The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 16, 1924, Page 7

The Shame of Our Language Problem BY M. D. LITMAN. Tu the Magazine Section of July 5th, Comarde Rostrom takes up an acre of space to bemoan an alleged wrong; mainly—the existence of an English- speaking dictatorship within the Party. Some of the “facts” pertain- ing to publications in foreign lan- guages, distribution of speakers etc., which are printed in black-face type, are absolutely distorted. The Party foreign language press is older than the English languaga press. Foreign language educational work has always been more eyident— and national foreign-language speak- ers are only limited to the finaticial ability of the foreign-language feder- ations. The radical movement in general in “the United States, what- ever party or group it may be, has| always been and is now full of trans- planted class-conscious workers, and in many cases small businessmen, who, by their intense activity and by their numbers, have and are occupy- ing important offices within the Party nationally and their various districts locally. The American movement is suffering for lack of English-speak- ing Party members. They need not necessarily be Anglo-Saxon, but to ac. complish the most work, they must speak the English Language while they are living under Capitalism and in America. Let us not fool ourselves: There are few European workingmen or women entering the U. S. Those who are now Party members—the great majority—have been here prior to 1914. Still better, they have been members of the Socialist Party, when meetings were held in halls owned by German saloon-keepers, who would donate the “hall upstairs.” If a work- er has enough intelligence to become class-conscious and line-up with a class party, he surely ought to have enough intelligence to learn the lan- guage which receives the greatest use, or any other language needed in order to be most effective in the class struggle. The world Working-class Movement being older in Europe, has produced more active foreign-language Commu- nits than American born sons and daughters of after-civil war boom times. There is nothing alarming in that fact. The struggle in America is intensifying and American, yea, even 100 percent Anglo-Saxon Com- munists will not be lacking. We re- alize that men and women can not overnight change their language, therefore, we must permit the exist- ence of foreign-language federations; but we must forge ahead, plowing our way into the mass of American work- ers and speak to them the language “they know best in a manner that they will like it most. Even tho we live under Capitalism, there is no earthly reason, why we cannot devote a little time to ac- quiring at least enough of the Eng- ~y 3 | ANATOL FRANCE lish language, to be able to sit at a City Central meeting and take a part therein, Our foreign-speaking com- rades are NOT held down at any City Central meeting, but they lack words when they get up to “talk. Some of them are wonderful strate- gists, clear-thinking Communists with practical plans, but they lose them- selves when they try to shape their ideas into English words. Even at the cost of missing out on a few com- mittee meetings a month, it would be well worth the loss in that direction, if our foreign-language comrades would acquire better use of English. And if the writer would move to China, he would address the Chinese workers in Chinese, rather than ask the Chinese to learn his English. International Language an Impossibility. If Comrade Rostrom is a Marxist, he believes that everything under- goes constant change—nothing is 8tatic. Existence in itself, is the con- stancy of change. And so living languages are constantly undergoing change. Only dead langhages don’t change. As soon as we will begin to use ‘a dead language, it will begin to live and change. It is well to know as many lan- guages as one can possibly learn. To know English, French, German, etc., is a very handy adjunct in life to any person, especially in our movement. But we must know the official, most spoken language of the land in which we live. Ido, Esperanto, etc., while |being international languages, can never become MASS LANGUAGES. Not enough workers can learn one/ language at the same time to make’ any practical use of same on a mass seale in our daily class struggle. Now as to the handicap the Third Internationale may be under, due to language trouble, Comrade Rostrom, is a little misinformed. Those Com- munists who have been active enough in the movement to reach the highest center of Communist activity, have mastered several languages. And if the C, I. orders that future delegates come prepared to speak Ido and noth- ing else, we can rest assured that Wm. Z. Foster, or Tom O'Flaherty and Ben Gittlow will speak Ido. The fact is that we must “Learn to talk Turkey” to our masters, They don’t understand Ido. This is as near to perfection as we can hope to reach at the present time on an International scale, but we can reach perfection on a National scale, if we will try to make every foreign- language comrade an English-speak- ing comrade, On the Foster-Nearing Debate BY JOSEPH ‘BRAHDY. Dear Comrades Nearing and Foster: If anyone were to judge by the tone of your discussion recently published in the DAILY WORKER, one might easily conclude, as you yoursélves do, that in your common political philoso- phy, or economics as Nearing calls tt, you are separated thru a vast dif- ference of political strategy (Nearing says tactics). If such a difference really exists between you, the sub- stance of your statements does not reveal it; but it does show that you are each arguing about a different phase of our movement. Revolutionary Sentiment. In both articles a certain phrase reoccurs so’often (in ever-changing terms) that one may well call it the leitmotivy of the discussion. Nearing speaks in six instances of revolution- ary sentiment, once of revolutionary ferment, and onee of radical senti- ment—a total of eight. Foster re- fers twelve times to revolutionary, or radical sentiment, discontent, unrest, etc. The discussion really revolves around this point: Is there a revolu- tionary sentiment among the organ- ized and the unorganized American wage workers? It is your common mistake to base] built his shack first. your reasoning to such extent upon/or perhaps a week. Union, and doesn’t want to. type is at present disappearing. It should be plain by now that we cannot afford to speak in a loose way about “revolutionary sentiment.” We must evidently fasten a common un- derstanding to this commonly “used phrase. A future article will analyze our American “revolutionary sentiment;” at present I proceed with my com- met upon the discussion. Revolutionary Education. Nearing’s presentation almost gives rise to the following reasoning and conception: There is no general American revo- tutionary sentiment. The few American revolutionary sentimentalists (couldn’t. we say that) have therefore hardly any following. Let us establish: “a Oe course of elementary, high school, and university train- ing. Rome was not built in a night.” This * * # It is true, ‘Rome was not built in a night; but neither was it built thru a “careful course of elementary, high school. and university training” in architecture, conducted in the wilder- ness along the Tiber. : However poorly, the first Roman It took a night, It may not seem this matter of revolutionary senti-|logical but they did build first and ment without coming to an agreement |studied architecture afterwards. among yourselves (and with your readers) as to what sentiment really is. Let us see. (Of course they started out with a revolutionary |fund of knowledge of general Medi- terranean architecture; just as we (a) In 1917, when the war hys-|have some knowledge of transatlan- teria was already heavily creeping |tice Marxism and Leninsm). upon us, the Railroad Brotherhoods came, with watch in hand, to the U. * * * It was necessary tg have’a shelter 8. Congress and said in substance “if|right away, so as to withstand the by such and such time the Hight Hour|ceaseless struggle of the elements Bill has not yet been passed, we’ll|of nature. call a complete strike of: our organi- zations, i.e. smash American capital- ism.” Now, they might not have done so after all, or gotten away with it; there may have been many an under- Nearing advises us “during all of this time (of prepa- ration—J. B.) to avoid decisive struggle which will almost surely wreck the organization.” Now, the “revolutionary movement” organized class-struggle the I. W. W.,|Revolutionary Science, American and foreign-born alike, have|open their offices with a shingle in tionary sentiment, he belongs to Se ee Fo ema standing which let the situatiofi ap-|may avoid struggles, decisive or other- pear much more tense and dramatic} wise, that’s easy. But our class can’t than it actually was. Yet it was a|Because the class struggle is cease- magnificent demonstration of fighting |less and unavoidable. revolutionary sentiment on the part of} While the stormy waves of the the American Railroad Union men|class struggle are underwashing the which has been barely approximated |very foundations of social life, we in the Trade Union history of the|could of course proceed with our world, by men who are notoriously |graded course (leaving the rank and ‘|ridden by clan and church, by patriot-| file quite orphaned thru the with- ism and politics. drawal of our embryo-experts.) We'd (b) In the fierceness of their semi-|eventually graduate some Doctors of who might performed feats of heroism and sacri-|their windows and a revolutionary di- fice that are unsurpassed in the inter-|ploma on the wall, introducing them: national labor movement; but wej|selves to the American workers with know that removed from the hot-bed|a circular (because nobody would of their opportunities their molten |know of them otherwise) with an of- stream of revolutionary lava brittles|fer of up-to-date methods of conduct- in winter time into inert human mat-/ing the class struggle. ter, slowly and in utter uselessness| Not for a moment can we think of floating thru the streets of America.|detaching our comrades from the (c) Another type of worker, much |class struggle. They must’ study, in more prevalent among the foreign|spare hours, when on strike, or out | {than among the po ag is the fol-|of work, or temporarily supported by lowing. He is with gen others; but above everything else aj|they must study by struggling along to it; | with their fellow workers. Foster is end |right when he says of risks fdr it. betongs to no “If the W. P. and the T. U. E. L. cannot function and prosper in the every-day political and indus- trial struggles of the masses, then they have no right to life.” Foster is further correct when he criticizes the exclusiveness implied in Nearing’s plan where “the only available revolutionary force is the small body of conscious revolutionists, you outline a plan for the careful education, organiza- tion and development of this prec- ious little nucleus.” The only thing wrong is the apparent sarcasm and slight for the #hcleus and its education. It may not be so very precious, but it is the best we have. Education or Action. With his insistence upon education Nearing creates an unfortunate preju- dice in the reader’s (worker’s) mind. Not by overstating the case of edu- cation—that cannot be done; but by omission to state (a) the education that arises from concrete participa- tion in the class struggle; - (b) the dynamic correlation be- tween the education arising in the class struggle and the one arising in the class room. The second without the first is ster- ile; the first without the second is but a makeshift. This leads us to the serious short- comings in Foster’s statement; (a) in his criticism of Nearing’s plea for education he does not once offer any encouragement, or a_ constructive proposal, leading to such education as Nearing propounds; (b) nor does he criticize the fact that the Communist movement ire America has at no time devoted even 1 per cent of its energy or finances upon such education, * * a A summary of our observations will lead us to the following: ' Near- ing emphasizes the need of formal education, Foster emphasizes the ped- agogic value of activity in the class struggle. Neither of them overstate the im- *|portance of their particular phase of work; but they negate the comple- mentary activity by understanding or ignoring it, and create thereby a pic- ture without proper proportion. Esthonian Rulers in Wholesale Drive on Labor Movement REVAL, Esthonia, August 15.—The Persecution of labor radicals con- tinues. Over 230 workers’ organiza- tions have recently been suspended by the Esthonian government. During July the trial of 180 Communists who. were arrested last January and have been in jail, ever since, began. PITTSBURGH, PA. DR. RASNICK TIST Rendering err ore Serviee ti UE ks UNAS i: Rt sont cs tidal a Romer ay ba ae A FURNISHED ROOM WANTED, Single room for man. Northside pre- ferred. Quiet. The Daily Worker, Box 9-A,