The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 23, 1924, Page 6

The Passing of Pittsburgh Plus BY J. RAMIREZ (Gomez) ‘HE West is full-grown now. News that Pittsburgh Plus may soon disapear into. the limbo of played- out phrases marks the passing of a whole epoch. In place of the Wild and Wooly West of the old Jesse James days, we have—Hollywood, with its salaried armies of movie des- peradoes, manufacturing reel after reel of standard “westerns” for a worldwide market. Seattle has be- come the fourth greatest port in the United States, and Los Angeles one of the most populous cities. . . But there was always another, more fa- miliar West, without definite geo- praphical limits, a West which spread out persistently year by year from its early enviorns in the foothills of the Alleghenies. It was for this West, with its headlong industrial develop- ment, that Pittsburgh Plus was in- vented. Steel for the new industries was shipped from the East, first from Phil- adelphia and then from Pittsburgh. Later, the all-powerful Steel Trust be- gan to establish mills father west, closer to the western ores and ship- ping terminals; but the Steel Trust did not proceed to lower the price of steel accordingly. All metal was seld “Pittsburgh Plus.” Regardless of where it was fabricated, the imaginary freight from Pittsburgh was added to the selling price. Thus a Chicago cen- tractor might get his steel from South Chicago or Gary, but he paid the same price for it as tho it were actually shipped from Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Plus has become a basic consideration in the constructional ac- tivities of the West. Business men reckon with it in their financial calcu- lations. It enters into every phase of industrial planning. The imaginary freight on steel paid by the so-called ultimate consumers last year, in only eleven middle Western states, amount- ed to more than $30,000,000—and those states include only a small percentage of the Western and Southern popula- tion affected by Pittsburgh Plus! Obviously, Pittsburgh Plus is a ‘symbol of monopoly. The existence of the practice bears ample and candid testimony to the dominant role of the Steel Trust in American heavy indus- try. “Combinations in restraint of trade” may be persecuted so earnestly that workers are thrown into jail every time they go on strike, anti-trust laws may come and go, Bob LaFollette may shake his pompadour ever so menac- ingly; but the $2,430,000,00 assets ‘of the United States Steel Corporation continue to make themselves felt in one way or another. Pittsburgh Plus takes the place of the old steel pools and other outlawed schemes for cash- ing in on monopoly power. Nor will the passing of Pittsburgh Plus put an end to all this. It is merely a question of finding a new basis for the exaction of monoply price. Steel pools furnished the me- dium at one stage of economic de- velopment, Pittsburgh Plus at another. Big capitalists are planning to do away with Pittsburgh Plus voluntarily now, for the simple reason that it no longer corresponds to all their inter- ests. Perhaps “voluntarily” is not the right word. Some capitalists are merely responding to pressure from important business allies; the whole movement is also influenced by po- litical considerations, and the inher- ent issues in the present election cam- _paign have had a whole lot to do with hastening the progress toward a new policy. The fact remains that there is a great and growing sentiment among the leading capitalists them- selves, in favor of the abolition of Pittsburgh Plus. This, of course, im- plies a change in the relation be- tween the money-power of the East and the industrial forces of the West. It must be kept in mind that, in ad- dition to being a mechanism. for the maintenance of monoply price, Pitts- burgh Plus signified the exploitation of the West by the East. The West has been a sort of colony |levy on Western production. The big think of modern American monopolis- of the East. Students of imperialism |security holders with interests in the|tic capitalism as a single, long ago pointed out that America’s | Western states were quite satisfied to delay in getting into the race for world | pay a premium on steel for the West empire was due to the existence of vast, rich and undeveloped lands lying within its own borders. This territory was not long allowed to remain un- productive. Hardy pioneers, starting out over the mountains, conquered the Indians and. wild beasts, felled the for- ests, planted the fields, and overcame innumerable obstacles in preparing the way for the hosts of settlers who were to follow. The story of “the winning of the west’ is a great epic of human courage, resourcefulness and indomitable will. But the early settlers possessed only their strength and skill; they had no capita], and as @ consequence they were soon paying interest to the merchants and money- lenders of the East, The attitude of the East toward the West was much the same as that of Great Britain toward the American Colonies in the pre-Revolutionary War days. It was dominated by a single, guiding principle, and that was to get THE CHANT By JOSEPH KALOR. Oh, the bones and the blood and the hearts of men! Tirra boom boom boom—tirra boom boom boom! Oh, the sobs and the cries and the tears of men! Oh, the scars and the scabs and the wounds of men! Tirra boom boom boom—tirra Hear the tramp and the stamp and the roar of feet! Tirra boom boom boom—tirra Seé the grass and see the trees Hear the clang and hear ‘the bang of dropping chains! Tirra boom boom boom—tirra See them laugh and see them smile and see their joy! Tirra boom boom boom—tirra boom boom boom! Hear the bang and hear the clang and see the chains slip free! See the hearts “and see the souls and see them fresher grow! Tirra boom boom boom—tirra boom boom boom! as much out of the newly-opened-up territory as possible. The welfare of. the West was never considered. It was thought of only as an inexhausti- ble, exclusive market which should and must pay tribute to the “home- land.” For a Iong time, the Eastern capitalists consciously and deliber- ately retarded the development of the West. They objected to the appor- tionment of public lands in the West; they have steadfastly opposed the de- velopment of Western waterways. The famous Aaron Burr Consipracy was based on Kentucky’s fear that the East would prevent the river settle- ments from gaining the mouth of the Mississippi and the markets opened there. The Whiskey Rebellion was a protest of trans-mountain grain grow- ers against the excise tax with which the East was burdening their toil. As capital began to accumulate in the East, the irresistible call of the higher rate of profit led the Eastern capitalists to invést more and more of their surplus out West; the con- ception of imperial purpose was there- fore modernized. This period corre- sponded with the rise of tlie Republi- can Party, the party of expansion. Rails were laid everywhere.. Indus- tries were opened up. New cities were built. And at every stage of the pro- cess the Federal Government, owned body and soul by the Eastern money power, defended the imperial interests of the exporters of capital. Subsidies, scandalous grants of Western lands to the railroads, discriminatory legisla- tion and other abuses became fixed in practice. Periodically, the West fevolted against the investment-holding sea- board; the revolts found expresison in the: granger movements, the soft money agitation, the free silver cam- paign and, to a large extent, in popu- lism, Iron and steel are the backbone of modern industry, and steel was now a basic factor @etermining the form ofjally. Thus the same individuals con- Pitts-|trol both Hast and West. But in a burgh Plus came into its own, as a|different measure. It is a mistake to export of capital to the because of the extra profits they were making there and because of the pro- tection Pittsburgh Plus afforded to their undertakings in the East. Equilibrium could not be main- tained on that basis, however. The West grew up, Its power multiplied. The importance of its manufactures steadily increased. It too began to have a surplus of commodities, for ex- port to the East and to foreign coun- tries—and it could not afford to tol- erate discriminatory charges against its output, if it was to meet the com- petition of the general market. An aggressive local capitalism had sprung up, with interests distinct from those of the absentee investors. The local capitalists resented the subordination of Western initiative to the economic imperialism of the -East. Cireum- stances like the continued domination of the state of California by the South- ern Pacific Railroad, united native capitalists with ranchers and farmers PROPHETIC boom boom boom! boom boom boom! and see how fresh they be! boom boom boom! in ohergetic protest. Not being the outgrowth of actual colonial exploitation, the “national lib- eration” movement of the West ex- presses itself in the struggle of local capitalism for equal competitive op- portunity inside the circle of Ameri- can economic life. This is the basis for the “new radicalism” of the West. It is the secret of the resurgence of a militant movement of the lower middle class in a country where Big Business long ago consolidated itself in power.over the wreck of a van- quished petty bourgeoisie. We often refer to LaFollette as the spokesman of the middle class, but it is not al- ways appreciated that the middle class element actively supporting him are almost exclusively Western. Aside from the condition of the farmers, La- Follettism has for its principle back- ground the insurgent attitude of na- tive Western capitalism toward the East. lLaFollette’s appeal to the workers is merely for the purpose of exploiting the political power of the masses in the interests of the rich middle class. There has been another struggle be- tween West and East—in the field of large-scale industry. This is really a phase of the historical rise of Ameri- can banking capital; the struggle of finance capital against industrial capi- tal in the United States became a struggle on the part of Wall Street to complete its hegemony over the new West. That the struggle is already virtually won is shown by the recent absorption of Western shipping in- terests and by the gradual lapse under banking control of the Armour, Mor- ris and Wilson packing business, rep- resenting the last important ~~. hold ef independent capital in West. i The financial kings of the East now have a tremendous stake in the West. Their’s is the dominant influence there, politically as well as economic Se nS NP SU Sone ce cena SSS Sn SOOPER Sle A SRN ANSI Se TERS en EES t nae AAT vac EE Se EE a NT an E i 2: ge and management of the big~boss in Wall Street. Control is exercised now directly, now indirectly. Sometimes it is merely on the basis of a tacit business alliance—and this is an im- portant factor in the rule of Hastern finance capital over the West. Ihave already referred to the class of smaller local capitalists who grew up with the developing West. These cap- italists have been dominated, of course, by the big interests, and they are quite prepared to continue in the role of satelites; nevertheless, they demand a certain freedom of movement. If they are to remain at such an obvious disadvantage in competion, if there is to be a sort of internal customs barrier constantly raised against them, they will simply refuse to play the game. LaFollettism carries with it a threat that the Wall Street buccaneers can- not afford to ignore. They are obliged to find a way out, a way which will satisfy Western aspirations and turn the LaFollette ferment into a diffused and meaningless “equal rights” move- ment—without at the same time in- juring their own always paramount in- terests, That is not so difficult as it may seem. As a matter of fact, it is no longer to their interest to impose sec- tional restrictions on industry. Their stake in the West is so great that the capital involved can not wisely be treated as “colonial capital.” The West must become completely. ab- sorbed into a unified American eco- nomic system! That is the substance of the Western demands, that is the desire of finance capital, and that is the development which is actually be- ing consummated. All over the world, capitalism tends to become national capitalism, with the national tariff boundaries as greatly extended as possible. In the light of the changed eco- nomic relations between the East and the West, the abolition of Pitts- burgh Plus became an issue of much greater significance than may appear to the casual observer. Instead of be- ing a simple anti-trust manouever, a blow at price-fixing, the plan to do away with Pittsburgh Plus is a move for a homogeneous capitalist indus- try. Pittsburgh Plus did not disap- pear when the Federal Trade Commis- sion ruled against it, declaring it tq be in violation of both the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act (The Commission just discovered this last month!) Elbert H. Gary and others, whose holdings are primarily in steel, may oppose the ruling in the Supreme Court; they may temporarily defeat it; but the chances are that Gary will have to take his orders from the real bosses of the United States Steel Corporation—the finance capital- ists of J. P. Morgan & Co. The end of Pittsburgh Plus is clearly in sight. No one need suppose for a minute that we are about to witness the ca- pitulation of monopoly. The capitalist press editorializes sagely on “the de- centralization that will now take place in the steel industry,” but the truth - is that, if the Pittsburgh Plus practice is discontinued, there is likely to be a real squeezing out of “independ- ents,” who are able to compete in the industry now only because of the big margin of price protection assured them by Pittsburgh Plus. The pass- ing of Pittsburgh Plus means not less, but more centralization. It does not signify the end of monoply price for steel, but the extension of monoply price from a sectional to a nation-wide proposition. - All over the world, capitalism tends to become national capitalism, and the national tariff boundaries are as greatly extended as possible. in South America and overseas, If it were not for the working ting a third of Glade ‘ :