The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 26, 1926, Page 1

The Dally Worker Fights: For the Organization of the Un organized, For a Labor Party. For the 40 Hour Week, Vol. Ill. No. 293. Subsaription Rates: RUSH IR °°"! DOLLAR COLLECTED eo is oP “HE as lig oe Be | + “%o ORKER FUND bi See we Gontributions. Dec. 20.....,.c4..ocscsecasesorassrsvessonnssenss 220.25 Contributions Dec. 24... cscs 106,26 SOMIIOUTIONS DOO: 22. ici.5.0c.s.scssearsnnsrddbaeashiicaaiss 112.00 ea $ 441.51 Balance to be raised to complete $3,000............ 2,558.49 By C, E, RUTHENBERG General Secretary, Workers (Communist) Party. HE DAILY WORKER must have the support of every member of the party in order to overcome a serious emergency during the next few days. The support given the Keep the Daily Worker Fund will be a test of the support The DAILY WORKER is able to depend upon, The DAILY WORKER must raise a total of $5,000 during the first few days of next week in order to meet a bill for a carload of paper, without which The DAILY WORKER cannot appear, and its plant pay- roll. : Of this $5,000 approximately half will be raised thru the regular in- , come of The DAILY WORKER. The balance must come thru the con- tributions to the Keep the Daily Worker Fund. EVERY PARTY MEMBER, EVERY NUCLEUS OF THE PARTY, WHICH HAS FUNDS ON HAND OR CAN RAISE FUNDS DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS IS URGED TO RUSH THESE FUNDS TO THE DAILY W-RKER BY MONDAY AND TUESDAY. Help is needed urgently and quickly in order to overcome the im- mediate crisis. That help can oniy come thru money raised for the Keep the Daily Worker Fund. it can only be secured thru even more energetic and enthusiastic support than The DAILY WORKER has re- ceived during the last few months. * COMPLETE THE $3,000 BALANCE FOR DECEMBER TO OVER- COME THE DAILY WORKER CRISIS! RUSH IN EVERY DOLLAR POSSIBLE TO RAISE FOR THE KEEP THE DAILY WORKER FUND! 8 The Enlarged Executive Committee of the Communist International Points Out Gains of Workers (Communist) Party For the first time in a period of five years the Commu- nist International found it unnecessary to appoint an Amer- ican Commission to deal with a factional struggle in the i rer gone Communist Party.’ ‘The work of the American s was dealt with in the general political resolution Enlarged Executive, together with the comment and recom- mendations in relation to other parties. The section of the resolution dealing with the Workers (Communist) Party, received by cable by The DAILY WORKER, reads as follows: ibaves Workers (Commutist) Party of America, ‘despite enormous difficulties, has made notable progress in its work for the winning of the masses (leading a number of strikes, first attempts in organizing the unorganized, in- creasing its influence in the miners’ union). “The weaknesses of the party to be still registered are insufficient influence among American (native) workers and organizational weaknesses. ‘In different fields~ like the work ‘among Negroes, among women, etc., the work of the party is not yet well organized. Also, the execution of the decision of the last plenum in regard to the creation of a broad left wing in the trade unions has heen lacking. “As against that, the inner consolidation of the party must be established in connection with a considerable abate- ment of factional struggles. This fact provides important prerequisites for the further growth of the influence of the party in the unions and among the masses. “The immediate tasks of the party are as follows: “The party must not only continue its trade union work (getting its members into the unions, building of a left A. a but it must apply all available energy to redouble this work. At present, the party must, first of all, keep in mind the task of putting political life into the newly created party units and the winning back of the sound proletarian /ele- ments lost during reorganization. The whole party must recognize the great importance of The DAILY WORKER. Not owly must the paper be made secure financially, but it must also be put on a higher ideological level.” — o ‘By ‘O'FLAHERTY In Chicago, by mail, $8.00 per year. Outside Chicago, by mail, $6.00 per year, | | CURRENT EVENTS pean follow each other with monotonous regulariy in: every field of endeavor, whether:it be busi- ness or sport. No er were the Doheny-Fall and Hoffman, Druggan, Lake graft scandals disposed of than baseball scandal burst on our ear) appears that games are fixed, just as races and prizefights are fixed, those most closely involved betting safe money on the outcome. The play- ers know that the owners are making money on thelr athletic prowess and precision with bat and glove, Why should they not get theirs? That is the great American question? “ee TILL we are brazenly told that Communism would introduce im- morality Into society, as if there was room for more, The profit system gives the advantage in life to the ac- quisitive type, the John D, Rocke- feller type. Talk about encouraging the inventi pirit, under capitalism! For one inventor who profits on his discoveries there are thousands who wtatve while wealthy numbskulls are coining money on. their inventions, The latest baseball scandal will not hurt the baseball business. This is a od time to pull off a scandal. When ¥ baseball season comes along il f the public will have completely for- gotten all about the scandal, Anyhow, the fans don’t come to inspect pure players; they attend games to enjoy good playing, = * eee ERMANY has not yet won the war. Our recent announcement to this effect was premature, and we hasten to admit error; which is more than the average politician is willing to do. The proof Is here: A French army officer on dyty in Germany shot and wounded two German civilians. He was arrested and indicted. His plea was that the Germans provoked him into pulling the trigger. The French of- ficer was acquitted and the two Ger- mans were found guilty of provoca- tion and sentenced to prison terms, No, the Germans have not yet won the war. INCE well-known Wall Street bank- ers announced, ten Jays ago, tw: | they purchased control of the Victor Talking Machine company, the shares of the concern advanced thirty points on the market,netting the bankers a | profit of , $10,000,000, This is well, above the union scale for ten days’ | idleness, ahd again proves that if you | (Continued om page 8) | Entered @t Second-class matter September 21, 1923, THOMPSON'S REPORT ON PHILIPPINES FORECASTS GEN. WOOD'S RETIREMENT WASHINGTON, Dec. 24.— The Thompson report on the Philip- pines, advising that the islands be taken from military control and placed under civilian rule, was ac- cepted in Washington today as forecasting the retirement of Leon- ard Wood as governor-general in | the near future. Col. Carmi Thompson, who in- vestigated conditions in the islands at the personal direction of Presi- dent Coolidge, did not recommend Wood’s removal, but he did recom- ment the removal of Wood's mili tary aldes and advisers, which was looked upon here as a “roundabout criticism of the whole Wood admin- istration.” U.S. HAND SEEN IN NEW POLICY TOWARDS CHINA Siege of ‘Shanghai by Cantonese Nears (Special to The Daily Worker) PEKING, Dec. 24.—It transpires that the modulation of the British policy towards China which has occurred in he past several weeks has been exe- suted in collaboration with, If not as the result of pressure from, the United States. The changed attitude expresses itself materially in the altering of the customs arrangement to permit the Chinese to take a surtax over and above that decided upon by the Washington convention, Change Customs. The British still maintain that there ig no strong central government in China, They have asged the foreign powers to agree to changed customs regulations that will apply equally to Peking and Canton, The Japanese. | have already declared their unwilling- The British have been forced to this ag the result of the growing power of the Kuomintang, This proposal is un- questionably a concession to the strength of the strong Southern gov- ernment, but Britain at the same time made the same concessions to the Northern generals in order to leave an adequate basis for the continuance ot the internal warfare. Shanghai Siege Near. HANKOW, Dec. 24.—Marshal Sun Chuang Fang is withdrawing his troops rapidly to Shanghai in prepara- tion for the defense of his capital. The Cantonese forces continue to advance against him and the Canton- ese confidently expect Shanghai to fall before the New Year. NEW CHARGE IS LAID AGAINST TEAPOT TWINS Sinclair and Fall Held for Conspiracy (Special to The Daily Worker) WASHINGTON, Dec, 24.—Federal justice handed out a rather grim Christmas present to Albert B. Fall and Harry F. Sinclair today when it decided the former cabinet official and the oil millionaire must stand trial ‘or alleged conspiracy to defraud the sovernment of valuable oil lands, , The last Fall-Sinclair barrier to acing a jury was swept away this norning by Justice Jennings Bailey, sitting in the criminal branch of the District of Columbia supreme court, who denied a motion to quash the in- dictment, entered on the plea that the two men had been “singled out tor isolated persecution,” _ Trial February 2, Trial was set for February 2. Immediately following Bailey’s de- cision, Fall and Sinclar were brought forward and arraigned, ‘ “Not guilty,” said the former secre- tary of the interior, “Not guilty,” echoed Sinclair, Fall and Sinclair stand charged with conspiracy to defraud the government in the leasing of the Teapot Dome Reserve in Wyoming. The govern- ment contends, as in the Fall-Doheny case, that the ex-secretary of the in- terior was without authority to lease the reserve, and in addition govern- ment counsel will attempt to prove that $230,000 in Liberty bonds which figured in, subsequent ofl sales wore traced to; Fall's bank account in El Paso. 4 » 5 --—__, We will.send sample coples of The DAILY WORKER to your friende~ fend us name and address, 4 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, GER Rae Re a Reet a a at ti EE ati ok ene eee er een Pelee he Post Office at Chicage, od BROPHY BACKS LABOR’S RIGHT TO THE STRIKE Mine Leader Debates in Hartford, Conn. (Special tol The Daily Worker) HARTFORD, Conn., Dec. 24—La- bor’s right to strike was debated be- fore the Hartford Get-Together Club with John Brophy, president of Dis- trict No, 2, ied Mine Workers, tak- | ing the affirmative against Walter Gor. don Merritt, er counsel for the | coal operators and now lecturing for | the League for Industrial Rights. The latter organization publishes Law and Labor and stahds with employers for legal limitations on labor organiza- tions, | Merritt referred particularly to the decision of the United States supreme court in the Dorchy case, where even the two justices usually termed “lib- eral” — Holmes and Brandeis — con- curred in the “distinction made on “permissible purpose” in strikes. The court ruled that August Dorchy, vice- president of the Kansas District Union of Miners, conducted an unpermissible strike under the Industrial Court Law. Are Illegal. Dorchy was later denied a rehearing when he pleaded that the Industrial Court Law did not apply to coal mines and must now serve a year’s impris- onment. Merritt used the case to show that legal limitation on the right to strike does exist. He mentioned strikes which he declared were also scarcely for “permissible” purposes, attempting to show that labor abuses the strike weapon. Organized labor strikes for self- preservation, Brophy argued. If the right to strike is denied, workers b» come as serfs under degrading con- ditions and low pay. Society would have to intervéme and assume the re- sponsibility evaded by employers if the strike weapon were taken from labor, he indicated. Even on public utilities and ia government service, the right to aty should not be lim- ited by’ law,. BFUphy urged. Don'tsGive Up Right. He said that in such work and even where the corporation had legally limited funds; when strikes occurred a way was found to improve the con- ditions of thesworkers. Under public ownership or nationalization of in- dustries, the Tight to strike should hardly be necessary, but should not ve surrendered; he argued, Placing limitations on labor's right to strike tls workers to the job, Brophy stated. Such action does vio- lence to the whole scheme of constitu- tional civil rights and brings compul- sory labor. A new theory of govern- ment, other than the constitutional democracy wnder which the United States is supposed to be governed, would have to be given for such action. Brophy, answering the usual charges that strikes inconvenience consumers, asked whether mismanagement of in- dustry did not also. He referred par- ticularly to the bituminous coa| in- dustry which he has studied while a working miner twenty years and a union official later. > Capital Profits. “Capital exacts its return from the consumer,” said Brophy, “and in over- developed industries like the soft coal, the drain on the consumer 1s consid- erable.” He asserted that strikes in his familidr industry had too often been caused by employers attempting to deny by force and with private armies the right of workers to organ- ize and bargain collectively. The operators were:then to blame for in- convenience and the cost to the con- sumer, He claimed that his opponent and some of his questioners took the attitude that a strike was a contest for power between equals and pointed out the fallacies of that promise. Christmas Is Pagan Holiday, Says G. B. S. LONDON, Dac, 24.—George Bernard Shaw has been misunderstood. The statement made by the sage of the Adelphi that “Christmas is a nul- sance” has aroused a storm of protest and Shaw has slipped away to an un- disclosed destination in the west of England, but before he went he ex- plained his anti-Christmas statement. Shaw stands on his condemnation of the modern Christmas, but declares he has been misunderstood, for his great complaint is not with Christmas, but with the fact that the Christmas spirit does not spread over the whole year. “I don’t hate the Christmas spirit,” said Shaw, “but I’ think it should spread over the whole year, “There may \be some families who are by naturelin such an entirely mis- erable condition that require to be made merryvat Christmas. | do not. “Christmasitas become to be merely ® pagan ‘a! YS lilinols, under the Act of Marchi 8, 1879. RRER. Published Dally except Sund PUBLISHING ¢ )., 1118 W. 290 1926 «ge A Fighting Union for the Workers or a Fake Union for the Bosses? AVING declared that the regularly elected officials of the New York voint Board of the International Ladies’ Gar- ment Workers’ Union must resign and allow their positions to be filled by appointees of the Sigman machine, to which proceeding the executive council of the American Federation of Labor has given official sanction, right wing officialdom now demands-that the rank and file register in its offices in order to obtain permission to work. This is an idle threat. The Sigman machine has no right and no power to pre- vent members of the union working in shops that have agreed to the union terms, and the New York Joint Board, certain of the support of the membership which a year and a half ago defeated the agents of the Sigman machine and the bosses, has acted within its rights in recommending that the demand of the right wing officialdom be disregarded. In order to put itself in as favorable a light as possible before the membership the right wing has agreed to remit all back dues and assessments to those members who register. This attempt to bribe thousands of needle trades workers is proof of the desperate position in which the right wing finds itself. It has on its hands, just as it had in the struggle led by the rank and file Committee of Action early in 1925, a re- volt against its strikebreaking tactics by the great majority of the New York membership. 3 The tactics of the right wing would long ago have split the union if the Communists and the left wing were not sole- ly interested in preserving unity and building the union into by THE DAILY WORKER fashington Bivd., Chicago, i, a more powerful organization of garment workers from which ail agents of the bosses have been driven. A fighting union of and for workers or a fake union for the bosses—this is the issue whole labor movement. in the I. L. G. W. and in the TO FIGHT FARE ‘REGISTRATION IN Hl. Y. UNION Cloakmakers Will Not Permit Sigman Ruse - (Special to The Dalty Worker) NEW YORK, Dec. 24—The progres- sive leaders of the joint board of the Cloakmakers’ Union have decided to ask the membership of the union to ignore the registration being taken by he International officers of the New ‘ork membership of the union. They declare that this registration has as te sole purpose the reorganization of the New York union out of the hands of the present leadership which was slected regularly. Illegal Action. The appointment by the internation- al of an entirely new set of officers for both the strike and the joint board, the progressives declare, is an illegal step which they will oppose by appeal- Ing to the members who elected them. Morris Sigman and his aids in the in- ternational have told the New York members that registration with the international wilj offer them the op- portuntty of avoiding back payment of dues. The international asks only for a fee of 50 cents from members in arrears. This is shown up by the joint board as bribe on the membership and is one more indication of the lack of sup- port that the international receives from the members. The joint board also charges that the Sigmanites have an arrangement with the bosses re- garding employment that makes the registration a veritable black-list sys- tem, Appeal to Members, ‘The joint board has appealed tothe nembership to make the final decision n the struggle and at several large mass meetings has received over- whelming mandates to carry on against the intrigues and maneuvers of the right wingers, who a up. ported by the “sociall: needle trades leaders, the trade union bureaucracy and the bosses. One of such meetings, in Madison Square Garden, was attend- ed by 18,000 members. U. S. Stops Shipment of Planes to Mexico WASHINGTON, Dec, 24.—A request by the Mexican government for per- mission to take a shipment of air- planes from California into Mexico has been denied by the state department, it was learned here today. The planes were purchased by the Calles government from the Douglas company in California, and presum- ably were to be used in Mexico's army, The state department considered that airplanes came within the arms embargo to Mexica and so denied the request, There is no present {nten- tion of lifting the@mbargo on arms to Mexico, it waw Waid at the depart- ment nen ‘ » EXTRA SESSION OF CONGRESS IS ALMOST CERTAIN Members Go. Home for ~--Nervous Vacation - (Special to The Daily Worker) WASHINGTON, Deo, 24.—Congress started home today to spend a vaca- tion in a nervously fearful mood and with most,members convinced tat a special session cannot be avoided after March 4th next. Almost a third of the present session is gone and nothing concrete has been accomplished except the passage \of three appropriation bills. For the rest of the time congress has occupied it- self with piling up the most staggering army of future fighting that any con- gress, lame duck or otherwise, ever faced, Cannonading January 3, The cannonading will begin on Jan. 3rd, when congress reassembles for the democrats are hopeful that it will be so fierce that circumstances will compel President Coolidge to call the new seventieth congress into session immediately in order to transact nec- essary business. The seventieth con- gress will be more anti-administration than the dying one, with the insur- gents and independents holding the margin of control, Most of the bombardment will cen- ter in the senate, A Aozen major tn- vestigations are in the cards, ranging in scope from the bribery charges against Senator Arthur R, Gould (R.) of Maine, to the ability of huge cor- porations to escape federal taxation by issuing stock dividends; from the alleged sale of federal offices in Southern states, to the activities of the alleged bread trust; from the handling of alien property to the real condition of the American navy, Smith Question. In addition to these, the senate is (Continued on page 2) This Issue Consists of Twe Sections. SECTION ONE. Price 5 Cente IHUSE STEAL BY RIGHT WINGERS OF N.Y. UNION Graft Scandal Revealed in I. E. B. W. (Special to The Daily Worker) NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 24.—Fel- lowing the defeat of Philip Zausner for secretary of the New York Die trict Council of Painters as a resuit” of charges of wholesale graft, a new scandal of huge proportions has heen revealed in the New York fo- cal union of the International Broth- erhood of Electrical Workers. Gon- Servative union officials are alarmed at the corroboration of left wing charges. Five hundred affidavits charging with the utmost detail that the elec- trical contracting industry in this ¢ doing an annual business of $350,000,000, is honeycombed with sraft, and that seventeen officers and members of the local union have been guilty of bribery, corruption and conspiracy to prevent workers from entering the union, were filed in the Supreme court yesterday by H, H. Broach, vice president of the Inter national Electrical Workers’ Union.” This was the reply of the national {"ion to an attempt by the local an- fon to restrain the parent body from removing the accused men, Accuse Seventeen Officers, The seventeen local union men cited |for trial before the International Union of Electrical Workers in Wash- ington were President Richard L. O'Hara, Financial Secretary Charles J. Reed, Recording Secretary John Good- | body, Martin Mullarkey, Henry Lutz, Henry Imhof and Joseph Morrison, executive board members; Florance Stanton, first assistant financial seere tary; Michael J. Stanton, member of the trade board; Edward Power, trus- tee; William Donelly, Frank &. O'Reilly, Peter Gilroy and William O'Toole, business agents, and George Davis, Charles Sissler and William Grieshaber, members of the examining board, Detailed Charges.\ _ am .The' affidavits Itterally bristle with detath They give names, dates, amounts and places where the seven- teen men are said to have accepted graft, Here ate some of the charges sworn to in the affidavits: 1. Union officers permitted electrical contractors to operate what were known as “two-way shops,” employ- ing crews of union and non-union men at the same time. 2. Men who knew nothing of electri- cal work were inducted into the unton on the order of business agents. One such new member, inexperienced in \the craft, was wanted in the union by a business agent “because we've got to have sluggers in case the other fac- tion starts something.” Money on Every Corner, 3. The chairman of the board which had to examine new applicants said he learned so much about the work- (Continued on page 2) OIL STOCK GOES T0 $2,000 A SHARE; THE HIGHEST IN HISTORY NEW YORK, Dec. 24.—For the first time in the history of the New York stock exchange, transactions were made today at $2,000 for a Share of stock. The record breaker was Texas @ Pacific Land Trust, which jumped 200 points to $2,000 a share, the highest price ever paid for a share of stock on the excha Earlier in the year the Land Trust certifi- cates sold at $510 and prior to their epectacular advance Atlantic Refin- ing held the record—$1,575 a . The Land Trust holds valuable oi! lands in the Texas Panhandie dis- trict, Money Talks and Jugglers of Stock in Phonograph Company Hear Gladly NEW YORK.— Money talks. At least so think the bankers who have bought up stock in the Victor Talking Machine Co, They purchased a ma- Jority of the stock at $115 a share. Or rather, they agreed to pay that price, while the 245,000 shares which they had contracted to buy lay locked up in safe deposit boxes in a Camden, New Jersey, bank. On the strength of their having secured a control iu the company, the shares began to ad- vance rapidly on the curb market. Be- fore they had paid for the shares they bought, they find themselves with a paper profit of $10,000,000. Money talks—even on phonograph records, Santa Wishes Insull Very Merry Christmas Samuel Insult is among those pres- ent when Santa Claus drops down the chimney or craw)s in thru the elegtric meter. an The report of the year shows increase of 13 per cent in the he eight weeks of life that remains to it. The republicans are fearful and | amount of current distributed by the Commonwealth Edison Co. And to— add to the Yuletide galety, it is : that consumers on an average are us: ; ing 517 kilowatt hours instead of last year. A part of this extra sumption is attributed to the | study, on the part of consumers (heir gas and olectricity bills, —