The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 30, 1924, Page 6

otto, ae Page Six THE DAILY WORKER Wednesday, April 30, 1924 THE DAILY WORKER. Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO., 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill. (Phone: Monroe 4712) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail: $3.50.,..6 months $2.00....3 months By mail (in Chicago only): $8.00 per year $4.50....6 months $2.50....3 months pir Suk SN AON PE AY Gi ATCA RR NN PTE Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1113 W. Washington Bivd. Chicago, Illinois ee J. LOUIS ENGDAHL ) Editors WILLIAM F. DUNNE) “"""""""" od MORITZ J. LOEB .. Business Manager $6.00 per year Entered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1923 at the Post- Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. iP 230 Advertising rates on application, poe Murphy Was Progressive. “Boss” Murphy is dead and buried. But the chieftain’ of New York’s. Tammany Hall leaves many political lessons behind him. The most im- portant of these is that it pays to be progressive. Charles F. Murphy as head of Tammany Hall promised everything that it was necessary to promise to win an election. Municipal ownership was always written big into the Tammany Hall- democratic platforms. And Tammany Hall fought —how it did fight its sham battles against the daily newspapers. Murphy made Hylan mayor of New York, and Hylan liked to hobnob with William Hale Thomp- son, republican mayor of Chicago. Lundin tried to pull the same progressive stunts for “Bill” Thompson, the republican, that Murphy did for John Hylan, the democrat. And he was well-nigh as successful. The Thompson-Len Small machine that Lundin built still dominates the republican party in Ilinois. . : It was in the 1922 gubernatorial elections in New York State, that Morris Hillquit, intellectual leader of the Socialists, announced before sailing for Europe to exterminate the Communists, that Al Smith, Murphy’s man, was the best qualified candidate in the field. Hillquit’s only reservation was that he would vote for the Socialist candi- date. This would indicate that Murphy dressed his political mannikins in very alluring apparel. Yet the Tammany Hall outfit, like the Thomp- son Lundin-‘Small crowd, in Illinois, Curley, in Boston; Taggart, in Indiana, or “Fingy” Connors, in Buffalo, constitutes as corrupt a force as any in old party politics. Success is built upon an ability to keep out of jail. Murphy started as a saloonkeeper, but there was more money in a dock commissioner’s job, where he could hand out fat city contracts. An investi- gation showed that one company, organized by Murphy, receiving such a contract, made 5,000 per cent profit in a year. Murphy survived and grew. He weathered every probe of Tammany graft and patronage, successfully faced federal indictment for tax evasion and was an admitted glucose war profiteer. This is the Murphy who threw the presidential nomination to Wilson, at Baltimore, in 1912, and picked Cox at Frisco in 1920. And when he died the funeral procession went up plutocratic Fifth Avenue and the last words were said in exclusive St. Patrick’s Cathedral. But, altho Murphy is dead, his political system survives. It is the system that won plaudits from the Socialist, Hillquit, and gets the support of labor officialdom, even up to Sam Gompers, for Governor Al Smith, in New York, or for Len Small, in Illinois. It is the progressive shell game in which the duped voters always lose. It is the system that has built up lesser Tammany Halls in practically every community in the United States. It is the system of job-giving and graft taking that corrupts everyone touching it. It is only the susceptible, self-styled progres- sive fringe of the organized labor movement that expects to journey to Cleveland, Ohio, July 4th, in an effort to cash in on the possibilities of the third party. The labor officials will be there peddling their progressivism, not one whit more sincere about it than Murphy of Tammany Hall. If they could ride into place and power in either of the old parties, they would be the first to do so. They envy George Berry, the strike-breaker president of the Pressmen’s Union, who wants to be vice-presi- dential candidate on the democratic ticket; or John L. Lewis, the baiter of militants at the head of the miners’ union, who wants to play a similar role, with Coolidge, on the republican ticket. It is time that the workers and farmers cut themselves loose from all these forms of so-called political progressivism. We feel that this division is taking place and that it is the great and only worthwhile development in the arena of politics this year. The thinking workers and farmers will have nothing to do with the misnamed progressive, middle class “labor” gathering at Cleveland, Ohio, on Independence Day. Instead the rank and file of producers, in town and country, will send their delegates and turn to the gathering of all class conscious elements in the National Farmer-Labor Convention, at St. Paul, Minn., starting June 17th. It pays the office seekers and place hunters to be mere progressives. Murphy and Tammany Hall taught that lesson well. But it does not pay the exploited workers and farmers. They must have a militant, class conscious party and program of their own. Only then will they make triumphant progress along the road leading to their emancipa- tion. And Coolidge Has His Ford. When Henry Ford deserted his political hangers- on, quit the presidential race and came out with an endorsement of Cal Coolidge for re-election, we said that Muscle Shoals was the price involved in the transaction. This was one count in our in- dictment in which we called upon the United States senate to “Impeach Coolidge!” The facts have now been presented at the Muscle Shoals hearing before a senate committee. “Silent Cal” is quoted, in a telegram, as having said that he was trying “TO DELIVER” Muscle Shoals to Henry Ford.” The strike-breaker president was not too cau- tious, nor too silent for James Martin Miller, who sent the telegram to Ford on October 12, 1928. White House records show that Miller had an in- terview with the president on that day. Miller’s whole telegram to Ford at Detroit should be mem- orized by every worker and farmer in the land. It is as follows: “In private interview had with President Coolidge this morning, he said, incidentally: ‘} am friendly to Mr. Ford, but wish some one would convey to him that it is my hope that Mr. Ford will not do, nor say anything that will make it difficult for me to deliver Muscle Shoals to him, which | am trying to .do.’ While the president didn’t say so, am sure Weeks has been in consultation with president this morning, in view of Mr. Ford’s reported interview today’s Papers.” . The Detroit “open shop” billionaire sends his private agent to Washington to dicker with the president for the delivering of the nation’s natural resources into his possession—in this instance the valuable water power rights at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. While Coolidge makes feeble denial, Washing- ton leaks the news that it was not a mere politico- business trade, but that new testimony will show that there was to be $2,000,000 profit on Muscle Shoals land to accrue to some public official, if the deal went thru. Of which Coolidge must have been fully aware. Thus the pretensions of the Coolidge campaign managers, that “Cautious Cal” lives on a moral plane higher and conveniently apart from that oc- cupied by the other grafters in his cabinet— Daugherty, Denby, Weeks, Wallace, Hoover, and the rest—burst like so many bubbles. Coolidge barters Muscle Shoals, desired by Ford, Mr.Gompers’ Revolution almost break-neck speed, but without | ‘AMUEL Gompers has discovered a new way of achieving an eco- nomic revolution in the United States, In the April issue of the American Federationist he presents an editori- al on “A Worth-While Revolution” in which he quotes approvingly Profes- sor T. N. Carver of Harvard Univer- sity who declares that the only revolu- tion anywhere in the world “that amounts to a hill of beans, is taking place in this country.” What is this revolution which Pro- fessor Carver describes and which evidently .Mr. Gompers approves? Mr. Gompers, in his editorial, states it as follows: “Professor Carver calls attention to the rapid expansion of labor banks as one indication of the ‘revolution’ that is taking place, He cites tne rapid for the automobile magnate’s support for the presi- dency, which Coolidge desires for another term. But Muscle Shoals belongs to the nation, and in “de- livering” it to Ford, Coolidge is guilty of the grossest theft of public property. It is a coincidence that on the day the Coolidge “delivering” telegram is made public, the Ford Motor Company issues its financial statement for the year ending Feb. 29, 1924, showing an accumu- lated surplus increase of $82,263,483.00, bringin; $ the grand total up to $442,041,081.00, or close to half a billion. This increase is equivalent to a 478 per cent profit on the company’s capital stock of $17,264,500.00. No doubt Coolidge believed that the light of day couldn’t reach this deal born in darkness in time to do him any harm. But less than seven months after the deal was consummated in the White House, the facts are known. The revelations came even before Ford was able to pocket Muscle Shoals, or Coolidge to get his renomination, not to mention re-election. Ford has his billions. The workers and farmers of the nation will take care of them at the proper moment. But the “strikebreaker” president, “Cautious Cal” Coolidge still sits crouching in the White House, the biggest criminal of his criminal cabinet. We say: “IMPEACH HIM!” Bad News For Injunction Judges. When Judge “Charley” Foell faces the strike pickets of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, on Wednesday, he ought to re- member that Ohio courts have put the ban on in- increase in the number of wage earn- ers who own stock in the enterprises in which they. are employed.” Farther along in his editorial, Mr. Gompers says, in regard to the pur- chase of stock by employes of cor- porations: “Stock ownership by wage earners is a device the intent of which was fully recognized by labor and the pur- pose of which was obvious. It was inevitable, however, that employes particularly unorganized employes, should yield and become stock own- ers. The evils which were foreseen have generally resulted, but as is oft en the case, there are indications that the scheme is running away with it- self and may yet produce results that were not contemplated by the original promoters. “Stock sales to employes have be- come stock sales to consumers and there is no reason in the world why a sufficient nimber of employe and consumer stock uolders should not, thru organization, leave upon the in- dustry the impress. of their desires, or for that matter, even go so far as to assume complete direction of pol- icies.” In his concluding paragraph, Mr. Gompers makes his approval of Pro- fessor Carver’s “revolution” even more definite. He says: “Professor Carver is eminently cor- rect. The United States is the one country in the world in which indus- trial revolution is rushing forward at any of the usual revolution and without the usuei de, struction that accompanies revolu- tion”, Some of the labor papers which quote Mr, Gompers’ editorial conclude from it that the American Federation of Labor is to adopt a new policy; that it is going to seek to achieve a revolution by buying itself into Ameri- can industry, and thus, as Mr. Gom- pers says, “to assume complete di- rection of policies.” A Visionary Revolution. Evidently neither Professor Carver nor Mr. Gompers stop to look up the facts in regard to American industry in making the proposal for this “revo- lution.” Examination of only a few figures connected with American in- dustry and the income of the work- ers in the United States completely explodes this method of “revolution.”, According to Moody’s manual, there is invested in stocks and bonds in the United States, $94,740,628,156. That is quite a sum. In order to achieve a position which would enable them to “assume complete direction of pol- icies” in American industry, the work- ers of the United States would have to acquire the ownership of at least a majority of these stocks and bonds. In considering what that means, one’ has also to have in mind the fact that in the last six years the increase in the money invested in stocks and bonds in the United States amounted to $42,- 000,000,000. In other words, the work- ers, in order to secure a position of domination thru investment \in Ameri- can industry, would not only have to invest enough to secure control of the majority of the stock now outstand- ing, but each year would have to in- vest more in industry than the capi- talists of the United States. Merely to state the problem is enough to show how ridiculous is a suggestion that a revolution can come about thru the method suggested by Professor Carver and endorsed by Mr. Gompers. But there are other facts which demonstrate the impossibility of this “revolution” even more clearly. The National Bureau of Economic Research, in its study of “Income in the United States” comes to the con- clusion that in 1918 there were a to- tal of 40,069,600 persons who shared in the inconie produced in the United States during that year. Of this to- manifestations of per year. There is Mr. Gompers’ prob- lem. How much can these 34 or 36 millién workers whose income is less than $2,000 per year, invest in stocks and bonds each year? According to all the estimates of the cost of living, $2,000 per year is just about enough to live upon at the present cost of living in the United States. There is not much likelihood nor any great pos- sibility that these 34 or 35 million workers will acquire any considerable share of the stocks and bonds of this country and thus bring about Mr. Gompers’ revolution, We can carry the analysis a little farther and show still more clearly how futile is the belief that a revolu- tion could come about in the manner suggested by Mr. Gompers. Accord- ing to the same authority quoted above, out of the total of 40,069,600 who shared in the income of the Unit- ed States in 1918, 29,038,390 received less than $1600 per year. In other words, the income of three-fourths of the workers in the United States, in- cluding farmers, is less than $1600 per year. Can this three-fourths of the productive workers ever acquire a stake in Mr. Gompers’ revolution? It is quite certain that every one of these 29 million workers are fighting hard to keep body and soul together and need every dollar that they re- ceive under the capitalist system in order to buy food and clothing and shelter for themselves and their fam- ilies and that there is no possibility of their helping Mr. Gompers’ revolu- tion along. The Aristocracy of Labor. In one respect, there is something in what Mr. Gompers writes, The development which Professor Carver points out as going on in American industry is that the aristocracy of 1a- bor in the United States is becoming the partner of the capitalist class. The workers who are able to invest money in labor banks and to buy stock from corporations are the more highly paid, skilled workers. It is therefore, not at all surprising that the Brotherhood of Locomotive En- gineers was first in the field of labor banking and has extended its opera- tion farther than any other group. Un- questionably, highly paid workers can do what the engineers have done. Un- questionably, Mr. Gompers and the labor leaders who received $10,000 a Jyear income or more, can invest in CHICAGO SYMPHONY By ALFRED V.’FRANKENSTEIN. Frederick Stock closed the season of concerts of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall last Fri- day and Saturday with a conventional program of familiar compositions. The concert opened with Beethoven's third “Leonore” overture, a won- drously brilliant work, full of classic melody, closing with a rhythmic fast section that seems to contain in it the pulse of the classic spirit, Stock in- troduced an effective innovation in its performance, In. the course of the overture occurs a trumpet call, for- merly played backstage. At this con- cert the trumpet was played from the back of the balcony and came ringing down thru the house. The Brahms fourth symphony fol- lowed. This is the dullest symphony the German master wrote, and it is lucky that it was his last, for if Brahms had gone on composing in the vein of the fourth symphony he would have become unbearable. The themes themselves, as stated at the opening of each of the movements, are some of the most beautiful in symphonic literature, brilliant and en- ergetic, as are those of the first move- ment, pathetic, tender in the second, mpous in the last. But in each and junctions against picketing. This is, no doubt, baat |Jevens end colortal Te wee. tare. 400 news for “Charley.” If the strikers know that Ohio courts have put the ban on injunctions in labor disputes, they will wonder by what right the Illinois courts are trying to send workers to jail for picketing. We refer. “Charley” and his injunction pal, Judge Dennis Sullivan to the lost case, in Ohio, of the La France Electrical Construction and sup- ply Co. ys. the International Brotherhood of Blec- trical Workers, Local No. 8. The Ohio company was in the position of many of the struck garment bosses in Cheiago. It had terminated its union agreement and sought to im- pose a “yellow dog” contract upon its workers. A strike ensued. An injunction followed. Picketing was to be prevented. The strikers were to be re- fused the right to solicit the strike-breakers from taking their jobs. But the injunction granted by the lower courts was vacated by the Court of Appeals which de- clared that, “legal means employed by strikers must not be curtailed. Among these are the right of peaceful picketing, the peaceful persuasion of employes to terminate contracts at will, and the peaceful persuasion of expectant employes not to accept work with the employer in question.” It has not been our good or bad fortune to attend a law school, but we offer the above legal informa- tion to “Charley” and “Dennie” with our compli- ments. If they don't make good use of it, and if the strikers come to the conclusion, as a result, that the courts are in the grip of the garment and other bosses, then we can’t help it. every movement the thematic mate- rial is subjected to so much overde- velopment, changed by so many tricks of counterpoint and variation that one gets sick of them. And at least half of ‘these tricks are not even effective. -Next came the Spanish suite of Claude Debussy. Disregarding the ad- s of orchestration which De- busgy, the modern, had over the class- icists, it is interesting to compare the. three masters, Beethoven, Brahms and Debussy. Beethoven seemd to write music expressing some deep seated inward urge, some compelling neces- sity of the spirit disconnected from the life about him. Brahms derived fragments of melody from some un- real dream world, and applied to them the force of a big intellect and much erudition of musical science. Debus- Sy composed from delicate sense im- pressions. His music springs directly from his nervous system. The differ- ence in the environment of the three is the difference between the Vienna of 1805 and 1885, and the Paris of 1910. The Spanish suite is in three move- ments, entitled “In the streets and by the wayside,” “The odors of the night” and “The morning of a festival day.” It ig a delicate, sensuous fabric of Spanish dancers, with their brilliant costumes, brilliant and the rat- tle and click of castanets, mingled with the profound depth of a southern night. It is unfortunate that its per- formance aired some of the vilest clar- he tone ever heard in Orchestra fall. { Literature - - Music -- Drama Three well-known compositions of Richard Wagner closed the program and the season, the wild and aban- doned “Ride of the Valkyries,” the concert piece, “Dreams,” as orches- trated by Theodore Thomas, and the overture to “Tannhaueser,” with its sharp contrast of the weird and bi- zarre Venus music, with the austere and religious chorus of pilgrims. As one thinks back over a sym- phony season, the music divides itself into three categories—new works heard for the first time in Chicago or in America, perhaps for the first time anywhere; old compositions heard aft- er a quiescence of years, and the standard often repeated backbone of symphonic repertory. Of the new works of the season none has been of the size and impor- tance of former seasons. Three stand out quite distinctly, the Hebraic rhapsody, “Solomon,” for violoncello and orchestra, by Ernest Bloch, played by Alfred Wallenstein, the second orchestra suite of Darius Mil- haud, and the viola concerto of York Bowen, played by Lionel Tertis, It is not of Solomon alone that the rhap- sody speaks. It is a severe picture of the suffering and unyielding faith of the Jewish race, Milhaud uses a daring and unconventional idiom, and his music produces a thrill and excity ment hard to find in any other com- poser. Hearing Bowen’s concerto is like taking a trip thru some new and dark land, a land of vast mountainous wonders. ; ‘The old works heard after a lapse of time included two calling for special mention, the ninth symphony of An- ton Bruckner and the “Scheherezade” By C. E. Ruthenberg ta) 34,778,471 receive less than $2,000 rlabor banks and invest in the stoc! of corporations. Unquestionably, the: are doing it. It is not a new phen, omenon in a capitalist country that av a highly developed stage of imperial- ism the labor aristocracy becomes the partner of the capitalist class and is granted some crumbs which the capl- talist class gains thru the exploita- tion of the masses of poorly paid workers. Mr, Gompers’ revolution is pitting on “Easy Street” the two million American workers who are highly paid and who belong to the aristo- cracy of labor. But his revolution is not helping the 29 million referred to above who receive in wages less than $1600 per year. The Real Revolution. Mr. Gompers, in some respects, te like H. G. Wells. The latter has found about a score of different ways, in his imagination, in which the revolution can come about. He has a book about every mode of social revolution ex- cept that which the realities of Mfe./ show to be the way the social revolu-. tion will come about. That way is not any of the ways which Mr, Wells has described so brilliantly in his many books. It is not the way which Mr. Gompers pre- sents in his editorial. The one way of social revolution which life has shown to be the real way, is thru the workers’ organizing their political power and taking con- trol of the government out of the hands of the capitalist class and using that governmental power to transfer industry from the grip of the capital- ist into the hands of the workers and farmers. The workers and farmers haven’t the means of buying industry even if they wanted to. The- only way they can bring about the social ownership of industry, is to take into their own hands the power thru which the present system of private owner- ship is maintained, that is, the gov- ernmental power, and then to use that power to wipe out the capitalist ownership and establish social owner- ship, That is the one way of revolution. The workers and farmers of this coun- try are gaining an inkling of this in spite of Mr. Gompers, as shown by the developing mass movement for & Farmer-Labor Party and a fight by workers and farmers for control of the governmental power in this coun- try. necessary, The Bruckner symphony is a huge cathedral of beautiful sounds. The regular repertory was most re- markable for its lack of Chaykovski. It is becoming traditonal to regard the Russian composer as a back number and a bromide, and quite unjustly so. Until such a day as doubt and despair and human suffering shall disappear the music of Peter Ilyitch Chaykovski will express the strivings and defeats of the race of men. Too Many Mothers. MENNEAPOLIS, April 29. — The authorities of the General hospital are confronted with the problem of more maternity cases than can be accom- modated. A motion by Dr. Mable Ul- rich, woman member of the public welfare board, that women be allowed to act as internés was defeated by a tie vote. The Pour Fish says: The working- suite by Rimsky-Korsakoff. The lat-|man who doesn’t appreciate the fact ter was so recently reviewed in these| that the boss gives him a job is the columns that further comment is un-| cause of most’of the industrial unrest. “A CITY AND A DATE” ' “& CITY AND A DATE.” “St. Paul and June 17th"—these represent “the central point around which all forces of the awakening in- dustrial workers and poor farmers are organizing,” says James P. Cannon, who explains the significance of these ever-increasing forced in an able ar- ticle published in the LABOR HER- ALD for May. Comrade Cannon points out the clear line of class difference marking off the political revolt of industrial workers and poor working farmers from the petty bourgeois vacillations of the group calling itself the Confer- ence for Progressive Political Action and its only supporters in the labor movement—the section of trade union officialdom whose itch for personal ad- vance causes them to flirt with the Labor Party idea when the capitalist parties fail to give them political re- muneration for “delivering the labor vote” sometimes to the republicans— as in the endorsement given Len Small for governor in Illinois—and sometimes to the democrats—as the railroad brotherhoods’ endorsement of McAdoo. Only the blind could fail to see the distinction pointed out by Cannon be- tween the St. Paul convention and the Cc. P. P. A., whose rules for admis- sion to its Cleveland convention make it impossible for rank and file work- ers or farmers to get representation, while the Farmer-Labor convention at St. Paul on June 17th, is especially designed to admit rank and file work- ers of local unions and farmers’ groups. The reasons why the con- servatives oppose thé St. Paul con- vention is set off by Comrade Cannon against the reasons the union mili- tants should support ft, and every un- fon progressive who is not yet clear on the great Farmer-Labor movement should read this article in the May number of the LABOR HERALD, AS WE SEE IT By T. J, O}FLAHERTY The Easter Week rebellion in Ire- land in the year 1916, led by James Connolly, was celebrated thruout- the United States by the nationalist Irish workers but with the exception of a meeting held here in Chicago, under the auspices of the James Connolly Club, Connolly’s mame was barel; mentioned. Connolly was the intel- lectual leader of the Irish labor and revolutionary movement and its brain- iest man of action. His writings can be read to advantage not alone by Irish workers, but by Communists of all countries. The nationalist Irish Politicians do not wish to give his name publicity fearing that the work- ers would begin to read his book. On- ly a small group here in America, who are not carried away by Barnum and Bailey antics, are keeping Con- nolly’s memory and Connolly’s mess- age before the Irish workers and thru their monthly magazine the “Irish People” they are bringing Irish work- ers into the ranks of the Workers Par- ty as Connolly would have done were he alive today. That is the kind of work that counts; not merely blow- ing wind into a deflated political blad- der, « . nr Having seduced President Harding’s cabinet, and got the goods on ex-presi- dent Wilson’s cabinet, one of them being caught red-handed in a major. piece of robbery, the Communists sprung their trap, and started a pub- lic investigation. Now, the masses see, instead of a government in Wash- ington, a gang of crooks getting kick- ed around ise mongrels, and each crodék squealing on the other, trying to save his own neck. It is a beastly Communist plot as is proven quite conclusively by strike-breaker Daugh- erty, Harry says he did not taste a drop of liquor since the Volstead law was passed. ‘This leaves him with- out a pardonable excuse for a speech that would make Harry K. Thaw mad for being kept in an insane asylum for seven years, while Harry M. Daugherty was running the United States. ‘ es @ 1 Because she could not procure food for her three small culidren, a poor women in Denver, Colorado, turned on the gas and took the lives of her- self and her children. Her husband was employed by a local transfer company. Of him she wrote: “He has always done the best he could, but ‘he was up against it like me. Put in the world to work—no education, no training. Nothing to’do but work ~ like dogs. I don’t think I will have any worse hell in the place I am going.” This is the beneficient sys- tem that we are urged to protect with our lives against communism. A sys- tem that spends millions to protect insane and murderous millionaires and allows women and children to starve and die, i Vy |