The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 19, 1924, Page 7

Revolutionary Significance of Teapot Dome * #7 HE Teapot ewe affair ig not an; agua scandal—it is a political factor of first magnitude The Teapot Dome scandal is not a ease of ordinary corruption—it is a revolutionary factor of paramount importance. _ Since the world war we have not witnessed anything so big taking place as the Teapot Dome scandul. Since the world war not a single po- litical event has so intensively oc: eupied and so deeply shaken up the American nation as the Teapot Dome seandal. William Randolph Hearst who is unquestionably one of the greatest experts in judging the psy- chology of the American masses, wrote with justification: “I am ae- quainted in a way with the public sentiment in all parts of the country in which I have papers, and I have never known the public to he as much aroused over anything except a war as it is at present aroused over thesc oil scandals. There never. has been such intense feeling and unanimity of feeling.” America’s Democratic Illusions. Not a single people in the world had so great a faith in its govern- ment and was so proud of its govern- mental system as the American peo- ple. Democratic illusions of the mass- es are everywhere the greatest ob- stacle in the way of the proletarian revolution. But they prove to be in- surmountable obstacles to the revo- lutionizing of the minds of the work- ers in the United States, the “classi. cal” country of democracy, which went forth in the crusade of the world war, to “make the world safe for democracy”. The cruel searchlight of Teapot Dome has now suddenly lit up the real essance of our democracy. The masses see now that the sacred shrine of American democracy is in reality the safety-vault of big. capital. It was the pride of the mass of American citizens that our country is a republie and its head the presi- dent elected by the people. Teapot Dome driiled into the minds of the dismayed and disillusioned masses that we do indeed have an elected president, but that at the same time he has as his masters the various mon- archs of finance capital, the kings of oil, the sovereigns of Wall street, the potentates of the steel trust, the whole dynasty of the Invisible Em- pire of finance capital. The average American citizen sees today with panic and dismay that the whole of American democracy consists of this, that we have, not only one Kaiser like ‘imperialist Germany had, but a whole gallery of kings, czars, kaisers and emperors. The two-party system of our political life was always the most important guarantee of the un- disturbed rule of the capitalist class. If the masses became dissatisfied with the Republican Party they turned to Democrats, they flocked to the Re- publicans. Teapot Dome has now put a sudden end to this nice see-saw game of American political life. Teapot Dome has i great masses the essence of both -aitoga It has exposed both old cap- ist ies as being in equal mea- sure the parties of capitalism. o blican or Demo- erat, politics remain the same poli- tics, dominated by the capitalist trust powe a j Tt has shown. that is not enough. It unmasked not but President Coolidge is personally involved in the oil stench. The coun- try does not know today what will be the next step of our president to- morrow, a message or a confession. Even the most narrow minded aver- age American citizen sees with as- conishment that all professional per- secutors of the working class, all Red baiters are at the same time in the pay of finance capital. Palmer, the attorney general of the Wilson ad- ministration, the infamous initiator of wholesale deportation of Communists in 1920, is working today on the yroll of McLean, the friend of Harding and Coolidge and the proven liar of the oil investigation. And At- torney ‘General Daugherty, the no- torious instigator of the criminal in- IT HAS CO Farmer: What shall we important task to drill that into the minds of the masses, that the Teapot Dome of the oil industry is but 2 sample of a hundred other Teapot Domes in oper industries. The coun- try begins fo see that the individual bribing of corrupt individuals in ad- ministrations and Congress is only a dramatized symptom of the much more important and deeper system: that the whole administration, the whole congress, whether it is individu- ally bribed or not is the kept servant of big capital. The country is begin- ning to realize that individual cor- ruption is only the by-product of the system which is the rule of big cap- ital in government. Capitalists Rule Both Parties. Teapot Dome has shown that capi- junction against the railroad strike and the criminal director of the Bridgeman, the Communist stands today before the country as a friend of criminals, as accomplice in every corruption, as a criminal himself. The Governmental “Brass Check.” History works with surprising jus- tice and with considerable irony. It compromised the Democratic Wilson administration and the Republican Harding-Coolidge administration. But only the past and present administra- tions, but the future administration too. The two most likely candidates for the presidency, McAdoo, the Dem- ocrat and Coolidge, the Republican are today the targets of suspicion and mistrust. Teapot Dome proved that McAdoo, to the ‘ogressive” Demo- erat, asked and obtained money not only from Doheny the oil man, but from big steel interests and from oth- er big capitalist forces. McAdoo sold his “political influence” as a street- walker sells her virtue to every com- er indiscriminately, with the only dif- es ference that he charged enormously high prices, rey The country thought at that the bribing of of the terior Fall, was vidual corruption. In- a case of indi- ut then the in- {| dividual cases multiplied more and more, and with ever. > age 4 rapidity. With bitter indi ion the masses see that every administration of the Fab in she ee is veces in corruption, every ou! standing figure of the United States Michigan, raid against Worker: Bury the darn thing. PES MSIAY Up ete’ do with the offal? the front. The giving away of the oil fields of the nation has alarmed the masses who had tolerated with- out protest the great process of ex- propriation which made the whoig country the possession of a handful of trust magnates. Of course’we Communists knew all that, before the Teapot Dome scan- dal happened. We have always said over and over again to the masses that that’s the way it all is; but the masses themselves did not see all that and did believe it. The revolutionary significance of Teapot Dome is just this: that it has beaten into the minds of the masses this elementary Marx- ist-Leninist truth on the nature of capitalist government, on the person- al identity of cabinet members and ME TO THIS | tal rules both capitalist parties and their administrations, not only in do- mestic politics, but also in foreign Teapot Dome has shown that American oil capital wants to conquer Mexico at all cost. It has politics. proved that oil capital appointed Secretary of the Interior Fall be- cause he was so “strong” for chang- ing the Mexican constitution which was an obstacle in the way of the greed of American capitalists. Tea- pot Dome proved that oil capital was intervention of behind American 1916 in Mexico, behind the fight against the recognition of the Obre- gon government as well as behind the recent De la Huerta counter-rev- olution. Teapot Dome hammered in- to the minds “American interests” are always cap- italist interests, 3 The cruel Teapot Dome scandal dealt a big blow to our official Amer- ican patriotism too. The same presi- dents and cabinet members and ad-|f. ls of the navy who fill the land with their agitation for militarism and navalism, who always demand more hundreds of millions of dollars for their military purposes have at the same time unscrupulously betray- ed the interests of national defense and handed over the oil reserves of the navy to private capitalists. Tea- pot Dome has revealed the close, deli- cate connections existing between war, patriotism and corruption. The > lt org: the plundering of the Veterans’ Bureau and Teapot Dome to; have shown that the capi- make war and organize big government is of the financial |armies and navies when the patriotic and political witetieatton. The coun-|interests of profit demand it. But to see that what is no lo try begit Dome ins psec El certain ke an be Re it is a case a Teapot |they are willing to cripple the army £ woet. of ised. if that will bring them pro- “Masses Are Awaking. #5 of the masses that ques- | investigation bankers, on the aggressive charac- ter of imperialism and the peculiarly mixed nature of capitalist profit-pa- triotism and profit-high treason. The Communist talk against government was “un-American”. Today the American government itself is the best propagandist and agitator against itself. Teapot Dome conferred citizenship upon distrust in our holy democratic government. Teapot Dome has given an enormous impet- us to the ideological process of unifi- cation of the masses of workers with the Communist vanguard. The True Role of the States, The masses are beginning to rec- ognize the true nature of our gov- ernment, and that has called forth an elementary force of the masses as against the government. Millions of workers and farmers who, until now have had a naive, almost in- born confidence in American democ- racy, have lost and are losing their aith. This newly born mistrust is not strong enough as yet and will not be strong enough in the near future to call forth a general disillusion- ment with democracy and turn the masses to the Soviet system. But it is strong enough to tear away the non-capitalist masses from the cap- italist parties and to bring them in- to new parties. Teapot Dome has given a tremendous impetus to the crystallization of a Farmer-Labor Party as well as a Third Party. On June 17, a class Farmer-Labor Party will be organized and it is unques- tionable that after the Republican and Democratic conventions a Third Party in some form or other will be organized. Under the pressure of the masses vacillating “leaders” like LaFollette are forced to act. La- Follette withdrew his candidacy from the Republican primaries. The oil committee and. the (Continued on Page 7)