The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 13, 1924, Page 3

Wednesday, August 13, 1924 APPLEGROWER LaFollette’s Record Shows He’s For Big Business BLASTS TALES OF “PROFITS” Gets No Return and Owes “Buyer!” Raising apples in the “rich” apple country of Washington state isn’t the profitable 'busi- ness the land sharks hired b the railroad companies paint it ‘if this letter from an apple grower is at all typical. It was written to a friend who had sent the farmer a bundle of the DAILY WORKER. The farmer compared the Commun- ist daily to the sickly Seattle Union ‘Record and decided emphatically in favor of the paper that is for the workers and farmers of the country and not for the old-line party politi- clans and bunk slingers. Paying to “Sell.” This is an apple grower’s story: I have a queer story to tell you about my experience with my 1923 apple crop. I sold, or thought I sold to a_local agent representing Ding- felder and Co., brokers in fruit, 1,600 ‘boxes of apples. The agent packed something like 1,000 boxes. I furnished the boxes at 22 cents a box. He furnished wrappers and packed. The two carloads were stored in New York somewhere all winter. There was no price for ap- ples anywhere. Owe Buyer! Well, the other day I went to the egent’s office to see the last outcome, or settlement. What we call the out- come here is this: for my 1,600 boxes of apples | owe him $600. Last fall ‘I got an advance on my apples of $500. At that rate they got my apples; my boxes that I paid cash for some- where else; and I must pay to boot all my least year’s hard work raising and picking, and packing 600 boxes myself. My expenses were: $175 for pick- for 1,600 empty boxes; $50 for spray ing; $120 for packing 600 boxes; $352 material against worms; totalling ‘3697. It cost me that much before I delivered the apples and that doesn’t include my own work. Then on top of this paid for packing 1,000 boxes that I brought in from the orchard to the agent’s warehouse loose in boxes. Then the $500 advance money. Page Prosperity! Iam paying to boot to my last year’s crop about $400 and that doesn’t in- clude my labor and irrigation water. L. W. B. And yet the Elephants and the Asses can talk about the “prosperity” of America and deny the farmers have any problems! No wonder! They’re all big business men, brokers, bank- ers, grafters, and they can go around congratulating one another on the wonderful profits they take out of the workers and farmers of this coun- ‘try who are beginning to learn that they must get the government for themselves by fighting in the ranks of the Workers Party. ‘Remains of F.-L. Party of U. S. In Denver Headquarters benVir, “aug. 12“Tho Parmer. Labor Party of the United States,|} ‘founded in 1920, is conducting na- tional headquarters at.715 BE. & C. Bldg., Denver. Bert Martin is national secretary, succeeding Jay G. Brown, resigned, who was in charge of the old Chicago headquarters. “You helped us to campaign four years ago, when, with an unknown man at the head of our ticket, we were able to secure 1,200,000 votes for our presidential candidate,” declares an appeal to former sympathizers issued by Martin. (Official returns gave Par- ley P. Christensen 265,411 votes in 1920). “The party, under the chairmanship of W. M. Piggott, is supporting the LaFollette-Wheeler ticket. The na- tional executive committee as printed on the letterhead includes John Fitz- Patrick, president Chicago Federation of Labor. _ To Organize In Kensington. PHILADELPHIA, Pa. Aug. 12— Kensington are invited to at- join the newly formed (Continued from page 1.) } what Moses said, added: “He is our safety valve, Where else is a com- manding figure, who, while scrupu- lous about law and order, yet points the hopeful way to political revolu- tion?” And the noted Washington observer, William Hard, who has had a chance to see LaFollette in action for many years thus characterized the Wiscon- sin Senator as he was, departing for Europe last year: * “LaFollette, it is noted, has intro- duced no bills for vast governmental corporations for the buying and sell- ing of farm products. . . He has 'y seen many such bills introduced by radical senators and by progressive senators and even (as in the case of Senator Gooding) by conservative senators. He himself has given his name to none of them.” Capitalists on Bob’s Program. For more than three decades LaFol, lette has been massing his batteries against the “combined power of the LaFollette in 1912 have since been written into the federal statutes. Among these may be mentioned the enlargement of the powers of the In- terstate Commerce Commission, the physical valuation of railroads, direct election of senators and regulation of telephones and telegraph. And Senator LaFollette makes sure to tell the world in his “Autobiog- raphy” that -his progressive move- ment “is essentially a safe and sane one for the public and for all legiti- mate business.” In accepting the presidential nomi- nation at Cleveland LaFollette further declared: “I am a candidate upon the basis of my public record, as a mem- ber of the House of Representatives, as ‘Governor of Wisconsin, and as a member of the United States Senate, I shall stand upon that record exactly as it is written, and shall give my support only to such progressive prin- ciples and policies as are in harmony with it.” On this basis only we will take apart the warp and woof of the fab- private monoply system over the po- litical and economic life of the Ameri- can people.” During all these years the Wisconsin senator has looked upon John Sherman, author of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, as his god. Even in his July 4th letter accepting the presidential nomination by the Progressive Conference, LaFollete spoke of Sherman as “The clearest- visioned republican statesman of his time” and called the Sherman Law, | enacted by a republican congress in 1890, “the most effective weapon that the ingeunity of man could devise against the power of monopoly.” At the last national convention of the republican party held in Cleveland on June 10th, Congressman Henry Allen Cooper, leader of the Wiscon- sin delegation, pointed out that those who have been branding the LaFol- lete program radical had better keep in mind the fact that of the thirty- one planks offered by his state since 1908 no less than twenty-six have been enacted into law. Bleven of the thirteen planks proposed by LaFol- lette in 1908 are now law. Fifteen of the eighteen proposals submitted by ric of LaFollette’s record. For Business Interests. Ever since LaFollette has won his place in the political sun of this coun- try, the very head and front of his ac- tivities summed themselves up in an insistence on the evils of uncontrolled big business stifling free competition, on the alarming results of the hob- goblin of monopoly. But what LaFollette is really trying to do is to foster business, “honest, legitimate business” of course. All the Wisconsin Senator wants today or has ever before wanted, is to make business safe and stable by removing its “evils.” Preparing for his 1912 _ campaign to win the republican presi- dential nomination “Battling Bob” de clared in “LaFollette’s Weekly” of October 28, 1911: : “Industrial corporations should by affirmative legislative enactment be |given definite rules of conduct by which business shall be made safe and stable, while at the same time the in- terests of the public shall be fully safeguarded. We seek constructive legislation, not destructive litigation.” Clarifying his position toward the ‘ THE DAILY WORKER capitalist interests, LaFollette said a few weeks later in his Weekly of De- cember 2, 1911: “The Wisconsin Plan is not to har- ass but to foster legitimate business. Legitimate business suffers quite as much as does the public from the de- predations of the financial pirates who have so boldly domineered the seas of industry in thfS country for a dozen years and more. Wisconsin has out- lawed the Captain Kidds of business; but she has laid the hands of protec- tion and encouragement upon the hon- est investor.” In a special statement issued by Senator LaFollette on January 10, 1924, relative to his railroad bill to, amend the interstate commerce laws, we find the following illuminating evidence of the Wisconsin Senator's strong belief in the continuation of the present system of the private ownership of capital whereby the working class is exploited: “In accordance with the recommen- dation of the Interstate Commerce Commission in its report December 1, 1923, I have provided that after a rate base has been established it shall be kept up to date by adding the amount of additional met investments pru- dently made in the property . . “The amendments which I offer are based upon the principle that the pri- vate owners of the railroads are en- titled to be reimbursed for the actual cost of the services they performed and to be paid a fair return upon the money which they have prudently in- vested in property now devoted to public service. Just compensations for services, reimbursement of expenses and a fair interest on capital em- ployed, should be paid those who de- vote work on property to public serv- ice, but no more.” Stands for Private Ownership. Here we have it. LaFollette in- sists that society should pay tribute to the owners of the railroads for their mere ownership which he calls “devoting work on property to public service.” This is precisely what the most ardent defender of the railway and other big business interests want. The only point of difference between big capitalist interests is as to the amount to be paid to the private own- ers of capital, to the private owners of the means of production and ex- change socially used. LaFollette and the most reaction- ary capitalists are agreed that capital should be privately owned. Both agree that this ownership entitles the owners to an income which, of course, is produced by those who work, by those who invest ° labor- power in production, by the working class. Their difference is only over what constitutes a.“just, legitimate” amount that the capitalist owners should take from the products of the workers. 9 Proud of Big Profits for Wisconsin Capitalists. On more than one ocasion has Senator LaFollette taken great pride in the fact that under his program the owners of public utilities, the big business interests, have been reaping a harvest of handsome profits. Paying tribute to his own achieve- ments in railroad regulation while he was governor of Wisconsin, La Fol- lette declared in 1905: “The rates charged on traffic in Wisconsin on the whole yield a gross -|income to the railroads greatly above the amounts required for all operating expenses, for: the maintenance of property and for a fair interest on profit on the cost of the roads.” Then in his 1912 campaign bible, entitled “Progressive Wisconsin,” we find that LaFollette, then, as now, as- piring for the presidency-as a pro- gressive, was boasting over the bene- ficial effects his program has had on the biggest employing class interests in Wisconsin. We quote: “There has not been a railroad company, important or minor, in the state that has not had an increase of profits, both gross and net, and this increase has been greater than that which the mere natural growth of the state would account for. ... The confidential reports of the railroads to the Wisconsin state authorities show, as utterly convincing testimony of the effect of Wisconsin regulation, that two of the biggest railroads in LaFollette and the champions of the the country experienced a decrease of earnings in the country at large dur- ing the year July 30, 1911, and that these same two roads produced sub- stantial increase of the net earnings of those parts of their systems lying within Wisconsin. “What has been fWe effect of this regulation on the business of the public utilities? Officials of these con- cerns made the same prophecies that the railway men did, asserting that business would be ruined. Many of them are now transacting unprec- edented volumes of business, all of them are enjoying increased earn- ings. The securities of those com- panies have increased in substantial value and investments in them, par- ticularly by small investors and by the smaller banks, has gone to the point where it betrays a healthy con- fidence.” In an interview especially given to the Saturday Evening Post of July 8, 1911, further light on what the La- Follette program means to business interests is shed by the following question and answer: Q. “And what happened industrial- ly after you had effected your legis- lative reforms in W: " A. (LaFollette)— 1910 the total operati revenue re- ceived from all sources by the rail- roads in Wisconsin increased fifteen millions, while the izeductions on freight rates on interstate business amounted to nearly one million dol- lars. During the same period the total deposits in the commercial and savings banks of Wisconsin increased fifty-one per cent. Yes, Wisconsin is properous—railroads are prosperous; the public utilities of the state, which are regulated, are prosperous.” This is the “Wisconsin Idea” ap- plied. This is the program that Mr. LaFollette holds out to the workers and farmers today as the source of their hope, as the road to their free- dom from the railroad capitalists, the shipping magnates, the capitalist owners of public utilities—~the ex- ploiting class. This is Wisconsin, the “Model Commonwealth,” that LaFol- lette would have the workers and dis- possessed farmers extend thruout the "1905 to country. Minor Writes About Big Negro Conference coheed teat from page 1) lectual aristocracy of the Black City, pulling its mantle around it in dis- dain. “Scoundrel! Seller of stock in an unsound steamship venture with invisible ships!” exclaims the aver- age colored real estate dealer, doing at double rents to Ne- Negroes Look to Garvey. But in the minds and hearts of hundreds of thousands of plainer Ne- gro people in America, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and, it is said, even in Africa, it is “the Honorable Mar- cus Garvey, provisional president of Africa.” Garvey, the Jamaica Negro who made this strange movement the big- gest Negro organization in the world, is a pariah to the general run of Ne- gro leaders, who consider the enor- mous organization as fittle less than a monster swindle conceived in the mind of “either a fool or a scoun- drel.” For instance, the Negro intellec- tual, George Schuyler, writes in irony: Ideas Straight from God! “Like an inspiration from heaven, the idea dawned upon him (Garvey) e evening at dinner, and absently thrusting the remainder of the pig foot into his overall pocket. he sat for hours in his favorite trash box,” ete., etc. and “still Mr. Garvey en- joys the enviable record of collecting more money in a given time than any other Negro. Nor was this from the self-satisfied, wealthy, upper class Negroes. No, str! It came from the great masses: the washerwomen, porters, maids and other hard-work- ing people. That in itself shows Heads Workers. ment’s consent “to furnish exercise at Leavenworth Tee ie feeseeeii his organization,” and that “he him- self openly threatened to ‘get’ the district attorney,” etc., I get a differ- ent reaction from that intended by Dr. DuBois. I am obliged to look be- yond the details. at the apparent faet that a government which hates and despises the Negro masses, a govern- ment which hates the working class, which has never been unforgiv- ing to grafting schemes, that such a government does not find a friend in Garvey. And above it all towers the fact that the Universal Negro Improve- ment Association, the largest organ- ization of Negroes in the world, is made up almost entirely of the work- ing class. Garvey Did Organize Negroes. I am waiting for some Negro lead. er who has organized more Negroes than Marcus Garvey has organized, to criticize Garvey—and I frankly confess that if such a leader has been given a longer term in Leavenworth than Gatvey received, I will listen to him more attentively. The lickspittles of capitalism in Washington do not love Marcus Gar- vey. This alone ought to make any one of the working class think twice before condemning the man. His enemies say the government con- demns Garvey for using questionable financial methods for the purpose of fleecing the masses of uneducated Negro workers. But I don’t think the Teapot Domers at Washington have any objection to the fleecing of the Negro masses. I think their solicitude is based upon something else. Fear Negro Workers. The fact that, Garvey is organizing many thousands of Negroes of the class that is destined to take over the earth, and makes a militant demand for a sweeping international libera- tion of colonial peoples, seems to me to be a more likely reason why Messrs. Coolidge, therty and, yes, Mr. Hughes of the state depart- ment, have interested themselves in Garvey. I heard Garvey speak last night. He is one of the most powerful per- sonalities that I have ever seen on the platform. He is of the rare type that history finds rising in every un- settled period to .express new cur- rents among the masses of men. For weal or woe, Garvey is of the stuff it all, Ot course it is done for the pur- been brought against him. Why He Was Pinched. For two years and a half Garvey’s income tax report lay in a pigeonhole in an office in Washington. It prob- ably lay in the file among the “G’s”— next to that of Gary and Guggenheim. It wasn’t big. Garvey considered that he only owed the income tax col- lector $104. Bupt,.the 1924 convention of the Universal Negro Improvement Asso- ciation was coming on. Delegates were streaming in from all over the world—black and brown delegates, Negro delegates, men who, according to the capitalists’ caste system, have no right to be delegates to anything at all, but only to be servants for su- perior white Englishmen in South Africa, Frenchmen in North Africa, American white gentlemen in Geor- gia and in Panama. ‘In fact, there are black delegates from something like twenty different colonial points on the world map of capitalist trouble. Universal Representation. Africans who don’t want to remain British subjects are here. Africans who dream of independence in French Senegal are sitting near me in this hall. Bermudans, Haitians, Jamaicans, St. Thomas islanders, Por- to Ricans, a black man from Austra- lia, from Natal, Nigeria, the German Camerun, Egypt and many points in South America. . They are discussing a plan for the formation of a world-wide Negro po- litical union, for the purpose of ing the rule of imperialist powers over colonial peoples. They are talk- ing in strong language. In another part of New York—over in the “white” city, where Negroes can’t go except as scrubwomen or ele- vator runners—the grand jury is meeting. It is a federal grand jury, working under an appointee of the federal government at Washington, the distinguished prosecutor, District Attorney Mattuck. Under the guid- ance of Mr. Mattuck, whose hand is guided from Washington, the grand jury writes an indictment of Mr. Mar- cus Garvey. To do so it is obliged to find a bit of material. The files of the “G’s” in the in- come tax office in Washington for 1921 are dug into. The name “Gary” is passed over, The name “Guggen- heim” is left untouched. The name “Garvey” is reached, the two-year- and-a-half-old income tax report is fetched out, and Garvey is indicted. The agents of the government rush to the convention hall where the con- vention is in sesston, The federal agents. enter. They don’t arrest Gar- vey—they merely whisper to as many of the assembled Negroes as possible that “Garvey is indicted and is going to be arrested.” Garvey Is Cool. be ‘Some one came up and told Garvey as he sat in the chairman's seat. Garvey nodded, without changing ex- pression, and continued the session. The next day I asked Mr. Garvey to tell me his version of the indict ment. Charges Frame-Up. “It is a frame-up,” he said. “That's pose of embarrassing this convention. Here in this locality it seems a trick of the republican politicians of Har- lem, who want to discredit me and win-back their power in this district.” I am very sorry to say that Garvey supported the local democratic ticket in the past two elections, which he admits. “But,” I said, “I am sur- prised that you seem to classify it as a local matter. Is it no wider than that?” Garvey, obviously tired and grown perfunctory with much convention work, turned quick; sharp eyes upon me. “No,” he said slowly, “it is not only a local matter. If we had been in any other district it would have been put thru in the same manner by the republican politicians in that dis- trict. It is no mere Harlem affair. I have been framed up before. Independence Is Dangerous. - “You know, our plan ts interna- tional. It touches the British and French governments in their African colonies. For instance, our effort to strengthen the Negro nation of Li- beria is considered dangerous to the colonial interests of the Great Pow- ers. You see, the French and British are operating in and exploiting near- by territory. They consider a move- ment to strengthen any independent Negro state dangerous to their inter- ests. “When any aspiration of African people to self-government is discov- ered by the Great Powers, things be- -|gin to look bad for their colonial rule. Then they try to counteract such movements to independence. Scared Them With Warships. “When our representatives went to Liberia last December, the imperial powers tried every device to prevent their getting a hearing. Shortly after |’ they left, a strange thing happened. A French and an English warship came into the harbor—just on a friendly visit,’ they said. In the har- bor they began firing their big guns in the air. They said they were just ‘saluting’ the Liberian republic. “Well, you can imagine what was the effect of hearing those big guns upon those people of Liberia. It was just a warning because our repre- sentatives had been there. “They are afraid that the strength- ening of the Liberian republic will have an influence thruout Africa in proving that Negroes can govern themselves. Therefore those powers that are exploiting the people there in colonies want to keep the Liberian people as weak as possible. THe Li- berian government is in debt to France and England, and in this way pressure is brought to bear upon the rulers of the Negro state.” Garvey Verified by Cable. This statement of Mr. Garvey’s is strongly borne out by a dispatch re- cently received from Monrovia, Li- beria, and published in the Negro press. Signed “Butler’s Limited,” the cablegram reads in part: “President told me that he is keep- ing his mind on the obligation of Li- beria to the Great Powers, and as such to the maintenance of the in- dependence of the republic.” I called Mr. Garvey’s attention to the dispatch, and he confirmed my construction of its meaning. “And you should know that the United States minister-was in the diplomatic group that was operating in that way,” he said. And so this movement goes on—a strange paradox. Under the fog of religious mysticism—a most terrific denunciation of the clergy. A med- ley: of steamship stock selling mixed with a Negro nationalism that brings anxiety to colonial ministers in Euro- pean capitals, government cable- grams and conferences in Washing- ton and indictments in New York used by governmeft agents in an effort to disrupt this Negro convention. There is another phase—the most danegrous phase that could possibly be found in a Negro movement—an effort to conciliate the Ku Klux Klan, which might conceivably result in transforming this whole movement in- to an organization of Janissaries for the capitalist class. This phase is so important that I must deal with it in a separate article. Article by Trotzky.in August Pictorial JN the new issue of Soviet Russia Pictorial Comrade Trotzky’s article “From the Old Family to the New” gives additional insight into the far- sightedness of Russia’s Communist leadership. This time it is not war, or politics, or any of his many interests, but the future family under Communism that gets his attention, “The preparation of the material conditions for new manners and tho now family cannot be separated from the work of socialist construction in goneral,” he says. And the future family and our approach to it thru our cultural work makes splendid reading for all those interested in working class problems to como in the very near future. Beside this most interesting article, others by Peter Maslovski of Essen, Germany, on “The Great Struggles the Ruhr Miners” and by Andreas Nin on the “Situation of workers in|’ Fascist Italy” make keen reading for one interested in international affairs. Of equal interest is the article “Czars Hangmen on Trial” by Max Bedacht. As usual, the issue is heaped with facts of all the late’t important de- velopments in Soviet Russia. Many phases of internal problems and for- eign relations are treated, making ‘im- portant reading for the intelligent worker. Added to these features are the large number of interesting photo- graphs of men and events in Russia and the world over rounding out one of the year’s best issues of Soviet Russia Pictorial. MADISON, Wis., Aug. 12—The Madi- son Federation of Labor protests to Gov. state participation in President Cool- idge’s Mobilization day Sept. 42. |is but an illusion and that their need; Page Tied WORKERS PARTY | FIGHTING. FOR’ N. DAK, FARMERS: Class Pate’ Position Explained By ALFRED KNUTSON (Special to The Daily Worker) WILTON, N.'D., Aug. 12— Some} points were raised at the Workers} Party conference held here that re-| quire definite explanation. Every} comrade and party sympathizer inf North Dakota should study the situa tion in the state carefdlly and remai firm in the face of the sweep of the} LaFollette illusion, when every pussy-) footer, job hunter, office seeker and} politician is climbing aboard the! LaFollette band wagon. This is af time when sensitiveness and lack of! courage should not be mistaken for good political tactics. A few of our comrades and sympa thizers in North Dakota seem to think} that the Workers’ Party is struggling} to head off the La Follette illusion and also that it is trying to prevent’ they formation of a Farmers-Labor Party) in the state. There is no truth i either of these assertions. Show Up Illusion. The LaFollette illusion will run std course and the Workers’ Party organg ization in North Dakota cannot sto) it, and is not endeavoring to do so. However, as a revolutionary organiza- tion, looking after the welfare of th tens of thousands of bankrupt farmer: in the state, it refuses absolutely t deliver itself, body'and soul, over t La Folletteism. The role of our part; is to point out to the farmers and th workers that the La Follette illusio and‘ demands cannot be serve through any such movement. If wi do not take an uncompromising stan against the La Follette illusion now, how do you think the masses soon will regard us? Will we be worthy their confidence? Please remembet that this La Follette hysteria is abu ble that will soon burst, and the what? Are we going to tell the fa ers and the workers that we were cowardly, while the illusion’ was 0; to fight against it and advise them the betrayal by La Follette? No Cor munist, worthy of the name, can tak such a humiliating position. As to the organization of a Farmer) Labor party in North Dakota, it} should be pointed out that the Works ers’ Party took the leadership in get ting such a party started in thé stat and for the purpose spentshundred: of dollars of the party funds. It* not now abandoned the fight for Farmer-Labor Party in North Dako and it is not now making any eff whatsoever to hinder the organizatio: of this party in the state. Quite th contrary. It is ready and willing at any time to go with any group of} farmers and workers who want to} break with bourgeois political parties! and organizations and build a class) party of farmers and workers. W. P., Only For Farmer. However, at the present time, ont side the Workers’ Party membershi and a close circle of sympa' there is no Farmer-Labor Party or- ganization in North Dakota. This, States the actual situation in the state’ today, and if the Workers’ Party now is considering the matter of participat- ing in the state election campaign under its own name, it is for the reason that there is no other party in the state today that has the courage to fight against the pussyfooting tac- tics of the Nonpartisan League politt- cians and on the side of the baukrupt farmer. To those who are now clamoring for the organization of a Farmer-La- bor Party in North Dakota we want to say that we will go down the line with them for the organization of such a party immediately, provided they break absolutely with all league Politicians and are not afraid, when the situation demands it, to point out that the LaFollette movement is: a betrayal of the fundamental interests of the farmers and the workers \of the state, and also that they, thru such a party, carry on an education among the farmers and the workers against the system of capitalism. If we are going to serve the vital needs and demands of the farmers and the workers of North Dakota, it is utterly impossible for us to con- sider the personal gains and fortunes in the present political campaign in the state of either LaFollette or of Sorlig and company. New Typo Scale, MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 12—The latest newspaper contract made by Minne- apolis Typographical Union (No. 42) provides $51 for a 42-hour week for journeymen on the day shift and $64 nights, effective Nov. 1, 1924. The 7- hour shift is established by the con- tract. The agreement was made by the Minneapolis Daily Star, which un- der the name Minnesota Star was at one time a Farmer-Labor daily, and it expires April 30, 1926, the uniform expiration date of all newspaper typo contracts in the city. SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 12.—As an answer to open shop advocates, the biggest Labor Day demonstration in San Francisco's history is being plan- ned by organized labor here. Prac- Blaine of Wisconsin, against | tically every union in the bay district and on the peninsula will be repre sented in the parade, — é \. See eer ee e