate Inquiry Is Propaganda For Nationalization of Industry—Cites Value of Service— Consumers The Beneficiaries Thru Increased Production, Speaker As- serts at Trust Company’s Dinner.” The investigation of the Senate sub-committee into the oil industry which disclosed that A. C. Bedford, chairman, and Walter C. Teagle, president of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, received salaries of $125,000 a year each and that six other officials received $100,000 was | had attacked as “pro nda” for the na- tionalization of industry by Owen J. Roberts, Philadelphia lawyer, last night at the twelfth annual dinner of the trust companies of the United States at the Waldorf-Astoria. The dinner was given by the trust com- pany division of the American Bank- ers’ Association.” _ Robert's Interests. “The members of the trust com- pany organization cheered when the lawyer said that the Standard Oil effcials earned every dollar of the vig salaries paid them becanse it was tkeir business to increase production, which meant price reduction to the ¢ nsumer.” “He attacked the government for the condition in which the railroads were left at the end of government By JAY LOVESTONE operation, and assailed government generally for absorbing too much control over everything.” “Everywhere you turn judicial and semi-judicial administrative com- missioners investigating bodies, in- spectors of every known variety are found. The result is that the busi- ness man in America today feels that he is doing business with a minion of government looking over his shoulder with an upraised arm and a threatening scowl.” Obviously Mr. Roberts will con- cern himself much more with the safety of the salaries and the inter- ests of the oil presidents than with the restoration of the stolen Teapot Dome area. As an opponent of gov- ernment “interference” in business, as a disciple of the doctrine that the vernment ought to aid and abet capitalist leaders in their exploit- ation of the natural resources of the country for their own private pro- fits, Mr. Roberts can be counted on doing his level best to save Fall, Daugherty, Doheny and Sinclair from the penitentiary. Of course, as a lawyer for huge Pennsylvania corporations, Mr. Roberts will hide behind the most abstruse techniecali- ties of the law and thus attempt to give an appearance of acting within provisions of the constitution. Coolidge Guards Oil Thieves Every step that Mr. Coolidge has taken in the present oil investigation has been a step in the direction of securing maximum protection te ev- ery individual that is in any way at all connected with the Teapot leases. Mr. Coolidge presided over the Sen- ate when LaFollette introduced his first igs se for an investigation of the Sincisir deals. Mr. Coolidge participated in Cabinet sessions while Fall, Denby and Daugherty were per- petrating this great steal. Mr. Cool- idge was in communication with Mc- Lean during the investigation. After the Teapot explosion, Mr. Coolidge picked arch reactionaries, experienced corporation lawyers who been serving the biggest capital- ist interests for years as the champ- ions of the government in what we are asked to believe is to be a gen- uine effort to restore the stolen wealth to the country. Mr. Coolidge is acting in his true role as the chief executive of a gov- ernment whose dominant objective is the perpetuation of the conditions making for Teapot leases, making for the loss of all our natural resources. Mr. Coolidge, the friend of McLean, Mr. Coolidge, the president whose private detectives, ushers and tele- graphers have been at the of those most guilty in the entire affair, is today the man in whom the capitalist class has put its faith and hope of leading them out of the troublesome mess in which they find themselves ‘at this moment. The Revolutionary Significance of Teapot Dome (Continued from Page 3) Daugherty investigation committee are becoming ever more, as the ca talist dress dubs them, the “Cheka” and the “Revolutionary Tribunal” of the Third Party movement. Importance of Teapot Dome. Of course, it would be a great ex- aggeration of the political signifi- cance of the Teapot Dome scandal to claim that all this was caused by the ‘eapot Dome scandal. The Teapot ome scandal plays a big role in sharpening all conflicts of the various political groups and classes. But we should not forget that only the un- heard of sharpening of the class struggle in the last years has made the Teapot Dome scandal so signifi- cant. Teapot Dome has not pro duced the dissatisfaction of the worker and farmer masses, but on the contrary, it is the deep dissatis- faction of masses which makes ‘them so receptive to the lessons of the Teapot Dome. In the 1920 November elections the Republican Party, the party of Wall Street and the steel trust was boas eager Bas a seven million ma- with the Democratic Party on ac- count of the war, still — rarer rin November a el this majority were ully beaten, but it was not the crats who were the new force appears and constitutes the “balance of power”’—the “pro- gressive-radical” bloc in Congress, p-|composed of insurgent Republicans, Democrats and Farmer-Laborites. It is not Teapot Dome but much deep- er factors of economic and political life which have caused the sharp- ening of the class struggle. The grow- ing power of the monopoly of the trusts, the world war, the unheard of centralization of federal govern- ment, the deep-going economic crisis of 1921-22, the intervention of the government fn the mass struggle of the million workers in the summer fierce fue jel of 1922, the bankruptcy of millions of farmers, the victory of the Brit- ish Labor Party, the hopeless Europ- ean economic situation—all these fac- tors have brought about the disinteg- ration of the two-party system, split- ting away of the non-capitalist mass- es from the political leadership of big capital and the beginning of class- consciousness in the industrial work- ers and exploited farmers. Class Conflicts Sharpened. Teapot Dome has not called forth the class struggle, but has simply sharpened it because it made it more conscious because it has elevated it from confinement to local and re- gional issues, because it helped to make it nation-wide, because it focus- ed it against the government. We should not exaggerate the sig- nificance of Teapot Dome; but we must see clearly its tremendous rev- olutionary significance. Teapot Dome has strengthened to a hitherto unheard of degree the dis- illusionment of our masses with our governmental system. Teapot Dome has enlightened mil- lions on the capitalist essence of our democracy. + Teapot Dome has drawn into poli- tical life millions of workers and farmers who until now have kept at a distance. Teapot Dome gave a tremendous impetus to the Farmer-Labor Party movement as well as to the Third Party movenment. Communist Mass Party. Teapot Dome has for the first time made it possible for the slogan of the Workers Party of a workers’ and farmers’ government to become a real demand not only of the van- guard of the revolution, but of the ‘great laboring masses of factories and farms. And finally, in view of the big structural changes of our society, and the present economic depression and approaching economic crisis, Teapot Dome justifies Zinoviev’s well-found- ed revolutionary optimism about the prospects for a Communist mass party in the United States in the near future. :