The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 30, 1926, Page 8

(Continued from page one) J. P. Morgan and company had to have the counter-signature of the United States senate. : Why would the United States, which was already in this inter- national arrangement, have to legalize its presence here. Even the pawn broker has to give a receipt for the impounded valuables. Even the Shylock’ has to put his signature also upon the usurious contract. N a broad political sense, how do the capitalist spokesmen regard entrance of the United States into the world court? Three years ago, Judge John H. Clarke, who resigned from the supreme court to become chief propagandist for the league of na tions, made an interesting comparison. He compared the present world situation of some fifty-odd capitalist nations to the condition of chaos in which the thirteen American states found themselves at the end of the American revolution. Clarke declared in effect that the covenant of the league of nations meant for the fifty-odd capital- ist states of the world what the United States constitution meant for the thirteen states of America. The American states, as they found themselves at the close of the revolution in 1784, were prac- tically thirteen independent sovereign governments, with thirteen separate currency systems, thirteen separate armies and thirteen separate tariff laws. The little American states were in a condition of economic ¢ollapse. In 1787 thé United States constitution was adopted, which Judge Clarke undertook to describe as a sort of covenant of a league of thirteen American states—a “covenant” which unified the currency, tariff and military systems. His point was that the necessity for an international league of capitalist states after the world war was a historic parallel or repetition of the necessity which existed for the thirteen American states in 1787. HIS analogy is of no value whatever as a reliable guide to under- standing the present situation. History does not repeat itself. No historic period is the same as any preceding hisioric period. The analogy is good only as a means to reveal the point of view of cer- tain of the spokesmen for the present arrangement. Where is the fatal flaw of the analogy? In the first place, simply, 1925 is not 1787. Capitalism which at that time was in its vigorous revolutionary youth is now in the period of its decay, stand- ing as the reactionary force against the new revolutionary force of the proletariat. In the second place the territory of the United States in 1787 was something entirely different as a potential eco- nomic unit from the whole world of today as a potential economic unit, Unquestionably large numbers of bourgeois statesmen are now ~picturing: to themselves the image of a world “constitution” -solidar:. izing “the: capitalist world as a single politieah unit. But there no bourgeois politicians who trust to the reality of this image. All capitalist nations (members of the world court) are arming to the teeth. All are preparing for the inevitable clash between the member states of this world political “unit.” No, this world arrangement is not destined to the long and prosperous period that American capi- talism found for itself after the consolidation of the political unit of the thirteen states. Even the attempt to arrange this interna- tional capitalist “order” arises out of the insoluble contradictions which make impossible the revival of the unified world economy upon a purely capitalistic basis. The censolidation of this world ar- rangement necessarily implies the crushing of that portion of the world economy which is outside of the capitalist economy—the one- sixth of the earth which is under the red flag. The limitedness of the world market in comparison to the tremendous productive capac- ities of today’s capitalism, inevitably leads the world combination to an attempt at forcible conquest of Asia and to the deeper enslave- . ment of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples generally—and these necessary military adventures without doubt mean the smashing of the world combine. The limitedness of the world market necessar- ily means life-and-death competition between capitalist states which are now imagined to be in a peaceful world arrangement. The en- trance of the United States into the world court for “pacific adjudi cation” of disputes, means at the same time that the Unied States is placing itself favorably for belligerent combat over such disputes. ‘VEN in the weeks during which the senate was being lined up for the world court vote, the war-laden contradictions advanced at a rapid pace. Secretary Hoover’s nostrils were blowing gunpow- der smoke because of the growing sharpness of differences between Great Britain and America. The practical taking away of Canada and Australia from the British empire by the United States is one | A of the most striking evidences of the decline of the British empire, a decline against which British capitalism necessarily must make a mortal struggle. Senator Robinson’s objections to the world court on the ground that in the selection of its judges by the assembly of the league of nations the British empire had seven votes in that assembly and the United States only one vote, is very amusing, in the light of the fact that it is entirely possible that some of these seven votes of the British empire—for instance those of Canada and Australia—may not always be exactly British (altho this is rather speculative), HE reservations that were made in the senate are ominous indi- cations of the instability of the world arrangement. These res- ervations were hurled like machine gun bullets at the pro-court sen- ators, but the pro-court senators caught them in their bare hands and with apparent complete satisfaction added them to the senate resolution. The amendments as a whole seem to have the effect of Ein, bey MIL SS sored Bo sre sf Shani Sitliier wos ee The Second-Class Rich Man. The French capitalist, who has been thoroly “Dawesized,” is a little seedy, nowadays. Figuratively speaking, his pants are frayed at the bottom, and his pride is touchy—for Monsieur Morgan is his boss, now. making the United States’ participation an entirely one-sided affair. It seems that the obligations are to be practically all upon the shoul- ders of the other nations, while the United States participates with- out any obligations. This only goes to show that the world arrange- ment is one in which American economic, financial, and political hegemony is legalized. Furthermore the amendment of Senator Reed: “that the Mon- roe Doctrine be declared as a part of international law binding upon the court,” and the answer of Senator Shortridge that this would make the Monroe Doctrine cease to be an American principle and would transform it into a principle of international law—shows where the wind blows for American imperialism. Shortridge shrewdly brought the stupid Reed to understand that American capitalism intends to pursue its imperialistic designs in the entire western hemisphere in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine as a legal standard superior to and independent of the world court. And of course Reed’s amendment was swept into the discard. The legal ratification of the world arrangement is built on the promissory notes of Europe to American finance capital, It is a ratification, a legalization which comes after the fact had already been put into life. But the formal entrance cannot, nevertheless, be called unimportant. It is one of the material steps towards the coming tremendous clash of world war. § to the internal effects upon American political life, the objec- tions from the point of view of Borah, Reed, ete., will either en- tirely disappear or settle down into futile screams of a few injured smaller bourgeois interests. It ismothing less than Iudicrous to note that the ku klux klan made a last wild stand against the world court on the ground that it displaces the purely American government by an international government in which damned foreigners have a part. Simultaneously the question of German’s entering the league of nations has become a big political issue in that country. Turkey is writhing in its anger against the league of nations for its robbery of the Mosul oil fields. Thruout the world the economic and polit- ical dynamite which will blow up international arrangements which are called “the Versailles treaty,” “the league of nations,” “the Dawes plan,” “the Locarno treaty,” and “the world court,” ig being piled up. And the working class of the world, with its allies, the colonial slaves, will say the last word. —R. M. § t