The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 17, 1927, Page 6

Page Six THE DRILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Tl. Phone’ Monroe 4718 —$<—$$___. SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (in Chicago only): By mail (outside of Chicago): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year $3.50 six months 50 three months $2.00 three months ———__ vs iio Ae Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Il, pubes xh — .. Editors Business Manager CASE AGE Tee Entered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- cago, Il, under the act of March 3, 1879. a 290 Advertising rates on application Czar Green at St. Petersburg The story from our correspondent at Tampa, Florida, appearing on page one of today’s issue, entirely confirms our repeated declar- ations that the official leadership of the American Federation of | Labor is the tail of Wall Street’s imperialist kite. What does this story show? That the executive council of the A. F. of L., meeting at Tampa, has nothing to say about the attack upon the labor, movement of the two Americans, represented by the] present occupation of Nicaragua by U. S. marines and the threat of war against Mexico, involved in the defense of the privileges of exploitation enjoyed by Wall Street oil companies in that country. The Mexican labor movement is the main prop of the present government of Mexico that is threatened by the Coolidge-Kellogg policy. The Nicaraguan labor movement, one of the most active sec- tions of the Pan-American Federation of Labor, is being crushed by United States armed forces along with the liberal rebels whom it sup- ports. Not a word about all this from the balmy seashore at St. Petersburg where the council is meeting. Instead, President Green speaks at a meeting in Tampa (the stage, as usual, decorated by local captains of industry) following an under-secretary of the state department who told his audiences what wonders the diplomatic service of the U. S. government is do- ing for the extension of trade and commerce. Does Green say any- thing about what wonders the state department is doing in Nica- ragua now? No. He makes no mention of Mexico or Nicaragua. But to the unsuppressed delight of his board of trade, friends sitting on the platform, Green proudly announces that the executive council has decided to expel the left wing and Communist members of the trade unions. He says this in reference to the Furriers’ Union in New York City where 12,000 workers, under the leader- ship of the left wing and the Communists won the forty-hour, five- day week and wage increases after a long and hard-fought battle with the bosses. Is it any wonder the bosses of Tampa smiled proudly when they heard the president of the A. F. of L. say that the leaders of a successful strike are to be expelled from that or- ganization? Such is the position of the A. F. of L. executive: objective sup- port to the Wall Street rape of Nicaragua and the oil thieves in Mexico by failing to rally the decisive force in this country that ean put a stop to both—the labor movement—and breaking down the morale of that movement by the summary expelling from it of successful strike leaders. $28,000 Becomes $288,000,000 That the government may have been beat out of $30,000,000 in iaxes on Ford Motor Co. shares sold in 1919 is of far more interest to Secretary of the Treasury Mellon (himself reputed to be a clever old bird at the game) than the Ford worker whose labor built the hnge fortune that made such a gigantic tax dodge possible. What should open the eyes of the paternalized slave of River Rouge and Highland Park is the fact that a mere $28,000 (some of it in notes) put up in 19¢ the original capitalization of the motor company grew by 1926 into an international concern valued at some $288,000,000. Whence came all this wealth? All the original stockholders retired millionaires many times over in 1919. From 1903 to that year they amassed a fortune that, when sold, is, according to the claims of the government, liable to taxation alone of $52,000,000. They had nothing to do with the business. The wealth of the Ford family is untold. Since 1919 they are the sole owners of the hundreds of millions involved in the com- pany today. There are now 200,000 or more Ford workers. Some of these men have been working for the company since its birth. They are making six dollars a day. The industrial development of the country, the creation of a social need adapted to the period, the expansion of American trade and commerce to all sections of the earth, the financial hegemony of the United States—all of these are the objective contributing fac- iors that made the Ford institution possible. But who made the wealth? The hundreds of thousands of work- ers who have passed, for more of a score of years, thru the heart- breaking and nerve-wrecking machine known as the “Ford system.” The labor of these myriads of toilers, paid for at an extremely low rate considering the terrifie extraction thru speed-up and routine— this alone made possible the $288,000,000 and the millions more in unearned dividends. This is not only the lesson of the phenomenal Ford fortune; it is the lesson of all capitalist fortunes. “World Heading for Sniash”—Leacock; Sees No Way Out; Forgets Communism (Special! to The Daily Worker) OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada, Jan. 16.—In a speech delivered before the big audience that came to the lecture arranged by the Professional Institute, Professor Stephen Leacock, well-known economist and humorist, said that if the problem of distributing wealth was not solved then the world would “blow up.” He pictured quite graphically the “economically unjust world’ in which we are living and declared that in radically criticizing it “we must Go at least that far with the Communist and Socialist.” “We cannot analyze the world and find there is justice in it,” he con- tinued, “and we cannot solve the problem of social injustice by denying it exists. We live in a strange medley of complex forces. The blind forces of the Industrial mcchine are getting beyond our contro! and all the more need exists therefore for the creation of a body of economic thought to grapple with this extraordinary problem.” He also calls for the “creation of a body of economic thought to grapple with this extraordinary problem.” Thus he admits the bankruptcy of all bourgeois econor ics in the face of the problems raised by modern industrial capitalism. But “this body of economic thought” after which Prof. Leacock longs so much has already been created and is used very effectively by the workers in fighting against capitalism. It ig Marxism. Prof, Leacock can- not recognize Marxism, however, because it demands the destruction of the capitalist system. And so he Ie left without any economics at all, None are so blind as those who will not see, 2. THE DAILY WORKER | "MIGHTENING their belts yet anoth- | er notch, the Passaic textile strik }ers have entered their twelfth month {of struggle grimly prepared to battle on against the gaunt spectre of hun- ger and the myriad other weapons ot the millionaire textile bosses until the five remaining mills shall have settled on the basis of Passaic Worsted, Bot- jany Worsted, Garfield Worsted and | Dundee Textile. Strike One Year Old. | JT will be one year January 25 since |< the big textile strike began, preci- pitated by a ten per cent cut in wages {already too low for anything but a |near starvation existence. The strik- jers have forced the bosses to make many concessions since last January, even including the restoration of the wage cut, but nothing short of recog- nition of the union would satisfy these workers who had learned their lesson well in the long months of-the struggle. Two months ago, on No- vember 11, the first break occurred jin the mill owners’ opposition to a |real workers’ union, with Passaic Worsted signing an agreement with the union on the basis of (1) recog- nition of the union; (2) right of col- lective bargaining; (3) closed shop not demanded; (4) arbitration; (5) no discrimination in re-employment. Five weeks later the powerful Bot- any and its subsidiary, the Garfield Worsted, followed the example of the Passaic Worsted after a futile effort to stampede the strikers by announce- ment of the restoration of the wage cut. Five days after the Botany set- tlement, the Dundee Textile followed suit. Ips fighting spirit infused into the mill workers by the left wing lead- ership of the group of class conscious workers who initiated and carried on the struggle in the worst months of the long fight, is still carrying them thru to the completion of a year’s bat- tle and sacrifice. For many month: it was only the militant and left wing elements in the labor movement who | and they have not forgotten this ex- ion of solidarity. When, finally, he American Federation of Labor ame into the field and the workers were organized, with the help of the left wing, into the United Textile Workers’ Union, the striking textile workers still looked to the left wing ‘or leadership and insipration. Company Union vs, Real Union. It is now a grim struggle between the Forstmann-Huffmann company un- ion plan and the workers organized in the United Textile Workers of Ameri- ca, And unless the forces of organiz- ed labor rally again to their support, the strikers, after their gruelling ex- periences during this’ long struggle and particularly dufing‘the last week when the relief stores were almost empty—these strikers who have con- ducted so heroic a struggle, may be- come discouraged, “altho today still possessed of the splebiid determina- tion that has made/them a terror to the open shop foreés ‘and an inspira tion to the entire working class. Bosses Undermining Relief. HEIR fight is made the more diffi- cult by the subtle attacks on relief engineered by the? Forstmann-Huff- mann company and the open shop forces thruout the ¢ountry. As a re- sult of the lies sent broadcast in the daily press that the: big textile strike was all over, relief has suffered great- iy, and the strikefs are now faced with the most criti¢al-of all the diffi- cult situations that have confronted them in their long struggle for the right to organize. The Passaic strik- ers have faced many vicious attacks in their struggle against the power- ful millionaire mill bosses, but noth- ing as deliberately cruel, nothing as directly menacing, nothing so near of success as this cold-blooded effort to cut off relief from the children and families of workers.who have been on trike for eleven months and are now bsolutely destitute, It is only thru | the frantic efforts of Relief Chairman Wagenknecht and the various relief gave support to the brave strikers, |committees working for Passaic that 3 The Farmers’ Section will appear ‘regularly in every Monday morning’s Issue of The DAILY WORKER. Watch for :- the situation has been saved so far. 1 employers But unless organized labor immediate- ly wakes up to the menace confront- ing Passaic, not only will these heroic strikers be thwarted in the fight against the Forstmann-Huffmann com- pany unjpn, but the victories already won for the labor movement will go by the board. Work Resumption Slow. 'HILE four of the original nine struck mills have settled with the union, this does not mean that all the workers of the settled mills have gone back to work. The very effectiveness of the strike makes re-employment on a wholesale scale impossible for weeks to come, The mill machinery is usty and resumption of operations is lecessarily slow. Re-employment is vy groups, just as in the case of mills newly opening, with first the wool sorters, then carders, combers, spin- aers, winders, twisters, beamers, warpers, slashers, drawing-ins, weav- ars, examiners, finishers, dyers,; etc. Little more than a _ thousand have been returned to the mills so far. In the big Botany mills, where normal- ly 4,500 workers are employed, only 400 have been called for so far; 1,200 ire normally employed at the Garfield Worsted, 600 at the Passaic Worsted, 350 at the Dundee Textile, but to date nly 100, 350 and 50 respectively, have been returned. Some 2,000 still have temporary jobs outside the mills. This leaves 9,000 who must be fed by the union and the American labor move- ment. Building the Union, HE workers of the settled mills are not under the delusion that the ‘ight is ended with settlement. Eleven and a half months of education, in which police clubs and prejudiced courts did their share, have trained hem well and they realize that the work of building the union must be carried on inside of the mills. Prob- lems will come up which the union vill have to meet. Already such prob- ems have arisen, because of the na- ural tendency on the part of the mill eo can be registered in Passaic. The “Big Farm” Offers No Solution of Farmer’s Problems By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL. HE big farm, where every bit of work possible is done by machin- ery, is offered as one of the solu- tions of the farm problem. The parallel is drawn with small industry that melts away before the coming of the more efficient, gigan- tic monopoly. So the small farm must disappear, it is argued, with the coming of the “big farm,” ss But this will not be a solution for the farm worker, the farm ten- ant and the mortgage farmer, nor even for large numbers of present- day farm owners. They will all be plunged into the same farm work- ing class—serfs of the land. Just as the development of bil- lion dollar mergers in industry put great numbers of the middle class, former owners, into the shops, the mills and the mines, just so will the mechanized farm, operated on industrial lines, spawn a smaller class of richer farm owners and a larger and poorer class of farm workers. * Thomas D. Campbell, of Hardin, Montana, owner of what is reputed to be the largest wheat farm in the world, is offered by Evans Clark, in the New York Times, as an ex- cellent example of the industrializ- ed farm overlord, who wants as little legislative interference from Washington in agriculture as Gary, Schwab, or Rockefeller desire gov- ernment meddling in their busi- ness. Of course, when these capi- talists want to dictate to the gov- ernment, that is different, Mr, Campbell believes in the big corporation farm, He thinks that the question of over-production, that now affects every farm staple, can be overcome by reducing produc- tion, just as is done in industry when overproduction threatens, Mr. Campbell, spokesman for the bud- ding farm capitalists, says: “It is evident that there are two types of farming in the United States under present economic and weather conditions: The small farm, operated by the farmer and his family without any payroll what- soever, and the large farm, oper- ated on an ‘industrial basis with in- dustrial methods, mass production, low cost per acre and increased out- put per | “The Eastern farim is in the first class, but practicalty all of the farm land in our corn and wheat grow- ing states can be opétated under in- dustrial methods™ which will de- crease the costs. All other indus- tries in the United States have in- creased the output.per man. Mod- ern machine tools have made it pos- sible for the mechanic of today to equal the output of 20 to 30 men 30 years ago. Modern locomotives have made it possible for the same train crew to pull several times the number of cars. But in a sense the farmer is still driving four hors- es. This limits the output per man, thereby limiting the compensation, and as a result it is impossible for the farmer to get labor in compe- tition with the city mechanic.” “ns & With farming raised to the en- vious level of large seale capitalist production, Campbell claims that agriculture will take on new dig- nity, the “enterprising” farm boy, instead of going tothe city to be- come a “captain in industry,” will remain on the Jand! to direct “the farm corporation,” ©'* The Campbell Farming Corpora- tion operates a 100/000 acre wheat tract. It is declared that not an animal can be found on the Camp- bell farm and very’ few workers; the whole process of plowing, seed- ing, harvesting and threshing is done, on a gigantié scale, by ma- chinery, u [ed There has been aj‘decrease in the number of farms ftom 1920 to 1925 of 75,735 or 1.2 petiicent. In 1920 there were 6,448,349 farms in the United States. By 1925 this had fallen to 6,372,263 and all the indi- cations are that the number will continue to fall, The consolidation of farms is giv- en as one of the major reasons for this smaller number. The migra- tion of Negro farm workers, espe- cially tenants, from the Southern cotton states to Northern industry is a phase of this same movement, resulting in a return to the large plantation, This movement is being augmented by the invention and in- creasing use of cotton picking ma- chinery, which does away with con- siderable labor makes large scale production easier, just as the cotton gin gave cottén growing Its first great impetus. c combina- one AK és _ EY tion harvester-thresher hastens the same evolution in the grain states. Passaic Enters the Twelfth Month January 25th Will Mark a Full Year of Struggle by the Passaic Textile Strikers That the process has been hasten-— ed in the northern states, as com- pared to the southern states, is shown by statistics revealing the South as a land of small farms, while in the North they are fewer and larger. Southern states have farms as fol- lows: Alabama, 237,564; Georgia, 249,101; Kentucky, 258,511; Missi- sippi, 257,227; Tennessee, 252,669, to cite a few. Northern states make the follow- ing showing: ‘Wisconsin, 193,144; Minnesota, 188,227; Montana, 46,- 896; North Dakota, 75,969; Wash- ington, 73,266, ee The drop in the number of farms would show a much larger figure were it not for the fact that some ranches and large farms are being broken up for more intensive oper- ation, and from the development of orchards and truck and poultry farms, The establishment of small truck and poultry farms, especially near the large cities, accounts for actual increases shown in the num- ber of farms in New England and some other parts’ of the east. . o- 8 This evolution on the land, how- ever, solves nothing insofar as the great human element is concerned. Great masses of wage workers on the farms being paid, according to figures for 1926, the small pittance of $32.03 per month with board, lays the basis for the building of a great organization of farm labor- ers recognizing, as the organized workers in industry must inevitably do, that there is no salvation for them under capitalism. fv The land, as well as natural re- sources and industry, must become the common heritage of all, not of the rapacious few. PASSAIC, N. J.—(FP)—The Gene- ral Relief Committee of Passaic Local 1608, United Textile Workers, reports $572 from the Cooperative Italian American Family Assn. of Clifton, $10 from the Italian Dress and Waist Mak- ers Local 89, and $5 each from the Slavic Assn, of Clifton, Ladies Tail- ors Local 38, Italian Beneficial Society of Clifton, and Dante Club, —_—_ The best way—swbe jin the Passaic Worsted, where most to discriminate against those ‘strikers: who have been ‘most active on the picket lines and in the delegates’ meetings: Very little has been done at the Passaic Worsted | in this direction, but the same cannot be said for the Botany, where some very knotty questions have arisen to test the strength of the union. It would appear that the Botany has not altogether relinquished the hope of foisting a company union on its work- ers. Certainly there is some sort of a company union ‘attempting to func- tion inside the Botany, so far with no vitality whatever, and little suc- cess, In the meantime, the contrast between the spirit of the two groups of workers in the Botany is of vast interest to the observer.. The little group belong to the impotent company union, with the exception of the offi- cers, is apathetic and dumbly uncon: | cerned, while the group of real union members is’ aggressively alert and keenly interested in everything that | goes on inside the mill. Of the four settled mills, the union has had the greatest success’so far of the workers. are members of the U. T. W. ‘The: union» has’ been suc: cessful not-only ‘in obtaining the em- ployment of its.members at this mill, including some of its best material but is supplying the. help for the of- fice as: well, thus opening up new op- portunities to those strikers trained as Office workers by the general relief committee. Complete Victory Possible, F the unemployed and striking tex- tiie workers of Passaic can be as- sured of continued support for the new few weeks they will be able to make all the settled mills live up to their agreements and compel the five mills still holding out to recognize the union, The strikers look to the Ame- rican labor movement, which has loy- ally supported them from the first month of the struggle, to continue that support until. a complete labor BIG FARMERS PUT VIEWS TO HOUSE COMMITTEE; POOR FARMERS IGNORED WASHINGTON, Jan. 16,— The Grisp and Aswell farm relief bills offer no real solution of the. prob- lem; only the MacNary-Haugen bill does this, Such Is the gist of the communication sent to the house committee on agriculture by the representatives of various farm cap- italist and big farmers’ organiza- tions of the United. States... The. communication was. signed by E, A. O’Neal and Chester H. Gray, of the American farm bureau federation, George N. Peek of the north central states agricultural conference, William Hirth of the corn belt federation of farm organ- izations and representatives of the American cotton growers exchange. The position and necessities of the working farmers of this country will of course receive no considera- tion from the house committee nor will their voice be able to make it- self heard in its deliberations, FARM AID NOW CERTAIN, SAYS ILLINOIS ASS'N House Report on Hau- gen Bill Means Passage “The MeNary-Haugen bill will go thru this time,” is the comment of Ear]! C. Smith, president of the Illinois Agricultural Association on word re- ceived here that the farm committee of the house of representatives had reported favorably on the new pro- posed farm relief legislation, The bill is @ revised draft of the former Mc- Nary-Haugen proposal, ‘ Sees No Side-Stepping, “We are quite certain the bill will be passed this session,” said Smith, “and don’t think there will be any side-stepping this time, Last session the committee was split and reported several without recommendation, This year they are practically united, for the first time—which is.a good sign.” Bill Satisfi The new Haugen bill is satisfactory, Smith said. "It is a’ simplification of the former bill, but contains all the main provisions wanted by the farm- ers.” ; A vigorous campaign will be con- ucted among Illinois farmers to bring pressure to gain passage of the bill, he said. All congressmen will be com- municated with and informed of the wishes of the’ farmers, who demand action. Smith’ said that a recent trip to Washington revealed to him that sen- ate and house leaders favor passage of the bill at the present CLEVELAND—(FP)—-The Amer!- can Plan Agss'n,, the Cleveland open- shop organization, estimates 65,000 unemployed in the city. ates make it 7 ‘congress, were busily engaged in Other esti-| (Copyright, 1926eby Upton Sinclair.) Eli's preaching had thus become one of the major features of South+ ern California life. You literally couldn’t get away from him if you tried. Dad had been told by his doctor that he needed more exer” cise, and he had taken to walking for half an hour before dinner; he declared that he listened to Eli’s sermons on all these walks, and ne- ver missed a single word! Every. body’s house was wide open in this warm spring weather, ‘and all you had to do was to choose a neigh- borhood where the moderately poor lived—and ninety per cent of the people were that. You would hear the familiar bellowing voice, and bé+ fore you got out of range of it you would come in range of another radio set, and so you would be re- layed from street to street and from district to district, In these houses sat old couples with family bibles in their hands and tears of rap- ture in their eyes; or perhaps a mother washing her baby clothes or making a pudding for her hus- band’s supper—and all the time her soul caught up to glory on the wing# of the mighty prophet’s eloquence!’ And Dad walking outside also exalt- ed —because, don’t forget that he was the man who had started this Third Revelation—he had invented all its patter, that day he had tried to keep old Abel Watkins from beat+ ing his daughter Ruth! VE. Bunny received a letter from Dan Irving telling. about his new job. It was a simple matter to be a radl- cal press correspondent in Wash: ington these |days; the reguler newspaper fellows were loaded up with material they were not allowed to handle. All but a few of the “hard guys” were boiling over with indignation at what they saw, and when they met Dan they botled over on him. The only trouble was, his labor press service had so lit- tle space, and only a score or two of radical papers would look at ite material. * President Harding had brot- with him a swarm of camp followers, his political bodyguard at home; the newspaper men knew them as “the Ohio gang,” and they were looting everything in sight. Barney Brock- way had given one of his henchmen a desk in the secret service depart- ment; this was the “fixer”, and if you wanted anything he would tell you the price. The Wilson admin- istration had grown fat by exploit- ing’ the properties seized from ene- my aliens; and now the Harding administration was growing fat out of turning them back. Five per cent was the regular “split”; if you want- ed to recover a ten million dollar property, you turned over half million in liberty bonds to the “fixer”. Bootlegging privileges were sold for millions, and deals were made right in the lobbies of the cap- itol. Dan heard from insiders that more than three hundred millions had already been stolen from the funds appropriated for relief of war veterans—the head of that bureau was another of the “Ohio gang.) And the amazing fact was, no mat- ter how many of these scandals you might unearth, you couldn’t get a single big newspaper or mage- zine in the country to touch them! Bunny took that letter to his fath- er, and as usual it meant to the old man exactly the opposite of what it meant to Bunny. Yes, politics were rotten, and so you saw the folly of trusting business matters to g0v- ernment. Take business away from the politicians, and turn it over to business men, who would run ‘it without graft. If those oil lands had been given to Dad and Vertie in the beginning, there wouldn't have been any bribing—wasn’t that clear? Dad and Verne were patriots, putting an end to a vicious public policy, Did Dad really believe that? It was hard for Bunny to be sure. Dad had lies that he told to the pub- Ne; and perhaps he had others. that he told to his son, and yet others that he told to himself. If you laid hold of him and tore all those lies away, he would not be able to stand the sight of his nakedness, His enemies, the “soreheads” im depriving him of these spiritual cov- erin, There was one old senator in Washington by the name of La Follette—his head had been sore for forty years, and no way could be found to heal it. Now he was denouncing the oil leases, and de- manding an investigation. The Harding machine had blocked him, but it couldn't keep him from mak- ing speeches—he would talk for | , eight hours at a stretch, and the galleries would be full, and then he would mat] out his speeches un- | der government frank. Dad would | grumble and growl—and then in the / midst of it he would realize that his own dear son was on the side of these ‘makers. Instead of v1 pathin with his father's Mes, r was criticizing them, and \ 2