The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 13, 1926, Page 6

§ Page Six THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1118 W.: Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill. Phone Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (in Chicago only): By mall (eutelde of Chicage): $8.00 per year $4.60 six monthe | $6.00 per year $3.60 six months $2.50 three months $2.00 three months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1118 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, IIlinole TD J, LOUIS ENGDAHL re tL, | WILLIAM F, DUNNE MORITZ J. LOEB,.....csscseoreeseeess Business Manager —$ ns Bntered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the postoffice at Chi- cago, Iil., under the act of March 3, 1879. — Advertising rates on application. SS er A Crime to Smash Idols The arrest and the coming trial of A. Bimba on the charge of “blasphemy” in Massachusetts is an example of the lengths to which the master class will go in order to hold the working class in ignor- ance. The component parts of every ruling class are its bureau- eracy, its courts, its army, its police, its hangmen and priests. Without the armed power of the state to hold the workers in terror the nabobs would not be safe inhabiting the palatial housés built for them by the slaves that they despise. Without the priests to solemnly assure the masses that this is the best possible of all worlds and that the more miserable people are here the happier they will be after they are dead it would require a far greater armed force to hold them in subjection and eventually the armed’ force itself, realizing that there are no rewards except those to be realized on earth, would stop looking beyond the clouds for the things they could take by force here upon earth. So when a Communist goes into one of the most closely-knit industrial centers of the country and proceeds to smash the idols by making fun of Jehovah and the other tribal chiefs promoted to the status of gods and connects the master in the skies directly with the masters on earth the policeman and the jailer are called to the rescue of god almighty. The bloodsuckers of labor in Mas- sachusetts are not particularly concerned about Jehovah, but they know that if the workers come to hold in contempt the mythical master in the skies they will have no respect for the real masters on earth. Unfortunately for them, however, the founders of the republic who were revolutionists of the early period of capitalism, did con- siderable idol smashing themselves in order more effectively to destroy the illusions of the feudal monarchies, and as a result this government is not founded upon any form of religion and the teach- ing of atheism is no crime. The puny despots of Massachusetts should be forced to endure the humilation of a battery of speakers talking atheism from one end of the state to another and unless they release Bimba at his trial, which has been postponed two weeks, they are in for an anti- religious fight that will leave the spook chasers gasping for breath. A Cheap Blatherskite At the last meeting of the Chicago Federation of Labor one Ed. Wright arose and indulged in a low tirade against the militant ele- ments in Chicago Typographical Union No. 16, which Wright dis- graces with his presence. He tried to create the impression that he speaks for the union of which he is a member. This is far from the truth. Of all the discredited individuals who from time to time have tried to lead the membership of that union up a blind alley Wright is the most thoroly detested. So utterly discredited is he that he could not get elected to any office in, his-own union. . No union official who values the support of the membership would ap- point Wright on even an entertainment committee because of the deep aversion such appointment would .evoke. Yet, somehow or another, by hook or erook, this person sits in the meetings of the Chicago Federation of Labor. Since he eannot represent his own union he had to look for some other union that would give him credentials. He now pretends to represent the Brickmakers’: Union. The members of this union might profit and save their union from misrepresentation by inquiring from reliable members of Typographical Union No, 16 regarding the record of Ed. Wright. While professing to be concerned over the Chicago printers Mr. Wright solicits business for a concern known as the Iowa Homestead in Des Moines. His business card does not even carry the union label. In his attacks on Communists he repeats the banalities of John L. Lewis and other agents of the bosses engaged in the business of selling out the workers. But, like the craven poltroon he is he dare not debate the issues before the membership of his own union. As a union man this specimen is a peach of the rarest vintage, an un- parallelled lallapaloosa. Borah Skids on Slime William E, Borah, leader of the fight against’ American Adher- <> 100 ence to the world court, has accepted an invitation to address voters of Chicago under. the auspices of the newly created Crowe-Barrett- Thompson-Tribune outfit of political corruptionists. “Big ‘ Bill” Thompson was hounded from oflice, after electing Len Small gov- ernor of the state, by the 7'ribune exposure of his administration. He remained in eclipse, even berated by one of his political creatures, State’s Attorney Robert E. Crowe, until the past few months. Now the former pariah has been’ brought back into the camp of the identical elements that kicked him out of his job as mayor of Chicago. t County and congressional compaigns are approaching and the boodle gang have seized upon the anti-world court sentiment inorder to befog the minds of the voters. Their first big show will be the Borah meeting. In spite of protests from other quarters against aiding the new alignment in the republican party, Borah is-pledged to skid into the campaign to repeal the move toward the world court on the slime of the Crowe-DBarrett-Thompson-Tribune aggregation of seab herding and union smashing spoils politicians who. never embraced a political principle in their lives except to the degree they hoped to turn it into hard cash. Workers should understand this industrialist branch. of.-the republican party and not be deceived into believing that ‘because Borah and his supporters opposed Morgan’s league of nations pro: gram they are any more friendly toward wage earners than Wall Street itself. , es det a member for the Workers Party and/a new subscription for the DAJLY WORKF\ bri jae year the 22t)of February (Lincoln's birthday)"4s set aside as a national holiday. It is an oc- easion for patriotic’ societies: to in- dulge in the most preposterous eulog- iums to Lincoln as the emancipator of the Negro slaves of the cotton plantations. His ‘career is pictured in glowing terms to the working class of the nation as an oustanding ex- ample of Americanism. The capitalist class tries to create the illusion that the United States of America enjoys greater freedom than any nation on earth and that it owes this freedom to those heroes that strut in majestic array across the pages .of patriotic histories. The illusion of@liberty is, jall the more necessary. today in order to conceal the vicious class. charac- ter of the United States.government. On the day when the.patriots cele- brate Lincoln’s birth we, will present a few facts to the readers. A persistent myth ‘has’ grown up to the effect that Lincoln was the great emancipator, whose” zeal’ for liberty for all humanity Knewno bounds. There is not one fact in his whole life to support this:fiction, Far from being a courageous and determined champion of the cause of the emanci- pation of the slaves of the South, he was one of the very last.to demand the emancipation: of: the Negroes. And the emancipation, proclamation itself, as we shall see, was nothing more than a war measure, adopted after every effort had been made to evade the issue, and was, never cal- culated to free all the slaves. Agent of Industrialism, shee! republican party, the party of Lincoln, came into existence as the political expression of the economic interests of the industrialists of the North, who desired to wrest control of the government form the hands of the chattel slave holders of the South, In neither of the two,campaigns of the republican party preceding the civil war was the demand for emancipation put forth. But John C. Fremont, the candidate in 1856. (the. first cam- paign) was known as an abolitionist. This fact was believed to have caused his “defeat. THE DAILY WORKER THE LINCOLN MYTH was chosen as the standard bearer because he was NOT an abolotionist, and therefore he had never played a prominent part in the abolition move- ment. He was chosen in place of Seward, a much abler and far more courageous man, who was the ‘real leader of the republican party until 1860. Lincoln was nominated because he was considered a compromiser, a man who would try to straddle the issue and, if elected, use the government in the interest of the northern industrial- ists and at the same time leave slav- ery intact. The industrialists did not want to abolish slavery but they did not want the slave holders to use the power of government to the detriment of the rising capitalist. manufacturing establishments of the North. His Stand on Emancipation, UT the southern slave holders re- fused to yiéld to/domination by the industrialists and ‘as soon as the republican victory ‘was announced states began to secede from the union, so that by the time inauguration day rolled around and Lincoln became president, most of the states of the South were out of the. Union and a government formed called the Con- federate States of America, Everyone waited the inauguration of Lincoln and his first speech on policy. On the appointed day it was delivered and his opening sentencés included the shameful assertion that slavery in the South was sound, that the union would last forever, that se- cession was impossible (tho it was then an accomplished fact) and he ad- vocated the return of fugitive slaves to their masters. Thus the “great emancipator” began his presidential career with a speech damning to slav- ery the thousands upon thousands of Negroes who had, at the risk of their very lives, escaped to the North, Lincoln Upholds Slavery. HE fact that Lincoln did not have the courage. to declare the civil war a struggle for emancipation aided the enemies of the North in Europe in their intrighes and made it difficult for those who opposed slavery to win sympathy for the ‘cause of the North, because the impression. justly pre- vailed that peither the; Union nor the So, in the campaign of 1860, Lincoln Polish R 1 N January 28, this year, the work- ing class of Poland commemorated the deeds. of the first Polish martyrs | for the social revolution: Kunicki, Bor- | dowski, Ossowski and Pietrusinski, | who were murdered in the citadel of | Warsaw by the czar’s regime, on Jan, 28, 1886, These ¢othfades were | all members of the social-revolutionist | “Proletarian” party of Poland—the | first Socialist party. was born in 1861, the son of a doctor. | He took an active part in organizing | circles among students in St. Peters- | burg where he was a student in a| university, and for, some time an ac- | tive. member of ,“Narodnaya Volja” a terrorist organization. Compelled to leave Russia after the assasination of Alexander III in order to avoid ar- rest, he became active in the revolu- tionary. movements of Germany, Switzerland, and Paris: Later due to a dearth of leadership in Poland brought about ‘by the arrest and im- prisonment of revolutionary leaders, lit became necessary for Kunicki to return’ to Poland where he became the theoretical and organizational leader of revolutionary activities. In July 1884, Kunicki, with twenty- five other revolutionists» was arrested. Among them: were Bordowski, Ossow- ski and Pitrusinski:: Piotr Bordowski, of Russian parentage, had been sent to Warsaw by the Russien government to serve as justice: of. the peace. There he became active in the revolu- tionary movement asa link between the Polish and Rugsian,revolutionists. Michael Ossowski, a Pailroad worker also took an active part-in organizing workers in Warsaw, and was charged with particpating fm the killing of the government agent Skrzpczynski, while Jan Pietrusinski, aetextile worker ac- | tive in the small, indastrial town of Gierz and an organizer of several branches, was tried.for a similar charge: participation ,ip the killing of a government,agent, F. Helzer, The four comrades were convicted by trial in Decemiber; 1885 and hanged January 28, 1886, Altho in the 70s, there were social- ist organizations in western Europe and, to a limited extent, in» Russia, there was no organized movement in Poland, which “at that time, was split | into three parts over which Austria, Germany and Russia reigned. The | first workers’ organizational effort in the history of Poland was made by Ludwik Warynski, who was called the “Polish Lenin” by Comrade Feliks Kon, The new workers’ organizations were called “defense citcles”. and thelr chief activity: was in the collec- tion’ of money WHR they used in time of strikes. Altho these organiza- tions did not develop a socialistic pro- gram, .the hangmen of \the-czar recog: nized the smoldering danger existing in their class @haracter, and immedi- ately —staged. arresting. and jailing dozens of workers, ~~ The outstanding figure in the advent |, Stanislaw Kunicki, an engineer, | i Confederacy Nhad the slightest inten- The 40th ‘Anniversary of the First evolutionary tion of freeing the. slaves. Lincoln’s attitude. toward General John C, Fremont, first republican can- didate, certainly reveals his total Jack of principle in dealing with the problem of slavery. Fremont arrived home from Europe after the outbreak of.the war to take command of the army in Missouri. Himself an avowed abolitionist he issued an order on August 30, 1861, directing the con- fiscation of the property of all who had taken up arms against the union, proclaiming freedom of their Slaves and creating a “bureau of abolition” to carry Out his orders, Lincoln suggested that the order be modified and made to conform to a very moderate “confiscation” act passed a few months eéatlier which de- manded the liberation of slaves em- ployed on conferedate”’ fortifications. Fremont ignored the suggestion of Lincoln, This infuriated the “great emancipator” and‘ he‘ ¢aused the re- moval of Fremont because he endeav- ofed to free the slaves of those who fought in the southern army! = ae his course by thé excuse that-his only motive wasto*save the union. He said: It ‘ * My paramount object inthis strug- gle is to*s ‘the union, and is not either to je’ dr destroy slavery. If | could save the union without freeing a ave; would'do it; and if | could e it by freeing all the siaves | would ‘do it; and if I could save it by freeing’some and leaving others’ alone, | would also do that. Here, in plain words, from the pen of iLncoln is the proof that the civil war was not fought to free the slaves, and that Lincoln himself did not con- sider the’ issue one way or another. He wanted to save the union so that the cotton gill owners of the North could get’ tHe!'taw ‘cotton from the South instead of permitting that: ma- terial to g6"to™the mills of England, while the’ property of the northern industarialists lay idle. Whether that cotton was harvested by slave labor or “free” wagé-labor was a matter of utter indifference to Lincoln. General Fremont was. succeeded in command by General ‘Hunter, Rebukes Another General. UNTER, himself, on:May 9, 1862, while in command ‘of the forces occupying conquered ‘territory in South Carolina, issued\-an order de- claring free all the slaves in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. In this act he had the complete approval of all abolotionists. ‘But Lincoln count- ermanded the order jena rebuked Hunter. In the latter part of August, 1862, after the war had been raging a year and four months, Horace Greeley, ed- itor of the New York Tribune, assailed Lincoln for his stand against Fremont and Hunter and for instructing Gen- eral Halleck to exclude from ~ his ranks fugitive slaves who had escaped from their masters into the union ranks. This last act which denied a haven to the poor Negroes who had endured monstrous privation and hard- ship to get into the union ranks aroused every abolitionist in the coun- try. But even the wholesale denunci- ation heaped upon his head because of that brutal act did not swerve Lincoln from his attitude toward slavery. He The Proclamation. N September 17, after fierce fight- ing, the confederate army under. Robert B.-Lee was. checked in its march toward Washington at the bat- tle of-Antietam. The fact that the slaves ‘remained on the plantations furnishing: material and food for the Confederate armies finally influenced Lincoln to- issue a few days later (Sep- tember - 23,.:1862) the preliminary emancipation proclamation, announc- ing that the slaves would be freed in all the states resisting the union after January 1, 1863. Those slave holders who ceased resistance to the union could continue to hold their slaves. This only elicited jeers from the South, So on January 1 a_ second proclamation was issued declaring slavery abolished by military author- ity in all the South except Tennessee and parts of Virginia and Louisiana then held by the Union army. In those slave section,"held by the Union army, slavery was permitted to flour- ish. To-continue to hold slaves the secessionists had only to signify their willingness to.cease opposition to the Union. ‘ “So the “emancipation proclamation” was not in any sense intended perma- By H. M. Wicks a war measure and made no provision| whatever against the re-establish- i ment of slavery after the war of seces- sion, To expect Lincoln, the agent of the industrial capitalists of the North, to have been other than he was is ab- surd. He served the interests of his class to the best of his ability and his outlook did not exceed that of the industrialists. He was neither better nor worse than most otber politicians of his class and time. The emancipa- tion of all labor, white or black, can, not be achieved under capitalism. It is only the spokesmen for and the vanguard of the modern working class, created within the capitalist system, who carry on @ real campaign for emancipation and whose. efforts can finally achieve emancipation, Lin- the embodiment of the .class inter) ‘ests and class hypocrisy of the ‘us trialists. The avatar of the, working class is Lenin, whose life and work personifies the proletarian revolution, The Thirteenth Amendment. Slave labor in the South was only vabolished by the adoption of the thirteenth amendment to the consti- tution, which prohibited. “slavery or involuntary servitude, etc.” Lincoln did not write it nor inspire it, but only signed it, in his official capacity as president, on Feb. 1, 1865. ‘This is, in brief, the history of Lin- coln and slavery during the civil war period. "In place of the heroic figure depicted by the jingoes who eulogize capitalist conquest and try, by distort ing the past, to prepare for more. ghastly slaughters in the future, we see’ the real Lincoln, stripped of his halo, doing everything within his power to perpetuate slavery and only partially yielding as a war measure. Instead of the heroic myth, the col- losus. bestriding the earth, we see an ordinary opportunist politician drift- ing with the tide and with the most reprehensiple bestiality’ condemning human beings to slavery because todo otherwise might thwart his political ambitions. When, on Lincoln’s birth- day, we listen to the ignorant blah of the patriots these facts should be kept in mind and disseminated among other workers in order to inspire,a gupreme. contempt for the mockery of Ameri- /eoln is eulogized today because he “) replied to Greeley and tried to justify Martyrs {ed the solution of the Polish question. | in a clear Marxist manner; combined the Polish movement with the Rus- sian; indicated the necéssity of mass movement and action; organized many demonstrations and strikes; printed many proclamations, official papers and pamphlets; and worked out to its broadest possible form, the under- ground organizations combining; them with mass activity. Ludwik Warynski, was arrested in September 1883 and -was tried with the twenty-five comrades. previously mentioned in December 1885. He re- ceived the sentence of sixteen years hard labor and died ‘February ‘1889, in the horrible Sliselburg Citadel in St. Petersburg called “Iron Bag.” Stanislaw Kunicki, after he had been sentenced to hang, sent out from behind the prison wall a letter in which among other things, he said: “May the heavy indictments which fall upon us not scare you... do not nently'to free the slaves, It was only can patriotism. Notes of an Internationalist . Big Coalition—Big Betrayal—Big Debacle By JOHN PEPPER. By JOHN PEPPER. social-democratic fraction in tion” government, What is this so-called big coalition? Nothing other than the government of the German people’s party, the cent?é, the ‘dentocrats and the social- democrats: Hence,-a government of the entire German bourgeoisie with the exception of the German pation- alists, Supplemented by’ the sotial-de- ‘other than an. alliance of the social- democratic party with the bourgeoisie and against the proletariat. It could metical formula: big coalition—big betrayal. f F course the social-democracy will most despicable of the kaiser’s gener- ils against the working class. In 1923* « T é he social- the German reichstag has decided only the. intervention of t that (under certain conditions) it is |1emocracy, the participation of the so- ready. t@ participate in the “big coali- cial-democratic leaders in the govern- ment, so confused the situation that the revolutionarily inclined masses re- frained from putting thru the revoli- tion. . Now, in the winter of 1926, while unethployment mounts so men- acingly, while social discontent grows from day to day, the social-democracy again realizes that its time has come, it seeks once more to fulfil its historic mission, it aims once more to save moerats. The big coalition is nothing bourgeois society. NLESS all signs fail, the social- democracy will not have it quite be: expressed with ‘the simplest arith- |8° &@8Y this time to fulfil its historic; traitor mission. Vigorous struggle: are also taking place within the so-' cial-democratic party, not only are the old right and left tendencies fighting LUDWIK WARYNSKI once more explain that it is in @/one another, but a part even of the desert our red banner, hold it high and you will win the victory. “These are my last words, this, my brothers, is my last will which I am Died in the Schlisselburg Fortress in 1889. state of duress; that {t could not do | avowed right, like Hilferding and otherwise than, in the interests of the Breitscheid opposes the tactic of vo- working class, to enter into this ting for Locarno and thereby hinder- of the Polish working class move- ment, was Ludwik Warynski. His activity extended to both the Russian and Austrian territory of Poland, and in the fall of 1877, together with other comrades, he issued.the first socialist program in the histery of Poland. Up to this time, his work, and the work of his comrades, was merely propa- sanda, In August, 1882, Warynski succeeded n forming a “workers committee” by wringing together the scattered circles of socialist organiziitions. This com- mittee in September of the same year, issued a proélamation with a party program under the name so- clalist revolutionary “proletariat” party, and by the Summer of 1883, a central committee-“had been formed. This marked the advent of the first organized party in, the history ot Poland. 4 € At this time the Polish socialist movement under, Russian regime faced a serious controversy based on the question of the independence of Poland, A part of the socialists con- tended that the first step to the trans- formation of Poland into a socialist republic, should be to form an inde- pendent state. They declared that a struggle for independence was the logical combine in such an effort, in- cluding the Polish workers and peas- ants, who tho not yet prepared for the class struggle, were ready to fight for independence, Warynski and the proletarian party strongly fought against this opportunistic tendency. In their party i Se they -clearly indicated that thé” Polish working masses must fight Shoulder to should. er with Russian, Austrian, and Ger. man workers to hrow the kaizers, czars and the eral state and establish a socialidtic system of so- ciety, by This party rendered a gréat service: it brought Marxism into Polan sending you...” Afid the Polish working class faith- fully accepted from the first martyr this legacy which was a great help in their struggle to ‘overthrow the ezar’s regime, Altho handicapped by the betrayal of socialist patriots, the time is nearing when'the workers will overthrow the presenf’regime in Pol- and and realize the!true legacy left by Kunicki and his @omrades by hoist- ing the red banner over the ruins of the Polish bourgeois state. Australian Unions to . * Fix Political Policy SYDNEY—(FP)The Labor Coun- cil of New South ‘Wates has called a special congress of “all trade unions in New South Waleg"at Sydney for Feb, 20. The purpose'is to fix politi- cal policy, Theré'{s danger of a split between the indtistrial ‘and the politi- cal wings of the labor movement in New South Wal New Use for Company Unions, FERNIE, B, C.—(FP)—Using their company union to lobby against t honest checkweighman . bill in the British Columbia legislature, the mine feated the measure. Tom Uphill, la- bor member of the legislature just succeeded in amending the coal mines regulation act to permit the free nom- ination of checkweighers. * The company union of Fernie bomb- arded the legi re with letters and telegrams opposing the measure on the grounds that eighers might be selected who were not members of the companygynign, The bona fide unionists could municate with their membe; it losing their jobs, Uphill the connivance of the mine decoy, union. if ' sill operators of the province nearly de-|. alliance ,with the bourgeoisie. The German social democracy has succeed- ed in this maneuver on three previous occasions. The first time in 1918, the second: in 1921 and again in 1923, it millions. of German workers really believed that the participation of so- claldemocracy in the bourgeois gov- ernment: ‘was an- actual necessity for the’ proletariat, But now, for . the fourth: time, this maneuver. will, not succeed quite so easily, ‘ } It is*feally almost’ transparently clear that*the sociakdemocratic lead- ‘ership ‘deliberately created this, so- called>state. of duress” for, them- selves, , .. Al it that really happened? Y'Thé German nationalists desert ed the Liither“government just’ hetore the’ dees, tance “of the Locarno’ pact. democrats havé compélled the dissolution ofthe reichstag*”! But’ ‘what’ did the social: democracy: 40?’ Like an old parrot, for weeks and months it repeated, “If the’ German nationalists desert we shall’ hot vote for Locarno even tho we are for it, we shall not play the’ role of éats-paw for the German na- tionalists.” ‘. But! When the’ German. nationalists really deserted—then the. social-demo- evertheless.-voted with the Luthet*, ent, Thereby ‘the sit- uation was’énde*more saved for the bourgéoisiéand ‘the German’ social- democraty remained ‘true to its na- ture,’ Prior to’ "November: 9th, 1918, it wanted to save the German empire of the Héhensollern- dynasty. As, the Ebert’ trafwhowed) sits entire activity | during the war and in the post-war years was nded solely to bourgeois sot from the as: the proletariat. As was ly in s 80 nt no longer had a par-|the leadership remains under the, ‘majority. Had the social pressure of the Second, International] ‘ “desired, by! -voting|which had officially dec! against the Locarno treaty they could }carno, and also.under the influence of ing the dissolution of parliament. The opposition resolution in Thiringia, the sharp attitude of the Breslau or- ganization, which was heretofore served as the domain of the reichstag was dble'to-maneuver so cleverly that | president, Lebe, the leader of the right wing, the wholesale transfer to the Communists of social-democratic votes in the last election—all this shows that ever increasing proletar- tm masses are expressing their dis- satisfaction with the social-democratic policy in one form or another, f | is no accident that even the offi- cial right leadership of the social- democracy is split in this question. The rights, Hilferding and Breitscheid, f as well as the “ft” Rosenfeld Levi, see with chattering teeth that the working masses.more and more turn from them, On the other hand however, the most powerful portion of declared for the socialist party of France ‘which likewise had supported Locarno, In the question of the big coalition the tactic of this. leadership also plays a great role. They desire to co-operate with the bougreoisie, they feel them- selves uncomfortable in a situation in which, entirely against their will, they must occasionally function jointly with the Communists as a* workers’ opposition, The German social-democracy has ‘been the government already three times. In 1918 there was as yet no Communist mass party in Germany; in 1921 the March action prematurely shattered the Communist advance guard; in 1923 the Brandler r of the Communist Party missed fire. of Germany is a mighty mass party and is following the correct tactic of the united front. We may \hope t the big coalition this th ‘signity. | not only the big betra; i i le of the Now, in 1926, the Communist a | ' 1 a=