The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 24, 1924, Page 6

Ee ana ame lA eae ate Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1118 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, IL (Phone: Monroe 4712) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mall: $3.50...6 months $2.00...8 months By mail (in Chicago only): Bs $4.50....6° months $2.50....3 months §6.00 per year $8.00 per year Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1113 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago, Illinois J, LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F, DUNNE MORITZ J. LOEB... cossmacesemesseerssonsensesevsss OG ItOPS. we Business Manager <p 290 Advertising rates on application The Struggle in the Anthracite The news of strike action contemplated by the 10,000 miners employed by the Lehigh Coal»com- pany in the anthracite district in sympathy with the striking miners of the 10 locals whose charters have been revoked by John L. Lewis, shows that the discontent with the Lewis-Cappellini policy of Supporting the coal operators against the mem- bers of the union is growing. The efforts of the executive board members of the United Mine Work- ers to close the breach between Cappellini and the miners whom he has betrayed all thru the year seem to have failed and the downfall of Cappellini is now a matter of time. There is little doubt that Lewis is quite willing to let Cappellini hang himself. He has lost control of his district and it was this control that made him valuable to Lewis. When he fails to deliver and Lewis is put to the desperate method of re- yoking charters to prevent a landslide against him as in the recent election, it can be presumed that Cappellini, caught between a revolting membership on one side and on the other the vengeance of the officialdom, to whom he sold himself, is not going to last long. In this game of internal union politics the an- thracite coal diggers serve simply as pawns for the corrupt leaders who play fast and loose with their wages, working conditions and their very lives. The Lewis administration will try to provoke the miners into some form of dual unionism and then ultimately drive them back into the United Mine Workers, after the miners are demoralized on terms made by the officials. The miners must not fall for this. The ex- pelled members must maintain their organization and fight for reinstatement as a'unit. If they allow themselves to be demoralized by the administra- tion stoolpigeons they simply play into the hands of the operators and Lewis. The expelled anthracite miners and their fellow- workers who want to strike in sympathy with them have a real issue on which to fight. They have the proof that violations of the working agreement haye been continuously overlooked by the officials and that the agreement has been revised from time to time in favor of the-operators. They must have organization to carry on their fight against the Lewis machine and they must build a left wing group that wages the struggle the year around and not only in times of crisis like the present. The Progressive Miners and their program fur- nishes the rallying center for such a movement. This left wing organization has put up a splendid fight in the recent campaign in the union and the anthracite miners should now join with their fel- low workers in the soft coal fields and add strength to the growing movement for a union that fights for the rank and file instead of for the operators. The membership organized around the Progres- sive Miners, can make the U. M. W. of A. some- thing more than an incubator. for secretaries of labor in strikebreaking governments. “Peace” Plans—Their Meaning The dove of peace, with feathers somewhat soiled from flights thru Egypt, Morocco, the: Bal- kans and the Far East, is hovering over the capi- tals of the imperialist nations—if we swallow whole the recent bulletins from Washington, Down- ing Street, Paris and Tokio. Messrs. Coolidge and Hughes breathe the sweet- est sentiments for Great Britain and Japan and the spokesmen of these natiéns come back with all the alacrity displayed by the snappy end of a vandeville team. This is what it is, vandeville—played on the big- gest stage in the world—this love-thy-neighbor-as- jcommitted to an alliance with Great Britain ‘is | ters and all we know is that the deepening an- |tagonisms of trade and imperialistic enterprise @ntered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1923, at the Post- | exi Office at Chicago, Ll, under the act of March 3 1879. | 4 | water” bunk and that the eastern peoples have thyself stuff that the mouthpieces of imperialism get off their chests these days. On the same day that Coolidge announced that Great Britain would be entrusted with “our” in- terests in the Pacifie and on the same day that Baron Hayashi repudiated war rumors and ex- pressed the greatest friendship and admiration for the United States, eame the news of an appropria- tion $300,000,000 for “our” navy. There are certain other factors, having on the surface little connection with the above facts, but nevertheless part of a new maneuver of world capi- talism. Austen Chamberlain, British foreign min- ister, has made a tour of the European capitals and from Paris to Rome he left-a trail of con- spiracy against Soviet, Russia. It was after his visit to Paris that Herriot issued his blast against Soviet Russia and the French Communist Party, It was after Chamberlain’s visit to the Vatican that the pope issued his denunciation of Soviet Rus- sia and Communism, . In the United States the wife of Cyril, claimant to the throne of the czars, has been received with royal honors and afforded the protection of the secret service department. The foreign minister of Assent Jugo-Slavia has arrived in Paris with a plan for an all-Balkan bloc against Soviet Russia. Let us look for the cause of all this hustle and bustle in the dark places of world capitalism. We\y find it in China where the Soviet diplomacy, ap- proaching the masses of the Chinese people as an equal, has solidified all the warring factions against western imperialism, where the Chinese eastern railway, the great artery uniting China and Siberia, is now operated by Soviet Russia with Chinese consent. To what exetent the American ruling class is hard to say. Our rulers are taciturn on these mat- ting between America and Great Britain are sguised with the usual “blood is thicker than turned to Soviet Russia as their friend and ally and left Great Britain and America, France as well, out in the cold. Japan is not displeased en- tirely with this state of affairs and can afford to smile benignly upon its erstwhile rivals for Chinese hegemony who are in a little worse fix than she is. The dove of peace, therefore, is an imperialist dove. There has been no dulling of the rivalry be- tween Great Britain and America or Great Britain and France, but the robber clique is willing, if THE DAILY WORKER The Red International Affillation Committee, which is interested in assisting the revolutionary element in the Industrial Workers of the World, has issued a statement re- garding the election and referendum ballot now in the field for action by the membership. The statement is as follows: see To the members of the I. W. W.: Fellow Workers: We have before us the referendum ballot submitted by the general ad- ministration appointed by the six- teenth general convention for the elec- tion of a general secretary-treasurer, perhaps other officers, and decision on proposed constitutional changes and other matters. On the 25th day of the convention, the following were nominated for gen- eral secretary-treasurer: Ed Delaney, 18 votes; J, I. Turner, 11 votes; Ar- thur Coleman, 10 votes; James P. Thompson, 10 votes; Joe Doyle, 6 votes, and Charles Selleman, 1 vote, The convention took a special vote to break the tie between Coleman and Thompson and gave third place to able, to unite for the time being against the new great proletarian power—Soviet Russia. The inspired dispatches telling of uprisings in Soviet Russia, of dissensions within the Russian Communist Party, the worked-over tales of disease, famine and death coming from Helsingfors, Riga, Warsaw, Vienna and Belgrade—are all part of this ‘new attempt to weaken Soviet Russia and to wipe out national antagonisms long enough to con- centrate on the destruction of .the workers’ and peasants’ republic of Russia. World capitalism plays with fire. Any offensive against Soviet Russia leaves in the rear of ‘capital- ism a working class that at once becomes an enemy of its rulers and hostile to their plans. The masses of workers may not understand just what Soviet Russia represents in their struggles and the major part it plays in their behalf, but they know that it is hated by world capitalism, they know that it does not fight the workers and they cannot be mobilized for a major war that an attack on Rus- sia, would precipitate. Let us watch the “peace” moves of the Coolidges and Chamberlains and Herriots and not‘be fooled by a sudden apparent conversion to the gospel of light and love designed to give the working class of the world a false and dangerous sense of security. Coleman, The constitution of the I. W. W. states: (Art. III, Sec. 3-a) “The Gen- eral Secretary-Treasurer, the Assist- ant Secretary, and the General Organ- izer . . . shall be nominated from the floor of the convention and the three candidates for each respective office receiving the largest number of votes in the convention shall be sub- mitted to the general membership of the organization for election; the one receiving the greatest number of votes for each respective office to be declar- ed elected.” Why Only Two? In spite of this, the referendum bal- lot carries the names of Turner and Coleman alone, and there has been no announcement that the other nomi- nees have declined, or why they did so. There seems to be some mystery about this, which may be solved by the suggestion that those who made up the ballot did not want the vote split between two supposed friends of Rowan as against one supposed ene- my ‘of Rowan. The Red International affiliation committee does not endorse either Turner or Coleman, because it knows only by rumor what they stand for. But we call upon each one of them to declare himself in a public, signed statement, just where he stands in The German Communists Win A commission of allied ambassadors is to notify the German government that the expected with- drawal of French and English troops will not be carried out and another betrayal of the social- democrats is brought vividly to the attention of the German masses whom they eajoled into an endorsement fo the Dawes plan in the recent elec- tions. Painful yelps arise now from the social-demo- cratic press. They are loud in their denunciation of the allies who, say the Eberts and Scheidemanns, “have violated the Dawes plan.” This is about the poorest excuse that these yellow windbags could have thought of because the essence of the Dawes plan is the enslavement of the German working class. Methods do not matter. The allied imperialists had promised the evacua- tion of troops if the German people gave the in- coming government a mandate for the Dawes plan. The social democrats painted a picture of peace and prosperity that was to come to Germany as a result of the generosity of the House of Morgan and they deceived millions of workers who were weary of the struggle. Only the Communists fought the Dawes plan in a revolutionary manner. They rolled up some 3,500,000 votes for their program in the face of the worst persecution ever seen in Germany, with all their best speakers and writers in jail and with warrants issued for all Communist members of the reichstag. Whatever Austen Chamberlain, British foreign the struggle over principles which the last convention did not settle. or even put into form so that the membership could settle, Candidates Must Speak Up. the referendum following (See article III, Sec, 1-a-b, Sec. 2, Sec. 3-a and b). An Example of Confusion. One would expect in a referendum ballot to find this clearly indicated and a general, internally coherent sub- stitute for the whole provided, thus minimizing the possibility of internal conflicts resulting from the adoption of only'a part of the provision for a return to the old order, This was not done, The provisions for a return to the old style of the G. E. B. are contained in eight separate questions on the referendum ballot, numbered 12 to 19. inclusive, each a substitute for some single part of the present constitu tion. except for questions No. 18 and No. 19, which provide new features, The result is that if “12” is carried and “15” is not, there will be a con- siderable conflict, for “15” repeals a section which provides for a general organizer and an assistant secretary, and “13” excludes these officials from the general administration! The same is true for No. 17. If.No.| 12 and No. 15 are carried, and No. 16 or No, 17 is voted down, a Philadel- phia lawyer will be required to tell just what will happen, for No. 15 says: “Shall Art. Ill, Sect. 8 (a) and (b) be stricken out, and the follow- ing substitutes adopted?” This is voted on, “Yes” or “No,” and then the substitutes are made in Nos. 16 and 17 into separate questions, each of which is to be voted upon, “Yes” or “No”! There are numerous others which we will not deal with for lack of space. A Heritage of Socialist Rubbish. This social democratic theory that manifold ballots and many refer- endums can take the place of leader- ship, courage and revolutionary theory has resulted in “democracy” only for a small minority and shut off genuine membership rule. True democracy demands central- ization and leadership, responsible leadership. It demands that members have an opportunity thoroly to dis- cuss every important problem that faces the organjzation both in press and in meetings. It demands that general policies be thrashed out in this manner, voted upon only after being understood, and experienced, able and revolutionary officials elected and held responsible for carrying them out in detail. For Real Conventions. Instead of long and fruitless con- ventions, such as the 25-day one just endured, composed of timid and color- less members chosen like jurymen be- cause they have no opinion or. ex- perience, unwilling to take a stand and unable to frame their suggestions The entire membership has a right] 'ntelligently, we should have large, to know how each candidate stands: |epresentative conventions made up (1) For or against the “injunction-/of delegates from every branch— ites”; (2) For an I. W. W. based on|especially job branches—with full the revolutionary class struggle or for | power to act decisively on major mat- a non-revolutionary job union; (3)/|ters. On questions that have been For hall-cat, anarchist decentraliza-|thoroly discussed, these delegates tion or democratice centralization | would stand instructed, and business based on job committees; (4) For/be thus greatly expedited and really building the I. W. W. by organization | settled. of the 2,000,000 unorganized, or by} of the 78 questions submitted only withdrawing revolutionary workers)9 have importance vital enough to from and splitting up existing unions; |consider. The R. I. A. C. has con- (5) For or against afilliation to the Red | sidered these 9 questions very care- International of Labor Unions, and/fully. The others are unimportant or why; (6) Will they act legally but | trivial, two referring to clauses of the with resolution against the split movement developing in California and the northwest; (7) Will they en- force obedience to the order of gen- eral administration by the Industrial Worker or take it over; (8) Will they open organization papers which ac- tually reach the members to discus- sion on policies. or will they continue the present censorship? When the candidates have taken a stand on these vital subjects, and on the important questions now on refer- endum, the members wilt not have to vote blindly and take grab-bag chances, Could “Politicians” Do Worse? are 78 questions besides elec- tions on the ballot. Nearly all the tedious decisions are left to the refer- endum, tho only ten per cent of the membership votes on referendum, and minister, was able to organize against the Com- munist International during his recent European tour, has been more than discounted by the latest action of the allied imperialists. Hounded by the nemesis of capitalist'contradic- tions, the rulers of France and England have, by their latest act, made the German Communist Par- ty the strongest force in Germany today. “Whom the gods would destroy they first-make mad.” The “Communist revolution” in France was greatly exaggerated, declares United States Am- bassador Herrick in a private memorandum to the Washington government. The only casualties were a sore foot for Herriot and palpitation of the heart for the frightened bourgeoisie. Henry Ford’s plants in the Detroit district will close for eleven days to give his managers a chance to make an inventory. The 125,000 employes will have a holiday, without any pay, of course. This means they will be unemployed for that length of time. It is strange, observes Arthur Brisbane, that hostility to the catholie church is greatest where that church had complete sway until recently. Such a wise man as Arthur undoubtedly is, should know that is the very reason for the hostility. Every day get a “sub” for the DAILY WORKER }and a member for the Workers Party. most of the real workers are away on jobs. This shows the need of bas- ‘ng the unions on job committees, Further, the complicated nature of this ballot makes it almost impossible for anyone not a student of constitu- tional cross-word puzzles to tell just what will happen in case any given question is carried. The I. W. W. scorns “using the ballot”—then issues constitution which do not exist. No Stifling of Issues. Question No. 28 shows a laudable desire to limit the length of the an- nual convention, and to systematize work. But by the form in which the question is put the G. B. B, is given power to arrange the agenda and to limit debate on any matter. This is plain dictatorship by the G. E. B. Any faction in control of the G. EB. B. can cut off all debate on any im- portant question, or keep it off the floor entirely by confusing it with nonsensical variations of it, Ten days is long enough for a convention. ‘There should be an order of business. ‘But the only sensible, fair and dem- ocratic way to make it up is for the the convention itself to draw up the order of business when it first meets, One move in the right direction, and a very encouraging sign is ques- tion No. 14, designed to get a little efficiency in the general headquarters by permitting officials to succeed themselves in office, Decentralization and Petty Bourgeois Propo: No. 45 provides that an already im- one as big as a bundle stiff’s blanket, | P°VeTished general administration is Just as an example of what may made still more feeble by having its happen, we take the attempt to change income slashed in two. Reduction of from the present form of the G EH, B,| ‘he Per capita tax from 16 cents to back to the old form composed of | #°Ven and a half cents is decentraliza- representatives elected by the unions. | tion and was intended as such. At present, the G. E. B. is composed| Along with it goes question No. 7, of the general organizer and the chair-| Providing for striking out the con men of the general organization com-| stitutional provision that “None but mittees of the various unions, as| actual! wage workers shall be mem- adopted at the 1923 convention and in | bers of the Industrial Workers of the Era LATE SAE UMS NYE ah ERAN, CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES MUST BE MET BY FORCE, SAYS CANUCK (Special to The Daily Worker) CALGARY, Canada, Dec. 23.—Radical governmental changes obtained by parliamentary constitutional methods must be met by force of arms just as sternly as those obtained by violence, declared General Griesbach. of the Canadian forces. to the military institute at Calgary. He said: “I take it that as soldiers and citizens loyal to their institutions, you are not prepared to accept the dictatorship of the proletariat patterned on the Russian modal WHETHER OBTAINED BY CONSTITUTIONAL MEANS OR BY FORCE. | We will best maintain. ° carried to ite et 4 ¢ GENERAL; THUMBS DOWN ON BALLOT @ by frank declaration that Communist propaganda| the Soviets?” Ne ES ARAGORN Wednesday, December 24, 1924 World.” : This. shows .that the an- archist petty bourgeois, stump rancher type is growing powerful -in)the I. W. W., and is making common cause with the “skid road bum”. and the “spit- toon philosopher” group, against whom there hag,been a growing op- position. Adoption of question No. 7, will allow non-workers to join, in spite of Article.1, Section 2, which is in- clusive, not exclusive.,The adoption of this amendment would make the I. W. W. anything but,a labor union, and the Red Internationalists are flat- ly opposed to it. : The grip of the anarchists on the I. W.‘W. is shown also by the provi- sion to make it. impossible for officers of political parties to join the I..W. W.. This comes as question No. 9. It does not draw any line of distinc- tion. between parties; it makes no difference between the parties which represent the interests of the work- ing: class. Further it:is'a violation of the traditional “non-political” stand of the I. W. W. and makes it definitely “anti-political.” This is certainly. an anarchist measure of the non-worker element that does not base its theory on class distinction. The group that would open the I; W.-W.-to non-working hordes, as. proposed in question No. 7, would be equally happy to close its SD ap hr hw dae Ser Bier what we hold up as an ideal of labor pened. to believe in-class conscious political action by. the working class. Pretending -to: shut out “politicians”. is only giving a. monopoly to. those politicians who, are known as an- archists, ‘ Which Principles? is the 1. W. W. a Political Party? The tendency to turn the I. W. W. into an anarchist debating circle is shown also in question No. 38, for more and quicker expulsions. This is @ grant of blanket power to conven- tions to expel anyone for violation of L.W. W..“principets.” + First, it is autocratic. Secondly, it is:idiotic, as no one knows what these “principles” are, since the 16th general convention definitely refused: to state what I. ‘W. W.-principles consist.of. Thirdly, this is clearly leading the way to expel members: for holding opinions, not for actions alone. Only, political parties lay down sets of social ideas. and demand ideological conformance to them. Passage of this amendment makes a political party out of an economic organization. , It should be opposed. Labor unions can- not. question opinions of their mem- bers. It is suicidal. Give room for all opinions and let the best one win. ‘Expel the Injunctionites. other sort of expulsion. Rowan, Bowermen, Trotter, Ryan and Ander- son. (the ‘injunctionites) have ‘broken class solidarity, This is not a question of their opinions, nor ‘are they charged with ‘holding minority ‘opinion, but with calling the sheriff of Cook coun- ty to place them in power over the I. W. W. and in calling for a split in the I. W. W. when they could not win thru the courts for lack of money to pay lawyers. These are the sort of things men should’ be expelled ‘for. The detective, the grafter, the traitor, have no place in any labor organization. This is quite different than to shut a. worker out for having this’ or ‘that political opinion, or ‘differing:'on matters” of tactics within the: movement. An in- dustrial union, especially, must take in anybody who’ works for wages,. 80 long as he stands by his class and does not scab on of betray it. Two Good Measures. 4 The Conservatives: i cape 0s Rat cies an oe “And now what are we going to do: Election and Referendum in I. W. W. Question No. 75, making it possibley , for officials of the I. W. W. to hold political office and office in. political parties is a move in the right direction and should be fayored. So is ques- tion No. 47, permitting industrial unions to levy assessments on their membership. The Communists in the I. W. W. hold to the theory of democratic cen- tralization. This does not mean- that material facts can be overlooked in particular industries for an imprac- tical because of formal . universality. We are realists. We know that work- ing conditions and treasury needs, wages and so on, differ widely; We do not believe in decentralization be- cause of that, however, but in speclal- ization, 3 The I. W. W. up to now has been about as wrong as it could have been on ‘this matter. In pursuit of an artt- ficial, superficial and universal perfec: tion it has rigorously centralized. the very things it should have left room in for variation in application, and at the same time scatter its energies in a decentralized effort to claim every industry in every country in the world and to fight every other labor organ- ization of every kind, which ques- 1d the wisdom of this attitude. An Example in Red Unionism, In conclusion and as an example of unions, industrial unions, we point out the 23 industrial unions of Soviet Russia, During the time when the I. W. W.. was shrinking in membership from 38,000° to 31,000, the All-Russian Council of Labor Unions which have @ powerful position within the Soviet system, increased from 5,500,000, to 8,400,000. The ‘revolutionary’ industrial unions of Russia, during the time when anarcho-syndicalist confusion inthe I. W. W. was bringing it to its present chaotic condition, have, in. close: co- operation with the Russian Commun- ist Party, been reconstructing, re- modeling and enlarging the whole pro- ductive machinery of Soviet Russia. During the time when wages in the I. W. W.’s special field in the U. 8. A. have been slashed 25 per cent and a chronic crisis begun, the Russian workers have worked out a real solu- tion for their peculiar unemployment problems and have increased money wages 25 per cent in 1923, gained 64 per cent in 1924, and increased real wages much more than that. Into the fraternity of revolutionary proletarian fighters, the Red Interna- tional of Labor Unions, to which these Russian unions belong, the Red Inter- national Affiliation Committee again invites the Industtial Workers of the World, Further, upon any special is- sue, all adherents of the R. I. L. U. stand ready-to make common cause with the I. W. W. against the capital- ist enemy, such as in the fight for class war prisoners. y ; For unity and revolution, RED INTERNATIONAL AFFILIA- TION COMMITTEE, 4514 W. Madison St., Chicago, I, Next Sunday Night and Every Sun- day Night, the Open Forum, FOR CHICAGO ONLY! =— On all matters pertaining to the: DAILY WORKER, and ail party: literature address all communica: tions or see THURBER LEwis, Daily Worker City Agent, Room 307, 166 W. Washington Bivd. ies ped e west: nn ARE ARNIS ERS SLES ES sate