The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 30, 1924, Page 6

4 ‘ : ‘i i | | Page Six THE DAILY WORKER. CS es Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO, 1118 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill. (Phone: Monroe 4712) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mall: 33.50... if months By mail (in Chicago only)! $4.50....6 months $2.50....3 montas $6.00 per year $3.00.3 monthe $8.00 per year Address all mail.and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1118 W. Washington Bivd. Chleago, Hllnols British government fully informed of all details of the impending Franco-German commercial treaty. MacDonald had, previous to this, declared that Herriot made such a promise to him. The British imperialists are becoming uneasy. They fear that the French interests may tse their oc- cupation of the Ruhr as a crowbar with which to force special trade and finance concessions by Ger- many. Fearing that the wrath of the British ruling class will fall on his head, MacDonald is” panic- stricken, The “Labor” premier has appointed a J. LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE MORITZ J. LOEB... | anennnnsinnnener BONROTS jusiness Manager ————<—<—<—<—$ $—=—— Entered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1928 at the Post: Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879, <> 20 Advertizing rates on application. =———————— What Is Labor Day? This day that has been assigned to the workers by their employers, the first Monday in September, and called “Labor Day,” is a sign of the enslave- ment of the working class. It was given to the workers, as the price for abandoning the revolu- tionary May Day, the original Labor Day and the only day that really expresses the aspirations of the working class. The exchange of May Day, with all its glorions traditions, for the flat and colorless day in Septem- ber, was the outward symbol of the inward change that had gripped the American labor movement. Tt stood for the exchange of the policies of class struggle for the policy of class collaboration; it meant that the labor movement would no longer fight for better conditions and against the exploita- tion of capitalism, but that it would beg for crumbs from the rich table of rising American im- perialism. In keeping with the servile spirit that intro- duced this “legal” holiday, the day itself has be- come a day of fraternization between capitalist politicians and their labor lieutenants. Every labor day celebration in the country that is held under the auspices of the Gompers bureaucracy is a love feast between the labor officials and republican and democratic candidates for office. It is a sort of market day, when the votes of the workers are peddled to the highest bidders, and where the price is not even delivered to the voter, but to his “lead- ers,” in the form of policical patronage if not direct purchase by money. And so the revolutionary workers of America have no enthusiasm for this so-called labor day, which is really a brand of shame upon the labor movement. May Day, the day that was selected by the workers themselves, and baptised in the blood of thousands in struggle against the capi- talist exploiters, is the only Labor Day that arouses the enthusiasm of the revolutionists or that of the working masses. Many willing hands make the big jobs easy. Get new members for the Workers Party. ‘elliesacatlgisiodtate Contradictions of LaF ollettism The movement of LaFollette is a strange chaos of conflicting policies and elements. It demands the support of the Farmer-Labor parties—but it proceeds to destroy these parties. LaFollette is violently oppgsed to the League of Nations, but he joins hands with Gompers, the violent defender of the Jeague. LaFollette’s program calls for rigid enforcement of the anti-trust law—Gompers wants to eliminate all such restrictive legislation. LaFol- lette obtains the endorsement of the C. P. P. A. on the basis of a program—and then abandons that program soon afterward and turns over his cam- paign in the states to Gompers’ machine, scrapping the C. P. P. A. And’ so it goes, with the wildest inconsistencies and antagonism tied together, harmonized only by the beautiful eyes of Bob. The socialist party, already over its head in this political sea into which it rashly ventured, still plaintively wails that it is going to get a labor party out of this petty bourgeois melange. If there is anyone still so to believe that such a result is possible it should also be easy for them to repeat the articles of faith of all the religions without stuttering. The miracles attributed to Jesus, turning water into wine, raising the dead, and little feats of a similar magnitude, would fade into insignificance beside the wonder of anything like a labor party coming out of this LaFollette movement. It may develop many things of which it carries the germs; American Fascism is strongly represented in its ranks, and it might turn in that direction; it might turn into a “liberal” party of American capitalism ; it may easily find it possible to retain its present nesting place in the bosom of the old parties; but for it to become a labor party movement is beyond the wildest stretch of probabilities. The Storm Gathers The London Reparations conference is now well over. The peace boom that was launthed and was waxing while these sessions were on is distinctly on the wane. Worse than that. The after-effects of the reparations gathering are slowly, but surely, taking on a dark outlook. ..iveady it is obvious to many observers that the peace efforts made by the international financiers in the last London conference were wholly ephemer- al. Their objectives are now transparent. In short, the MacDonald-Herriot confab instead of making for the permanent peace of Europe has actually sown new seeds Of dissension, has opened new avenues of intense commercial rivalry between the various national capitalist groups. Herriot has denied to the French Chamber of Deputies that he has undertaken to keep the special committee to study the possible effects of the London treaties on British foreign trade. Snow- den, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is even more vigilant in guarding the interests of the English imperialist junta. This so-called socialist financial wizard is now in session with the leading British steel, coal, dyes, textiles, and pharmaceutical cor- porations investigating the outlook for British trade. The ruling class of Great Britain entertains serious fears of unfavorable reactions on its role as an outstanding force in the struggle for world commercial, financial and industrial supremacy. Indeed, it is clear that the Dawes peace pact was only a curtain raiser for the eminent war drama that will soon be staged in Europe and elsewhere. The much-heralded peace plans of the employing elass have proved once more that they are only the preludes to new and more infernal wars. Every day get a “sub” for the DAILY WORKER and a member for the Workers Party. Facts versus Illusions The cardinal feature of LaFollette’s economic program is a return to the state of free competition in which American industry once found itself. In the face of a century of industrial develop- ment this effort of LaFollette to turn back the hands of the clock of economic progress is doomed to instant failure. Much food for thought over this Utopian at- titude towards highly organized production and exchange is afforded by the present marked ten- dency towards railway mergers. The Interstate Commerce Commission has not yet made public its plans for the consolidation of the railroads into a limited number of systems. Until this plan is announced railway consolidations are pro- hibited. Yet, since the enactment of the Esch- Cummins law, the trend toward railway mergers has been rather strong. Under the -guise of one section or another sec- tion of the Transportation Act, there have taken place such consolidations as the Atlantic Coast Line and the Louisville and Nashville taking over the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio rail properties for 999 years. The recent Nickel Plate merger, put over by the Van Sweringen interests, is another railway consolidation which did not take into ac- count the so-called anti-rail trust laws. At the same time the two biggest roads in the country, the Pennsylvania and the New York Central, have been tightening their grip on their numerous sub- sidiaries. These conditions are the natural outcome of the evolution of American industry. No law, no La- Follette, no Hillquit-Wheeler alliance can hold back the wheels of industrial progress. But be- hind the ridiculous LaFollette egonomic program there lurks a tragic fact. We have in mind the fact that the political program of the Wisconsin senator rests on this fundamentally unsound eco- nomic doctrine. Millions of workers and farmers are being im- plored by the LaFollette organization to accept a political program based on such economic fal- lacies. Herein lies the real menace. In the end illusions must yield to facts. LaFollette’s thunder will be dissipated at the first flush of his success in national politics. But it is the workers and poor farmers who will pay the price for any prac- tical demonstration of the failure of LaFollettism as a road to their freedom. Join the Workers Party and subscribe to the DAILY WORKER! S. Glenn Young was a mighty brave man, when he was shooting up miners in the dark, assassin- ating workers, and spending the money of the coal joperators. The coal operators put up millions of dollars of coal lands, banking upon Young’s “bravery” and their own control of the courts. But Young must have got cold feet, and now some bosses are worried. Another great railroad merger has taken place, with the unification of the Pere Marquette, Nickel Plate, Chesapeake and Ohio, and Hocking Valley Systems. But there is still no news of the great merger of the workers’ unions that is so vitally necessary. Amalgamation is still the most burning union issue before the railroaders. Having established all his reactionary policies in the Illinois labor movement, and made it a province of his kingdom, Sam Gompers is reported to be considering a visit to the state convention in Peoria for the purpose of surveying his additional realm. After all the newspaper bunk about the establish- ment of the 8-hour day in the steel industry, it-is now disclosed that the 10 and 12-hour day still largely prevails. The only way to shorten the day is to organize working class power. Get a member for the Workers Party and a new subscription for the DAILY WORKER. Send in that new “sub” today! spe Seem MEBANE TOOT ASME AML { + 1 } THE DAILY WORKER OURGEOIS “criminal justice” in Germany has never allowed itself to be troubled by either humanitarian or legal scruples when it is a matter of taking vengeance on a class enemy for some attack or other directed against the sacred institution of the capjtalist state. Under the rule of the aisers, Draconian verdicts against honest workingmen often roused the indignation of the civilized world. But everything that happened then seems paltry and inconsequential in comparison with the disgraceful scan- dals of “justice” which we are wit- nessing with our own eyes inthis new democratic-republican Germahy, now ruled: by the socialist, Fritz Ebert, and which has seen at its head for a number of years a whole series of social-democratic popes. At the present time the prisons and the jails of Germany are once more filled, nay, in some cases they are lit- erally jammed, to the extent of hold- ing twicé the nuumber of prisoners authorized by law. And, at the doors of the prisons, thousands upon thou- sands of proletarians await their turn! The lodging, the food and the treat- ment of the imprisoned victims are re- pellant to the most elementary notions of decency and of kindness. After the orgy of swindling arising out of the|- inflation of her currency, Germany ought indeed to be miserly in her ex- penditures. But the bourgeoisie re- frains from economizing where it could really do so. It does not touch the gigantic and extravagant ma- chine which it keeps for purposes of oppression: the army, the police and the courts. It economizes only at the expense of the weakest: the aged, the invalids, the cripples, the war wid-| ows and the war orphans, the unem- ployed, etc., and above all at the ex- pense of the most helpless of all—the thousands of poor victims of the courts, who are languishing and rot- tening in the dungeons which are so many sores on the body of the infa- mous German republic. What is the reason for this crowd- ed conditon of the prisons and the jails of Germany? Is it due to the increase in crime—an increase which Class Struggle Is Sharpening in Germany GERMAN PRISONS ARE FILLED TO OVERFLOWING WITH COMMUNISTS is an established fact in all the bel- ligerent countries as a result of the war and of the social deterioration which followed the war? Not at all! And if in Germany, too, the period after the war is to blame for a very great increase in crime, nevertheless the largest proportion of the inmates of the Geman prisons consists of po- litical criminals—that is to say, of sol- diers in the army of the class war, of members of the honest, militant prole- tariat. It is a noteworthy fact that at this moment there exists in republican Ger- many a very clear tendency to leni- ency toward those who transgress common law, and, on the contrary, tendency to an excessive and a bitter severity toward political offenders, Numerous murderers — some of them of the most horrible kind—go unpunished in Germany or aré dis covered only by accident after the lapse of a number of years. Only call to mind the scandalous case of the homo-sexual murderer, Haarman, who, thanks to.the watchful complic- ity of the police, was able for many years to indulge his murderous sadis- tic desires! The same leniency and the same in- dulgence are under other circum: stances used toward political offenses . Provided that. these offenses have been committed by anarchists or Fascists—that is to say, by the ene- mies of the proletariat and of the German republic. The trial of the Fascist leader, Hitler, in Munich is most enlightening in this respect. By EMILE HOELLEIN, Communist Deputy, German Reichstag Even more revolting and disgraceful is the attitude ofthe police and the judges towards the innumerable secret counter- revolutionary organizations which are committing systematic mur- der and whose members carry weap- ons; but who not only are never pun- ished, but who actually receive the open protection of the government, the police and the courts—to the ex- tent that anyone who dares to make public the crimes of these secret as- sociations is relentlessly perescuted, proletarian—all for treason to the fatherland! In comparison with the leniency and the indulgence accorded transgressors of the common law, and counter-revo- a/}lutionists, we must note a revolting “administration of justice,” vengeful in its motives and terrorist’ in its method, which is brot to bear on the honest militant proletariat which dares to protect itself actively against the moral and physical murder which the capitalist system inflicts upon it. The lies told about the armed at- tack on the seat of the Russian com- mercial embassy at Berlin and on the neighborhood where live the Com- munist faction in the Reichstag, all of whose wardrobes and closets were. rifled,—the openly avowed’ determina- tion to save the capitalist sfate by the use of spies and for this purpose to contrive, according to needs of the police and the courts all necessary crimes, plots and assaults—the viola- tion, becoming every day more open, of the most elementary of the princi- ples of law, which states that the court is under obligation to prove the IN THE WORLD'S RICHEST COUNTRY ("THE workers and exploited farmers of the United States . . . are able to secure for their existence. labor only the means for a bare Millions of workers must work long hours, under bad working conditions, for low wages. Millions are periodically unem- ployed as at present with all the consequent misery and suffering for themselves and their families. In order to keep these conditions from growing worse, millions of industrial workers are periodically compelled to go on strike to fight back the greedy employers. Millions of farmers have been driven into bankruptcy and from the land be- cause of inability to earn enough Platform of the Workers Party of for a living."—From the Election America, objegtive and subjective guilt of each individual defendant—the infamous legal twist which permits the courts to declare collectively guilty a whole political group, for the purpose of de- priving the entire Communist move- ment of its leaders—and finally the more and more frequent seizure of hostages during the course of trials for the purpose of forcing from fath- ers, mothers, brothers and sisters, ete., testimony incriminating the accusey, these abominations represent just so many stages in the complete moral and legal prostitution of bourgeois justice in Germany in this fight that is being directed against the proletarian revolution. How are we to explain this policy of legal and political terrorism against the revolutionary proletariat? The an- swer is simple: this policy of terror- ism is the very obvious expression of the fact that in Germany we find our! selves in the midst of a very highly- developed stage of the class war. The German bourgeoisie feels that its privileges of exploitation and domina- tion are threatened. It neither can nor will give up without making every effort. To the end that it may preserve its class rule over the inter- jor of Germany, it is ready to deliver the entire working mass of Germany into the hands of international finance capital. It is iron in its determina. tion to make its people obey; even at the price of bloodshed, at the com- mand of the foreign capitalist dicta- tors whose interests demand that the social and political status quo in Ger- many shall not be menaced. That is why, for months, we have been wit- nessing a -campaign of calumny against everything Communist that is without parallel. That is why the gov- ernment wishes to start a mass prose- cution, this fall, against the members of the German Communist Party. Heré is the mysterious meaning of the flagrant attacks of these past months. This is the real reason for the terror- ism, becoming more noticeable every day, which is striving to apply the “justice” of the bourgeoisie to the working masses of Germany. (Sigend) Emile Hoellein, Commun- ist Deputy in the Reichstag. Butler’s Finks Paid to Stir Up Race Hatred (Continued tron from page 1) Butler never giveth. The New Bed- ford: textile workers suffered several terribl slashes in wages under the stool pigeon regime,of the Sherm&n- Butler-stool- pigeon - republican com: bine. Not for nothing did the New Bedford Cotton Manufacturers’ Asso- ciation pay to the Sherman Service a sum approximating $300,000 to wreck the New Bedford unions and discour- age workers from striking against wage cuts—to win “co-operation,” Sherman blithely puts it. ‘We have already given the names of several of the stool piegons Mr. Butler, head of the republican party, who asks the workers to vote for Cool: idge, placed in control of the Textile Council of New Bedford. But there were.others. For instance, there was the vice persident of the Loom Fix- ers’ Union, George Smith, and work- ing with him in the same union was ,|Herbert Pemberton, its treasurer, an able pair of stool pigeons as ever be- trayed the workers into “co-operation with the employers.” Another union official fink was Anthony Astershew- sky, secretary of the Amalgamated Textile Workers. The interest of Mr. Butler in having his puppy dog, Cal Coolidge, for presi- dent, may well be imagined from the way he used these “labor leaders” when the Fordney-McCumber tariff bill was up in congress. This epi- sode is enough to raise Homeric laugh- ter over the mechanism of our great “democratic institutions so sacred to all capitalists, litfle and big, from But- ler to LaFollette. It is also illustra- tive of the sinister forces behind the class collaboration policies of ‘many a “labor leader” who preaches that “the union must help the bosses so that the boss can make money enough to pay good wages,” etc. ‘In fact, one can detect in such things as the “B. & O. Plan” of William H. Johnston for “co? operation with the railroads to in- crease output,” the odor of the Sher- man skunk. Here is what the multi-millionaire backer of Mr. Coolidge used his con- trol over the unions tor, He fixed it up so that the Sherman stool pigeons in the unions, John Silver and Abra- ham Binns, went down to Washington and appeared before the senate com- mittee then considering the Fordney- McCumber tariff bill (don't forget that McCumber used stool pigeons in the North Dakota elections). In the name of the Textile Council of the New Bedford unions, these finks appeared as the “sturdy sons of labor,” Silver and Binns, to depict the horrors which would fall upon the workers of New Bedford if the textiles of Mr. Butler were not “protected was passed, the finks got their ex- pemses paid both by the union and by Mr. Butler, they got their pay from both the union and the Sherman agency, Mr. Butler got his protection and the textile workers got—several wage reductions. To get the textile workers “back to normalcy” was the aim of Fink Boss Butler. It meant to get the weavers back to the 1913 wage of $12.09 a week, and the girl trimmers at $6.39 a week. That is the acme of repub- lican party “normalcy.” ‘The whole force of stool pigeons was largely en- gaged in this work,. getting “co-opera- tion” of the Sherman Service style. The lower caste stool pigeons would boldly come to the defense of the poverty-stricken mill owners” and would kick about the union “asking too much,” grumble about the high dues, etc. The stool pigeons who were union officers naturally had to go a little slow on this matter. The “rank and file” stool pigeon could openly and freely talk for the boss. If, however, a “rank and file” union man talekd otherwise, wanted a raise or wanted a strike, to prevent a wage reduction, the union officials promptly treated him with hostility, he became known as a “Bolshevik” and lost his job or was sat on in the union, or both. By this process the “union officers” were, first, in doubt, then wavered, then be- came convinced “by the membership” that wage reductions should be ac- cepted because, as they said, “if the mills can’t make money, then they'll shut down and we'll all be out of work.” i But this by-play is the more pleas- ant side of Butler’s adventures in Stool Pigeon Land. The Sherman Service, despite its Nazarene protes- tations, is a sinister force for dirty intrigue and crime. Butler knew it when he gave approval to a plot for a squad of stool pigeons, led by Joseph Bocherski, a Polish member of the I. W. W., to break into the I. W. W. offices in New Bedford in the middle of the night, destroy the books and raise havoc generally. This is the of the republican national committee, Is. This is the kind of work the Sher- man Service does not advertise, but practices. In the great steel workers’ strike of 1919, when W. Z. Foster, now chair- man of the Workers Party, was lead- ing the fight against the steel trust, the Sherman agency, then.and now aligned behind the chairman of the re- publican party, was planting its spies in the steel workers’ unions to fight Foster and to break the strike, Its stool pigeons weer given the following orders to precipitate race from cheap foreign labor.” Silver and Binns duly went, depicted and con- quered. The Fordney-MeCumber bill hatred and possible violence: “We want you to stir up as much bad feeling as you possibly can be- kind of a man Mr. Butler, chairman, ins and the Serbians. mong the Serbians that the Italians ate going back to work. Call up every question you oan In reference to racial hatrde be- tween these two nationalities.” This sounds just like the Ku Klux Klan. And just like the Klan, these crime inciters of the Sherman agency were never punished, altho its Chicago office was raided by the military in- telligence of the federal government and thé county authorities. Capitalist government is not built to punish cap- italists or their stool pigeons. Butler then as naw a big man in the republic. an party and imthe Sherman detective agency, knows it. The Sherman Service, In¢orporated, has been and is the “underground sec- tion” of the republicin party. It has been and is, along with William Mor- gan Butler, the backer of Calvin Cool- idge, the strike breaker, for president. The Sherman detective service and its stool pigeons have been and are, along with Butler, whose plots against the textile workers you have ead in this’ exposure, against William Z. Foster, worker, steel strike leader and Com- munist candidate for president. The capitalist government never has and never will punish either Sherman or Butler for their crimes against the workers. But the capitalist govern- ment has even now an indictment and ten-year term of prison hanging over the head of William Z. Foster because he “was present” when other Com- munists were discussing how to dis- place the stool pigeons of Mr. Butler and put honest workers in union of- fice. That is “criminal syndicalism.” Which will you choose, workers, the candidate Coolidge, backed by Butler and his Sherman stool pigeons, or William Z. Foster, candidate backed by the Communists of the Workers Party of America? Subscribe for “Your Daily,” the DAILY WORKER, Take a Vote in Your Shop OW do the workers in your shop stand in this presidential election campaign? / How many of your shop mates are still so backward that they accept the leadership of Coolidge and Davis? How many of your fellow workers have been fooled by the specious pleas of LaFollette and adopt this middle-cl. And, above all, how many workers are the aviour? in your shop who un- derstand that the working class must have its own party, its own policy, and its own candidate—and who therefore stand for William Z. Foster for president? Take a vote in your shop. Send it in to the DAILY WORKER, We will compile it along with all the other shop votes and give you a picture of how the workers are thinking about the election issues and candidates, - WORKERS’ STRAW VOTE THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blivd., Chicago, III. The workers employed in the shop of. WM. Z. FOSTER ....... Workers Party DAVIS. Democratic Party votes; | certify that this report is correct; on the presidential candidates, and the vote was as follow: +» Votes; LaFOLLETTE. ....... No Party COOLIDGE .. Republican Party { mevurcey) August 30, 1924