The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 17, 1926, Page 8

| | The Murder By MANUEL GOMEZ. OU will never understand the heroic struggle of the Mexican peons from 1911 to the present day if you think of it, as most Americans do, in terms of its chieftains—Zapata, Villa, Villareal, Soto y Gama, Obrg- gon, etc, You must think rather of a dogged, long-suffering human mass _ that presses firmly forward notwithstand- ing that at every step some of its precious life-blood is spilled and muti- lated pieces are hacked from its com- positie body. Old leaders betray or are cut off in the struggle. Yet the mass struggles on, recreating a lead- ership from its own tissue. Here is the essential vitality of the Mexican revolution, fighting now under the banner of the government, now against it, and accomplishing marvels in the teeth of the unrelenting opposi- tion of the United States, the great- est imperialist power the world has ever known. Surely this is a mighty, an epochal movement! The Mexican revolution is being con- stantly beheaded. When I visited Mexico recently the comrades were still talking of the assassination of Moreno, the Communist member of the legislature of Vera Cruz, who was shot down in cold blood at the very door of the legislative chamber. Dur- ing the first week of my visit one of the delegates to the approaching con- vention of the Communist Party of Mexico arrived in Mexico City with the news that Primo Tapia, recognized leader of the organized peasants of the state of Michoacan, had just been brutally slain by the police. My read- ers will no doubt remember having seen the story of Primo Tapia in The DAILY WORKER. A couple of weeks later came the murder of Jose Diaz. is said that right now—during the present “peaceful” phase of Mexi- can progress—five hundred local lead- ers are being murdered every day in the towns and fields of Mexico. Some are shot in the back by police officers »mourished in.the traditions of the old ofley. de, fuga;” some are killed by professional “white guards” in the pay of reactionary landowners; some are done to death by agents of powerful American corporations. Jose Diaz was one of the latter. Jose was not a prominent revolu- tionary figure, altho he had been an anarchist. He was one of the multi- tude of poverty-stricken Mexican work- ers, and would never have been mur- dered at all if he had not induced his fellow-workers in the mines of the “Cinco Minas” corporation to strike for more pay. “Cinco Minas” is a Mexican name, but an American com- pany, controlled by the same Mr. Ger- ard who was United States ambassa- dor to Germany when the World War broke out and whose flashy book enti- titled “My Four Years in Germany” was one of those used by professional patriots to lay “all the crimes against civilization” at the door of the Ger- man kaiser. Jose should have thought twice before exercising the constitu- tionally guaranteed right to strike against the great Mr. Gerard. It is true there were mitigating cir- cumstances in Jose’s favor. Condi- tions at Cinco Minas were frightful, even as compared with the other American-owned mines in the neigh- borhood. The pay was only 40 cents a day (U. 8S. currency), whereas the other mines paid 60. Accidents oc- curred frequently, for the company had bribed the government mine in- spectors not to look for safety appli- ances. When a man was injured he was simply struck from the payroll and left to puzzle out his own future by himself before he was out of the hospital. ‘ OREOVER, it is just as ridiculous to blame the strike on Jose as to blame the World War on the kai- ser. The other men were willing enough. They went out to a man on the first day, The Cinco Minas strike, which had of Jose Diaz long been preparing, broke out about the middle of last May, shortly after my arrival in Mexico, The workers demanded higher wages and improved conditions. Looking at it from the number of men affected, it was a small affair, quite as insignificant ag Jose himself. Only a couple of hundred men were involved, and news of it might not have gone far beyond the little village of Hostotipaquille in the state of Jalisco, where the Cinco Minas property is located, if the com- pany had not appealed to the United States consul to exert pressure on the Mexican government to force the men back to work. No beneficial results were secured for the company by this maneuver, but it gave new significance to the Cinco Minas struggle. It showed for- eign capitalism still up to its old tricks. At.once the interests of the entire Mexican people became mani- festly identical with those of the striking miners. Labor papers in all parts of the country took up the issue of the Cinco Minas strike. Contribu- tions began to pour in from trade unions—and not only from trade unions but from all those interested to free Mexico from the domination of for- eign capital. The Mexican section of the All-American Anti-Imperialist League arranged a mass meeting of protest and sent a contribution, The strike was now part of the Mexican revolution. After several weeks of struggle the Cinco Minas company was forced to capitulate. The men went back to work with a 10-cent increase in pay and a general adjustment of griev- ances. + That was all. Except that in the joy of victory the miners had forgotten that they must continue to protect their leader, Jose. Jose liked to take long walks at night, which is a dan- gerous custom for one who has just led a successful strike. A few days after the victory his body was brought in, riddled with bullets. Of course, the workers of Cincos Minas will find someone to take Jose’s place. That great India and m@stize mass has replaced far bigger leaders than poor Jose. The. Mexican revolu- tion goes on inexorably. But with what terrific sacrifices, we who look on it from afar can never comprehend, * st € N my way back to the United States about a week after the Cinco Minas settlement I picked up a train acquaintan¢e with acertain well- to-do Mr. P——, who, as it chanced, owned a small mining property quite near the village of Hostotipaquille, Naturally I turned the convérsation into the channel of Cinco Minas, “Oh, yes,” said Mr. ——, “the min- A PEEK EACH WEEK. AT MOTION PICTURES “PADLOCKED.” APITALISM goes to astonishing lengths sometimes to achieve its conceptions of morality and it de- velops some.astonishing conceptions, too. But the responsibility for prac- ticing moral laws and the penalty for their violation decreases in direct proportion to one’s wealth and the length of time one has possessed it. All of which-is brought out in exag- gerated form by the “movies,” as for instance in “Padlocked,” adopted from a Cosmopolitan serial etory by Rex Beach showing this week at the “Chi- cago.” There has been an epidemic of these moralistic pictures ever since the debut of the “flapper.” They are usually advertised as “a modern daughter’s problems.” In the movies, let it be understood, a “modern daugh- ter’ is always a rich man’s daughter at least any daughter that is consider- ed important enough to have “prob- lems.” Working girls are introduced as movie characters for any purpose except that of exposing their prob- lems; usually, however, in order to serve as problems for rich men’s ns! The troubles of the modern young ‘rich girl in “Padlocked,” similar to those of most other “daughters of to- day,” arise from the fact that her fathre, altho he has “made” the neces- sary fortune to entitle his family to all the pleasures of the idle rich, nevertheless hasn’t cast off his skin of puritanical morality. In a reformist furore, kindled by close personal con- tact with spinster social welfare work- ers, he starts a crusade to uplift so- ciety’s morality, with his own daugh- ter as one of the victims. Figuratively and literally, she is “padlocked” to keep her from dancing parties, etc., until finally the father allows her to be sent to a state reformatory to see what “higher” disciplinary measures can do to save her soul. The picture reaches the tragic depths of the modern young rich girl even having to scrub floors. All the other girls at the reformatory have to scrub floors, too, of course, and march in uniformed, criminal lines to eat, sleep and pray. But their punish- ment of drudgery isn’t any “problem” for them; the case of the modern rich girl is different. Her sentence was an “accident”; and the “movie” shows the other girls brutally teasing her about her pretty hands being spoiled (they themselves apparently being Jealous because they never had any to spoil). But the modern young, rich girl desn’t have to scrub floors long enough to affect her hands; she is conveniently rescued by a modern dragon of an old villain, who has been rich enough and for long enough that he moves comfortably in the same high society as the modern young up- right rich man who spurns the modern daughter because he misun- derstands her, thinking her displayed affection for the old dragon roue’ is due to ulterior commercial ambitions instead of to her “innocence.” And so it goes. , What finally awakens the old- fashioned rich father to the folly of his Puritanical scruples? Is it be- cause he comes to realize that it was his cruelty that killed his wife? Is it because it eventually trickles into ers have won. But to tell the truth, the Cinco Minas outfit can well af- ford to pay 50 cents a day. They started tn on a shoestring—a million dollars, I think, was the original in- vestment, In the last ten years they have gotten something like $10,000,000 out of the mine, which has gone into increased capitalization. Besides that they have paid themselves regular div- idends of 10 per cent on their invest- ment. “Of course they sweated it out of their men, Always warned Gerard to go a bit easy or there would be the deuce to pay.” The ex-ambassador, you will remem- ber, is the one who could not contain his righteous indignation at the kai- | fm “A Lover’ ser’s crimes against humanity. his cranium that his own hedthienied: ness sent his daughter straight to the cabaret and the reformatory? No, in- deed, not for either of these two good reasons does he change,—he remains the pillar of the Purity League despite such seemingly tragic occurrences, His revolt against “Blue Laws” comes when his second wife, his previ- ous soul-mate at reforming wayward girls, proves to be nothing more than a designing and hard-up female who married him for his money. She want his money not only for herself but also for her mother and for her brother and sister, all of whom are poor but ambitious and posses a vul- gar facility for apeing the vices of the rich. When the father sees his step-son making love to a maid servant, it be- gins to dawn on him that the little clandestine affairs at bare-kneed “kid” parties his daughter used to give were heavenly innocent indeed (there rich kids played with rich kids, at any rate.) At last he sees the light, that “freedom” (within his own class) is the key to all moral problems. Free- dom costs money, however, so he be- gins to purchase it,—first, by buying the departure of his second wife and all her relatives at the price of “half his fortune.” So the “movie” discloses the evolu- tion of capitalist morality from “pad- locked” Puritanism to high-priced “freedom,” with vices being vices only when they are practiced by the poor. The sharpest thorn in the rich papa’s crown is the sight of is second wife’s Plebian mother as she snoozes in her rocker over her nip of brandy. The piece is capably acted, with many old-timers in the caste, to say nothing of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Lois Moran is a real little spoiled daughter of the rich, with fairy-like face and grace. The plot, however, doesn’t lack the artistic crimes that feature most “movies,”—too far- fetched metamorphosis of character, too miany coincidences, fainting spells. But it succeeded in holding my interest almost to the end. G. W. A Chinese movie actress starring in the 's Drea m."” The picture a made in China with a whole Chinese cast. too many-