The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 5, 1924, Page 8

CONDITIONS OF HEROISM HE bourgeois portions of France and the United States,—which create teachers, judges and journal- ists as well as a god in their own image, and which squeeze even ov# of the Twenty-third Psalm a little pro- paganda for their own perpetuity,— are strangely afraid of their heroes. Today after 182 years bourgeois France dares not look Danton in the face, It is 182 years since August 10, 1792, when the sections of Paris rose to put Louis XVI and his family in the tower of the Temple, And it is from that day that the present bour- geoisie of France date their fortunes, whether millionaires or petty shcp- keepers who hope to be millionaires. Yet recently there have appeare three new books by French bourgco:s pseudo-historians or biographers which repudiate Danton and the othac Eighteenth Century creators »f French private property. These books, only a part of the annual crop, repudiate not merely the methods of the Jacobins but the public and private morals and pur- poses of the revolutionary creators of the French bourgeois. state. To form a parallel in this country it would be necessary th denounce George Washington as an adven- turer, the members of the Boston Tea Party as criminals “having no regard for law and order” and the “Sansculottes” of Valley Forge as hoodlums. And in the United States men have been ‘shot for less. Bourgeois History. : One of these three volumes is “The Dauphin”, by George Lenotre, translated by Frederic Lees. Mr. Lees, according the “Who’s Who, 1921”, is an English journalist rc- siding in Paris and Italy who has been made an “officier de l’instruction publique” by the French goverment, in recognition of his efforts in fur- therance of the Franco-British en- tente cordiale. The two other volumes are “Dan- ton”, by Louis Madelin, and “Mazon Roland”, by Mrs. Blashfield. “To hold in their possession and molest at leisure the King descended from so many kings and the beauti- ful Queen of the Trianon, what a voluptuous and depraved godsend to men naturally hateful of all beauty and nobility,” says Mr. Lenotre in “The Dauphin”, referring to the French revolutionists and especially to the Paris members of the Left or Mountain Party. Of course this volume is convern- ed primarily With the mystery of the disappearance of the executed king, while he was a prisoner in the Temple tower, but the story is ex- ploited to the disadvantage of those who deprived him of the privileges of tyranny. Mr. Lenotre is the author of six other volumes dealing with similar details of history. Royal Heroines and Heroes. Referring to Marie Antoinette, in the chapter entitled “The Temple,” Mr. Lenotre continues. “The repeated blows of relentless misfortune were necessary in order that dignity, resignation, greatness of soul should compose for the prisoner of the Temple an imperishable diadem moro imposing .than the crown she naa just lost.” And perhaps the crowning example of Mr. Lenotre’s point of view is in the following passage, referring to the captivity of the Dauphin him- self: “... we shall recognize perhaps that it was not a simple episode of the great revolutionary drama but that it formed the basis and texture of it, unknown even to those to whom the parts were distributed.” It is unessential to quote from Madame Roland’s memoirs, The memoirs and the letters are every- where. She grew; had her home with her futile husband, who rose and fell early as an inconsequential minister pro tem} had her lover, Buzot; her jealous quarrels with the great revolutionists, for whom her husband should have been chief clerk; and died, a counter-revo- lutionist. She was a counter-revo- lutionist not so much against what ‘was accomplished as against only the men in France whom accom- hment was possi Of course ‘adame had a right to objections, which were es directed at Danton, whom she reported to have found, “. .. ferocious in face and probably in heart.” We may regret, in view of her intentions to be of use to her coun- try, without sharing Carlyle’s sur- prisingly naive enthusiasm for her, pride anne gonna that she had to die on the guillotine.) geois fear that a contemporary pro- But the judgments which she deliv-|letariat and peasantry may assume ered against her contemporaries are|from the past that for Danton, as not, therefore, sound or vitally in-|for ‘Washington in_ the _ United i teresting, especially since her favor-| States, the path to his position ot ite aversion, Jacques Danton, came | historic importance was the path of nearer than anyone else to being | unmitigated revolution. personally as magnificent as the| The French bourgeoisie thus do ;revolution itself. It is because such|their best’ to make the heroes of men live as product of social furces,| their great revolution venal, insin- even today, that revolutions are|¢ore, brutal, or merely insignificant. both probable and worth while. It/If they do not make specific charges, is also because of the stubborn rancor|the bourgeois authors resort to in- |of persons like Madame Roland that | nuendo, Being certain they were not such men have sometimes to die. And/ respectable men, the nearest ap- it was so useless in her case, fot| proach, in works of this kind, to an Madame, since she died before Dan-| acclamation of the forerunners of ton, and gained, therefore, only mar-|the present bourgeois society in tyrdom when she- would have pre-| France is a confession of an ability ferred revenge, to decide whether the Jacobins were The Eve of Action. even honest men. That is the near- Danton spoke at the club of the|¢st these cowardly or sly moderns Cordeliers the evening of August 9,| Will permit themselves to approach When he finished speaking and went|t0 Danton, Robespierre, Marat, St. out into the night the great bell of | Just, Cornot, Desmouslins, several that former Franciscan prayer hall | women revolutionists and the rest began to toll. The sound was taken|+ -- the result of these cowardly up by other bells, It was the tocsin | 8nd malicious tactics being in that of insurrection, the midnight sum-|¢case the maledictiong elsewhere mons to the insurrectionary com-|£¥eely, borrowed from the vindictive mune, an organization which in an | ™emolrs and embalmed gossip of inspiration that was largely Dan-|Madame Roland, that parlor revolu- ton’s, had been forming all that day | tionary of the Gironde, go as uncon- in the forty-eight sections of Paris. _ | tested in popular circles as if nothing The City Hall was entered and at all in addition to them had ever occupied, the existing administration | been written. : of Paris walking out with little re- France and America. sistance. The mayor alone was re-| There is & curious contrast be- tained by the illegal representatives. |tween these characterizations of the then in: power. acobins' and the distortions prac- Doubtful of Danton. tised on the reputations of the Supporting this movement were | heroes, of ‘the American Revolution. armed troops, conspicuous among’ 0 this country the memories of them being the contingent from| Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben- Marseilles, which had marched to|Jamin Franklin and others have Paris on its mission unmolested, | bcen socially useful insofar as they Non-committally the Marseillaise |Cow!d be exploited by parents. and declined an invitation to accept quar- teachers to assist in the discipline ters with the conservative national |9f children. In this country children guard and went instead to the Club | have been growing up in the belief of the Cordeliers. that George Washington became On the tenth, the insurrectionary | rcsident chiefly because he would commune demanded and obtained | 20 tell a lie to his father. The im- from the astonished and vacillating | Plication of this myth, which has Assembly the imprisonment of the|®@ly recently begun to decline in king and queen. France, for a while | favor, is that if George Washington at least, was a Republic, and there- | hed deceived his father in the matter after the capitalists were free to|°! the cherry tree he would never exploit the proletariat which put| have gotten very far in life. The hem in power. myth of the cherry tree, in which M. Madelin’s study of Danton tells | little George _ confessed, Yes, this story and the story of Danton’s {ther, I cut it down. with my little entire career in great length and in , hatchet,” was fortified by the stories good style. M. Madelin is nearer an | of the crossing of the Delaware and appreciation of his subject than the hardships of Valley Forge. Chil- either of the other two. He has ‘ten must not be allowed to assume written a book worth having, for that Washington was a molly-coddle both reference and inspiration. But |¢ven if he did tell his father the even M. Madelin is inclined to doubt. truth! ,He shrinks from wholly embracing Rebels of Their Day. i this Danton whom he nevertheless} And yet the men of the American admires. _ There is noticeable in his | Revolution, no less than the French narrative the commonplace bour: | revolutionaries, were grimly mili- To Potash and Perlmutter By MICHAEL GOLD. ' Aha, Potash and’ Perlmutter, so we see you again, 'This time in real life, you cute comical partners in the cloak and suit trade! |No more pinochle playing, no more funny Yiddle talk, no more quaint busi- ness methods, No more busting up the partnership and making up again ten times a day, No more pathos, love, magazine plotting, Potash and Perlmutter, SHOLEM ALEICHEM, so you are here again! OY, WEH IS MIR! , Can this be little fat soft-hearted Mawruss Perlmutter, And is this the bluff, crude, good-hearted Abe Potash? And is it a wintry Chicago street, and are the partners angry? Are their quaint Hebrew faces mad with rage as they slug a little Jewish girl with blackjacks, 3 And help the Irish cop step on her face, and twist her arms, and knock her senseless? Is it Abe who curses her as she is taken off in the patrol wagon? Is it Mawruss, the tender husband and father, who pats the Irish police- men’s shoulder and rewards him vit a sanet { Yes, it is you, Potash and Perlmutter. Yes, you are here again, you have stepped from the stage, washed off your. clown’s masks, and revealed the wolfish fangs and murderous faces. Yes, it is you speaking the lines of real life, confessing all that your author would not tell us, Yes, we know you now, Potash and Perlmutter, and exactly how you run your quaint business, " i z , Listen, Potash and Perlmutter, Dealers in Cloaks and Suits, and Sluggers of Girl Workers, ; We will remember what we have seen, gentlemen. We will yet redeem the proud race that brought forth Jeremiah, the people's prophet, Moses, the leade laves, Jesus, the rebel, and Marx, Trotzky, Liebknecht Tee aetna We will back two thousand and find the smooth le and pe GOA, wo sand years pebb’ sling The sword of Judas Maccahbee, and Bar Cochba’s martial wisdom, We will remember you on that day, we other We will remember all oar dear blood brothers, Messrs, Potash and Perlmutter! - — ~ pecan ion sereenreinssaibendiaithtitatcithimenasltineoeccsiatisin By STANLEY BOONE - tant » rebels who overthrew their king, insofar as King George III had anything to do with their own lives. The Americans had no feudal aris. tocracy to disperse but they flew in- stead in the face of an empire tra- dition. It may be assumed that the American revolutionaries were po- tentially regicides...Even in revo- lutionary France the execution of the royal family was not originally a part of the Republican program. The French Republican program wag not. clarified until three years after the Bastile fdll. Altogether the French Revolution was the younger European cousin of our own. On the site of the Bastile the French have dedicated a tablet to Thomas Paine. : Sorrow is not exactly what a man feels in contemplating the cowardice, the hypocrisy, the conceit, the sen- ility and the intellectual torpor which gave rise to the making and per fecting of the myths and accessory falsifications, myths either emascu- lated or vicious, in the shadow and yenom of which the rising genera- tions have to grow. Useful Tradition. It has taken less than 150 years in the United States for the increas- ingly parasitical bourgeoisie to ap- propriate their ancestral past to their own ends. But in all that time there has been no structural eco- nomic or political charfze in this country to influence the growth of these propaganda myths which we now have. The Civil! War was a national upheaval but it was a bour- geois war, anachronistic in its aboli- tion of slavery. And the contrast between the American and French propagandic biographies and histor- ical studies is undoubtedly largely due to the changes which, on the contrary, have taken place in France since the work of the Jacobin revo- lutionists was done. After the French Revolution came the Thermidorian reaction, followed by the Directory and the first Em- pire. And after the first Empire state came the two later’ Empire: states, one under Napoleon I and one under Napoleon III, in addition to the three intervening restorations of the monarchy, under Louis XVIII, Charles X and Louis-Phillipe. Each of these periods left its influence on the transmitted accounts of the revolution, - Falsifying the Record. To escape political imprisonment at the hand of one or another of the succeeding emperors or monarchs, perjuries were committed by men and women who had reliable ac- counts to give, while the official re- actionary spokesmen, either in obe- dience to or in support, of a govern- ment censorship, poured forth their speeches and their books in defama- tion of their great predecessors. Napoleon I saved a part of the fruits of the revolution by organiz- ing France against any permanent return of the Bourbons. Neverthe- less, he seemed to find it to his ad- vantage, as the imperial savior, to smother and bury away from the public gaze whatever was glorious in the events out of which, as a bril- liant artilleryman, he grew.. To the same end there was muckraking into the lives of the men and women of the Jacobin Club, many of whom as a consequence have had to stand or fall, in the estimation of posterity, in proportion to their reputed respec- tive abilities to hold a cup of tea in a refined Girondian or royalist salon. Betsy Ross, of the United States, is idealized. Whatever her character was in fact, her reputation today has been so manufactured that children may safely be allowed to love her. - But Theroigne de Mericourt, a young Parisian Mother Jones of 1789, is held ‘now to have been less patriotic, in the sense of that day, than “immoral.” Thus in France the heroes are not preposterously made angels or saints, and claimea by the bourgeoisie as something far less than they really were. are even more ed in adjectival , by those who are afraid even of ghosts, and are not claimed at all. Tell It to the YOWLS. . First Society Woman—That’s my ay Aor y we just passed. ; 8. W—How could you tell? First 8. nurse, W.—I recognized the . f a