The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 1, 1924, Page 6

feito ~ rae Page Six Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO., 1118 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): $4.50....6 months $2.50....3 months nee gee p ems Address all mail and make ont checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1113 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago, Ilinois Rist RCSA AL AORN ek TOR aE COURRE 2 HaR Tae aoe J. LOUIS ENGDAHL ) Editors WILLIAM F, DUNNE) . MORITZ J. LOEB... jusiness Manager $6.00 per year $8.00 per year: Entered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1923 atthe Post- Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. Advertising rates on application. This May Day! This is International May Day! This is the day we celebrate! : In all sections of the United States, in the agri- cultural as well as the industrial communities, imposing demonstrations will be held under the direction of the Workers Party. Never before in the history of the American Communist movement have so many celebrations been planned. So in all the countries of the world. Every- where labor today challenges the rule of the master class. And in Soviet Russia the workers and farmers celebrate another year of triumph over world imperialism. On this day the workers at home see the bank- ruptcy of American capitalism in the many revela- tions now being made in the tornado of inyestiga- tions that has struck the national capitol. And the workers and farmers of all lands see world imperialism, in struggling gasps, fighting to maintain itself thru imposing the Wall Street- Morgan-Dawes panacea for the chaos in Europe resulting from the last great war, that came upon the world ten years ago. More and more the workers of the United States see their interests linked up with those of other lands. May Day is becoming truly. international thru the growing solidarity of. the workers everywhere in reply to the consolidation of capitalist imperialism. On this May Day we receive the agenda of the Fifth World Congress of the Communist Interna- tional, to be held in Moscow, June 5th. It lists the mighty problems that will be discussed by the spokesmen of labor’s vanguard everywhere. The world economic situation will be reviewed, trade union tactics discussed, a program of World Com- munist action decided on for the first time, and the questions of Fascism, the Farmers’ Interna- tional, the Youth Movement, International Red Aid, the Co-operative Movement, work among women, work in the army, taken up, thoroly com- sidered and the most fitting action taken. Perhaps the biggest and most inspiring fact for awakened labor on this May Day, as on the May Days of the past six years, is that the: Communist International, the world leader of the revolution, meets and discusses its problems and makes its plans without interference from imperialism’s white terror. Behind the bayonets of the Workers’ and Farmers’ Red Army it builds the power that will carry the world reyolution to triumph. In the United States the workers and farmers have big tasks before them on this May Day, 1924. During this presidential year, with the old parties of big business wallowing in the mire of their own graft. and corruption, with a growing industrial depression, with the cost of living increasing as wages are hit by new reductions, the call goes out everywhere for land and city labor to organize its political, as well as its economic power, thru the National Farmer-Labor Party that will grow out of the conference planned for St. Paul, Minn., June 17th. The call of May Day, 1924, is to build the mass, class National Farmer-Labor Party. Down with the capitalist. Teapot Dome! Forward to the Workers’ and Farmers’ Government! Forward to the complete triumph of labor! Move forward on May Day, 1924! The Trail of Self-Murder. An estimate of 16,000 is placed upon the number of suicides in the United States last year by the Save-a-Life League. It admits that poverty is one of the main causes of self-murder, and in its report states that, “Nothing is more pathetic than the many disabled soldiers who themselves ended life’s battle, 2,000 having gone out in this regrettable way.” It is also admitted that many of these ex-sol- diers, who committed suicide, were left in sickness and poverty because of the wholesale grafting in the Veterans’ Bureau of the Harding-Coolidge Ad- ministration. - We do not recollect of any activities being car- ried on by the Save-a-Life League during the recent world war, when millions were being slaughtered in Europe. Nor do we find that the League is car- rying on any campaign against future capitalist wars, or against the capitalist system that breeds wars, as well as hunger and suicides. But the figures made public in themselves may help turn the stomachs of the workers and farmers of the United States against the new war that the House of Morgan is preparing. In that they may do some good. Distribute a bundle of the DAILY WORKER on International May Day. And then get some new subscribers. * : Again Give Up Hope Again the news comes from the coal fields that hope has been given up. This time it is for the lives of 114 miners:in the pits of the Wheeling Steel Corporation, near Wheeling, West Va. This news of the wanton murder of coal miners has come often of late, from Southern Illinois, from Northern Minnesota, from Utah and Pennsylvania, as well as Kentucky, West Virginia and other states. And nearly always the death pits are non- union mines. The Benwood mine of the Wheeling Steel Cor- poration, open shop for the past two.years, during which three disasters havé taken place, is another tombstone in the West Virginia industrial grave- yard. It is another death monument to. the greed of the West Virginia mine barons, who have made this state an outlaw among the commonwealths of the nation. In the days of the Russian czar, West Virginia was looked upon, by all thinking workers, as the Siberia of America. The present disaster, needless and criminal, is another proof of the cheap price that the mine barons put upon the lives of their coal diggers. The Benwood disaster is a challenge to every member of the United Mine Workers’ Union. It is a grinning defi of the mine barons, dripping with the blood of hundreds of slaughtered workers, against the whole labor movement. If the lives of 115 coal ‘miners can be taken at Benwood, West Va., without penalty to the mine owners, than the conditions of labor and the lives of all workers are threatened. The voices of the 115 dead may be silenced but they call in thunder tones for the organization of all West Virginia’s non-union fields. They call for the militant and aggressive West Virginia Farmer-Labor Party. They call for the united front of all producers to carry on successful war against the ruthless owners of industry. The tri- umph of labor over its oppressors under capitalism is the greatest penalty that could be inflicted upon the murderous regime of the Wheeling Steel Cor- poration, and all its anti-labor breed. Let the disaster at Benwood be a spur to workers everywhere to speed that day of final victory. . : . Did Coolidge Win? On the day following the exposure of his deal with Henry Ford, by which the flivver king was to get Muscle Shoals on his own terms, “Cautious Cal” Coolidge captured the republican primaries in Ohio. At the same time Daugherty was picked as one of the seven Coolidge pledged delegates to the republican convention at Cleveland. No doubt the Coolidge campaign managers will try to read into these results an endorsement of the graft and corruption that prevails in govern- ment in Washington. They will claim that the electorate has spoken, and given notice of its approval of the Coolidge regime. But the balloting showed that only a handful of voters marched to the polls in this great state. It was the machine vote of the reactionary republi- can party. Coolidge’s only opposition came from the fake progressive, Hiram Johnson, of Califor- nia, who endorsed corruption in the high places in Washington, when he dodged casting his vote on the ousting of the millionaire, Newberry, .of Michigan, from the United States senate, for hay- ing purchased his election. This defeat in Ohio just about puts Hiram on the political dung heap. Coolidge won in Ohio, for the same reason that he won in Michigan recently. Johnson offered no suitable opposition, and only the bought votes.con- trolled by the republican organization: went into the ballot box. It is this fact, that the workers and farmers re- fused to be drawn into the old party primaries, that gives the most encouragement to the organiza- tion of a class Farmer-Labor Party. The pro ducers are planning for a class party of their own. Michigan will be well represented at St. Paul, June 17th. If the voting, Tuesday, in Ohio, means anything, it indicates that there are hundreds of thousands of thinking men and women in Ohio who need representation at St. Paul next month. There are six weeks ahead during which every effort should be made by militant workers and farmers in Ohio to see that they get that repre- sentation. The only trouble with Governor Warren T. Me- Cray, of Indiana, seems to have been that he didn’t steal enough. If he had stolea a few hundred mil- lions, he would still be an honored and respected citizen, a pillar of the church, and a staunch de- fender of Americanism, instead of being a candi- date for the penitentiary. When you steal under capitalism, the rule is that you must steal whole- sale in order to get away with it. Daugherty helped rob even the school children of the nation thru refusal to prosecute the sta- tionary trust, thus aiding it to reap an unchal- lenged profit of 650 per cent. When the school children hear of this, they'll begin to question the Coolidge-Daugherty brand of 100 per cent “pay- triotism.” Don’t forget the class war prisoners on Tnter- national May Day, 1924. Remember Sacco and Vanzetti, Mooney and Billings, Dolla and Blanken- stein, Ford and Suhr, and all the rest. They are on the inside for you. Do what you can for them on the outside. If all the crooked timber in Coolidge’s official cabinet were thrown out, only the mirror would be left, and in it “Cautious Cal” could survey the biggest crook of them all. aD Rae ON aA HO a EAC THE DAILY WORKER By William F. Dunne. The reverend Norman Thomas finds irresistible the-temptation to take a sly crack at the left wing whenever the opportunity presents it- self but at the same time never. for- gets to proclaim or infer his absolute fairness and impartiality. He is moved to write'to The Nation commending it for its disapproval of the expulsion of a Communist from the Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Accountants’ Union of New York at at the behest of Samuel Gompers but adds the sorrowful remark that after he has read the DAILY WORKER edi- torial on the subject in which Gomp- ers is referred to as “dictator and cow- ard” he is “compelled to remember that it was the left wing which intro- duced into the labor movement the glorification of the notion of dictator- ship and the capture of power by any means that may work.” Mr. Thomas is habitually wrong in his statements relative to left wing the- ory and tactics and the present case is no exception. The Communists who are. the left wing of the American labor movement advocate, not the dictatorship of a minority, as Mr. Thomas would have us believe, but the dictatorship of a class—the work- ingclass. Their tactics for the capture of power are at all times based on the idea that a majority of the work- ers must first be won over to the Com- munist position. Narrowed down to the limits of trade union movement these tactics also presuppose the winning over of a majority of the union membership. Communists reject entirely the the- ory that a minority by a coup can seize and hold power independent of the interests of the majority of the masses involved. In the unions the communists. conduct an intensive edu- cational campaign designed to con- vince the rank and file of the incom- petency and non-workingclass charac- ter of the present leadership; what is more culpable: from both the liber- al and reactionary standpoint is that they organize the left wing sentiment thus crystallized. Between Two Dictatorships The Communist view of the unions is that they are of necessity working- class organizations and that as such they must include, the more success- ful they become in _ organization work, all elements of the workingclass irrespective of political opinions, re- ligious differences or color distinction. This is the only workable basis for unions which are the instruments used by the workers in their daily struggles with the capitalists. The Communist policy in the unions is to organize these diverse elements around a program based on their com- mon needs as workers. There are at the present time a num- ber of important unions that the Com- munists could “capture” if they be- lieved in using the tactics which Mr, Thomas accuses them of glorifying; that is, they could seize control of the offices and have at the same time a majority of the membership behind them instead of a minority as is the case with dozens of union officialdoms. Thy realize however that the Ameri- can labor movement as a whole must be brought up to a certain level of understanding before anything ap- proaching Communist leadership could greatly influence the trade unions nationally. This process is be- ing accelerated by the increasing in- stability of American capitalism and the outright betrayal of the working- class perpetrated by the officials. The Civic Federation meeting in New York the other day attended by Gompers, Woll and a couple of notorious hang- ers-on of the Gompers machine is only one item in the list of treacheries. When Mr, Thomas refers to the cap- ture of power “by any means which may work” he doubtless is thinking in parliamentary terms and looks upon a recorded majority as the only man- date for the control of official posi- tions. In this we disagree with Mr. Thomas and all his kind. Speaking only of the parliamentary system in vogue in the American unions, it is notorious that there is no such thing as a square election where the eco- nomic interests of the machine are involved and those who base their idea of the representative character of trade union officialdom upon re- To The Daily Worker: Having some contact with Iowa and her problems, I feel Guty-bound to point out to the Iowa Communists the possibilities for a real Farmer-Labor Party in their state. The Communist in Iowa have the nucleus for an excellent Workers Par- ty organization. Such an organiza- tion will not come into bloom, how- ever, until these comrades have put themselves on the political map of their state at least to some degree and; I believe that the Farmer-Labor move- ment offers them that opportunity. Iowa is a state of 2,000,000 people, with a good number: of fair-sized towns and cities well-linked up by rail- roads. Towns which can be consider- ed in the nature of industrial centers are Council Bluffs, Missouri Valley, Sioux City, Mason City, Davenport. Burlington, and Cedar Rapids. All these towns have some degree of trade union organization, most of them have trade union papers. THE VIEWS OF OUR READERS ON LIFE, LABOR, INDUSTRY, POLITICS. The farming population of Iowa is regarded by capitalists polticians as “yadical.” They are ripe for a Far- mer-Labor Party. They need to be told about the Farmer-Labor conven- tion which will be held at St. Paul on the 17th of June. They must be urged to send delegates to that historic gath- ering of militant farmers and wage- earners. All this offers wonderful opportuni- ties for the Workers Party members in Iowa. I would therefore urge every party branch or member-at-large in the state to immediately get in touch with the Farmer-Labor League, 155 West Graham avenue, Council Bluffs, and assist that organization in its ef- forts to line up Iowa for the mass Bughouse Fables FABLE 3. WASHINGTON, D. C., April 30.— Speaking from the white House steps to-a delegation of “dirt” farmers from South Dakota, who came to hear Mag- nus Johnson deliver his speech on “Government by blocs or by block- heads” Calvin Coolidge, declared that the greatest danger confronting the people of America today, is the in- fluence of Wall Street. “This rapa- cious organization” said the president “has not alone throttled the voice of the people of America, but has stretched out its hand and is now bringing Europe under its control. “Hell-and-Maria” Dawes, who went over to Germany, is nothing else but a tool of the big bankers and I pro- bose to show in the presidential cam- paign, that the Communists are not the menace that confronts America —with all due respect to my friend Sam Gompers—but the men of great Ith. We need more men like Johnson, Senator Wheeler and “fighting Bob” LaFollette in the wenate. Then, crooks like Harry M. Daugherty and Mellon could not get away with the graft.” The speech has created sation in ‘Washington, and a horde of alienists from Wall Street is on the way to Washington to prove that the presi- dent is insane. . class Farmer-Labor Party and the June 17th convention. It is an oppor- tunity for Communists to show their colors, TOM MATTHEWS. I was happy to read in Wednesday's issue of the DAILY WORKER that Comrade O’Flaherty’s brilliant co- jumn, “As We See It” will be back with us soon again. Another feature OKT turns in union elections admit a child- like faith that has long since departed trom one who knows anything of the practical workings of the American labor movement. It is just here that the distinction between the Communists and the lib- eral-progressive elements becomes perfectly clear. The Communists ac- cept the crooked character of trade union parliamentary processes as a reality and rightly conclude that the present leadership of th trade unions maintains itself by an outright dic- tatorship which has no broad class basis. The liberals and progressives become disgusted with the rank and file and conclude that rotten as the officialdom may be, it is at least more intelligent—and therefore more wor- thy of consideration than the rank and file. This accounts in a large measure for the swing of the so-called progres- sive elements into the Gompers camp and they are now extremely angry be- cause the Communists treat them just about the same as they do the Gomp- ers official family. As a case in point the reaction of Mr. Thomas after read- ing this article will undoubtedly be: THE DAILY WORKER is commit- ting the sin of whjch | have often accused the Communists. It is at- tacking me—a liberal—when it could use its time and space to much bet- ter advantage in criticizing Gomp- ers, Morgan, Rockfeller, the capital- Ist system and other evils. Communists, however, depend not upon the good will of intellectuals or trade union officials but upon the needs of the masses of the workers expressed in organization and action to overthrow trade union and capital- ist dictatorships. The Workers (Com- munist) Party of America has no inter- ests separate and part from the work- ingclass of America. So apparent is this becoming that all those whose idea of solving the labor problem is to do something for the workers instead of arousing the ‘workers to do something for them- selves are either active or passive en- emies of the Workers (Communist) Party and therefore of the whole workingclass. SNS Sa RECA UN PCP that I would like to see once again on the first page of the DAILY WORKER is Fred Ellis’ cartoons, which in my opinion are among the best that the American Communist movement has yet produced. A paper such as the DAILY WORK- ER, to appeal to the broad mass of workers should try and add to its umber of features, for these are the methods that will make the circulation grow. However, the few that it has must be retained and I feel that Ellis’ cartoons are an important factor. Fraternally yours, SYLVAN A. POLLACK, Organizer Bronx English Branch Workers Party Why Every Junior, Young Worker and | care for no one but themselves. Old Worker Should Be a Communist. By WILLIAM LURYE, Age 13. Marshfield Junior Group. In the United States today niore than two million workers are without jobs! Do you know what that means? Starvation and suffering not only to these workers but starvation and suf- fering to their children, starvation and suffering to the mothers of these chil- dren. We have 1,200,000 farmers driven from the land into bankruptcy on ac- count of the bitter exploitation of the capitalists. Are we going to stand ‘or this? I say NO! We have suffer- ed long enough, it is time something was done. What can we do? Well, I'm going to tell you. ORGANIZE! Organize the juniors! Teach them to be strong and sturdy! Teach them to fight the capitalist public schools! ORGANIZE the Young Workers! Teach them what's wrong in this sys- tem. Teach them to fight those big fat capitalists! Organize the old work- ers! Show them how they've suffer- gether with the Young Workers, the ed for so many years. Bring them to- Juniors! Put some spirit into them! Wake them! Teach them to fight those bullies with the big fat stomachs who The early part of May will see im- portant conventions of the principal unions in the clothing industry; the Ladies’ Garment Workers at Boston on the 5th; the Furriers at Chicago on the 12th, and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers at Philadelphia, al- so on the 12th, Vital issues for prog- ress will be fought for in all three conventions by the left;wing militants who have been waging continuous battle to keep the organizations in this industry in step with develop- ments in industry and in political life. In all three unions, as explained in detail by J. W. Johnstone, in the LA- BOR HERALD for May, the left wing workers have been meeting opposi- tion from the right wing reactionaries, usually assisted by the union officials who, in some cases, like the Furriers and the I. L. G. W., have gone over completely to the yellow-Socialist— Abe Cahan reaction and waged a war of expulsions and sluggings against Needle Trades’ Convention Coming Altogether, juniors, young workers, old workers! Get behind the work and push! Help to establish the second workers and farmers government. May Day. By TILLIE L., Age 9. May Day is Labor’s International Holiday. “It is a day of struggle,” that’s what the juniors say. With that we mean that all comrades, little ones and big ones, come together and cel- ebrate. They talk about all the things that happened, what the capitalists did, and what they did. Then they discuss what they should go on to do; and everybody feels good. The older comorades feel that if they work hard eaey will have a Workers’ and Farm- ers’ government; the juniors know That's why on May Day all the jun- better homes and real good times. That's what on May Day all the jun- fors should sell Young Comrades, get new members and help make bigger and better junior groups. The older comrades should do the same. Let's everyone get-together, work hard and help make the Second Workers’ and Farmers’ government, Now, let’s give three-cheers for our %reat Interna- tional Holiday. Ready, let’s go—rah-rah-rah! the T. U. E, L. and the left general- ly, These fights ‘will come to a head at the conventions, While the fight in the A. C, W. has so far not taken on the open and bitter character seen in the other unions, Comrade John- stone explains fully in his excellent article on the needle trades, the de- finite danger signals which have ap- neared in the tendency of the A. C. W. administration to permit the For- ward right wing gang to begin the same disruptive war against the left as has weakened and nearly wrecked the other unions, Another test of the A. C, W. will be its action upon the call for June 17th, since the 1922 convention fa- vored a class Labor Party, the mili- tants will fight for these fine words to be put into deeds. The article in the May LABOR HERALD is indis- pensible to any militant who seeks to keep in touch with the latest develop- ments in the labor movement, ‘giving the TAT. Thursday, May 1, 1924 AS WE SEE IT By T. J. O)FLAHERTY t erty’s office, unknown to the latt tho people saw them drinking boo! together, but so clever did the Com- munists work that Daugherty does not know to this day that Jess had They installed Jess Smith in tae a desk in his office. The Communists induced Daugherty to turn over the Department of Justice to the boot- leggers who made a “little green house on K. St.,” their headquarters. They prevailed on Daugherty-and Jess Smith to withhold prosecution of a Japanese air craft company that rob- bed the government of $3,000,000 af; ter $200,000 in bribe money went into the spacious pockets of Daugherty, Jess Smith and Co. The wicked Com- munists still bent on “destroying con- fidence in public officials as part of their plan to bring about the over- throw of this government by fo: and violence” induced Daugherty violate a federal law against the in- terstate transportation of fight films, by having said pictures shown in the home of Edward McLean, Harding’s boon companion, in the presence of Harding, Coolidge, Hughes, Hoover and other cabinet members, including Daugherty, thus bringing these “col- umns of Americanism” into disrepute | and contumely and destroying public confidence in them. se 6 One hundred and fourteen miners are entombed as the result of a mine explosition im West Virginia, the in- famous coal baron-controlled state, Here are more casualties on the in- dustrial battlefield; more sacrifices on the altar of capitalism. When the agent of an American trust is killea in Mexico, or China, notes are dis- Patched by the affronted American secretary of state, demanding satis- faction, and behind the note is the mailed fist. But the American gov- ernment is silent when hundreds of workers are murdered thru the greed of the coal barons. It is cheaper to hire miners than to install safety devices. Labor is cheap, Labor lead- ers listen to “reason.” Gompers says that relations between employers and employes were never better. And the murder goes on. ‘ee Charles Murphy, boss of Tammany Hall for many years, passed away. He made a fortune on “glucose” dur- ing the war. His enemies branded him “Glucose Charlie.” His organiza- tion holds New York City in the hol- low of its hand. It makes and un- makes mayors. It is supposedly demo- cratic, but is on good terms with the local republican machine, They trade judges who sit on the bench and send radicals to jail for not appreciating the beauties of American democracy. Much could be written about Tam- many. It holds its power by denounc- ing the Traction Trust, which it prac- tcally owns, and posing as progressive which it is. It secures the releases of criminals who are afterwards un- der an obligation to it. It is a little to the right of the Socialist Party, at times. The latter accused it of steal: ing most of its planks, the most im- portant of which were a five-cent fare, sanitary public convenience stations and municipal graveyards. Now that Murphy is dead, the question is, “Who is to take his place?” Otherwise things are going along as usual. Mere- ly the death of another political graft- er. a Another Murphy, initials M. J. for eight years director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, has been chosen Vice-President and Cash- ier of the Federation Bank of New York, it was announced by Peter J. Brady, President of the bank. Mr. Brady declared that Mr. Murphy brings a rich experience to the bank and an idealistic viewpoint. Mr. Brady is lacking considerably in the latter. He is supposed to be the power be- hind the Central Trades Assembly in New York, editor of the New York City Record and has a sumptuous suite of offices in the New York mu- nicipal building. He is president of the Allied Printing Trades Council and is the prime booster of Major George L. Berry, for Vice-President on the Democratic ticket. If things go bad with our labor leaders in the unions, they have their_banks to fall back on. Why should they bother organizing any more workers? Bank- ing is a more respectable, interesting and safer diversion. there shouldn't of Hoover for imon rights to the Alas- ka Packers’ Association after all Hoover did to feed starving people during the war, , (