The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 25, 1926, Page 6

<aeh Sot an aria Feit aaa Bis Page Six L@ THE DAILY WORKER THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill. Phone Monroe 4712 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 mail and make ont checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, Illinois —— J. LOUIS ENGDAHL { WILLIAM F, DUNNE MORITZ J, LOEB. vis aaaias anes és Wntered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- cago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. .. Editors Business Manager Advertising rates on application, ——) <> 290 . . The Minnesota Primary The defeat of Thomas Davis, a Minneapolis attorney, by Magnus Johnson in the Minnesota farmer-labor primary “means a contest for the governorship in which farmers and workers, will be lined up against the republican party—the historical ‘party of Minnesota capitalism—in a party which they have shown, they control by de- feating the elements which disobeyed the instructions of the conven- tion and placed Davis in the race after Johnson,had received the endorsement of the convention. Party discipline has been upheld by the rank and file. This election means much to organized labor as well as to the farmer In northern Minnesota are the iron mines, owned by the Oliver Iron Mining company, a subsidiary of the steel trust, which furnish the ore for the blast furnaces of Pittsburgh“and other great eastern steel centers. Duluth is a great lake port and its docks and the ships which carry the ore from mine to smelter are also the property of the steel trust. Two great railway systems, the Great Northern and the North- ern Pacific, have their headquarters in St. Paul and together with the steel trust and the flour milling and elevatér interests in Min- neapolis—the greatest ffour-milling center in the world—dominate the state. The iron miners are entirely unorganized, but. they should be and can be the powerful center around which the thousands of un- organized workers of Minnesota could be rallied and brought into the unions. Every attempt of the iron miners to organize hag been met with | the machinery of the state—police, militia and courts—headed by the governor. The victory of the farmer-labor ticket in Minnesota next fall will mean for the labor movement an opportunity to conduct an} organization campaign in the iron mining districts withont the hostility of the state apparatus. -It should mean the entry, of the trade union movement into what has been for years an impregnable stronghold of the steel trust and a general stimulation of the labor movement thruout the state. Eyen such a staunch supporter of the steel, railroad and flour- milling interests as the Minneapolis Journal concedes that the con- test between the farmer-labor party and the republicans “wili be a battle royal.” With their own party and the issues so clearly defined, ‘with a fighting chance to win, the Minnesota workers and farmers have an opportunity between now and the fall elections to strengthew-their organization and by undivided support of their candidates and pro- gram give a great forward shove to the working class movement in that state and a powerful impetus to similar movements that» are developing in other sections. More Violence in Passaic Violence directed against the Passaic strikers is on the increase. Not the organized official violence which has been of a mark- edly cruel character previously but the sniping, irregular violence of the unofficial thugs of the bosses. . We predicted a few days ago an increase of this kind of pro- vocation as a prelude to more serious and, to the strikers, more dangerous methods. The dogged and unshaken resistance of the textile workers to the starvation campaign of the mill owners has enraged the bosses whose rule has been unchallenged hitherto or who have »een able easily to crush all resistance. We may expect from now on an intensification of the violence in the form of beatings, stabbings, etc., which the recent news from Passaic records. It is an American strike and American methods are being used by the bosses and their agents. The methods of the workers who are supporting the Passaic strike need not change except to redouble their efforts to provide adequate relief for the strikers and to keep their protests against the Passaic atrocities pouring into Washington and the office of New Jersey’s governor. AT THE GENEVA DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE ~~ (From Moscow lavestia.) se What Is the Farmer-Labor Movement? By WILLIAM F. DUNNE, Fourth Article. T is possible now, ih the light of the defeat of the Minneapolis lawyer Davis by Magnus Johnson, the farmer, backed by the rank and file of the |farmer-labor association to estimate |more closely the possibilities of the | movement, The victory of Johnson represents | further consolidation of the mass | support of the farmer-labor party. As |has been pointed out before, the ques- tion of party discipline was paramount and the lines were drawn clearly be- ween the wavering middle class ele- {ments and the rank and file workers land farmers. HE farmer-labor party has estab- | 4+ lished on a firm foundation the principle that candidates must first of all be responsive to the wishes of the | organization and shattered the legalis- i bigest is the big task’Wefore the rank | tic conception of the careerists within | its ranks that it is something for poli- | courageous and energetic of its lead- | ticlans to play with. | The primary law, after the defeat of | | The HIS strengthens the. party inter- nally and we may expect, If any successes are attained in the fall elec- tions by the party, a campaign de- signed to prevent the primary law being used against the workers and farmers. This is a long step in ad- vance for workers and farmers who a few years ago were inclined to de- nounce as agents of “big business” anyone who criticized the primary law. unscrupulous ‘campaign that will be waged by the capitalist class of Minnesota against its choice for governor will tend to give additional internal stability to. the. farmer-labor party. es This stability it is necessary to ac- quire with some rapidity if it is not to be drawn into some third party movement, surrendering its freedom of action and losing its identity. and file of the patty and the most ers. The Minnesdta-* farmer-labor party, while it has madé ‘considerable | Davis, becomes to the rank and file of the party, Only another instrument to |be used for demoralizing their ranks | | instead of the democratié instrument | |as which it has been hailed for years | advances in the last two years, freeing itself from the domination of the “red- baiting” elements, insisting on and maintaining the principle of party dis- cipline, bringing the workers and | by the capitalist party henchmen, |farmers closer togethér, setting up a form of organization which combines flextbility and the possibility of inner party democracy. with organizationai control, has not yet established itself strong enough, in my opinion, to re- sist the strenuous efforts that will be made, as the agrarian crisis becomes more acute, to absorb it into some- thing similar to the LaFollette move- ment, to make it organically merely a state organization of a party ruled by small capitalists and professional men of the type of Davis. HE Communists in the Minnesota farmer-labor party have a big role to play in this vitally necessary pro- cess of clarification and organizational consolidation. They will have to find means of accomplishing this eask without isolating themselves from the broad farmer-labor movement and without making it’ possible for the enemies of the farmer-labor movement to make Communism the issue in the fall elections. The rank and file of the Minnesota farmer-labor party are not opposed to the Communists. They recognize them as hard workers and good and honest fighters, but they are deathly afraid that someone else will be fright- ened away from the party and its pro- gram if the opportunity is given the capitalist and reactionary labor press Lessons | MOSCOW, May 13.—(By Mail)—The | Pravda of Thursday, ‘contains an ar- | ticle by Com. Zinoviev on the English |general strike. The article itself was | written before the breaking off of the |strike, but a postscript has been writ- |ten referring to the calling off of the |strike, In th¥s postscript Comrade |Zinoviey points out that from the mo- ment when the general council allow-| led Messrs, Thomas and MacDonald to} | play a decisive role in the strike lead: ership the strike was doomed to de-| feat. From the moment when the) leaders of the general council began) to asseverate that the strike was not | a political strike and rejected the fi- |nancial aid of their brother trade un- jions the issue of the struggle was clear. | Nevertheless, the English general \strike will play an enormous role, it | will be the rehearsal for future great |struggles. A great advance has been }made in regard to shaking the strong- hold of English imperialism. The overcoming of the reformist illusions among the English working class is now proceeding at an wunexampled pace and the ideas of Leninism will capture the English labor movement. Masses Compelied Action. In the article itself Comrade Zino- viev gives a survey of the whole de- velopment of the strike, and proves by means of quotations that, if, on the jeve of the strike, the miners had shown themselves to be in the least of General Stri way conciliatory, if the’ fighting will of the working class had not been so powerful, then-the right leaders in the general council would have pre- vented the declaration of the strike. The masses had compelled the lead- ers to begin the struggle. The cour- agegus mood of the Communists and of some bold people in the. non-Com- munist camp played a great role in this, as they expressed the true feel- ing of the masses, Apart from a. few, “labor leaders” who have become strike leaders against their will, the. entire political world, already on the bat day of the strike, clearly recognized the enor- mous political impor ce of othe strike. The English ‘geois press correctly perceived this importance and expressed it openly. The English bourgeoisie immediatdly placed the question on a high levef of the class struggle. The bourgédis press con- tinually called attentidhto the patri- otic attitude of Thomas‘and MacDon- ald, and never doubéeu their readi- ness to betray the Wirkers. The force of the English bbtirgeoisie lay in the recognition ofthe political character of the strikef°The Interna- tional bourgeoisie also £66k this into acocunt, when, for ftistance, the of- ficial American press quite openly as- sured the English bouf@6oisie of mil- itary support in the eveft of civil war. The position of the Efiglish working class would have been “different if the English labor leaders Wad also recog- nized from the first da¥“of the strike that the struggle was “becoming more ah HE commanding officers of Europ- ean ships. were used to treating |the Chinese seamen worse than cat- \tle. Constant abuse, insults and | blows fell to the lot of the Chinese |seamen slaving aboard European | ships. Phere was a reason for the anxiety of shipowners and captains of Europ- ean ships to man-their vessels with Chinese seamen. Their labor is cheap, and besides, they provide the officers with suitable objects for their. pugil- listic proclivities. The Chinese sea- |men were unorganized, and | quently deprived of collective power of resistance to the insulting attitude of their exploiters. The Union Emerges. HIS had almost become a tradition among European officers, and great was their surprise, horror and indig- nation when all of a sudden the {Chinese Seamen’s Union emerged be- fore then# as a formidable force. The recent events at Tientsin have stirred the whole of the foreign press |in China, which naturally tried to |ascribe the awakening of class-con- sciousness among the Chinese seamen to the efforts of wicked agitators. Following the old-estaflished tradi- tion of disregard for the personal dig- nity of Chinamen, particularly if the latter happened to be on board ship, the engineer of the British steamer | to handle roughly the delegates of the Seamen's Union who boarded the ship upon its arrival at Tientsin, on busi- ness of the union. The sypercilious British officers could not stomach the idea of Chinese seamen being protect- ed by their own organization, which would put an end to the humiliating treatment of Chinese seamen by the commanding officers. Protest Strike. ‘OWEVER, the result was this time rather unfortunate for these typl- cal representatives of the haughty \tribe of British officers. In protest against the rough handling of the union's delegates the whole crew went out on strike. The dockers refused to unload the ship. The lghtermen re- sed to handle the ship's cargo, conse- | “Henrique” and his assistant decided 'o1 and more a political struggle. Cook declared: “We are not fighting against the constitution, we are fight- ing for bread. “Ig it economics or politics, is it bread or constitution, when the gov- ernment supports strikebreakers with! the whole force of the state and bru- tally interferes in inner trade union affairs, when it assures the strike- breakers payment from the trade un- ion funds, if they are confiscated? Even if the government had done nothing else to support te capitalists against the workers, if it Kad not de- clared the general strike to be illegal, concentrated the whole forces of the state against the workers, threatened the unemployed with starvation, cre- ated a great strikebreaking organiza- tion, carried out mass arrests, etc., those measures alone would have suf-!* ficed in order to show that the gov- ernment had immediately converted the economic struggle into a political struggle. “We are fighting for bread and therefore we are fighting against your constitution of the money-bags, against capitalism’—this is how Cook shoutd have formulated the struggle. One shonld not have been afraid ‘of bringing politics into the strike strug- gle, on the contrary, one should not justify oneself if the bourgeoisie ac- cuses the strikeleaders of political aims, but openly say to the workers, that the bourgeoisie have set up their political aims in this strike, against which the workers have to set up their own political program. which they are subj eign ships. The speeches of the Chin- ese seamen were impregnated with anger and implacable hatred for the foreign exploiters. The dockers and the boatmen spoke in similar strain. Amid stormy applause a resolution | of protest was adopted, and it was/ decided in future to proclaim a strike | and boycott in case of any offensive treatment, The Provisions. HE incident aboard the 8. 8, “Hen- rique” was settled upon the follow- ing conditions: .the ‘captain of the | steamer must offer a “written apology | to the Chinese Seamen's Union for the rough manner of his its in regard to the union’s delegates. This apology must be published at the expense of the Shipping company in the Canton, Hong-Kong and Nor- wegian newspapers? “The engineer and his assistant, who insulted the union’s delegates, must be discharged and never taken on by the company) again. The captain undertakes in fu-| ture to take severe measures towards | those guilty of maltreatment of Chi- nese seamen aboard iis ship. The union shall gét the amount of | 120 dollars as compénsation for the medical expenses cOhnected with the treatment of. the delegates who sut- fered. i In future the unton’s delegates shall be allowed complete liberty to come oard and carry out their union business. bad 1 Forced to Accept. 4 ba these demands were accepted and carried out by the captain, Thus, the Chinese Seamen's Union has compelled respect for its organ- ized power, and has started upon the road of direct and organized action in regard to commanding officers aboard foreign ships. Example For Future. HIS case, the first upon the record of the young revolutionary union, should serve as an example to be emu- lated in future conflicts between com- manding officers and crews, The need for org@nization has been fully realized by #he masses of Chi- _ The Chinese Seamen Rebel 1 aboard for-[ Trade Union Movement seems quite secure against infection with reform- | ist ideas. It is marching forward upon. the road of direct attack upon capital. A vivid instance of this was furnished by the incident just described, Kindergarten to Be Feature of the Russian Women’s Picnic Sunday In order to give the ‘mothers a chance to have a good time at the pic- nic, the Russian Progressive Women’s Mutual Aid Society has arranged a Kindergarten at the picnic given by the society Sunday) June 27, at River Tavern Grove, Milwaukee Ave, op- posite St. Adalbert’s Cemetery. Mo- thers will be able to leave their chil- dren in case of nurses and go around the park without any worry, SEND IN A SUB! — SWZ Ss ES Ly Qe LETT SS We, a to play up the “red menace.” it HIS was the burden of the state- ments made to me by. various prominent farmer-labor party leaders: in the Twin Cities. And here is a difficult: sithation for our party in Minnesota, In our desire to do nothing that will interfere with the stccess of the farmer-labor campaign it is possible that we may lean much too far to the right and not insist enough on the right of Communists to work as Com- munists in the farmer-labor party. We have made, and we have still to make, the’ most substantial achieve- ments for a mass party of workers and farmers in Minnesota. We must insist on recognition of these facts, but only on the basis of ‘our work for the movement and not merely for- mally. To follow this latter course means another period of isolation. To err in the other direction means that we become absorbed”in the farmer-labor party in exactly the same way that we are trying to pre- vent the farmer-labor party being ab- sorbed in a nondescript third party of capitalism, ‘PON our success in steering the clear Communist course depends in a. large measure the future of the Minnesota farmer-labor party. At the same time it was a pleasure to see how the working masses them- selves strode over all sorts of preju- dices of the old trade unionism and showed their own countenance in the struggle, as for example in the action of the printing workers who prevented the appearance of the Daily Mail. The fight for the press is the characteris- tic feature of all modern political strikes. Is it then an economic strug- gle when even non-Communist trade unionists call upon the soldiers not to fire on the workers, when a begin- ning is made with the organizing of workers’ defense corps? In such a gigantic struggle that party which does not go forward, which does not attack, is bound to retreat, must hesi- tate and yield. “It is impossible to stand still. Sy, A strike leadership which does not expose and repudiate Thomas and MacDonald must inevitably become the victims of these traitors. The members of the general council believ- ed that they would~strengthen the strike- leadership by retaining such people as Thomas. As a matter of fact the strike leadership would have been infinitely’ Stronger if these agents of the bourgeoisie, who betray the strike in the most cowardly man- ner, had beén' thrown out. To give way to the ullimative demands of Thomas, to seek unity with the right leaders at any, price, means to be- come a plaything in thé hands of the bourgeoisie. ~ ‘ 7 New Leadership. As was the case with previous Foster to Speak at Kansas City Sunday on General Strike (Special to The Daily Worker) KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 23. — Workers of this section are expec- tant of a regular celebration next Sunday at the Trade Union Educa- tional League “picnic, with William Z. Foster, secretary of the league as the item of attraction, particularly as his speech will be about the British General Strike. The picnic will be held at Bales Lake, at the end of the Jackson and 24th street car line. Tickets are on sale at 1108 Grand avenue on the Missouri side and at Kvanternik’s restaurant, Fifth and Elizabeth, on the Kansas side. Only .25 cents in advance, 35 cents at the grounds. Everybody invited. . 100 New Bombers, WASHINGTON, June 23. — A con- tract for the construction of 100 new naval airplanes, bombing type, was awarded by the navy department to- day to the Glen L. Martin company of Cleveland. : ALL BZ SW LS” As it is today the Minnesota farmer- labor party typifies a stage in the de- velopment of such movements marked by: _ (1.) The separation of and file from the middle ments by a process of which is nearing completion. 3 (2.) The acceptance of the dis- cipline of the organization by targe: masses of farmers and workers, (3.) The establishment of an or ganized form which gives the rank and file a considerable measure of control over candidates, (4.) The completion of a process of clarification which is marked by complete separation from the capl- talist parties. $j, (5.) The achlevement of ‘som measure of toleration for various working-class political opinions within the organization, pt The Minnesota movement must be studied closely by our party as future developments occur because, as stated in the beginning, it has reached @ stage which is some years in advance of movements which are still essaying the hopeless task of reforming” the democrat and republican parties, but which depend upon and get the sup- port of great numbers:of workers and ke in Great Britain strike movements in. England, the present strike will bring new iabor leaders to the front, that is to. say the working class, .who are fected with old craft prejudices, who do not wish to ‘become ministers and’ who are ready to proceed along the way of “inexorable class struggle. Every moment of the strike is giving the English workers a profounder un- derstanding of the questions of state and power, is causing them to real- ize that the bourgeoisie must be de- prived of the possibility of maintain- ing strikebreakers, of sending e6ol- diers against workers, of handing over the unemployed and strikers, by de- cisions of, the courts, to starvation. Every day of the English strike is causing the workers to realize more than they would in years of peaceful development, the truth of the words of Lenin on the impossibility, of .peace- ful reformist transition to socialiem, . In spite of the direct treachery:of the right leaders, in spite of:the, eer ious mistakes and ‘hesitaitous; ©in spite of the narrow outlodk« af the official leaders of the: movement, the strike has revealed as never before the force of the Hnglish workers, has aroused them and filled them: with new knowledge. No mater how. the strike may end, it is creating a new situation dm the whole international labor movement. The British struggle has’ prepared the ground for the firm consolidation and for the rapid development of Bolehey- ism in the English labor movement, University of Montana Seeks to Oust Poet for Writing to New Masses NEW YORK—(FP)—June 23.—Hal White, called on to resign from the University of Montana summer ‘school faculty because of a poem he wrote for the New Masses here—may carry his fight into the courts. Following an interview with President C. H. Clapp of the university, White an- nounced that he would appeal to the state board of education. ‘ White holds a contract with the unl- versity for teaching during the pres ent summer session, The New, Mass editors are collecting funds to enabl the poet to bring a, lawsuit ft the university trustees if he-is forced’ out of the faculty, — 4 Ford Gives Princets Car. | DETROIT, June 23“A crown prince and princess and. a king of. industry Prince® Gustavus Adolphus and his consort, Princess’ Louise.of Sweden and Henry Ford--met here today. - Ford bowed to the princess. and presented her with theomost expem- sive automobile mate in; Detroit. . 2 ee Ab, Meee, | farmers, hae real labor leaders from, the ranks of