The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 8, 1926, Page 7

By JAY LOVESTONE. “LONDON, May 2—(Universal News) Printers and other union workers employed by the London Dally Mall, went on strike shortly before midnight tonight following the refusal of the editors to change a strike editorial Intended to appear In tomorrow's Mall. Publication of the paper was made Impossible.” REAT BRITAIN is renowned for its “gradualism.” “Muddling thru” is supposed to be an inherent charac- teristic of the Anglo-Saxons, the chosen people of the imperialist stage of capitalism. The Anglo-Saxons are supposed to be peaceful and resorting only to the so-called orderly method. This has been the illusion propagated for decades by the British bourgeoisie who have perpetrated the Armitsar and Shanghai massacres, Jolting the Democratic I!lusions. HE present general strike will jolt still more the democratic illusions so diligently cultivated in the ranks of the workers by the capitalists of all stripes. The speed with which the military forces, the fascisti, and all the numerous extra-constitituonal ag- encies of the bosses have been mobil- ized against the workers, rips the last shred of the veil of constitutional- ism off the ugly face of “The Mother of Parliaments,” British capitalism. This Daily Mail affair is by itself only an incident in the gigantic his- torical struggle. But viewed from the fundamental angle of ‘class relation- ships, the Daily Mail stoppage is a symbol of all that is involved and pos- Sible in the great country. This stop- page is a symbol of the new shade. the new color, British gradualism is taking on. Gradualism is reddening. The undermining of the position of British commodities and capital in the world market is reflected particularity in this decision of the workers that the press shall not be used against the striking workingmen, In their press, the British exploit- ing class has had a powerful weapon. The newspapers of Great Britain have unceasingly served their Lombard and Downing Streets masters. One would not be exaggerating the case if he stated that the press has played the decisive role in many of the class conflicts in England. A Good Example Set. UT while Thomas is crying, and MacDonald is threatening to lose faith in “democracy,” in “evolution,” in “British fair play,” and in all the other antiques of the British museum, the English proletariat is fast losing its illusions.. The workers from the pits, the rails and the power houses, are not “muddling thru,” but wading thru, breaking thru British constitu- tionalism fortified by such death- charged, barbed-wire entanglements as the fascist supply corps, the navy greyhounds, and the armed battalions. Surely, the English workers could not have chosen a more effective and fitting manner of blowing up the bub- ble of British gradualism than by throwing a monkey-wrench into that infernally dangerous machine—the capitalist press. And our British brothers could not have chosen a better bourgeois news- paper to stop first than the London Daily Mail. This is the biggest capi- talist daily in England. Its circula- tion is more than 1,600,000. Besides, the Daily Mail is a bosses’ mass news- paper in every sense of the word. It has specialized in ways and means of misinforming, misleading, and ‘win- ning a hold on the minds of the masses. In The Press, a pamphlet published by the “Labor Research Department” in England, we find the following il- luminating facts about the Daily Mail, “The Daily Mail was to become _ the necessity of the people at large; to turn their attention from poli- tics, the money markets, and the police courts—from any serious rec- ord, In short, of the social condi- tlons In which they lived, and of the forces which controlled these con- ditlons—and to occupy it instead with sensational news and exciting When “Gradualism” Reddens “Just put yourself under the government’s mediation and we'll gossip ... its concern was the sys- tematic diversion of the minds of the workers from their growing realization of economic and Indus- trial conditions. Every device of journalism, from the dazzling con- templation of ‘the power, the su- premacy and the greatness of the British empire’ to the encourage- ment of popular interest in the best bunch of sweet peas (for which a prize of £1,000 was offered) con- tributed to this end. “The workers on the Harmsworth Papers themselves were kept queit and contented with good conditions and high wages. ‘Today,” declared McKenzie in 1921, ‘the staff of the Daily Mail, working: on a five days a week basis, be it said is, without exception, the most highly paid in the world’ At his, death, Lord Northcliffe was widely commemo- rated as the workers’ friend.” This is the same Daily Mail which recently financed a so-called Labor Delegation to America in order to have the English workers learn the blessings of Yankee imperialism. “The Open Shop Review” for March, the organ of the National Metal Trades Association, one of the most bitter open shop organizations in this coun- try, has hailed this venture of the Daily Mail as a monumental achieve- ment and has declared that “the idea originated with Prime Minister Bald- win.” Not even the “spirit of Lord North- cliffe”’ could induce the workers to print an appeal to the masseg “to hold themselves at the service of king and country.” Here we have the elemen- tary lesson of working class democ racy being taught to the exploiters. Under the guise of the abstract, the hollow slogan of freedom of the press, the exploiting class of England and the other capitalist countries has, thru the control of the means of produc tion and exchange, obtained owner ship and domination of the printing and editorial machinery, American Reactions. F course, the sympathy of the American workers is with their British brothers. ‘This sympathy is far more genufne and deep-going than the faint-hearted statement of Prest- dent Green of the American Federa- tion of Labor would indicate. But our bourgeoisie are deeply stirred and much disturbed by the events in England. Magistrate Dou- ras, sentencing striking fur-workers in New York, said, the other day: “These people must realize that the United States is not like England.” This is somewhat of a revelation. Only yesterday, the strong refrain of our capitalist apologists was: that the United States is not like Soviet Russia, The United States is an An- glo-Saxon country. The United States is like England. Yes. This statement is more than a revelation. It is a rev- olution—in the minds of our ruling class—thru a growing consciousness that what they have ben thinking as impossible is quite probable. George W. Hinman, one of the eco- nomic experts for the Hearst Syndi- cate, sums up the fears of his class in this fashion, “Is there any European’ event which would signify more to Amer- ican business than the breakdown of the whole modern business ma- chine of Great Britain? Is there any European event which would cause America to look more anx- iously to her business bulwarks?... That is one serious thot. Another serious thot is that unfortunately, British example seems usually to take a strong hold in the United States.” And some even betray their nerv- ousness by suggesting a “practical American solution” of the British cri- sis. For instance, the Minneapolis Journal has editorially made the fol- lowing suggestion: “We Americans just now have a splendid opportunity to exemplify our world citizenshipeby extending, at little or no cost to ourselves, the helping hand that may pull our friendly Mmeighbor, Great Britan, do what we can for you.” out of chaos and thereby protect our own country from the grave com Sequences that would be most cer tainly reflected here were the Brit ish empire to go on the rocks... Why cannot Washington offer Great Britain a moratorium for the next three years, covering whatever por tions of the annual payment may be necesary to keep the coal subsidy alive until the emergency has passed? “If Great Britain might thereby be helped out of her plight, the prop to world economy stability would repay us for our pains many times over.” ‘HE American Trade Union move ment owes much to the British Trade Union movement. Numerous English workers were among the leaders of the pioneers, in laying the foundation of our present Trade Union organizations. We have learned much in the past from the British working class. We can learn much more now. Today the British working class is in the front ranks of the workers of the world and can teach many a lesson in class solidarity to the workers of the United States. We have very much to learn and gain from the heroic British example, Workers’ Role in History - By D. Treshak For years bourgeois dictatorship ruled the world; Its bloody tyrannies the workers need not be told. All bourgeois institutions and the political state, At the command of the masters never hesitate To defend the robber fake democracy— system in the name of But the workers are learning, seeing through : hypocrisy. { Yet the yellows praise democracy and “peace ful evolution,” They run in circles to avoid the proletarian rev- olution, They turned Marx, as Lenin said, “Into a hackneyed liberal,” And in the name of Marx these traitors carry on betrayal. Proletarian dictatorship is frightful to these fellows, For they fear they some day may swing upon the gallows. . The proletariat, taught by experience of bour- geois history, When the time comes will abolish the bloody tyranny, And having conquered the political state, As long as the enemy’s resistance lasts, shall not hesitate To defend the great cause now in victory; And that'll be the last dictatorship known to history.