The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 21, 1924, Page 6

er gueyon . age Six "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 monthr By mail (in Chicago only): $4.50....6 months $2.50....3 montis $6.00 per year $8.00 per year UJ Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1113 W. Washington Bivd. Chicago, Illinois J. LOUIS ENGDAHL ) WILLIAM F, DUNNE) MORITZ J. LOEB. Editors ..Bysiness Mansger Entered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1923 at the Post- Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. ee 20 Advertising rates on application. eee eee Under the Kept Pencil If workers only knew just how the news of labor's activities is treated by the kept pencils of the copy readers in capitalist newspaper offices, they would turn in disgust from the yellow press. But few workers are really acquainted with what really goes on in the editorial rooms of the sub- sidized dailies. The DAILY WORKER, siderable pleasure in reproducing ‘an excellent insight into the practices of the yellow press as it’ appeared in “The Week,” a convention publica- tion that appeared during the recent gathering of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, at Philadelphia. Here is exposed the treatment of a convention story by one of the local dailies, said to be the Philadelphia Enquirer. The convention reporter evidently worked up a fairly good story, for a capitalist sheet. But then the slaughtering began. “Kill” is the newspaper term for striking out. Stuff marked “kill” is not wanted. It is to be discarded. And the news of the “Amalgamated” convention certainly fell under the copy reader’s pencil, like other labor news. It looks as if the managing editor had even had a shot at it. how much was “killed” of the original story, leav- ing only one small paragraph. Here is the evi- dence: ey | HOW LABOR NEWS IS KILLED | amalgamated 01 ‘Workors of America wiop om thair ‘Sixth Bioanal Convention at Withors>oce Hall» Fatiaceiphiny on Monday May 15th ct 10:20 ds Map repnountetneemaninenndntinensoelymtren = therefore, takes con- trys 9 Analgancted Clothing Workare’ Unite hes about one huntred Mergent mattace practionliy ae daber bank in Chefage. fais pening of a wecont in Hew Tere controlled by the srgani= kecbera in ltnited allet~ are Limited. Profite are shared ‘phe toa, but of eh Ghempleynent Insurance \ The neat oeve: Sento £00 sateitatt stability and the seour! ah ms ome Wh eymant ta- suranoe funds Unlike Eyes: thie fund ie setabliched and ant pleyers without the Ne tte te ZAc® & prewiim upen cent: even © ban established tn TRS Me firet dietribution to tn in Chicago thie fetsons alotiees arene In contrast to the above, the readers of the DAILY WORKER will certainly appreciate the thoro manner in which their paper has reported the conventions of the International Ladies’ Gar- ment Workers’ Union and the Amalgamated Cloth- ing Workers of America, at Boston and Philadel- ‘phia, and now the meeting of the Illinois coal “miners, at Peoria. Our increasing army of readers is convinced of the fact that in order to get the labor news from * labor’s viewpoint they must rely on the DAILY WORKER. The “Buyers” Strike ., The Chicago Tribune is conducting an investi- gation of the economic conditions prevailing in the middle and northwestern states. Its investi- gator has found that the farming masses inhabit- ing this section of the country are face to face with a serious economic crisis. We welcome this discovery by “the world’s greatest newspaper.” We have seen this sad plight of the farmers in evidence for some time, while this same capitalist sheet was befuddling the minds of its excessive number of readers with the unfounded .yarns and glowing tales of prosperity in the rural areas, Yet, even now that the state of affairs amongst the farmers is so desperate that “prosperity” bunk can no longer be peddled, the Tribune takes it -upon itself to resort to the most ingenious. devices The accompanying reproduction shows} | and tricks to give its readers, principally the city readers, the workers, a dangerously erroneous im- pression of the situation. The Tribune would have the world believe that there is a “buyers” strike among the farming masses of the section of the country, that the poor farmers constituting the overwhelming majority of the rural population, are simply refusing to buy and that this “strike” is having its disastrous effect on factory employ- ment and wages. This analysis, if we may call it such in spirit of generosity, is wrong from beginning to end. The farmers are ceasing to buy, not out of their own desires, but out of cruel necessity. For years the agricultural industry of the country has been go- ing from bad to worse. Slowly but surely the savings of the farmers, the small savings earned during the war-prosperity, have heen disappearing. At the same time the promiséd and hoped for relief failed to materialize. The farmers, like all other human beings, would like to get as many of the good things of life, as much of the comfort that can be secured, as possible. The wherewithal, the economic capacity, to secure these good things of life, has been deserting the farming masses with unbroken regularity in the last five years. Today, these dispossessed farmers can no longer buy, they can no longer meet even some of their most ele- mentary demands. The ghastly spectre of eco- nomic bankruptcy is making itself felt amongst increasing numbers of farmers. When the Tribune speaks of the inability of the farmers to buy back even as much of their produce as they did yesterday it is misleading the workers. This is simply another attempt on the part of this loyal servant of the big capitalist interests to pit the workers and farmers against each other and to prevent their uniting against their common capi- talist enemy. The Tribune will not get very far in making the working masses believe that their wages are being slashed, that the factories are shutting down, that steel and coal production are going to the dogs, because the farmers are on a “buyers” strike. The basic cause for the poverty of the workers and the bankruptcy of the farmers is the same. Both take root and grow out of the capitalist private ownership and control of the means of production and exchange and the govern- ment. Lessons In Democracy We acknowledge our thanks to the National Security League. For once this organization of watchdogs of the capitalist class has rendered service potentially useful to the workers. Of course, the achievement was unpremediated and has a totally different object than the lessons that can be drawn from it. (ie The National Security League has just published the findings of an investigation captioned “Goy- ernment By Default.” This survey is primarily a statistical statement based on the election results of 1922. 3 We gather from these findings that democracy, capitalist democracy in practice, is completely de- void of one of its most advertised blessings. The proponents and champions of pure democracy, as we know it today, under capitalism, have always maintajned that this institution accurately reflects the desires and opinions of the entire population. The findings of the National Security League blast this’contention into smithereens. First of all, we are told that most of the thirty- three states investigated show considerably less than 60 per cent of the possible voters participat- ing. In Pennsylvania, dominated by the steel and coal trusts, Senators Reed and Pepper were elect- ed by about 18 per cent of these eligible to vote. In Massachusetts, Lodge was elected by only 22 per cent of the possible voters. In Mississippi, Senator Stephens was elected by only 7 per cent. It is particularly enlightening to note that in this banner state of the Democratic Party only 8 per cent of the possible voters participated in the last Senatorial elections. The bankruptcy of capitalist democracy as an organ for the expression of the wants of the work- ing and farming classes becomes even more pain- fully clear when one considers some additional features of this system. The fact that the rural and city masses are compelled to vote away from the places of their employment and as an amor- phous mass only aggravates the confusion of the issues and makes it impossible for them to view the situation as it really is, on a class basis. The control of the press, the moving pictures, the theatre, the schools, the church, and sundry other organs of information and misinformation by the employing class, tends to blight the effic- acy of the present system of suffrage still more, Add to that the fact of the government machin- ery, the financial and industrial power, the legal capacity to restrict and limit suffrage and the ownership of the workers’ jobs being all in the hands of the capitalist class and you have a pic- ture of the utter inadequacy. of the capitalist demo- cratic system as an organ of working and farm: ing class expression in their conflict with the ex- ploiters. The findings of the National Security League afford excellent propaganda material for the class conscious workers. They present indisputable, authorative evidence of the hollowness of the principal claims made for the preservation of cap- italist democracy and its superiority over the Soviet system based on the mass organizations of the workers and farmers which enables every worker and farmer to vote as a functioning, useful, economic unit in his industry and through his em- ployment. Communism will abolish all wars thru eliminat- ing the cause of war; capitalism perpetuates war because it carries within itself the seeds of new wars fFHE DAILY WORKER By ART SHIELDS. Ralph Chaplin, whose battle songs of the West Virginia miners fur- nished inspiration to the readers of the old International Socialist Review ten years ago, deals with another dra- matic story of the class war in the Centralia Conspiracy, just reissued in greatly amplified form by the De- fense Committee. The armed defense of the loggers’ union hall against the Lumber Trust’s white guard is a theme that Chaplin does justice to as probably no one else could. The author was one of the first investigators on the scene after the battle and by revolutionary temperament and artistic insight he was qualified to tell the story with color and power, There is a magnificent militancy running thru the’144 pages of Chap- lin’s book, without any straining after effect. The story tells itself. It would have been easy for another writer,- seeking to avoid the sickly apologetics of liberalism, to have veered over into a penny-dreadful style. Not so with Chaplin. The bat- tle of Centralia and the class war background behind it had been stamped into his heart and mind in the weeks that he spent going over the ground, while the White Terror was still rampant. Chaplin is a poet and artist but he is also one of the boys. In fact he is first of all one of the boys. And he tells the story of the Centralia fellow workers in this book just as tho he were talking to an audience of lum- ber workers—which in fact he is do- ing, for the book will have its largest sale in the logging camps of the northwest. oes, Wesley Everest’s Last Stand. We hear the wobblies discussing the coming raid. “I hope to Jesus nothing happens,” said the secretary. “Wesley Everest laid down his few unsold papers, rolled a brown paper cigarette and smiled enigmatically over the empty seats in the general direction of the new One Big Union label on the front window. His closest friends say he was never afraid of anything in his life.” * 8 8 “Torn and defiant as a wind lashed reed, “Wounded, he faced you as he stood at bay,” begins Chaplin’s great sonnet to Wes- ley Everest. It was a hero’s death that is describ- ed in the prose narrative—Everett’s last stand on the banks of the Che- lalis River. The hall ‘had been raided. Three Legionaires bit the dust. The mass of invaders broke thru bent on lynching the union men inside. Ever- est who ran outsidé, drew the fire on himself and saved the lives of his comrades. “Having kept off his pursuers thus far the boy started boldly for the comparative security of the opposite shore, splashing the water violently as he waded out into the stream ... Suddenly Everest seemed to change his mind and began to retrace his steps to the shore. Here he stood dripping wet in the tangled grasses to await the arrival of the mob bent NFORMATION has reached the Committee for International Work- ers’ Aid here that the Social Demo- cratic leaders of Germany are planning a general attack on the International Workers’ Relief Committee, of which the Committee for International Work- ers’ Aid is the American branch. The coming of this attack was indicated as far back as two months ago at the con- gress of the Executive Committee of the Second International held in Lux- emburg on February 15 to 17, when a veritable assault was made upon the International Workers’ Relief Com- mittee by the German Social Demo- cratic leader, Adolph Brauns. A circular letter has béen sent out by the General Federation of German Trade Unions, which is controlled by the Social Democrats fo all its local branch organizations stating that the International Workers’ Relief Commit- tee is a Communist organization and that “authentic” material about this organization is being gathered. 150 Committees at Work. The real reason for the hostility of the Social Democratic leaders is the phenomenal sudden growth of the In- on his destruction. Everest had lost his hat and his wet hair stuck to his forehead. His ammunition was nearly gone. Hye witnesses declare his face still wore a’ quizzical half- bantering smile when the mob over- took him. With his pistol held loosely in his rough hand. Everest stood at bay, ready to make a last stand for his life.” Dale Hubbard, nephew of the lumber king who organized the mob, falls dead. Bullets gone, Everest battles with fists. The mob’s fury vents itself on him. A gun barrel knocks his teeth out. A rope is thrown over him. “You fellows haven't got guts enough to-lynch a man in the day- time,” ejaculates Everest “torn and defiant.” The night of torture and terror in the jail; the emasculation and lynch- ing from Chehalis Bridge is told as only a strong man, wrung with the out- rage of it, could tell it. This is the chapter of the Centralia story that must be told and retold, lest we for- get. ne Weer A White Guard Leader. “Tell the boys I died for my class,” were Everest’s last words as he was dragged out to mutilation and death. Likewise the four white guard lead- ers who were shot down in the raid against the workers’ hall died for their class—the employing class. This was recognized last summer by the late President Harding in one of his last official acts when he laid a wreath on the memorial to the four slain Legion- aires, near Centralia. Chaplin’s picture of the commander of the Centralia post of the Legion, for whose death Wesley Everest’s com- rades were convicted, would fit many a young White Guard leader: “Warren O. Grimm came from a good family and was a small town aristocrat. Grimm was a lawyer, a college athlete and social lion. He had been with the American forces in Siberia and his chief bid for dis- tinction was a noisy dislike for the Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic of Russia, and the I. W. W. which he termed the “American Bolsheviki.” During the 1918 raid on the Cen- tralia hall Grimm is said to have been dancing around “like a whirl- ing dervisi” and waving the Amer- ican flag while the work of destruc- tion was going on. Afterwards he became prominent in the American Legion and was the chief cat’s paw for the lumber interests who were capitalizing the uniform to gain their own unholy ends. Personally he was a clean-cut modern young man.” * Chaplin sketches the social back- ground to Armisticé Day, 1919, in clear cut strokes: The millions of fir and cedar trees “straight and majestic, with green and foam flecked streams purling here and there at their feet;” the lumber monopoly that stole this magnficent domain from the people; the lumberjacks who toiled 10 and 12 ours. daily until their rebellious unionism won them some few of the good things of life and the hatred of their masters, with its culmination at Centralia. “The lumberjack,” says Chaplin, . is the perfect proletarian type— ternational Workers’ Relief Commit- tee, which has succeeded in establish- ing 150 new committees all over G many, uniting a considerable pa of trade unions and other workers’ or- ganizations. This development, the Social Democratic leaders consider a menace against their own position and they are preparing all kinds of plots against the International Work- ers’ Relief Committee, including mis- statements, garbled police reports a year old, “documents” which have been unsuccessfully used before. The International Workers’ Relief Committee has been giving medical relief to workers, has been constantly opening new soup kitchens, has been feeding the hungry, has provided milk for infants, has opened more and more nurseries, has cared for needy ahildren, has provided for invalids, widows and orphans, has supplied aid for unemployed and striking workers. Thru this immense relief work the In- ternational Workers’ Relief Commit- tee has been keeping up the stamina of the working class of Germany in its resistance against thé onslaughts of the capitalist class. The Social Democrats who are the lackeys of RUSSIAN-JAPANESE TREATY IS (Special to The nations if they can agree upon an adjustment of the points of difference between their re- spective governments. Recognition of Soviet Russia is the chief obstacle to immediate formal treaty negotiations. The Vladivostok imprisonment incident, the Noko- laievsk massacre, and the Japanese interference in the island of Sakhalin are matters that are being carefully considered by the Japanese and Rus- EXPECTED SOON AS RESULT OF OFFICIAL PEKING CONVERSATIONS Daily Worker) TOKIO, Japan, May 20.—Russia and Japan seem to be He ing diplomatic negotiations thru the conversations carried on be- tween L. M. Karakhan and Ambassador Yoshizawa, the official representatives of their respective nations at Peking, China. Both men have been given power to frame a treaty between the two sian representatives. Harry Sinclair, notorious American, Job Sharks Convene. A convention of officials of govern- ginning tomorrow. Japan at present controls the north- ern half of Sakhalin island on which there is considerable oil. Russia has given the concession to this oil to ment and free employment agencies will meet at the Hotel Congress be-|who have nothing that is worth steal- Ralph Chaplin’s Book of Heroes possessionless, homeless, rebellious. . . But as wage earners go, he is not the common but the uncommon type both as regards physical strength and clean- liness and mental alertness. He is generous to a fault and has all the qualities Lincoln and Whitman loved in men,” * A Rebel Portrait Gallery. So Ralph Chaplin says in the open- ing pages but he is too accurate an artist to see the individual I. W. W. loggers with whom this Centralia drama deals as “types.” Each is re- flected in his individual contour and light and shade. There is old Mike Sheehan, 64 at the. time of the raid, born in Ireland and a stoker in the |havy during the Spanish-American war who became a woodsman only in his latter years; Eugene Barnett and his sweetheart wife, who had gone into the timber game just to. get some money to prove up his Idaho claim; Ray Becker, educated for the ministry; having “the zeal of a prophet and the courage of a lion;” O. C. “Commodore” Hland, the father of seven children and John Lamb, the father of five; James McInerny, whose neck was stretched all night by a rope while the inquis- itors tried to make him turn stool pigeon; Britt Smith, hall secretary, 20 years a logger, who slept in the hall and watched it night and day; Bert Bland, one of the men who was posted on Seminary Hill during the fight; Loren Roberts, the unfortunate youth whose mind flew away during the night of torture and Bert Faulkner who was involved in the affair by ac- cident; Tom Morgan, moral weakling who succumbed to the terror and turn- ed stool pigeon as Rad Ike Brewer, one of the defenders of Matewan with Sid Hatfield. Elmer Smith, Elmer Smith stands in a still more individual light. Not that he is not heart and soul for their cause now as he was when he visited their hall and gave them the legal advise that they had a constitutional right to de- fend themselves. But because Elmer Smith is a revolutionist without the wage slave background. He is a law- yer—-still a member of the Washington bar in spite of the conspiracy by lum- ber interests to disbar him—but so genuine a comrade’ of the boys in jumpers that not one of them would think of calling him anything but “Elmer.” And physically he is a power- ful giant who could give almost any lumberjack a tussle tho he insists he would not like to go up against tough old Mike Sheehan. The legal analysis of the case is ex- plained with more convincing detail than it has. been explained before but this side of the case is of more im- portance to the outsider than it is to the rebel who is for the Centralia boys because they had the guts to fight back against the employers’ gangsters and to inflict such a signal lesson that such raiding has ceased in the north- west. After all, as Walt Whitman says: “How futile are all arguments be- fore a defiant deed!” ‘The Centralia Conspiracy, published by the General Defense Committee, 1001 W. Madison street, Onicago, Th. Price, 50 cents. Repulse Attack on International Workers’ Aid the capitalist class want to break the power of resistance of the working class and one means for doing this is to fight the International Workers’ Relief Committee. The Social Demo- crats do not want to be behind the extreme reactionaries of Germany such as the monarchist government of Bavaria, which has been arresting re- lief workers and seizing money col- lected by the International Workers Relief Committee. French Workers Pledge Aid. The Social Democrats are especially incensed over the tremendous success of the congress of the German sec- tion of the International Relief Com- mittee in Berlin on March 16, where, besides the delegates from all over Germany, there were representatives of many countries, including Camille Salles from Paris, who brought the assurance of solidarity from the French workers in spite of the im- perialist Poincare government. The Committee for International Workers’ Aid, the American branch of the International Workers’ Relief Committee is making every effort to speed up its part of the world-widy ing and battling working class of Ger- many. says: will feel terribly unprotected now that Daugherty and Burns are out. The only people who will be glad are the reds and these common people campaign for the relief of the suffer. Wednesday, May 21, 1924 | AS WE SEE IT By T. J. O'FLAHERTY A nice little civil war is raging with- ,, in the ranks of the Italian ; Fascisti. There are two main divisions, one called the “Savages” “Legalists.” The head of the “Legal- ists” is an old friend of Mussolini and one of the 52 original founders of the Black Shirts. It seems that he is get- ting tired of the bloodthirsty organiza- tion and editorially criticized the acts of violence perpetrated by the Mus- solini heroes. For this his life was threatened by the “Savages” and Mus- solini who was away on a political fence-building mission was compelled to return and settle the dispute. He did that by having the “Legalists” ex- pelled from the Fascisti. It would not be surprising to see the two factions resort t arms in defense of their res- pective ambitions. re ee John Fitzpatrick has released all members of his Farmer-Labor Party from all obligations to cast their bal- lots for its candidates in the comingy) elections. While this looks at aret | sight like an act of generosity, we learn that there are no candidates run- ning on this party’s ticket and still more important, the party is placed in storage for the summer months. Whether it is ever destined to be sep- arated from the moth balls again is a matter for profitless conjecture, but experience proves that political par: ties, unlike good wine do not improve in splendid isolation away from the maddening hustle and bustle of this topsy-turvy and complicated world, particularly when not even exercised occasionally, eee Billy Sunday raves against sinners who refuse to come to Jesus but per- sist in living on this wicked earth, yet when fortune rapped at his door in the form of a rambunctious kidney, instead of letting the said kidney send him on his upward journey to see his heavenly meal ticket, the Rev. Sunday took a special train to Rochester to bring the offending organ back to normalcy. Rather remarkable what an aversion our preachers have to go- ing to heaven when they are given a sporting chance. “Nearer my God to Thee” means nothing to them except a hymn chanted for the benefit of their pocketbooks. - ; i Among the organizations listed in the All-American Conference to com- bat radical propaganda we find the American Federation of Labor, The American Defense Society, Hebrew Sheltering Immigrant Society, Knights of Columbus, National Catholic Wel- fare Council, etc. Rabbis, priests, la- bor fakers, capitalists and stool pig- eons are joined together in an unholy allidnce against the working class. This outfit claims to represent 20,000,-. 000 Americans. But outside of a let- terhead and Mr. Whitney of the Amer- ican Defense Society the heterogenous collection of mental fossils who com- as much influence on the course of human events as the Three Tailors of Tooley Street had on the history of England. ee It is rumored in Washington that the impetus for the “united front” of these organizations comes from the “Ohio Gang” of grafters who attached themselves to the Harding administra- tion and clung to Coolidge after Hard- ing’s death. While Daugherty was at his post Mr. Whitney and his stool pigeons had easy pickings put what with publicity and the need for polit- ical maneuvering Coolidge was obliged to dump the finks along with Daugh- erty and Burns. This compelled Whit- ney to do some real panhandling. The result is the calling together of a fake conference. The National Security League, The American Defense Society and other such organizations are in the business of jacking up the patriot- ism of the people of this country simply for the “jack” they can scare out of the bosses. Lately the latter have been tightening up their wallets and after the exposures in Washing- ton it is not unlikely that a patriotic panhandler may have to show some real results before he succeeds in at- taching some of the bankers’ dough to himself. ee This is a splendid labor movement we have, is it not? The American Fed- eration of Labor in league with the most contemptible gang of scoundrels in existence. Gompers works hand in hand with the Department of Justice. Whitney, Gompers, Burns, Daugherty, Fred Marvin of the New York Com. mercial, the Socialist Party and the Jewish Daily Forward worked hand in and the other UV Dose most of those organizations have * hand against the radicals among the . American labor organizations. What — story about Soviet Russia, Gompers or the Socialist Party supplied it. But they have fallen on evil days. In spite of their worst, Soviet Russia is forging one of them missed the others provid- | ed. If Burns failed to pick up some © ahead and the nations of Europe who . were so impudent a few years ago are today practically begging Russia to do business with them. This is sad news for the American stool pigeons, but the worst is yet to com Attempt to Revive “Review.” SPRINGFIELD, I.—Attempts to revive The Illinois Industrial Review which suspended four weeks ago for lack of adequate support are unsuc- cessful so far. The paper, which was edited by Duncan McDonald, support- ed the opposition to the administration sroup in the Mlinois Mine Workers’ union, f RY i! VF