The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 14, 1925, Page 9

Z Profits HEN the small panic occurred in Wall Street the other day, few workers realized that the goings-on there had an intimate relationship with themselves, with their wages and working conditions, and with all the struggles now going on within all their organizations. Let us see if we cannot trace the forces at work, ex- tending from those dramatic ups and downs of the stock exchange, right down thru industry to the pay envel- ope and to the struggles within the labor organizations. “Prosperity” Caused the Panic. ROFITS “are increasing with un- believable rapidity. This is the basis for the great boom in security prices with industrial securities in- creasing in price every day for twen- ty days on Wall Street, up until No- vember 10, when the little panic oc- curred. This “prosperity” was also the cause of the panic. Every time the rate of profits in- crease a dollar, it is the tendency of security prices to increase from five to ten dollars. Earnings (as they are jokingly called) and prospective earnings are “capitalized”; that is, the market value is advanced to make the percentage of return “normal.” Thereafter, super-human efforts must be exerted to. keep profits at the new high level and prepare for new ad- vances—otherwise the new “capital- ization,” the new but fictitious weal would vanish, But in the eager grasping for this “new wealth” created on paper, in the expectation that the increased exploitation of la- bor will make it real, the speculators on Wall Street overdo the thing a lit- tle. This is the natural tendency of speculation, and it also gives the op- portunity to shear the “sheep” of pet- ty speculators, It was this last fact which operat- ed to produce the small panic the ther. he Pe erraee “values” of ‘the th ities had exceed- ed me itd tay base in visible pro- fits. The sudden decline was then precipitated by the mechanism of the stock market; the Boston branch of the federal reserve bank raised its rediscount rate, tightening up the available credits; some impetus was given thru the newspapers, which published a flood of “financial com- ment” from the money markets of the world, predicting a break in the New York market; the news of the new agrarian troubles came in the failure of several agrarian banks in Nebraska. Conditions were ideal for shearing the sheep. The sheep were therefore, sheared. The security market will not go very low. Already, the day after the shearing, it started to recover. There is such a tremendous mass of pro- fits squeezed out of industry this year that capitalism would not be capital- ism if it did not breed a lot of new paper wealth. The market will stay high. The Golden Flood of Industry. - qT will be interesting to take just a little glance at the flow of “earn- ings” that is at the bottom of Wall Street’s feverish activities. The United States Steel corpora- tion increased its “earnings” steadily thruout 1925. The first quarter it earned $2.93 per share of common stock; the second quarter it earned $3.06 per share; and the third quar- ter $3.44. This is an increase of more than 17 per cent. Production is in- creasing steadily, being now well over 80 per cent of the tremendous capa- city developed during the war, and promises to continue upward. Condi- tions for big profits in the cere ee “favorable.” Railroads dre enjoying ‘the era sp we una Wer pee eat” Bight leading oil companies report profits for third quarter of 1925 which are the two and one-half times as!Or Mary grinned, great as the same period last year. Agricultural machinery manufactur ers report an increase of business of 41 per cent over last year, the great- est imcrease being in the profitable export trade. Anaconda Copper, which produces one-fourth of the world’s supply of that metal, earned its fixed dividend of $6.50 per share in the first six months of the year. Everything it earns in the last six months, with business on the upgrade, is “velvet.” And so the story goes in almost all the principal fields of industry. How About the Workers? ITH all this “prosperity,” how fares the worker? The answer may be given in one sentence taken from the Magazine of Wall Street (September 26, 1925): “Today there is a movement toward wage cutting and several of the basic industries have been affected.” This particular issue of the Maga- zine of Wall Street could be read with interest and profit by every worker. The article from which we took the above sentence asks the question in its title, “Must Wages Be Lowered to Safeguard Dividends?” It then gives the answer that “the drive to cut wages is an industrial necessity,” and “the future of profits requires reduc- ed production costs.” This militant organ of capitalism then tells us something of the extent to which this wage cutting process has been carried in the past few months: Among the items of effec- tive wage cuts it mentions the fol- lowing: Industry Pct. of Wage-cut Colorado Fuel and Iron Co..... os Northern Colorado Coal Fields Bates Shoe Factory.......... Alberta Coal Fields....... Amoskeag Textile Mills.. Farr Alpaca Mills....... Pacific Textile Mills............ J. & P. Coates Thread Mills. $ American, | Threads; Company,,.- obo Lorraine: Textile ‘Milks at0s ccm esr erney! Utica Steam Textile Mills.. EM,” American Woolen Mills... Arlington Woolen Mills. Lukens Steel Mills....... Merrimac Paper Co... is Goodyear Rubber Co............... A British Empire Steel (Canada)........ 8 This is only an indication of what is going on, and not by any means a complete list. It is out of the lives of these workers in the industries that has been taken the materials for Wall Street’s Roman holiday. In sev- eral of the cases cited above, the workers resisted heroically, but in each case they were defeated. Fear of Reds Deters Wage Cuts. T will be asked, however, why have not these wage cuts become univer- sal? The Magazine of Wall Street kindly gives us an answer. Speaking as a capitalist to capitalists, the writer ex- plains that the capitalist class want- od last year, just as eagerly as now, ‘9 cut wages. But they were restrain- ed by fear of the “reds,” of the left wing in. the unions. They had to wait until the union officials had ex- pelled most of the Communists, un- til they had bled the unions white by the war against the “reds,” before the real wage cutting campaign could be put into effect. The words of this contemptible cap- italist sheet. should be written in let- ters of fire on the walls of every la- bor union meeting place. In its eag- erness to serve its masters it dis- closes to the working class the secret of control of wages. Here is the rea- son, workers, why your wages have not been cut more than they have. The Magazine of Wall Street says: “It is understood by keen observers that the United States Steel corpora- tion would like to reduce wages but dare not. They fear that Foster might succeed in doing in 1926 what he almost accomplished in 1919—the unionization of the industry. Until that industrial pace-setter, the United States Steel corporation, disregarding this possibility, deflates wages, the tendency towards wage cutting will not have ‘received its full impetus.” Is that clear enough for you, union men and workers? It is the fear of Foster, the fear of the Trade Union Educational League, the fear of the Communists, that has kept the great corporations from further reducing your wages. It was the presense ‘of Foster and the left wing that kept your wages as high as they are. That is what the capitalists say when they are talking to one another in their of- ficial organ, the Magazine of Wall St. It is not without some meaning that this same magazine asks “labor leaders” to contribute to its columns —provided they are “leaders” who expel Communists. It is not so very long ago that the president of the Machinists’ Union, Wm. H. Johnston, Ss HOW Diy ety ite to expel Com- ‘Munists’ from the ‘tition, was writing articles for this “open shop” advo- cate, this organ of wage cutters, the Magazine of Wall Street. Kill Foster and You Can Cut Wages. ND while this organ of. Wall Street explains that wages must be cut, it warns that it will be im- possible to make a real job of it, im- possible to cut right down to the bone as they wish, until Foster has been defeated. “The figure of Fos- ter,” says’ the Magazine of, Wall Street, “still casts a sinister shad- ow.” Foster and the left wing are “sinister” to the enemies of the work- ing class. If, it goes on to say, in the “major conflict going on within the unions between the ‘yellow’ and ‘red’ fac- tions,” victory goes to the “yellows,” to William Green, to Sigman, to John- ston, to Lewis, and to all those who MARY as Mary had a little od A little heart, A little brain. Mary had a little mind but not a friend had she. I. Mary had some gnarled hands, Some twisted limbs, Some skinny hands, Mary had a grimy face Yet plenty wash had she. It, And everywhere where Mary ‘went Her twisted hands, Her wrinkled face, All.of Mary dry and bent Bad luck was sure to go, It followed her in life some day, ‘Than every day, Bt P Then all that day |} It stood near her at Tim, Oi weh! Swinging her to and fro. v. The only time when Mary Tangued, | By MINA ESKENAZI, Written for the Juniors. Or Mary joked, . The only time that ‘Mary liked Was a plain, sunny day. Vi. “My wash is sure to dry today, Dry today, Dry today, My wash is sure to dry today,” Was all our Mary spoke, Vil. And every cloud that Mary saw, Mary feared, So Mary quired. Any cloud that Mary saw vided sure to spoil her day. ay, S Vili. And every rain would maké her worse, _ | Her pain outburst, Would make her curse. '|A day of rain would make her swear, '|A God who had. no sense. Ix. So from, ber cradle till today, Just till ‘today, Our Mary knew no hour of play. {And from her cradle | Until her grave, She'll have no holiday. ‘What’s Going On in Wall Street *) £01 Browder Going Up; Wages Going Down; How to Change It. fight Foster so bitterly, then it will be possible to slash wages right down to the bone. But while Foster is a power, to attack the workers, to cut wages, “especially if accompanied by rising costs of living, would play into the hands of Foster. and. his follow- ing.” That is what the Magazine of Wall Street says. The capitalists’ fear of Foster protects the workers. Then What Should the Workers Do? HAT shall we do? This is the eternal question of the workers everywhere, faced as they are with seemingly insoluble problems. From all the foregoing a few things to do are clearly indicated. Profits are climbing higher and higher. The higher they go, the more intense becomes the drive to cut wag- es down. These facts are clear. They should dispose forever of that sickly school of pseudo-economics of Brook- wood, of Spencer Miller and the so- called Workers’ Education Bureau, of the A. F. of L. official family, of the B. & O. plan sharks—the “econo- mists” (shades of Adam Smith and Karl Marx protect us!) who propose to “increase production im- order thereby to get more wages.” That poisonous theory of class collabora- tion has already half-wrecked the la- bor movement, and if not destroyed, will itself destroy the power of the working class to protect its smallest interests, not to speak of the inter- ests of the workers’ revolution. By studying the enemy, we learn sow to fight him. And by studying the Magazine of Wall Street it is pos- sible to learn quite-a few things about how to carry on the struggle that now faces the workers. A few simple conclusions present themselves from the facts cited above, which are good guides to action on our part: Any union man who supports the officials, such as Johnston of the Ma- chinists’ Union, who are trying to ex- pell ‘the Communists, is thereby giv- ing support to the! cohemits! ofthe working class, support td wage *tcuts, support to capitalism. Those who support the left wing, the Trade Union Educational League, who become what the Magazine of Wall Street calls “Foster’s followers,” help to throw fear into the hearts of the steel kings, the Wall Street mag- nates, and all the enemies of the working class. Support for the left wing is support for the struggle of the working class, for higher wages, for stronger unions, for the organization of the unorgan- ized, for a strong party of the work- ers, for the emancipation of the prole- tariat from wage slavery, for the workers’ government. Which way will you go, workers? With the Magazine of Wall Street and towards slavery, or with the left wing towards victory for the whole work- ing class? . a8 x. 4 On Sunday tho to mass she went, Her dues she paid, Forgot her rent, So Monday was a moving day, Her pain was then immense, xI. Mary knew no politics, She never heard of polemics, Her priest she cursed quite every- day, On rainy day, On sunny day, More on collection day. xi. Mary knew of Xmas day, From windows nice, And great display, __ ie Mary knew of Xmas day, °°" By other people’s say. M42. & XIit.- she cried her eyes out all that been But could not pray In any way; So she sat in bed on Xmas day, Her gnarled joints to rest. : XIV. Mary with her little frame And little head, And little brain, Mary lonesome just the same On Xmas cries her best. *