The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 21, 1925, Page 6

: ' i Page Six THE DAILY WORKER. Publishsd by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ml. (Phone: Monroe 4712) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mall: $3.50....6 months $2.00...8 months By mail (in Chicago only): $4.50....6 months $2.60...8 months 06.00 per year $8.00 per year Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 11138 W. Washington Bivd. 3. LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE ee AILOPS MORITZ J. LOEB......nnermnen Business Manager Chicago, tilinels Entered as second-class matl Sept. 21, 1923, at the Bost- Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. po The Anthracite Rebellion The coal diggers of District No. 1 are in a state of rebellion against the employers and also against their treacherous officials who have proven them- selves now more than ever before to be the loyal agents of the coal barons. Sixty thousand miners threaten to strike today, and if the strike takes place, 94 local unions in- volved are threatened with a revocation of their charters by Rinaldo Cappellini, the renegade presi- dent of District 1, acting under the orders of John L. Lewis, international president of the U. M. W. of A. The coal barans have brought to the front every agency at their command in an attempt to drive the rebellious coal diggers back to work. But they have signally failed. The miners have reached the limit of their patience. They grew tired of ap- pealing for redress of long standing grievances, so they finally decided to act under the leadership of the joint grievance committees originally used by Cappellini in his fight against his rivals, but now branded by the traitor as outlaws. A very delicate situation exists in District 1, a situation that calls for very careful handling on the part of the rank and file leaders. It is not surprising that in a situation like this a voice should be raised counselling a policy that would split the miners and destroy all hope of victory either over the coal barons or over the lackeys of the coal barons, the officials of the union. This voice was that of Tony Panne, chairman of the 12,000 Pennsylvania Coal company’s miners, now on strike. He said that the men under his leadership would split away from the United Mine Workers of America. This kind of propaganda will only benefit the bosses. It will destroy the unity of the miners. The officials of the United Mine Workers are Advertising rates on application hoping that the members of District 1 will be! forced into some rash act that would enable them to split their ranks, expel the radicals and drive the demoralized coal miners back to the pits under whatever terms the bosses and their labor lieuten- ants see fit to give them. The miners are fighting two wings of the enemies’ army, the coal barons and the labor fakers. But there is another enemy in their midst; it is the secessionist, the dual unionist, who, taking advantage of the rebellious spirit among the members, urges a split policy. Of the three, the splitter is the most dangerous. The miners of District 1 should take a lesson from the strategy followed by their comrades in Nova Scotia, who defeated John L. Lewis and his stoolpigeons by staying with the union and fighting on the inside for control of the district. This is the policy of the Trade Union Educational League and the Progressive Miners’ Committee. It is the winning policy. It is the policy that Lewis fears ost. The cattle raisers asked the president for im- mediate relief and they were handed the usual line| ¢ of capitalist bull. Eamon DeValera denies he intends to enter Frec State parliament, but he leaves a loophole, which proves that Eamon is normal. The Singapore Base There was a disarmament conference held in ‘Washington in the year 1921. The representatives of the principal capitalist powers cooed like pigeons... The pacifists likewise. They thought a new era had set in. Perhaps it had, but not in the direction of universal peace. The conference fixed the naval ratio of the United States, Great Britain and Japan at 5-5-3, allowing for equality between the United States’ and British navies with Japan bringing up the rear. The con- ference also agreed on the status guo on naval bases in the Pacific east of the 110th Meridian. This left Singapore out. As if no conference was held Britain decided to build a great naval base at Singapore. Naturally this. caused exciterhent in Japan against whom the move was directed. It appegrs that Washington tacitly endorsed the British move. So the base is going to be built. The scheme was dropped while the labor party government was in office. There was no great need for hurry. But the next world war is coming along on three league boots and there is no time to be lost. The Singapore base is built for war. All the “disarmament conferences” called by the capitalists are only maneuvers for future wars. There can be no peace as long as capitalism exists. The only road to peace is thru the class war for the overthrow of capitalism ‘and the LiheE ase of the pyorkers’ rule. THE DAILY'‘WORKER Lenin The first anniversary of the death of Nikolai Lenin will be observed tonight with appropriate exercises in the Ashland Auditorium, Chicago. Workers who glory in the greatest revolution in human history, in the establishment of the first workers’ government and its successful struggle thru seven years of civil war, famine and blockade, will gather to pay tribute to the leader of the great revolution and the master mind who founded the political party of the workers and peasants that is the directing force behind the Soviet government, the Russian Communist Party, and the Communist International, the leader of the world proletariat. The Workers (Communist) Party of America, does not call on the working class to. mourn Lenin’s death. Rather it urges them to rejoice in the great contribution he has made to the task of emancipat- ing the working class and calls on them to join the constantly growing millions all over the world, who are determined to carry on Lenin’s work until the banner of Communism flies over every city, town and hamlet\in the world as a symbol of the complete victory of the proletariat and the death of capitalist class rule and exploitation. The DAILY WORKER urges its readers to at- tend the Lenin memorial meeting and suggests that the best way for a class conscious worker to honor Lenin’s memory is to join the Workers (Commun- ist) Party, the party of Leninism, and help or- ganize the masses for the final victory over cap- italism. What About Warren? President-Coolidge of Wall Street’s political ap- paratus has sent the name of Charles B. Warren, to the senate as his appointee to succeed Harlan P. Stone as attorney general. The senate judiciary committee, as usual, is go- ing over Warren’s career to see what can be done in the way of whitewashing his record so that he may appear in all his angelic whiteness to assume the responsibilities of the department of injustice. Warren has a few skeletons in his closet that would make an awful rattle if only given half a chance. He was the Handy Andy of the beet sugar trust in 1911 and the chief of the sugar lobby scandal in 1913. But that should be a recommenda- tion for Warren. That he has experience in serving big business should qualify him for the job to which he is assigned. The office of attorney general is one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of the ruling class to keep the workers under its iron heel. Whoever is in that office under capitalism will serve the in- terests of the ruling class. The senate committee investigation is merely a smoke screen to fool the masses. The Dawes Plan While capitalist politicians were wrangling over che question whether the Coolidge administration sot this country entangeld in the meshes of Europ- ean diplomacy thru its Signing of the Paris agree- nent on distribution of reparations under the Dawes plan, great demonstrations of workers, or- ganized by the Communists were being held in Germany, protesting against the Dawes plan and depicting it by word and ‘picture as a gullotine which is executing the German working class. Every nickel in reparations paid to the robber powers who defeated Germany in the great war will be wrung out of the blood and sweat of the.Ger- man workers. The capitalist class of that country will live as usual, in luxury. They will have to sur- render some of their profits to their rivals, but it is the enslaved working class that will pay. It was a touching scene at the Paris reparations meeting when the little nations were given a chance to protest against the action of the big powers in grabbing all the loot under the Dawes plan. Churchill, Kellogg and the French representatives dropped lachrimal moisture on their shirt fronts, but what could they do? The little fellows were to late. It is to ery. Now that the workers know the total wealth of the United States is over $320, 000,000,000, there should be no more talk of poverty and want. An approximately equal distribution of this wealth would give every man, woman and child in this country three thousand dollars each. Get your share. Why not? Is not everybody free and equal in the United States? Lord Robert Cecil challenged ‘the Geneva opium conference to prove its competence to discuss the »pium problem. He blamed China for the evil. In view of the fact that the opium traffic was forced npon China at the point of British cannon, Lord Cecil’s position was about as just as that of the seller of infected oysters, who blames his customers for getting poisoned thru consuming them. Gaston B. Means, former boon companion of the late President Harding, Harry M. Daugherty, Jess Smith, et al, is now on trial in New York. He is charged with collecting $65,000 with which to in- duce Daugherty, Mellon and Burns, to drop indiet- ments against certain illegitimate business men who were working at their trade. So far it appears that no witness took the stayd except convicted criminals, That is as it should be. New York reporters are having a lot of fun with the Grand Duke Boris, The duke looks as dignified as a labor faker leading the grand march at a Lan- dis award ball. The.reporters know he is broke with poor prospects, Naturally they give him the hot dog. Reaction in Michigan - 'HE click of the jailer’s key in the lock of Ruthenberg’s cell at the Jackson penitentiary two weeks ago, may be taken as symbolizing the end of a certait\period in the life of Am- erica. Not that the mere locking of one man in a cell, ‘nor the opening of prosecutions against thirty-odd more, constitutes alone a force that could alter the course of history. This new “Dred Scott” decision of the Michigan supreme court: is not the cause, but vather the -dramatic illustration, o/ the end of a period of democratic pretenses on the part of capitalist government. Nor does the subsequent grantin; of bail to Ruthenberg alter the facts. Reaction Stiows Naked Face. Quietly, almost unobserved by the iveraré Man Or woman of the work- ing class—and entirely beyond the un- terstanding of the middle class drudge who is pictured as the type of Americau cltizenship, this country is entering into a period of reaction which promises to be darker, more leadly and more openly characteriz- ed with violent repression, than any period before known, Finance capital of America knows that it is facing in the near future the biggest world crisis of all history, and it is preparing. World war and world conquest are the only possible pro- gram for American finance capital. A look at the fast-decaying fabric of Eu- ropean capitalism gives the necessary tip. Another look at the stagnating world market gives the warning for the army and navy to prepare to open up the world market. There is war in China, where Wall Street must step in. . . More Ameri- can marines have just landed. . ¢ There is smouldering revolt in India. where Morgan’s Lofdon partners must hold on for their very lives. There are several small wars in course, and several more incipient ones barely concealed. The “Democratic-Pacifist” Period. The martial condition has been chronic ever since that skirmish which we called the “world war” but which was only preliminary to the real world war, Yet it has been con- cealed with every possible means while world capitalism tided over a breathing space. Morgan’s London banking partners drafted Ramsay MacDonald into service; French capi- tal drafted the “socialistic” Herriot; and Morgan sent Charles G, Dawes to Europe to make the necessary adjust- ments, and Dawes incidentally was able to mobilize a whole “socialist” in- jeupscenet -“social-democrat- ” parties of _Europe—to help; and pct with a mighty effort the great yorld oligarchy of finance capital cre- ated for itself a breathing space which was called “the democratic-pa. cifist’ period, in which to prepare it: forces while meek and credulous working men hung onto street car straps in all the cities and towns of the world and Feed of “peace” and “democracy” and “adjustment” and “labor governments.” This “democratis-pacifist” phase has been reflected in every walk of life. in every country ‘in the world. But the “democratic-pacifist” period --the breathing space for world capi- talism—has passed. In England, finance capital got thru with MacDon- ald, and MacDonald fell. In Germany ‘world imperialism got thru with “dem- ocratic republican” ministries and shifted to a monarchist ministry. In France the adjustment is managed. In America we had the “democratic-paci> fist” period (under this singularly in- flexible form of “republican” govern- ment) with the soft-spoken reaction- ary Coolidge in the saddle but with “insurgent” and “progressive” politi- cians flirting with office-hungry “so- cjaligts” and cavorting in and out of congress sufficiently to create the illu- sion , of “democratic” possibilities. American capitalism also got thru with this period, and the click of the lock of ‘Ruthenberg’s cell marks its end. National Oligarchy Alibies Itself. In that period the democratic pre- gense touched even the matter of pro- secutions of “radical” labor agitators in several instances. Even before the period. definitely began, the federal war-time laws of suppression were re- pealed by congress. And the busi- ness of strangling the labor move- ment wsa related to the state laws being efficiently handled by the vari- ous state governments, thirty-five of which ‘had “criminal syndicalist” statutes under which working class movements could be strangled in ob- scure state courts, while the federal government could maintain #n alibi. Thus in. California and elsewhere, the small town agents of all-American capitalism exercise their “state's rights” by brutal repressions of the Industrial Workers of the World. Such repressions, if conducted openly by the federal government, would become a national political issue embarrags- ing to the federal government. It is interesting in this péspect to copsider the Mooney case. A federal president was obliged, because of national and international protest, to intercede to prevent the hanging of Mooney; yet after Mooney is proven innocent, the state government of California can safely keep him in prison for life while the federal government can make a saintly face and say “I am powerless; it is purely a state mat- ter.” Repression of 1922. Along came the mass railroad and coal strikes of August and September, 1922. This had to be handled on a national scale, being nation-wide in scope; so a single federal judge with the stroke of a pen, in effect, created a federal law of the most areaticaly repressive sort, in the form of an in- junction. But that was not all. The capitalist power was uneasy lest the mass rail- road and coal strikes take on an open- ly political color. A prospect of a union of political Bolshevism witt these strikes of so huge a scale cre- ated a us among the capitalist chiefs. A blow at the political organ ization of Bolshevism was considered a necessary dccompaniment of the railroad injunction. The same attor- ney general's office, thru the same corps of | “détective” strike-breakers under the same William. J. Burns, struck the two,blows at once. The federal government, while securing the . injunction against the railroad workers, secuted the arrest of prac- tically the entire leadership of the Communist Party. However, it was not necessary for the federal government to take open- ly the. onus of this political repres- sion. Nor would it have been simple to do so, for there existed no longer any.federal law for, the arrests. Therefore, the. respongibility for. the prosecution of thirty-two leaders of a national political party for “assem- bling” in a. peaceful. convention was shifted to the obscure little rural com- munity at St. Joseph, Michigan. Fed- eral agents under the direct orders of a member of the, president’s cabinet conducted the arrests, supplied the evidence—the funds. come from some mysterious’ source which a federal agent says he “cannot reveal” and federal agents direct the trial in the country town court room. But the federal. government makes a saintly face and says, “I am powerless; it is purely a state matter.” William Z. Foster was tried (with the jury disagreeing) and Ruthenberg was convicted. All was going well for the course of repression. Mass Discontent Inteérvenes. But then game the big surge of mass discontent growing out of the economic situation; labor discontent- ed and -turning to thoughts of politi- cal action, farmers being evicted by hundreds of thousands and turning “radical” and both classes exhibiting occasional spurts of sympathy for the real “radicals” whom they vaguely knew as “Bolsheviks,” tho generally keeping within the bounds of demo- cratic illusion. The period of “democratic-pacifist” illusions reached its height in Ameri- ca during the last presidential cam- paign. The courts of capitalism—and the venal, crude and illiterate judges of the Michigan state supreme court are no exceptionhave ears as sharp for the political winds of the time as for the interest of their monied masters. At the height of the period while millions of workers and farmers were staring wild-eyed at visions of “democ- racy” and “constitutional liberty,” during the past presidential campaign, it would not haye been expedient for the supreme court of Michigan to ré- turn a decision upholding the con- demnation of Ruthenberg to penal servitude for “assembling.” 7 "The supreme court of Michigan did not_return its decision during such a period. There was a singularly long delay. ‘Then Coolidge was elected. It be- came clearly apparent that the big capitalism of Wall Street had even greater powers of control over the ~ Wednesday, January 21, 1925 By Robert Minor masses than they had thought, Then the Michigan supreme court brought in its decision flatly annull- ing its own state constitutional ‘guaraniees.” Immediately the whole machinery of reaction begins to func- tion again thru the little court room in Michigan, to prosecute and send to the penitentiary all of the other ar rested loaders of Bolshevism in the United States. With an avidity never before equalled, the court house ver- min, the strike-breaking crew -from Chicago, New York and Washington, pounce upon their intended victims. The locking of Comrade Ruthenberg into a cell and the opening of the first of the other trials, with the announce- ment that Foster will be retried and that all of the other thirty Commun. ist leaders must. stand prosecution, means the recognition of the end of the “democratic-pacifist” period. It is time for the period to come to an end, from the point of view of American capitalism, It is time to put an end to the pretense of “freedom of assemblage,” freedom of political organization among the working clags, and an end to the organization and meintenance of labor unions not con- trolled by the capitalists. Full Speed Ahead. World conditions and domestic con- ditions require that the capitalist class now mobilize every strength for the complete wiping out of all pheno- mena of independent organization among the exploited. It is necessary to conquer China with conscripted masses from America; and there must be no Communist Party growing strong among the American masses. It is necessary to increase the exploit- ation of labor with longer hours and lower reduced standards of living—to “deflate” labor—and there must be no liberties of organization among the “deflated”—especially no organized Bolsheviks among them. The legal precedent created in Michigan, of suppressing a political party, must be extended over the whole of the industrial states. The principle of the Daugherty injunction. created at the same time on the same initiative, “holding all labor unionism subject to punishment as criminal conspiracy, must be extended into a common practice of the federal gov- ernment. But whatever there is of’ courage and manliness among thé working class and the exploited farmers must begin quick and must fight now for its very life. If the intelligent and honest workers and farmers do not support morally and financially the defenge of the Michigan cases, their cause and ours will be struck a blow of disastrous consequences. However, reaction or no reaction, momentary defeat or victory, with its leaders inside or outside of prison, the Workers (Communist) Party will continue to exist. The party of the Communists cannot be destroyed in this country, nor: can it be isolated from the masses ever again. It will grow strong under this persecution, and it will ultimately lead the exploit- ed masses to victory. A “Farmers Press” That Isn’t By HARRISON GEORGE, A few weeks ago the DAILY WORKER correspondent at Williston, North Dakota, sent in a dispatch com- menting upon -the irritation of what we termed “the newspaper which rep- resents the capitalist dictatérship in Williams county—the ‘Farmers Press’ ” —over the election of a Communist, A. C. Miller, to the legislature. The correspondent mentioned the fact that the irritation of the “Farmer Press” had led it to say that both Comrade Miller and another Communist, Andrew Omholt, had concealed that they were Communists during the election. —~ This statement of the “Farmers Press” (we by no means impute the sins of the “Farmers Press” to the poor working farmers of Williams county), Comrade Omholt rather mildly labeled as. a lie. We All Agree on This. Under the ‘circumstances the editor of, the “Farmers Press” didn’t seem to be able to contradict Comrade Om- holt on this matter in a subsequent spasm he published, so it seems to be generally agreed that he is a liar. That being the case, it is not sur- prising that as an appendix to the aforesaid spasm the editor of the “Farmers Press” deports the conver- sation to Russia and waxes wroth, quite wroth indeed, over the lack of what he calls a “free press”. under the first workers’ and. farmers’. goy- ernment on this earth. To any of the working and ex- ploited farmers of Williams county, North Dakota, who didn’t get the Communist _ message from Comrad Omholt and Miller, we address the following exposition of the mendacity of the pen-; who hopes to, bam- boozle them belief that Commun- ists mean te take away from the poor farmer and the wage worker, a “free press” which they haven't got. No Free Press—For Exploiters. Very well, go over to Russia. No Communist in Russia will think of claiming that munism is in full swing,” they are only claiming that the Peasants are in con-lof both ‘kers and beep power ‘The ‘capitalist Baver-duting ‘aitaies ister be historically disappearing as the new society evolves. So we believe in evolution as well as revoliftion—the latter being a part of the former. No Communist in Russia would claim that there is any. press which is “free” for the lies of these capi- talist exploiters which are allowed’ to exist by sufferance as an. exploiting class for a certain economic benefit they still have, just as the capitalists allow the workers to exist in Amer- ica, and can’t kill them all (even if they are “reds”) because workers they have no profits. Real Free Press—For Working Class. But every Communist in Russia will assert and prove that the honest worker in the shops or the peasant on the land has a real free press to air his grievances if he has them. But there is no “free press” for the Eng- lish, French and American spy ma: chine to use to help the Russian capi- talists, bankers, landlords and bosses to lie to the honest people as the “Farmers Press” is allowed to do in Williams county. For the farmers of Williams county a Communist regime would mean that they would have for the first time in| history a real, genuine chance to ex. press their opinions in meetings and in print. We, and they, know how they are gagged by the capitalist die: tatorship. In the war they were told quite frankly—‘Obey the law and keep your mouth shut!” And thosr who didn't keep their mouths shut were dragged off to Leaven- worth whether they obeyed the jaw or not, as everybody knows. And everybody knows how the “liberty’ loans were forced out of the farmers with terrorism. Poppycock on this ‘tree country” and “free press”! This Is.Why He Gets Sore, But in Russia the capitalists have a dose of their own medicine, and only the workers and peasants have a right to express their opinions, They have hundreds-of papers to do it and. it is a regular joke among everybody who knows Russia how meetings without class still exists in Soviet Russia, but as a subject class, in the process bic Ph gina legislature, likewise Comrade Om- who has anything on his chest. is given hours to, ‘get it off. Just how that sort of real working ‘class free- dom would agree with the capitalist lackey editor of the “Farmers Press” we don't know, but we have a hunch he wouldn't like. it. ; The kind of “free press’ the editor of the “Farmers Press” has in mind is well explained in a letter from A. C. Miller, who describes just how “free” the“Farmers Press” ts. The Communists don't make any’ bones about their di hip in Russia. The capitalists and ‘landlords are frankly ‘shut out, , Bat how about the hypocrites who clatm ‘there is a “free press” in Amefiea, and in’ Williston? Comrade Miller tells the following story: A “Farmers. Press”—Minys | Farmers. “The loud-mouthed . fake — pro- gressives..of the non-partisan league’ invariably controlled: conven: tions by holding pre-conyentions, They also controlled the campaign - committee and by so doing yalway: kept the ‘reds’ from beitig routed as speakers. The only time they made a balk, of it was last spring’ at the league endorsing convention where, 'y of the delegates being farm: ‘ors, the writer was endorsed for the holt was endérsed for sheriff. Both being: farmers in thé Rae iapAt for twenty: odd. years. © “Immediately after the conven. tion a button-hole campaign was launched by the other candidates sariog) “We aro’ going too far to the “The ' people will not pol for this Communis doctrine’ ders from Moscow, Yet. we ‘were nominated. © ~ “Atethe June peiasy election: after our: nomination and about two months before e¥ction, the Farmore Press turned ‘on its mud battery; and’ notwithstanding the fact thal we hold paid-up stock in ‘that .every issue poured out great streame of mid, saying ‘that our program ‘was utt-American, that it would be a disgrace to elect a Communist to _ off : earn wanted force and violence, that LaFollette did right in segregating the loyalist from the Communist,’ and so on tor weeks. “ “This yellow press kept up a con- tinual stream of filth. The result was Comrade. Omholt was defeated. Not a word in the way of a reply could we get in this alleged ‘Farmers Press’ although we were stock hold- ers in it. Had we not gone before “the people on a speaking tour both would have been defeated. In every township likewise in the small vil- lages where some of the farmers voted, we had a big vote over our opponents. ““This fact still rasps in the craw of this yellow editor. Since the election he tries to convey the idea that we did not advertise ourselves as Communists, and that we lied te _the voters. He did so much lying in the campaign that he forgot that he reprinted a poster that one of his lieutenants took from a tele- Phone pole near Grenora, Incident- ally at Gerona, whére we gave the voters a full dose of Communist Program, the writer got 53 voter while his opponent got two votes.” If the editor of the Farmers’ Press has anything more to say whieh plains what he means by a press,” the Workers (Communtst) Party has not only the DAILY WORK- ER, but other papers in a dozon dif- ferent languages to advertise the Prairie jackass’ resounding brays, “The Beauty and the Bolshevik” Ie coming to Ashland Auditorium Feb. 5. AASARAAAAARAAAAADAAARAAMAA Return performance of Pai South Side Players “Salesmen and | Suckers” i By ANOREW SHELLEY with a cast of colored and white players, THURSDAY, JAN. 22, 8. P. mM. at 3621 SOUTH FEDERAL, STREET. , Tickets 35, 0c and $1 at the door.