The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 8, 1926, Page 6

Page Six —— RUN Ee ga? TH mipee Wee THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO, Washington Blvd., Chicago, IIL Phone Monroe 4732 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mali (in Chicago only): | By mail (outs!de 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 1113 W Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, IIlinols J, LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F, DUNNE (°"" MORITZ J, LOEB. .. Editors ..Business Manager Entered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Cht- cago, Lil, under the act of March 8, 1879. Advertising rates on application. eS The New York Traction Strike More important than the number of men involved in the Inter- subway strike in New York is the fact that it represents a break with the company union that, has been foisted on to the workers of this great traction company. That the movement out of the company union is not confined to the subway men is shown by the fact that in the meeting where the strike vote was taken, a number of elevated “workers appeared and announced that they, too, had quit the company union.: As we go to press it is not clear how successful the strike is, but enough can be gathered from the dispatches in the capitalist press to indicate tremendous dissatisfaction among the traction workers. Such developments are of the greatest importance for the labor movement. They show that not even a continuous barrage of anti- union propaganda, sneh as the “welfare” agents of the Interborough deluge the workers with, can prevent the spread of trade union organization and strike action’ when the organizational weakness of the workers becomes translated into a lowered standard ofsliving. The myth relative to the tremendous difficulties of organiza- tion work among the employes of decisive industries like the trac- tion trust in greater New York, energetically spread by certain trade union officials, is shattered by such spontaneous revolts of unorganized workers... The unorganized w workers will respond to an honest and militant organization campaign backed by the whole trade union movement. Republican Split Widens The growing breach between the Coolidge wing of the republican party and the farm bloc senators and representatives has been dramatized by the resignation of Senator Norris .of Nebraska from the agricultural committee of which he was chairman. MeNary of Oregon, another farm bloc insurgent, takes aie 230 borough Senator his place. The endorsement by Senator Norris of William B. Wilson, democrat candidate for senator in Pennsylvania and former secre: tary of labor under President Wilson, puts him in,opposition to the Coolidge forces and is a public condemnation of the Pennsylvania republican primar It is/becoming plainer each dé ay that the split in the republican party is the most deep going in its history, the agricultural and rinst the big industrial and financial capital- ists, with the open corruption of the primary a national seandaland the world court issue a political basis for a far more powerful, anti-old guard movement that the Roosevelt bolt could boast of. The defeat of Coolidge is almost a foregone ‘conclusion and a new party is in the making, but whether it will blossom forth for the 1928 elections can be better forecast as the speeches of the sen- ators and congressmen on their return home begin to ‘indicate the extent to which the anti-Coolidge revolt is crystallizing into a movement that cannot be contained by the republican party. ANTI-ALIEN BILL AIMED AT THE DEPORT ATION OF UNION WORKERS NOT TO PASS IN THIS SESSION By LAURENCE TODD, Federated Press.) WASHINGTON (By Mail)—No action will be taken in this session on the Holaday alien deportation bill by the senate committee on immigration. Sen- ator Hiram Johnson, chairman of the committee, believes that the opponents of this measure are entitled to a hearing, and the members of his committee have no time for extensive hearings in the final d&ys of this session, The That it will pass the senate next winter is 3 lcause the bill puts on the alien the the | burden of proof of his right to be in bill passed the house on June 7. doubtful. Every Bandit an American. E DAILY ORKER Railway Union Heads Score One More Great “Victory” By WILLIAM F. DUNNE, HE Coolidge appointments to the mediation board authorized by the Watson-Parker bill were confirmed by the senate committee meeting on June -28. The administration apparatus of the law is now in the hands of what is, a fact unanimously admitted by reac- tionaries and progressives alike, an anti-labor majority. The appoirtees serve for five, four, three, two and one year terms respec- tively. Four of them are anti-labor. Consequently there can be no im- portant change in’ the majority of the board for two years even if “friends of labor” are appointed as vacancies occur which is unlikely, O fight against the appointments was made in the senate commit- tee. Two so called progressive sen- ators, Wheeler of Montana and Dill of Washington, were absent, presum- ably with the knowledge and consent of the railway union officials. The last opportunity to make a fight on the Coolidge appointees before the ‘law goes into operation has passed. The rail labor unions, by their official support of the Watson-Parker bill, have jumped from the frying-pan into the fire. But these officials live in hope altho the menibership may die in despair. They see a ray of light and it con- vinces them that a new day for rail- road labor is about to envelope them in effulgent glory. i ‘T is a tiny ray, ‘tis true, but enough to brighten the immediate out- look for an officialdom which arises puzzled each morning and waiting ‘what the day may bring forth, This is why the rail union heads feel hopeful even tho at the most liberal estimate they have a four-to- one majority against the unions on the mediation board. At the same meeting of the senate committee at which the Coolidge ap- pointments ‘were confirmed, zation was given for the investigation of the strike of engineers and firemen on the Western Maryland railway. The Federated Press correspondent writes as follows of the manner in which the railway union head grasped at this straw: The senate committee recom. mended that the mediation board take up this matter at an early date. Because of the committee’s action on the Western Maryland case, op- position to confirming the members of the board is still further dimin- ished. Many of the rail labor officials be- lieve that the senate committee has indicated to the new board the pol+ icy it will be eXpected to pursue— one of vetoing the refusal of cer- tain rail executives to discuss grie- vances with their organized em- ployes. They are hopefpi souls, these rail- way union officials. Tos convention,of the Railway Em- ployes Department of the Amer- ican Federatign of)Labor is conclud- ing its conventiom in Chicago as this is written. Donald:Richberg, attorney for the railway labor unions, was thanked by the convention for his assistance in putting over the Watson- Parker bill. i | Another convention—a company union convention under the beneficient auspices of the Union Pacific Rail- way—is to meet in Salt Lake City, July 6. The June issue of the company magazine, euphemistically called “The Shop Employes Association Bulletin,” in greeting the convention, takes the opportunity to say a good word for the Watson-Parker bill (at that time pending before Congress) as follows: authori- | The bill is a tremendous stride forward in the statesmanship of In- dustry. At all points it dovetalls neatly into the spirit of those times, This hramonizing of : .% interests appears to make the railway act almost an IDEAL PIECE OF LEG- ISLATION, If congress is well ad- vised it will accept promptly a measure that is the fruit of long and sober discussion by responsible managers and labor leaders in the railroad industry. (Emphasis Mine.) UT the “harmonizing of interests” obviously does not extend so far as to give the railway unions a ma- jority of sympathizers on the execu- tive apparatus provided by the Wat- son-Parker bill or even a fifty-fifty arrangemént. For two years, while every effort is made to turn the A. F. of L. unions into purely company unions, the unions will have to sub- mit to the decision of a board four out of five of whom are known to be obedient servants of the railroad in- terests. The railway union heads may be “hopeful and the rank and file de- ceived but it is a safe bet that one year from now there will be no unani- mous vote of thanks to Attorney Richberg or to any union official who helped to put over the Watson-Parker bill. ITHER there will be the beginning a rank and file revolt against this company union scheme disguised as a railway labor act or the unions will become company unions unable to make effective protest. Meanwhile the railway union offi- cials clutch at such meaningless signs as the belief that “the senate commit- tee has indicated to the new board the policy it is to pursue.” Policy is one thing and power is another. The railroads, not the unions, have the power by grace of the Waison-Parker bill. Shall Workers’ Education Do the Goose Step? By BERTRAM D. WOLFE FEW years ago, Upton Sinclair wrote his “Goose Step”, a smash- ing exposure of the corruption of big educational institutions by Rockfeller, Carnegie and other foundations, This book showed how that portion of American. youth that goes to the big trust-owned, universities is trained and-drilled in the way that*big busi- ness desires. Now the Young Workers Education Bureau has fallen in line with the goose step and come under the shadow of these big financial founda- tions. The Carnegie *~ corporation, founded from the money coined by Andrew Carnegie and the stee) trust out of the. blood of Homestead, and McKeesport, isa foundation of $135,- 000,000 for the “fostering” of “general education, medical education, legal education and scientific research.” It is the largest of the many enormous Carnegie foundations. Ever since the American labor movement began to manifest an awakening interest in workers’ education, the Carnegie cor- poration trustees have manifested an interest in the same subject. Worker's Education Bureau, HE ‘Workers’ Education Bureau, affiliated with the American Fed- eration of labor, marked a great step forward in the development of the American working class, at least in the sense that it “legalized” education in the unions. Up till that time, the “hard boiled” labor leaders had belli- gerantly opposed any attempts at working class education onthe ground that’ the rank and file “know too much already—more than is good for them?’ The Workers Education Bureau served to co-ordinate various local educational movements wnder the auspices of wentral labor councils. together with such activities as those of the education department of the International Ladies’ Garments Work- ers’ Union and the United Mine Work- Chairman Albert Johnson of ‘ “4 dei se ittee, ith his fellow | the United States, whereas orm- aoe eon e me of lewally in.|€? 2¥8 have put the burden..on the cat-and-mouse scheme of legally in- government to prove that the alien is timidating aliens in the United States, | here iMegally, is irritat the failure of his Cal- | Menace Laber Unions. ifornia namesake to endorse the bill. | When the senate commitiee ahall Holaday, who comes from Danville,|.. time to hold hearings on tha bill, home of Joe Cannon, asked the house} 44+ January or February, much a to ad the because Chicage | tention wil -be given the, parts: of the was overrun by bandits and other {bill which direct the immigration. bu- criminal: Sahay of Chicago, ay reau officials to. deport every. alien, an member of the committee, Tes sted | who, has served or been sentenced to the measure to the last, asserting that | bandit go was Ameri- and that the was whether € in Ct can, issue inen should be |serve a year in prison for an offense |committed within five years of his arrival in this country. subjected to persecu- kmail bec When the Chicago Federation of auge they had not |r ahor unanimously voted a protest uD |against the passage of/the bill, its Berger, denounced the | opposition was reported to be based bill as a crowning t of retrogres-|largély on the dangers in this scheme, sion from “American ideals of liber-| Aliens employed under bad conditions, ty.” He said that man who advo- | going on strike and doing picket duty, cates in Italy the inciples of repre- | might be sentenced to serve terms of sentative government, or who ds an | one year for violation of an anti- ective Freemason there, is a criminal | picketing injunction. They would undor the »f the law, and can be|then face deportation, regardless of deported scheme. La-|the merits of the cause for which they Guacdin of protested be-' went on the picket line, tion or bl yet secured cit socialist, this York EFFICIENCY SYSTEM II IN RAILWAY SHOPS KILLED THREE TRAINMEN NEW BEDFORD, Mass., aay ¢-—“EMlicieney methods” Inaugurated by the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad and not the carelessness of trainmen, now dead, were responsible for the explosion of @ boiler of a| locomotive drawing a New Bedford to New London, Conn., freight train, | which wrecked the crack “Cape Codder,” New York to Hyannis express, at | Kingston, Rhode Island, with the loss of three lives, according to statements placed before Attorney Generali Charles P, Sisson of Rhode Island today. The trainmen aver that “in making efforts to bring efficiency to its full: | t power, workmen engaged in cleaning the boilers have been forced to Pa their work, with the result that the flues have not been rid of thei” uestioned the umulation of rust, mineral deposits and other foreign matter.” | taliat pret pean asked Sapons ers. Under the stimulus of the greater attention paid to workers’ education | many new classes were founded. The question soon arose, Shall it be a mere extension of master class “culture” to the workers—a systematic doping of the mind of the worker with apologies for and defense of the present system —or shall it te working-class educa- conscious participation in the strug- gles of their class. Carnegie Corporation Steps in. had on its hands $135,000,000, enormous quantities of money, so that the fund can spend freely and still continue to grow in volume. The Workers’ Education Bureau had un- various classes in workers’ education. | He who writes textbooks dictates the whole content of the class which is | based upon it. Consequently, the Car- | negle Corporation has thrown a mere trifle—$25,000—to the Workers’ Edu- cation Bureau for the purpose of the publication of books, Naturally, Jt made no conditions, In fact it did n6t have to, for the Work- ers’ Education Bur had already | shown by the character of its publi- | cations and Pypthe face of tts appli- | cation for 000 fund that it was not intending @to publish anything which .se: tion to strengthen the workers’ organ- ization and train workers for more was at this point that the Car- negie Corporation stepped in, It Such enormous quantities of money beget dertaken to publish textbooks for the [write two books, one on “orthodox” trade unionism and the other on “un- orthodox” or left-wing movements in the trade unions. These two were’ supposed to make up a single stud¥ course, but the Workers’ Education"Bureau published the first or “orthodox” section and re- jected the second or“unorthodox.” A study by Teresa Wolfson on “Women in Industry” was ?ejected because it merely questioned ‘the willingness of certain American FP@deration of Labor unions” to. organizé%the women, Yet it is an obvious fact that officials of many unions are réluctant indeed to make a real drive for the organization of the women. ‘Thé Carnegie Corpo- ration had already).received ample proof that the Workers’ Education Bureau was publShing the “right kind of books,” and“wanted to increase the amount of such publication so as to provide plenty of textbooks for all “legitimate” purposes. One of’ Many. Sct Carnegie Corporation is only one of a whole series of big Amer- ican foundations, it up from ¢he enormous profits tffe tne millionaires and billionaires have squeezed out ot the American workers. A few other important ones are the General Educa- tion Board, founded by Rockefeller in 1903 with an initial capital of $201,- 000,000; the Rockefeller Foundation, founded in 1913 with an initial capital of $183,000,000; the Laura Spellman Rockefeller Memorial, founded in 1918 with $78,000,000; the Hershey Fund, with $60,000,000; the Carnegie Foun- dation for the Advancement of Teach- ing, with $16,250,000; the Carnegie In- stitute of Washington, with $22,000, founded for “investigation, research and discovery and the application of hwowledge to the improvement of mankind;” the Kresge Foundation, with $24,500,000, “for charitable, ed cational and philanthropic purposes; the Russell Sage;:Foundation, with $15,000,000, for “the improvement of social and livingyeconditions in the United States,” and innumerable other such enormous sgcial slush funds to- taling all together, over a billion dol- lars. These do not include the direct donations to untyersities and other in- stitutions, nee HE power of a billion dollars for the control and corruption of the entire educational system of the United States is incalculable. These foundations do not spend their prin- ciple, but merely some part of the enormous interest. On a fund, for ex- ample, of $100,000,000 there are 5, 6, 7 or 8 more millions of dollars to spend every year without touching the principle. In fact, these foundations keep. steadily growing in size and since they cannot be broken up by in- heritance as can individual fortunes, the one billion in time will amount to fifteen or twenty or thirty billions of dollars, and by that time will be in a position to control national life in a way that cannot even be calculated— always provided that the present cap- italist system lasts long enough. Such funds as already exist are sufficient to control the thought and educational life of the American peo- ple from top to bottom is so far as education is for sale for money. But at least it should be expected that workers’ education) on however pov- erty-striken a scale it might have to get along; would reject such aid and the control that it involves, In this connection, it is encouraging to note that at a recent conference of teach- ers of workers’ education held at Brookwood under the auspices of Lo- cal 189 of the American Federation of Teachers on Washington's Birth- day there was a unanimous vote con- demning the Workers’ Education Bu- reau for accepting this fund of $25,000. Return’the Money. OWEVER, a resolution*is not enough. The unions affiliated with the Workers’ Education Bureau must at its next convention, to be held in April, 1927, demand that the $25,000 be returned and that no more money be atcepted from that source or from any other source hostile to labor. All unions interested in keep- ing workers’ education free from the influence and control of big business should affiliate with the Workers’ Ed- ucation Bureau .and see that it is financed by the unions, owned and controlled by the unions and rejects funds from such sources as will de- stroy the character of workers’ educa- tion, GA CHICAGO: INTERNATIONAL LADIES’ NT WORKERS’ UNION PAYS UT UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS sh Unemployment insurance benefits cago Joint Board of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, first payment is 50 per cent of the entitled to. + Another installment ofthe fund will be sent later to those that registered vt the union offices at 328 West Van Suren St, as soon ag all of the jobless wave received the first payment, Great discontent can be found among the membership of the union against the present form of unemploy- ment insurance, The worker in the shop and the bosses are taxed each week for the f The fund provides but a very si unemployment in- surance payment, The new administration declares hat in its ney for a new con- ract the uni will insist on the bosses paying, all of the money into he unemployment fund and will seek o free the from being taxed are now being mailed out by the Chi- The amount the jobless cloakmakers are for that purpose as they are at pres ent, Attempts are also to be madc for a larger unemployment benefit, “ee New York Garment Workers Get Their Unemployed Benefits NEW YORK—(FP)—July 6.— Fit- teen hundred of the approximately 21,000 cloak and suit workers who are getting unemployment benefits receiv- ed their payment the first day of- dis tribution, The maximum amount any worker may Bv3 unem- ployment is“ per year of two seasons, The total number of New York cloak and sult ¥ ers ig about 36,008 aan ' 4 .|was farming like then? think very many farmers in this ¢oun-’ By ALFRED KNUTSON. Back to 1776! 150'years ago! "What We donot try today would be content with using the kind of farming methods that pre- vailed at the\time of the American revolution, When scythes were used to cut grass and grain, when seeding was done by the old broadcasting method, in the days when the flail was popular, when there were no gas. engines, gang plows, tractors, drills, discs, milking machines, milk separa- tors, threshing machines and automo- biles! No, we do not wish ourselves pack to the times when hand. tools were used in the production of crops. We would feel quite uncomfortable if we should. have to make that kindof a change now. As farmers we appre- diate the technical achievements that. have taken place in agriculture during the last fifteen decades, and. the ex- pansion of the farming area which has accompanied these during that same period. Vast Changes. The farmers of 1776 scattered along the Atlantic seaboard in the thirteen original states whose population did not very much exceed the number of people found in the city of Chicago to- day, were striving to make their liv- ing by cultivating small fields situated in narrow valleys and along steep hill- sides—fields which we who today live on’ the vast western plains would scarcely call good:garden patches. In 1926: over 10,000,000 people are~gain- fully ‘employed in raising crops with modern farm machinery on a field area of over 450,000,000 acres, feeding 115,000,000 people and producing not a little for export besjdes. Whereas the crop values in 1776 were reckoned in thousands we in 1926 are figuring these values in billions. Truly a won- derful change! i In 1726 primitive. methods were used in bringing the farm products to market. There were no means of distribution at hand as we have them today. The one-horse wagon had. to serve the purpose as well as'it could, even.tho it was slow and inconvenient. Such facilities for handling the crop as grain elevators, flour mills, ware- houses, railroads, trucks, etc., -were unknown to the farmer Of those days, He was surely up against it as far as facibities- for moving his crop were concerned. But he got along. He lived... Today .wesare wondering how in the world he did it. If the farmer of 1776 could now see how well the farmer of 1926 is equipped with facili- ties for the production and distribu- tion of-his crops he would undoubtedly turn over in his »grave with envy. And all the other modern conve- niences besides! Farmer Enslaved Today. But there is another side to this story which our farmer of 1778 does not. know anything about. Side/ by side with the technical development in the production and distribution of farm. products there has grown up a set of parasites who are robbing the farmers of much of what they produce and’ no matter how efficient the sys- tem of production and distribution be- comes the system of robbery increases ever. more and more in intensity so thatthe farmer of 1926 finds himself worse off instead of better because of these" modern improvements. This system of capitalist exploitation is much worse today than it was in 1776. It has grown apace with the deyelop- ment of capitalist production, and there will be no end to this until the system of exploitation itself is aban- doned. It is true our farmer of 1776 did not have any modern farm machinery and no modern system of distribution at his disposal; he produced less and no doubt lived a simpler life—in ac- cordance with the conditions then.pre- vailing—but he’ did not experience the bitter fight against high taxes and in- terest, the fight against farm fore- closures .and bankruptcies, the fight against the grain gamblers, to the “ex- tent that the farmer of 1926 does un- der the prevailing capitalist system. Zelikowitz, of the New York T: that the Eucharistic Gongrese is also a Jewish celebration. THE. FARMER 1776-1926 ! Tenant Farmers Increase. What is the status of the American farmer today?’ What has he gained in 159 years of “independence”? The number of tenant farmers in the United States in 1880 was 25.6 per cent of the total number of farmers, in 1890 this had (increased to 28.4 per cent, in 1900 to 35.3 per cent, in 1910 to 87 per cent, and in 1920 to’ 38.1 per Gent. The ‘proportion of the farmers who own their farms is steadily decreasing. Mortgages Increas The same fact is brought out by the increase in the mortgage debt of the farmers. In 1910 this was 33.2 per cent of the total value of farm proj) erty, and in 1920 this hadin creased 1 37.2 per cent. \ The fact is, as the above figures clearly show, that the farmer is be- coming “worse off instead «# better. He is,not becoming more independent as the newspapers and the politictans will have you believe. There can be no independence for the farmer under the capitalist system, because that system is designed to rob him. The practical thing for the farmer to do is to organize arfd form an alliance with the city industrial work- ers for the purpose of doing away with the system that robs him, Every farmer in the country should get into action on this matter as soon as pos- sible. Farmers, awake! Organize! Unite your forces! Form a fraternal al- liance with the city industrial work- ers! Fight for a farmers’ and work- ers’ government! ¥; Letter to the Editor To The DAILY WORKER:—Some- time ago, The DAILY WORKER in- vited lettérs from all its readers. 1 have beén watching for letters from farmers, but few have appeared, * One “farm industry” which many of us would like to know more about, is the raising of seed crops for the seed houses. Why have prices nearly doubled since the war, on garden seeds, and in many cases, “fleld seed” as well? In 1918 the farmers in the “ game” got 5 cents a pound for Tele- phone Pea seed cleaned and inspected at your farm, Then the buyer “re- cleaned” {it at his wareHouse, and docked you @ little (on general princi: ples, I guess.) ¥ou paid the freight to his station, of course. Out of the four cents or less remaining you paid for labor, fertilizer, etc. Your profits, it any, the bank is always ready to grab. These peas retailed them at 20 cents * hod On the face of it, that is % for the seedsman, Now the gar- ae peas retail at 30 cents or more a_ pound. Does the grower get any larger percent than formerly? .If actual cost of production is no higher, or price to grower is no higher, (it was lower in 1919-20), who gets the difference and why? Perhaps these questions should be_ addressed to some “farm paper,” but | I know Of none that will give ah honest answer, free from the taint beg ‘paid advertising. Are none of the employes of thie big seed houses at Rockford, Ill, or in New York state readers of -The DAILY WORKER? Will some of them not tell us of their working condi- tions? ‘Is the speed-up system in vogue, and responsible for the mis- labeling and mixing of various varie- ties of the same sort of seed? How much truth is there in the claims made by each seed house concerning testing, inspecting, cleaning and breed- ing of seeds?—-H. B. Rockport, Wash. Read it today and everyday in ‘The DAILY WORKER. - | In 1926 it is 38.6 per cent! / ,