The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 9, 1926, Page 9

ay. Story of How the Rich Buy Thee Senators By T. J. O'FLAHERTY. ARTICLE I. “Augean, like the stables of Au- geas; exceedingly filthy; corrupt. Au- gean stables, the stables of Augeas which contained 3,000 oxen. They had‘ not been cleaned for thirty years, but Hercules performed the task in a single day, by turning the river Al- pheus thru them.”—Funk and *Wag- nalls New Standard Dictionary. This is a Greek myth, but a mighty useful one just now, There is no better way-to start an impressionistic story of the slush fund quiz than to get a nose-full of good stable odor. Even the most fastidious will have to admit that 3,000 oxen performing all the functions: of nature for thirty years should produce almost as much pollution as the campaign committee of a capitalist party. -Perhaps it is well to. refresh our réaders’. mémory a little, else they might attribute this introduction to a predeliction for nauseous things. When the last ward heeler was paid off in the recent primary contests in asylvania, it was learned that the ‘Sontestints for the , senatorial tion on the G. O. P. ticket in|’ Pennsylvania distributed approxi- mately $3,000,000 among the voters. Most of this money was used for bribery. The average price fetched by a Vote in the open market in Penn- sylvania was $10. Great indignation swelled im the pa- triotic breasts of the democrats and the nomination burned up three mil- lion dollarg in the primaries.’, The fel- low who spent the most did not get the nomination. either. The honor went, to Senator Vare who spent only three-quarters of a million. I will not say any more, unléss in passing, about the Pennsylvania angle of the investigation, I was not present at the hearings and got my informa- tion second-hand. But fate decreed that I should ‘have the pleasure of viewing the great and near-great at close range when Senator Reed decaid- ed that stories of corruption connect- ed with the [linois primaries deserv- ed @ little ‘attention. So he moved ee Ww, Champ Clark missed being presi- dent by the proverbial hair breadth. Clark was championed by the Mis- souri delegation. Roger Suilivan, the then utility king of Mlinois and George EB. Brennan's predecessor, in the dem- ocrat party saddle, suddenly threw his delegation to Wilson, sending the Princeton professor to. the White House and Champ Clark to an early graye. Senator Reed had factional aniposity towards Wilson, supported the war declaration against Germany, and made a speech for it in the senate tho much against his will, it is .said. Reed's feud with Wilson began in but he} \ the fate of nationg has often been de- termined by the smile of a dissolute woman,” Taking into consideration, the ru- mors that were circulated about the president and what goes for pleasure in Paris, it is no wonder that senators from the alfalfa regions gasped. This is the man, astute politician, demagogue, master of invective, fight- er, independent democrat, with an un- favorable record on labor bills, foe of Volsteadism and admirer of H. L. |Mencken, who rode into Chicago late jlast July to tackle the job of clean- jing the Augean stables of Illinots politics. Unlike Hercules, Reed did NO, 1 DON’T WANT TO KILL Him —1'yUST WANT: Ta MAKE ) HIM’ SQUEAL . not turn a river on the a@cumulated ‘filth. That would be too radical a pro ‘cedure. What he did was to take a “squirt gun and sprinkle the sewage with disinfectant, For the moment Reed was a reformer, What happened, how and who it happened to will be told in other ticles. . A FARMERS’ COLUMN Beginning with the next issue, Oo tober 16, this magazine -which is soon jto appear as The Sunday Worker will carry as a permanent feature one of their wise men, Senator James | A. Reed of Missouri, essayed the’ role of a Hercules who would clean | | | A FARMERS’ COLUMN It will contain news and comments the Amgean stables where the dung of 3,000 elephants was left unchored for a few generations. That the stalls of the democratic jackass were not equally filthy can- not be attributed to superior effici- ency on the part of the democratic stable boys, but to the deplorable fact that the ass had lost his carrying spowers and this ‘fodder became scanty ‘in consequence,” James A, Reed, senator from Mis- sourl, declared in the upper chamber of congress that the nation would have to be shown where this boodle came from and whence it went. He introduced a resolution to probe the scandal to the bottom. It was pass- ed, and in accord with tradition, Reed became chairman of the committee. To give the committee an air of non- partisanship it was loaded down with a few republicans, one a cross be- tween a republican and a democrat and the rest aged-in-the-wood Jeffer- “gonians. himself, his silent partner Robert M. LaFollette and clerical assistance to the federal building in Chicago and this is where the story really starts. Senator Reed was boss of the show. He did all the quizzing there was to be done. He is a democrat if Sena- tor Borah is a republican. Reed felt that he was a better democrat than Woodrow Wilson when the late presi- dent sponsored the league of nations. Some say that Reed had other rea- sons for quarreling with Wilson.. One rumor is that Woodrow appointed an old crony of his to a lucrative sine- cure ‘against the opposition of the Missourian. Reed had some difficulty in rewarding a faithful supporter from Kansas on another occasion be- Drawing by Bales. earnest after the president decided to drive the United States into the league of najjgns or break his neck. He did—break his neck. Reed was a cme f eo ae? a ad 7 candidafe tor, re-election, in Missouri, Wilsen issued a blast against him. The political leaders split half and half for and against Reed, but he got the votes and returned to the white house to plague Woodrow. It is said that the acid-tongued Missouri sena- tor commands the most enerous vituperative vocabulary in the United States. Hig caustic utterances have helped to make him notorious. He is responsible for the most searing, stinging, blinding; verbal gas attack ever délivered in the senate against any individual when he opposed Woodrow Wilson's journey to Paris upon the life and struggles of the American farmer. It will strive to interest the city |workers with the problems confront- jing the farmers at the same time istriving to bring the progressive farmers in closer touch with the prob- lems of the labor movement, It will work towards the end of es tablishing a close bond of unity be tween the workers ‘and farmers of © America. a . se The Farmers’ Column will be made up of contributions by competent and leading people in the progressive farmers’ movements, Among them: WILLIAM BOUCK National Representative of Progres sive Farmers of America. JOHN B. CHAPPLE Managing Editor of the Ashland Daily Press. The total result of the probe into the Pennsylvania scandal was that the three republican candidates for ee are 2 OT 2, . val. Political Economy is that science which Anvestigates and explains the laws of the economic life of capitalist society. It f- lumines those human relationships which arise on the basis of capitalist production and exchange. There exists an opinion that political economy is a science investigating and ex- plaining the laws of man’s economic life in general, i.e. independently of the ‘character of those relationships. According to this opinion, political economy must discover the motivating forces of human society for the whole of history from’ primitive commu- nism*to socialism, inclusive. This opinion is incorrect. The conditions under which the produe- tion and exchange of the necessities of life are carried on are different at different pe- riods. In the primitive epoch, when men en- gaged in hunting and knew nothing of ex- change, there existed certain relationships between them. Later, when men began to en- ein agriculture and pritae ownership of objects, products.and men (slavery and serfdom) was established, the relationships between human beings changed: and finally cause the president had favored a rix Those incidents loom large in a senator’s strategy. What Is Political: Economy? From the forthcoming book “Elements of Political Education” published by the Daily Worker Publishing Co. after the truce. when the machine replaced hand labor and became the property not of him who runs it, but of him who owns it, when even the labor power of the worker itself became a com- modity, then the relationships between hu- man beings changed again and very funda- mentally. Even at one and the same time within different countries standing at differ- ent stages of their economic development, the relationships between human beings are different, This is why there cannot be one er science which should be able to find one general law, illuminating the relationships between human beings at different’ periods. Seience has to study various historical epochs; it has to deal with an economy which is undergoing changes in the course of historic development. : Ne In the patriarchial commune where there still exists (communal) ownership of land and a natural form of economy, human rela- tions are simple and easy to understand. But with time, with the appearance of ex- change and property, economic relations be- come complicated; natural economy passes into simple commodity, and then capitalistic commodity economy. This capitalistic com- modity presents an infinitely closely inter- ~ “History shows,” said Reed, “that JOEL SHOMAKER Seattle, Washington. — wining network of operations of production and exchange, and for this reason it is par ticularly difficult to establish the economic laws which govern this type of economy. If we were to such different kindg of epochs as, let us say, the patriarchal-com- munal and the capitalistic, and attempt to derive the economic laws which govern s0- cial-economic relations in both of these ep- ochs, we would get nothing except generali- ties. Because, when investigating such dif- ferent types of epochs, we can establish be- tween them only the most general, superfic- ial connections which do not enable us to understand in all their fullness the laws | governing one or the other of these societies, Therefore, if we wish to acquaint ourselves as deeply as possibly and from every side, with the, substance and the motivating forces of capitalist society, we must turn to the study of this society alone, leaving aside pre-capitalist societies, The science which ‘studies the pecularities belonging only to capitalist ‘society, in contradistinction to other societies, is called political economy. The greatest and preeminent role in the dis- covery of the whole economic mechanics of capitalism was played by Karl Marx, (To Be Continued)