The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 30, 1924, Page 9

N his twenty-five years at Washing- ton, Robert M. laaollette has been the outstanding figure in the fight for but one measure which might be call- ed a labor law in the strict sense of the term. Except for the fight led by him in behalf of the enactment of the Seamans Law, Senator La- Follette has not been directly con- nected with any noteworthy labor legislation. . It is true he voted for the Woman Sufrage Amendment, the proposed Child Labor Amendment, the estab- lishment of the Department of Labor, “and the eight-hour day for government employes. It is true he was against the Ship “Subsidy Bill, the Esch-Cum- mins Act, and the Fordney McCum- ber Tariff Bill. But these votes could scarcely be interpreted as signs of) genuine progressivism, as evidence of unrelenting hostility to the employing class interests. Many Republicans and Democrats have voted for and against those measures precisely in the same way as Lafollette did. Yet, no one would on his account call these congressmen and senators progress- ives. worthy of the support of the workers and farmers. Many of those who have voted for the Voman’s Suf- frage Amendment or the Howell-Bark- ley Bill for abolishing the Railroad Labor Board are today ardent ad- ocates of the election of Coolidge or Davis. Progressivism On Wane If we analyze LaFollette’s attitude towards such pressing questions in Congress as the raising of revenue, the regulation of business and the ta- riff, we will find that the Wisconsin Senator has not been fundamentally antagonistic to the corporate interests of the country and has consciously ex- pressed and fought for the needs of the middle and smaller capitalists as against the encroachments of the big- gests capitalist groups. At no time has LaFollete spoken or worked for the laborers as a class against the employers exploiting them. Then LaFollette’s insurgent group in the House has even less cause to speak of its being genuinely progress- ive. We have seen that their leader, John M. Nelson, now LaFollette’s na- tional campaign director, voted for the conscription law. In the feeble effort made to liberalize the rules of pro- cedure in the House and in the half- hearted attempts at shifting the bur- den of honorous taxation from the poor to the rich, the LaFollette pro- gressives acted disgracefully. When LaFollette first entered con- gress he was a regular in every sense of the word. His Senate radicalism, whatever there has been of it, is on . the wane. : In such questions as the restriction of immigration, the giving of more power to our capitalist government to control the movements of workers, or in the matter of Japanese exclusion, LaFollette has not taken a command- ing position to stay the hands of the exploiters in utilizing these occasions to divide and weaken the workers. .Not Against Big Capitalists In debating the various revenue measures preparatory to America’s entering the war Senator LaFollette made it very plain in offering his amendments that he did not relish the idea of considered a foe of the business interests of the land. Thus he declared, on February 28, 1917, in behalf of his own amendments before the U. S. Senate. “These amendments, embodying as they do a complete scheme of raising. revenue without the tax on business and the bond issue, should be voted on bloc.” Continuing to assure the demo- cratic defenders of the big capitalist groups that he was not in fundamental disagreement with them on the basic issues, LaFollette further said: ‘It is in no spirit of partisanship that . I criticize the revenue bill now before the senate but in, the hope and belief that that majority is open to ar- . Zument and will accept amendments to the measure calculated to improve _it without encroaching upon any of - WFelleats th Con the tenets, political or economic, of the majority party.” (C. Rec. p. 4489, Feb., 28, 1917.) : In general, LaFollette represented the interests of the small business class and the small bankers on this all-important questions of revenue- raising. On August 18, 1917, for in- stance, LaFollette voted against a bill to put a tax of one cent on checks, drafts, etc. Senator Simmons, the democratic tax expert, thus explained the opposition to the proposal: “It is stated and stated correctly that there was a protest, I might say quite a jgeneral protest, on the part of the bankers against this tax, but this protest came Wiefly-and especially jfrom the smaller banks.” Fair to Business And on August 19, 1911 La¥Follette, in‘ making a plea to the senate for fairness to ‘business, thundered jagainst the supreme court. on the fol- lowing grounds: “As the law now | stands, as amended by the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court may ex- ercise a power over the business in- terests of the country more despotic than any monarch of the civilized world over his. subjects. “To one corporation it may give approval that the combinations which it has entered into in restraint of trade’ are reasonable. To another corporation it may say that the com- binations which it has entered are unreasonable.” i Further strong interest in the wel- 25 YEARS IN CONGRESS HAS PUT | BRAKES ON LaFOLLETTE BRAND OF RADICALISM iN POLITICAL ARENA N a quarter of a century in Washington, LaFollette has identified himself prominently as an aggressive advocate of only one direct labor law—the Seamen’s Act. The votes and spseches of the Senate on such questions as taxat' plainly that he.is not in fundam interests. LaFollette’s congressional record convicts him of being only a de- fender of the small and middle bankers, businessmen and manufac- turers against the encroachments and industry. LaFollette’s insurgent group examination of the rates on sixty ar- ticles in this law shows that on the whole they were practically identical with the rates on the same articles in the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922. Addressing the House of Represent- atives on May 10th, 1890, in behalf of the McKinley Bill, LaFollette said: “Repeal the protective duties and you have stopped the looms, put out the fires, stunted as with the hand | of death the busy industries of my} state. ... It is to preserve the mar- kets of this country to our own pro- ducers that we have kept the duties) like a breastwork, high enough to pro-} tect the man who is busy adding to! the-sum of its wealth from assault! from any foreign source.” Then in a speech he delivered at} the Schlitz Park Theatre, Milwau-} kee, on September 20, 1900, LaFollette | justified the Amefican declaration of | {war against Spain and the annexation | lot conquered territory. He advocated {the use of American troops to put | | down insurrecfion in the eastern hem- isphere and vigorously assailed all the critics of the administration. At that |time LaFollette was making his first race for governor. - In denouncing the Bryan proposal |to establish a stable government in jthe Philippines and then withdraw, | LaFollette entered into the following jeulogy of American imperialism: “The market which the Philippines will afford the U. S. while amounting to many millions anhually, is unim- Wisconsin Moses in the House and jon, tariff, and foreign policy, show ental opposition to the capitalist of the biggest captains of finance gress has consistently refused to launch spirited attacks on the reactionary stronghéids. .in their surrender to the old guard on the question of liberalizing the rules in the House and in their acceptance of the reactionary Longworth Tax Bill—both in the last session of Congress—the LaFollette lieutenants betrayed . their total lack of genuine progressivism. Whatever little progressivism that LaFollette may have displayed at one time or another in his past, is now steadily disappearing. a | fare of the small manufacturer and manufacturing group on the part of LaFollette is displayed in the follow- ing comment on his amendment to the schedules on wool under considera- tion in the action on the tariff meas- ure before the senate on June 10, 1909: “The great manufacturers have their rights, which should be duly re- garded. I would not disparage the men who are manufacturing under this wool schedule. ... “The position on the carded wool industry is such as to invite the earn- est attention of congress. It is the last branch of the wool industry which is still accessible to the man with moderate capital. With the Amer- ican Woolen Company in control of about sixty percent of the output of American woolen cloth, and with the independent manufacturers of worsted cloth organizing into another combina- tion, the carded wool industry, ac- cords the only chance for the small manufacturer.” _ Similar solicitousness in behalf of the capitalist class was manifested by LaFollette when he voted on October 10, 1921 to provide for free tolls, free transit for American ships thru the Panama Canal. Was Reactionary In Congress ' When LaFollette first entered Con- gress, and during his six years as a member of the House of Represent- atives, he was a “regular” in every sense of the word. LaFollette was a member of the House Ways and Means committee which framed the McKinley Tariff Bill in 1890. An portant in contemplation of the value which will result from the Philippines as a point of distribution from which American products can command trade in the orient. From that point of vantage, with our harbors at Hon- olulu and Tutuila, in: the Samoan groups, for coaling, watering, and re- iring, we will be ready to conquer our, rightful share of that great mar- ket now opening for the world’s com- merce. ... Whatever ensues, under Republican reconstruction of our plain treaty rights we can legally and mo- rally reserve unto ourselves perpetual commercial advantages of priceless value to our foreign trade from time to time.” Champions Capitalist Tariffs. Though LaFollette is today attack- ing the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Law as an iniquitous measure, he has for many years been a high tariff ad- vocate. It is true, the Wisconsin Moses has of late been changing somewhat his attitude on the question of high- est tariff. Yet, on the whole his practice does not indicate a change, even at so late a date as the consider- ation of the Emergency Tariff in Feb- ruary, 1921. In a speech delivered at St. Paml on October 9th, 1909, LaFollette put him- self on record in this fashion: “I am a protectionist...,. I was a member of the committee that made the McKin- ley Tariff Bill,” Working in close co-operation with Dingley and Payne, LaFollette as a member of the Ways and Means Com- mittee in the Fifty-First Congress_ad- vocated a high tariff duty on tin plate By Jay Lovestone in order to build up this industry. The American Tin Plate Company, capi- talized at more than fifty million dol- lars, the Tin Plate Trust, a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corpora- tion, is a monument to LaFollette’s progressivism on the tariff. Then, when the Payne Aldrich Ta- riff Bill was being considered, La- Follette put up an aggressive fight to secure an amendment “to enable the mills now manufacturing print paper in Wisconsin to so adjust themselves with respect to the manufacure of paper not requiring spruce wood, that they could manufacture it economic- ally without changing the location of those plants.” LaFollette has always been a loyal defender of the zinc interests in his state. On June 16th, 1909, LaFollette made a special plea to the senate to lay a duty 6n zine “based on the dif- ference in the cost of production in this country and Mexico ....a pro- tective duty measuring the difference between the cost of production in Mex- ico and in Wisconsin and in Joplin as WH ne Votes for High Tariff. Though LaFollette made a strong plea for a higher duty on zinc than that fixed by the house and a higher duty than that submitted by the sen- ate committee, he asked that he be excused from voting because of his own property interest in zinc. Several years later appearing before the com- mittee conducting hearings on the Maintenance of a Lobby to Influence Legislation, LaFollette made an in- teresting confession explaining why he refused to ote on the higher tariff rates on zinc, and why he spoke for it. He said-in part: “l own an-interest in some zine bearing lands in Southwestern Wis- consin” I ought perhaps to say that when the tariff on zinc was under con- sideration, four years-ago, I felt as one of the Senators representing the state of Wisconsin in which are lo- cated about three counties producing zine and lead that it was my duty to present to the senate the arguments that it seemed to me should be made from their standpoint. While my in- terest in the matter was such that I wanted to be excused from voting on the amendment relating to this subject, I felt that those I represented were entitled to have the argument presented and so I made on the floor of the senate what might be called an argument to influence action upon the question.” (Pages 190-191) Scrutinizing the various votes on the emergency tariff, (H. R. 15275,) we find that the Wisconsin Senator voted to change the tariff on wheat from thirty to forty cents, for two cents per pound on frozen meat, the Smoot amendment for tariff on sugar and molasses, a duty of eight cents per pound on butter and substitutes, and a tariff on condensed milk.” Mr LaFollette is also recorded as voting in favor of the passage of the bill as a whole. True, these rates were not as high as the ones he voted for in the McKinley Bill, yet LaFollette’s* votes indicate that he believes in a tariff to protect the business interests of the country, Progressive Group Shoddy Senator LaFollette is noted for his ability to fillibuster. On several oo casions, in the Senate, LaFollette has held up various measures by his abili- ty to talk the proposals of his cab legues of the opposition to death. Last June LaFollett® had anopportum ity to prevent the Coolidge machine from adjourning Congress without be- ing forced to expose its unwillingness and incompetency to meet the needs and demands of the bankrupt farming masses, But LaFollette refused to exercise his fillibustering skill, which in this instance would have struck a® damaging blow at the reactionaries, Instead he voted for the resolution of Senator Jones of Washington to ad journ, after making several vain efforts to secure a majority vote for his pro- posal to stay in session a few weeks longer. In the consideration of the Tax Bill, (Qontinued on page 10) es te ce! Prt