The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 19, 1924, Page 6

Bia whole country is an uproar be- cause a group of oil barons aided and abetted by the present adminis- tration in Washington were caught red-h, naed in the act of looting the government oil reserves. Senators, congressmen, publicists and all kinds of capitalist public men not involv- ed in the oil graft are rushing fran- tically for the limelight to let the dear old “people” know how horri- fied they are that an administration under our blessed capitalist system could be so corrupt as to sell or barter that precious mineral sub- stance upon which our naval bill col- lectors will- depend in the near fu- ture for their motive power. The Capitalist State. And the “people” are actually shocked except that small but con- scious minority of this country’s working class population known as radicals or tc be more definite, Com* munists. The Communists are neither surprised nor shocked. They are rather pleased that a capitalist administration should be so stupid as to give such striking testimony of what the Communists always have claimed, i. ¢., that this-country with its untold wealth is the prop- erty of the capitalists who use the workers to turn its raw ources into finished products ready for con- sumption, which commodities are sold by the capitalists for profit. Every four years the capitalist groups fight with each other for the possession of the government. Con- trol of the machinery of government enables the controlling capitalist group to have first rights on the pickings and the loot, but when they become over confident and overstep the bounds of discretion, the “outs” jump in, wave the danger s!gna: and help to kick them out and make room for a new set of looters. That is the significance of the present hullaballoo wbout the oil seandal. It is true that the republican ad- ministration has been guilty of turning over the naval oil reserve lands to oil barons. They have aided in defrauding the country =. were supposed to defend. For t they are denounced by their capitalist politicians of other parties. But none of these defenders of the Unit- *ed States ever said a single word during this entire expose spout those who are really robbed; the workers who make the profits that enabled Doheny, Sinclair andthe rest of the oil barons to purchase the Coolidge administration and thru it grab the Teapot Dome and the California oil fields. The Robbery of the Workers. None of those who were and are so outraged about the Teapot Dome steal are concerned about the rob- Robbing the Oil Slaves - az béry of the workers who produce the oil, because they believe in the robber capitalist system. They are only concerned with the code of ethics generally followed by capi- talist thieves, in their relations to each other. Only when one group of thieves steals a march on the others do they throw their -usual secrecy to the winds and tell the world what is going on. That is the feature of the situation that the Communists relish, and the public- ity they give the present vil scandal is distinctly for the purpose of throwing light on the real character of capitalist government and calling the attention of the workers. to the necessity for doing away with the system that breeds such corruption. The Communists are concerned entirely with the robbery of the workers in the oil industry by the Dohenys, Sinclairs,. Standard Oil Company and all the other com- panies that exploit the oil resources of the United States for their own profit. How do the workers who produce the oil barons’ millions fare? What are their conditions of employment? What kind of houses do they live in?. What is their social life? These are questions that will not receive any consideration in Washington; we take ther up here in the columns of the DAILY WORKER. : $2.65 Per 84 Hours. We will take the Elk Basin field in northern Wyoming—the Teapot Dome state—as a typical example. Elk Basin is described as “a hole in the ground, gouged out of the naked clay and sandstone. No water, no trees, no grass—not a living grow- ing thing in sight save the strag- gling sage brush.” . The Elk Basin oil production is controlled by 6, a Oil | Standard Oil Company, masquer: ing under the aliases of the Ohio and Midwest Oil companies. When social workers take up the) conditions of the oil workers with the saintly John D. Rockefeller, Jr., that gen’ above named in turn pass the buck John D. The hours of labor are 84 a week and the pay of an unskilled worker for the 84-hour week is $2.65 which, we hasten to add, includes board. The bunk houses in Elk Basin are rather lively. Listen to what an in- vestigator has to say of the sleep- ing accommodations: “< ‘How are the bugs?’ I asked a man lounging outside, who I learned later was a mule skinner freighting thru the basin.” “ae gusted reply. here I killed an army corps of them leman refers them to t oil companies. They back to > in half an hour and took to the barn with my mules the rest of the night. Me for the hay life.’” _ Married men~ and their families live in one-room shacks without plumbing or running water. Some of these families number from six to-eight grown up boys and girls. They are compelled to live together in a single 10x14 tent. Alkali Drinking Water. The oil slaves are awakened at six in the morning by the “crum boss,” The twelve-hour grind gtarts at seven and as one old slave put it, “When you ginish the week's work, you are good for nothing but John D.” He might add that the one week’s work merely marks the be- ginning of another. There is no in- terval for rest. The drinking water in the Elk Basin is atrocious. It is alkali water pumped from wells two miles away and condensed for drinkirg. The condensing is so poor that the water is enough to turn any man’s stom- ach. The lumping of oatmesl and to combinations into the con- lensing boiler to stop leaking flues, hardly improves the quality of the water. Sanctimonious John D. There is one shower bath in oper- ation in the Ohio company’s wash- house. The employes of the Mid- west company are, however, not al- lowed to use it, The shower at the Midwest has been out of crder for some years. 5 “While John D. is sittin’ on a soft cushion in church on Easter morn- in’ praisin’ God in his goodness to him, I was out here pulling a well in the worst blizzard seen around here for many years. God is good to the oil barons. They can pay | preachers to praise Him—paid from the profits made by their oil slaves.” The slaves of the Ohio Oil Company WORK TWELVE HOURS A DAY 365 DAYS IN THE YEAR, he | NEVER GET A HOLIDAY The oil companies cannot afford to give ‘their employes a six-day week and‘an eight-hour day. The oil companies admit it! But the fol- lowing except from the Federal Trade Commission’s tentative revi- sion of the net earni: on net in- vestment of the Midwest company for the last three years for which figures are given shows 43.2, 50.6, 44.4, respectfully, while the Ohio Oil Company due to dividends of 2,900 and 150 per cent, is paying 4,500 per cent on its original investment. Every nickel of this colossal profit was wrung out of the 84-hour week, 365-day year oil slaves. The looting of the oil reserve, the grafting of By T. J. O' FLAHERTY ex-Secretary of the Interior Fall, the corruption of the entire republi- can administration, pales into insig- nificance- beside this colossal rob- bery of the poor workers who are defrauded of the fruits of their labor right on the job. “Why don’t you organize?” was a question put to an oil worker by a newspaper reporter. i “Organize hell—try it and see,” was his reply. The Slimy Octopus. Two men tried it in the Elk Basin and lasted two weeks on the job. When the companies post a wage reduction, the insinuation goes with it that anybody who does not like the job can leave, These are the conditions under which those who. produce the swol- len fortunes of the oil barons live. According to a United States gov- ernment report 80 per cent of the oil workers in this country work a seven-day week of 84 hours With the profits from their labors the oil companies instigate counter-revolu- tions in Mexico, reach out into dis- tant Mesopotamia, Persia, China and all over the world leaving a trail of civil wars and corruption in their wake. With these profits the oil companies buy up the agencies that manufacture opinion, ‘the press, the pulpit and the colleges. They buy senators, ecngressmen, state legis- latures and the cabinet. ‘That is the essence of the present oil scandal. If is a matter of great importance to the workers that a set’ of capi- talist burglars were caught in the act of looting the country. It helps to arouse the masses to the neces- sity for getting rid of all the burg- lars that run this country and rule it by foree in their own interests. The republicans were caught hawk- ing the oil fields. The democrats are mad because they did not have the privilege of doing the looting. The workers who are the real victims, are not considered by the capitalist parties. Remember June 17th! It is our duty to stress this fea- ture of the present crisis and call on the workers to rally to the standard of the Farmer-l abor Party which will hold its convention in Minneapolis on June 17th and or- ganize the exploited workers of this country, in all industries as well as the oil industry, on the political field, to eject the capitalist robbers from the government, and_ prepare for the establishment of a Workers’ Republic in the United States, run by the producers for the benefit of those who render useful service to society. ete eeenaneecnneceitaaeetatttee te A ES The Investigation Mania In Washington culliniatiann HE extent to which the capital- ists control the United States government is unknown to most of the workers and farmers. There is not a single department of the fed- eral, state, municipal and county governments that is not today com- pletely subject to the orders and manipulations of the bankers and manufacturers. : Graft and corruption are in lan- guage in which the politics of the employing class is played. Teapot scandals are not new to American government. We have had Teapot politics played in this ‘country ever since the government was organized. But at no time before has this cor- ruption broken out in such putrid scabs on the body-politic of the coun- try. To get an idea of how Wash- ington is serving the big business interests of the country one need but took at the investigation mania that has seized the Capitol, The num- ber of investigations, larger than ever in our history, gives only an inkling into what is what in the federal government. We cite some of ‘the leading investigations that have been proposed or are in pro- cess now: Teapot Dome Steal. 1, The Teapot Dome and the Elk Hills Naval Oil Reserve deals. 2. The Veterans’ Bureau under the direction of Forbes. 3. General Wood’s conduct in the Philippines in handing over conces- sions to the oil, tobacco, railway and eee nn en ee net toe eee enaencaienmsneat new emt At ane ate cent inaeeta, Aa coal capitalists who financed his 1920 presidential primary campaign. | Ri 4. The Wheeler investigation of the Department of Justice and Daugherty. 5. The transfer of the Matanuska coal fields in Alaska to Fall as Sec- Tre of the Interior to the Navy Department. 6. The financial orgy indulged in by the Emergency Fleet Corporation and the Shipping Board. 7. The Ku Klux Klan and its role in the election of Senator Mayfield in Texas. 8. The propaganda campaign or- ganized in behalf of the Mellon tax scheme. : 9. The lease of the naval oil re- serve to Buena Vista Hills, Cali- fornia. 10. The land frauds in Texas par- ticipated in by the Republican Na- tional Committeeman r. 11. The Bok Peace Plan as an at- tempt to influence the government’s foreign policy. 5 12, The negotiation and _ratifica- tion of the treaty by which the United States government gave Colombia $25,000,000. 138. The activities of capitalists and corporations in attempting to secure oil concessions in foreign es. 14. The conspiracy fixing the Min Tae tacedignton. odie . The investiga ganda against the bonus. apg 17. The adminisiration _of Porto ico. ; 18. The conduct of the Prohibition Enforcement Bureau. Russian Propaganda. 19. Soviet “propaganda” and Rus- sian-American relations. ‘ 20. The administration of Federal Highway Aid system. 21. The immigration problem. 22. The fraud and corruption in the Bureau of Printing and Engrav- ing. 23. Sundry phases of the railway problem, such as the payment of money to various railway corpora- tions by the United States govern- |i ment for the period of federal con- tro! 24. The medical diploma mills. 25. The propaganda of the big ilizer interests regarding Muscle s. 26. The administration of the By- reau of Internal Revenue and the charges of waste, favoritism, extrav- efficiency. f Air Service, Mail Service and the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics. e 28. The practice of the banks for volves the Federal Reserve insurance activ- it in- 16. The practices of the stock ex-| - change. Denby-Doheny-Hawaiian Grab. 32. The Denby-Doheny - Hawaiian construction contract involving the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 83. Connection of congressmen with the Veterans’ Bureau. 34 to 39. The resolutions of Sena- tor Norris calling upon six govern-~ ment departments to supply Senate with information regarding the appearance of ex-cabinet officers, ex-senators, and ex-department heads before various subdivisions of the government within two years after they have left office in behalf of pri- vate interests, These rese-xtions the Department of the Treasury, the Shipping Board, the State Department, the Department of Justice, the Navy Department, | and Department of Interior. 40. The charges made by Brewer, an awe of a Reve- nue Bureau, invo a $1,000. bond fraud. ats OUT WITH DAUGHERTY! Before Warren G. Harding was elected he had his picture taken with Harry M. Daugherty, Jake L. Hamon 2 = ¥