The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 9, 1926, Page 15

The Editor of The DAILY WORKER! you, comrade editor, your staff, 4 and all comrade readers away out in the far west. May I send you on this second anniversary of yours my greetings not only from Battersea or Britain but from Bombay and the east- ern world? A As the only existing English speak- ing Communist daily, you have broken the monopoly of the capitalist daily press. published in the English lan- guage, which undoubtedly is today the most powerful and most widely cir- culated, Let us hope that our Com- munist comrades in other English speaking countries will be able to emulate your example, and we shall soon have a world-wide English Com- munist press. In one’s calm moments, when “one revolves only the doom of mankind,” it seems surprising how human folly and weakness on the one hand, and how human arrogance and rapacious- ness on the other hand are as it were conspiring together to thwart human progress at every stage of its deve- lopment. nen Pg fil “Legal. rights” that do wrong to millions of human lives seem to grip thesoul not only of those who enjoy the legal rights, but even of those who suffer as victims from them. These “criminals of want” are a larger body than the criminals of super- abundance, and they stand in their own way far more efficiently than the barricades of the possessing class. , You sometimes hear that there are forty millions of oppressed class un- touchables in my country, India, or that, there are haremfuls of women of some one eastern potentate, who are kept’ under a perpetual veil. If just in a week’s time each untouchable deliberately touched two high class touchables, or-if all women behind the curtains tore-their sheets and shrouds to shreds, the trick will. be done, the eeseeeh aban and .no power upon rth qcan.mestore it, But the tragedy and curse of human folly are that it is the untouchable who dreads to touch, and the covered women who feels offended to expose her beautious form that keeps the trade of oppres- sion going. And so it is with the toil- ing wage-earner, who is more in dread of .the rightful possession of his product than of the scowl of his master. The stupid critics of the Communist Party assail us with an intention to murder everybody and to take posses- sion of his or her belongings. No sound Communist ever thinks of such a fool- ish and futile game. It is not at all necessary to kill the landlords or “mine owners, or railway magnates, or director of a book or cloth factory ‘ito take possession” of houses, coal, Yailroads, boots or cloth for the com- munity. The fdtises’#te"in actual pos- session of the tenants.’ Let your poor est tenants imagine how camitortshte and cle4n and progressive their homes can be made if. each Saturday...the tenants spent 5 or: 10 or 15 dollars (whatever is your weekly rent) on the actual improvement of his dwell- ing place, instead of superstitiously handing it over to a landlord’s agent, for some other family to spend: it upon themselves, You do hot. require to kill anybody, you’ only want to respond’ ‘to human - ‘progressiveness, and to -kill’ the old. time legislative superstitions *and’ mythical civie vir- tues.’ Keep possession of your homes as members of a community, spend a portio# of your earnings month by month on maintaining, improving, and embellishing these homes in accord- ance with the advancing scientific ideas and sanitary needs of the whole community,and do not yield to the terrors and blackmailing calls of the old-fashioned rent collector who quotes phrases from our old barbarous law books. That is all. . As Colliers when you go down the pits and cut and shift coal, as work- ers when you stand in front of your loom or bench or machine, as peasants when you grow cotton or wheat, and as workers on railroads, or in ships when you shift and transport goods Saklatvala Greets The Daily Worker British Communist Excluded from U. S., Sends Message to Workers’ Paper. FOREIGN WORKERS’ WO USE For Conan wind READS U.S- CONSTITUTION a CAPITALIST: BELIEVES Cookinge was WERN Sove Beceegon” “Foreign-born workers? That means the workers in basic industries. for them means safety for me.” wheat, or cotton, ete. etc, and no process of killing anybody is required to take possession of same. You make trouble for yourselves after producing and possessing goods, when you yield to the inhuman and savage supersti- tion of a legal possession of your pro- duction by some unknown, persons,, You require to kilh aebody;enky;yeu require to be sensible and to transport and safely deliver these goods to com- munal warehouse for evgn and sensi- ble distribution by communal coopera- tive organizations, instead of wickedly depositing them under lock and key for a fantastic legal owner, who then ' blackmails every member of the com- | munity who desires or requires to use these goods. You are told by all con- stitutions, American, British, Chinese, or Peruvian, the community can un- make as well as make laws, and if this be so, why not overthrow the old world legal superstitions of fan- tastic individual possessions by in- troducing more humanity into the domain of legislation? The “criminals of want” are surely more numerous than. the few individual owners who keep them in such want. But then comes*a great christian considera- tion! These lovers of peace and constitution will not obey human or just laws, they will fight to the, last ditch for unequal control and posses- sion, and they will come out with a program of killing, firing, food blockading, and starving us into stub- mission with all the refinement of modern terrorism and mechanically conducted oppression. The “criminals of want” say, “Let us then keep quiet, and embrace our life of want as one of tolerable contentment . till the pseudo-christian constitution - monger becomes a truly christian’ constitu- tionalist.” But why should he? During the last 1928 years (Jesus was born in 3 B.C, I am told) he has not shown the least inclination towards such an accom- plishment. It is then that the Com- munist as the guardian of a communal civilization, and as an upholder of community rights, comes forward and says, “Hold his hands, remove his arms, do not assist him,-but stop him from killing.” The real issue is not that the Communist urges you to kill, but that the capitalist is always ac- customed to kill, the proletariat has always agreed to it, and the Com- munist -will not let this killing go on, nor its intimidation to stand in the way of human progress. We want about, ‘you are all the time in actual! society to lay down its arms, to give and substantial possession and con- up its methods of lock-outs, dismissals. trol of coal, of cloth, of boots and | starvation, economic terrorism, and hen to let mankind decide how to meet its needs and desires. This the ‘constitutionalist” (!) refiises to do, and is raving with anger against the Communist who will not quietly per- mit him to kill and starve, while he is sheepherding mankind along the path of -christian ‘civilization. of his pol ception; ' te whieh ,<minger; degrada- sioh, wnempléymient; prisons, prostitu- tion must all continue to play their part to-enable the possessor to multi- ply the profligacies of his life and the excentricities of his control over ten- ants, employes and school-children. Naturally there would arise the cry to wipe out these Communists. This even cannot be done by the masters of the earth without the assistance of “criminals of want.” Some of you must be bribed, and made to believe that you are happy because you are opposed to communal rights and are willing to depend upon individual gifts. Others of us must be crushed down and ground down and be told that in seeking your communal rights you would lose even the last vestige of your possession which keeps »yody and soul together. The whole of Europe is put under this latter process, while I understand our Am- aricam, comrades are put in the for- ner process.of temporary content nent. I do not know, our good friend Kellogg will not permit mé to know, but I‘am informed fiat at, “present youf skies are blue,” thé moon and the stars shine with an untarnished lustre and warmfli on all your homes, and that you are housed, fed, clothed, and endowed with free- dom in a manner unknown to human history. Be that so. But how long are you to remain on the top of this wheel or rotating fortune? Far away beyond your eastern shores is China, with her rivers full of fishes with her tiny bamboo houses, with her pickles and pork and rice. There cotton mills are worked by human beings of eight to eighty years of age on 20 cents a day, Those that are nowv’keeping you con- tent for their own temporary conveni- ence, have only to set up a few more cotton mills over there; The cry will come to the American workers “your market is lost-—protective duties at home cannot help—production must be cheapened.” Then there will be clogds in your blue skies. Just sit and reflect. There are sandy plains in Sudan, with the Nile conveniently nearby and abounding, and also there are little “niggers” and big Arabs there, who will grow cotton on ten THINKS FACTORY na, na AY < i hrnte tt sun, “ thé’ ‘cease to threaten us. SAYS SHows TRENCH wonses NEST WAR VREANTS TUS By Maurice Becker. Slavery cents a day, and give it to the cotton consumer for 10 cents a pound. There will then be shadows and spots on the sun shining over your cotton fields. These shadows will grow when Rhodessia, Mesopotamia and India will all throw: out slave-grown cotton. The coal fields in the east are rising. The experiment bids fair already’ and some forty million tons” ' df” coat” are raised in India, Africa, and China yearly at a cost of under a dollar per ton at pits head, after allowing for slack and dust, by labor that boils underground for less than two cents an hour. The bible, the brandy bottle, the industrial bank are all penetrating these coal areas, so the forty million tons of slave-coal production, then the American miner will hear of his mas- ter’s spirit being willing but the purse being too weak to pay for his great life. The lullabies of the Locarno pact will soon turn into a dirge of the German miners and metal workers, the league of nations will soon pro- duce another fatricidal war extending from shore to shore and even dark- ening the skies and attacking the fish- es under the waters. One can scarcely say what fortunes these new murder- ous enterprises will bring to your land, but let us wish for the best. But wishes do not feed us, they rath- r tend to carry us to our doom un- srepareG, Let us work for the best. Let us now realize the kinship of workers, Chinese, Indian, Negro, Euro- pean, Russian, British and American. Let us stop this economic war of unequal wages, this game of private profits, this plunder of other peoples’ markets, and then thé other wars shall Paper peace, and newspaper disarmaments will Hét ™! avail us when the best comes. Let The DAILY WORKER forge ahead. (Signed) SHAPURJI SAKLATVALA. The DAILY WORKER Saturday Magazine Supplement wishes to re- ceive from workers employed in shops, mills, mines, éte.; short stories of their daily life and experiences. Many persons imagine that only professional writers can write stories suitable for publication. The DAILY WORKER knows this is not true. Many workers in the shops can write the best material for ad workers’ news- paper. , Send your stories to: Robert Minor, Editor Magazine Section, DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill.