The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 7, 1927, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING OO. 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (im Chicago only): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $2.50 three months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ml J. LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F, DUNNE BERT MILLER .. Entered as second-class mai] Septem cago, Ill, under the Ep» 290 ‘Advertising rates on application, . Wages and Prosperity It is a beneficient circle in which the * ‘ample wage” moves when increased productivity w sumption, but which must fall t not grow commensurately and production does not increase in still higher ratio . it is coming to bé realized more and more clearly that both aie man who employs an ml. Phone Monroe 4712 By mail (outside of Chicago): $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.00 three months | — $$$ rr .. Editors ..Business Manager oY ber 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi act of March 3, 1879. rakes possible an increased con- o a lower level if production does may not rise to higher circles if ARTICLE XI. By WILLIAM F, DUNNE. E have seen how the socialist party bureaucracy has become part of the united front against genuine trade unionism and parrots the ery of the official union leader- ship that “trade unionism” must be preserved from the very same sec- tions of the trade union movement which have waged all the militant and successful struggles in 1926, It is well to inquire here as to what is meant when the accusation is made by labor officialdom that their critics and opponents in the labor movement are trying to “destroy trade union- ism.” O they actually believe that the left wing and the Communist workers are trying to wipe out the trade unions and leave the working class unorganized? Of course they do not, but the accu- d the man who devotes his skill to another for hire are partners in a joint enterprise. Thus the New York Times comments editorially on the pollyan- naism dispensed by Vice-President Woll of the American Federation of Labor and Secretary of Labor Davis relative to the “prosperity and contentment” of the American working class. The average weekly earnings of workers in New York state fac- 3 for 1925 age weekly earning: ).41. tories were The ave Illinois were s in all industries in the state of The average wage rate per hour for laborers in iron and steel industries for 1924 (no substan since that time) was in the varic 44 cents, 4814 cents, 35 cents, 50 The average mothly earnings room and board—were $48.55. The above wage scales are for tial increases have been granted us departments 42 cents, 40 cents, cents and 39 cents. s of farm hands in 1925—without men. Wages of women are on the average a LITTLE OVER ONE-HALF those of men. : The aboye examples are typical—they include two great in- dustrial states—New York and Illinois. They include such groups as the laborers in iron and steel who are the great majority of the workers employed in this industry. Farm laborers alone make up a group of over 4,000,000 worker: The “increased productivity” has been. established, but the “ample wage”—the subject of so much impessioned writing in the capitalist and official labor press—has not been established. It is a siren song sung by reactionary labor officials, capitalist | party jobholders and the capital ist press. It has as its purpuse deception of the working masses, it is hoped that they will be induced to accept.a general estimate of prosperity in place of wages. One of the most important tasks of the workers’ press is to ex pose the gigantic hoax which is being built up around the central slogan of “high wages and increased productivity.” Tt would be well for Ameri of British and German imperialis: countries and the labor agents built up the same theories and can workers_to study the history m. These too, were once high wage of their respective imperialisms concocted the same conspiracies against the working class that we see in America today. The Pot Calls the Kettle Black in Washington The state department, under press criticism, has changed its } The change is interesting as the pressure of congressional and policy in the Nicaraguan situation. showing the futility of the solemn farce that is being played in Washington which can be entitled, “Criticizing the Coolidge Administration,” or “The Pot Calling the Kettle Black.” The change in policy consists in abandoning the tactic of denial that an arbitrary use of military force has been authorized ‘in Nicaragua to a tactic of asserting that what has been done was ab- solutely all right and had to*be done. A Washington dispatch, dated Jan. 4, says: Stiffening of the American policy in Nicaragua was fore- shadowed today by admission on the part of President Coolidge and Secretary of State Kellogg that protection of the proposed canal route thru Nicaragua w prompting continued American The president also pointed WHICH GAVE THE UNITE. as one of the important factors intervention im that country. ... out that THE SAME TREATY D STATES A CANAL ROUTE GIVES THIS COUNTRY A 99-YEAR RENEWABLE LEASE FOR A NAVAL BASE on the Gulf of Fonseca, one of the finest harbors in Central American waters. The treaty which ratified the purchase of a canal route (for $3,000,000) and the lease of a ha SON ADMINISTRATION. The democrat opposition is no rbor, WAS MADE BY THE WIL- w placed in the position of repudiat- ing its revered deceased leader, whose shade is still one of its big- gest assets, or of tempering its criticism of the Coolidge administra- tion. Now is the time, when the h ypocrisy of the opposition and the undisguised arrogance of the administration party is manifest, for the labor movement to put shary ly before the whole world, by de- manding the immediate withdrawal of gunboats and marines from Nicaragua, and branding both de pmocrat and republican parties as instruments of Wall Street, its unalterable opposition to the whole imperialist policy. Publishers Anxious to Get in on Profit by Advertising Space “America will never again witness business depression because of a shortage of anything,” said Col. Robert R. McCormick, addressing the Tribune's convention of its advertis- ing department at the Drake Hotel. The colonel was not, however, re ferring to the probable absence of any want among the workers, but was expressing the hope that capitalist newspapers would get their share of profits thru expenditures for adver- tising. The gala days of the advertising fraternity were back when the gov- ernment was levying an excess profit tax of 25 per cent. Then the solicitor for an advertising agency could call on a client and p TP nse mathe matically that he buy advertis- vida oe ing for 75 cents on the dollar, since the dollar he spent would reduce net profit just so much, when otherwise 25 cents of the dollar would go to the government. It was considered in per- fectly good form, patriotically speak- ing, thus to gip the government out of its two bits. With revision of the tax schedule, advertising has been harder to get. It is again on a cash and carry basis. Hence the colonel’s anxiety to divert a goodly share of the profits of busi- ness into the newspaper till. New British Engine May Electrify Roads LONDON.—A new engine, the in- vention of Capt. William Burtnall, utilizing a voltage of only 200 to 260 and thus doing away wtih the dan- ger from live rails, may revolution- ize transportation in England and lead to the electrification of the entire railroad system im this counisy, sation is made in the above terms with the idea in mind that trade unionists and workers generally will so understand it, They have in mind, when they make the accusation, that there is a clash of policies in the trade union move- ment—that a section of the organized working class, either more exploited than supporters of officialdom, more class conscious, or both, tries to guide the unions into the path of POLITICAL struggle based on their economic demands, while the more privileged group of trade union mem- bers led by the labor bureaucracy strive to keep the unions DIVORCED FROM POLITICAL ACTION and con- fine them to the old program of “pure and simple” trade unionism as Daniel De Leon characterized it, or still worse—make them outright efficiency organs of capitalist production, As a matter of fact there is no difference between the two except that the former takes a little longer to render the unions entirely helpless. ILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING, the renegade socialist (he will now find plenty of his former colleagues |in the same camp) who early saw the trend of the official trade union policy and has become the semi-official spokesman of A. F. of L. officialdom, says in his book, “American Labor and American Democraty,” favorably re- viewed ‘in all the official labor sheets: The American labor movement al- ways has been and a loubtless will remain, pepsi Maori in character, E have seen the pronouncements of President Green of the A, F, of L. and other official spokesmen rela- tive to the role of trade unions as production organs in close connection with management and we have like- wise seen that the New York Times and other mouthpieces of capitalism share the same opinion, All of these forces are united against the section of the organized workers and of the unorganized, as in Passaic, who are “disturbing” the “peaceful” development of American imperialism, ae dogma that strikes are unne- cessary and “wasteful” has been put forward and an attempt clearly is made, as in the New York needle trades, to show that, workers, by ac- cepting the principle of slightly high- jer pay for much more,work, can bet- jter their conditions substantially | WITHOUT strikes, The struggle in the labor movement now between right and left is a strug- gle for the right toStrike, But it is something more than that—it is also a new kind of a struggle, a_struggle for the abolition of: trade unions as weapons of the working class which is being conducted INSIDE of the union by agents Of “the capitalists. The left wing workers fight to STAY in the unions and forge them into real weapons of all the workers, r is noticeable. that only where |+ highly exploited workers revolt, like in the textile industry recently, or only in militant strikes with some political consciousness, like those of the furriers and cloakmakers, does the capitalist class conduct a direct of- fensive and heap columns of abuse upon them in its press, Wage demands of large and decisive groups of workers, as in the railroad industry, do not evoke the open hatred and abuse, when the capitalist class knows that they will be compromised thru the compulsory arbitration ma- chinery, as do relatively small and un- important strikes in less decisive in- dustries. NINTERRUPTED. production” is the slogan of American imperial- ism and it is echoed by the trade union bureaucracy, The present labor leadership, as hag been stated in the introduction to these articles, has no policy beyond that of securing a small |share of the enormpus wealth pro- duced for the workers by means o! “cooperation” agreements providing for increases in output per worker— piece work on a wholesale scale for the working class, When the inevi- table period of crisis comes, the labor leadership is helpless, Still worse, as it Has done in the past, it becomes the open ally of the suppressive ma- chinery of the capitalist government. Its fight on the movement for the formation of a labor party can be explained by no other reason than its fear that it may become an effec- tive weapon of the masses in periods of depression, HE official policy of the American Federation of Labor, based on the present temporary prosperity, can be shown easily to be similar to the view- point of the most representative spokesmen of imperialism. For in- stance, Charles E. Mitchell, president of the National City Bank of New York, the bank to whose service more zunboats and marines have been de- voted than to any other American financial institution, in an interview devoted to prospects for 1927, said: Increasing powers of production are the basis of prosperity. The problem of maintaining this pros- perity will not be solved by indis- criminate wage increases which ne- cessitate price increases, interfere with distribution and threaten a slow-down of industry. ONLY WHEN WAGE ADVANCES ARE ACCOMPANIED BY CORRESPOND- ING INCREASES IN PRODUC- TION ARE THEY COMPATIBLE WITH ENDURING PROSPERITY. (Emphasis mirt.) OMPARE this statement by one of America’s leading imperialists with a statement made for the same purpose (a forecast of prospects for 1927) by the head of the trade union movement: MANY OF OUR INDUSTRIES HAVE MADE REAL PROGRESS IN DEVELOPING PRODUCTION POLICIES AND METHODS THAT SUSTAIN PROSPERITY... THE WAGE INCREASES FOR THE CONDUCTORS AND TRAINMEN ON EASTERN ROADS AND THE SHOPMEN ON THE BALTIMORE AND OHIO AND THE CANADIAN NATIONAL railroad may reason- ably be regarded as indicative of what is to be expected in 1927. (Emphasis mine.) a this statement by President Green which was given to the The New Drive on Militant Trade Unionism sreviously quoted, from his editorial n the December number of the Fed- ; erationist: The workers’ demands UNDER COOPERATION HAVE BEEN RE- STRAINED by better understanding of the facts of production, (Em- phasis mine.) It is hardly necessary to point out that there is no essential difference between these statements—one by an open and: avowed imperialist, head of a bank whose depredations in Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua aré notorious, the other by the head of the American labor movement, OR is this an accidental occur- rence, The policy of worker- employer cooperation, of a definite in- crease in the amount of work for an increase in wages, is the policy of both American imperialism and the trade union bureaucracy. Those ele- ments of the working class that have not been whipped or bribed into line must be crushed, This is what the struggle in the trade unions centers around, The union of capitalists, trade union officialdom and socialist party bureau- cracy in this struggle is explained by the facts of imperialism and their ef- fects upon the working class. ENIN, in his “Imperialism,” after mentioning the enormous’ super- profits from foreign investments in the pre-war imperialist period (Amer- ican imperialism now has $13,000,000,- 000 invested abroad) shows the use to which a portion of them are put: It is easy to perceive, that from such a large additional profit (for it is received in addition to the pro- fit which the capitalists extract from “their own’ country) labor leaders and the upper strata of the workers’ aristocracy CAN BE BRIBED. So the capitalists of the “progressive” countries bribe them by a thousand means, direct and in- direct, open and secret. (Emphasis in the translation.) Some details of the manner in which the trade. union officialdom shares in the loot of.American imper- ialism, and how their status. has be- come that of the lower. and, central section of the middle class, will make clear the -wide gap which separates them from the workers upon,whom, in company with the bosses, and the so- ialist bureaucracy, they are, making var in the trade unions,.. , (To be concluded.) , press we can add another statement, The Notorious Mr. Frank L. Smith NE philosopher who plastered a scientific label on his meanderings proved to his own satisfaction that chance is only the subterfuge of the mentally lazy. If you throw a ball in a certain direction in exactly the same way any time the ball will hit exactly the same spot. So said the philos- opher, The truth of this observation is so obvious that it would take a hardy wight to take issue with it. while thinking of the strange case of Mr. Frank L. Smith, one is inclined to drop a few doubts in his vicinity to watch what happens to them. Frank L, Smith was elected to the United States senate by as typical an aggregation of voters as could be located in America. Being inhabitants of Illinois they could not be otherwise, since Illinois is the bridge between alien New York and the great open spaces where those who could not more most Illinoisians are members who live in the industrial centers. The latter are likely to be catholics, Heavi- ly populated sections produce people who people in organizational central- ization. The Illinois methodists favor the Volstead law. The catholics do not. Frank L. Smith, who was elected by the dry methodists, owes his polit- ical existence to a town made famous by the discoverer of a cure for chronic inebriation. Smith does not believe in dry laws but he inscribes the pic- ture of a camel on his political ban- ner. And he gets elected. What has this man Smith done that such a punishment as ejection from the senate should be visited on him? Here is where chance comes in if it belongs anywhere. Smith’s campaign kitty was fed to the extent of approximately $200,000 by a few public utility barons, chief among them being Samuel Insull, as public spirited and civic-hearted ‘a citizen as ever purchased a politician, This is not the first time that Sam did a little thing like this, but this is the first time that Sam’s beneficiary was caught. As tor Sam, well, his stocks go up on the market, his wife returns to the stage and the people lift the left eyebrow a little and say nothing. But poor Smith! Why, his weak chin takes on another wrinkle and his tongue develops callouses cursing human hypocrisy. Smith was caught getting supported ‘by a wicked public utility man, But it is not the wickedness of the utility man that is cursed by the indignant minority of citizens. It is the money of the utility man that is abused. Why? Simply because the money helped Smith into the senate and the group of political gangsters that Smith is associated! with have aime and objects that ate not conducive to the well being other political ae { And yet, tolerate New York moved to. Further- | of the methodist church, except those | gangsters who arg in the habit of hanging some religious mottos over the doors off their political bawdy houses and getting away with it. Smith represents an element that lives by polities and to a certain ex- tent, like the mythical Robin Hood, rob the rich and give to the poor gangsters. Smith’s opponents in the finance-capital world would rather have a representative who would take orders for a fixed stipend. But ap- parently Smith is of ‘the adventurous type that prefers to take a chance on making an uncertain amount rather than be sure of a fixed sum. Big business does not want Smith, not because he is a Tadical, but be- cause he is a political burglar. Smith is for the capitalist system, and if Illi- nois big business had to choose be- OBERT P. BRINDBLL, New York “labor leader,” is dead, He leaves a fortune estimated at close to $1,000,- 000, a private house in New York City, a country estate at Schroon Lake, an office building, and some other real estate. Mr, Brindell amassed this for- tune by selling “strike insurance,” re- ceiving as high as $32,000 at a time as a fee from building contractors, During the LockwWood committee's investigations into’ the New York housing situation, scofes of employers testified to paying Brihdell at his St. Marks Place offices in!“New York City. He kept them waiting in an anteroom it is reported, and be the payments one by one. As head of the New. York Building Trades Council he was reputed to be the highest paid labor executive in the United States. The fact that this eurupt scoundrel was accepted by the highest circles of the labor bureaucracy,is an acknow- ledgement of the fact,éhat within the ranks of the Americap.Federation of Labor, there is a definite group which in one way or another, has sold itself to the employing class, The price of this betrayal may not always be the same, It may assume various forms. Its fee may run all the way from $32,000 in cold cash or a soft political berth to various smaller favors grant- ed in devious ways hidden from the public. But payments they remain, nevertheless, payments for services rendered, payments for “strike insur- ance,” whether it be insurance thru the acceptance of a governor's com- mission, a Watson-Parker bill, a me- diation board, or a secret agreement. Is there any wonder, that Brindell moved in the most influential circles of the A, F, of L, that he hobnobbed with Woll, Lewis, Mc’ on and their ilk? ‘Are they not losely bound together by the blac! ds of Brin- dellism? tween Smith and J. Louis Engdahl, they would choose Smith. But they don’t have to make such a choice just now. Therefore they hop on Smith like a bunch of angry virgins and as- sume defensive postures. They act as if this man Smith was like a repub- lican turned loose in an Alabama village. They declare that the honor of Illinois is at stake to the extent of $200,000 worth of purchased ballots, In all probability Smitn will return from the senate chamber like one of “Kid” Weil’s checks bouncing back from a bank. Because he was un- lucky? No. The philosopher was right. There is no such thing as chance, Smith does not happen to rep- resent the big lads who run things just now, even tho they do not al- ways control the votes. It is much Robert P. Brindell Is Dead But this orgy of corruption has sud- denly been called to a halt. Its ad- vance has been boldly challenged. The left wing has demanded that the trade unions shall become what they were intended to be, the fighting or- gans of the workers. The left wing has demanded that the trade unions take up the struggle against the em- ployers, for the demands of the work- ers, that the unorganized workers be organized. The left wing, led by the Communists, has put its policy into action and has waged three success- ful strikes, in which marked gains have been won for the workers—the restoration of the wage cut and the right to organize in Passaic and the 40-hour week in New York. The em- ployers are frantic, not less so than the so-called “labor leaders” who see their temporary paradise melting away and soft berths disappearing. A united front is formed, this time against the element in the union, which threatens the profits of the bosses and the security of the Brin- dells, the Wolls, the Lewises, the Mc- Mahons, the Sigmans and Becker- mans, War is declared—to the finish. But this black united front will not succeed, The workers ~are deter- mined that Brindellism in whatever form it appears shall be wiped out of the American labor movement. They have determined that it shall indeed be a war to a finish—against corrup- tion, against class collaboration, against the united front of the bosses and the Brindells, In the ranks of labor there 1s arising a united front of the rank and file for honest trade unionism in the interests of the work- ers, And the rank and file will keep up the fight until it secures control of the trade unions and Brindellism is safely buried alongsi iJ its noto- rious representative. easier to purchase Wastington than to entice the populati southern Illinois on toa band |, We have often heard it said that big business controls or dominates the republican party, but as @ matter of fact. finance- capital feels more at home with George Brennan in Illinois and with Al. Smith in. New York than with Len Small, who robbed this. state of one million dollars, or with .Senator-elect Vare of Philadelphia who spent al- most as much getting elected. There is nothing left to.say except that the probable ejection of Smith from the senate because he received $200,000,in election donations from Sam Insull, will be one of the choicest pieces of hypocrisy ever pulled off in this country. All congressmen and senators are servants of the capital- ists. They owe their political exist- ence to their ability to serve the sys- tem. As“long as they are not caught in some indiscretion that will not give their group enemies a chance to arouse the indignation of the bush- whacking voter, they can wear the cloak of political virtue with im- punity. ‘ We are in favor of Smith's ejection from the senate. In fact we cannot think of anybody in either house who would not serve a better purpose kill- ing boll weevils in Texas. But we must be content with what we can get. A senator walking home in the wee small hours.of the morning with- out the price of a taxi ride is a sight tor the gods. Let's have more of them, Why Not Become a Worker Correspondent? SUBSCRIBE TO The American Worker Correspondent 1113 W.. Washington Blvd. Chicago, III. Only 50 Cents a Year. VETERAN SAYS CROOKED BASEBALL BEGAN WITH FIRST GAME IN 1876 CLEVELAND, Jan. Jan. 5.—"If Judge Landis really wants to clean up baseball, let him send for me, I'll give him the details of how Louis- ville threw a batch of games in the National League, the first year the circuit was formed, 1876.” — This was the information offered here today by George Strief, 70, federal court baliff, and star of the big league baseball 50 years ago. “Jim Deviin, pitcher, George Hall, fielder; Craber, catchér, and Nichols, third baseman, got together and threw a number of games so that Louisville Jost the pennant,” Strief eoslarnss', (Copyright, 1926, by Upton Sinclair.) Bunny went home to his father, “Dad, just what was it made you get rid of Ben Skutt?” “Why, I found he’d been taking commissions from the other fellow. He’d been up to other rascalities, too.” “Just what?” Dad laughed. ‘He had a scheme that was a wonder. You know, down there at Prospect Hill people were in a crazy hurry to drill; the owner of the next lot was getting his well down first, and draining all your’ ofl away. Ben and another feller would find a bunch of lot owners jist on the point of making a good lease, and Ben would have his pal give him a quit-claim deed to one of those lots. Ben would record the deed, and, of course, when the title company come to report on the property there was that cloud on the title. The owner would come hustling after Ben Skull in a pantie, what the hell was this? And Ben would look shocked, and tell how he had bought the lot from some feller in good faith, Who was the feller? Well, the feller had dis appeared, and nobody could find him. But there Ben had the lease tied up, and the drilling couldn't start. The lot owner would rage and swear—all the lot owners ih the lease was all tied up together, and nobody could do anything with their property till that one lot had got free. To go into court and clear the title would take six months or so, and meantime the chance to lease would be gone; so the owners would have to chip in and pay Ben five thousand or so—whatever he claimed he had paid to the other man.” “I should think that trick a5 have been tried a lot of times,’* marked Bunny, and Dad pase it would be tried jist long enough for the news to git round, and then some lot owner would stick a gun under Ben’s nose, and settle it that way, What had happened. in -his case was the usual thing, a woman had got hold of him and plucked him clean, and that was why he was doing spy work for the patriotic 50 cieties. Bunry knew that his father didn’t owe anything to this slippery ras- cal, and wouldn’t mind hig being ex- posed, provided Bunny’s name was not dragged in. It would be easy to trace the matter down, by looking up Ben’s real estate transactions in the county records; he would have given a quit-claim deed to the lot owners whom he had held up, and if these men were still in the neigh- borhood no doubt they would: tes- tify, or could be made to. Bunny saw Rachel at the university next morning and told her the story, and. gave her a hundred dollar bill to cover the costs of a title search; She passed it on to Joe or Ikey, and two days after Ben was confronted by half a dozen enfuriated citizens, male and female, who did a good deal to shake the jury’s faith in-his testimony as to secret conspiracies in the Workers Party. The jury dis- agreed in the case of all but two men, the leading party directors; these got six years apiece, but the Menzies boys got off, and the party held a celebration, which was de- scribed in the newspapers as an orgy of red revolutionary Teva x. Dad was not so much troubled by the news which Bunny told him, that Dan Irving was on the trail-of Vernon Roscoe in the national cap- ital. There was ound to be gossip about the lease, of course; there was always “soreheads,” trying to make trouble, but everybody would understand it was jist politics, Jt was the biggest “killing” of Dad’s lifetime, and of Verne’s too; they would go ahead and drill the land and get out the oil and nothing else would count. You had to bea sort of hard-shell crab in this oil game; it was too bad Bunny wasn’t | able to grow the necessary shell. © Also, it was too bad that a nice young feller like “the professor” couldn’t find anything better to @o with himself than to go bicker! round Verne’s out-house, There had been a new company formed, to develop this greatest oi? field in America, and Dad was part owner of the stock, and a vice-presi- dent, with another hundred thou- sand a year for directing the devel- opment work. But he wasn’t going to wear himself out with detail, he promised Bunny; he had trained some competent young fellers by now, and all he had to do was di- rect them. It was a wonderful job, and he wag all wrapped up in put- ting it through, working harder than ever, in defiance of his doctors, ~~ (Continued tomorrow.) i) Farmers Will Admit Women, - PEORIA, Ill.—For the first time im history, the Illinois Agricultural As- sociation will admit women to ita program rime {its eleventh annual con+ this city Jan, 26-29, {