The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 10, 1926, Page 6

~~ nn o/ We ik ie ABTA octet ois Pe > HM WS sal Published by tho DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Il. Phone»Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mai: (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 1 $2.00 three months 13 W. Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Bivd,, Chicago, tlInols GDAHL DU iE {nw LOEB... J. LOUIS WILLIAM MORITZ J -Business Manager Entered as second- cag $$$ Ss mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- , lil., under the act of March 3, 1879. Advertising rates on application. The British Trade Union Delegation and an Embargo on Coal The British trade union delegation, headed by Ben Tillett, A. A. Purcell and Ellen Wilkerson, is here to raise funds for the striking | miners. This is an important task, but still more important is that coal shipments from America to Great Britain be stopped. The British coal owners and the British government are carrying out a plan which if successful will make the strike of the miners futile; it is to flood the country with foreign coal, for which purpose the government already has made an appropriation, and let the miners starve. When they are sufficiently hungry and miserable they will be invited to go back into the mines on the owners’ terms. The miners and their families can be fed and clothed for a cer- tain length of time by the rest of the British trade union move- ment, the generous contributions of the Russian workers and with supplies from other countries like America. ; Bak But the steady increase in shipments of foriegn coal to Britain is something that food and clothing, no matter how large the sup- ply, can overcome. Unless the British trade union leadership de- clar an embargo on coal into England, calls upon the international labor movement to prohibit coal shipments, and takes the lead in an international boycott against British capitalism, they will have added to the disgrace of the desertion of the miners by ending the general strike, the additional stigma of failing to adhere to the first rule of trade union ethies—the boycott of scab goods. i The British trade union delegation can give a powerful impetus to the movement in aid of the miners if they will call upon Amer- ican labor to refuse to handle coal destined for England. We believe that organized labor will respond to such a call and the mere fact of its being issued would put sharply the question of how best to support the British miners. SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAILY WORKER! “Human Interest Stuff” It has been said that Communists do not pay enough attention to what the capitalist press calls “human interest stuff.” Perhaps there is some merit to the statement, but we are not going to ue about it now, having been informed of a “human in- terest story” which would bring large scalding tears from any of the professional sob sisters—if it were not for one fact. Here it is: Isabel Brown, wife of Ernest Brown, mother of a six-year-old child, was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, early in the course of the British general strike, for telling strikers to make friends with the soldiery—“fraternize” with the military is the term used in Communist circles. Mrs. Brown was a public school teacher and the board promptly revoked her license. When she had six days more to serve her mother became seri- ously ill. orts were made to get the home secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, to release the prisoner so she could see her mother before she died. Sir William Joynson-Hicks refused. Isabel Brown’s mother died two days before her daughter’s sen-| tence expired. That is all except that we said this was a story that would melt the professional sob sisters—except for one fact. That fact is that Isabel Brown is a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and the wife of a member of its central exe- cutive committee. SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAILY WORKER! SCIENTIST TRAVELS 30,000 _ MILES TO STUDY “OLD SOL” bin Dr. Charles G. Abbott has completed a 30,009 mile trip to Southwest Africa where he has established a station for his “sun gun” with which he expects to measure the sun's radiation. He has taken thio trip in an attempt to be able to collect data on the variation of the sun's radiation so that it will be possible to make accurate long-time weather forecast, . se THE DAILY, WORKER LY WORKER (alles and | | | By MANUEL GOMEZ, ARTICLE V. | GYVERY local riot of hysterical Cath- olic women in Mexico is magni- | fied by imaginative American newspa- pers into a “battle with the police.” | One such “battle” is reported graph- lically, under a six-column scarehead, jin yesterday’s Chicago Tribune. It is |supposed to have taken place at Tor- reon but the “war correspondent” who |describes it wires his story from a desk in Mexico City, 1,135 kilometers away: Exceptional © reliability is |therefore hardly to be expectéd. Nev- ertheless, even in this obviously bias- jed account, one discovers reading be- .|tween the lines that’ the battle con- |sisted of an altercation between a knot of lamenting ladies and some soldiers; the latter fired a few shots into the air and the bejewelled “mob” seems to have dispersed. Contrary to the ill-disguised hopes of U. S. imperialism, civil war has not broken out in Mexico on the heels of |the clerical rebellion. Boycott, Diversion of the Rich. The boycott, or buyers’ strike on | luxuries, still continues and might un- jquestionably have a certain nagging effectiveness for some time to come. But it is only a pin-prick. It is ex- clusively a diversion of the rich. A few chauffeurs have been discharged, perfumes sales may have fallen off somewhat, etc. Luxury buying is too; insignificant a factor in the internal) economy of Mexico for even a 100 per | cent effective boycott to have any de-| cisive influence, | In the face of renewed papal im- precations, President Calles has re- iterated the intention of his govern- ment “to enforce, without fearing interdicts or supernatural punish- ments,” the anti-clerical provisions of the Meixcan constitution. This has the true revolutionary ring. | It recalls to mind the proud Jacobin-| ism of the French Revolution. | It does Calles little honor to defend him, according to the manner of) American Liberals, as an impartial executive merely carrying out the constitution he has sworn to admin- { ister. He has set out resolutely to smash the political power of the church. Mexico’s “Reformation.” Some have characterized the dises- tablishment of the church in 1857 to- gether with the anti-clerical constitu- tional provisions of 1917 as Mexico’s “Reformation,” The analogy is all right if it is not pushed too far. “Re- formation” in Mexico was so long im- peded that when the hour of realization came ft was necessary to take extra- ordinary measures to wipe out the ac- cumulated structural ramifications of the old Catholicism. But something more was neded too, and is still needed. The intervening years have created a situation where it is evi- dent that Mexico canhot have a classic “Reformation” upon the Eu- ropean model. It can no longer be simply a clearing of the way for cap- italism. The numerical and economic weakness of the Mexican bourgeoisie | | | i | | ! By ERNEST HAECKEL. | The extension of the theory of evo- | lution to man was, naturally, one of | the most interesting and momentous | applications of it. If all other organ- isms arose, not by a miraculous crea- tion, but by a natural modification of earlier forms of life, the presumption is that the human race also was de- veloped by the transformation of the most man-like mammals, the primates of Linne—the apes and lemurs.. This natural inference, which Lamarck had drawn in his simple way, but Darwin had at first explicitly avoided, was first thoroly established by the gifted zoologist, Thomas Huxley, in his three lectures on “Man's Place in Nature” (1863). He showed that this ‘“ques- tion of questions” is unequivocally an- swered by three chief witnesses—the natural history of the anthropoid apes, the anatomic and embryological rela- tions of man to the animals imme- diately below him, and the recently discovered fossil human remains, Darwin entirely accepted these con- clusions of his friend eight years aft- erwards, and, in his two-volume work, “The Descent of Man and Hig Sexual Eelections” (1871), furnished a num- ber of new proofs in support of the dreaded “descent of man from the ape.” I myself then (1874) completed the task I had begun in 1866, of de- termining approximately the whole series of the extinct animal ancestors of the human race, on the ground of comparative anatomy, embryology, and paleontology. This attempt was im- proved, as our knowledge advanced, in the five editions of my “Evolutions of Man.” In the last twenty years a vast literature on the subject has ac- cumulated. I must asgumé that you are acquainted with the contents of one or the other of these works, and will turn to the question, that espe- cially engages our attention at pres ent, how the Inevitable struggle be- tween these momentons achievements of modern science and the dogmas of ‘the churches has run in recent years, It was obgfous fpr both the genera) theory, of evolutich and its extension to man in particular must meet from the first with theamost determined re- sistance on the part of the churches, € is only one obvious factor. Coincei- dent with this there is the fact that the struggle of the poor peasants for the land, the rise of the Mexican pro- letariat and the aspirations of the strategically placed pettty-bourgeoisie all flowed necessarily into the stream of national resistence to the imperial- ist aggression of the United States. The “Reformation” became merged with the Mexican Revolution, which be- came more and more predominantly a struggle against American imperial- ism for the preservation of the na- tional resources, Such a struggle, to be successful in the long run, requires that Mexico make herself economical- ly independent.of Wall Street. A con- structive program is. necessary which will provide the basis for a national accumulation of capital and the de- velopment of an independent national economy. In a country where there is no present accumulation and where the co-relation of social forces is what it is in Mexico, this’ program cannot be based exclusively upon the cap- italist class, Calles’ Constructive Program. The course of the°revolution itself has indicated the general line a con- structive revolutionary-nationalism in Mexico must take, and under Presi- dent Calles a systematic program has been worked out which does not meet the needs of the situation but which is nevertheless an important step in that direction. Calles’ economic program may be characterized by the following ac- complishments of his administration, which I outlined, in part, in a recent | article for the Workers Monthly: 1. “conomy” program—reduction | of the army—balancing of the bud- get—resumption of interest pay- ments on the foreign debt. 2, Establishment of the National Bank of Mexico as the sole bank of issue. 3. Establishment of = farm-loan banks. 4. Anti-monopoly laws. 5. Oil and land land laws (under Article 27 of the constitution)— “Ley de Extranjeria.” 6. Law exempting from all taxes Mexican business concerns formed with a capital of 5,000 pesoso or less. 7. Establishment of peasant co- operatives. 8. Establishment of oil distribut- ing co-operatives, 9. Distribution of permanent titles to lands partitioned out in “ejides” (peasant comunities), 10. “Ley del Patrimonie de Fam- ilia"—step toward individual peas- ant land ownership as against the “ejido.” i 11. Irrigation work, on co-op- erative basis or under government control. 12. Local road-building program. In the realm of international rela- tions, Calles strives to hold off U. S. imperialism while maintaining an alliance with the American Federa- tion of Labor and at the same time orientating his policy toward the nations of Central and South Amer- ica, Both were in flagrant contradiction to he Mosaic story of creation, and other Biblical dogmas that were involved in it, and are still taught in our elemen- tary schools. It is creitable to the shrewdness of the theologians and their associates, the metaphysicians, that they at once rejected Darwinism, and made a particularly energetic re- sistance in their writings to its chief consequence, the descent of man from ape. This resistance seemed the more justified and hopeful as, for seven or eight years after Darwin's appear- ance, few biologists accepted his the- ory, and the general attitude amongst them was one of cold scepticism. I can well testify to'this from my own experience. When I first openly ad- vocated Darwin’s theory at a scien- tific congress at Stettin in 1863, I was almost alone, and was blamed by the great majority for taking up seriously so fantastic a theory, “the dream ot an after-dinner nap,” as the Goettinger zoologist, Keferstein, called it. The great attitude towards nature fifty years ago was so different from, that we find everywhere today, that it is difficult to convey a clear idea of it to a young scientist or philosopher. The great question of creation, the problem how the various species of plants and animals came into the world, and how man came into being, did not exist yet, in exact science. There was, in fact, no questions of it. Seventy-seven years ago Alexander von Humboldt delivered, in this very spot, the lectures which afterwards made up his famous work, “Cosmos, the Elements of a Physical Descrip- tion of the world.” As he touched, in passing, the obscure problem of the origin of the organie population. of our planet, he could only say resign- edly: “The mysterious and unsolved problem of how things came to be ‘oes not belong to the empirical prov. ince of objective research, the descrip. Yon of what is.” It is instructive to find Johannes Muller, the greatest of German biologists in the nineteenth century, speaking thus in 1862, in his famous essay, “O& the Generation of Snails in Hol ne:” “The on trance of vari species of animals into creation is cegtain—it is a tact of Paleonthology; bug it {8 supernatural Weaknesses of the Program. In Mexico Calles tries to base him- self on workers, peasants and petty- bourgeoisie under the patronage of a Jacobinical state machine but the lat- ter are always uppermost in his mind. The weakness of his progress is that affords too prominent a role to the petty-bourgeoisie.. Under his influ- ence and that of Luis N, Morones, the official Labor Party and the CROM are being consciously poisoned with bourgeois ideology and all other than CROM unions are bitterly fought. In addition to hostilizing, working-class, and peasant elements vitally neces- sary to success, his program requires him to compromise toa freely with the demands of U. S. imperialism. Calles and the A, F. of L. Moreover, he is attempting to retain the support of the labor-fakers of the A. F, of L. against imperialism by a certain process of.deception as to the “bona fide” capitalist nature of his regime, and partly for this reason he is obliged to engage in fitful attacks against the Communists. But the A. F. of L, will not be fooled, while his attacks on the radical labor elements at home only serve to undermine con- fidence in him among the masses who must be made the strongest support- ers of his regime. No successful rev- olutionary-nationalist program can be carried out on the basis of the narrow circle of Mexican petty-bourgeois and their friends among the labor-fakers. As for his advances to the A. F, of L. Calles is of course, correct in try- ing to maintain close contact with the labor movement in the United States, the home country of American im- perialism. Indeed it goes far to prove his fundamental revolutionary-nation- alist sincerity. Nevertheless, the exe- cutive council has not issued a single word of comfort to Mexico in the present crisis, and has not even made any public reply to the request for support cabled to it by Ricardo Tre- vino of the CROM. Class conscious trade unionists must take this issue up in their organizations and insist upon support for Mexico! If the A, F, of L. carries on any real anti-im- Perialist activities at any time it will have to be under the pressure of the revolutionary minority, Where the Church Comes. In. . Calles’ attitude toward the church is determined by his conception of revo- lutionary-nationalist needs and by his gentral constructive program. It is a necessary part of that program. Ideas of a classic “Reformation” must he adjusted to a situation where a Ja- cobinical people’s government is try- ing to mold a new social system along the lines indicated above. Every stronghold of reactionary landed aris- tocracy, and of “stockholders’ capital- ism” and of imperialism, must he rooted out. The ideology that. sup- ports them must be rooted out. ‘The organization that 1s the Cacholic church must be incapacitated for ren- dering important service to any one of them. Thus, in forbidding religious period- icals to discuss politics or to criticise the government in any way, Calles oes even beyond the specific provis- Last Words on Evolution as long as this entrance cannot be perceived in the act and become an element of observation.” I myself had a number of remarkable conver- sations with Muller, whom I put at the head of all my distinguished teach- ers, in the summer of 1854. His lec- tures on comparative anatomy and physiology—the most illuminating and stimulating 1 ever heard—had capti- vated me to such an extent that I asked and obtained his permission to make a closer study of the skeletons and other preparations in his splendid museum of comparative anatomy (then in the right wing of the build- ing of the Berlin University), and to draw them. Muller (then in his fifty- fourth year) used to spend the Sun- day afternoon alone in the museum. He would, walk to and fro for hours in the spacious rooms; his hands he- hind his back, buried in thought about the mysterious affinities of the verte- brates, the “holy enigma” of which was so forcibly immpressed by the row of skeletons, Now and again my great master would turn to a small table at the side, at which I (a stu- dent of twenty years) was sitting in the angle of a window, making con- scientious drawings of the skulls of mammals, reptiles, amphibia and fishes. 1 would them beg him to explain particularly difficult points in anat- omy, and once Lventured to put the question: “Must. not all these verte- brates, with their identity in internal skeleton, in spite of all their external differences, have come originally from a common form?” The great master nodded his head thoughtfully, and said: “Ah, if we only knew that! If ever you solve that riddle, you will have, accomplished a supreme work.” Two months afterwards, in Septem- ber, 1854, I had to accompany Muller to Heligoland, and learned under his direction the beautiful and wonderful inhabitants of the sea, As we fished together in the sea, and caught the lovely medusae, I asked him how it was possible to e: eir remark. able alternation fons; if the mmedusae, of which polypps develop y, must not have come originally ) simply organized palgae he pone % pad ok A RE kd SSE EE aR IR Be Bi BR DS BME OE 2 Rg Mexico’s “Reformation” fons a the constitution of 1917, but he is following’ the sound policy of de stroying manifestly counter-revolu tionary organs. Calles will be firm in this policy as all who know him must realize. His answer to President Leguia of Peru, printed in yesterday's papers, shows his determination. An Imperialist Tool Answered. It was but natural that Léguia, the bring about an “understanding”, with || the Catholic church, Leguia is.one of the most shameless tools of U.S. im- perialism in Latin America. He wired President Calles asking him to com- play with “the high duty of bending. your strong will for~the re-establish- ment of harmony between the Mexi- can government and the church and avoiding calamities worse than war.” Calles answered him in-the follow- ing strain: “T can only take the ‘message of your excelléncy as to the expression in no way signifies the mixing of of a purely personal opinion which the affairs of a foreign nation with affairs solely belonging to the do- mestic government of my country. Let me inform your exeéellency that in this case you are badly informed on the attitude of my government toward the Catholic clergy; other- wise, your good sense would have seen that the right is on the side of the Mexican government...” After the Victory, ‘The present clerical rebellion offers Calles the best possible opportunity to strengthen the national-revolutionary forces in Mexico. When the rebellion is put down, as it will be put down, it is to be hoped that he will grasp hold of the possibilities of the situation with. characteristic firmness, enlight- ened by all recent experiences. He will be in a position to proceed ener- getically against the enemies of the revolution. What he will do if he is wise will be to destroy the last vestiges of church power, root out the enemies of the revolution in strategic places, dictator of. Peru, should. attempt to meddle in the Mexican situation and || break up the reacitonary “Sindicate! de Agriculture” (landowners’ league) | and send General Arnulfo Gomes on a long diplomatic trip to. Europe, Without breaking his bonds with the petty-bourgeoisie, he should orien- tate himself more and more toward labor. He should adopt new policy calculated to win the important sup- port of the railroad workers, who are) now . dangerously _hostilized. He should cease his. warfare against. the other independent unions, notably the oil workers in the Tampico region, and he should refrain from ‘attacks against the Communists. Above all, he must come to an understanding] - with the peasants, whose organization has alienated by covertly supporting the jurisdictional superiority of the CROM in the latter's efforts to absorb! them. If he follows such a course, basing |himself thus securely on the active masses of the Mexican population, he can then face American imperialism with, a united national-revolutinoary force at his back. ae hoe who are interested here describe it, will find in able group of ‘men of compromi that ‘conflict is the father of all t mendous struggle.” question I received the same resigned answer: “Ah, that is a very obscure problem! We know nothing what- ever about the origin of species.” Johannes Muller was certainly one of the greatest scientists of the nine- teenth century, He takes rank with Curvier, Baer, Lamarck, and Darwin. His insight ‘was profound and pene- trating, his philosophic judgment com- prehensive, and his mastery of the province” of biology was enormous: Emil ‘du* Bois-Reymond happily com- pared him, in his fine commemorative address, to Alexander the Great, whose kingdom was’ divided into sev- eral independent realms at his death, In his lectures and works Muller treat- ed no less than four different subjects, for which four separate chairs were founded after his death-in 1868—~hu- man anatomy, physiology, pathologi- cal anatomy, and comparative anat- omy. In fact, we ought really to add two more, subjects—zoology..and em- bryology, Of these, also, we learned more from Muller's classic lectures than from the official lectures of the professors of those subjects, The great master died in 1858, a tew months before Charles Darwin and Alfred R. Wallace made their first communications on their new theory of selection in the Journal of ‘the Lin- naean Society. Ido not doubt in the that this surprpising answer of the riddle of creation would have pro- foundly moved Muller, and have been fully admitted by“him-on mature re- Professor Haeckel Says: of the views | have summarily Presented. 1 do not belong to the ami- did and straightforward expression to the convictions which a half- century of serious and laborious st dy has led me to form. If | seem to be a tactless and inconsiderate fighte. reason over current superstition will not be achieved without a tre- WITH THE STAFF Being Things From Here and There Which Have Inspired Us to Folly or Frenzy We'll Say She Was! - “Miss X resembles Mrs, Mo- Pherson in that she is of the same general build and has brown hair. The reported gog- ined were horn-rimmed glasses: he two aprons | purchased in Salinas. She was otherwise well equipped.”—From Kenneth G. Ormiston's. affidavit. ee A TERRIBLE SKEPTIC. “in ite attitude toward religion, the ‘church, and such social pheno- menon, Weisbord Is thoroly cynical, He sis thoroly suspicious of the leading protestant clergy of Passaic. He feels in his soul that they are the creatures of a capitalistic over lordship."—From the Christian Cem tury, a Journal of religion. eee — YEH, [T'S HOT, The red soldier sticks to his guns through _ the. tray, The shoemaker sticks to his last, The laborer ‘sticks to his Job for his pay, The sailor boy sticks to the mast, hould stick to the songs he icks long at the dance; on the Worker we don’t care a ding, So we work, sweat—and stick to our Pants. ee “The Soviet philosophy controls the military powers of Mewico.”— | From the frenzicd phil- | lipic of the Knights of | Columbus. Southern Pacific Lays Off 158 Workers (Special to The, Dally Worker) _* SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. Aug. 8.— The Southern Pacific Railroad Co. has laid off 158 workers. Another general layoff in the railroad repair shops.is expected. in the evolution controversy, as | my earlier works a thoro treatment ’ but am in the habit of giving can- 1 pray you to remember hings’ and that the victory of pure majority regarded it as insoluble. The theologians and their allies, the meta- physicians, built triumphantly on this fact. Tt afforded a clear proof of the lfthitations of reason and science. A mirable only could account for the ~ origin of these ingenious and care- fully designed organismsm; nothing less. than the divine wisdom and om- nipetence’ could have brought man into being. But this general resig- nation of reason, and the dominance of supernatural ideas which is en- couraged, were somewhat paradozical in the thirty years betWeen Lyell and | Darwin between 1830 and 1859, since the natural evolution of the earth, as conceived by the great geologist, "had come to be universally recogniaed.’ Since the earlier of these dates the iron necessity of natural law had riled in inorganic nature, in the for- mation of the mountains and the movement of the heavenly bodies. In organic nature, on the contrary, in the creation and the life of animals and plants, people saw only the wis- dow and power of an intelligent crea- tor’ and’ controller; in other ‘words, everything was ruled by mechanical causality in the inorganic world, but by teleological finality in the realm of biology. _ (To be continued.) Engineers Win Mine Strike. ).. SYDNEY Australia — (FP) — The strike of engineers and firemen em- flection, . gaan ployed at coal mines throughout Aus: To the epBairmasters if biology, | tralia has been settled, and the men and to all o! jatomists, physiolo-|return to work victorious after hay- sists, zoologists, and botanist up to! ing been Idle for 5 weeks. The en- 1858, the question of vation |gineers had. tied up the whole was an unsolved problem; the wat ustry. ‘ bd