The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 2, 1926, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WCRKER PUBLISHING CO, 1113 W. Washington Blvd,, Chicago, Il. Phone Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES ze 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 mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, Ilinols =, J, LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F, DUNNE MORITZ J, LOEB....... Editors ... Business Manager Entered ag second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- cago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. GS 290 Advertising rates on application. —=—<— Keep Cool About Mexico With the most sinister and deliberate determination the eap- italist government of the United States is preparing an excuse to send soldiers across the border into Mexico in order to bring that rich territory under the absolute domination of Wall Street. Following close upon thé heels of the agitation against Mexico for deporting a priest who was engaged in criminal activities within the borders of that country, the reptile press now reports the kid- napping and torture by Mexicans of Americans, All of the so-called victims were in Mexico as agents of the oil, mineral or sugar trust interests; they were there trying to fasten more firmly the chains of peonage upon the Mexicans. Five men are alleged to have been captured by Mexicans. Not one of| them had any business across the border: One of them is described as a mining engineer who was endeavoring to pave the way for his masters to pillage more of the mineral resources of that country. Two others were engaged in aiding the British oil trust extract petroleum from the ground. A fourth was engaged by the sugar trust and was director of the second largest sugar plantation in Mexico, while the fifth was owner of a large mine in his own name. Such people and thousands of their ilk are engaged in the methodical and violent pillaging of the natural resources of Mexico and the most beastly exploitation of the native workers of that coun- try. But the government of Mexico is not so responsive to Wall Street as is required to guarantee its investments, hence the propa- ganda to invade Mexico to “protect American citizens and property.” _ American workers will refuse to get excited about the turmoil op the Mexican border. For the most part the stories are pure fabrications and in some cases investigation has proved that the people described as“ undergoing tortures at the hands of the Mexi cans do not exist and never have existed. Those American agents of imperialism in Mexico have no busi- ness there. If they sometimes get into trouble with the Mexicans that is their affair and no intelligent worker will for one moment} think of putting on a uniform and going across the border at the request of a Morgan lackey in the White House on the pretext of defending the field agents of imperialism in Mexico. Coolidge at Arlington _ Speaking at Arlington cemetery on’ Decoration Day, the Wal! Street lackey who oecupies the White, House delivered one of th most brazen defenses of the imperialist plunderers of his career. Over the graves of the favored “heroés” of many wars, at the national shrine of militarism, Coolidge boasted of the fact that “our country has never had a better equipped army or a more efficient navy in time of peace than it has at the present time.” His laudatory remarks about the land and sea forces were followed by a eulogium to the air forees wherein he proclaimed that “our whole military establishment is being made worthy of the power and dig- nity of this great nation.” After these boasts of the imperious might of the nation, Coo- lidge lapsed into his usual soliliquy on pacifism which has become threadbare because of its violent use to conceal the insatiable im- perialist greed of this government and the class it serves. “The American forces,” said Coolidge, “are distinctly the forces of peace. They are the guarantees of that ofder and tranquility ‘in this part of the world which is alike beneficial to us and all the other nations.” During these utterances Coolidge turned toward the West Indies where the Haitians are new enjoying the sublime blessings of that tranquility of which he spoke so feelingly. American forces are forces of peace—the peace of the desert, where even the mildest protest evokes the most savage repression. Every recent utterance of Coolidge and his cabinet members has been devoted to one theme—the military power of thistountry and the necessity for making it still mightier in order to guarantee the “peace of the world.” But those who perceive the real social forces beneath the words of the governmental spokesmen know that the peace of the world they yearn for can be realized only after the most frightful blood baptism in history. So colossal must be the sacrifice of workers before the Wall Street dream of world domination becomes a reality ‘ that long ere that time comes the workers will rise in their might and put a stop to the ex®rmination of peoples of the earth. Reliable and Timely News On many occasions THe Darry Worker has demonstrated the fact that it is indispensable to workers who desire to know what is happening in the world. Weeks ago in our columng we printed the details of the murder in China by Chang Tso-Lin, the agent of Japanese imperialism, of Shao Chang-Shi, the editor of the Peking Press. The news item conveying this information was dated Moscow, April 27. : One month and one day later, on May 28, the eminent Chicago Tribune, which modestly calls itself the “world’s greatest news- paper,” published the story as up-to-the-minute news. ‘A Other news that exposes the role of the imperialist brigands that appears in our paper is systematically suppressed in the capitalist press, while the labor news of this country almost invariably is ex- cluded from the great dailies of the master class, These facts should eyable Tux Dairy Worker Builders to easily obtain subscriptions from, their shop mates, New York Once Sold for $24 Peter Minuit, amounting to $24. of these families, first American real estate steal. Coolidge By H. M. WICKS. The unveiling of a statute in Wash- ington ‘of John Ericsson, inventor of he Monitor which won the historic victory-over. the ironclad Merrimac during the civil war, gave Cal, Coo- lidge another excuse to extol the mil- tary might of the imperialist govern- nent of the United States. Also, be- cause of the fact that one of the most subservient administration senators now up for re-election happens to be o£ Swedish descent, Coolidge utilized ne achievements of the inventor, ricsson, as..a background for most xtravagant) praise of Irvine L. Len- oot, seniéresenator from Wisconsin. Changes’ Front on Primaries. Hitherto'the administration senators running for-renomination in the prim- aries have pleaded in vain for open endorsement. of Coolidge, but to no avail.’ While prominent cabinet mem- bers have stepped into the breach and assured the republican voters that the old guard senators had the support of the administration Coolidge himself has remained silent. One after an- other of the stalwarts went down to defeat—McKinley, Pepper, Stanfield, Lenroot, than whom there is none more. servile to the Wall Street ad- ministration at Washington, faces the insurgent La-Follette machine in the Wisconsin primaries, and the’ presi- dent reverses his policy of sflence and proclaims the exalted virtues and achievements of the Wisconsin solon in the course of his speech at the un- veiling of the Ericsson monument: “As these Americans of Swedish blood have increased in numbers and taken up the duties of citizen- ship, they have been prominent in all ranks of public life. They have been distinguished in the public service of the states, filling many of the offices from the governorship down. | shall name but one of the public officials of the Swedish race who have served our country so faithfully as representative of the great legion whoSe names spring to our thoughts, a learned lawyer, bless- ed with great ability, possessed of high character, a seasoned. parlia- mentarian with a record of prom- inent leadership in the legislature of his own state and in the congress of the United States, a man endowed with the old Norse spirit, a true American, the senior ‘senator from Wisconsin, Irvine L. Lenroot.”” The known opposition of Coolidge to any move that the farmefs regard as effective farm legislation, the cancel- lation of Enropean debts while the condition of the American farmer be- comes ever worse, the increasing tax- ation against the small business men and other middle class elements and the existence in Wisconsin. of the powerful LaFollette political machine representing the small capitalist ele- ments and thus far able to obtain the support of the farmers, makes his en- dorsement of Lenroot of rather doubt- ful value. Will Grasp at a Straw. Lenroot has very little to lose, as he cannot win on his own record, He will seize upon any support from any quarter. It is also.questidnable wi\th- er Coolidge's support is a help or a hindrance. Politically Coolidge, as the agent of the Wall Street combine, is practically nil. It appears, however, pais an early Dutchman, once bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for trinkets and whiskey | A little later the land was divided among a few families for a cost not very much greater. Some) like the Van Raenselaers, are now the very cream of New York society, having sold the swindled) 3 | that 42 lawyers had applied for a posi- property in some instances for a thousand dollars a foot. Above are members of a historical society re-enacting the! Boosts the Navy because he thinks Wistdnsin will be impressed with the ¢driveling eulo- gium bestowed upon hiti*by Coolidge, but because the admifiistration con- templates giving’ Lenrobt' a’ lame-duck political appointment after his defeat in Wisconsin, ey Glorifies the Navy. Few in the United States remember who Ericsson was or what he did. The unveiling of his statute »was utilzed not so much to praiseythe achieve- ments of this Swedish immigrant who came to this country ap@ perfected a number of inventfons;;among which was the Monitorgas it was to boast of the military might ,of,the United States and to indulgé jn imperialist propaganda of the most vicious sort. Again displaying higgalmost, total ignorance of the historyyof the world that he inhabits, Presigent Coolidge ruminated on the conquests of William the conqueror and in agnost ludicrous historigal analogy stated that “the old spirit of the vikings” sti} persisted in Ericsson, which is notyonly poor his- tory but worse anthroppjogy and psy- chology, as it implies that spiritual characteristics are transmitted thru the centuries, ve The only correct stiftement in his whole speech last Sattifday was his quotation from the Lofidon Times of that period to the efféét that naval warfare had been revolutionized by the success of the Monitor over the Merrimac and that “the day before this momentous battle England had 149 first class warships; the day after she had but 2.” After dilating upon Ericsson’s con- tributions to the civil war, Coolidge reverted to the hackneyed statement that the glorified Swede was “a lover of peace, not war,” that pacifist dis- guise under which today is concealed the most malevolent imperialist con- spiracies. Hailed in the capitalist press as a tribute to the Swedish immigrants and descendants of immigrants who now live in this country,/the Coolidge speech was nothing but a cheap plea for the building of greater navies, more powerful engines of destruction for the next war that imperialism is brewing for the working class of the world, where the capitalists, if they have their way, will strew the bodies of American workers—whether they be Swedes, Germans Poles, Irish, Negroes: or from any other stock— from one end of the earth to the other ‘im order-that rapacious imperialism may march forward to still more con- quests. Organized Unemployed: , Aid the British Miners LONDON.—(FP)—That the unem- ployed were with the men out on gen- eral strike is evident in the statement by the National Unemployed Workers comtnittee: “The organized unemployed through- out the country have offered their as- sistance fo the trades councils and local strike committees, and this has been accepted in all cases. Not one member of the organized unemployed has attemped to blackleg.” “The pen is mightier than the sword,” provided you know how to use it, Come down and learn how in the worker correspondent’s classes. When Gas Explodes When an explosion of natural wrecked a residence in Canton, 0., the owner, who was Inthe bathroom, was blown thru the side of the house out into the yard. His wife and their young child were in a room on the second floor of the house when the floor fell, dropping them to the first floor. None was seriously Injured, Workers In the street had turned off the gas line to repair the street and the explosion occurred when the gas was turned that Leproot demanded endorsement |°" again. This danger le @ constant menace to workers’ homes, almost ex- of the administration, not so much | clusively utilizing gas. Electric Improvements would obviate these dangers. IN THIS ISSU # t. eae “Greatest Soul in Jail” Story of Massachusetts By UPTON SINCLAIR. ‘OU will find in the life of Henry D. Thoreau an anecdote of the time when he refused to pay taxes to a state government ‘wihch captur- ed Negroes and returned them to slavery. In due process of law he was con- fined in jail for his offense; and Ralph Waldo Emerson came to visit him and said: “Henry, what are you doing here?” The answer was: “Waldo, What are you doing not here?” In line with this high precedent, I went about a year ago to call upon one of the world’s gentlest spirits, now confined in the Massachusetts state prison at Charlestown. He did not rebuke me for my failure to join him; nevertheless, by his beauty and sweetness of spirit, he made me so ashamed of myself that shortly after- wards I also. was moved to get my- self into jail. So spreads the spirit of martyrdom! Who is this great man of Massa- chusetts? I have before me his auto- biography, it is entitled “The Story of a Proletarian Life,” by Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In. this book I learn that ‘he was born in the town of Villefalletto, in Piedmont, Italy, He Was the child of peasants, and was eager for knowledge and was promised an education, but when his father read in a newspaper tion in Turin which paid only seven dollars a month, he decided that an education was not what it was cracked up to be. So, at the age of thirteen, the boy was turned over to the mercies of a baker, who worked him from 7 o'clock in the morning until 10 o’clock at night, seven days a week, except for three hours off every other Sunday. After six years the boy went home ruined in health and, after watching his mother die in great agony, he decided to come to our land of prom- ise, He landed forlorn and friendless at the Battery and was permitted to work as dishwasher in a “rich club.” Apparently the club was not rich enough to be generous to its dish- washers, because the hours were long, the garret in which the workers slept was suffocatingly hot and the vermin did not permit them to sleep. So Vanzetti went to work in one‘of the mast famous restaurants of New York’s Bohemian life. Many times, no doubt, you have dined in this restaw- rant, perhaps with celebrities. If so, you were busy with celebrities and never thought about the dishwashers. Listen! “The pantry was horrible. There was not a single window in it. When the electric light for some reason was out it was totally dark, so that one couldn’t move without running into things. The vapor of the boiling water where the plates, pans and silver were washed formed great drops of water on the ceiling, took up all the dust and grime there, then fell slowly one by one upon my head as I worked be- low. ~ ad “During working hours the heat was terrific. The table leavings amassed in barrels near the pantry gave out nauseating exhalations. The sinks hall no direct sewerage connection. In- stead, the water was permitted to overrun to the floor, In the center of the room there was a drain. Every night the pipe was clogged and the greasy water rose higher and higher and we trudged in the slime.” The young Italian was afraid to stay here on account of the possibility of consumption, so he went out into the counrty, and the farmers and the wives of the poor were kind to him, and he got work with pick and shovel, When he could stand this no longer he went to being a cook, then he went back to the pick and shovel, and final- ly became a peddler of fish, traveling hru a number of little towns in Mass- achusetts, ig In the last\of his days, before het’ went to jail, he cut a little ice, he sheveled* coal for an electric house, he did a little ditch digging until the snow came; then be cleaned the snow from the streets; then he dug a ditch for a water main; then he dug some clams, and then he got arrested. So far I have told this man’s ex- ternal life. Tt is much like other lives, you see, “the short and simply an- nals of the poor.” But man consists of two parts, body and soul, ahd the soul of the poor is Jess simple than it used to be. Nowadays there are printing presses, and even men who work thir- teen and fifteen hours a day in bake- shops and restaurant kitchens find a few minutes’ leisure in which to think and to read the great works of all the ages. 1 wish I could give you the full list of what Vanzetti read. It would amaze you, Kf you are the average tired busi- ness man it might shock you a little, because the names would be foreign E—@plle—READ IT EVERY DAY sounding and strange: De Amicis and St. Augustine and Dante and Kropot- kin and Gorki and Labriola and Renah, Hugo, Tolstoy, Zola and Carducci, After giving this list Vanzetti ex- plains; “Do not believe me, my dear reader, a prodigy of*bcience; that would be @ mistake. My fundamental instruction was too incomplete, my mental powers insufficient, to assimilate all this vast material, “Then it must be remembered that I studied while doing hard work all day, and without any congenial ac- commodations. Ah, how many nights I set over some volume by the fli¢ker- ing gas jet, far into the morning hours, Barely had f laid my head to the pillow when the whistle sounded, and back I went to the factory or to the stone pits.” In the beginning Vanzetti had been a devout catholic. “He had even got into a fist fight with one of his fellow- workers who had ridiculed the cath- olic faith. Butylittle by little, under the pressure of his sufferings, the idea had dawned upon him to work for human brotherhood here and now. He already had this idea when he came-to America, and his experience in the “rich club” and in the famous Bohemian restaurant did not change him. He became a teacher of human brotherhood here and now. It happened that the department of justice agents seized an Italian radical by the name of Salesedo and held him incommunicado for five weeks in an office building in New York City, torturing him to try to make him con- fess, the outcome being that the man jumped from a 14-story window. Vanzetti, not being thoroly Ameri- canized, thought there was-something wrong about this, and at Christmas time, 1919, when he was cutting the ice and digging the ditches and shovel- img the snow and digging the clams, he was also working to organize a pro- test meeting among the Italians of the neighboring towns. So the department of justice. arrested him, with a friend named. Sacco, accusing them of being dangerous “reds.” They were held some time on this charge, and ap- parently no evidence was available; but there was another crime lying handy. A year or so previously four or five automobile bandits had held up @ paymaster and shot and robbed him. So it was decided to hang Sacco and Vanzetti upon this charge, I\have been studying this case for the last two years, and it has never w been my fortune to encountr a more obvious frame-up. Not 2 i did some 40 witnesses testify that Van- zetti had been’ selling them fish all that day when the robbery took place and at a distance far from the scene of the murder, but nearly all the wit- nesses who identified Vanzetti as one of the automobile bandits have since confessed to perjury. Nevertheless, this Italian idealist has been under sentence of death for, five years, and with unflinching pa- tience and sweetness of soul he has done his eight hours’ work every day in jail and continued to read the world’s great literature in his spare hours, Now he has written the story of his life, and haying studied it carefully I am ready to give my testimony as an expert in social idealism that there is a thousand times more likelihood that I committed that payroll murder than that Vanzetti did. But, alas, this kind of expert testi- mony is not accepted in American courts! So all that I cam do is to recommend to you “The Story of @ Proletarian Life.” * The story of Vanzetti’s.life referred to by Sinclair will be run in The DAILY WORKER at an early date in several installments, Young Teddy May Run for Governor NEW YORK, May 31.—The idea of Theodore Roosevelt running for gov- ernor of New York state in case Al Smith decides not to run next elec- tion is being scout- ed by democratic Politicians, Young Roosevelt's chief qualification for the job seems to be the fact that his father was governor of New York. He has the same military title, colonel, that his father had and ‘TRoceevelt Jn filled a post as as- sistant secretary of the navy, the same job his father once had. Hig only other qualification is that he hunted big horn sheep in Asia, WRITE AS YOU FIGHT! Open yours eyes! Look around! There are the stories of the workers’ strug: around you begging to be written up. Do it! 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