The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 26, 1924, Page 6

Page Six SS 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 monthe 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, Illinois J. LOUIS ENGDAHL ) WILLIAM F, DUNNE) “rr MORITZ J. LOBB...... Editors .Business Manager Entered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1923 at the Post- Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. <p> 290 Advertising rates on application. | Passing of Powderly News of the death yesterday of T. V. Powderly, famous as the head of the once-powerful Knights of Labor, closes a chapter in the history of the American labor movement that was colorful and rich in experience. First appearing as a labor official about 1875, he was appointed_by the Indus- trial Brotherhood, forerunner of the Knights of Labor, as an organizer. He became head of the latter early in its career, and continued in that position until 1893. He furnished a remarkable example of a conservative and even timid person leading a movement that was always radical, and at times revolutionary in its spirit. At a time when the Knights of Labor were pow- erful and the craft unions were quite weak (1885), it was largely the influence of Powderly which kept the Knights officially on the edge of the de- veloping eight-hour movement and allowed the craft unions to initiate the call for the general strike of May 1, 1886. And while the revolutionary spirit of the Knights had caused its members everywhere to throw themselves into the eight-hour eampaign, so that it was really the Knights of Labor which made it as successful as it was, yet Powderly, in his official position as Grand Master Workman, was actively sabotaging it. On March 13, 1886, on the eve of the strike, he issued a se- eret circular to the units of the organization, ad- vising them to keep out of the eight-hour move- ment. This had much to do with the rapid disin- tegration of that once-powerful organization. Powderly completed the demoralization of the Knights of Labor with his political manipulations along the classical lines of “rewarding friends.” He consistently opposed independent political ac- tion and fought against the early attempts to found a labor party. Setting the example fol- lowed since that time by so many “labor leaders,” Discord in the Democracy News dispatches are filled to overflowing with gossip about the bitter struggles waging between the factions of the Democratic party. According to accounts the fight is taking on fanatical bitter- ness, threatening splits and all sorts of dire con- sequences, right on the eve of an election which the democrats claim is theirs by default. It is interesting to compare the discord now going on in the Democratic party, and the attitude of the capitalist press to it, with the discussions that occurred a few months ago in the Russian Communist party. Every journalistic prostitute in the country was writing editorials showing how the debates between Zinoviev and Trotsky meant the downfall of the Soviet government and the liquidation of the revolution. It meant nothing of the kind, of course, and the discussions ended with unanimous decisions of the party congress. The same capitalist press today takes the dis- graceful controversies in the Democratic party as a matter of course. Quarrels about no principle whatever, involving nothing more sacred than the question of who will distribute the patronage, they indicate the extreme corruption and degradation of bourgeois politics in this, the age of capitalist decay. In the Russian discussions there was the breath of life, the spirit of the working class solv- ing its problems and going forward united to new achievements—but the capitalist press wanted to see only decay. In the Democratic party squab- bles there is the quarrel for booty, the spirit of graft and corruption of a decaying class rule—but the capitalist press wants to see only a dignified difference of “principles.” Fight the “Open Shop” Drive A timely and much needed warning is contained in the statement issued by the national committee of the Trade Union Educational League, calling for united resistance to the campaign for wage cuts and increase of working hours now beginning. In the clothing, metal, railroad, textile, leather and most of the other industries, the capitalists are already using the industrial depression to slash into the workers’ standards of living. Noth- ing will prevent drastic losses to the working class except a great campaign to rouse the millions to fight. : It is idle to call upon the trade union leaders to do anything. The vast majority of these comfor- table gentlemen are trying to turn the unions into insurance societies, or into “co-operative” or company unions; they are angling for political jobs, like Lewis and Berry; or they are plunging into Wall Street finance via the labor bank route. Their last concern is to help put up a battle against the employers. They are the agents of the employing class inside the labor movement. THE DAILY WORKER By J. RAMIREZ GOMEZ. IG Business is going to help the farmers. No wonder the farmers are suspicious. They are still re- covering from the effects of the last time Big Business so generously ex- tended its aid. It is doubtful, howevey, whether more than a few have any conception of the enormity of the swindle that Bar- ney Baruch and J. Ogden Armour are trying to put over on them right at this moment, with the enthusiastic ballyhoo support of the capitalist press of the land. How It Looks on Surface During the last few days, the news- papers have been full of stories to the effect that wealthy grain mer- chants are “apparently” ready to turn over the marketing of grain to the farmers who grow it. Five big Chicago grain firms have offered to sell their plants to farmers, and the American Farm Bureau Federation re- presenting nearly a million farmers, is considering the proposition. Every- thing looks lovely on the surface. The five big corporations who are willing to sell are the Armour Grain Company, Rosenbaum Grain Corpora- tion, Bartlett-Frazier Company, Ro- senbaum Brothers, and J. C. Shaffer & Co. Several months back the Armour concern endorsed a similar plan to turn its assets over to a co-operative group of farmers for cash. But the plan was not put forward in the name of the Armour Grain Company. That public-spirited organization does not put forward such plans in its own name. It merely falls in with them after they are proposed. The gentle- man who first suggested it in the newspapers is not in the grain busi- ness at all. He is Mr. Bernard Ba- ruch—familiarly known as Barney. And thereby hangs a tale or two. Introducing Mr. Baruch Among the many curious accom- paniments of Woodrow Wilson’s ad- ministration as President, none is more remarkable than the metamor- phosis of Bareny ‘Baruch. : Barney used to be the kind of person with whom politicians did not like to as- sociate in public. He was the wolf of the Wall Street wolves, known far and wide as America’s premier stock gambler. Now he “lends tone” to any white-haired gathering. Lifted into sudden respectability by the magic touch of the Woodrow Wilson regime, he has become a great Statesman of Finance—one of that handful of in- It is altogether to be expected that Barney should take a humanitarian interest in the exploiting farmers. “Humanitarian” interest in the farm- ers is in vogue. One proposal after another is put forward; the schemes range all the way from selling grain to the government, to feeding it to the live stock on the farm. Meantime, the condition of the farmers becomes worse and worse. Wheat continues to sell below the cost of production. Out in the rural districts one sees unpainted dwellings, old plows, worn out barness. Armour to The Rescue In a newspaper interview, Barney lets us know that conditions of the farmers grieved him‘deeply. So deep- ly did he grieve that he rushed to Chicago on the Twentieth Century Limited. to talk to J. Ogden Armour about it. Armour was just the man to help the farmers, of course. The farmers have plenty of reason to remember this packingtown millionaire who for many weeks persisted in refusing to bare his grain. speculations in court during the federal investigation last year. He is known to every pit trad- er on the Chicago Board of Trade as a professional plunger in wheat and corn. Incidentally he is chief stock- holder in the Armour Grain Company, one of the biggest grain speculating houses in the United States. Bar- ney Baruch talked to Armour, and also to George E. Marcy, president of the Armour grain concern. A steno- graphic report of those conversations will probably be very interesting. Getting the Bankers’ 0. K. Armour and Barney met again in New York, where they went over mat- ters with some other presumptive friends of the farmers—that is, the bankers—including Albert H. Wiggin and Samuel McRoberts of the Chase National Bank group (N. B. The Chi- cago National bank, and not the Ar- mour family, is now the controlling factor in the Armour meat packing business, which it operates under a trusteeship.) These important conferences over, our friend Barney straightway began to write letters to congressmen about the terrible conditions of the farm- ers. Then he called in the represent- atives of the press and made public his great plan for putting an end to the sufferings of the agricultural po- pulation. The plan was put forward by Barney with a lofty flourish, as a mere word of disinterested advice from an eminent financier, accus- management.” Of course, he could not be expected to know that this “go- ing concern” was in fact going very badly and that its “expert and expert- enced management” has its own rea- son for wanting a change of owner- ship. Baruch informed his interview- ers that J. Ogden Armour at first re- fused to consider such a thing as the sale of the great and profitable Ar- mour Grain Company, and that only when he was made to realize that this act of public service would be a “fit- ting monument to his father” he con- sented. The father, by the way, was a grain speculator like his son; but the old man is dead now and to a dead man, one style of monument is presumably as good as another. Here are some pertinent facts. Less than a year and a half ago, J. Ogden Armour, suddenly and mysteriously delinquished the direction of Armour & Company (the meat packing busi- ness), permitting it to fall into hands of his bankers. Since that time he has allowed himself to be persuaded to put up his $5,000,000 Lake Forest estate for sale; he has disposed of virtually his entire holdings of Chi- cago bank stocks, which were the largest in the city; he has sold his Gold Coast property at Wellington and Sheridan Road where the Ar- mours had planned to build their city residence; he has let go of the tract originally purchased as a camp- us site for Armour Institute of alae nology. Providence Drums Up ‘Trade Is there not something almost pro- vidential—to speak in religious terms —about the innocent suggestions of the disinterested Bernard M. Baruch, coming precisely at a time when Ar- mour was casting about anxiously in repeated attempts to sell everything in sight whoever would buy? It must be plain to the reader that the whole elaborate plan for the al- leviation of the wheat growers is a cooked-up scheme. Baruch is the “come on” man and the farmers are expected to be the “goats.” The cen- tral idea is to unload on the farmers. The affair is not made any less dis- gusting by the fact that Armour, after all, is only a puppet. The real prin- cipals in the proposition are the bank- ers of the Chase National Bank group who months ago forced J. Ogden Ar- mour out of Armour & Company and are now about to force him out of the Armour Grain Company. Armour’s personal finances are in critical shape. Already heavily in debt, he has lost Thursday, June -26, 1924 Wall Street Gambler and Hog Butcher Unloads Bankrupt Elevators On Farmerr Packers Not Altruists It is only in the last couple £f months that the Rosenbaum Grain Corporation, Bartlett-Frazicy. Com- pany, Rosenbaum Brother’, and J. ©. Schaffer & Compaiy Have been drawn into the plan for unloading on the farmers. Together with the Armour Grain Company, these corporations handle more than a billion dollars worth of cash- grain transactions an- nually, but the same banking group dominates all of them. They have never been what might be called al- truistic toward the farmers. ‘Their attitude toward the distressed agricul- tural toilers is the same as toward any other prospective customer who is looked upon as a sucker. As for the Armour Grain Company —the biggest of all these corpora- tions, if the members of the American Farm Bureau Federation were to fall in with Barney Baruch’s scheme ay acquire an interest in the Armo) Grain Company, they would be bu ing into a wrecked concern, heavily in debt to the bankers. But that is’ not all. Under Baruch’s ingenious plan, the present management of the company would retain a certain num- ber of directors, and the farmers would have a certain number, “until gradually, thru the profits of the busi- ness, payment should be made in full, or until by further subscriptions, the farmers paid off the balance.” In the meantime, actual control of the organ- ization would be affected by mear / off “a third class of directors, who would provide the balance of power on the board, and whose business it would be to see that the organiza- tion was run according to the con- tract and to settle any disputes aris- ing between the two parties.” The Joker in the Deal. ‘Who would make up this third class of directors? Would they be bank- ers? It is possible that they would consist of the Chase National Bank combine which has already in- stituted itself so successfully into the control of the Armour Company meat packing business? j No criticism of the unprecedented: fraud which packers, bankers and ‘Wall Street manipulators are tryig to put over on the farmers has ap- peared in any capitalist newspaper. Neither the Republican nor the Demo- cratic Party has a word of condemna- tion to utter. All point with pride to the practical example of the gener- osity of our wealthy magnates wha take such interest in the woes of th@ recently about $20,000,000 more in|poor farmers. “Charity, heavenly {grain speculations, since which time |charity!” exclaim the deeply moved (coriat“wh' "he iy on his TES Waar ae bankers for the working capital of |commenting upon the Armour-Barucht the Armour Grain Company. All|proposal. Only in the cynical gossip Power thus gravitated to the bank-/of the wheat pits do we get an ink» ers, who forthwith insisted that Ar-|ling that in this attempt to unload mour liguidate his holdings and pay |on the farmers the substantial Pillars of Society involved have been guided up. That is how the sale of the Ar- mour Grain Company to the farmers | by the well established capitalist prin+ ciple that charity begins at home. hé finally wormed his way into the lower circles S ol tn, ueettienn Tadat ind ent livelihood, AiG ies ae Union Educational League has gone and abandoned the labor movement. : orrorstinst i it appeals to the rank and file to bestir themselves, / Powderly “as 8 — o yond st npr to take charge of their unions, and to themselves ior ig y an ie i . fi of his death |f0Pce the struggle for the protection of working ee ae es ee ee ere conditions over the heads of their miserable mis- will come to thousands today as a distinct sur- a . ; A i ‘ » eaiq | leaders. The working men must awake and fight saat tUOt Re Men Opae jong Saye 950, fe for their own interests. No officials are going to one unionist, whose astonishment mirrored the do # tow thats, completeness with which Powderly had been left dividuals who are presumed to be/tomed to having his advice taken on ly__co! ed _for the public| faith. welfare because they have reached a] ~ position where they can afford to go in for that sort of thing in a serious way. If the esteemed Barney should meet his pre-war self walking down Broad- way, New York, he would probably not recognize him. Certainly he would not bow to him. Monument to the Dead According to Mr. Baruch, his scheme was better than any other so far pro- pounded because “by buying into a going concern, like the one mentioned (Armour Grain Co.), the wheat grow- ers would have the advantage of an already established marketing organ- ization and of expert and experienced came to be planned. behind in the march of history. Three Views of McAdoo “A new Jackson come to lead the nation back to business-like government,” said Mr. Phelan in nominating McAdoo as the Democratic candidate yesterday. “Five years devoted to the pursuit of money and power have made Wm. G. McAdoo the symbol of intolerably low standards in public life,” said the New York World, capitalist paper, on Monday before the convention opened. The conscious workers, those who are grown-up enough to escape the apron strings of Mama, will Colored People in Conference In the conference of the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People, meet- ing in Philadelphia, the Negroes will be faced with problems that require radical readjustment of their attitude. The issues of the Ku Klux Klan and the institution of lynching, if treated in the same manner as of old, will be no nearer to solu- tion. Appeals to republican and democratic politi- cians are worse than useless. The republicans are definitely opposed to concessions to the Negroes, literal sense of the word. because they are angling for the anti-Negro white vote of the south, and because they naturally sup- A LEADING When it is said that such-and such is a “leading magazine” what is meant usually, is that it is popular. The question if it actually gives a lead to the workers in their practical affairs is not answered. But the July issue of the Labor Herald, just off the press, proves that here we have a “leading magazine” in the Problems facing the militants in the mining industry, nationally and lo- cally, are treated in the articles by Jack Johnstone on the Illinois conven- Raid on Russian Trade Legation is Costly to Germany BERLIN, June 25.—While the con- flict between the German and Russian government, arising from the raiding of the Russian trade mission in con- nection with the arrest of the German JAP GAPITALISTS NEED | THIS WAR MINISTER ms WAR ON THE WORKERS | Issei Ugaki held his job as minis- ter of war when the rest. of the KI- MAGAZINE which will help make efficient and in- telligent workers of the Labor Herald fans. Most important of all in this issue, however, is the draft of a program for the Trade Union Educational League, completed and brought up to date for | Communist Bozenhardt, is pending the World Congress of the Red In-|ana dragging along without a solu- ternational of Labor Unions now in|tion satisfactory to both sides, the session in Moscow. This program,|trade mission continues to hold aloof which is serving as the basis for re-|from making any further business de- organizing the revolutionary minority | tails with German firms. The build- movement thruout the world, is a do-|ing is open but a few hours each day, agree with both. They will add their own judg- ment that McAdoo, alike with Smith, Davis, and all the dark horses of the democratic convention, represent capitalist business, are against the workers, and cannot be in any sense the candidate of the workers. McAdoo, or any other candidate likely to be named in New York, will be against the workers. To the extent that the workers are awakened they will be against McAdoo, as they are against Cool- idge, Dawes & Co. The republicans and democrats are two departments in the House of Morgan. Send in that Subscription Today. port everything which helps to divide the workers. The democrats are the classical party of the sub- jection of the Negroes. Only when the Negro race understands that its advancement can only be simultaneously and in co-operation with that of the working class, and when it joins in the establishment of a powerful labor party pledged to the founding of a farmers’ and workers’ government, will it have set its feet on the road of emancipation. International capitalism is preparing a world- wide drive against the labor movement. The lead- tion and by Tom Bell on the situation Johnstone particularly shows why the militants in District 12 did not win a more complete vic- tory. Bell gives a vivid picture of the intricate problems in District 18 and 26, and explains which must be fought thru by the militants if they would defeat the policies cument upon which will be built a| solely for the purposés of finishing up great movement. Every worker who expects to participate in that move- ment, as well as all who wish to un- derstand it, will have to study this program carefully. Future history of the American labor movement will give it great attention, and those who make that history, friends or enemies of the T. U. BE. L., will study it with existing business. No sooner had the news of the con- flict spread in European business cir- cles, than the Berlin mission received offers from non-German firms to sup- ply the articles needed. Thus some 300,000 kegs of tobacco, lying in the free harbor of Homburg, were sold to a French firm and another load to a Lewis machine. The problems in the ladies’ garment industry are analysed by Harrison George in such a way that no worker need feel doubt as the proper general line of action. Wm. Z. Foster, just returned from attention. There is no doubt that Gompers will read it with a magnify- ing glass. The Labor Herald for July demands the interest and the study of every re- volutionary unionist in America, Dutch firm. Smoked meats were con- signed to the U. S. A., and quantities of beans, peas, similar commodities to Holland, Bel- gium, Denmark and Czechoslovakia. barley and a visit thru France, Germany and Russia, tells of the Russia he found in 1924, compared to that of 1921. It is a colorful and enthusing picture of working-class achievement, illustrated with pictures of working-class lead- ers who have done much to make the workers’ government the great success that it is. Foster's ability to con- centrate upon the most meaningful ers of Second International that pretends to be of the workers, dally around with dinners with King George, football with the Prince of Wales, and receptions to the king and queen of Italy, Both things are the powerful arguments that swing the workers to the Communist International and the Red International of Labor Unions. Corner on Hen Fruit Coming; A Good Example MEXICO CITY.—Now that Mexico has been practically pacified the ministry of war is beginning its de- mobilization program. This work will continue until the army has been re- duced to 55,000 men, the size it was just before the de la Huerta rebellion ‘ Berger Will Never Learn Berger’s Milwaukee Leader is trying to tell its socialist following that the gathering of farmer- labor forces at St. Paul was not a success. But it will have a difficult time in putting this false- hood over. There were too. many delegates pres- A “corner” on eggs has just been discovered by Joseph Ruskewicz, sec- retary of the city council’s high cost of living committee. Certain “reli- Issei Ugaki i ent at St. Paul, from Wisconsin, to allow this and in ting points is well known, } broke out.. able” brokers have informed the al- bi j ; misrepresentation of a great movement to go un- riety Rom barwentber tae queued ran rc aoe will amy his re- Sra to’ enor oarte ene eer paves bog © Ne pire yn! big g Fe challenged. that Communist influence was responsible. Every- Pe uthacecten toh, until prices are brought down. hi co, Niet ea j Berger’s editorial, supporting as it did the at-| \14 thot that sounded natural. A good reputation Speculators are trying to boost the son ly use the army against + wy tack of LaFollette on the St. Paul gathering, was|,, have, that when workers fight for their rights price of eggs now to the prices of last| Workers. December, a jump from 32 cents to 40. The prices have already started upward, altho quite unwarranted by the presence of 1,500,000 eggs in stor- age in the warehouses. Talking rs “fresh” be * ia Vote for an M cago is absurd anyway. . Ruske- ¢ Commun : wics ae ‘aigcoveres ‘again the ‘old Mie pid rie aan Ante e exchange specula: me and shouldn't be so surprised to learn | y, ¢ that storage eggs are sold as “fresh” in December. Of the 478,200 cases of eggs re- ceived here since early June, 280,221 published the day before the Wisconsin socialists repudiated LaFollette and side-swiped the Cleve- land meeting of the conference for Progressive Political Action. This would indicate that Berger had misjudged his own party membership as much as he had maligned the St. Paul gathering. These are days when politicians, both within and without the labor movement, are learning that events do not develop as they wish. The masses of the workers and farmers are having something to say. And what they say sounds entirely differ- ent from the prophesies and the claims of the place-hunting politicians trying to win leadership ogy a the Communists are in the lead. Send in that Subscription Tod: cmnnteninnnbipatatinnaia! wy A COMMUNIST SONNET, Duncan Maneaaiay ; the National Commit- \U. BL. ment, caustic and the pages of the July issues, together with the well- liked cartoons by Bales. Work- ers’ education, a laj America, is given a biting criticism Harl Browder. Editorials upon ning problems of the movement, a bock’s scholarly Japanese m velopments of the njonth internation- ally—in all a rich structive, and The so-called labor government of Britain is demanding that Soviet Russia pay English capi- talists for old debts and losses in the revolution. English capitalism must love such a labor govern- ment. tee of the T. Political ci humorous, lig! “Government by blocks,” against which the kept press howls, is merely the recognition by little business that big business has hitherto had a mo- nopoly of government. ( , YAW): jh in the police department, of solid, in| but evidently the Suckers at the West- 4 ern Electric are waking up. F; I } a pan RERENE DearS Send In.that Subsoription Today. see eg po