The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 12, 1926, Page 6

Page Six : THE SAILY WORKER THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill. Phone Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES (in Chicago only): By mail (outside of Chicago): $4.50 six months $6.00 per vear $3.50 six months 0 three months $2.00 three months Adare: ll mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Iilinols J. LOU y WILLIAM F, DUNNE { MORITZ J. LOEB. .. Editors jusiness. Manager at the post-office at Chi- 3, 1879. Advertising rates on application. as second-class mail September 21, 1 cago, Ill, under the act of M wee 290 2 New Attack on British Miners The British government, the coal capitalists and the British capitalist class, organized in the Federation of British Industries, have a plan, and one plan only, for solving the coal crisis. It is, “Starve the Miners Into Submission.” The attack by Lord Birkenhead upon the Miners’ Federation of Great ‘Britain because of its acceptance of $2,000,000 strike relief from the unions of Soviet Russia, the announcement of an_extra- ordinary session of the cabinet to frame the government’s policy on this issue, the fact that the emergency powers act is still in force, all indicate that a new offensive is to be launched against the miners. Birkenhead, who, as seeretary of the state for India, rules over millions of workers and peasants who look with longing eyes toward Rus: : charge that the $2,000,000 came from the Soviet government and not from the unions. What ts the Movement? . © By WILLIAM F, DUNNE, SECOND ARTICLE. XAMINATION of the Minnesota farmer-labor movement as it ap- pears in action in the present primary campaign in which Magnus Johnson is opposed by Thomas Davis, a lawyer, discloses some important facts from whith we can draw some valuable con- clusions, First of all it is noticeable that the development of the movement to the point where it appears as a political party opposed especially to the repub- lican party which the Minnesota mass- es, particularly the farmers, have sup- ported for decades, has not precluded the entry into it of elements which are not only foreign to the most lib- eral conception of what a farmer-labor party should be, but which have defied even the very loose discipline of the ization and are endangering its success in the present campaign, HE Davis forces have taken advan- tage of the primary law to disobey the decision of the party convention which nominated Johnson by an over. whelming majority and are really do- a where workers and peasants rule, makes the usual]ing the work of the republican ma- chine inside the farmer-labor party. Davis is supported by the worst ele- ments in the ranks of the workers and But every dollar of the donation is accompanied by a letter from | farmers, labor officials and rural poli- the union or the workers in the factory which took up the collections that made up the total. The British government knows this, but it is trying, in its desperation, to brand the strike as an enterprise of a foreign government so that it can proceed to treat it as treason. British capitalism is in a very bad way. No coal is being produced and the unemployed total 2,720,000. British capitalist government will try to starve the miners. Will American labor permit starvation to force the British miners back to work at a wage which means semi-starvation? Why not match the donation of the Russian unions dollar for dollar and make the British nobility, the British capitalists and their} government realize that the whole world of labor, right and left wings, Russia and America, are united on at least one issue—that ihe British miners shall win. Courts and Union Contracts Indge Lazzelle of Morgantown, West Virginia, in deciding that the Jacksonville contract is not binding upon coal operators who were members of the Monongahela Coal Association which signed the agreement, has acted as a faithful servant of the coal capitalists, but has also exploded the hoary myth that the employers will carry out wage agreements when they have the power to break them. Many labor officials, and especially officials of the,United Mine Workers, always are dinning into the ears of the workers sermons with the “sacredness of contracts” as their text. These sermons are always in evidence whenever the workers are prepared to take ad- vantage of a favorable local or general condition in industry or when the continuous tyranny of the industrial lords and their agents’ ,, has brought about strikes and other forms of protest... ticians, the offscourings of the defunct nonpartisan league, careerists of the worst type whose sole desire is to get into office and grab something for themselves. 1 is very doubtful if any consider- able number of this element will support Johnson in the fall campaign after Davis is defeated.- This group is much closer to the still more reaction- ary bloc which is supporting Leach in the republican primaries and rejects entirely the idea of a farmer-labor party, than it is to the farmer-labor party of which nominally it is a part. Both the Davis group and the so- called. labor group still farther to the right consist of former socialist poli- ticians, labor officials and professional men for whom there is no room in a close corporation such as the republi- can machine. These groups are perhaps the nu- an elven aa eR i i ne ee Borger, Texas Farmer-Labor —— z Strike Oil in +cleus of a third party movement, but few of them will ever be honest sup- porters of the farmer-labor party or anything closer to it than candidates for its favor if it achieves some elec tion successes, CCEPTANCE of and obedience to the decisions of conventions repre- sentative of the mass of the member- ship is the acid test of those who pro- fess concern-for and loyalty to the workers and farmers, and those who failed to meet the test of the farmer- labor party conventiéw can be counted as enemies of the movement. Secondly, and on“the positive side, is the fact that with all of its hetero- geneous elements which accepted the convention decision; dgutheran farmers who consider prohibition the greatest boon given mankind,| @atholic working men and women whe think that “light wines and beers” is a revolutionary slogan, Communists; pure and simple trade unionists, »co-operators, single- taxers, gray-haired but still persistent free-silverites, “politi¢al I. W. W.’s,” the Minnesota farmer-labor party is solidly united on the’ single demand that there must be a’ state govern- ment, elected by a party of organized farmers and workers*and responsible to it. rt AGNUS JOHNSON may speak of himself as a “candidate of all the people” when put orf the defensive by some accusation of Communism, but he is not fooling his’ followers, and least of all is he fooling the steel trust and railroad capitalists and their henchmen who run the republican and democratic parties. The class lines have been drawn tighter in Minnesota by the entry of the workers and farmers into state politics with a mass party of their own than ever before, not barring even the pre-war period when the socialist party had a strong following in the in- dustrial centers. In the ranks of the’ party itself the division is still proceeding, not by the- oretical discussion, but by the experi- ence gained in meeting the practical problems of the struggle. Some details of this process are worth-our attention. (To be Continued.) Borger, known as the “Booger Town of.the Texas Panhandle,” jumped in population from two inhabitants to 10,- 000°inside of three months following discovery of oil.” At the left is Sheriff Red Waters, the town’s two-gun gov- ernment. On the right is Jack Seay, his aide. ve ; Borger is called the most “wide open” and “wicked” town in the history of the mid-continent oil field boom towns. It population is overwhelmingly male. ‘There are but 400 women in the town. Gambling halls, saloons and dance halis run wide open. The town is sixty miles fom the nearest railroad. themselves with the arrest of oil hi-jackers. ’ The law enforcers only concern GUIDE TO THE Produced by the Union of Socialist Relations with Foreign Countries.—State Publishin, Socialist Federated Soviet Republi ae By KARL REEVE This guide book to the Soviet Union, hich is printed in English, is as the preface explains, much more/than the Quite often the union officials do not hesitate to, expe], members be rong guide book to make travel and at times whole local unions for striking “in violation of the|°*S! for touring foreigners. agreement.” {ekete : There is no record of a coal operators’ association, ever taking similar action against its members for violating the contract and Records Soviet Advances. It records the tremendous adyances made by the Soviet state in the years since the October revolution placed the decision of the West Virginia judge makes the reason-clear. It}the workers and peasants in power. is because the coal operators’ associations do not intend to live up; The advance in science, and the pro- to the agreement a minute longer than they have to. They-are pre- pared to violate it the day after it is signed if the union is weak sress of the Soviet state, on all fields, has of course, been especially rapid since the end of the attack of the in- enough to make it possible and profitable and they know the courts| ternational bourgeoisie against the will uphold them in their action. ; sis We are not against agreements with the bosses in principle. A Proletarian Republic, and the famine which followed. The guide book is a matter of fact account of the actual favorable agreement is evidence of the strength of a union, but to] conditions now prevailing in the So- believe that the union is “protected” by these agreements is childish | viet Union and records this progress. nonsense. : ; The only protection a union has is its organized power backed by the power of the rest of the labor movement. The first section includes a descrip- tion of the physical geography of the country, a sketch of Russian history, the role of the Communist Party in The Jacksonville agreement is violated with impunity by the} the Soviet Union, of the Red army, coal operators’ association and its members because the union is weak. If the officials will stop fooling with the courts and devote of Culture and Education, and of the condition of agriculture, industry and trade. This first section alone makes the huge sums now paid for attorneys to financing organizing cam-| the new guide book valuable to those paigns in the non-union fields, it can make the bosses respect the| who have no prospect of visiting the wage agreements by making them fear the power of the union. The Color Line in Detroit Soviet Union. Especially interesting is the chapter on Russian History. The fight be- tween the merchants and the feudal nobility for political supremacy; the Judge Carr, of Lansing, Michigan, sitting in the circuit court] Part played by the struggle of the in Detroit, has upheld the contention of the Nordic blond kluxers who sell real estate in that city and ruled that a Negro may not live in his own property if the other residents object. The decision is couched in elaborate legal phraseology, but this is what it means. In practice it amounts to classing Negro residents with crim- inal elements and puts them outside a legal code which considers] manov as the czar of Muscovy.” all questions, except this one, from the general standpoint of property. i In this case the law makes a distinction between the rights of property owners who are white and those who happen to be black. The decision opens the way for a drive against Negroes in De-| in the service of capitalism. Other in- troit, thousands of whom are employed in the automobile plants of that city, and to all intents and purposes legalizes segregation based on color. The Detroit labor movement cannot afford to let such a deci- sion stand because it means the inerease of racial conflicts promoted by the bosses and their hangers-on and a further division of the la- bor movement itself on racial lines. Upon the white workers and their organizations is the greater responsibility for guaranteeing to the Negroes the same. privileges that they have won and convincing the masses of Negro workers that in this and similar cases the opinions of the-boss class are not held by the workers. Towa farmers evidently did not admire Coolidge’s idealism as expressed in his speech before the farm congress at Chicago last winter, when he told them that as a substitute for effective relief they could console themselves with the thaught that their life brings them “into an intimate and true relation to nature, where they-can live in harmony wih the Great Forpang a t SUBSCRIBE TO THR DAILY WORKER’ My peasants against the boyars and the Cossack revolts leading to the estab- lishment of the rule of the czars at the dawn of the 17th century. The guide book continues, “The urban bourgeoisie and the petty aristo- eracy succeeded in 1613 in crowning an aristocratic merchant named Ro- Divine Right of Romanov. Thus was established the “divine right” of the Romanovs to play the part in Russian History of the op- pressors of the workers and peasants, teresting pictures of Russian History are briefly told, including the peasant revolts, the revolt of the Dekabrists in 1905 and the period of the revolu- tion following the world war. The second section of the guide book gives special information, such as explanations of weights and meas- ures, post telegraph, railways and the Russian alphabet, Information on Cities, The rest of the guide book is de- voted to information about the five largest cities of the Soviet Union, Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkoy, Kiev and Odessa, Here the contents por- tray vividly the differences between the Soviet Union and the capitalist states, Instead of streets named after captains of finance and generals who led dmperialist slaughters, we find Karl Marx Street, Rosa Luxemburg Square, Karl Mebknecht Street, Lenin Square, Vorovsky Street. The mark of the proletarian state sinks deeply into every phage of life in the Soviet Union, aren Beside the old as of art which SOVIET UNION Soviet Republics Society for Cultural 9 CO. of the Russian Economic Theory of a Socialist Statesman the Philippines where the offspring of By H. M. WICKS. American soldiers who have deserted R. Victor L. Berger of Milwaukee} their native wiyes is one of the crying M is the lone socialist representative | Problems of the administration of the Why do the French engage in colonial in congress. In that respect he is|islands), Mr. Berger contradicts his conquests at all when they have no ignorance of imperialism, this stage of capitalism, is boundless. It is al- most incredible that one can live in the world today and harbor such. il-7 lusions, Wik ERTAINLY Berger's theory utterly ignores the met principles. of Marxism and the law 5f surplus-value, by which alone can be explained con- temporary imperialism. It is not sur- plus population that is respon; for the imperialist policy of natighs ‘but the fact that workers produce™ far more than they receive in wages. As industry develops this surplus qpn- stantly increases, To avoid the effects of ever recur- ring crises capitalists are forced, to combine into trusts, to strive to create monopolies in order to protect their investments. These great combines eventually outgrow the confines of the national boundaries. The great bank- ing combines under whose influence great monopolies are created are forced to export ever greater quantities of capital, When capital is invested in undeveloped countries it is neces- sary to control the political life of such countries, In the case of France after the war it was essential that if she were to realize her ambition to become a great industrial power and secure hegemony over Hurope (a dream since,shattered) she had to control sources of raw material, That was one of the reasons why she struggled so desperately to overthrow the Soviets in Russia, Since she is now challenged in ‘Syria she fights with every means at hand to maintain imperialist domination, and not because she wants territory in which to train soldiers for wars on continental Europe. ere ORGER'S colonial theory ignores ’ the class struggle and national ‘colonial struggles and places imperial- ‘ist policies upon ay absurd population theory that harks back to the dawn of the last century and is a vulgariza- tion even of the ridiculous illusions of that ancient plagiarist, the Rev. Malthus. Certainly the United States has no problem of over-population, but not even Mr. Berger can deny its imperial- ist character, American armed forces ice. are carefully preserved in their histor- icial significance, are the revolutionary’ museums, the new art theaters which rank first in the wofld, the new life of the masses which~is based in the factories with rae and schools. Historical cription The description of the history of these five cities is a story of the strug- gle which the Russian masses waged to insure their Soviet state against world capitalism, For example, we learn of Kharkov, “On the 18th of November, 1917 the péwer of the So- viets was declared under the leader- ship of Artyem ,and the first Ukrain- jan central executive committee of the Soviet Ukraine was formed. In the beginning of April, 1918, Kharkov, was occupied by the Germans, After their retreat in the middle of Novem- ber of the same year the town, as also the whole Ukraine, came under the rule of Petlura. In the first days of 1919 the Red Army took Kharkov, where a Soviet government was form- ed with Rakovsky as president, In the end of June the same year Denikin occupied the town, but had to evacuate it on the 12th of Décember. In the beginning of 1920, Kharkov was finally proclaimed the capitaliof the Ukranian Soviet Republic.” © #1). And so it is with: the other four cities, all of which are rich in revolu- tionary history,” Bedatise of its treas- ure fund of facts onall/phases of the Soviet Union, this "guide book is valuable not only ag reference book but to all workers*who turn for in-j spiration to the Workers and Peasants Republic, The guidé*book should find a ready sale in the @nited States. Aro East Liberty, Pa., Will Hold Matteoti Memo: Meeting — EAST LIBERTY; Pa,, June 9.—A Giacomo Matteoti memorial meeting crats that sit in that body. When he| Power of France, discusses political problems tiere is nothing whatever in his arguments to. indicate that he is in the slightest de- gree different from the old party rep- resentatives. When the question of the French debt settlement was up in congress the Milwaukee statesman displayed considerable German moral indigna- tion and declared that the recent war with Germany “was not our war” (meaning this country’s war). He further adds that we had no excuse for going into it because we had no quarrel with Germany. Certainly such an attitude displays a pathetic lack of understanding of the nature of imperialist wars. In his further argument Mr. Berger aban- loned his moral indignation and stated correctly, albeit poorly and with an inability to grasp its funda- mentals, that it was the machinations of “big business” that got the United States into the war. If Berger had said the workers had no quarrel with the German workers he would have been right, but the workers do not control the government of the United States. He carefully refrained from expos- ing the imperialist character. of the war and the role of Wilson and the United States government in defense of the interests in Europe of the House of Morgan. a N analysis of the theoretical basis of his objection to cancellation by the United States of fifty per cent of the French debt brings to light the fact that this eminent leader of the so- cialist party is utterly incapable of understanding the gature of imper- jalism even to the extent that it is understood today by every competent bourgeois historian and economist, not to mention the Marxian writers, This is followed by another startling observation: | pe “For a people of about 39,000,000 —which uses these colonies mainly as a training field for its troops in the bloody ‘bisiness of war—this continuous war business is certain- ly an unprofitable business:' nomic development, its growth into’ an imperialist nation, that drives the French ruling class forward to éolonial conquest, but the fact of their being obsessed with a warlike madness. This purely sub- jective mania for war manifests itself in the French sending soldiers into colonies so they may get proper train- ing» It was not. desire for imperialist conquest that caused the French to lay waste Damascus, the oldest city in the world, over whose streets has passed the pageantry of all the ages, but simply the fact that those ancient buildings furnished good targets for airplane bombs, heavy and light artil- ery, liquid fire, poison gas, shrapnel and. bullets. © If the umpopulated Sahara Desert possessed © good targets for practice in ¥ the French would probably have left undisturbed the populous city of Damascus. The moral here sems to be thet colonial peopels should not live in buildings that make good targets for the French army, or better still that people should not erect) buildings. In which case the French could make a deal with Bng- land to use the great sphinx and the pyramids as targest for practice... Unpopulated aréas would be ' much better colonies for the purposes of the French as. interpreted by Mr. Berger because there.would then be no temp- tation to indulge in miscegenation for the simple: that there would be will be held herexat the Kingsley| For him the contributions to the|0 2étlves to ‘marry, did not seize Cuba, the Philippines, House, Auburn street and Larimer | analysis of imperialism from the pens| JQUT, to get back to the first propo-| Panama, and Haiti because of pressure avenue, Sunday Afternoon, June 13, at | o¢ Lenin, Hobson, Hilferding, and sition of the Wisconsin statesman: | of population, but because finance and 2 o'clock. The speakers will be Ro- industrial .capital had investments there to be protected and wanted to make those investments safe for Wall Street and clear the path for more investments, E Mr: Berger vehemently denies any sympathy with the Bolsheviks and even Kautsky, have been in vain, In assailing the colonial policy of France, Berger said in the house de- bates of June 2: ‘ “Its (France's) colonial empire is second only to that of Great Brit ain, although France does not need land A. M. McReady, D. B, Early, Nino Gianflane, Sidney Stark, Dianete Massimo, The chairman will be Ab- bate Dr. Frank, unique. But his label is the only| Charge that the French are bad, mean- thing that distinguishes him from] ing unsuccessful,. colonizers, by recit- many of the republicans and demo-|ing the ram ons. of the colonial problem of surplus population? This is the real contribution to ‘history and economics by Mr, Berger, whereby he Duluth Sacco-Vanzetti o frequently displays his lack of under- any colonies, for the simple reason |such time as their population out- Mass Meeting Sunday] tha ‘France HAS NO SURPLUS |srows the boundaries 1 hale -own| taota of past or comenpanee stig id POPULATION.” (Emphasis mine.— H, M. W.) Berger misses entirely the historical role of imperialism. He further indulges fn absurditi by declaring that the French are bad colonizers because they have a tend- ency to intermarry with the natives, Following this profound and excep- tional observation, for it is a known fact that no other imperialist citizens ever marry natives (ty is evidenced especially by “our oWi*oceipation of salts (bi iated beaks country. by comparihg us to Mussolini and other capitalist despots, and talking twaddle about “red imperialism,” but we assure him that if he would en- deavor to learn the f about Bol- shevik theory and ‘rete he would not make such miserable tlunders. when he tries to talk on international policy. ui DULUTH, Minn,, June 9.—A Sacco- Vanzetti picnic and mass meeting is to be held here under the auspices of the Duluth International Labor De- fense at Fairmount Park, 71st avenue, west, Sunday, June 18, Program be- gins at 1:30 p. m, Several speakers will address the m French capital grew to its mopoloistic stage and that long before the war, great banking combines were organ- iued that began to export capital to other countries, mostly in the form of loans to governments, and that as {ts sharé of the Versailles loot France| secured feolonies in Asia and Africa | Of league of nations man- dates; “had nothing to do with the ‘ you go to your } . ) |