The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 17, 1924, Page 6

“Page Six THE DAILY WORKER. Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO, 1118 W, Washington Blvd., Chicago, ‘Ill. (Phone: Monroe 4712) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mall: $3.50....6 months $2.00....8 months By mail (in Chicago only): $4.50....6 months $2.50....8 months $6.00 per year $8.00 per year Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER #113 W, Washington Bivd. J, LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE MORITZ J. LOEB..... Chicago, Ilinols {ontmnennemnn EAIOTS Business Manager fntered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1928, at the Post; Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879, SS Advertising rates on application The Miner’s Fate A powerful propaganda document against the ravages of capitalism is what the critical worker will find in the latest annual report of the director of the bureau of mines. Of course, Director H. Foster Bain has not writ- ten the report as an indictment of American capi- talism. In fact he has written it from the point of view of an eloquent defense of the private capitalist ownership and operation of the coal mines. Never- theless there"are certain findings which defy mis- representation and concealment. For the thirteen-year period, 1911 to 1923, the bureau’s records indicate that ‘23,822 miners lost their lives in the bituminous pits. In this period many times this number of mine workers lost their limbs or were otherwise injured. Explosions of gas and coal dust were responsible for 3,185 deaths. It is instructive to note that the government bureau considers that a good portion of the latter deaths could have been avoided if the principle of rock-dusting the mines would have been followed. Of course, the bureau does not dare to point out the why and the wherefore of the em- ployers’ failure to adopt this practice. The bureau does not dare to state that the employers, oper- ating the mines for private profit, would not ex- pend any money for safety measures unless they were absolutely compelled to do so. The bureau does not say that insufficient steps have been taken to force the bosses to prevent accidents of this sort. Mining is perhaps the most hazardous occupa- tion. The dangers confronting the workers in other industries differ only in frequency and perhaps in seriousness. But the cause of these dangers is the same in all industries. The capitalist greed for fabulous dividends is the primary source of the evil. The workers, in self-defense, must organize themselves to rémove this Condition, to abolish the profit-owning system and substitute therefor the collective ownership and operation of the means of production and exchange—the Communist society. When Marder Is.Not Murder The spokesmen abroad of the first Workers’ and ’ Peasants’ Republic, Soviet Russia, the Soviet am- bassadors, are’ meri and ‘women who take their lives in their hands the moment they leave the boundaries of Russia. i The recent attempt on the life of Krassin in Paris recalls the murder of Vorovsky in Switzerland— as cold-blooded a piece of capitalist vengeance as history records. ‘Only the fear of mass outbursts among the workers stands between Soviet am- bassadors and death in every country, nations which boast’ of their ‘civilization and which de- nounce the government of Soviet Russia as a gov- ernment of savages. “We cannot shake hands with murderers,” says the righteous Baldwin, but forgery and murder are commonplaces of British diplomacy every- where. Had the attempt:on Krassin’s life suc- ceeded there would’ have been great rejoicing in Downing street and something said about reaping the harvest, etc: Murder is not murder when a Soviet ambassador is the victim: The workers and peasants of Russia have not’al- Jowed the murder of their spokesmen to go un- noticed. In Moscow, the street on which are all the foreign embassies, has been named Vorovsky. It is an endless reminder to the capitalist diplomats that the workers and peasants remember Vorovsky and those whose hands are stained with his blood. They are not allowed to forget that the Russian workers and “peasants remember. The murder of Soviet ambassadors does not. re- tard the revolution but hastens it. That-is prob- ably why more of them have not met the fate of Vorovsky. Capitalism sees that its assassins bring nearer its own death. The “Friends” of the Farmers One of the most powerful open shop agencies in the country, the United States chamber of com- merce, js again making a pretense at being in- terested in the relief of depressed agriculture. The other day its president and ex-president were closeted for hours with Coolidge in order to help the latter “solve” the farm crisis. First of all, we wonder what happened to all the : _ talk about agricultural prosperity that we heard on the eve of the last election. Apparently the farmers shared very little in the price rise of _ wheat. The suggestions of the United States chamber of commerce for farm relief are instructive and shed welcome light on-the real character of its aims. chamber is prepared to uge lighter farm taxa- =. Everybody knows that this is only being used Rp in their own tax bills, the open shoppers as an excuse for securing a the farmers to continue waiting for the ‘favor- able” play of natural forces. But when the question of the reduction of rail- way freight rates is dealt with, we find that the chamber is one of those deadly enemies that the farmers must destroy in order to avoid total de- gradation. Says the chamber of commerce: “‘We believe that every possible aid should be extended to farm co-operative organizations, EXCEPT that government financial assistance should ‘not be used to displace the tried and proved facilities of established industry.” Here we have’ the pith of the whole question. Big business will see to it that not a cent will be voted by the government for farm relief. Big busi- ness must enforce a niggardly governmental ‘policy towards workers and poor farmers in’ order to avoid the danger of increased tax levies and in order to ensure the existence of a huge fund with which to provide for increased military and naval machines and with which to guarantee the max- imum efficiency for the gigantic strikebreaking apparatus. We have no doubt that the exploited farmers will sooner rather than later join hands with the work- ers in the cities in self-defense and for a united assault against their common enemy—ths railway bosses, the coal magnates, the oil barons and the money kings. The Dawes Era Owen D. Young, the temporary and first agent general of reparation payments, has just been tendered a testimonial dinner by the.elite of the employing class of the ‘United States. In this gathering there were found the leading spokesmen of every battalion of American reaction and capitalist imperialism. Elbert H. Gary, of the life crushing steel trust, represented the extreme right wing and several hand-picked labor lieuten- ants of capital represented the left wing of the guardians of the capitalist institutions. Mr. Young, who is a close business associate of J. P. Morgan, declared that the Dawes plan is leading to a new era. Mr. Young insisted that the Unitéd States adopt a strong farm policy for this new era and that foreign relations should be freed from the “horseplay of domestic politics.” Mr. Young is right. The Dawes plan adoption does mark a new era. It marks the open entry of the American imperialist clique into politico- economic world affairs as the ruling junta, For a few years American capitalists have been the dominating spirit behind the backdrop of inter- national affairs. With the adoption of the Dawes plan American capitalists have become not only the formal receivers of Germany but in fact the virtual receivers of all European capitalism and hence almost of world capitalism. Coincident with the adoption of the Dawes plan there has been developed artificially and otherwise a huge demand for “adequate” naval, aerial and military preparedness. Recent months have seen a rapid increase in the number of admirals and generals mounting the public rostrum” in behalf of increased appropriations and against every force that might in the least attempt to inter- fere with the development of miliarism in the United States. The Dawes era is the period in which American imperialism is openly recognized as the ruling imperialism. It is the era in which Yankee capi- talism is waging a relentless campaign to maintain and intensify its world supremacy. We are now being prepared for Dawes plans, for France, for China and for other countries. The Dawes era is an era of bloody wars. Soviet Russia Goes Ahead The black capitalist press is working at feverish pace painting lurid pictures of chaos and counter- revolution in Soviet Russia. We are being told that the Red Army is shooting down workers, that industry is going to pieces and that the Soviet government is on its last legs. These are tales woven out of the whole cloth. The Chicago Tribune, for instance, now that its correspondents have been banned from Soviet Rus- sia, as plain liars, is purchasing most of its Rus- sian “information” from Scotland Yard agents. The facts are totally different. Soviet Russia is on the upward grade. All the imperialist schemes hatehed by the Baldwin government and whole- heartedly accepted by the Herriot government will prove of no avail to the exploiters in their dastard- ly efforts to undermine the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. siete The official report of the supreme council of na- tional economy just made public by Dzerzhinsky, its president, puts to rout these fraudulent rumors. The annual report on the railway and steel indus- try is instructive. It shows a marked improvement for the country. pelts At the same time the Soviet government has en- tered into a favorable arrangement with Italy re- garding the disposal of Russian petroleum. Soviet engineer's aré making rapid headway in the reedn- struction ‘work of the great Georgian’ military highway which runs from Vladikavkaz to Tiflis and connects Soviet Russia with the ‘Caucasian states. The surplus of exports over imports for ‘the fiscal year ending October 1, 1924, is more than 134 million gold rubles. : ‘The task of Soviet reconstruction is no easy one. The Workers’ and’ Peasants’ Soviet Republic is as much as ever before surrounded by © imperialist enemies. Many of these are not as aggressively hostile today as they were a few yehrs ago simply because the Soviet power has taught them pain- ful and costly lessons, has vanquished or decisively defeated them. . The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics is going ahead. Millions of workers thruout the world are its friends and will stay the murderous hands 4 Gompers---“Social Democrat” - T’S a tale they used to tell in the | days before prohibition. It was in California that I heard it—California when P.. H. McCarthy was still a labor king. “Old Tviet” was working for drink money under the whip of “P. H.,” who in turn was working for the chamber of commerce and hadn’t yet been caught with the ten thousand dollar bribe, They were trying to hang Tom Mooney; the chamber of commerce was, and Hiram Johnson and Arch- bishop Hanna and McCarthy, presi- dent of the Building Trades, together with Tom Finn, the “labor” sheriff, and Brouillet, president of the Labor Council, were greasing the rope for Tom so as to carry out their agree- ment with the traction gang that the stree car men should not be organized. I had been sent to the state con- vention-of the Building Trades by the workers’ defense league to make an attempt to halt the hangmen’s drive. We were in a desperate fix; Mooney was facing the gallows; Gompers and his California agents were holding labor down; a lady socialist leader of California was writing “poison pen” letters telling socoialists to lay off the Mooney case—and among the social- ists only J, EB. Snyder, now a member of our party, and old Gene Debs, who was not yet a red-baiter, could be heard in Mooney’s defense. Gompers, the “Anarchist.” It' was the good old time when whisky capacity (in the open bar, not yet the bootleg joint) was the only talent required of the second and third ranks of labor leaders. All business of the convention was transacted in the saloon of the headquarters hotel. All who wanted the floor of the con- vention had to beg for it, and drink for it, with “Old Tviet,” McCarthy’s fixer. It was there, also, that all the resolutions were written, all the tricks were pulled and all the tales were told. It was there I heard the tale: “Sam Gompers! Hell, god-dammit; Sam? Why Sam’s all right. Give him time, and don’t criticize him, and he’ll get Mooney out. Why, hell, god-damit, you don’t know Sam. I'll tell you a story: I’ve sat and had my drinks right by the side of Sam, and god- dammit, don’t you tell anybody, but Sam, when he drinks, he tells the boys, god-dammit: ‘This is the straight goods, boys—l’m an anar- archist!" Hell. you don’t know Sam; he’s as radical as anybody. only he’s got his own way of doing things. Hell, he says to me when he’s drinking, he says right out that he’s an anarchist. And he is; god-dammit, he’s a real anarchist; he stands for individual freedom and all that,” For those whose acquaintance with Gompers is confined to modern times, this has a strangely incongruous sound. But when it is recalled that the American labor movement a half or three-quarters of a century ago, in which period Gompers began his climb to the saddie, was vastly different from now, and was strongly tinctured here and there with groups to whom the terms “socialist,” “anarchist,” and “revolution” were held dear, this story told by an old-timer, is easily credible. “Old Tviet,” the “radical”—‘“a sort of an anarchist”—steered the conven- tion thru for ‘P. H.,” not succeeding in keeping the subject off the floor, but easing it down so that no action was taken, and the convention broke up, drunk and happy; and Tom Mooney remained in the death cell. The Old Game. So the game was played in_the old days. Sam was secretly, over the drinks, an “anarchist,” “Tviet” was “an anarchist at heart,” “P, H.” ‘was “sympathetic,” Paul Scharrenberg, president of the State Federation of Labor, tiptoed into the jail one night after the death sentence came, to whisper to Tom that he was only “waiting for the proper time to speak out,” and Andy Furuseth made a speech in the Labor Council just in time, not to save Mooney, but to save his own reputation as a “radical.” And only an uproar in faraway Russia snatched Mooney, the strike leader, from the noose, and left him a a lifer’s cell, where he remains, and rots to death. But Sam was “a good anarchist” over the drinks, and a good “demo- crat” at the Civic League, + Gompers, the Social-Democrat. Many a time I have heard yellow socialists in America—and even some naive ‘Communists — express their wonder at the fact that the Commun- ist International, in summing up in- ternational situations, always classi- fled Samuel Gompe among the world’s “social-democrats,” where Sam always thundered against “so- clalism” and socialists... And yet, there is nothing truer than that Samuel Gompers lived and died a “social-democrat.” In a strictly scien tifle historical sense Sam Gompers was—not what the social-democrats call themselves—but what the social- democrats are. It is easier to see this in retro- spect than it was when Sam was alive and speaking. The hands of the clock of Time in even a technical sense brought Sam around, and all the “good narchists” around, and brought the socialists” around, and left them all high and dry in exa tly the spot which History has marked “social democrat.” A curious trony of tf made Sam before he died, stand be- fore the agent of American imperial- ism in Mexico and say; | “Comrade Calles.” It was no accident that placed Hill- quit and Berger and the fallen Debs B. B. Morton it was, that j THE. DAILY WORKER archist”) and Yanofsky (the New York “anarchist”), with “Comrade Gompers” in the same political boat in 1924, The thunder of the great Russian revolution drove them in the same direction (tho Debs and such “anarchists” as Morton hung back for a while), and its lightning, the Com- munist International, flashes upon them now huddled together in the same corral of capitalism. The red baiters, the anti-Bolshe- viks, the defenders of abstract “lib- erty,” the “democrats,” the “anti-so- cialists” and the “socialists” alixe— one and all are the same; the left wing of the bourgeoisie, the last refuge’ against the revolution whose name is “Bolshevism.” History has yritten their collective name: “The social-democrats,” Their brother, Noske, cemented the name with blood. There is obsolutely no generic dif- ference between the part played by the Gompers bureaucracy in America and that played by the “social-demo- cratic” trade union bureaucracy in Europe, And the seeming gap be- tween the American socialist party and the Gompers bureaucracy has now completely closed. Upon Gompers’ tombstone we might write: “Anarchist of the Beer-Hall”; or we might just as truly write: “So- cial-Democrat”; or “democrat”; or “anti-Bolshevik”—it is all the same. Wanted—Another “Sam.” And now there is a search for one to succeed him. What is the nature of this position that is to be filled? Is it a labor leader that is to be found? Was Gom- pers a labor leader? Gompers was.a labor leader only in the sense that a foreman of a sweat- shop is a labor leader. Gompers “led” labor for the benefit and profit of the employers of labor; he led or drove labor almost literally and frankly as a chief agent of the capitalist class within the sphere of “handling” labor. If he spoke for a concession to labor, he had in mind invariably not the maximum that could be done for labor, but the minimum of sops neces- sary for the safety of the capitaust class. If he maneuvered for advan- tages of position, it was always for advantages for his and his bureau- cracy’s position of foremanship over labor. That is not to say that organized labor did not wring from capitalism some temporary gains in the pre-war period when capitalism could still throw out some sops to labor. But Gompers and organized labor were two different things, and Gompers’ role was always that of holding labor down to the lowest position possible. And in the after-war period, when capitalism in its decline can no longer produce its ransome from labor's at- tacks but must openly crush labor or be itself destroyed, Gompers’ role be- came openly the role of deliberate destruction of the labor movement. Gompers, dead, is universally hailed not as a man who won this or that for the working class, but solely as to YOU! In a neat little envelope RUSH! We are mailing it to branch of the Workers and to ever: DAILY WO tains: A_CALENDAR— IMPORTANT DATES— history; INFORMATION— with prices, of course; AMERICA— in all languages, with prices; MEMO BLANKS— TWO SHEETS TO SCORE— A POCKET— OF BUILDERS. We are mailing if High-Speed Tools Enclosed For a Big Construction Job subscriber of the KER and it con- You'll need it to set your meeting; in American and world working class .. on the Workers Party, Young Workers” League, and all their publications; : MEMBERSHIP AND SUB BLANKS— A LIST OF COMMUNIST PAPERS IN for addresses, notes and telephone num- bers—handy at convention time; when a speaker makes a fine point; to carry your union and party cards. the man who fought this or that aspi- ration of labor. Before the war we often saw attacks upon Gompers by the more reactionary stratum of capi- tal as a fomenter of labor trouble. During the war, and more especially after the war, when Gompers’ role became more clearly that of a de- stroyer of the labor. movement, the attacks of the most. reactiomary capi talist organs gradually ceased and blended into a rising hymn of praise. The Counter-Revolutionary Dynasty. For what is Gompers remembered now? The naive capitalist press an- swers loud: “For. Fighting the reds!” In the epoch of the revolutionary rise of the working class to ruling ‘power, Gompers and the Gompers dynasty re- ceive their recognition. In the scramble among his heirs to succeed Gompers,,what are the quali- fications that are offered by the dif- ferent candidates? In the Chicago Tribune of last Sun- day the qualifications pf the candi- dates are summed up painfully well: “All of them have been ardent fol- lowers” of the policies of Gompers who “has practically saved the organ- ized labor movement from falling into the hands of a group of irresponsible radicals led by such men as William Z, Foster and John Johnstone.” John L. Lewis is mentioned, and the qualifications offered for him are but two: That he may. receive the ‘favor of the strikebreaker: Coolidge by appoint- ment to the cabinet, and that “he is the man” who forced our comrade, the Communist William F. Dunne, out of the Portland convention. Tom Rickert is-mentioned, and im- plicit in the recommendation is the one fact: That he destroyed the United Garment Workers as a real organization in 1914 by forcing out the masses of the membership who later became the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. James Duncan is mentioned, for the single reason that he is but a sordid ape of Gompers’ treason. And last, but not least, Matty Woll, the same. The position of head of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor in this after- war period, is by .all pro-capitalist sources universally ‘conceived as hav- ing the sole function of impeding the revolutionary rise of the working class. The last chapter of Gompers’ life is Wednesday, December 17, 1924 By Robert Minor as tho written by the hand of Anatol) France in some piece of historical satyre. For the last act of Gompers was an international act in this now internationalized world and in the in- ternationalized struggle of capitalism: The act of striving to fasten the im- perialist hangman’s noose upon Mex- ico, Morgan, the head of the oli- garchy, was maneuvering to lock the shackles upon Mexico; and the cir- cumstances required as a first move the sending of an enormous “loan” to pave the way for virtual American occupation of ‘Mexico. Yet the men- ace of revolution impeded the way. A rebellious spirit of Mexican labor- ers was the obstacle.... None but a “labor leader” could pave the way. Gompers went to Mexico to fasten upon the Mexican working class the miasmic spell of “Gompersism.” It is now even conceivable that the place for holding the American Federation of Labor convention this year was fixed a year ago in the offices of New York bankers. Y “Comrade” Gompers, standing be- fore “Comrade” Calles, closed a yellow career in the truly international role of a “social-dethocrat.” Oh, Comrade God, if you be, as they claim, a social-democrat—then take “Comrade” Gompers to your bosom; and the red flames of proletarian revo- lution. lick at his shroud as he passes. CHICAGO, ATTENTION! All friendly organizations, T. U. By L. groups, ‘party branches, language federations and Y. W. L. branches! Arrangements have been made for the following major city affairs. Do not arrange conflicting affairs on these days: T. U. E, L. Ball—Wednesday, Dee. 81, West End Women’s Club Hall; Monroe and Ashland. Karl Liebknecht Celebration—Sun- day, January 11, Northwest Wall, corner North and Western Aves. Auspices Y. W. L., Local Chicago. Lenin memorial meeting—Wednes: day, Jan. 21, Ashland Auditorium, Van Buren and Ashland. Workers Party, Local Chicago. * The Red Revel—Saturday, Feb, 28; West End Women’s Club Hall. New York Workers’ School. Register Now—208 E. 12th St. Tickets in Advance, 35¢ SIXTH ANNUAL YULETIDE FESTIVAL Given by UNITED WORKERS SUNDAY SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO WICKER PARK HALL, Sunday, December ‘21, 1924, 3 P. M. Children’s Program, Concert, Theatre During Afternoon DANCING DURING EVENING IN LARGE HALL 2042 W. North Avenue At the door, 50¢ a Person marked: every Party These and other tools to assist in the building of your paper, your party, your union ~—the labor movement; all the tools for a worker in the DAILY WORKER If you don’t get it in a week, be sure to write for it. d when you get it--- Get On The Job! WE ARE GOING TO INSURE THE DAILY WORKER FOR 1925 and to BUILD ON IT! ARMY