The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 29, 1924, Page 10

rs The “National Farmer-Labor Party”---In Memoriam sain = oie OBERT M. BUCK and J. G. Brown, for the group calling it- self the National Farmer-Labor Party, in the New Majority for March 22, ex- plain the position of that almost de- funct organization relative to the re- cent Minnesota conferences, the June 17 convention, the July 4 conference, the Communist bugaboo and many other things. To Correct False Impressions, It is solely for the purpose of clearing up any false impressions created by the gentlemen mentioned above that this article is written. Their expressions of despair at and disappointment with the outcome of the Minnesota conference are merely an extension of the attitude they as- sumed at these important meetings and it is therefore necessary to state clearly what that attitude was and what the delegates to the Minnesota conferences represented. Neither from the article in the New Majority on the Minnesota conferences signed by Robert . Buck nor from the of- ficial report of Buck and Brown as delegates can be learned the fact that every conference and convention beginning with the St. Paul meeting of the Farmer-Labor party represen- tatives from seven states on March 10, to the convention of the Minne- sota Farmer-Labor party on March 14, represented by delegates. of func- tioning Farmer-Labor parties’ and economic organizations, hundreds of thousands of workers and farmers. These delegates had been elected by their organizations for the specific purpose of passing upon the advisa- bility of calling a great convention of delegates from labor unions, working class political parties, co-operative societies, etc., and organizing these forces on the political field. The organizations represented at the Minnesota conferences were those which had committed themselves to a political party separate and distinct from the parties of American capi- talism and whose attitude towards in- dependent political action was not predicated upon the bolt of one or more progressives from the old par- ties but adopted as the fundamental principle of political action for a mass party of workers and farmers. Authoritative Gathering. The St. Paul conference was a mandated body. Every delegate came with authority to make decisions on behalf of his organization and repre- sented there were the Western Prog- ressive Farmers of Washingt>n, the Farmer-Laber parties of Washingten, Montana, North Dakota, South Da- kota, the Progressive party of Ne- braska, the Farmer Labor Federation of Minnesota, the local party of Buf- falo, N. Y,., and the Federated Farm- er-Labcr party. In addition to these bona fide parties there were the Na- tioral Farmer-Labor party of Amer- ica—a party in name only, without members or even a good mailing list —represenied by Buck and Brown; the seceding Illinois faction of this same organization represented by Rodriguez and Gifford Ernst and a non-existent labor party in Washing- ton, D. C., represented ‘by one Wil- liam V, Mahoney. The vote against holding the pro- posed convention on June 17°is given by Buck as 12 to 6 without any ex- planation of its character. It is enough to say here that Rodriguez, Ernst, Buck, Brown, William V. Ma- honey of Washington, D. C., with one Minnesota delegate voted in opposi- tion with the obvious corollary that the June 17 convention was favored by all of the bona fide farmer-labor parties outside of Minnesota and by half of the Minnesota delegation. Ir should be noted also that the seces- sion of Rodriguez and Ernst gave the “National” Farmer-Labor party two more votes—a total of four, one for each member. This gives the lie to the statements made and reiterated by Buck and Brown to the effect that it was Com- munist control that forced the setting of the convention date. As a Com- munist I wish that this were true, but the facts are otherwise. The truth of the matter is and everybody who attended the Minne- sota conferences knows it, that Buck and Brown, united for the purpose with Rodriguez and Ernst, came to St. Paul, no¢ to work for unity in the Farmer-Labor ranks, but to destroy the movement for a class Farmer- Labor party in the interests of the Conference for Progressive Political Action and the middle class elements which the officialdom of that organ- ization follows. Destructionist Efforts. This group, representing nothing and nobody but themselves since they bolted the July 3rd convention, tried to scare the other elements in the conferences with the threadbare tales of the Communist menace, disrupt the northwest movement and leave nothing but scattered fragments to be picked up by the politicians and}of aid and comfort to every foe of union bureaucrats who will dominate |the labor movement and were com- the July 4 gathering. They were|mented upon gleefully by the capi- willing to take the risk of wrecking |talist pre.s of the Twin Cities, the whole movement for a class Habitual Bolters. farmer-labor party in order to ac-} After mentioning not a single one complish this purpose. : of the developments in Minnesota Meeting with no success in St.|/that are recognized even by labor's Paul because their tactics and the/enemies as of the greatest signifi- the motives that prompted them were | cance, Buck explains that his organ- well understood by the real represen-|ization (composed of himself and tatives of the Northwest Farmer-La-|Brown) did not sign the call for the bor movement who, however, accord-|June 17 convention “in view of its ed them the courtesy of listening pa-|domination by the Communists, not tiently to every lie, misrepresenta-| from any red-baiting motives, not be- tion, slander, innuendo and jesuitical!cause they are radicals, but because argument they had to lay before the | it is impossible to work with them to- conference, this group then went to| ward the establishment of a labor- Minneapolis, and, forming another|party that organized labor will sup- united front with the most reaction-| port.” ary section of the Minnesota labor} This is a rather frank admission and farmer movement, hung around |that the secession of the Buck-Brown the fringe of the powerful organiza-/| group last July was no accident but tion that was taking form and peddled | that they are habitual secessionists; their poison to everyone that would/it is also an admission that at St. listen. % Paul they refused to be bound by the United Front of Reaction. majority decision of the real farmer= During the three conferences that |!abor parties who find no such diffi- were held in Minneapolis following| culties in working with Communists the St. Paul meeting, the conferences | 4d that in any gathering of workers that brought unity in the labor-|where their vaccillating policy is farmer movement in Minnesota, these | beaten by a policy of action they will free-lance apostles of a policy of tim-|Tefuse to go along. idity and hesitation, were seen with The Future. such obstructionists and careerists as{ The Buck-Brown-Rodriguez - Ernst Baldus and Thomason of the new de-|group now pin their faith on the C. funct non-partisan league, Parsons |P. P. A. and July 4, They bolted the and Vandenberg, meal-ticket artists |Cleveland convention of this organ- and fakers par excellence, in short |ization against the advice of the they co-operated to the best of their Communists who told them to stay on ability with the Van Lear-Townley |the inside; now they are going back clique that prostituted the Minne-,to their vomit. They have no faith sota Daily Star and did its best to|in June 17, they say, because they do make the Minnesota movement a tail |not believe it possible that respecta- to the political. kite of spineless and |ble middle class politicians will accept crooked office-seekers. support from an organization with William V. Mahoney of Washing-|which the Workers (Communist) ton, even journeyed to St. Cloud and |Party of America is affiliated; they continued his scandal-mongering at |have forgotten all about the June 17 the convention of the official Farmer-|convention as the best guarantee of Labor party of Minnesota until he|independent action on July 4 and was squelched by William Mahoney | they now stake all, not on the work- of St. Paul, chairman of the farmer-jers and farmers, but on politicians labor federation of Minnesota. and labor officialdom—the same ele- The report published in the New/ments they have many times de- Majority is therefore sadly lacking |nounced as hopeless. in both detail and truth. Were it a} Where will this little handful of truthful record of what took place in|former progressives finally align Minnesota it would state that the|themselves? It is hard to say but men who signed it and two of their 'right now they are headed with John allies already named, at a time when | Fitzpatrick, their economic founda- a great coalition of the working class /|tion, straight for the Gompers camp. forces of the Northwest was taking|There they may find a quiet resting shape, deliberately sabotaged the|place but just at present they are unity process as well as they could homeless, helpless, hopeless and and that their activities were a source alone. Facing Fascism in Great Britain === Te OTHER DAY, traveling down thru France, on the, Riviera fate and fortune were so good as to project me, suitably equipped with non-comit guide- books and literature, into a compart. ment in which were two ex-officers, one Italian and the other British. We got into conversation which be- came, to_say the least, interesting. It started with the franc. It went on to the pound. It embraced the Labor government, and the guards- man became still more interesting. The Italian proved to be a Fascist. They grew communicative. I smiled my sympathy and my encourage- ment. My compatriot was engagingly Phen § Fascism is the thing and matters are going on very nicely. It is the cult in the regimental messes and in the West End clubs. One of these days, and bafore s0 very long something is to happen to “those mned fellows from the Clyde.” They will be taught a salu- lesson. It will be rather “a rag, don’t you know” “We are going to have no Bolshevism in England.” Now, this week-end one finds in the reactionary press a chorus of denunciation of Wheatley, torrents of abuse of the Clyde men, violent attacks upon the Communists of Poplar. The whole of the Conserva- express, Fascism—The Cult tives and a large section of the Liberals are ra ig against Wheat- and retation by an executive act of whole case of the left wing elements in what af- fects the treatment of the unem- worker or not the workers are to permit the powers of the State and the local authorities to be used as the framers. and defenders of the whole poor law system intended they should be used, to enable the master class to use the necessities of the poor for the undoing of the bargain- ing power of the poor. Wheatley’s action, like that of our eomrades in Poplar, is indeed revo- lutionary, striking at the whole vile system of bourgeois class rule across hundreds of years. Wheat- ley’s action is a step, as the master class knows (and, knowing, squeals), towards the use of political power, embodied in the state and loca! au- thorities, for the purpose of break- ing the capitalists’ economic advant- age over the worker. On Eve of Fascist Violence. It is a step that, affecting the principle all local expenditure and, therefore, all the big rate payers who, under democracy, them- selves in a grotesque minority, will cause these big rate payers here, as | Italy and Germany, to fi employed and the low paid workers. He has raised the issue of whether nance and assist organizations for “cleans- ing” local and national authorities 1 ma ener ng a e are’ one very com- rades of the entire left, poy oeeor violence here in Great Britain. It now becomes a Lord Chelmsford what Maxton has the appointment of to the Admiralty, that the navy chiefs have declared a mutiny, a re- volt against the worki After tke gance of the king’s immediate court entourage, and of their insufferable impudence, that the Londonderry household, which was the go-be- tween for the army rebels and Car- son with the king in 191i1—has been of watching all attempts to whittle down that recognition by b i pressure to bear upon the govern- ment during the coming negotia- tions with Russia; the incident of the admiralty officials; this case of entertaining, not on behalf of the| Poplar; all these veiled insults and government but on behalf of the/|intrigues—require that all the ele- opposition, the ambasadors of the| ments of the Left-Laborites, Social- United States, France, Italy andj|ists and Communists call into being Spain. j once more, this time to strengthen Kellogg, ambassador of the, Unit-|the hands of the Labor government, ed States, is notoriously the nomi-|the councils of action, national and nee of the Morgan house, i. e., of | social. pir —— = pana ay gage Organize! and politics. icomte St. Au- i rganize laire, ambassador of France, belongs | he whole working clase behind. the to the circle of Bonapartist-Mon- government so that it can have the archist reaction, profoundly hostile} s<;urance that whatever it does im- and | mediately behind it stands a watch- to recognition of the Soviets favorable to the right wing of the ful, resolute working «lass move- Bloc National. The Spanish and oo By ate are the avowed a agen fascism. } ar Rear ora IMPEACH COOLIDGE! Quite eviden' nesses of the a of American and European reaction- ary governments attending the party reception, not of the’ : ) |StatePublishers of Russia (Gosisdat) Proven tal Ouumae: 0 a is pce Ba vce oe or should be ward rooms, messes, clubs, under the ‘you may Subscription accepted for: warrant that % cousin’s eyo || Isvestia . . ....+. per month GOSISDAT, 15 PARK ROW, New York City ir as '?