The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 19, 1926, Page 6

Page Six ¥. Published by the DAILY WCRKER PUBLISHING CO. 4113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Il. Phone Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mali (in Chicago only): | By mall (outelde of Chieago): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per vear $3.50 six months $2.50 three months | $2.00 three mouths Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, Iilinols aan cece ha i} SE eS J, LOUIS ENGDAHL \ WILLIAM F, DUNNE MORITZ J. LOEB... ee ne nnSSTSANSUANSSANSSIAAAAAAGASIAAIINSSEN ARISES Vn) Entered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi cago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. Advertising rates on application. The “Daring” of the Reformists Some rules formulated by Marx for the,conduct of the armed struggle for power by the working class can very well be applied to such gigantic struggles as the British general strike. The comparison of the necessities of the struggle in Great Brit- ain with the tactics of the leadership of that struggle makes clear the weakness of the latter. Lenin, in his collected writings during the period from the Korniloy uprising in 1917 to the victorious’ November’ revolution, published under the title “On the Road to Insurrection,” applies the statements of Marx on “the art of insurrection” to the then exist- ing situation in Russia. Two of the conditions for successful struggle are: 1. Once the insurrection has begun, it is necessary to act with the utmost vigor, and to wage at all costs, the OF- FENSIVE. “The defensive is death to the insurrection.” , 2. Win successes EACH DAY, even small ones (one might say “each hour” in the case of a small town), and at “all costs keep the MORAL SUPERIORITY. The British strike lost the offensive when it failed to make the defeat of the government its objective and allowed Baldwin to ap- pear as the defender of “the interests of the people” against the la- bor movement. It lost likewise the “moral superiority” for the reason that the leadership was afraid to expose the government before the masses as their enemy and challenge it in decisive fashion. Lenin says: Marx has summarized the lessons of all revolutions or armed insurrections in the world in the words of the greatest master of revolutionary tactics known to history, Danton: “Be daring, be still more daring; be daring alway But the boldness of the reformist leadership of the British labor movement is only the boldness of all reformists—a boldness in dar- ing the wrath of the masses before whose stormy anger they crawl to the shelter of the capitalist class. ...Business Manager = 200 Fitzpatrick and the Sesqui-Centennial President Fitzpatrick, of the Chicago Federation of Labor, is reported as reluctant, when the question of union labor at. the sesqui-centennial exhibition in Philadelphia was up for discussion and decision, to take a firm stand for a closed shop. He based his attitude on the time-worn and utterly discredited theory that Chicago labor had no business to interfere in the affairs of Philadelphia labor. This argument carried a little weight in the days of the stage coach, but now it is patently a. weak excuse for. doing nothing. Celebrations like the one to be held in Philadelphia, are not only occasions on which the bosses revive the nioth-eaten legends concern- ing the splendid vision of the founding fathers who lived before la- bor unions came into being, but are also for the purpose of launcl- ing or solidifying open shop movements. Whatever mare have been (and still are for that matter) the weaknesses of the San Francisco trade unions, they did not let the bosses get away with the open shop in the reconstruction period) after the earthquake or during the world exhibition there in- 1915. President Fitzpatrick, always loud in his admiration of the California Building Trades Council, might well take a leaf out of its book in this instanee. With Chicago developing a special brand of the American go- getter, it is quite lik that in the near future some such gigantic project as Philadelphia is preparing for, may be held here. The ‘Chi- cago labor movement might need then the assistance of Philadelphia labor. Strike Shifts Class Forces in Britain The effect of the British strike on the class relationships is / shown by the Chiswick municipal election which took place Tues- “day in the heat of the struggle. Chiswick is a middle class suburb where last election the vote was 994 for the consérvative and 522 for the labor candidates, Tuesday the result was 1,041 for labor and 37 for the con- servatives. . The vote for the labor party candidates doubled while the con- wervative vote all but disappeared. Great class struggles always produce profound changes in the _ masses and the British general strike was no exception. Had it had «veal political objectives and revolutionary leadership the changes in favor of labor would have been still ‘more marked. e As it is, the Chiswick election, now that the government was » forced to reopen the wage question in the mining industry, indicates at Jeast a substantial increase and perhaps'a majority for the labor . party in the next house of commons. Into the Hearst Sewer In the fable old King Midas turned to gold everything he touched. In real life today William Randolph Hearst turns to sewerage everything his gold tonches. The latest publication to fall into his slimy clutches is McClure’s « Magazine, which, in the hey-day of muckraking devoted its columns to exposing the excesses of the monopolists and the corruption of various city and state governments. In the hands of the man whose career has been devoted to debasing every form of journalism in the country, MeClure’s becomes “the magazine of romance,” and the first number deals with the moral effects of absent wives on lonesome husbands in the good old summer time. Hearstism in journalism is not a thing having no connection It is only the:lowest journalistic product eonoral decadence of capitalism. * “s with other social forces. ef thy Call Workers THE DAILY WORK 1 : DAILY WORKER| Striking Furriers in N. Y. to Battle for the Forty-Hour Week (Special to The Daily Worker) NEW. YORK, May 17.—The general strike committee leading the fight of the New York furriers for a wage increase and a forty-hour work week have begun a nation-wide movement for a forty-hour week for all workers, This may well mean the bgeinning of a struggle comparable to the famous battle of the gighties when the Amer- ican workers united to fight for the eight-hour day. The following call for support in this drive is being sent to all labor organizations thruout the country: * oe Fellow Workers:" We, the Fur Workers of New York, have been on strike for 13 weeks. We have shown our employers a solid wall of working class unity. We have repelled all the open and secret at- tacks upon our ranks. Our demands for the improvement of our working and living conditions have concen- trated around this, the most vital and far-reaching ‘demand: the forty-hour week. We are fighting for five eight-hour days and two full free days a week. This demand has become the storm center of our strike. The Fur Work- ers will utilize all their energy, sol- idarity and endurance to see that the forty-hour week becomes a fact. Blaze New Path. In this way, fellow workers, the Fur Workers of New York are blazing a new path for the ne oh movement as a whole. A victory for the forty-hour week will open a new chapter in the history of the workers’ struggle for liberation from under the capitalist yoke. ’ Need we, fellow workers, emphasize the great significance of a forty-hour week? Need we mention the facts of physical and mental exhaustion and degradation caused by shop work— facts engraved in your own bodies with signs of fatigue and sickness? Need we remind .you that only since the working class has wrung out of the. capitalist class shorter labor hours, could it organize to fight for a better life? Méans Less Misery, The forty-hour week means less shop misery, less foul air, less weaken- ing of the body, less ailments. The forty-hour week means rising of the workers to a higher standard of liv- ing.. The forty-hour week will make jt possible for the worker to enjoy the, higher things of life which he is entitled to as a man and creator of the, nation’s wealth. The forty-hour week will give the workers the time required to interest themselves in the affairs of their country and to organize for the defense of their interests not only in the economic but also in the political field. The forty-hour week will make it possible for the worker to. become a better man, a more en- lightened member of his union, his political party, his class. .New Declaration of Independence. .-The forty-hour week thus marks the beginning of a new declaration of in- dependence of the American working class. We, the Fur Workers of New York, are writing the first lines of this declaration with out heart blood, with long and weary months of suffering in one of the fiercest labor struggles. Fight as a Class. We have stood firm. We have been clubbed by police, beaten by em- ployers’ guerrillas, attacked by strike- breakers, dragged to police stations. Six hundred of us were arrested in those months of struggle, many were sentenced to long terms of imprison- ment, many were injured. We have stood it all. We have not flinched. We are fighting not for ourselves alone, but for the working class as a whole. Fellow Workers! To the workers of our great metropolis, notably to the workers of the needle trades, belongs the honor of having first established the 44-hour week. Now, partly due to our fight, the ideal of a 40-hour week is stirring the minds of thousands upon thousands in this industrial dis- trict. The Fur Workers have em- braced it, enthusiastically and stoutly. The New York section of the Interna- tional Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union has adopted the demand of the 40-hour week in principle. The Cap Makers’ Union has eitiétsed it. The Amalgamated Clothing °’Workers of America have just accépééd it at their Montreal national cdtivention. Presi- dent Green of the A. f. of L, has given the 40-hour week his endorse- ment, New York Unity. Now is the time to gome to our aid and to make the demand for a 40-hour week the demand of New York’s or- ganized labor. We, thé,.workers of New York and vicinity, must be the pioneers in establishing this great new principle of freedom in our shops, factories, mills, in che) Wailding trades and everywhere, where the workers are toiling. The time js{ripe. We, the Fur Workers, are in the front line: We have proven by our actions that we are capable of holding the battle line. But your aid is urgently needed. We therefore appeal to you, workers of all other trades, not only to sym- pathize with our struggle for the 40- hour week in principle, but. to fight for it in practice. Mass Meetings. Fellow workers, mass meetings and other gatherings. will be called to demonstrate for the 40-hour week. Do. not fail to come. Make these meetings the hugest and most.imposing labor demonstrations of the.year. Show the employers and the powers that be that you are determined t8 fight for a 40- hour week, Show by ‘yétir very num- bers that the 40-hour Weék is a mass demand. Show the wWorl@<in general and the working cla#s fi particular that you are united, “ofanized, con- scious of your powers! and enthusi- astically engaged in thé. fight. Labor organizations! *‘We appeal to you to rally around the banner wé have now raised. Rer®mber that our cause is your own céi¥e. Let every central and local declare its| w; readiness to stand ly behind our fight for the 40-hour week. Let every central and local “Yo its utmost to make every gatheriig, every dem- onstration, and every ther action dn favor of the 40-hour ‘Week a success. Let them make the 4 ur week, the most urgent general | it in the pro- gram of their work. let them re- member that every ys needs the sinews of war. We have been asian nH a bitter struggle for months. We need finan- cial aid. We can get‘{t from nowhere utside the working cldss. In calling to you for immediate financial ‘aid, we appeal not only t# Working class solidarity, but we Temfiid you of the great importance of thé'fight for the 40-hour week which ig Syeur own fight. A New Era. A new era is dawning upon the working class. New vistas open be- fore the laboring masses. Let us all unite in raising the banner of the forty-hour week. Let if become the battle cry of labor all over New York, all over the country, Long live the 40-hour week! Long live the solidarity of the work- ing class! Long live the workers’ struggle for freedom! - General Strike Committee, Furriers’ Union, DIVIDEND AND INTEREST PAYMENTS Dividends and interest payments in 1925 crossed the 4 billion dollar mark the first time in history, according to the U. S. department of commerce. The total of $4,077,324,000 means an income gain of about 6% for the own-. ers of capital over the $3,840,588,000 which they received on basrapk securi- ties in 1924, Huge Profits. This exorbitant return to absentee owners would provide a full year’s pay to 3,150,000 workers at the aver- age wage paid in the country’s facto- ries, If divided equally among all the farmers, factory workers, railroad workers and miners’ employed through- out the country it would have given each about $240 more toward his an- nual budget.. This year’s payments mark a gain of nearly 20% over 1920, the last year of war profits. They represent an increase of 129% over 1913 when the owners of stocks and bonds received a total of $1,777,236,000. Dividend Payments. Total dividend and interest pay- ments in each year since 1913 were: 777,236,000 »786,376,000 1,865,112,000 2,135,028,000 2,389,140,000 + 2,724,782,000 3,189,168,000 3,414,876,000 3,341,808,000 IN 1925 "3,899,720,000 385,216,000 840,588,000 ‘077, 324,000 The cash receipts by, the owners of stocks’ and bonds the 13 years shown in the table amount to the enor- mous total of $37,526,324,000. Reports of the commissioner”of internal reve- nue indicate that over 70% of this went to the 1% of thé‘population that can live in comfort without doing any- thing useful for the’éommunity, Invest in Other’ Lands, Attempts to justify!such huge pay- ments to owners by saying the coun- try needs a constant supply of new capital are hypocritical. Today the corporations are retaining enough in undivided or surplus profits to provide for all necessary expansion of the country’s plant. As a result there is an admitted surplus of capital looking for. investment and the investment bankers are working overtime to pro- vide enough new securities for the demand, ™~ Threaten Strike. ST, LOUIS.-(FP)—A strike of sta- tionary enginee: iremen may tie up the St. Louis waterworks unless the anti-labor ad: tration grants these workers an ase in wages. Engineers receive $186 a month and firemen $145 a The Jast in- crease was five yi ago. The men ask a flat increase Of $10 @ month, — ee le Fe | UNCLE SAM—SHYLOCK oe As Europe Sees Us Thru the Acti LABOR’S MILITANCY EDITOR’S NOTE:—in a recent number of The New Leader, the New York socialist weekly, James Oneal, the editor, published what purported to be a review of a recent book, “Left Wing Unionism,” by David J. Saposs, formerly associated with the group around Professor John R. Commons at the Univer- CW C7 By William Gropper ities of American Bankers. 4 sity of Wisconsin, who compiled the “History of Labor in the United States,” and now an instructor at Brookwood Labor College. Oneal’s “review” was such a miserable perversion of the book and so ob- viously a designed attack upon the Communists that one of his own readers assails him for it in an article in the May 15 issue of The New Leader, which we publish herewith. Oneal states that he will reply to the author of the article ina series of artitles setting forth previous tendencies in the labor movement similar to the Communist movement of today. Thus his readers, many of whom seem to be aware of hig total unreliability as a historian and theoretician, will be treated to more perversions. Haitor The New Leader: 1* the May 1 isste of The New Léader you wrote a review of “Left Wing Unionism,” by David J. Saposs. It %§ filled with so many superficial criticisms of Mr. Saposs’s book and so many unjustified and unwarranted at- ticks upon the Communists that I am Snturing to write an answer to your review. You maintain, in the first place, that elthough “Mr. Saposs has read much cn the theme he considers,” he “has had no personal experience in the movement he considers which would enable him to check the sources and to more intelligently interpret the ma- erial.” Did you somehow miss the constant references thruout the book to the extensive field work under: taken by the author in his study of the I, W. W. and the scores of inter- views with trade union leaders of all shades of opinion with respect to every movement and trend of radical policy discussed? hi Praised in The Times. You accuse him of making “so many forced conclusions and errors of in- terpretation not justified by the facts that one is compelled to believe that he began with a theory and has en- deavored to make the evidence sustain that theory.” Permit me to quote from a review by Evans Clark in the con- servative New York Times a different version of the author’s qualifications for his task and the way in which he performed it: “Mr. Saposs is a rare and exc@eding- ly useful sort of person. He is on the inside pf the labor movement, yet he has an elevation of mind that enables him to view it from above—a detach- ment the more discerning because it springs from intimacy. Mr. Saposs is on the inside of the labor movement by conviction, by sympathy and by long association. He has met all the important labor leaders in the country and a host of lesser ones, not as an “outsider” but as a friend and coun- sellor... “In his ‘Left Wing Unionism’ Mr. Saposs has wielded a skillful scalpel on an intricdté tangle of economic tis- sues and psychological cells and laid bare the causes of a chronic disaffec- tion—the seemingly fated and eternal split between Rights and Lefts, rad- icals and conservatives—which has at times all but laid the labor movement low. He has done it as the eminent surgeon would, with sympathy for the patient, of course, yet firmly and in- cisively—utterly without emotional display and with cool disregard of the latent drama in the whole situa- tion.” Ogling the Leaders, You maintain that™in interpreting an article of yours in the Baltimore Sun Mr. Saposs distorted your point of yiew. You are right in saying that the theme of your article was “not any change of the Socialist Party in its trade uifion policy, but a change in the general attitude of the A. F. of L. towards progressive views since the accession of William Green.” But Mr. Saposs was not commenting upon the theme of your article, He merely said that your article reflected the trend in Socialist trade union policy, If make goo-guo eyes at the A. F. of L leaders by writing about their grow- ing Spirit of “toleration,” it looks as thotigh'you were bidding for favor. And this proves that you have abandoned your militant po If it doesn't, then cite me an instance of a tilitant policy on the part of the Socialists against the officials in the trade unions since 1921, when the De- troit’ convention decided to seek “the co-operation and good will of the con- servative labor leaders and unions” with a view to forming a labor party. You argue that the Communists em- ployed the same tactics in trying to enter the Conference for Progressive Political Action. Yet the Socialist leaders at the Cleveland convention of that conference voted against admit- ting, them because they knew that the Communists would not do what the Socialists did, but would pursue a mil- itant boring from within policy. Socialist “Militancy” Next, you try to deny that the So- cialists were ever militant by quoting resolutions of Socialist conventions in the old days. Mr. Saposs, on the other hand, referred to acts, not harmless resolutions. Would you say, for in- stance, that the socialists did not pur- sue a militant boring from within pol- icy in the Electrical Workers’ Union between 1908 and 1912, when the So- cialist Reid faction tried to wrest con- trol from the McNulty conservative officialdom? This struggle even re- sulted in the secession of the Reid fac- tion for a time, and this faction was staunghly defended at A. F. of L, con- ventions by the Socialist delegates. Michael Mulcaire, in his history of the International Brotherhood of Electric- al Workers, even goes so far as to say that though this movement. “had its origin in a purely internal dispute,, it is now generall} conceded, that. it finally developed into a CONTEST FOR THE CONTROL OF THE EN- TIRE LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE COUNTRY BY A RADICAL GROUP WITHIN THE AMERICAN FEDERA- TION OF LABOR which were backed and encouraged by Socialistic labor and political organizations (P. 20— caps mine).” Your next thrust falls equally flat. when the facts are considered. © Mr. Saposs quotes Foster to the effe by their militant policies munists haveebecome an w organization in practically trade, unions. Of course, since Mr. Foster wrote that, the Communists have taken oontrol of the New York joint boards of the Furriers’ Union and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers, But the fact is that the Communists have been ACTIVE in all the unions, even though underground, while the Socialists have done nothing to oust corrupt officials and usher in progressive policies. | “Dual Allegiance.” Now comes your grand attack on the “dual allegiance” of the Commun- ists.. In this you agree with the A. F. of L. which declared at its 1923, con- vention that no one “could ‘e Com- munism and at the same time serve American trade unionism.” You make ithe amazing statement that “more union wrecking has been accomplish: ahd ‘by this dual allegiance th: | 'beon accomplished by all the the employing class.” Again I ask for an example. What union has en. wrecked by the Communists? The Fur Workers in New York have been re- juvenated ‘by the Conmmunists, the Communists have’ won a_ victory against colossal reaction in the Inter- national Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, but I know of no case where the Communists have wrecked a union, You say that “if the unions expel Communists for defying union rules, the Communists also expel: members who fail to carry out Communist or- ders in the unions.” In the first case, if certain unton rules are autocratic and destructive of freedom, then you should join with the Communists in working for their elimination. With regard to your other point, you seem. to fail to understand the difference between what a union is justified in doing and what a prop- aganda organization can justifiably do. | If a union expels members because they are Communists, it deprives them of their means of livelihood. If a political party expels members for violation of its principles, they are sides, a union needs an opposition to keep it healthy. A propaganda organ- ization cannot function effectively if it retains within its fold persons who do not believe in its brand of prop- aganda. So much for your absurd criticisms of “Left Wing Unionism.” You do, however, welcome Mr. Saposs’s other book, “Readings in Trade Unionism,” because of the idea it gives of the “in- tellectuat progress (?) of the Amer- ican labor movement.” But you com- plain the documents are “dry and formalistie” and “lack the inspiration and fire that are characteristic of the more advanced movement in other countries,” which is, however, “not the fault of the editor.” How do “you propose to transform the American labor movement into an inspiring movement, full of fire and militancy against the capitalist class? That is the question of the hour for Socialists to answer.—ROLAND A. GIBSON, Bulgarian Progressive, Club of Gary Does Not 2 ‘orget Labor Victims GARY, Ind., May 17.—The Bulgar- ian Progressive Club at its last mem- bership meeting decided to send $3 to each of the nine class war prisoners, whose birthdays fall during the months of May and June. The prisoners are: Abraham Cisne- rds, A. E. Anderson, William Joos- deff, B. Johanson, Bartolomeo Van- zetti, John Bruns, Thomas Harty, Pe- dro Parales, and Jesus Gonzales. A check for $27 to cover sending each $3 was sent thru the Interna- tional Labor Defense, Not long ago the same club sent the International Workers’ Aid $30 and the Passaic strikers $25. It also ded to send $30 to the Bulgarian trade union weekly “Edinstov” in Bul- garia, which 1s appearing despite the Lappy of the Liaptchey govern- ment, and $20 to the Bulgarian of munist weekly “Saznanie” in meet, Cee not deprived of their livelihood. Be-.