The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 16, 1926, Page 10

CRADLE SONG Oh, Newborn, Child of the Toilet, This is, a bitter world for you; From the shrunken breast-of your mother, Till the cold arms\of death enfold you, Hunger will be your bitter companion. Many years of fruitless toil will come and go, Before you understand the ways of Mammon; Then thru this sodden age will come The ray of hope that animates us ail, And then your face will hunger for the Dawn. Oh, Newborn, * Child of the Toiler. This is a bitter world for you; But even so we greet you, And prepare your loins for weapons of revoit. \ “A LAW IN PHYSICS By HERSCHELL BECK Get this straight, BO, When one man twins The many lose owt. It is @ laso in physics Known in ancient Babylon, The Greek philosophers knew this, too, In Athen, long ago. And yet, : men with. proud bellies, men puffing their fat cigars, go on talking abowt success, writing-ebout success in the rages ge . giving. the many the tip-off to their secr with end their cabalistic words, Push, pep, putting it over, Work like hell, and stay within the low, Everybody's free and equal, Boerybody gets an even break, here «++ - maybe. 0, I have seen the many blinded, I have seen the many tricked With magic phrases such as these, And O, the many who are the losers When one man wins. For get this straight, BO, | When one man wins i The mony lose out. It is @ law in physics, And Jesus, lashing the merchants and the money- lenulers Out of the Temple in Jerusalem, He, too, was wise to this, LJ PI nansoaceMnc ar ew SEE Roses, Wine and Song to Come . J. 8. WALLAOB There is @ wine was never known, The juice of a grape that’s not yet grown, Its scarlet oup whoever droime Shall feel the sun dance through hie coins. There is a rose that never grew, A rare, rare rose of a red, red hue, A lwe so red, @ scent'so rare Was never dream flower half eo fair. There ig a 8Ong was Never sung ‘A tune that tripped from no man’s tongue, The deaf shall hear, the dumb shall And the lamé shall dance to tts ot teh hy Art By A. V. LUNACHARSKY TWEE idea of soctalism can be diversely concetved and » interpreted. It ts complicated. Here, even more than’ in the sphere of art, each new step does not ob- ‘}yiate the preceding one but, onthe contrary, includes it inva broader system:: Here we are not, dealing with the stages of the complete expression of socialism, | The First Stage. : : : “In the firet stage, the so-called social questien is on- sidered as a question of the inequality of man, not Dio-)). logical, but ‘legal and “économic inequality.” Orie” is’ tor mented by the consciousness of the profound injustice of the fact that at one social pole 1s found well-being jand superfivity, and at the other—inisertible, oppressive | poverty. — ie ‘The privileged gave birth to the idea of plilanthro- pic’ Sdcialism; the stepchildren of society “to the “so- cialism which Mngels called “that communism which is founded solely on the demand for equality,” ‘and of lwhith Kautsky said that “it is vulgar and naive? it was created not by social farsightédness, not by altruistic thinking anti feeling, but by urgent material needs; the’ struggie of class interests.” . si Philanthropic socialism, the socialism of sympathy for the sufferings of the people, has outlived its time and has not only become useless but, in many cases, ‘harmful. Art has frequently enlisted in the service of socialism, but in so doing, has sektom raised itself to broad gnd exalted conceptions; it remained didactic, shedding tears and expressing indignation like an edi- ‘toriad in en honest newspaper. lidea of equality, is even now the concrete foundation land with more profound sympathy. But they did not | Taise themselves to the highest level of art, remaining ‘on @ level of natnralistic understanding. The artiste |exhansted themselves portraying the misery,.the need and the ire of the proletarian, but they were afraid to |understand his enthusiasm, as if ashamed to introduce “romanticism” into the sober portrayal of his struggles. An artist, not a proletarian, will hardly succeed in cre- ating a masterpiece while standing on this naturalistic level. Nevertheless, one cannot fail to hail the gifted attempts of such writers as, Mirabeau, Delagrazia, ‘Youshkeviteh and ‘especially Gorki.* The Second Stage. great French Revolution was the first to pro claim with such force the right of equality for every being. The thirst for freedom in the relations between people—that is the principal moral nerve of the end of the eighteenth and the entire nineteenth centuries. But it turned out—and the courageous people, who bad no fear of delving into the matter, had perceived it very early—that political and even spiritual emanci- pation is neither adequate nor concretely possible with- out the economic emancipation of man. The capitalistic ream of achieving such a freedom on the basis of the division of property among ail, of founding ea kingdom of equal, independent citizen-owners—this dream has disappeared. And then socialism came forward as @ lawful continnator of the emancipation tendencies of the revolution: it set itself the task of organizing col- lective ownership for the complete emancipation of man, Art 1g easily carried away by ideas of freedom be- cause no ene values freedom to such an extent as does the artist. The glorification of freedom, often full of enthusiasm, led to the creation of great works. But the artists have seldom expounded the idea of the necessity of instituting the collective human property as the sole basis upon which it is possible to erect the structure of freedom. The novels of Bellamy and even of Morrig and several of the last works of the unique and gifted Veit, it seems to mo, leave the reader cold, Thy are too much social treatise and too little art work; but the worst is that the whole stormy striving after freedom can be colled off with the question asked by Zarathustra: “You tell me I am free, free, , , But for what ste you free, my brother?” Freedom cannot be an end in itself. As such, it merely appears to the slave, If the goal of socialism is freedom, then what is the goal of freedom? Hn- thusiasm over “empty freedom,” which has lately ac- quired new strength and, in addition, has been spoiled by an unpalatable mysticism, is the enthusiasm of the helot and the cripple, the person who is smothered and Who therefore thinks that air, the right to breathe, fs an end in itself, One cannot deny the great signi- ficance of the art of the love of freedoni, agitating and calling to revolution, But it is not very enduring, The idea of pure freedom Is one-sided and perhaps that is why the people who are unable to give it a content, | ‘The struggle for e@®nomic interests, sanctified by the G | of the entire socialist nore: Other artists have Boing down, always going down. Some day I shall go ' approached it and described it with more understanding jy)» Other longehéremen shouted at him, od and the Four § exchange it for a mystic gas, with which their free- , tin dom is filled, and which tears towards th eclouds, ever | ali remaining empty and light because of this very empti- ,noi ness, try The corrupt and disappointed thirst for freedom eften Th manifests | ttselfinsan unexpected-ferm—it. becomes | wh a thirst tor freeing oneself from one’s ‘social:duties, that | of is; simply a thirst for egotistic: aloofness from the world } thi process, ftom the..struggle ‘for concrete freedom aad | psy its new concrete: content: & t . fin: 24 : The. Third. Stage, ot ‘ORE: profound: and more:lofty is the concept.of | in » gocialism as’the new edllective world born within | the the old individualistic world. The basis of both worlds | be is:‘the socialotharactér of the process of labor?’ But; for |} the the ‘artist, the ‘inner: process*fs’ much more tmportant’4 not here-——the ‘struggle im the’ soulof'man ‘and: of-man kimd:{fin: between ‘the two bases, individualism and ‘collectivism: | cie I personally ‘believe that the collectivistic attitude, the { th: growth of the new'collective soul, carries along with it. | tra not merely # powerful ‘interest for»the artist, the natar- | to alist. investigator, ‘but:also a-powerfal quality of valne, | dis eapable-of inspiring. masterpieces “permeated -with ‘the | ali bightst’-enthusiasm. ‘Unfortunately; the: artists of eur | in¢ Jumping Uy By GEORGE JARRBOE OING down on the ladder Patrick dared to pause. For a split-second stolen from the master. “I am nm | to drop into their midst. He sneaked a look at the |long ropes, cases precariously dangling, “whips” so japtly called, why not nooses, nooses that slowly strang- \led a man, relaxing reluctantly now and then so poor | quality food could be thrust in the decaying mouth. |Big feet up, big feet down, down, sweat stinging like |little mosquitoes, half-uttered protests and murmurs of \¢rapped slaves. Hooks plinked into cargo, .method- jically, like oars of galley-felons.°-The hold of the ship |the bottom of a dark river, filled with tortures and | chains. Bodies,. Big boxes... Boxes:.“ Hoodlum jokes, | Comrades giving’ hand.in ghair clumsy, way.) Lowey | ( smells of putrefying brains. Hell. Dig the hook ft. Case fell out of sling. Patrick naively touched~his right ear, felt a little blood where the halfton weight jshaved him. Had to have a chaw on that. Felt Mke /fushing to the ¢oilet. “Nearly got you, Paddy me bye, We get it sooner or later. Your tufn’li conmre,” fobbled the big-hearted foreman. PrmrnrAmarreaenkre eRaenre e.-rtwros Early in life Paddy took to the docks, Thére wes « mother who required all the little fellow could earn, why hell three times what he could earn, the meager | necessities seemed to make her slide quicker, ghe went _ ! out iike a light, Somehow, doubtless from some naughty fi t ¥ . person, the boy got the idea this was all wrong, He | a