The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 31, 1926, Page 6

a Page Sm THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 3418 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, I. Phone Monrce 4713 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mali (in Chicago only): By mall (outside of Ghicage): 96.00 per yoar $4.50 six months | $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.60 three months $2.00 three months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1118 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, Iilinels ED 3, LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE . MORITZ J. LOEB..... meee Business Manager inet aitsesenseneaaessnetuaE OSES Mntored as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- cago, Til, under the act of March 8, 1879. Advertising rates on application. TT) Wal Street Coalition Assails Brookhart Again the coalition of Mellon-Coolidge republicans and Morgan democrats has transcended party lines and stood forth as, the instru- ment of the most powerful capitalist group in the nation against the small capitalists and middle class farmers of the country, Smith ‘W. Brookhart was seated as a republican senator from’ Towa ‘and his election contested by Daniel F, Steck, a democrat, who received the support of the Coolidge gang because the administration wanted to eliminate all insurgency from its ranks. Steck, as a regular demo- crat, was considered far less menacing than Brookhart, In spite of the manipulations of the official republican machine there is:as much or-more evidence that Brookhart was elected as there is that Steck was elected. ‘Without presuming to yenture an opinion as to who was elected, we cannot overlook the fact that those who constitute the old.guard in both parties are after the scalp of Brookhart and evidently deter- mined to unseat him and seat Steck, regardless of the merits of the ease. It is significant that five republicans and five democrats on the senate committee on privileges and elections voted to recommend to the senate the unseating of Brookhart, while one lone democrat voted against the majority recommendation and will submit a minority report. The republican senators who voted to unseat a member of their own party were Deneen of Illinois, Ernst of Kentucky, Watson of Indiana, Green of Vermont and Goff of West Virginia. The demo- crats were King of Utah, George of Georgia, Smith of South Caro- lina, Caraway of Arkansas and Neeley of West Virginia. All of them, with the exception of Watson of Indiana, supported Morgan’s world court proposals and all other Wall Street measures. Watson hedged on the world court because he has to run for re-election this year and not because he disagrees with the Morgan scheme. If the senate does unseat Brookhart it is likely to spell defeat tor one of the favorites of the republican stalwarts—Albert B. Cum- tains, who also has to face an electoral contest this year. Brookhart -will probably run against Cummins in the primaries to be held in Towa in June. The agricultural crisis in Iowa will not contribute to the popularity of a Coolidge senator, so it is more than probable that Brookhart will defeat Cummins, thereby further reducing Goolidge’s support in the senate, The republican-democratic coalition is gradually becoming a permanent alignment that must eventually crystallize into one reac- tionary party, while the insurgents in both old parties will also create a new party. The divergent petty bourgeois elements sup- porting the insurgents cannot be expected to wield any marked influence upon political life in this country because of their diver: gent sectional and class interests. The only effective opposition that is conceivable at this stage of development is that based upon the} working class—a labor party. A genuine class party of labor that could enter the coming con- gressional campaigns with an appeal to the workers and impoy- erished farmers would make an indelible imprint upon the political life of this country. The fact that there is no such labor party embracing masses of organized workers to respond to this historical demand is a sad commentary upon the calibre of the leadership of American labor. Understanding this fact, the militants in the labor movement should wage a more determined struggle than ever to expose the scoundrelism of the treacherous policy of supporting various capitalist party candidates and should increase a thousand- fold their agitation for a class labor party, A Move Toward Industrial Conscription Hearings begin today in Washington before the house commerce committee on legislative proposals designed to prevent strikes in the coal mining industry. Particular emphasis will be placed upon the recent suspension in the anthracite region and the committee is expected to propose the adoption and enforcement of laws that. will amount to industrial conscripiton for the workers in the coal mines of this country. 4 This is a serious menace to the organized labor movement and, if such laws are placed upon the federal statutes affecting the coal industry, they will be extended to apply to every basic, industry, thereby legally enslaving the whole working class of. the country and outlawing any effective action on the part of organized labor short of actual revolt against the government. Unquestionably the time will come in the United States, as it must come within every state resting upon the oppression’ of the many by force, when the government will have to throw off its hypo- critical mask of demoéracy and stand forth as the armed:power of the most powerful section of the capitalist class imposing its will by force alone against the rest of society. Certain lawmakers seem to think that time has arrived for the United States. If the representatives of organized labor in this country are worth their salt they will go before the commerce committee at Washington and bluntly state that an industrial conscription law will be flaunted and the government openly defied that dares to try to enforce such a thing. Under such laws as are proposed the whole labor movement would of necessity become illegal and an ever greater armed force would be required to hold the workers in least. Military conscription would eventually be resorted to in order to enforce industrial conscription, with the spectacleof some workers being drafted into the army to shoot down other workers who strike for the elementary rights to maintain labor organizations. When guns are placed in the hands of workers under such conditions the gov- ernment responsible is flirting with armed insurrection, as workers will not always train their guns upon other workers at the behest of ‘the exploiters of labor. If the lessons of history mean anything to the gang in power at Washington they will hesitate a long time before they embark upon a policy of industrial conscription, for we warn them in ad- “vance that American workers will not stand for it. Get a meniber of the Workers Party and a new subscription ‘H needle trades workers, espe- cially in New York, face grave problems and sharp struggles. This is particularly true in the case of the furriers and of the cloak and dress- makers, In both of these unions there has lately come a change of leader ship and policy. After bitter years of internal struggle, the revolutionaries and the progressives who fought for a militant program and leadership have been successful in ‘ousting the reactionary heads of the organization and giving expression to the demands of the overwhelming majority of the rank and file. In both of the men- tioned unions the Communists and left wing forces are at the head of the administration, And the leadership they have defeated was composed chiefly of socialists, or as they are universally known in the Jewish labor movement, Forwardites, agents of the yellow Jewish socialist daily ‘by that name, The furriers are in the midst of a very successful strike, under left wing leadership; the reign of official terror- ism has been ended there. The cloak and dress makers are drawing breath in preparation for the coming battle with the manufacturers, and they are engaged in a big campaign of organi- zation where the success of the fur- riers is being repeated. At this moment of struggle, when the elementary interests of the work- ers are at issue, when they can be said to be fighting for their bread and homes, there enters an insidious and unscrapulous tribe of scoundrels THE DAILY WORKER Tt The “New Leader” Joins the Pack who deal these devoted working-class fighters one stab in the back after the other. They represent the most poi- sonous influence in ‘the labor move- ment, the blackest reactionaries who still masquerade under and insult the name of socialism. And here we will consider only their activities in the In- ternational Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, 6 + The left wing in this union has gone thru a bitter fight. It has been villi- fled and slandered..., The yellow social- ist leadership has not, hesitated to use “strong” arguments. against them. Rank and file fighters against the bureaucracy had to fage a terror which would have caused.a hard-boiled boss to think twice before using. A mild measure was expylsion—of which there were scores.. And finally came the struggle of las}, spring, where the largest locals of New York were kicked out of the unjons by the des- perate officialdom for the crime of hav- ing elected a left wing administration. The expelled union, did not form a dual organization, the yellows hoped would. Instead they formed their joint action committee, which carried on such a splendid fight that Messrs. Sigman, Fineberg, Perlstein, Breslauer & Co. were finally brought to a halt and the locals reinstated. At the international convention that followed the left wing won a tremen- dous moral victory. From the floor of the convention, its delegates repre- senting nearly three-fourths of the membership, they tore the last shred of honesty, devotion, ability and pro- Tendencies in World Trade Union Movement Non-European Movements Unify. The following is the third of a series of articles on present tendencies in the International Trade Union .Move- ment by the president of the Red In- ternational of Labor Unions. eee By A. LOZOVSKY. ARTICLE Ill. Two projects of symptomatic impor- tance were framed on the basis of the éxtension of the T. U. movement in- fo new lands: (1) The Pacific con- ference of working class organiza- tions called on the initiative of the Australian trade unions; (2) the Pan-Asiatic congress of labor unions convened on the initiative of the In- dian and Japanese unions. Both are as yet projects only, but it may be not- ed that while the first aims at link- ing the working class organizations only, certain prominent leaders of the reformist T. U. movement of Japan ence attended by representatives of the workers, employers and govern- ments on the type of the Geneva labor office of the league of nations. But, apart from the dissimilar na- ture of both conferences, they show that outside Europe there are plenty working class organizations which have had the problem of the interna- tional labor movement thrust on their notice and which are now beginning to look in their own way for some so- | lutions to this problem. With all their essential differences both conferences are symptomatic as denoting that the trade unions of fresh countries are about to enter the arena of the international T. U. movement with their own demands, their own requirements, and their own views. American Seamen's Conference. Another very illuminating circum- stance pointing to the awakening of the workers of these new countries is the All-America Seamen's conference to be held in Montevideo on the 15th of March of this year. It was to have met in Havana, but the wild persecu- tions of the Cuban workers by Ame- rican imperialism put it out of the question, Amsterdam Notices Orient, Up to twelve months ago the Bast simply did not exist for the Amster- dam International, but since the Chi- nese labor unions joined the R. I. L, U. and the Chinese workers have shown that they represent a force to be reckoned with, Amsterdam has roused itself and begun to play up to the Indian trade unions, many of whose leaders are, as is well known, promising young reformists. Of course the Amsterdam International had no wish whatever to do with the Chi- nese labor unions that had appealed for help fo the European workers. What could Amsterdam have to do with any struggle against imperial- ism? Amsterdam Avoids Struggle. The mere mention of struggle is enough to upset the digestion of*the Amsterdam leaders and break in on their peaceful snobbish, well-being that abhors disorder, disquiet and’ dis- regard of existing laws, especially when’the people who violate them are “wild, uncultivated” workers, How be it, we are confronted with a de- velopment of the labor movement in the non-Buropean countries and an urge towards international federation which faces the R. I. L. U. with the many. tasks we now propose to deal th, Reformists Ally With Police. are dreaming of a Pan-Asiatic confer-| ing in that both thé bourgeoisie and the reforthists, and ‘they particularly, have persecuted thé workers. It is common knowledge ‘that the alliance between the social-dbmocrats and the most reactionary imaginable bour- geoisie is a perfectly/@pen one. There is a complete divisioi of labor; the police follow up and arrest the lead- ers of the revolutionary unions while the reformists seize the trades halls and anything belonging to their poli- tical opponents they#kn lay hands on, The last arrests if 0-Slavia aim- ed at preventing the imestng of the congress of indepentfert trade unions to have been held ofi January 25, were ideologically prepare@ beforehand by the socialdemocra¢y@nd the reform- ist T, U. federation? ‘The same thing in Roumania and ‘@feece. Mention need hardly be madé 6f Bulgaria—the role of the sociali@mocrats in the Zankov brutalitiesi@ well enough known as # is. ie Holy Alliance. But this Balkan t¥pe of holy allt-| ance of Amsterdamets*with the police and secret service agents has a ten- dency to be/applie@iin other coun- tries as well. Such»an attempt is be- ing made in Finland where the social- democrats are using the methods of the provocateur against the T. U, lead- ers to prepare the way for splitting the T. U. center, to get the leadership of the same into their hands later on, That is how the democrats act where- ever they are weaker than the Com- munists and the reyolutionary work; ers. But where they have the T. U. lead- ership they take far simpler action. In that case, as in Italy for instance, the alliance of the police and reform- ists carries out the, very same tasks in a different way, The reformists dis- solve the unions and the, police ar- rest theeleaders, Fer some reason or other this és called.not Balkanizing, but democratizing the unions. Amsterdam Assists Break-up. There is thus,mot the slightest doubt that’ certain, of the social de- mocratic and reformist T, U. leaders have approached .ptill closer to the ruling classes andthe bourgeois state, and for the sake pf retaining their places in their seats of power, form a bloc with the ce and the secret service to smash» the revolutionary wing of the labor movement. And after breakiag up the unions, with the Amsterda International's assistance, they qyill enter new vic- tories on the credit.side of their ac- counts, forgetting, ;;however, to add the price at whic! e most dubious vietories will have been bought, (To be continyed tomorrow.) Russian Writer Finds Valued Paris Commune Pictures and Papers KIEV, U, 8. 8, R., Mareh 29—Cha- govetz, a local literary worker, found a complete set of the newspaper “Pere Duchen,” published in Paris during the days of the Paris Commune. ‘The files have papers up to May 28, when Paris was taken by the Versaillese. Besides the newspaper file, Chagovetz found an album with 24 pictures de- picting the destruction done by the Versaillese in crushing the Commune. There are piethres of destroyed theaters, churches, abandoned barri- | cades, and some were absolutely hith- erto unknown, ct The period under review is lik foe The DAILY WORKER. wise in the highest degree intro A aub a day! will help capital away. aia gram from the lacerated bodies of the officialdom and left them exposed as unquestionable bankrupts, HE left wing assumed control of the joint board of the cloakmakers and dressmakers in New York. They took over a financially and organiza- tionally bankrupt union. The board was sunk in debt from the wild squan- derings of money by its last incum- bents, who used it in an attempt to de- stroy the union and the left wing. Con- ditions in the shops were deplorable. Union control had ‘been lost in scores of places. The organizational machin- ery was a mass of graft, corruption and gangsterism—the instruments with which the “socialist” gentlemen are accustomed to lead the workers into the class struggle in the unions. And from the very beginning the so- cialists, gleeful at the prospect of these “impractical visionary Commun- ists” leading the union in its daily struggles in the face of such a situa tion, began their slimy campaign to discredit the leadership and its pro- gram. The expectations of the socialist re- actionaries were only a _ chimera. Where they had spent hundreds of thousands to employ gangsters and easy gentlemen of the underworld and additional enormous sums for so-called organizers who used their leisure time (read: all day) to warm the end of their spinal columns on swivel chairs, the new administration began a gen- nine campaign to organize the demor- alized industry with workers from the shops. The chagrined socialists, who HOLD FIRM. A Poem to the Passaic Etrikers. By ADOLF WOLFF. Hold firm! Close knit Like cloth you make. A thread will split But cloth won’t break. In union, strength _ And hope is found. Hold firm; at length To win you’re bound. You downed your tools And will refuse Like slaves or\fools To stand abuse. You've toiled enough Youf blood and tears Into thejr stuff You’ve spun for years. A living wage, Your just demand; A living wage, \ By this you stand. Report Maxim Gorky Is Writing New Novel (Special to The Daily Worker) NAPLES, March 29 Marxim Gorky is writing a novel to be entitled “The Explorer.” It takes a character from 1890 to 1923 and contains a descrip- tion of the world war, the Russian revolution and contemporary Italian conditions, The work is to be’ pub- lished soon by the official printers of the Soviet government. Gorky is staying at the Villa Gal- lotti at Posilipo, surrounded by-a few intimate Russian friends, and is refus- ing to receive visitors, are now jobless unless they are em- ployed by the manufacturers, may well sneer at the “coffee and cake commit- tee;” but it is these groups of devoted workers who left their shops during the busy season when money is to be made to take a job at organizing for the union at from $30 to $40 a week that are made of the stuff that’ will build the trade union movement into a mighty. ‘weapon of struggle. In- stances are plenty where the enthusi- astic spirit.of-self-sacrifice among the cloak and dressmakers was such that workers elected one or more of their own number in a given shop to become one of these rank and file organizers and decided to tax themselves to majn- tain the wages of this soldier whom they sent forth from their own ranks. Such cafes were never heard of in the black days of the rule of Forwardism in the international, and it is not surprising, therefore, that hundreds of nonunion ships re-entered the fold of the international. The success which the left wing was achieving despite the obstacles and difficulties and the finality with which they were proving in actual practice that they were far more capable of leading the union than their predeces- sors had ever-dreamed of, drove the Forward gang to the point of madness. In their frantic efforts to break down the excellent spirit of mass confidence which the present leadership enjoys among the rank and file their lies and slanders and activities became unbe- lievable and abominable. Since intelli- gent argument would leave them in a 2 An Example of the Way in Which the Dismayed Socialists Are Attempting to Cover Their Sharp Defeat in the Needle a Trades Unions in New York, Especially in the Furriers’ Union and the I. L. G. W. U. , BY MAX SHACHTMAN ——s still worse position, they resorted to the vilest kind of treachery and fabri- cations, - The joint action committee was ac- cused by a Forward pen prostitute of having squandered from a quarter of a million to a half million dollars dur- ing the last fight. But this scoun- drelly lie could not be made to stick. The report of the union officials showed, in minute detail, how the sum total of their expenditures, $122,000, had been obtained and spent. And instead of creating distrust, the For- wards.succeeded in creating only an- gry feeling and hilarity. These repre- sentatives and ‘cohorts of the worst thieves in the union wrapped their ulcerous political bodies in the toga of outraged virtue and honest indigna- tion. The Forward, the ten-storted lady of a thousand perversions, began to protest its virtue! Where the left wing opened its ac- counts, their challenge to the former administration to account for the $270,000 they spent to fight the rank and file, and for the thousands in addi tion spent by the individual locals in the same manner, was conveniently ignored. These gentlemen, compared to whom Tartuffe was a Saint Fran- cis, also forgot the quarter of a mil- lion dollars which Perlstein squan- dered during the dressmakers’ strike in Chicago, for which he never gaye an accounting. Or for the half mil- lion dollars which Fineberg spent in the notorious “stoppage” of the cloak- makers in New York, (Continued in next issue) RUSSIAN INDUSTRY MOVES FORWARD POINTS OUT SOVIET UNION HANDBOOK WASHINGTON, D. C., March 29—Ihe first complete statistical summary of the Soviet Union to be issued in this country has appeared in the form of a40-page handbook under the imprint ofthe Russian Information Bureau, According to the official Soviet statistics of production presented in the book, the Soviet Union is moving forward rapidly in an economic sense. Tn 1921. industrial production stood at less than 15 per cent of the 1913 output. During September last, the |ccnt greater. Airplane lines in regu- lar operation totaled 7,187 miles and, last. month of the Soviet fiscal year, according to the plans, this mileage production had advanced to 82 per cent of the monthly rate for 1913, yo Industrial Production Increase. Industrial production” for the fiscal year: 1924-25 increased nearly 50 per cent over the previous year, according to estimates. Grain production in- ereased 50 per cent and is estimated at;85 per cent of the pre-war crop in the present territory of the Soviet Union...The crop of 1925 is given at 2,732,000 bushels. The ‘technical crops, including potatoes, sugar beets, flax, hemp, oil seeds and cotton, have passed the pre-war average for the Russian empire. The potato crop last year was two and a fifth times the pre-war crop, oil seeds two and a halt times. Sugar beets were 65 per cent of “pre-war and> cotton was 906,000 bales, as compared with a pre-war average of 953,000 bales. Flax and hemp were above the pre-war figure. Livestock attained the pre-war total, except for horses, in which the esti- mate was 25,000,000, as compared with 31,000,000 in 1913. On the other hand, the number of tractors on farms had increased twenty-five fold. Railway mileage last year was about 3,000 miles greater than pre- war, and the construction under way included a new South Siberian line of 1,250 miles. Telephone line mileage was 65 per cent greater than in 1913, and telegraph line mileage was 28 per to drive) When Worker and F: ne (Drawn by Wm. Gropper.) me oe ie r got together in Russia the Capitalist got bumped! ~ will be greatly increased during the present Year. Explains Soviet Trusts. * ‘The handbook gives an explanation of the system of producing trusts and marketing syndicates in the socialist state, and explains the regulations an- der which production and trade may operate, and the concession system. The. growing importance in the na- tional economy of the co-operative or- ganizations, with their 22,000,000 members, receives considerable at- tention. . The consumers co-operatives ran 42,000 stores in 1925 and had a business turnover of a billion and a half dollars. The rapid rise of the Soviet banking system and the devel- opment of the Soviet budget are fea- tured in the handbook. It is explained that Soviet currency has now been on a gold basis for two years. “ The foreign trade turnover for the fiscal year 1924-25 is valued at $657,- 631,000, an increase of 36 per cent over the previous year, and nearly half of the 1913 figure. Imports ex- ceeded exports by $65,500,000, Imports on Increase. The imports by countries show an interesting shift as ‘compared with pre-war days, from Germany to the United States. In 1913 Germany fur- ‘etrument of imperialist opp, nished 42.6 per cent of Russian im- ports, last year 16 per cent. In 1918 the United States furnished 5.7 per cent of Russian imports, last year 30 per cent, Soviet customs figures show imports from the United States for the year of $96,949,800 and exports of $10,902,000, as compared with re- spective figures of $40,730,000 and $7,- 290,000 in 1913, Cotton, machinery, tractors, motor cars, trucks and met- als were the principle purchases in the United States, and furs, many of which were shipped via Latvia, Ger- many or England, and therefore did not figure on the Soviet customs list -|of exports to America, formed the principle items of export, Likor Party Rigid oC Dodge Voting Against Naval Appropriations (Special to The Daily Worker) LONDON, —(By Mail).—The labor party leaders who rave so much against the Communists because they tell the workers capitalism cannot be overthrown without a violent struggle got shown up properly in parliament when George Lansbury, laborite, intro- duced his motion to abolish the Brit- ish navy. Just 18 members in the house sup- ported him. The great bulk of the labor party representatives found rea- son to absent themselves or refused to vote so as not to be re ed in favor of the abolition of what'the Commun- ist member, Shapurji Saklatvala, shown to be Great Britain's chief in- ‘This was conspicuously true of labor party leaders who spend go m time condemning the Communists recognizing the inevitable necessity, ot armed foree in overthrowing ca , » >