The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 18, 1926, Page 10

~ YOUNG PROLETAIRE OUNG Proletaire was born somewhere, but belongs to no country, he is the world’s adventurer. He speaks the living languages of east and west, Hard as nails, shaggy as bark, a laughing, fighting young giant. Dangerous and magnetic, with red hair like a bonfire, blue eyes like bayonets, and a chest like the bulge of a mountain, Hands like machines. Precise and hard. His won- derful hands can create anything man needs; he knows all the trades. He works; he digs coal, scoops foundations, flings up vast skyscrapers like songs roared by a drunkard: He plays with rivers of white-hot steel. He fashions sub- ways, sculptures aeroplanes, models locomotives. Wheat, green and gold he paints over miles of prairie canvas. Firm grace of his Panama Canal. Tosses ‘thunderbolts thru the air, is electrician and radio man. Hammers out new music and is actor in huge plays. Artist, scientist, worker—is everything. : Working girls are crazy about him—father of *bold, vexuberant, sun-tanned children. Healthy as a wild mustang—and a lover thrilling. as a ride on a- Coney Island roller coaster. Even nice ladies forget pale Phi Betta Kappa husbands when. he’s around. For he’s no slave but the world’s immortal wild young adventurer. Hurrah for life! He knows how to make up his mind. 2 FIGHTS PAUL BUNYAN. UL BUNYAN, a middle-aged American giant, was foreman over the workers of America. He had been a worker himself for long years, but had been corrupted by a mean little Miser who owned, thru black magic, the fields and factories of America. This ogme-gave Bunyan a Ford car, a house, a pretty lawn and.a white :collar, and thus corrupted him. Paul Bun- yan handed the Miser his soul for these things. He was converted from a man into a merciless go-getter and driver, a scissor-bill with a scab soul. Young Proletaire was sprawled lazily one noon the length of the high palisades, dreaming over New York, that giant’s best dream. Paul Bunyan suddenly was above him, kicking at his face with hob-nailed boots, and snarling: ‘Now I found yeh, yeh agitator! Get the hell back to the country you come from, I'm boss here!” Young Proletaire was taken by surprise. He sprang to his feet. “I’m a worker. So are you. Why do you fight for the Miser?” Young Proletaire said clearly. %> e@awBunyan went raging mad. “I hate your guts—don’t argue, fight,” he shouted. | “You are the guy who makes rebels and slackers, Amer- | ica isn’t big enough for both of us.” So they fought. The battle thundered over moun- tains and down valleys for a bloody year. Lakes were dried up; railroads twisted to rusty junk; cities smash- ed to splinters like teacups. Blood gushed in rivers down the smooth auto roads. Farms died and were deserted like old dead work horses. Factories were smitten, and rats and spiders haunted them, as tho they were feudal castles. A terrible time it was: worse than a Wall Street panic year, but not quite as bad as one of the Miser’s fréquent international wars. Revolution! The end came in Seattle. Paul Bunyan was licked, lay exhausted in the dirt. Young Proletaire loomed over hith, bloddy and alert. Decided to finish Bunyan for- éver)"\An’ old lady. remonstrated. Wanted another ‘chance given the man-driver. ‘e*Ineurable,” pronounced Young Proletaire clearly, “and he himself said there’ wasn’t room Snough for both of us in America.” He finished the job. Old lady went back filled with ethical sorrow to rocking chair and pussy-cats and Hindu poetry. Young Proletaire dived from a mountain into the Pacific and splashed. about lustily, let the good sun and. water heal his many wounds. In a month he was healed and ready again for work and play. Hurrah for Hfe! Pf 3. CLOSES THE HOT AIR FACTORY. © was'a factory of hot air, run by lawyers. The seat of government, manufactured the “laws.” ‘No one respected it, but all deemed it necessary.% “'* n'The»Miser, owned all thé lawyers, bought theti ‘With Packards. To him their hot air was necessary—a screen between his throne and the workers, who believed in democracy. 8 *. Young -Proletaire watched the lawyers at work. ” ’' “Useless!” he muttered. “Hot air grows no wheat, runs no railroads, writes no poems!” He hated hot air, had always loved the ote Sista electric air of truth. How to govern the fields, factories, partie aaa theaters of America? He called to him miners) ‘farm. ers, machinists, artists, engineers and other workers. “Shall the lawyers govern you with hot air,” he‘asked, “No!” they shouted, “we can govern ourselves.” So the lawyers were shipped on the Buford ‘to the North Pole to harvest the next summer’s ice-crop; Use- ful at last, North Pole is no place for hot air, which is why it was chosen, The workers governed choniéetven, Things really went much better. There. was no one to confuse them at their creative tasks. Truth became the fashion. This was his first achievement. 4. WRESTLES WITH A SPIRIT. YONG Protetaire was sowing the Bad. Lands of Wyoming with garden cities and workers’. com-|' munes. A huge epic. One day, weary, he took a ramble thru Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and other great places nearby. A refreshing holiday, but when he re- turned to camp, a strang picture met his eye, Work had stopped and the men and women were lying on the ground, dishevelled and maudlin. Some rolled in filth like animals; others roared insane Jaugh- ters; some wept; others were quiet as corpses, “What's wrong?” Young Proletaire asked. A woman lifted a tragic, tear-blown face. “Weare slaves,” she moaned, “born to slavery. We want a master, Responsibility is horrible.” “I’m afraid,” another shrieked. “We are too daring, we are going too fast. Something terrible will happen.” “We are defeated,” the eerie chorus arose. “Let us go back to democracy. Let us find, instead of our old corrupt rulers, a few honest hot-eairists and misers. Then all will be well again.’ Young Proletaire guessed what had happened. The Spirit of the Past; bootlegger’ of wood alcohol and poisonous {deas, ‘had sneaked into éamp. ‘Young Prole- taire kicked’ some of the grovelling pessimists upright and made them tell him where the Spirit was hiding. They told. He found the Spirit and wrestled with him, while the camp watched. The old man was a tough, wily, expert battler, knew a thousand tricks. But the young giant had youth and steel. Proletaire won after @ severe bout. And he smashed the barrels“of rotgut in the boot- legger’s closed car, and kicked the Spirit clean over the Rockies into the interior of Tibet, to land in a monastery of Lamas droning over their beads. “That's where you belong,” Young Proletaire shouted, shaking his fist after the - scoundrel, “Do-your dirty By Fred Ellis work there for another fifty years, till I've time to clean up that part of the dynamic world.” The camp went back to work, with only a slight hangover. Watching his people toiling and singing in the sun, Young Proletaire knew these orgies of pessi- mrism might occur again. “But their children! their. children! born in the ‘sun- shine of the free commune: they. will not, succumb!” the young giant muttered in his fist, and his words were lfke a paeon of victory, and they were like a. grim prayer, 5. MAN AND WOMAN. E met a man and a woman bitterly fighting before a Home, They were middle-aged, exhausted by life and they owned a swarm of children, nervous and unhappy. Young Proletaire stopped and asked: ' ¢ “How long have you two been fighting?” “Twenty-five years,” the worian screamed,” and don’t "| you dare interfere. Matrimony is a holy bond. And if we were divorced what would become of the children?” Young Proletaire whistled: and the children ran°after’ him gladly. They followed him to a children’s com- mune ‘where-they were*treated like free scientists and poets, and not like slaves of Home. Then the careless young giant went back. and broke, ‘up the Home, — “Unnecessary and evil," he paid briefly. | “Makes egotists of men and women—narrow, stupid. Must release them into the world. - “Based on private’ property. Father necessary ‘to |Support child-bearing woman, and educate the children. (Community, nan does thie: better. _No more private’ ‘worrying. Videme abana ehinne: ‘Breeds inferiority—breeds fear. Reproduces stupid delusions. of te parents; no progress possible, , “Children belong to the world—not to earelin. “Parents not trained. , Better leave children to geni- us teachers who love the job—not sick prisoned mother and sick slave father. “No more gratitude to silly pare No more ties with past—all clear ahead. Fly, you eagles! “What function has home? Community runs better schools, kitchens, hospitals, workshops, laundries, houses, art centers, centers of understanding, etc., etc. What function remains? “Is useless and evil—based on private property and egotism—must go.” This is another achievement. — A Fable 6. IS AN AMUSING ORATOR. BUNCH of elderly scared artists had run away m i the new America and were living in a cave. re \they spent the gloomy days painting and writing. Hach ‘suspected the other and wrote and painted only for himself, | Their work was-mostly a‘rehash of the contents of old museums and libraries, They agreed om one thing: all hated machinery and yearned for the past. But some wanted Greece, others India, others Africa. A few craved the middle ages, inquisition, guilds and handmade pottery. A few the happy days ef Daniel Boone in America: not a new social world, but Indians to fight. No toilets, bath-tubs, typewriters. The simple simple life. Quiet. Art. Se they lived in a cave and hated each other: Young Proletaire thought he would sanitate them. Teach them to accept change. To be ‘young, @ynamic and brave. He dragged ‘them blinkitig from eave- stench and fleas into the world: sunlight. oe He was a doctor and made them an oration. “Fellow-workers, are you happy? ‘No. Has ‘your work improved since you fied the New America and took to a cave? No, it has become progressively rotten. “Why do you fear the machines? Their noises? The ugly environment they create for themselves? ,The slavery they have set up?. Yes, but all that is Only four hours work a day now, in factories bu sculptors, doctors and engineers. The nation the machines now. No mote wage slavery, cheapness, adulteration, commercialism. All that was part ef the miser’s America—not ours. “The machines give us leisure. They are our slaves now. And they give us creative joy. “Yes, we have joy of the machines. They are truth in action. Their swift lines are the new sculpture. Their rhythms are in the new man’s music. Precision; mathematics; world law. “Have destroyed bunk.’ In art and science, have killed rhetoric, metaphysics. “No, they have not killed Art. art. Art will always live. gentlemen. “Introspective art has died, you say? Noble study of the umbilical? Good. We will now study the world. “Machines move like the ‘planets, with grand and - awful precision. And we are the gods who set them | -- or ser 2. Bb. .264 9-2 by al Only weak art, false . Needs no protective tariff. hi Y is moving. a “They have given us a ‘thousand fingers, eyes, ears and senses. - - “Our thought moves at a ratio of 25 to 1 over the old | ¥ humanity. Earth’ diggers behind a plow plodded in thought at four’ hifles 4 Hour.’ Gur"mihds ‘move’ with aeroplane wings, 100 miles dn hour. “Spéed,” ©” w “The ecstacy of spéed is better than the ecstacy of | fear grovelling before a god. Is not a Me, but phystes. | ' Is healthy. Is controlled by man. Needs no dogma or"| ® priests or inquisition. - Machine-speed. a “Machines are the death of child-magic. But are the | °! birth of man-magic. - “Machines are the will of man. B life, “Machines maka man social. a create a dynamo, : “Machines unnatural, you Say? But What is Only’rocks, ‘trees, fleas and’ germs? “Is not thought natural. Machines are thought expressed ta | * steel. “What have you to offer the worker ‘in place of the machines? He is master of An individual t “Serfdom to priests and feudal landlords, Wattlea |** 4) huts. "} “What have’ you to offer ‘the artist in place @f the ig machines? vy “Roses and nightingales in libraries. Quiet eultured decay. Museums. Oscar Wilde and art for at’g sake. Despair. Little complaints, Hand-woven neckties. Lurid ego-retchings, Parisian post cards of naked ladies. h Peter Pat. Village morbidity. Inbreeding. Acadamic f cowardice. "The Oxford manner, Tom Jones, the: picar- 9 esque. 0, ‘the picaresque! ” “The spiritual! ‘The soul! The vacuum! re “And love—in three jealous ‘acts in a bedroom, M4 a shooting or happy clitich at final enttain. Thig is | * your art. Stupid. Smells of the cave. *° ; “Machines také tian out Of the ‘bedrooms atid vit lages; "into immetise “arenas ‘kriown af fiictories and ‘rev, | |: olutions. Better than boudoirs and monasteries. Heroie, | “Midchiines havé éome to stdy. We love them ally, a8’ men oneé loved ‘the ThunderGod. . , “Accept the machines or continue in your damp, mal ‘sibjective cave! . . er “The writers and painters chose to remain im their be cave. They were old; it was an effort to pull one’s life to about one’s ears, and build anew, New thoughts are a agony at first, like a boy’s puberty, me But millions of better artists were being born among the workers each year, So Young Proletaire did’ not is lack for art. et 7. THE HOUND OF HEAVEN. tr oe warned Young Proletaire of a ramor. be “You have persecuted god, changed his temples into | P; gymnasiums and movie houses, Therefore, in his in- | px finite mercy, he is planning to shatter you with his | er infinite and divine revenge.” Young Proletaire picked his teeth with a fir-tree. fo “There is no god,” he said easily, “there is Man.” “But how do you explain the world?” it was etuttered.. “The world was not meant to be explained, but te be changed by man,” answered the young giant with # -«\