The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 23, 1924, Page 10

~“s no © NTELLECTUAL VANITY, the prop of the metaphysical daobler, is the attitude Which secretly sermonizes thus: “Nature has endowed a few persons with unusual ability. The vast majority of humans, sad to ac- knowledge, are congenitally rendered immune from the gayms of true cul- ture. Evidently it becomes the busi- ness of the wise to ponder, to con- verse, to publicize, to rule. Contrari- wise, obeying Nature’s inexorable cleavage, the “people” must remain, willy-nilly, the beasts of burden, to be domesticated for the manifold house- hold services of their superiors. Cruel stratification—but there it is older than history. Such is the cherished belief of the whole leisure class. The Catholic Church has immortalized this disunion of rabble and elect. In a very unique way the Church has met the dilemmas of Culture. The select among the Clergy are permitted by. in- fallibility to read books-heretical in order that they may be shrewdly pre- pared to confute the blasphemies con- tained therein. Of course, only the dependable Brothers are chosen for so delicate and scrupulously honest a task. The celebrated Index Expurga- torious interdicts this surreptitious knowledge to the majority of Catho- lics,—the humble laity. The divine purpose of this dualism is to keep the masses in blissful ignorance. Think- ing for oneself is the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. This dis- joint and most untenable theory of culture will find subtle advocates so long as blindness continues to flourish as virtue, so long as respect for of- ficial superiors continues unsophisti- cate. The Catholic Church loves the poor and ignorant so tenderly, it would fain relieve them of the cruel necessity of thinking sceptically about their hard destiny. “Knowledge bring- eth sorrow” is the Catholic motto. The profitable inferences that fol- low from the apotheosis of haught- eulture are numerous. The masses are neither capable nor worthy of the “higher” education. They are natur- ally fit to obey, serve, pray and beget. No revolt or criticism or discontent should be encouraged, no less per- mitted to spread, amongst the “peo- ple.” The iron hand of authority best rules the ignorant, the multitudinous, know-nothings. The joys and quests of the elite are in the nature of things beyond the horizon line of the nihilite. BE A CHASER A Book Chaser Here is an inducement or two. OFFER NO. 3. The People’s Marx........... wiacecnseccienion oO Dictatorship vs“ Democracy, ad Leon Trotsky 50 The Militant Proletari EAD a ccrcvieclticgisinstagegeienmicenionian 60 Lenin, His Life - Work, by ZAMOVICV .....0640+ ensecsssceecenscesesserneceees oll Total ...cecsssese soandteqensennsaqenemscenss ae Special till Sept. 1, 1924........$1.00 OFFER NO. 4. Principles of Scientific sation $1 BONE BP VR iiicccccsesccccices Revolutionary Essays, by ec inched, ME ee iasciccieepetions RIGO A B C of Communism, by _—. TOM ciressepsinccremeacebtincensas ee Special till Sept. 1, 1924........$1.50 Any one book at the regular price. Two or more at 33 per cent discount. Get the books and lay down to read them. Order from “WORKERS PARTY LITERATURE DEPARTMENT 1113 Washington Bivd., Chicago, III. Why disturb the unleavened mass with ideals of art, beauty, culture, which they wil] never be able to real- ize? Only morbid discontent will breed in a mind made restive by unat- tainable aspirations. Circuses and bread and ragtime and dime novels-— these be the pabulum of the nihlite. Culture for the cultured. Adumb show for the people. Oscar Wilde, that great sentimental boy, expressed the aristo- cratic view of culture’when he said to his friend, Frank Harris: “The poor are poor creatures, and must be hew- ers of wood and drawers of water. They are really the dung hill out of which men of genius and artists grow like flowers. Their function is to give birth to genius and nourish it. They have no other raison d’etre. Were }men as intelligent as bees, all gifted jindividuals would be supported by the |community, as the bees support their queen. We should be the first charge ;on the State, just as Socrates declared that he ought to be kept in the Pry- tanoeum at the public expense. “Don’t talk to me, Frank, about the hardships of the poor. The hard- ships of the poor are necessities, but talk to me of the hardships of men of genius, and I could weep tears of blood, I was never so affected by any book in my life as I was by the sordid misery of Balzac’s poet, Eugene de Rubempre.” This mischievous theory of culture is strongly entrenched as a living faith amongst the leisure class. Faith in the masses is a lyrical.line of lauda- tion from humanitarian poets. The mighty of mankind know not faith in the masses. Distrust, suspicion, con- tempt, yes, Faith—never. Faith, like respect, is a genuine bond only amongst equals. Equals are persons who strive for common ends—and share common experiences while striv- ing. All rules, golden or leaden, op- erate best where respect flourishes. Respect flourishes where power is equitably and equally apportioned. Faith and respect and power are a triple alliance tenable and durable only amongst economic or intellectual equals. Power is the breath of life: a bad breath when monopolized, a sweet, when socialized. Increase the aggressive power of the masses and as if by magic you behold a “pro tanto” increase in the respect ac- corded them by “superiors.” It is amazing how instinctively we respect persons of power. And yet not so amazing, either. We respect power, because, flattering its possessors brings us privilegés and security; an- tagonizing its holders brings us hard- ship and insecurity. The most diffi- cult problem of our social democracy is to socialize the pawer of men ana the men of power. The sweet uses and abuses of power must be cur- tailed. In 1906 an essay entitled “Education and the Socialist Movement” was written by a “distinguished” American economist to prove the necessity and moral discipline of cleavage in society. It is the feeblest eSsay ever penned by an intelligent apologist for the status quo. Conscious thruout that his ve- toes on socialist hopes were arbitrary and biased, Professor John- Bates Clark desperately concluded his pero- ration with this exciting outlook for the laboring class: “Like the village blacksmith, he may look the whole world in the face with indépendence, but with no latent enmity. Manly self-assertion there may be with no sense of injury. The well-paid laborer may stand before the rich without envy, as the rich will stand before 50 him without pity or condescension. . - « «+ It will always be better to have something than to have nothing; but it may, at some time, be better to have relatively little than to have in- ordinately much and the worker may be able to come nearer and nearer to the state in which for him, comforts are plentiful and anxieties are scarce. Amid a vast inequality of mere (1!) possessions, there may be less and less of inequality of genuine welfare. Many a man with a modest store may ‘|have no wish to change lots with the multi-millionaire. For comfortable liv- ing, for high thinking, and for the Culture Versus Life - - finer traits of humanity, the odds may be in his favor.” Was ever more namby-pamby preachment. imposed upon a _ hard- working world? (If the reader is in- terested in a shattering refutation of this essay by the self-same author, let him read Professor Clark’s “Philoso- phy of Wealth” written when that gentleman’s insights into graphic reality were fresh and penetrating.) The ultimate plea of the menaced leisure class is a study in equivoca- tion. The honorable worker is to have his lot improved. He is to see his dreams modestly realized. He is to be given a fair education. He is to be admitted (on judgment day) té the sanctum of his millionaire-com- rade who will not look down upon him with condescension. Envy and abuse of power will have disappeared from man’s world. The billionaires will be a standing clfillenge to the finest traits in proletarian human nature.. Only by promoting divisive ineqali- ties, can a stratified society hope td evolve a real brotherhood, wherein love and respect will cement a friend- ship between the “relatively poor and the inordinately rich.” “But it is in the power of humanity to pro- ject its fraternal bonds across the chasms which such conditions (of divi- sive inequality) create. Tho there be thrones and principalities in our earthly paradise, they will not mar its perfection, but will develop the finer traits of its inhabitants.” (my boldface.) No, this is not a travesty on common sense indited for the amusement of an awakening proletar- iat. They are the sober assurances of an old man, mentally exhausted from a half century struggle with ob- stinate reality. The essay from which I quote is supposedly a contribution to economic science. In truth it is a gift to “Christian Science.” It is a foolish labor of love, vapid to the point of nausea. “Many a man with a modest store may have no wish to change lots with the multi-million- | aire.” Suppose he has the wish, what can he do to realize it in a stratified society where startling inequalities | are inherited and legally perpetuated? “For comfortable living, for high thinking, and for the finer traits of humanity, the odds may be in his fa-; vor.” This last sentence sounds like ! the rankest nonsense or sheer char- | latanism. Why not, as amiable Chris- | tians, out of puré’ good-heartedness, exert our best efforts to “save” our inordinately rich folk from the vexa- tious lot of uncomfortable living, of sordid thinking, and of cheaper traits of character, which they may develop as multi-millionaires? Perhaps the professor has in mind a refurbished Penetrating Analysis! Burn General Secretary of the Red ~. with special rate 1113 Washington Blvd. Workers Party. THE NEW AND SIGNIFICANT BOOK ENTITLED The World’s Trade Union Movement By A. LOSOVSKY In this book, published in March at Moscow, and now made available to American -readers, the leader of 13,000,000 trade unionists depicts, sects, and measures the relation of © apennd developed before, since war. The first book ever written dealing comprehensively with this vital silbect .William Z. Foster says: “Here are described every political, economic, and organizational. force of the world’s trade unions, and their role in on fight, developed since the war, between Reformists and Revolutionists.” 112 PAGES, STIFF PAPER COVER, WITH PHOTO OF AUTHOR. . FIFTY CENTS PER COPY. Bundle orders of ten or more, 35 cents each, Trade Union Educational League, A special edition of this book has also been published for the Branches and members of the party are expected tq place thelr orders with the literature department at the same address, BY A TEACHER Epictetan ethic, something like the following: “Any person may live happy in poverty, but few in wealth and power. So great is the advan- tage of poverty, that no wise man would excHange it for disreputable wealth; unless indeed Themistocles, the son of Neocles, the most wealthy of the Athenians, but poor in virtue, was better than Aristides and Socra- tes. But both himself and his wealth are perished, and without a name, For a bad man loses all in death; but virtue is eternal.”—When apologist} of special privileges are hard beset for honest explanations for the neces- sity of perpetuated inequality they do say some stupid things. Why doesn’t a sense of humor thrill them with shame at their own fool performances? So the dearly beloved poor man in our “inordinately rich” capitalism of the future will be equipped for plain living and high -thinking, like the Thoreaus and Emersons and Tolstois and Whitmans? H’m! But suppose his high thinking leads him to pooh- pooh “plain” living? What then? Sup- pose he relishes the elaborate living of the inordinately rich more than his own simple fare? What then? No! The dramatic cleavages of present day capitalism will either disrupt society or what is more likely, society (in the sociological sense) will urgently dls. rupt them. Capitalism as the per- petuator of harsh inequalities will not endure forever. MAC’S BOOK STORE DETROIT Full line of Sociological and Labor Literature. Periodicals and Newspapers 27 JOHN R STREET Meet us at the Prudential Restaurant 752 NORTH AVE. The only place to eat. Geérge E. Pashas COZY LUNCH 2426 Lincoln Avenue One-half block from Imperial Hall CHICAGO . Sound Logic! ing Criticism! International of Labor Unions dis- during, and on larger orders. Chicago, Ill.