The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 7, 1925, Page 20

The Grentabt tales ieee N the eve of the third month of the anthracite coal strike, or “sus- pension Of mining” as the strike is dubbed locally, John L. Lewis, Inter- national President of the United Mine Workers: of America, broke his si- lence, and after innumerable cabinet conferences with citizens’ committees, committees from chamber of com- merce, and similar aggregations, con- descended to address himself to the members of his own organization, the strikifg miners, on “Mitchell Day” in the Victoria Theater, at Shamokin, Pennsylvania, in the heart of the hard coal region. This was an unusual event and on our arrival in town, as we mingled with the crowds, who were assembling by the hundreds from nearby towns, we noted an air of expectancy, and intense interest amongst the miners of the prospect of hearing Lewis speak. OT only the miners, but the towns- people were all agog, the advent of this labor leader being signaled by a display of national flags on house and store as requested by District President Golden “In honor of Mr. Lewis.” ‘ The interest of the striking miners however, was not confined merely to looking upon their president. Hav- ing been on strike for eight weeks their interest was chiefly concerned with the conduct of the strike and with a possible settlement. As the crowd of three thousand miners jam- med the theater, comment was heard between groups of strikers from dif- ferent sections. “Down at Bagle Hill,” says one, “there was a big meeting the other day in respect to strike relief.” It was stated that the orders for food supplies, issued by the local union officers, were being drawn on one particular store, where prices were twenty to thirty per cent higher than in nearby stores. In answer to protest by strikers and their wives they were told, “you take the order drawn on the store which. we give you Or’you get no order at all.” With this, for the present, the miners had to be satisfied. “T\OWN at Port Carbon,” another interjected, “they are checking up on all the girls working in the silk mills, and laying off the daughters of striking miners.” Yet another miner spoke up. “I see they have thousands of tons of bituminous coal laying by the Reading tracks outside of Potts- ville, and there’s a shovel at work on the slack pile over near Gilberton.” These reports from. different sec- tions and the comments by the min- er’, showed clearly that the miners had immediate problems to be solved, in connection with the-strike, chief among these being the question of relief for the miners, this question again being intimately bound up with the duration of the strike. Heace the keen interest displayed, by all miners on the methods of giving out relief, the firing of strikers’ daugh- ters from silk mills, and the substi- tution of soft for hard coal on local railroads. i possible duration of the strike, whether it will last to December first, or until the first of the year, aroused sharp discussion.. Says one miner, “I see in the last Journal that locals in soft coal are passing reso- lutions demanding a general strike.” And another, “If this goes on much longer, we will have to call out the maintenance men, and make the boss- es come to time.” These are the issues uppermost in ‘ the minds of the miners as they as- semble for the meeting and promptly at 10 a. m. to the strains of a Sousa march, Mr. Lewis and “his party” appear on the flag-draped stage. “The party” consisted of the mayor of Shamokin, a representative of every church in Shamokin, Mr, Lewis, Sec- retary-Treasurer Kennedy, President Cappellini of District No. 1, dnd a number of lesser luminaries with Chris Golden, president of District No. 9, and chairman of the meeting. HE first speaker is the Rev. Father Boyle, who does a good job for his church, by talking as an ex-miner and a union man, in the language of the miners, about the struggle of the By Norman H. Tallentire union in the nineties, and urging allfrefused. Now they insist on arbitre-yelapsed, during which Lewis has present tq stand ‘by. their ieaders in | tion,” the present struggle. The~Reverend| Lewis insists. that the miners will Harvey J. Barney (or some such|never submit the question of their name) of the United Brethren church | bread and butter and their working} be. hé next graces the from several closely written pages an} knowledge of the industry and its effusion of consummate hypocrisy, | perils (altho he has just related sever- characteristic of the hidebound pilri-| al instances when he himself clamor- tanical bigots who infest this region.}ed for arbitration), stating that the Speaking in an affected, sonorous,/cry of businessmen for peace and funeral voice, this scintillating genius | stability in the industry is the cry opines, that religion is a prerequisite | of interested parties who desire a to thinking and that accumulation of \termination of the strike in order surplus wealth—a curse of society to-| that their own little profit-making day—is caused by the unregeneracy| schemes may go on uninterrupted. of the human heart. Such snivelling But the speaker insists that the strug- balderdash as this brot forth consi-/gie must go on, that “never in any derable applause from the audience. | struggle in history have fighters de- Cappellini speaks a few words in| sisted for the sake of non-com- fulsome and fawning praise of Lewis, | patants.” followed by Fahey, whovdrivels about ‘ the early days with Mitchell and other EALING with statements of Sam- pioneers, about his own present sick- uel Warriner, the spokesman of ness and his. many’ meetings with | the coal operators, that the miners of Mitchell, “McBride and others. After|the anthracite “must be cured of the a brief speech from Secretary-Treas-| strike habit,” Lewis reiterates his urer Kennedy, a wire is read from| charge that the bosses and not the Phil. Murray in Pittsburgh apologizing | miners are responsible for,the present for his absence and then President| strike. Mattie of District No, 7 takes the This is the one point in this suave stand, having been brot to the stage| talk of Mr. Lewis where the least sug- from the audience to speak in Mur-|gestion of the struggle between two ray’s place. definite groups in society is indicated. HIS speaker proves to be the| The struggle between exploited and buffoon of the program, the house|©Ploiters as expressed in definite being frequently in an uproar during] Class alignments is glossed over by his talk. At every reference to any|this exponent of “true Americanism” ‘event in the history of the union since}t© use his own phrase, but the right 1886 Mattie assures the audience that|°f the miners to quit work as free “I was there, too, mind you.” This|4Merican workingmen is put forward speaker does not seem to be in good|!@ true A. F. of L. language, and at grace with the official family, espe-|2® Point in his discourse does Mr. cially when his remarks seem to in-| Lewis remotely suggest the role of dicate a demand for a full strike pro- the bosses’ government in the present gram, with all_the maintenance men ° pulled out in the anthracite, and if} This in spite of the fact that al- necessary that a general strike be|"e@dy many meetings of striking called. miners have been broken up by the As Mattie waxes eloquent along|/0cal and state police, backed wp by these lines, Mr. Lewis and Golden|the officers of the U. M. W. of A, look at their watches and Lewis par-|W80 have endorsed the disbanding of ticularly begins to squirm in his seat,|™eetings of miners in Scranton, However, after a while Mattie desists| Plymouth, Luzerne, Shenandoah, Ex- from his inoppertune “remarks: and|®teT and-other-sections. This break- President’ Goldén makes a spread up-of progressive miners’ meet- eagle speech introducing Lewis as|i28s is reminiscent of incidents re- “the greatest labor leader in the|/@ted by other speakers, about the world,” a statement Lewis survives |@@?y struggles of union organizers in without a flicker of an eyelid. this very region. T is now eleven forty a. m. and the After about seventy minutes have theater (which on this occasion has been donated by the management who refused to permit the miners to hold meetings in any of their chain of theaters during the 1922 strike), must be vacated before the time for the afternoon show. The meeting is well managed so that no rude interruptions |' may interfere with the well-oiled pro- gram. As Lewis advances to the front of the stage the band strikes up the “Star Spangled Bannep,” the audience rising meanwhile, and aft: some per- fanctory applause for “the greatest labor leader,” Lewis speaks. Dealing entirely with past history, Mr. Lewis omits any reference to the problems suggested by comments of the strikers previous to the meeting. The address is merely a rehash of the speech delivered by Lewis at Hazle- ton on August 25 before the “suspen- sion” commenced. With meticulous care he relates the progress—or non- progress—of the negotiations with the operators’ committee, interspersed withe reference to previous struggles of the miners since 1920, and to-his inter- views with President Harding in Research Department Book Reviews simply reaffirmed his statement of August 25, he looks at his watch and states that “many other matters might © but the hour grows - exercises, reading | conditions to men with little or no} unseemingly.”, Despite the fact that 150,000 miners have been unemployed for eight weeks without any apparent gain being made by the strikers, this “leader” has no suggestions to offer in order to intensify and to end the struggle. HE calling out of the maintenace men is never even suggested and no reference whatever is made to the possibility of a general strike as in- dicated in the close of Lewis’ speech before the Tri-District convention at Scranton on June 30. In spite of the fact that the bosses’ agents refuse even to discuss the possibility of wage increase, demanded by the miners, the miners’ leaders still permit mem- bers of the union to take very good . care of the bosses’ property, and {so - far as We can gather from-the speeth * no matter: how ~ of President Lewis, long the struggle in the hard coal fields goes on, the miners in the bituminous fields wil] continue to mine soft coal to be used as a substitute for anthracite. : In the meantime, as indicated by the talk of the miners before the meeting, the miners and their families ure relying on “relief funds” for sup- port in many instances, in others they are running up bills which will take many weary months to pay after work in the mines is resumed, and the pos- sibility of a long drawn struggle with “compromise” at the end looms as a nightmare before the striking work- ers. ATO proposal has been submitted whereby the forces of this great union (500,000 strong) may be brought to bear on the enemy. No suggestion has been made as to how the miners will exist if the struggle continues “until December or until the first of the year.” The decorous meeting is closed as’ “the ‘hour grows unseem- ingly,” and the miners are hustled out. of the theater to the strain of more ‘ martial music, having heard no prac- - tical suggestion as to the next steps to be taken to win their fight come from “the greatest labor leader in the world.” “GETTING READY FOR THE NEXT WAR.” The Great Pacific War. A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-33, by Hector C. Bywater, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Cd., 1925. $2.50. * * ¢@ HIS book is worthy of attention, not because there is any probabil- ity of the next war following the lines of Bywater’s book, but because of the light it throws upon the thoroness with which the war-makers are chart- ing all the possible problems of all the possible wars, knowing as they do that war is inevitable under capital- ism, and unable to foresee where the anarchy of their system will draw the lines between the combatants. Of greater interest would it be to have had Mr. Bywater’s views of a struggle in the Pacific based upon a war be- tween the United States and Great Britain. That, too, is doubtless figur- respect to “arbitration, etc.” : ed out in many details by the military pare charges that the present| experts of both sides. But they are strike is the result of deliberate|too discreet to publish imaginative ac- Planning by the operators in an at-|counts based upon them, tempt to break the union and reduce The book under review is obviously the minefs to conditions of serfdom, | the work of a naval specialist, It deals and to enable the operators to almost entirely with the technical side their stocks of low grade coal at pro-| of modern warfare between imperial- fiteers’ prices. Mr. Lewis asserts|ist states. Taken for what it is, it is “that the plot to force a suspension] of considerable interest and is well- of mining has been carried out dur-| written. But after the. experiences ing several months with mathematical | of the world war, even the technicians precision by the operators.” who try to aviod such matters, must Speaking particularly for the bene-|deal with the political and. social im- fit of the nebulous “public,” he states|ponderable factors which play such that the demand for arbitration put|a decisive role in modern war. Thus forward by the operators is at once| Bywater shows Japan initiating the a bluff and an evidence of weakness.| war in order to smash a semi-bolshe- “Only when we are strong are we of-| vist rising at home. He is forced to fered arbitration. When I asked Presi-| bring in the growing nationalist move- dent Harding for arbitration in Mingo| ment in China as a factor in the de- county, Yest Virginia, in 1920, it was|feat of Japan. But thruout his ac- count the other imperialist nations are carefully and completely out of the scene, and the “Great Pacific War” does not become a world. war. Curiously enuf, Bywater finds that Russia is still under the Soviets in 1931, altho he yentures little prophecy as to its policies, internal position, and international relations. He would say, doubtless, that here is no sig- nificance in this because he is basing his study of a possible war upon the present relation of forces and is not attempting a prophecy. - of _ possible world readjustments, It still remains: “ of some importance, that no’ experts. are attempting nowadays to set the date of the fall of Soviet Russia. The next great war will not be at all so simple as Mr. Bywater makes his imaginary Japanese-American war. Not only will it involve, neces- sarily, another alignment of the en- tire capitalist world into two camps, but it will deal from the beginning with a revolutionary labor movement, with revolting colonial peoples, and with Soviet Russia. Any study of war that leaves these things out of ac- count today, or Weals with them only incidentally, is of no great importance, It is rather amusing to see the New Republic, in a review of Bywater’s book, consoling its semi-pacifist soul with the reflection that it proves war is “unprofitable.” The New Republic seems to think that wars are caused by propaganda, and that enuf counter- i propaganda to. show that it is “un- profitable” and “unethical” will pre- vent war, But nothing can prevent the “next war” except a proletarian revolution that removes the root of war—the capitalist system of produc- tion.—Earl E, Browder, tae s