The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 3, 1926, Page 4

THE DAILY WORKER.- THE DAILY WORK ER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, Ill. Phone Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES * By mall (In Chicago only): By mall (outside of Chicago): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months | $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.50 three months $2.00 three months oy ane Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chloago, Ill, —_——_ » LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F, DUNNE MORITZ J. LOEB. Hntered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- cago, Ill., under the act of March 3, 1879. + Hditors ..Business Manager Advertising rates on application. The British Miners Fight On The British coal strike enters its sixth month with British coal production at less than 10 per’cent of normal, proving that the miners, estimated at 150,000, whe have been driven back to the pits by downright starvation, constitute a negligible factor in breaking the strike. The stern endurance of the miners is in direct contrast to the cowardice and black treachery of their own leaders and the leader- ship of the Trade Union General Council. First came the desertion of the miners by the calling off of the general strike, then the refusal to institute an embargo on scab coal. Words, words, words—but no action from the official leadership of British labor which has contented itself with calling Premier Bald- win names and “accusing” him—the spokesman of the capitalist class of Britain—of aiding the coal owners. ; Of course, he is. That is his job. It was his job when he in- duced the trade union general council to call off the general strike and his job now is to smash the British labor movement. In this he is being aided by the British trade union leaders from Cook, with his whining acceptance of the Judas kiss of the reactionaries at the Bournemouth congress, to Thomas and MacDonald. ; British industry is in a desperate condition. The beginning of November, according to dispatches, will see the transfer of huge orders from British planis to other countries if the coal strike is not settled. 140 blast furnaces are closed as are dozens of textile mills unable to pay the high price exacted by the thrifty importers of foreign coal. The Bournemouth Trade Union Congress could have won the eoal strike. It had only to show a united front to the British gov- ernment, call for the whole trade union movement to refuse to handle scab coal, and the government would have had to capitulate. The situation of British imperialism, at home and abroad, is now so desperate that it needs but a determined stand by the work- ing class to bring it to its knees. But this is exactly what the leaders—Thomas, Pugh, Cramp, Oook, Tillet, Purcell, Swales and all the rest of them with a few possible exceptions not be found in the upper strata—are afraid of. They are imperialists to a man in spite of their brave words from time to time. The miners must battle thru for another month and they will have won. Perhaps they may not be able to resist entirely, without any aid from the T. U. ©. except that of scant financial support, a reduction in wages, but they will have dealt a blow to British capitalism from which it will never recover, No blacker page in British labor history has been written than that which records the betrayal of the glorious struggle of the miners. It is likewise a betrayal of the whole British working class and the labor movement of the world. There is no one who has followed the struggle in Great Britain but that knows that the rank and file of labor thruout the world were thrilled and inspired by the genéral strike as they had not been since the Russian revolu- tion. The masses stood ready to aid in every way had the British Trade Union General Council issued the call for uncompromising support on every front that the masses expected. Such treachery has far-reaching effects and already it has created serious demoralization in the ranks of British labor and dis- couraged the workers in other lands. Were it not for the British Communist Party and the Minority Movement, the trade unions would be in full retreat and the victory of British capitalism all but complete. As it is, the Communists and the organized left wing are rally- ing the workers for new struggles, preventing desertion of the unions and preparing to establish a new leadership free from the damning taint of British imperialism. E The advanced section of the British workers has said that the agents of British imperialism in the ranks of the labor movement, whether they masquerade under left phrases like Purcell and Cook, or openly fight for the master class like Thomas and MacDonald, must go. The British labor movement has entered a new period. The end of the coal strike will mark not an end of struggle as the reactionary leadership hopes, but the beginning of the fight to organize the British labor movement for the struggle for power. _ No Check-Of in the Anthracite Shown by District 7 Convention The recent convention of District 7, where the delegates called upon John L. Lewis to come into the anthracite fields, meet with the board of conciliation, and attempt to secure the check-off which the board has not yet established, is the best of proof that the charges made by the progressive forces, headed by Brophy, Stevenson and Brennan, that John L. Lewis surrendered the check-off and jammed an agreement which does not provide for it down the throats of the anthracite miners, are correct. Never before since the unionization of the anthracite fleld has a district convention had to raise such an issue, It is the same with the arbitration clause in the anthracite agreement. The Lewis-Cappelini machine claims that it is not an arbitration agreement. Nevertheless, they dare not wage a struggle on this issue, even tho they were militant enough to do so, because their full treachery would be exposed. As soon as provisions of the anthracite agreement were known the Communist Party denounced it as an arbitration agreement, which surrendered the check-off and the closed shop. The conyen- tion of District 7 has confirmed our statement. There are a number of things the miners will have to do. The first is to clean out the Lewis machine from top to bottom, strengthen the union, force the check-off and closed shop and absolutely reject the arbitration clause in the agreement and by a series of well-or- ganized strikes put the union back on,its feet in a position to pro- tect the miners and build it into a weapon of the rank and file to defeat the assaults of the opedators and their agents in the union. Be 290 eaten SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAILY WORKER! FROM ARTICLE FOUR. By WM. F. DUNNE, The refiection of official reaction in the legislative and executive meetings of trade union bodies is found in the fact that nowhere has the official lead- ership taken the initiative in en- couraging the workers to struggle or in leading these struggle after they have arisen more or less spontaneous- ly or have been initiated by Commun- ists or the left wing. On the contrary as in Passaic and the furriers’ strike, the A. F. of L. and the international union leadership has hampered the struggle. ™ the railway unions the enactment of the Watson-Parker bill hag served 4s an excuse for the officialdom to frown on all strike action and insist that the membership rely solely on the company-owned machinery organ- ized under the provisions of the law. But what has been written above does not give a complete picture of the status of the American. There is another and a brighter side. If this were not true the picture would be dark indeed. ' Contrasted with the brazen betray- als of the interests of the masses, and |the rapid drive towards the capitalist oamp on the part of labor officialdom, and the apathy of large sections of the working class already noted, there are a number of events which show that reaction in the upper strata of labor and the demands for more production by the bosses which are widening the gap between the leadership and the labor aristocracy on one side and the unskilled and unorganized workers on the other is producing a counter- movement which even makes itself felt in official circles and whose signi- ficance, if under-estimated, will have fatal consequences for our party and the labor movement as @ whole. The’ most important of these de- velopments are the following: —The call for aid of the British ooal strike sent out by the A. F. of L. sure from below and undoubtedly was a step taken by the officialdom to fore- stall Communist criticism. The action was not taken until the United Mine Workers had authorized relief donations. (It should be remem- bered in calculating the importance of the A. F. of L. action that a prolonga- tion of the British strike is not alto- gether displeasing to American coal capitalists and to American imperial- HAT Gompers ali a referred to as “that great parliament of American labor’—the convention of the American Federation of Labor—opens its forty-sinth an- nual session on October 4 i Detroit. It will be dominated by the most reactionary officialdom of the most reactionary labor movement in the world. The con vention will reflect only in @ distorted form the needs of the American workingclass. It will make its own revie w of its own activities, its own estimate of the status of the American labor movement, draw its own conclusions, put forward its own program as the pro- gram of American labor. [® the last year large sections can Federation of Labor have ment with rf “Worker-empli loyer co-operation” opposition to @ cer fects on the m mined in or of the officialdom of the Amert- made a long step towards agree- ican capitalism. The official movement has ely trade union struggles almost entirely. has been ever on its lips. Mass s policy is developing slowly but surely. continuity in the policy of A. F. for the last four years. 8 Of the American workingclass must be deter- that they may be counteracted effectively. Its causes and its ef- HESEH artiples are an attempt to describe the American la- bor mov as it is under the leadership of A. F. of L. officialdom, to determine the strength of the two currents—= to the right from above, to the 1 the possibilities for our party immediate period. eft from below—and to estimate and the left wing in the neat ism in general so long as it does not take on revolutionary character. It should be remembered likewise that not the slightest attempt has been made by the A. F..of L. executive to prevent shipments of scab coal to Britain.) ‘The Passaic textile strike and the almost unparalleled financial sup- port given to it by A, F. of L. unions and organized and unorganized work- ers generally. (While the Passaic strike itself, occurring in an industry that is being dislocated and is out of the main stream of development of American industry, is not so decisive as indicating a general trend in the ranks of the working class, it {s fun- damentally important for the ungrudg- |ing support given it by the masses in derful spirit and determination of the strikers, and because of the leading ,Yole of the Communists in actual or- ganization and routine work of the strike and in the relief: work) aes challenge to the official policy of the A. F. of L., reaffirmed at every convention since the Russian revolution, thrown down by the or- [ithe of a trade union delegation to the Soviet Union composed of a number of well-known trade union of- Will the A. F. of L. Fight for Its Wage By C. E, RUTHENBERG. General Secretary, Workers (Com- munist) Party. HIE Atlantic Oity convention of the American Federation of Labor, held last year, adopted a declaration on the wages of the workers, which was halled as a new wage policy. Thé section of the resolution on wages which contains this new statement of policy, reads as follows: “Social inequality, industrial in- stability and injustice must in- crease unless the workers’ real wages, the purchasing power of their wages, coupled with continu- 4 ing reduction in the number of hours making up the working day are progressed in proportion to man’s increasing power of produc- tion.” This statement of policy by the A. F, of L, is a frank acceptance of the existing capitalist system under which the ‘workers are exploited by the owners of industry. The A. F. of L. accepted the right of the capital- ist employers to take a large share of the product of the workers in the form of interest on bonds, dividends on stock and profits gsuerally. According to a study made by the National Bureau of Economic Re- search, in the year 1918, the capital- ist employers took 46 per cent of the net value product of all industries in this country, and labor received 64 ber cent. The wage policy of labor,{ that is, their wag the workers and 46% to the capitalist employers. This policy means that the worker cannot secure at any time a greater share of his product.. He can only de- mand higher wages if thru the im- provement in the machinery of pro- duction or thru intensified work on their part they can increase the amount of wealth produced. Productivity In Industry. i hppa wage policy of the Atlantic City convention should be reac- tionary enough to snit even the most hide-bound capitalist-employer. The A. F. of L. convention, so far as it was within its power, that is so far as labor was concerned, simply gave the capitalist employers a guarantee that they need have no fear that their profits would be in red.with. Sure- ly, no capitalist employers could ask more than that his workers should declare that they would never ask him to reduoe the share of the product of Industry which he gets in the form of profits, in order to increase the work- ers’ wages, While guaranteeing the capitalists their profits in the ratio in which they had been receiving them, this statement of wage policy did make one modest demand the workers. It asked that {f productivity increased the workers should share in the in- crease product. If the ratio was 54% to the workers and 46% to the cap- italists, then the workers should get 54% of the incre: productivity should be in- as visualized ‘by the Atlantic City con- creased in proportion to the increased vention of the A. F. of L, was to|amount of wealth continue to give the capitalist em- ployers 46 per cent of the product of the workers and that labor should be satisfied with the 54 per cent which Nght upon the qi produced. The department Commerce in its year book for 1926, which has re- cently been publi , throws some fon of the pro- it was receiving (according to the ductivity of the wofkers. Its figures calculation of the National Bureau of|on the productivity of labor should Beonomic Research, which very like-|be of interest to the A. F. of L. lead- ly exaggerated labor's share.) Ut hed Atlantic City convention policy applied to industry means that the workers should not fight for a higher standard of life so long as there was no increase in the amount of wealth produced. It conceded to the capital- ist employers all that they grab- bed in the past. The capitalist o1 ers. The Year “Byen in the sh 1919 and 1923 t! earner in our about 20%, and is no doubt that the census of 1925 will show a continuance of this basic progress. Poked increase in the productivity per worker from 1919 to 1923, a ways: ployérs in the United States have|continued increase in productivity thra the exploitation of labor amassed |since that time! Here is something great fortunes in the past fifty years, |for the A. F. of L, leaders who adopted they have achieved thru this exploita-|the reactionary wage policy at the At- tion the ownership of the great in-|lantic City convention to consider, Ac- dustrial machine which the workers |cording to even their wage policy la- have built in this country, bor should fight for an increase in The A, F, of L, said, let them have|wages when the productivity of the it. The A. F. of L, said, let them draw | workers increases, interest, dividends and profits on their No one will dare to contend that certificates of ownership, altho they|the workers have shared in the 20% may be absentee owners and contrib-|{ncroase in productivity from 1919 to ute nothing to the production of|1923 and in the increase in product- wealth, All that the A. F. of L, asked for la-|the department bor was, that if the amount of wealth] Book establishes, produced was increased, then the in-| contend that the } crease should also be divided 64% to| workers have / ivity of the workers since 1925 which onsen phe Year | the face of official hostility, the won- | This was largely the result of pres- | ficials, trade union economists and editors and attorneys largely engaged in pleading trade union and working class cases. This represents unquestionably a split of considerable proportions on this issue within the official circles of the A. F, of L. and the railway brotherhoods. This too is the result of pressure from below. ac organization of a broad pow- erful opposition to the Lewis ma- chine in the United Mine Workers of America expressed in the Brophy- Stevenson-Brennan slate backed un- doubtedly by a majority of the mem- bership and fighting on a militant program of fundamental trade union |demands and proposals, (The import- ance of this development on the Amer- ican labor movement cannot be over- estimated but it should be remember- ed that the coal mining industry, like textiles, is being dislocated and that it is the union flelds which are suffer- ing and not the industry as a whole). ‘—The strike of the motormen and switchmen on the New, York In- terborough Rapid Transit company lines. This event is of particular import- ance in spite of the small number of Such a contention would have to face the fact thatthe same depart- ment of labor Year Book which estab- lishes the increase In productivity ad- mits that the index of wages which in 1919 stood at 235, compared to 100 in 1914, was only 215 in 1925. In other words, labor suffered a decrease in wages of about 9% in a period in which productivity per worker in- creased 20% from 1919 to 1923 with a continuance of productivity between 1923 and 1925 which made the per- centage of increase in productivity still greater in 1925. Will the A, F. of L. Leadership Fight? IHESE figures put up to the leader- ship of the A. F. of L., which adopted the modest demand that la- bor should be satisfied with its propor- tionate share of the product of in- dustry and let the capitalists have maltntain that proportionate share. Labor has not received its propor- By ERNEST HAECKEL, (Continued from previous issue) We find another series of strong arguments in favor of our Monistic psychology in the individual develop- ment of the soul in the child and the young animal. We know that the new- born child has as yet no conscious- ness, no intelligence, no independent judgment and thought. We follow the gradual development of these higher faculties step by step in the first years of life, in strict proportion to the anat- omical development of the cortex with which they are bound up. The inqul- ries into the child-soul which Wilhelm Preyer began in Jena twenty-five years ago, his careful “observations of the mental development of man in his early years,” and the supplementary research of seyeral more recent phys- jologists, have shown, from the onto- genetic side, that the soul is not a special immaterial entity, but the sum- total of a number of connected func- tions of the brain. When the brain dies the soul comes to an end, We have further proof in the stem- history of the soul, which we gather from the comparative psychology of the lower and higher mammals, and of savage and civilized races, Modern ethnography shows us in actual exist- ence the various stages thru which the mind rose to its present height. The most primitive races, such as the Veddahs of Ceylon, or the Australian natives, are very little above the mental life of the anthropold apes. From the higher savages wo pass by a complete graduation of stages to the most civilised races. But what a gulf there is, even here, between the genius _of @ Goethe, a Darwin, or a Lamarck, theirs, whether It will fight even ba workers who actually struck. (Hsti- mated at from 700 to 2,000 at various times.) It is of unusual importance because of the fact that it was a break with a well-organized company and occurred among workers generally re- garded as backward and was conduct- ed militantly. —The assumption of the responsibil- ity for the Passaic strike by the United Textile Workers and the af- fillation of the strikers to this A. F. of L. organization. This development is of tremendous significance inasmuch ag it is the first time an A. F. of L. international union has taken such action in a strike called and fought under other auspices when any considerable number of workers have been involved. The re- luctance with which the U. T. W. ac- cepted these workers as members, following the denunciation of the strike by the A. F. of L. executive council only adds to the importance of this development. The inclusion of these textile strikers in the U. T, W. is a tribute to the strength of the mass pressure from workers both in and out of the A. F. of L. /—The recent appearance and speech of President Green at the meet- ing of the Anti-Fascist Alliance in New York in spite of the official so- cialist desertion and the claim of so- cialist and reactionary labor press to the effect that the alliance was a pure- ly Communist. organization. The only mass organization really fighting the agents of fascism in Amer- ica among the Italian workers, Presi- dent Green had to recognize the alliance as the leader of this struggle. —The strike and victory of the Furriers’ Union in the face of right sabotage. President Green personally took charge of the right wing fight. —The strike of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and its militant struggle against the injunction, (These two latter events, while having a certain effect on the American labor movement are of more importance as showing that the needle trades unions, of a much higher politi- cal consciousness than the rest of the labor moyement, have largely ‘recoy- ered their pre-war militancy. Like the textile and coal industries the clothing industry is convulsed by in- ternal shifts (the development of con- tracting and jobbing) resulting in a weakening of union control, The courageous struggle of the furriers and ladies garment workers is some- what offset in the industry as a whole by the fact that in the Amalgamated tionate share of increased productiv- ity from 1919 to 1925, to say nothing of Increasing Its share of the wealth produced and improving its standard of life at the expense of reducing the profits of the capitalist employers. If the leaders of the A. F, of L. mean to have their declaration of wage policy to be taken seriously, if they really mean to maintain labor’s share of the wealth produced, then it is the business of the Detroit conven- tion, which opens Monday, to make the first and most important order of business of the convention the ques- tion of organizing and mobilizing the workers for a nation-wide drive, in every industry, for an increased in wages proportionate to increase in the productivity per worker as shown by the figures of the department of commerce. That increased productivity is at least 25%, to put it moderately, The A. F. of L. leaders, if their resolu- PORTLAND TO DETROIT Clothing Workers the left wing, in the | organized sense, {s pitifully weak in, spite of the bad agreement shoved down the throats of the membership by the Hillman machine.) 1 ~The launching of organisétion campaigns by most of the rail- way department unions. These campaigns are conducted on} @ very modest scale and on craft lines but nevertheless they are strengthening these unions somewhat / and must be interpreted as a res-! Pponse on the part of the officials to a demand for organization from the rank and file—a demand which was, in turn a mesponse of the railway workers to the “organize the unot- ganized” slogan of the left wing. a —The expression of organization sentiment in the rubber indus- try, brought on by speeding-up schemes and threatened wage cuts, | and of sufficient strength to maintain @ paper printed expressly for rubber workers, 127 favorable reception accord- ed by workers to our shop bul- letins, notably in the Ford. plants where the circulation grew to 19,000 with the fifth issue. When we draw the balance sheet on the basis of the foregoing. estimate it cannot be said truthfully that the result is,such as to bring joy to the heart of a revolutionist. Yet there is plenty of evidence that considerable sections of the masses, in spite of the brake placed on their activities by the trade union bureaucrats, are in mo- tion. There is more evidence that larger numbers are willing to move once they understand the cause of their afflictions and realize the correct program to follow and tactics to adopt. But it is likewise true that this is a period of quiescence for the great majority of the working class and the removable obstacles to its progress must be overcome before it will get into motion, ; Ae external conditions, which in general are those of a still healthy and growing capitalism, make it pos- sible for the ruling class to pacify sections of the working class. In no other country, not even in Great Brit- ain when the empire was at the zenith of its prosperity and rer, has the ruling class 60 deliberately set ont to debauch strategic sections of the. working class, . The “welfare” schemes of American capitalism are multifarious and, lack- ing any real opposition from the trade union leadership, have ‘weakened seriously the influence of trade unions among the workers, ‘ Policy? Oucy: tion on wage policy is to be anything more than another scrap of paper, should take the initiative and leader- ship in a fight for a 25% inorease in wages for every worker in the United States. ‘Will the A. F. of L, initiate such a fight? Will {t support its statement of wage policy by action to enforce it? Every worker knows the answers to.these questions. Just as the A. F. of L. conceded to the capitalist em- ployers everlastingly the right to ex- ploit the workers, to take for them- selves in profits half of the product of the workers, so they will concede to them to retain all of tha increase in the productivit¥ of the workers, The A. F. of L, leaders are too cow- ardly, too tied up with the capitalists, © to lead the workers into a fight for. the little that ‘these leaders declared labor should have and without which “social inequality, industrial instabil- ity and injustice must increase.” and an ordinary philistine or third- rate official. All these facts point to one conclusion: the human soul has only reached its present height by a long period of gradual evolution; it differs in degree, not in kind, from the soul of the higher mammals! and thus it cannot in any case be immortal. That a large number of educated people still cling to the dogma of per- sonal immortality in spite of these luminous proofs, is owing to the great power of conservative tradition and the evil methods of instruction that stamp these untenable dogmas deep on the growing mind in early yea’ It is for that very reason that. churches strive to keep the schools under their power at any cost; they can control and exploit the adults at will, if independent thought and judg- ment have been stifled in the earlier years. ¢ This brings us to the interesting question; What is the position of the “ecclesiastical evolution” of the Jes- uits (the “latest course of Darwin- ism”) as regards this great question of the soul? Man is, accofding to Wasmann, the image of God and a unique, ‘immaterial being, differing from all other animals in the posses- sion of an immortal soul, and there- fore having a totally different origin from them, Man's immortal soul is, according to this Jesuit sophistry, sitive,” while the ensitive only, God has implanted his own spirit in man, and associated Jt with an animal soul for the period of life. It is true that Wasmann .believes even man’s body directly by God; Last Words on Evolution leaves open the possibility of a devel- opment from a series of other. ani- mals, in which case the divine spirit would be breathed into him in the end. The christian fathers, who were much ocetpied with the introduction of the soul into the human embryo, tell us that the immortal soul enters the soulless embryo on the fortieth day after conception in the case of the boy, and on the eightieth day in the case of the girl. If Wasmann sup- poses that thére was a similar intro- duction of the soul in the develop- ment of the race, he must postulate a moment in the history of the anthro- poid apes when God sent his spirit into the hitherto unspiritual soul of the ape, ' {To be continued.) Industry; Say Dawes Plan Too Ri NEW YORK, Oct. 1. — Thirty-seven German business men, represe: the publishing, manufacturing, mining nd contracting phases of German cap- italism, have arrived in the United States to study the methods used in American industry, They will be en- tertained by the New York chamber of commerce, : Herr Bodo Ronnefeld, traffic man- ager of the Leipsic Fair, under the auspices of which the party travels, - declares that the Dawes plan must be revised, “The Dawes plan 1s too rigorous,”