The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 10, 1924, Page 6

5 Page Six THE DAILY WORKER. Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO., 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Il. (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 montus $6.00 per year $8.00 per year Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1113 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago, !linois J. LOUIS ENGDAHL ) WILLIAM F. DUNNE ) MORITZ J. LOEB... Editors Entered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1923 at the Post- Oficé at Chicago, Ill., under the act of March 3, 1879. <= 2 Advertising rates on application. Why Lowden Refused Ex-Governor Lowden of Illinois has turned down the offer of the Republican party ruling clique to serve as the running mate of Coolidge. The millionaire ‘made-to-order farmer has de- clared that the vice-presidency is inacceptable to him at present. This has temporarily, at least, thrown a monkeywrench into the well-oiled ma- chinery of the Cleveland convention. The declination of Lowden at this time is in- dicative of the strategy many capitalist politicians of Democratic and Republican stripe will pursue in the coming campaign. An attempt will be made by the best minds of both employing class parties to pose as pure and undefiled by the influence of big money or oil. Lowden could not show his face to the electo- rate of the country with any degree of comfort. In the presidential primary campaign of 1920, Lowden spent close to half a million dollars, $414,948, to be accurate, in order to buy up dele- gates to the Chicago convention. Next to General Wood, who spent about $2,000,000 in his campaign, Lowden was the heaviest spender. Of course, these sums were not all that were spent. Much larger sums of money were expended to buy the presi- dency, than was admitted by the aspirants. For instance, Lowden spent at least $379,000 of his own money which he inherited from the Pullman family. This was a sum five times the annual salary of the president of the United States. The notorious Nat Goldstein of Missouri, was one of Lowden’s drummers trying to sell him inte the presidency. In the same state, E. L. Morse of the Republican committee, was dealing in Harding and Lowden stock at the same time. In fact, the Lowden campaign very much resembled thy slush fund campaigns of Hanna and Quay of oe Today with the scent of Teapot oil not yet evaporated the Republican party could ill afford fo revive the scandals of 1920 by nominating Low- den. The scandals of 1924 will be more than the Republicans will be able to face. Lowden knew this when he refused. He valued the political future of himself and his reactionary party too niuch to accept the vice-presidency under the cir- cumstances, much as the big:moneyed men owning the Republican party might have desired it. Send in that Subscription Today. France’s Cabinet Crisis The extreme reactionary section of the French imperialist ruling class is making a desperate effort to delay the governmental house-cleaning voted in the recent elections. President Millerand is holding on to his job by the skin of his teeth. being kicked out of office by the Herriot group parading under the misleading name of Radical Socialists, Millerand has set up a dummy cabinet which is not expected to last fully one day. Al- ready, this cabinet has been properly labeled the “suicide cabinet,” This cabinet crisis in France is of special in- terest to the masses of the United States. It illus- trates a vital point of distinction between the American and French government structures. No one will accuse the French governmental system of being fully responsive to the will of the work- ing and poor farming masses of the country. France, the cradle of bourgeois democracy, is far from being democratic even in the sense of capi- talist parliamentarism as often expounded by the liberals. Yet, France, when compared with the. United States, has a government far more responsive to ‘the expressed will of the masses. In France, as well as in other European countries, the cabinet ‘i isa responsible body, a body responsible to the t elected deputies. In the United States, the cabinet yi ig the private family of the president and is re- spansible only to the chief executive. The nearest approach to popular control of cabinet officers in _ so-called democratic America is the expression of opinion by the senate on the conduct of a cabinet member. But the president has the only say on h the continuity of any cabinet officer’s political life. ¢ Likewise, in reactionary imperialist France, the 4 t:is not so far removed from the electorate at he'is in the United States. We cite these points not because we have any illusions about the char- acter of the French government. We know that the French government is organically unfitted to “serve the working class as a means of establishing its victory over the capitalist class. But the con- trast between even the French government and the much-vaunted American democracy, in so far as responsiveness to the will of the masses is con- ( is so striking, that its clarification, on the In order to postpone his} Figures Can Lie There is an old saying that “figures can lie and liars can figure.” Sometimes the statistical liars do not cover their tracks and get caught in the act of trying to mislead the public.. The favorite in- door sport of the capitalist ser’ ifbblers is proving that white in Russia is really black and that things were ever so much better under the reign of the czar. . This is where a New York Times headline specialist fell down. He attempted to show that everybody in Moscow is a Soviet official and proved his contention in the following: manner: “The population of Moscow is now 1,511,045, Of this number there are 226,000 officials, 219,000 workers, 95,000 unemployed and 64,000 domestic servants. Under the czar the population of the y was about a million of which 416,000 were workers, 170,000 domestic servants and 164,000 officials.” On this story the New York Times’ headline writer stuck the following caption: “Officials Fill Moscow.” The figures show—granting that such a-liar could even give the exact figures—that the population of Moscow has increased over fifty per cent since the czar’s days. The government was then located in Petrograd, yet despite that fact and the lower population, there were 164,000 offi- cials in Moscow, as against 226,000 now.. The 164,000 listed as officials under the czar’s govern- ment were municipal employes. The 226,000 em- ployed there now by the government are city and siate employes. The headline writers on the capitalist press are instructed to put as much poison as possible in their work, so even when a dispatch is fairly ac- curate the headline makes up for that deficiency. Send in that Subscription Today. Japanese Developments As a result of the recent elections in Japan the Seyukai party, representing the most reactionary wing of the imperialist feudal-capitalist combine, were dislodged from their control of the govern- mental machinery. Premier \Kiyura, spokesman of the Seyuhunto party, formerly a section of the reactionary Seyu- kai, has resigned. Viscount Kato, the leader of the Kensikai party which elected 146 members to parliament, has become premier. Kato was formerly ambassador to England. His ascendancy at this time is indicative of the deep- going dissatisfaction of the Japanese masses with the council of elder statesmen, or Genro, and their reactionary policies. Under the present parlia- mentary conditions in Japan, where only five per cent of the population is entitled to vote, the rise of Kato who, tho less black than his predecessor, is, in fact, as standpat as the Washington Monu- ment, must be accepted as the only possible indi- cator of the real feeling of the country. Beneath the surface of Japanese politics there is an under- current of sweeping protest that will yet over- whelm the reaction. The change in premiership assumes special sig- nificance at this time when Japan. is beset by so many complications. We may expeet a conscious, definite attempt on the part of the new government toward a rapprochement with the Union of So- cialist Soviet Republics in order to counteract the effects of the new American exclusion policy. To- day, Japan can find no other country that will dare openly oppose the American impérialist ventures in the Pacific than Soviet Russia. After all, the Japanese-American controversy is only a part of the whole conflict of interests in the. Pacific be- tween the Nipponese Empire and the American imperialist government. A realignment of this character in the Pacific is of immeasurable international significance. The effect on the domestic and foreign policies of Japan of such a re-grouping can not yet be esti- mated clearly. Send in that Subsoription Today. Western Electric Typical The Western Electric Company which the DAILY WORKER is exposing in a series of special articles, is typical of the large-scale manufactur- ing industries of the United States. Thru ‘its fifty-five years’ strictly non-union life it has de- veloped the most careful and complete, specialized piece-work speed-up system possible. The Western Electric Company offers its work- ers no share whatsoever in the administration of its plants. It allows its workers only-the chance to give each day the utmost of their energy to the work laid out by the speed-efficiency, experts. The Western Electric Company knows its busi- ness. It employs hundreds of engineers to keep the efficiency of the plant at the highest pitch; to'figure even to the finest detail the maximum amount of work each slave can do. The Western Electric rakes in the profits. _The workers can suck their thumbs—after work. The company and its relatives, American Telephone and Telegraph, General Electric, and the House of Morgan, direct not only national affairs to their interest but even international politics. Samuel Gompers and his American Federation of Labor tremble before these industrial and fin- ancial lords and make no effort to assist the en- slayed and unorganized workers. The Workers Party and the DAILY WORKER are actively fighting for the organization of the gagged wopkers of Western Electric and all other scab shops. We insist that the workers and farmers come to realize who their exploiters are and that they organize in a class party to demand the control of government and Andnatey, for them- selves. 7 THE DAILY WORKER Tuesday, June 10, 1924 The Railway Strike in Cuba By JAY LOVESTONE. RRACTICALLY all Cuban railroads iare tied up by a general strike of the railway workers. The railroad brotherhood employes of the Cuban Railroad company, the Northern Railways of Cuba and the Guantanamo & Western railroad have just gone on strike in sympathy with the: workers on the struck United Railways of Havana, Nearly twenty thousand men are on strike now. This great strike is of two-fold signi- ficance at this moment. First of all, the struggle of the railway workers in Cuba brings into bold relief the character of the control over the basic industries, exercised over the vassal republic of the Caribbean by the for- eign capitalists, The railway strike af- fords a clear instance of the nature of the class war as it is waged in those~areas falling within the eco- nomic hinterland of the big capitalist imperialist powers. Secondly, this great strike of Cuban railway workers is to be considered as @ phase and a symptom of the general unrest and discontent now sweeping the Latin-American and Pacific pos- sessions, dependencies, protectorates, and spheres of inflvence of the Yan- kee imperialist ruling class. Fight Against International Capitalism The forces lined up against the rail- way workers fighting for an improve- ment in their conditions of empioy- ment and the maintenance of their right to’ organize are the combined American, British and Cuban capital- ist interests. The Cuban Railroad Company is an American-owned corporation. Among its board of managers one will find such notorious enemies of the work- ers in the United States as Percy A. Rockefeller, W. H. Woodin, and Ed- ward J. Berwind. Mr. Berwind, it will be remembered, was one of the coal barons who evicted the striking bi- tuminous coal miners in the Fayette and Sommerset fields during the na- tional coal strike of 1922. Mr. Ber- wind is also the guiding hand of the New York traction interests which are distinctly hostile t8 organized labor. Percy Rockefeller needs little intro- duction to the American workers and farmers. Mr. Woodin is the director of many huge corporations among which are such anti-union organiza- tions as the American Beet Sugar Cor- poration and the Westinghouse Elec- tric Company. The Northern Railways of Cuba are not owned outright by American capi- talists. Here there is a heavy invest- ment of native capital, The president of this company is the well-known J. M. Tarafa. This is the samé Colonel Tarafa that has gotten away with hundreds of thousands of dollars thru reselling government bonds and ex- soldiers’ compensation certificates, which he bought up at next to noth- ing and then disposed of them at hand- some’ prices after he became the dom- inating figure in the native govern- ment. Colonel Tarafa is today one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, of native capitalists. ‘The Guantanamo and Western Rail- road is controlled principally by New England capitalists, tho outwardly the ownership appears to be native. The United Railways of Havana is a British-controlled corporation. Such influential British capitalists as Briga- dier General Archibald Jack is the general manager and Sir Henry Ma- ther Jackson is the Deputy Chair- man, Thus we have here a conflict be- tween the workers of Cuba on one side and the united forces of the American, British, and native capital- ists on the other side. This is a situ- ation which affords unassailable proof of the truth that in conflicts involv- ing fundamental class interests the capitalists tend to forget their nation- al differences, tend to put aside their inner class disputes and join hands against the working class. This strike of Cuban workers against international capitalism also brings into sharp focus the peculiar nature of ffie class struggles in the countries that are less developed in- dustrially, in the lands that are spheres of influence or areas of in- vestment for the big bankers and in- dustrialists- of the countries having a higher degree of industrial develop- ment. In the struggle against the for- eign capitalists exploiting them, the colonial workers come in conflict with the imperialist governments support- ing the American, the British, the French, the Japanese or the Italian owning classes. Under these condi- tions the struggles of these working and farming masses often. tend to as- sume somewhat of a national color. The native capitalists become an or- ganized force in the special national conflict which sooner or later devel- op into open fights for complete na- tional independence from the foreign capitalist imperialist yoke. But at the same time the native working class and poor farmers of these so-called backward and weaker countries must also wage a relentless class war against their own exploit- ers, against the capitalists of their own nationality. Naturally, the fact that the native working class and the bourgeois nationalists get together for a common fight against foreign oppres- sion tends to blur the diametrically opposite politico-economic interests of the two classes. Tho the workers and poor farmers of the colonial peoples and the oppressed nationalities should be in the forefront of the fight for complete national independence from the foreign imperialist governments and capitalist classes, yet their task is to fight aggressively at all times also against their native exploiters holding them in subjection. In this strike of the Cuban railway workers we have an example of heroic strug- gle by the Cuban proietariat against the native as well as the foreign capi- talists. The fact that the Cuban workingmen are chafing under the dic- tatorial rule of the American imperial- ist government does not prevent them from striking hard at their exploiters. Widespread Discontent Sweeps - Colonies. Never before has there been such deep-going widespread discontent in the Latin-American countries and the various possessions as there is to- day. The government of Venezuela is only a puppet of the most sinister in- terests of Wall Street. In Peru the workers have time and again struck against the Fascist government, which is only a servile creature of the oil and railway interests of the United States. In Chile the Fascist govern- ment exists only by the grace of American bank notes and Yankee military and naval prowess. In Ar- gentina the foreign governments are | discontent because of their high-hand- ed interference with the laws of the country for the sake of enhancing the interests of the various national cap- italist groups. The British and Amer- ican governments are now attempt- ing to dictate the manner of operation and enforcement of the Argentinian pension law in such a’way as to in- sure special privileges for their own capitalists. In the Hawaiian Islands, 20,000 Fili- pino sugar workers are in revolt against the degrading conditions forced upon them by the sugar barons un- der the leadership of the American governor general Farrington, himself a millionaire plantation owner. In the Philippines the struggle for national freedom and the development of great mass organizations of the workers and poor farmers is going on apace. In Cuba there is intense uarest. A number of American capitelists have bought land in the smail lu!and of Pines off the Cuban coast. . These ex- ploiters now want the Islands annexed to the United States in order to en- hance the price of their lands and in order to facilitate their exploitation of these lands. The other day the writer received a letter from one of tne leaders of the Communist and la- bor movements in Cuba, which pre- sented the critical conditions: prevail- ing there in the following light: “Now, that. adjacent small island (The Isle of Pines) has, ever since the Spanish conquest, been a part of Cuba and the Cuban people are great- ly excited. Especially are the natives of the Isle of Pines excited over the possibility of their coming under the yoke of American imperialism. “The issue is between the natives of the Isle of Pines and the Cuban people in general on one side and the American imperialists on the other. At the present time the nationalist sentiment is afire in all the Latin- American peoples against American imperialism, altho our patriotic capi- talists are ready to sell their souls to the highest bidder.” The American Workers Must Act. It is obvious that the working and farming classes of the Latin-American countries of Cuba and the Philippines are fighting the same clique of capi- talist exploiters that the workingmen of Pennsylvania, New York and Illi- nois and the poor farmers of North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, and Washington are resisting. When the American capitalist class secures a Victory over the working class of the Argentine,@Brazil, or Mex- ico, or Cuba; when the Yankee ex- ploiters, aided and financed by their imperialist government, succeed in getting a firmer hold on 'the resources of the lesser developed industrial countries, they are only fortifying their positions against the working class and the dispossessed farmers at home. And when the oppressed mass- es of these countries rise in revolt against the tyranny of the foreign cap- italists, invaders and armies of mili- tary and financial occupation, it is the American workers and expropri- ated farmers that are rushed to the front in the Tropics, in the Caribbean, in Honduras, in Panama, and else- where. Consequently, the workers and poor farmers of the United States, in their own interests, as a matter of duty to themselves and not as a mat- ter of charity to their brothers in the fanning the flames of working class Our Trade Union Aristocracy Elected for life to positions bearing salaries of as high as $12,000 per year, is the comfortable situation of a group of trade union officials in Chi- cago. The union involved is the Milk Wagon Drivers Local No. 753, Chica- go, of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen and Helpers. The officials are vest Fitche, president; William A. Neer, secretary-treasurer; Steve Summers, recording secretary; James Kennedy, vice-president; Joe Patterson, Jack Cook, Fred Damms, and Henry Ber- ger, members of the executive board. At the regular meeting of the union in May, Wm. Neer reported the nego- tiation of a new agreement, carrying an increase of $4 per week, and then requested that all the officers should be elected for life, and made per- petual delegates of the unions to all conventions. A motion was made to grant the request, which was carried, This local union has no regular elections. The last one was held about 1919, with the understanding that new elections should not be held until 1925. At the meeting where this motion was put over, about 250 to 300 mem- bers, out of a total membership of 5,000, were present. There had been no notice given that elections or sal- ary increases were to” bod considered at the meeting. The increase was ; without notice, and also the motion to elect the officers for life, and delegates every gathering they bi ee to go to. is estimated that the principal of- ficers, who get salary and percentage of dues collected, receive about the same amount. It makes interesting comparison to put the booty of these union officials beside that received by political job- holders. William Neer gets the same salary as the post-master general of the United States, without the chance now of losing his job at the next elec- tion. He gets four times as much as the heads of departments in the postal service, twice as much as the chief at- torney, and four times as much as the assistant attorneys. William Neer is paid the same sal- ary as the secretary of state, the same as the secretary of the treasury, the secretary of war, the secretary of the navy, the secretary ,of labor, the - rd to| The Poor Fish Says: The one who discovered that a whale’s gullet is After thus ponders hea ete too small to allow the passage of a ing as judges of the the officials ead some of the other . The salary of $9,000 per year to I -court,|Man thru it was a greater enemy of pul Curi- Medgtad that Robert Ingersoll. us people are a nuisance. Religion |, By Earl R. Browder attorney general, the secretary of the interior, etc., etc. ™m addition Neer is authorized to take a trip at the expense of the union, to recuperate from the arduous efforts of obtaining the $4 increase for the 5,000 members of Local 753. This will probably be to Europe, where this representative of the pro- letariat will enjoy the watering places of the rulers of the world, sport with them at Monte Carlo, and have a good time generally. Which would you rather be—a cap- italist or the boss of Local 753, Milk Wagon Drivers’ union? te Four new doctors emerged from the 170th commencement of Columbia university. They are Andrew Mellon, secretary of the treasury; Victor F| Lawson, publisher of the Chicago Daily News; Melville E. Stone, coun- sellor of the Associated Press, and Adolph 8. Ochs, publisher of the. New York Times. Columbia is Amer- colonies and spheres of influence, must line up with the exploited masé- es of these far-off lands for a united fight against their common enemy. The workers and dispossessed farm- ers of the United States are with the Cuban railway workers in their fight against the black alliance of reaction- ary international capitalism. The workers and farmers of the United States have no interest whatsoever in the sordid attempt of the American capitalist class to gobble up the Isle of Pines and are with the Cuban peo- ple in this hour of trial when they are opposing American imperialist con; quest. AS WE SEE IT | By T. J. O)FLAHERTY Strikebreaker Coolidge should getse, real thrill out of Cleveland when he arrives there to. accept the nomination’ for the presidency from the G, 0. P. convention. He may see trolley cars, Ymanned by strike breakers and armed. with machine guns ‘trying to handle: the extra traffic caused by the pres- ence of hundreds of delegates to the. great strike breaking political machine, of Wall Street. The traction company; refused to abide by the decision of the arbitration board which—a very un usual thing for an arbitration board te do—decided in favor of the men and granted a twelve cent an hour raise. Arbitration is fine for the capitalists when it suits them but when, in rare cases, they get the worst of it, they resort to force which the workers informed none but Communists be- lieve in. The MacDonald government is again playing the role of strike-breaker, this. time in the struggle between the Lon- don subway employes and the bosses.- In order to provide an excuse for their perfidy the labor fakers and cabinet officials have charged the strike with being under Communist leadership and: inspired by the Third International. Even the Daily Herald, official organ of the British Trade, Union Congress, ridicules this story and asserts thet the men have genuine cause for com- plaint. The National Union of Rail- waymen, of which J. H. Thomas was until recently the head, is as usual scabbing on the strikers but other unions are refusing to work with scabs. The government has appointed a plenary committee to aad wae ‘the: strike. a j: Labor banking is good, says War- ren S. Stone, grand chief of the Loco+ motive Engineers’ union, because: it gives the workers a chance to become capitalists. No such thing as clash of interests between capitalists and workers. The only solution to labor's troubles is to have all the poor become rich, Let the workers become capi+ talists and this class struggle will he at an end. The way to do it is to organize labor banks, deposit your money with the labor leaders and watch yourself get rich. It will never do, Mr. Stone. No doubt this is a very good scheme for labor bankers, There is nothing to stop them from. becoming capitalists. They are capi. talists in many instances, But the. great masses of the workers cannot be emancipated from wage slavery, periodic unemployment and poverty by any magic bootstrap lifting device under the capitalist’s system, i system is based on production for profit and the exploitation of the workers and until the workers abolish. that system and organize society. the basis of production for use, | will be great wealth in the hands few and great misery and poverty fo the many. Frank 0. Lowden, former overnor of Illinois, is acceptable '. Cal Coolidge as running mate. Lowdel a notorious reactionary and thr wife, the daughter of Pullman, sleeping car magnate, is very w He runs an “Ideal Farm” where. hogs are treated much better { the children of'the workers, who in his industry. Lowden is quite si factory to the money pores _ A miner, wertting to ine United 3 Workers’. Journal, states that the. erty of individual miners is the of their own folly or negligen is nobody's fault but my a. ae | ft fit | 4 blow in every cent I make,” And again, “I look back and ica’s foremost step university. | ‘The men tavnred with the titles are “ne/thy, Mellon made a good deal-of his money in whiskey; since the pro- hibition law was passed. The others have plenty of cash, which accounts | for the esteem in which they are held by Nicholas Murray Butler, the unoff- cial head of the Saloon League. The latter drink, [egy ago gy uly, while the workers get poorer. Japanese Entering South America. | poorer, in spite of customary | BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, June 9. | Harry Thaw’s fortune increased —Emmigration to. hvAmerica by |one to five millions while ke 4 the Japanese, now that they have |an insane asylum. It did not been shut out of America by President |because of any physical effort on Mr. wis part but | ae thousand emmigrants will be vent to Bran, it {s announced. ¢ moscow, Lager June 9.—A: re-