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

Page Sta sonra oon tenaraememanmnmnealietsan THE DAILY WORKER. Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO, 1118 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, IL (Phone: Monroe 4712) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail: $3.50....6 months $2.00....8 months: By mai! (in Chicago only): $4.50....6 mohths $6.00 per year $8.00 per year address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY, WORKER 9113 W. Washington Bivd. Chicago, Hlinels $$$ $e J. LOUIS "ENGDAHL WILLIAM F.. DUNNR aditors MORITZ J. LOEB....-cceerrnmsenm Business Manager Entered as seconi-class mall Sept. 21, 1923, at the Post- Office at Chicago, Il, under the act of March 3, 1879. <P 20 Millions for the Boss Press The capitalist préss has ‘several perfectly good reasons for supporting the capitalist system, but one is sufficient and that is the support given the capitalist papers by the big capitalists. The daily papers and the magazines could not exist for one week without subsidies from big business in the form of advertising. " Here is a partial list of the trusts and firms advertising in the newspapers and magazines ‘of this country and their yearly expenditures: Advertising rates on application Advertising Newspapers Magazines American Tobacco Co.... $1,700,000 $ 242,981 Lever Bros. Co. (soap). 1,500,000 664,795 Standard Oli of Indiana. Vietor Talking Machine. Calumet Baking Powder. 1,500,000 1,500,000 “493,810 Dodge Bros. (autos). 1,200,000 United States Rubber ++ 1,100,000 265,250 Punk & Wagnalls (Lit. Dig.) 1,080,000 661 Liggett & Myers Tobacco... 1,000,000 620 Wm. Wrigley (gum)... Corn Products Refining. 900,000 Buick Motor Co... 600,000 441,850 H. J. Heinz Co. (pickle: 600,000 686,734 Goodyear Rubber ... 525,000 531,797 Hart Shaffner & Marx. 500,000 311,550 Colgate & Co... 430,000 1,183,439 Proctor & Gamble (soap » 400,000 1,167,000 Quaker Oats Co..... 400,000 616,620 Chevrolet Motor Car Co. 325,000 595,725 Eastman Kodak Co... 488,130 American Radiator C 431,220 It is surprising that the capitalist press should kill news unfavorable to the capitalists, distort the news to favor its clients and carry on a per- sistent propaganda against the working class movement? Is it surprising that the capitalist press should malign, slander and lie about Soviet Russia, the only workers’ government in the world, the only government that is laying the foundation for a social order that will consign the reptile press to the limbo of the past? It is not surprising. The capitalist press sup- ports the system of. which it is a part. It supports its supporters. The DAILY WORKER is as partial to the working. class as the capitalist press*is/to big business and the exploiting classes in gen- eral. The DAILY WORKER is not subsidized by advertising. Only a few sympathizers at best will advertise in a revolutionary paper. The main sup- port of our Daily must come from the workers, the class for which it:fights.:'We call on “the -work-}. "ers to subsidize their own paper. Let your slogan be, “Insure the DAILY WORK- ER foy\25!” oye ° Specialists in Bunk Practically every up-to-date capitalist concern in the United States has one or more specialists whose duty it is to devise ways and means of con- vincing the employes of those concerns that their | interests are identical with those of their masters. Sometimes this task is performed by the labor fakers much more effectively than it could be done by a paid hireling outside of the ranks of organ- ized labor. The object is the same: an attempt to substitute class collaboration for the class struggle. A certain William H. Leiserson, arbiter for. the associated clothing industries, recently delivered a lecture under the auspices of the Chicago branch of that den of stoolpigeons, the Young Men’s Christian Association, on “The Way to Industrial Peace.” He gave his scheme the grandiose title of “Citizenship in Industry” and declared that it was even an im- provement on Henry Ford’s “good will” rhecey, ‘of Tabor relations. 5 ‘The speaker declared the “labor is no longer a commodity” and that the bad old days when the employers bought his labor power for as Jow as ‘he could pay for it, were no more. The late ‘Samuel’ Gompers peddied the same kind of hope. He held that because a provision of the Clayton Act declared that labor was not a commodity, it simply was not, This is pernicious horisense. $2.50....3 months | Battleships and the Balkans We were right the other day when we referred to the “unstable Balkans.” There are all the making of a first class war in the scrap between Italy and Jugo-Slavia over the | Albanian uprising and now Britain sends battle- | ships to “protect British interests.” What these }interests are is not stated, but as always they are | undoubtedly a continuation of the historical policy of British imperialism—a consolidation of the |warring forces against Britain’s most dangerous enemy which in this case is Soviet Russia. The war pot boils in Europe more noisily than lever. The tension increases in geometrical propor- tion as imperialist rivalries and avarices in | Morocco, Egypt and the Balkans force their way to the surface and strain the resources of the | diplomats. Austen Chamberlain, the imperialist spokesman, has just made a tour of the European capitals on an anti-Soviet Russia crusade. He was supposed to have persuaded the great powers to sink their differences until, some measure of ' stabilization could be had in shaking Europe, but he is like a man who tries to put out fire with kerosene. The explosive ingredients of which Europe is composed today, make it more and more difficult to bring a semblance of peace altho the spectre of Communism drives each national ambition into the arms of its hated rival for a while. British battleships and the Balkans are‘a good fuse for' the gigantic’ bomb’ that is Europe. The “Backbone of the Nation” The‘ utter servility of the middle: class ‘is: dis- dosed by a flood of letters to:the ‘Chicago’ Tribune protesting criticisms of Samuel Insull ‘chairman of the board of the Chicago Rapid Transit com- pany madé recently ‘by a contributor to the “Voice of! thé People” -department:of ‘The Tribune. Chicago has’ the worst transportation of any tity of its size in the world. Chicagoans pay seven cents fare for surface car service’ that forces them to spend ten pers cent of their waking hours on Insull’s cars. i Yet a mild complaint voiced by a timid but over- burdened middle-class soul brings an army of de- fenders who all sign their names to their letters so that the great Insull may recognize them, and appreciate their sterling worth. This is the class that the capitalist press always refers to as the “backbone of the nation.” This may be its anatomical function in the national or- ganism, but if this is true the national backbone has the “same stiffness as a piece of boiled spagh- etti. ’ THE “DAVY MWeoR K The Class Struggle in Germany - YY the time these lines are printed the German will be over, the second parliamentary “stabilization” act in Hurope will have been finished, the social democ- racy will be revelling in orgies of jubilation over the “triumph of rea- son,” the “deliverance of the repub- lic,” the victory of “black—red and gold,” and. the “defeat of Commun- ism.” Why? What is it all about? What is going on in Germany, in Europe? October—May—December. N Europe things are happening at a dizzy rate. The pélitical atmos- phere compels one to breathe fast— or be choked. Every month is a month of history, every week a les- son in political economy, every day, an episode of- open, brutal, cynical class struggle. This is particularly the case in Germany. There is hardly a worker, no matter of what politica’ creed, no matter how brutally exploit- ed, who does not carry with him an unwritten historical chronicle, with certain dates of years and month: standing out in blood-red. Most o: these unwritten chronicles begin t: date from 1914. Up to 1914 every- thing is blurred, vague as in a trance UT from 1914 on things, persons, events begin to assume definit: shape, become three-dimensional: Au- gust 1914, November 1917; November 1918; March 1921; October 1923; May 1924; December 1924. _ Poincare Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Baldwin MacDonald, Ebert, Schiedemann, Hind- enburg, Ludendorff, Noske, Herriot, Foche, Nollet, Wilson, Hoover, Dawes, Morgan—every one of these men has played or plays a real part in the life and struggles of the Gearman work- ers, and they stand out in bold red letters in that peculiar memory of the masses, called class consciousness. CTOBER, 1923. There are some German comrades who say half- jestingly that the German revolution will have to be set for a month other than October; October rouses in the German working class a feeling of dis- appointment, a certain sense of weak- ness and shame. There is a real dan- ger in this feeling of weakness for it leads to a chronic underrating of our own strength, of our ability to fight and crush the bourgeoisie. The Ger- man proletariat has had to listen too often to the banality that its revolu-/ tion of 1918 was really no revolution. ESIDES, the Russian revolution ir The Instill incident is an indication that big capital in America is in no immediate danger from a middle-class revolt with Chicago as its center. An Illinois state senator says: “If there is any- thing that can be done to help settle the renting situation which may prove fair to both landlord and tenant in the way of legislation at Springfield, I am for’ it.” This bold and revolutionary utterance will doubt- fess terrify the rent hogs and places the fearless senator definitely in the left wing of ie par- ban wheberioge The Soviet government has allocated '400,000 acres ‘of land in the Volga and Caucasus regions for settlement by Russian workers returning from the United States'and Canada. Evidently . the ‘Communist ‘government of Russia: pays attention to something’ else besides chopping off the heads of thosé who do not agree with them, as. the capi- pu Lead Fag us to understand. ‘It was rather} thoughtless of Rykoff 20: turn the gun on’ the barracks in which his friend Stalin was imprisoned, after the former had demanded the surrender of the garrison. You may have read this in the capitalist press. It was born‘in)Berlin ‘and looks rather illegitimaté, But it will not be the last of the brood. | In the early days of the Bolshevik revolution, whenever Trotsky disagreed with Lenin ‘ever gov- ‘ernment ‘poli¢y, the capitalist liars’ had ‘thé ‘two leaders arrest’ and sometimes assassinate each} rther. We may expect Trotsky and Zinoviev to while away the hours in such innocent pastime spree | ‘the ‘present illness of Trotsky. Dispatches tell of crowds in Spain ‘hailing a miracle in the shape of the preservation of the body for four hundred years of an alleged saint. Spain must be a land of miracles. Nothing’ else ‘could explain the fact that they can still get Spaniards to enlist for the Moroccan war. f Mrs. Calvin Coolidge received the degree of is so near, so intimate an event to the German worker that he invol- untarily begins to compare: Russia— Germany. “There, power is in the hands of my class comrades—here in the hands of the class enemy; there, every hour, minute, second of every worker’s labor is being used to build up his own, the workers’ status— here, I work and slave for my oppres- sors, for the German and foreign bank- ers; there, the workers are celebrat- ing the seventh anniversary of that great event—here, Noske and Scheid- mann and Kautsky are celebrating the To the DAILY Wol WORKER: Among the latest “reforms” promulgated by the capitalist class is that of Professor John H. Commons of the University of Wisconsin, in which is embodied a disguised scheme to entrench and thus perpetuate class exploitation under the present system of wage slavery. The proposed law, of the well-known “Wisconsin idea” type, proposes to have employers pay the unemployed worker a part of his wage- loss during plant shut-down and lay- off unemployment-periods. It is simi- lar to other “reform” measures now in effect, such as the better-known industrial accidents compensation laws. The writer opposes such innovations in America. I have always contended that unemployment is a most essen- tial phase in the social revolution. As a bait to unthinking bosses, unemploy- ment entices them to intensify the misery and want of the proletariat by expropriating the gains made in good times—to slash wages, increase hours ‘and speed, and “discipline” his wage slaves. By this practice the capitalists are voting themselves into extinction. The movement for the ultimate victory of the revolutionary proletariat is dependent upon the natural class struggle devglopment. This struggle is intensified by unem- ployment; after all, revolution brews reichstag elections) jto the ER sixth anniversarry of treachery, white terror, enslavement.” And _ this thought weighs heavily on his consci- ousness and creates a sort of self-re- pression which is dangerous and diffi- cult to overcome, UT revolutions are not made or crushed by Freudian analyses. History and its compelling economic laws are on our side. The machine ¢ capitalism is out of gear; a sixth of the earth’s surface has been cut out of the “spheres of influence” of world- imperialism; capitalism cannot feed or shelter its slaves; the slaves; ‘col- onial and wage, are rebelling; the class struggle is become a reality even complacent, self-satisfied, stupid and characterless petty-bour- geoisie, which always believed that “everything that is alright and for the best.” N October 1923 “it nearly happened.” The German bourgeoisie was more than nervous; it was hysterical; it didn’t know what to do, or what the | next day would bring. The French general staff was preparing to repay the kindness Bismarck had shown to} Thiers in crusing the Paris Commune, by helping General Seckt crush the German Commune if it dared raise its head; the whole capitalist world was nervous with expectation. But “Oc- tober” did not come. We need not go into an analyses of the whys and wherefores; fatal errors in leadership lack of initiative, resoluteness, daring cunning; perhaps lack of prepared- ness—ideological as well as military. HE lesson was bitter but great. The German party began ‘to take ideological stock, of itself, changed its leadership, and began to think and act in terms of November. . In May of this year it mobilized nearly four million voters at the polls. The mass character of the German party was definitely established. Almost daily, 62 Communists representin; the revolutionary proletariat of Ger- many could tell the representatives of the German bourgeoisie’ and their lackeys, the social-democrats: “We came here to bury the republic not to praise it.” This the bourgeoisie and especially the social-democrats could not stomach. Bourgeois parliaments were not made to be forums of the revolutionary working masses. 'HE contradiction is too great, too crying. How can the 100 odd so- cial-democrats bear a daily reminder that they are demagogues, traitors to the working class, lackeys to the bour- geoisie! Imagine if you can, dear comrade, that you are a social-demo- cratic member of the reichstag; im- agine further that a Communist member mounts the platform and reads from a document the following words: “,.. We are doing what we have al- ways emphasized: We shall not de- sert our vaterland in the hour of need.” (Declaration of the S. D. reich- stag faction on August 4, 1914. Or “Those who talk peace must shut up! The final word shall be by far more vicious and demoralizing to natural elass development, It will make capitalist rule bearable to the unthinking proletariat interested merely in bread, and stem natural edu- cational developments. Further, ‘it will bring “capital and labor together,” as the latter concedes to the capital- ists’ industrial peace terms, It will unharness the workers’ reserves’ of productive energies, now restriced as he endeavors to increase his share of the products of his toil. The net re- sult, then, is to increase the “har- mony,” “efficiency,” speed, and profits —while the capitalists give but a small percentage of the wages lost during unemployment caused by over-produc- tion, In short, any legislation endeavor- ing to compensate for unemployment, should be opposed here for this reason. It stagnates the natural progress for the reconstruction of society and in- creases the difficulty of the organiza tion of educational and social revolu- tionary groups.—J. L. “ss @ Reply to J. L.’s Letter, To the DAILY WORKER: J, L. in his letter stats that unemployment insurance should be opposed by all Communists, on the ground that 1 decreases the misery of the unem- ployed workers, and so stagnates revo- lutionary development. The theory on which he proceeds is that the increas- spoken ‘by the cannon.” October 1918.) Or: “Vielhundert Tote in einer Reih—Proletraier. “Karl, Ro: Radek und Kumpanei —Es ist keiner dabei, es ist keiner dabie, Proletarier.” (Vorwarts, eat 14, 1919)"* The next day, Jan. 15, Rosa Luxem- burg and Karl’ Liebknecht were mur dered. ‘HE Communists had to be silenced for another reason—the most im- portant reason: The Dawes plan was being foisted on the German prole tariat; the whole bourgeoisie and the social democracy hailed the “rising dollar-sun”’ (so the Vorwarts calls the Dawes plan), as a new era of peace and prosperity. The 8-hour day was abandoned, wages reduced, rebellious workers ‘victimized; lockouts became (Vorwarts, crushed by. all ‘means—or else the colonization of Germany would fail jand the attempt to enslave the Ger- man workers might\be frustrated; the |revolution would then ‘take on flesh once more, — EICHSTAG was therefore dissolv- ed. With what: hopes?. In ‘the hope that'in the: interim*the C. P. would be crushed anda. vital Dawes- reichstag elected... How-was the C. P. to be crushed? -was it to be forbidden and. outlawed as before the May elec- tions? No. The bourgeoisie has, also learned: a. Jesson or two. from ‘the prac- tice of the ‘class struggle. They saw that in spite. of the illegality of the party in the previous elections, 4,000,- 000 workers had’ voted for us. We had regained a strong position in the shops and factories. HE shops and factories are the blood:vesgels of the. revolution. If we are strong there—we are un- conquerable. . The bourgeoisie know this well. ‘New. methods of persecu- tion were therefore adopted. ‘The party remains “legal;” but here are some features of this legality: (a) the 8,000 political prisoners in Ger- many are almost without exception leading functionaries of the C. P.; (b) Another 8 or 10,000 active Com- munists “compelled to live away from home so that their party work is crippléd;-(c) thru systematic confiscation of our posters, leaflets, and pamphlets: and thru the arrest of whole meetings . (literally: WHOLE MEETINGS) by the D. chiefs of ‘police (Richter and Sever. ing) the unorganized and “non-par- tisan” masses are kept away from us and cannot be reached by our Propaganda; (d) there are hundreds of local groups of the C. P. with not a_single party member “employed, all of them=have been: thrown -out of work because’ they” we Commun- ists, N some places whole districts re- port-only 30 per. cent of their mem- *Hundreds of dead in a’ row—Prole- tarians, Karl, Rosa, Radek and, com- pany are not among them, not among them—Proletarians. » re causes the class ‘struggle to loom for- ward as the workers stubhornly resist the encroachments’ on their establish- ed status. It is the instability of the modern capitalist sdciety that accen- tuates the class struggle: the continu ous fluctuation’ in the workers’ ‘stand- ards, owing to ‘the’ econ sips instabil- ity of capitalism. ~~ - True, the volume of ‘revolutionary sentiment is’ increased by unemploy- ment, but the revolutionary “working class cannot profit’ from | unemploy- ment accompanied by. extreme misery and starvation. Both of these condi- tions are inheren factors in capital- ism, and increase as it declines. There is no bogs a then, why Com- munists ‘sh jd advocate. submission to extreme Quite the con- trary. Such conditions would only de- lay the final downfall of ‘capitalism, and . besides, would furnish every agent of the capitalist class with a powerful ideolo; : bat Commu by. pointing” we only regard the unem the order ofthe day, strikes had to be | was Tuesday, December 23, 1924 By Isidore Stoler bership employed; to be a Co I ist, or even an active trade unionis’ means the sack, starvation, demoral- ization. T is under such odds that the C. P. of Germany is fighting on. Small wonder then that we expect to lose votes and parliamentary .seats. But we are not parliamentary fetishists. The S. D. fight among themselves over every seat; to them it means bread and butter, perhaps even champagne and a villa. To us the number of votes is'a barometer of our strength, and a seat in parliament a chance to/make our voice heard from the parliament- ary forum. If we receive only two million votes in the December elec- tions, the best proof will have been furnished that the German C, P.\isg mass party, which cannot be crushed: Considering the white terror it will |be a wonder if we do get ieee votes. N the meanwhile the Geriniy, Pa } democratic party is fast developing | into. an open counter-revolutionary or- \ganization whose highest aim it is: to detay the inevitable (they know they jcannot prevent it), to shield the bour- geoisie against the revolution, andto Poison the masses with hatred ahd fear of the class struggle and: of revolution.’ With the help of that half. fascist organization “Schwarz-Rot. Gold,” the S..D. work hand in han with the bourgeois parties “to protect, the republic” and to crush the. Agnting spirit of the proletariat. HERE is not a lie too mean:to launched against Soviet. Russia fin this they work hand in hand with Kerensky who is in Berlin); in the Amsterdam International, it is the German reformists who form the most bitter opposition to establishing the ynity of the international trade union movement; they even dare to slander the British delegates at the Russian T. U. congress, and call them larsiand traitors because they are hondit enotigh to call red red, and yellow. N the German trade unions under their control they have instituted’. real terror a la John Lewis (or lige’ Lewis learned from them?) agaiust Communists and against every pro- gressive; they are even enough to praise and comasendeialis Hungarian social democrats for expel: ling the opposition from the trade. un- ions, because it dares open its mouth against the bloody, Horthy regime; their chief of police in Berlin, Riéhter, has even dared to arrest Egyptian ma tionalists here for protesting against British bloody imperialism. And ‘so on, and so on. The crimes of the ee against the working class are numerous to be exhausted in an-é cle. UT ‘it is their turn next. Pa know and fear more than the pope fears the devil. That exp! their treachery. Who said we Com: munists don’t believe in a day « <a judgment? Unemployment Intensifies the Struggle of his wages to tide him over to the next “prosperity” period. But the de- cline of capitalism carries with it the faci that it cannot at the same time maintain its ruling class and insure the sustenance of the workers. real scheme of unemployment insur: ance, under @ capitalist management then, is impossible, because if it pro- vides sufficiently for the workers,’ if will eliminate the capitalist. P| Commons’ plan, therefore, is chi- merical, as any plan must be that- assumes capitalism capable of gi the workers any adequate suste! His plan is also absurd in that tte burden he places on the shoulders .of- the capitalists is but a minute fraction~ of the real cost of unemployment te- the workers. By engaging in the struggle for Hef-of the unemployed, whether : the state or from the employers them ~ selves, Communists can direct the- -|struggle of the masges against the power-of their class enemy. It ii : aim of Communists to blend the mediate needs of the workers ‘with: the ultimate goal of ieee. 2 W. K. The proletariat under. capitalism still sell their labor power; ‘their*only*property, on’ the market. This ability to produce surplus values for the boss is subject to. the Jaw-ef: supply and demand like any other ‘commodity, except insofar as the economic organizations.of the workers modify. this law. This status. of Jabor will exist as long as capitalism exists, ‘Only*whenthat system is over- thrown andthe workers become the ruling class will the commodity status of labor power us i changed. hi, This Pollyanna bunk put out, by claquers of the capitalist class-will not fool the ‘well informed class conscious worker, He knows’quite well that only when labor is well ‘organized on the industrial field in industrial unions, which give his class the maximum of industrial power, and on the political field under the banner of a revolutionary party, j the Workers (Communist) Party, are the workers f on the high road leading to freedom from the : chains of wage slavery. in the empty stomach of the down- trodden. In periods of no work the proletariat has an opportunity to think; the revolutionary ideology of Communiim penetrates his mind in in- delible terms. The leadership of Com- munism rises as the inevitable col- lapse draws near. Make Capitalism Bearable. . In the sequence of events this eco: nomic condition, while immediately profitable to the capitalists, ulti- mately, as Marx has so ably put it, “digs capitalism's graye.” Certain at- tempts are made to check this natural tendency. The inc! attraction of Communism during unemployment is well recognized by the bourgeois, and “Red raids” are instituted in grand publicity fashion to t the pro letariat and to frighten Communist standard. — ing misery and starvation accompany- ing present-day unemployment, be- cause they will hasten the social revo- lution, should not be directly combat- ted by revolutionists. Misery Makes for Apathy. This philosophy of misery, as ex- pounded by the wfiter of the letter is erroneous. While hunger makes for q struggle, abject misery and starva- tion make for inertia and apathy. This has been repeatedly proved by the history of class movements. Chronic tamine-ridden masses, as are found in India and China, do not lead the revolutionary struggle. The lead- ers are, rather, those classes whose living standards have advanced with the capitalist mode of production in its advanced stage, and who, in the present historical decline of capital- ism, find their standards lowered dur- doctor of laws from Boston university. She once taught the sign language in a deaf and dumb school. Her husband was not one of her pupils, but she could teach him nothing in the dumb line. aly the "a ankury capital regi \s ‘reflected in figures the Government.’ Ri sy.verd sh that In the last four Chancellor Marx of Germany has failed to form a cabinet. This kind of a thing does not please the capitalists at all. They would like a dictatorship, but if they attempt to-get the one they want, they may get the opposite. actual was as.follows: 192021, 1921-22 Even the New York Nation is getting disap- pointed with Premier Herriot of France. Another idol shattered! Who will be next to dangle the carrot of hope before the easily gulled liberal donkey? Vincente Blasco Ibanez, perhaps! ad progress reasing foreign trade. The U, 8, ‘the first nine months of 1924 Russia Lady, Astor admits she likes gin and rum, This frankness on the part of a vociferous temperance advocate is astonishing, unless she was rather rummy when she made the admission. y wee = intatammamneserccmnmmer sane