The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 8, 1926, Page 11

By EDITH BLACK BITTER fight has taken place in the house of representatives over the proposal to erect a monument in France to Negro regiments which fought in the last war. Southern congressmen opposed the measure and used all possible tactics to prevent its passage. But every Negro who understands the interests of his people will see that these south- ern feudalists are too dull to see— that the erection of this monument is nothing at all for the good of the Negro, It is merely an attempt of the shrewder exploiters to blind the eyes of the Negro to the treachery of the ruling class toward these same Negroes. The glittering monument is for the purpose of making the Negro forget wrongs and broken promises. It is intended to make the Negro “patriotic” toward his masters—to be willing to go out again and die for the democracy of southern landlords. Every Negro who has both intel- ligence and manhood ought to spurn with contempt the suggestion of such @ monument, If the white workers who were deceived into fighting the “war for democracy” had their eyes opened as to the real nature of capitalist war and the real object of capitalist vic- tory, the Negro workers who foughi in this same fight learned what was probably the most important lesson that the colored people in America has yet been taught. The white workers could be fooled into risking their lives to make Mor- gan’s loans secure, by the Nlusion that they were fighting to “make the world safe for democracy.” But the Negro worker and the Negro peasant had never tasted this “democracy,” even that mockery of it which the white worker has as his portion. “Election by the people?” But the majority of the Negroes were denied the vote. Freedom of speech? A Negro in the South who speaks his mind about his conditions is lynched. Equality— brotharhaaltadame dn, the ranks of the working ¢ the Negro is not an equal. Negroes take the worst jobs at the lowest pay, are charged the highest rents, get the least schooling. URING the war Negro leaders— both the pitifully weak “sincere” ones and those who were not sincere— got busy to show the Negro, who had never enjoyed “democracy” at home, why he should lay down his life to bring it to peoples abroad. This war, they said, would be the acid test of the Negro’s loyalty. This war was the touchstone which would show if the Negroes were deserving. They had been segregated, they had been lynch- ed—true—but if they showed them- selves loyal in this hour of crisis—so said the thisleaders of the Race—all these wrongs would be righted. A grateful nation would raise them up to the position they deserved. This would be the turning point. ~ O into the seething hell of modern war went the youth of the Negro race. Negroes who. had escaped the lyncher’s noose, Negroes who had escaped starvation from pitiful wages, Negroes who had suffered imprison- ment for “debt” on southern farms, entered the hell of guns and gas. Into this hell went Negroes who had been mobbed for any and for no reason, and young Negro intellectuals who had fought bitterly for the education denied their race. All of the workers who saw active service learned the nature of capitalist warfare. They found that it meant mud and filth, sleeplessness, vermin, wounds. Those who lived, learned more by the treaties of “peace,” ich revealed the true aims of the war, The Negro workers found out all this, and more, They found that even when they offered to lay down eir lives for ‘their’ country, the country insisted that they be jim- crowed in the sacrifice. All Negro soldiers were placed in jim-crow regi- ments, Very, very few were allowed to become officers—great pains were taken to prevent capable Negroes from gaining promotion, Even the soldier’s uniform did not save them from being singled out for special at- tack—witness Brownsville. Back home, the wounded were thrown into crowded and tmadequate jim-crow hospitals. A grateful nation had re- warded its loyal citizens! UT more was to come. Special ef- forts were now made to discredit the work done by Negro soldiers. A series of articles in the Chicago Tribune (a loyal republican paper) tried to “prove” that Negroes who had fought in the war had shown them- selves to be cowards. And all this time the lynching of Negroes was going on, and the, practise of segre- gating and mobbing Negroes was spreading to the North, and the labor bureaucrats who control the trade unions were continuing to deny the Negro workers the right to take their places in the unions by the side of their white brothers. But an attempt to “honor” the dead Negro soldiers of the “grateful nation” is objected to by the race-hating con- gressmen who are too stupid to un- derstand that a jim-crow monument is the cheapest way to lure black can- non-fodder for the next time. We may, of course, put aside as ut- terly false the plea of these represen- tatives that they oppose the measure on the ground that no more money must be spent for monuments. That is an excuse which no one is expectec to believe. The truth is that thes« men want to keep alive at all costs the myth that the Negro is inherently ‘inferior. A monument is, of course little enough. A monument cannoi cut down the man who is bein; hanged, nor raise the wages of th: worker, nor give proper schooling to a group of children. OMETHING has happened since the war to open the eyes of the Negro. Imperialistsm, especially the imperial- ism of the victorious countries, has be- come more obvious, more open, more brutal, The countries which fought for “democracy” have used their victory to eppress and squeeze profits from the weaker nations, especially the na- tions of colored people. The American Negro has had the opportunity to see France—the same France which was rescued frontthe-“bratal Elan” to crush the. heroic Abd-el-Krim and his Riffian tribes, struggling only for their independence. They have seen the allied powers shoot down count. less numbers of our yellow brothers in China. They have seen England— “gallant” England—massacre our brown brothers of India and Egypt. A “Grateful Nation” Jim Crows Its Dead The Southern Village Constable Design for a statue to be set up in southern villages by fred B. Watson where the landlord reigns. And they have seen America pursuing the same course in Mexico and in Panama. These workers are learning that im- ialismds the, bitter,encmy of race equality. They are learning that to fight for an imperialist country is to give aid to their worst enemies, to perpetuate the system that enslaves the darker nations abroad and lynches and segregates the darker races at home. It will be more difficult to keep The First of April per first of April has long been celebrated by the union miners as “Mitchell Day.” It is the anniversary of the day when the rank and file won a bitterly fought battle with the coal barons for the eight-hour day. Year after year the miners go on holding mass meetings, parades and such, in memory of the past battles waged by them to improve the miserable condi- tions which prevailed in the coal in- dustry before the battles were fought. And to our sorrow the conditions are none better today. Hundreds and even thousands of our brothers sacri- ficed their lives for the cause of un- ionism and for better living conditions for their children, and those were for- tunate who escaped the strong hand of the thugs, state cossacks and such, which the government as a willing tool of the capitalist class supplied in time of strikes and other labor dis- putes, It is in the same spirit year after year that the rank and file celebrates the first of April. But the official family of our un- fon takes the matter in a different spirit. Tho official family has a dif- ferent motto. While our motto is “One for All and All for One,” the official family’s motto is “You can car- ry a Union card in one pocket and a scab card in the other.” All the conditions that were bitter- ly fought for and won by the rank and file have been sacrificed, and the union miners are worse off than they have ever been before, But nobody can say anything, because the union officials and the boss work hand in hand, If you are not éatisfied the boss gays “take your tools,”—and when the union offictal is called to look after your case, his story is “We can’t do anything now, boys, because the company will shut the mine down. You'd better be satisfied because what you have is better than nothing.” Well, to get back to the subject where we started. The hoys always celebrate the first of April, and April, 1926, was no exception. Several union locals around Brownsville in the center of the coal industry intended to have a parade, but because of rain we held a mass meeting indoors in- stead. About nine or ten union offi- cials were present, including P. Fag- an, president of District No. 5, of the United Mine Workers. After Billy Feeney, William Hines, Ollery and such got thru singing the same old song to the same old tune, then Fagan takes the etand. There were many important matters to talk about— strikes at the Pittsburgh Coal Co.’s Negro workers in the “patriotic” condi- tion in another imperialist war. They learned too much during the last war, they saw far too many promises broken afterwards. When the next war comes, the rulers for whom these wars are fought will find that large numbers of the Negro workers are braver than they ever were before— brave enough and wise enough to fight in the service of their own class, rather than in the service of the enemies of thelr class and their race. mines, Bethlehem Steel corporation. A thousand miners without work. But Fagan didn’t consider these matters important. He considered it import- ant to talk for Governor Pinchot to be elected U. S. senator. It is plain that Fagan came there to electioneer for Pinchot, because he did not touch any- thing else except here and there— but he surely did boost for Pinchot. Fagan said in his speech that every honest worker and citizen will go to the polls and vote for Pinchot for sen- ator. Never did Fagan say that the workers must have a party of their own, That’s the way Fagan helped the miners to celebrate the first day of April—campaigning for the enemies of the working class—for Pinchot who hag publicly announced himself as a stand-by of Strike-Breaker Coolidge. Worker Correspondent, Yukon, Pa. Ancient and By J. E. SNYDER. 'N the early days of Canada, the farmer took his grain to mill for grinding and received back eleven- twelths of the pro¢uct in the form of flour, oatmeal, etc., and the by-pro- ducts for cattle feed, This was 92 per cent of his product. It takes 4% bushels of wheat to make @ barrel of flour. At $1.20 a bushel in Western Canada that would bring him $5.50 a bushel. At retal price he purchases a barrel of flour from the merchant for $13.46. Instead of getting back 92% of his product he only got back 40% and besides he gets none of the by-product, The mill- er of today does not take all tho toll. The railroad takes as high as 40 cents Modern Toll a bushel or $1.60 a barrel. The banker, the insurance company, the gambler, the jobber, the wholesaler, the retailer all divide up with the miller, The tribe that takes toll have builded the toll gates going and coming, They do not take it all, or else the farmer would never come to modern market again, Even now some of them are concemed at his revolt against the low percentage he gets back from his product. What does it matter to be a part of civilization if you starve? The farmer may argue it were better to go back to the old toll mill. But that is impossible, and he will learn that there is a better way—Bolshe vism and a aclentifically organized so clety,