The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 6, 1926, Page 7

Bupplret + THE DAILY WORKER. Second Section: SATURDAY, FERR'ADY 6 1926 SS 290 Editor This Magazine Section Appears Every Saturday in The DAILY WORKER. THE BIRTHDAYS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN—THE TWO GREAT HEROES OF THE CAPITAL- SST REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES—ARE CELEBRATED THIS MONTH. THESE TWO REVOLUTIONARY LEADERS OF CAPITALISM’S YOUNGER DAYS ARE ENVELOPED IN A SEMI-RELIGIOUS MIST AND USED AS SYMBOLS OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM WHICH IS NOW OLD AND DECAYING, AND BRUTALLY, POWERFULLY, MURDEROUSLY REAC- TIONARY. REVOLUTION NO LONGER BELONGS TO CAPITALISM, BUT TO THE PROLETARIAT WHICH WILL DESTROY CAPITALISM. By ROBERT MINOR. EORGE WASHINGTON was the Father of our Country.” “Abraham Lincoln was the Savior of the Union.” ; The birthdays of these two. great figures of American history are about to be celebrated. All of the banks and stores and some of the factories close on these days, and the industrial workers and white collar slaves are turned’ loose to, celebrate, Big politic- ians talk and a great deal of propa- ganda is made for this most powerful ' of all -bourgeois republics on these » birthdays“ of its “Father” and its » “Savior,” Do you ever stop to think what is behind these words “Father” and “Savior”? Immediately we recall of the old religious jargon of “God the Father” and “Jesus Christ the Savior.” Is there any connection, or is it. only an accident that Washington was ¢al- led the “Father” (of our country) and that Lincoln is called the “Savior” (of the union)? Yes, there is at least a shadowy connection. All concepts of religious systems—all images of heavenly government with god om his throne and Jesus and the angels grouped about—all images of heaven- ly dynasties that have ever existed— are merely imaginary reproduction of the social systems on earth among real men, with the king or master and the privileged ruling class. And this image seems to be reflect- ed back from the clouds to the earth again, to envelope in semi-mystic glory the “Father” and the “Savior” of this capitalistic republic. But why were these particular men, George Washington and Abraham Lin- coln, chosen to be the national demi- gods? Who was George Washington? There have been many efforts by critical writers to show that Washing- tion was merely an ordinary land-thief and speculator—a sharp, greedy, land- ed aristocrat and owner of many black slaves who never closed his eye to the chance to:make a few dollars. In re- cent times, many efforts among the pétty-bourgeois iconoclasts to show in a timid, way that Washington “danced all night, flirted with women and liked to drink wine,” have caused little tempests of scandal. For the intelligent American work- ing class all of this is self-evident, and unimportant. Of course Washington was a land speculator, a slave driver, .a money grabber, a drinker of wine and a chaser of women. We know that simply because we know that George Washington was the best possible éx- George Washington the “Father” _ pression of the dominant classes which made the American revolution of which he was the chief. All the business of life out of which wealth was acctiimulated consisted of land peculation, trading in general, slave driving on southern plantations; and the earlier beginnings of wage slave driving in manufacturing, out of these sources, @nd nowhere else, came the greatness of that time, and George Washington was great among his kind. But* the explanation of George Washington is much more important than that. ; There had come a time when the contradictions in the colonial system of Great Britain could no longer be held in*check, Every where in the most advanced portions of continental Europe the fast growing bourgeois elass was fermenting and creating a revolutionary opposition to the old ab- solute monarchies, In the thirteen little colonies of Great Britain clinging’ to the eastern coast of the American, continent, these contradictions developed to an. ex- treme degree. In a certain sense, this colonial system on the American con- tinent was the “weakest link” in the system. of world economy at the time. The American colonial trading bourgeoisie and slave owning. aristo- crats had grown so powerful as to already feel that they no longer re- quired the military protection of Eng- land. The war between England and France in which took the American form of the so-called “French and Indian war” had developed the milit- ary capacity and the confidence of the American colonial wealthy classes, In this war George Washington was developed into a man of military ex- perience, Washington was far from being a weak figure.. pe A a colonel when a there boy of 28/6. showed qualities that were tobe ful in his revolutionary, part later Gn. He was with Genetal Braddock ‘when the British forces were disastrougly defeated by the French and Indians. In this defeat George, as commander of the golonial irregular troops, is said to have done fairly well in sav- ing the regulars from annihilation. But in doing so he learned a great les- son in the weakness of the methods of the classic military school of Europe for application under the conditions of fighting in the backwoods. This lesson Washington was able later. to extend into a greater lesson—one that is good even to this day—that. the, military science undergoes a deep change in the conditions ih revolution- . ary civil warfare. ! (Continued on page 2) 3. mad ee