The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 17, 1926, Page 7

The Comedy of Disarmament HEN capitalist politicians be- gin to speak of disarmament |~ it is a sure sign that they are up to some nasty conspiracy against the peace of the world: This time it happens to be a struggle. of every big capitalist power in par- ticular to disarm all the other capitalist powers in general. 4 i The United States wants to dis-| arm Europe. England wants to disarm France. And the charm- ing lady of the European conti- nent wants to disarm Germany. But every one of these “disarm-| ers” is feverishly arming itself with all the devilish means of modern capitalist warfare. At present they are spending more money on armaments than before the late imperialist war. In 1918, England, France, Italy and the United States have spent on armaments $1,080,000,000. In 1925, the same powers have squan- dered on “disarmament” the sum of $1,785,000,000. Poland alone, where the workers and peasants are literally being crushed by the burden of unemployment and tax- ation, has spent on armaments in 1925 the small treasure of $152,- 000,000. It is a real orgy of “dis- armament.” = By Jergers Big Capital | JTF ever a session of congress did its duty in full measure by the in- terests of big capital, the session of the 69th congress was_ it. . Whatever it touched, it disposed of it in accord with the biddings of its master. Big capital may be well pleased. What were the outstanding “achievements” of the session just adjourned? By the grace of its mercies we have decided to join the world court. Why the world court? Because the international . bankers need it. Beeause thru the machinery of the court the United States government becomes more officially entangled in the imperial- istic game. Because with the Americar government officially part of it the world court can be utilized by Morgan and Co. for a more advantageous exploitation of the world. Another present to Bp capital by the first session of the 69th congress was the fundin, a fresh chance to go ahead with his dastardly work of squeezing the life blood out of the workers and farmers of. Italy. Roumania, Esth- onia, Latvia and a few others were supplied with some more ammu- nition to cripple and murder their workers who dare to demand a decent living. France was also treated nicely. And who is paying for all this wonderful magnanimity of the United States government? Not Mellon and Coolidge, nor any of their henchmen. The ones who pay in toil and sweat are the workers I and farmers of the United States. Then come the tax reductions. A fine piece of legislation to “relieve” the exploiters from the burden of taxation, again making the poor pay. Also the increase of military, naval and air arma- LL NN eeometne, By Fred Ellis ‘Bunlinent + THE DAILY WORKER Second Section! This Magazine Section Appears Every Saturday in The DAILY WORKER. SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1926 of the foreign debts. Mussolini was given | ary ALEX. BITTELMAN, Editor, Ge 190 N 1922 we had the so-called lim- itation of armaments confer- what was the result? The big |powers have agreed to limit the construction of dreadnaughts (these are going out of style), but have doubled and tripled their ef- iforts in the building of submar lines, air navies, chemical warfare, lete. Then we had the conference in iGenoa. The Soviet government |proposed there a scheme for gen- ‘eral universal disarmament. But |this proposition met with the un- janimous opposition of all the big jand small beasts of imperialism. And now the very latest piece of comedy. We mean the recent pre- liminary disarmament conference, | held in Geneva during the month | of June, upon the initiative of the |so-called league of nations. Here jis how the eorrespondent of the |Chicago Daily News (a great ifriend of “disarmament” for | somebody else) summarizes the ef- forts of the conference: I ' | Having held eighteen meetings of three hours each in the course of twenty-five days, the net result of which is an unsatisfactory definition of the word armament, the grizzled admirals and generals of the mili- tary sub-committee preparing for the disarmament conferenceware sd ©) | “exhausted that they are cansidering < a vacation. * * * And armament is proceeding at full speed. Well Pleased ments. Congress has authorized a five-year building program to estab- lish the military domination of the United States in the air. All this is perfectly in accord with the needs and interests of big capital. ; OW, how about the interests of the workers and farmers? Aren’t we all, poor and rich, equal before the law? Didn’t Coolidge himself tell us so again gn July Fourth? Yes, but that was only ora- tory. The facts are somewhat different. What did the workers get? They got the Watson-Parker law, a nice little scheme to abolish strikes on the railroads (other indus- tries will follow). The workers also got a great deal of effort. on the part of congress to terrorize and victimize the foreign-born work- ers in order to demoralize the labor movement. The workers finally got a strengthened (as a result of congress legislation) and more brutal capitalist class to contend with. What did the farmers get? Everything they did not want, and nothing that they wanted. In short, congress was able to find all the means for helping big capital, but not a cent’s worth of help for the workers and farmers. s ” . . T is because of considerations like these, that the Workers (Com- munist) Party keeps on demanding: A UNITED FRONT OF LABOR, IN ALLIANCE WITH THE POOR FARMERS, IN THE COMING CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS. ‘ -~yAlex Bittelman.