The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 15, 1926, Page 6

eee ee allot . sab D R get 7 ™ to w tit pr 10, pe un lal } a t be. THE DAILY WORKER "1213 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill, =e CR Published by the DAILY WCRKER PUBLISHING CO. Phone Monroe 4713 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mali (in Chicago only): * By mail (outside of Chicago): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per vear $3.50 six months $2.50 three months | $2.00 three months Address all matl and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blivd., Chicago, IIlinols J, LOUIS ENGDAHL \ WILLIAM F, DUNNE MORITZ J, LOEB... a D Entered as second-class matl September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- cago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. Advertising rates on application. TED Weaknesses of the British Strike The strength of the British general strike from the standpoint of the militancy and solidarity and discipline of the workers was marvelous. The weakness of the strike leadership, however, is something that no Communist should fail to point out. The weakness was in the lack of political direction, understanding and courage, which al- lowed the government to assail the strike as a revolutionary move- ment while the strike leadership contented itself with denials of any intention of challenging the state power. As a matter of fact the general strike was and could be nothing else than a clash with the capitalist government for the obvious reason that the government is the instrument of the capitalist class for the crushing of just such revolts of the masses. This role of capitalist government was never shown plainer .than in the strike just ended. From the moment that the Trades Union Congress declared its intention of supporting the miners’ union, the coal owners faded into the background and the British government with all its apparatus of police, special constabulary, army and navy, courts and special legislation, appeared as the foe which the trade unions had to fight. The government made the quarrel of the coal owners its own and in the government was concentrated all the power of the British ruling class. When millions of workers are fighting they must know who the enemy is or demoralization will result. To strike at the coal owners the trades unions had to first defeat the government. That the government had to abandon its unqualified support of the coal capitalists and make concessions to the trade unions is a tribute to the fundamental soundness of the British’ labor movement and also a sign that under pressure of the masses serious conflicts of interests developed inside the British capitalist organization. The reformist leaders of the Labor Party and the trade unions were neither conscious enough of this inevitable latter development nor courageous enough to take advantage of it. Neither did they have sufficient confidence in the British masses even after a display of solidarity that has frightened the capitalist world and inspired every honest worker. The refusal to accept the contributions of the Russian workers is the most outstanding of a number of cowardly inanities which featured the conduct of the strike. This supposed evidence of non-reyolutionary niibéliclen was rewarded promptly by the government in the form of’ drastic meas- ures to prevent the trade unions receiving financial aid from the workers of any other country. Right from the beginning the keynote of the strike should have been the defeat of the government as the primary necessity for win- ning the struggle. It should be noted also that the strike has created a schism in the official leadership of the labor movement so wide that it is easily seen even from this side of the ocean; more correctly, it widened the already existing schism. The left wing was strong and conscious enough to rally the labor movement behind the miners for eight days, but it was not strong and conscious enough to force the adoption of a clear reyolu- tionary set of objectives for the strike itself. But the lessons of the strike will sink deep into the minds of the masses dnd the present left wing leaders will either have to come closer to the Communist program or make way for a leader- ship which will. As for the MacDonalds and Thomases they may strut upon the stage for a/brief period but their epitaphs in the labor movement were written by the good right hands of 5,000,000 workers who backed the miners against the government in one of the greatest struggles of labor of all time. Editors Business Manager << 290 The Sacco-Vanzetti Verdict After a six year fight,\during which time their conviction on a charge of murder was proved to be a frame-up, Nicola Sacco and Bartholomeo Vanzetti, have lost their last appeal in the courts of the State of Massachusetts, thru the decision of the supreme court deny ing them a new trial. They now only await the sentence, which under the Massachu- setts law can only be death in the electric chair. " It is evident that the -state of the textile barons is determined ‘to’ wreak savage vengeance upon these two workers who fought to organize their fellow slaves. There is but one more chance for them and that-is a slim one. Only the governor of the state of Massachusetts stands between them and death. ~~ Organized labor, not only in the United States, but thruout “the world, has rallied to the defense of these workers and thus far prevented their being murdered at the hands of the mill owners’ government. In face of this decision it is imperative that every ounce of energy be concentrated again in their behalf. Labor everywhere should demand of the governor of that state that he intervene and save the lives of these two victims of the frame-up. If Massachusetts can burn the lives out of Sacco and Vanzetti because of their activity in behalf of their class any other state may do the same thing. The fight in their behalf is a fight against legal- ized murder of workers whose labor activity challenges the profits of the master class. Those readers of Tun Dairy Worker who want to know the real character of the yarieus leaders participating in the titanic conflict in England can best understand their role by reading “Whither England,” by Leon Trotsky. Get a member of the Workers Party and a mew subscription | for The DAILY WORKER. : THE OAC w NOR RES ROM every avenue and alley of capitalist politics and finance a |sigh of relief come as a result of the end of the British general strike, Coolidge is grateful. Washington is breathing easier. Hoover, who keeps his hands on the pulse of the flow of blood-dollars from all corners of the world, to Wall Street, says: “The | whole world is relieved and glad that |a settlement has been reached.” Gary | exclaims: “I am delighted that the general strike in Great Britain has been called off.” And when Hoover is glad and Gary delighted, what more proof do we want that that “the whole world is relieved?” But the inexorable laws of capitalist development seem to be playing very unpleasant and menacing pranks with the gentlemen at the throttle of the imperialist engine driving towards a smashup, towards what they call “the dismal abyss of social revolution.” More Serious Difficulties Arise. No sooner did the international financiers and industrialists heave a sigh of relief at the temporary slow- ing up of a dangerously and swiftly developing crisis in one country, than, like the Hydra in the days of old, new forces arise to let hellish devasta- tion loose in other countries where the current of revolution was long ago supposed to have been dead. It is instructive rather than surpris- ing that on the very day Gary was delighted at British capitalism getting a new breath of life, the Luther (Lo- carno) cabinet fell in Germany, a deeply-rooted, vast monarchist, plot, sharply anti-Dawes plan in character, was uncovered. Only the most pur- blind can see a German crisis in the farce for a “compromise flag.” The selves—are relatively unimportant. These incidents are only symptoms and symbols of the deepening of a gigantic crisis in Germany. The forces at work for a restoration of the Ger- man monarchy, ‘What more arrant arrogance, what re-establishment of the Hohenzollern dynasty—could the imperialist Junker restoration of the monarchical \golors in the national flag? , Who is there who does not know that the German working class will fight to the last drop of blood against any and all attempts of Horthyfication of Germany? And what guarantee have the international bourgeoisie, when once the German proletariat By ROBERT DUNN, (Federated Press Staff Correspondent) (This company union study was made before the big woolen strike began.) HE Forstmann and Huffmann Co. of Passaic, Clifton and Garfield, N. J., whose 4,000 workers are now on strike for a living wage, introduced the company union—known as the representative assembly—after the 1919 strike. The object was to elimin- ate all semblance of real unionism from the mills. At that time the Amalgamated Textile Workers of America was actively in the field. The company union's “representa- tive assembly” was composed of 53 delegates from management and 53, supposedly representing the workers. Four meetings a year were the total “legislative” sessions of the essembly. One of these meetings is the annual banquet where the “worker” delegates set a free feed and listen to the man- agement representatives _ praising their pet machinery for “industrial lemocracy.” HE advertised purpose of the com- pany union is “to promote” the best interests of the F. & H, Co, and its employes thru mutual understand- ing, co-operation and goodwill, The sincerity of this purpose may be judged when one remembers that a wide-sweeping industrial blacklist and labor spy system is operated by the F, & H, Co. The creation of “co-opera- tion and goodwill” may also be the aim of the labor espionage system but the company will not admit pub- licly the existence of this’ spy system, tho openly charged by Justine Wise, who got her evidence right in the mill, and with Alice Barrows of the Federal Bureau of Education, and others, with employing undercover men. Scab Machine, HE workers have shown in the present strike what they think of the company unions and the company suckers and stoolpigeons who com- pose it. The dummy organization has served the bosses only as a means to fight the real union of the strikers, On the basis of affidavits by company union leaders the present injunction against the strike leaders and speak- ers has been granted. Again, Julius Forstmann, on returning, from a pleasure trip around the world, has his trained seal union white him a let- ter asking for protection for the scabs who want to work, Julius then re- plies: “I am glad that you have come to mee This latest action on the part of the assembly (to break the strike, ~Ed.) confirms my confidence in the collapse of Luther, the issue over the | colors of the German flag—by them- | of capitalist reaction are feverishly | more invidious insolence, what more | brazen boldness—short of the actual | clique show then their move for the | again takes up arms, that their trusted | | | Wool Workers Strike $ Up Company Union Bun social-democratic lieutenants will be able to mislead and betray the work» ers away ffom the road of social re- volution as they did when Kaiserism was chased out for the first time? “Compromise flag,” or what not—ex- tinguish one flareup or another—Ger- many continues to be for capitafist Europe a magazine loaded with the most infernal explosives. Scarcely have the echoes of the call- ing off of the British general strike died down when right outside of War- saw—the redoubtable outpost of Anglo- French capitalist reaction—several of the most reliable regiments of the Polish army went on strike against the Witos government. What Wall Street seer will now volunteer to serve as the trumpet thru which the imperialists will announce that Polish capitalism has succeeded in exter- minating all Speyeseen i: for the de- velopment of a revolutionary move- ment in Poland? oh Europe Not In Good, Shape. We lope Messrs. Gary-and Hoover will forgive and not forget us when we ask them how delighted and glad they are at such prospects; ef peace and stability in Germany and Poland? In- deed, while basking in jhe sunlight of Washington's “profoun satisfaction and relief” at the British strike truce as the harbinger of peace and prosper- ity for all Europe and United States, we are reminded of the following pic- ture of Europe just made public by the National City Bank:, | “Altho there is good reason to believe that on the whole Europe makes some progress ip recovering + each year, the procegs,is slow and the year from the spring of 1925 to the spring of 1926 has been gener- ally: disappointing. With three or four exceptions, European countries have not made the advance hoped for.” Yes—the whole world of the Coo- lidges, the Garys and the Hoovers may be relieved at the conclusion of the British general strike—but even the short period which the strike has lasted is a deadly blow at capitalist stability and darkens the already dark industrial situation in.Burope. Results of the enstal Strike, It is yet too early to draw up the balance sheet of the ,eftects of the British general strike,,on the inter- national class struggle,, A At.present we may thus briefly summarize the situa- tion resulting from the,general strike: 1, The proudest and-most powerful of bourgeois governments has been forced to retreat to some extent tem porarily at least bef @ organized British workers. a | 2. The general stril cause of but despite leadership of the T! me not be the reactionary and Mac efficiency of the machingry which we have developed to deaj,,with exactly such problems.” JHE workers, with the, exception of the sucker representatives who receive $2 a meeting when in confer- ence, are completely, disillusioned with the “representative assembly.” One worker when asked. why the em- ployes generally made no use of the company union machinery to correct grievances before the strike, said: “Any worker who tried to get a real grievance corrected would get a double envelope in two weeks.”,Which means he would be dropped at the next pay day. Another worker tells. how when last December oné “representative” was so bold as to ask the company to grant them a little Christmas bonus the assembly laughed at him and told him his proposition was, preposterous and revolutionary. Some workers who have “run for office” in, the company union have promi their constit- uents that if elected they would get them certain improved Sanitary con- ditions. Once elected, the represent- atives soon forgot heir election pledges and sneered gt the workers who remineded them. A “Suckers! lub ATTHEW PLU Jeader, in the 1919 strike in Pagagic and former general treasurer of the Amalgamated Textile Workers of America, says the company union wasgaimed at the Amalgamated which»had a Passaic local in 1920-22. “Its made up of company dupes and workers who have been bribed or. te! into -con- formity with the npany's will.” Albert Weisbord, leader of the present strike, calls the co! ny association a “suckers’ club, d to under- mine all trade union organization.” The F, & H, policy on trade unionism is clear in the recent statement of Personnel Manager, when asked “Would you object to an organization recognized by the A..F. of L.?” He evaded by saying “There is no use discussing that since that is a hypo- thetical question.” The F, & H. wprkers are on strike. The office workers and foremen have had to soil their fingers getting out the fall line sampl Though the thousands of workers are at their homes and attending the strike meet- ings daily the mill officials still try to fool the public by ing the mill is not on strike, The oj force and the few “company men’, at work can parade thru three four different gates each morning ¢o give the strik- ers the impression large numbers are going back to ’ ‘ Pala i A RN NS MEI ONAN, STATA RE LID “The Whole World Is Relieved” Donald type. It was only the over- whelming mass, pressure of the rank and file of the British working class that forced the hands of Thomas and company. 8. The splendid solidarity shown by the British workers coupled with the partial success the strike brot, despite the unpardonable behavior of some of the leaders, will inspire the British workers with more confidence, with greater class pride, and will cause the proletarian movement on the whole to go leftward. 4. The magnificent display of inter- national solidarity, particularly by the workers of the Soviet union, will have an invigorating effect on the labor movement of all countries. 5. The British coal and genéral economic crisis has not been settled in the least. The economic basis of the general strike and the coal miners’ sad plight exigts today as intact as it was before. The ugly mood of the British miners at the terms of the “settlement” dare only signs of the more bitter class struggles that are in the making in Great Britain. 6. The capitalist class and the proletariat the world over have learn- ed much from the historie general By Jay Lovestone strike. Among many other things the bourgeoisie have learned to be more careful before locking horns with the workers on such long fronts, and also how to set up a more effective national strikebreaking appartus, The workers have been given excellent lessons in the role played by their reactionary leaders in the need for and value of class solidarity, in the fraud/ hypocrisy and deadly menace of capitalist con- stitutionalism, Let the world of Coolidge, Gary and Hoover Co, be relieved at the condi- tion of Europe and the results of the British general strike, AMERICA FIRST! Recent statistics show the United States leads the world in murders committed. The Soviet Economy Has Won The Most Important Features of the Economic Situation (Continued from yesterday's issue.) pe | Economic Demand Increases. | i ipa rapid growth of effective de- mand in the towns is due to vari- ous causes; the level of income of the urban population and the wages of the workers and employes have in- creased; along with this there is to be observed in recent times a cer- tain retardation in the increase of the productivity of labor, In the increased shortage of goods the rapid pace of the development of heavy industry and the inauguration of a comprehen- sive program of new buildings plays a considerable role. It must be re- membered that the investment of capi- tal does not mean the immediate in- flow of new goods on to the market; on the other hand the demand for finished products is increased by this. it a new factory is built or a new pit is opened in the Donez basin, the work takes some years, and during this time the workers who are engag- ed in the new construction require bread and finished products. There- fore, the industrial investment of capt- tal which finally leads to the abolition of the shortage of goods, increase the demand so long as the new factory is not set going. All these facts which I have men tioned have greatly increased the growth of the effective demand in town and country; and this demand our industry was unable to satisfy, in spite of the fact that it increased ‘its production by 64 per cent in the past year, ure onomy. IHESE are the causes of that short- age of goods which we feel so keenly in the present year and which existed in a weaker form in the past. I do not wish to create the illusion that this shortage of goods can be lished in the near future, The ele- ents of natural economy still play a very great role in the economic sys- tem of our country. Even today, a con+ siderable portion of the peasant under- takings satisfy their own edule ments. The element of nati J in the Soviet Union. BY A. RYKOV: omy is gradually decaying and will de- cay the more rapidly, the more speed- ily industry is restored, its products cheapened and its connection with ag- riculture consolidated. This decay of the elements of national economy will still further increase the demand for industrial products. That is not dangerous. The rapid Pace of the transference of agricul- ture on to the basis of goods economy will stimulate the development of our industry, promote technical progress and improve its organization. Only such an increase of the shortage of goods would be “dangerous which con- stituted a hindrance to the develop- ment of economy itself. The general economic’ difficulties, which are a result of the shortage of goods, have been rendered more acute by some “miscalculations” and by some mistakes in carrying out’ the most important economic plans. + As a result of theses difficulties we had to adapt our export and import plan, the plan of our capital invest- ments, etc., to the means at the dis- posal of our state, But even according to this reduced plan, industry will in- crease its production this year by 35 to 40 per cent. | Fight Against High Prices, | pea. EH must now devote our chief tention to that danger which threat- ens us from the side of a too -great increase of retail prices. A number of supplementary measures are at present being worked out which are in- tended, in the course of the summer, to increase the quantity of goods in circulation and to reduce prices, A further means towards the reduction of retail prices must be the improve- ment of the apparatus of our state and co-operative trading and the reduction of their overhead charges. Whither and how shall our economy further develop after the removal of the difficulties? Some Faulty Notions, 'N discussing the’ budget question one often encounters the following uch larger than ee view: our agricultural population is important | atendata aud | situation, © therefore the budget must provide more for agriculture. Such a way of putting the matter is incorrect. We must do everything possible in order to secure the growth of our entire na- tional economy. At the beginning of our New Economic Policy agriculture was the weak point, and we did our utmost in order to raise it. At the present time the weak point ds indus- try, as it not only cannot satisfy the personal, but also the productive re- quirements of the agriculéural popu- lation. Therefore, the further develop- ment of agriculture depends, to a very great extent, upon industry. Our most important task, therefore, is the industrializing of the country. Of course, that does not mean that only industry is to be developed and agriculture shall remain stationary, It must also develop, and we must pro- vide it with considerable help in the near futitre. But in this joint advance of agriculture and industry the latter must develop at a pace which will se- sue the;Overcoming of the shortage goods angie create the basis for in- dustrialiing’ ts country. [Sccumotation Without. Capita] 2 ie Breatest difficulty consists in the fact that the development of industry, which has almost complete- ly worn out the plant and equipment left over from the old time, requires great investments of capital. From where are we to obtain these means? The general pre-requisites for accumu- lation have been created by the Oc- tober revolution, which did away with the Imdowners and capitalists, can- celled the debts and concentrated in- dustry, transport, the banks, ete., in the hands of the proletarian state. This renders possible an accumula- tion and a productive employment of our means In the expenditure of our accumu- lated means we must take into con- sideration two factors: first, a strict, planned-economic» discipline is neces- sary. Our practice hitherto in this phon ot leaves: very much to be de- sired. Secondly, the greatest thrift must be observed from top to bottom, ‘These are, in main outline, the most or of our. sono