The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 24, 1927, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Phone, Or¢hard 4928 el SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (in New York only): By mail (outside of New York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year 50 six months $ three months $2.00 three months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. J. LOUIS ENGDAHL ) WILLIAM F. DUNNE j BERT MILLER ; . Editors Manager . Business at the post-office at Chi- 8, 1879. Entered as second-class mail September 21, 14 cago, Ill., under the act of March aS. on application. Advertising 1: The Miners’ Convention aad John L. Lewis The Thirtieth Consecutive Constitutional convention of the United Mine Workers of America opens tomorrow in the c of Indianapolis and it is no exaggeration to say that the organi- zation never’ in its history faced a more serious situation than confronts it.today. Responsibility for the critical condition of the union rests mainly on the shoulders of John L. Lewis. Tho John L. Lewis if of portly bearing and impressive car- riage, we would not waste valuable space on him but for the fact that he stands for a policy in tha United Mine Workers of Amer- ica that has brought that once mighty organization to the verge of ruin. Because of this, the conceited popinjay Lewis, who would normally attract no more attention than a small town rat- catcher finds himself being discussed. The Lewis policy is the policy of the coal barons. When we say that Lewis has betrayed the interests of the coal diggers, we are not indulging in a figure of speech. the facts. We are not going to state that John L. Lewis received sums of money from the mine owners at such and such a place. Only bungling labor fakers get caught that way. What we state and stand ready to prove is that Lewis has weakened the ability of the miners of this country to extract concessions from the bosses to such an extent that the owners‘no longer take the miners’ union sériously. It is an incontrovertible fact that 70 per cent of the coal dug in the United States today is taken out of the bowels of the earth by non-union labor. What has Lewis done to block the march of non-unionism in the coal mining industry? You can judge for yourself whether the following steps have been conducive to strengthening the miners’ union or the reverse: John L. Lewis spent the union’s funds making war on men like Alexander Howat of Kansas who fought the capitalists of that state to a standstill, going to jail for the cause along with other loyal workingclass leaders like Dorchy. Not only did Lewis weaken the Kansas miners’ union but he acted the part of stool- pigeon in helping the mine owners send Howat and his comrades to jail. Lewis smashed the union in Canada and Nova Scotia by at- tacking the militants and assisting the employers in putting reactionaries.in their place. Lewis used union funds to purchase alleged evidence of radical activities from a detective agency, Ellis Searles, the monocled “coaldigger” who edits the United Mine Workers’ Journal was Lewis’ fink in charge of this work. ‘Lewis was a staunch stpporter of the Coolidge candidacy in the last presidential election. Coolidge was the Wall Street favorite. No coal miner need be informed that Wall Street is opposed to trade unionism. No coal miner-need be informed that the Morgan millions are behind the non-union coal mines of West Virginia. To recount Lewis’ sins of omission would take up too much space. The foregoing is sufficient. His grand gesture in “ex- posing” Frank Farrington for accepting a $25,000 a year job from the Peabody Coal Co. will not fool any miner who knows that Lewis is a supporter of the district administration that succeeded Farrington, an administration headed by a man named Fishwick, who was involved with Farrington in shady financial deals with the Peabody Coal Company as shown by a photo- graphic copy of a check published twice in The Daily Worker. In the recent elections in the miners’ union it is generally admitted that John Brophy, progressive mine leader, received a majority of the votes. But Lewis counted himself in. Brophy’s campaign platform was a “Save the Union” policy. Lewis’ platform was a “ruin the union” policy consisting solely in idiotic attacks on the progressive elements. : The delegates gathered at the Thirtieth Consecutive Con- stitutional Convention of the United Mine Workers of America owe it to themselves and to the whole American workingclass to repudiate the Lewis policy of catering to the mine owners, making war on the progressives and his “rule or ruin” attitude in the union. If the United Mine Workers’ Union is to be re- stored to the proud position it once held in the army of American trade unionism, a progressive policy must be laid down by the convention and the Lewis gang of company agents, splitters and union wreckers must be sent to accompany Frank Farrington on the payrolls of the coal barons, whose work they are now doing, perhaps on two salayies. POLISH TERROR AGAINST LABOR GROWS; WORLD WORKERS MUST JOIN IN PROTEST The unrestrained reign of terror, accused, but the court accepted the of the bloody military government | statements of a few police spies. Two of Poland against the labor move-/inembers of the municipal council ment and the poor peasants, as well | were sentenced to three years’ hard as against the national minorities,| labor each and three more to a year seems to have broken all bounds | and a half. from the reports that have been The gigantic trial against 151 able to escape the censor. | Ukrainian peasants for having “at- In Suvalki, 53 workers are on trial | tempted to prepare an armed upris- simply because they are accused of | ing in 1924” is still in progress. The being members of the Communist | whole affair, including the “insurrec- Farty. Ten have already been con-| tion,” has been conclusively proved vieted and sentenced to terms of | to be the work of government agents two to four years hard labor. In| to provide an excuse for the sup- Sidlez a similar trial on the same pression of the Ukrainian peasants. charges is taking place and of the; An atmosphere of deep terror 22 accused five have already been hangs over the courtroom and many sentenced to hard labor. | witnesses for the defense have been For participating in the last May intimidated and mistreated. Day demonstration eight workers! These are only a few of the atro- were tried before the Warsaw dis- | cities, news of which has succeeded trict courts. At this demonstration | in trickling thru the cenMr’s claws. the police had shot into the masses | Only the organized protests and in- ind a number of workers were killed | dignation of the workers of every and wounded. The defens@ brought | country can call a halt to the mad ap forty witnesses in fa-dr of the a of the Polish butchers. We are hewing to ti By ROBERT DUNN On January first, 1927, the New) York Commercialy “the National Business Newspaper,” was Commerce. With the passing of the} Commercial the life was snuffed out| of the famous Searchlight Column, edited by one whose name must not be forgotten by those who read this} \ first i . It is possible that we shall see him bob up again as editor of the! National Republic or some other or-| gan of ‘the Higher Business Patrio-| tism. In the meantime he deserved! few words. ribed as a middle-aged gentle- man with dn anti-social atlas com- | plex and an ingrowing desire to save | |the planet from Moscow, Mr. Marvin once editor of the Mountain tates Banker of Denver. He has for many years served the open shop or-| gans and employers’ associations, Newspaper Publicity When he joined the staff of the Commercial some years ago he turned on his red-sifting Searchlight and laid the cornerstone of the Key} Men. The purpose of this movement! is “to mobilize the sound thinking,| loyal and patriotic men and women) of the nation, acquaint them, through} accurate and reliable information, as) to the dangers confronting American} institutions, and so prepare them,| through their possession of facts, to! sucessfully expose and combat the ac- ivities of the many movements now seeking to destroy this government} and through some scheme of ‘nation- alization’ or ‘socialization’ confiscate} the industries of the United States.” What did the Key Man do in the thriving days of the Commercial once he had qualified for élection.to Mr. Marvin’s fraternity? Remember he had first to be “selected with care as to fitness, standing, ability, in- tegrity, ete.” Read The Commercial First he had to read the Commer- cial daily and clip the numbered and indexed “data on all subversive and radical movements.” These he was to arrange systematically in his files, for instant reference, They involve |notes on all the “Subversive Move- ments Against the American Govern- ment, Politi¢al and Labor Radicals, Communists and the ‘Pinks.’” | Free Reporting What else did a Key Man do? He kept the’ Searchlight Department posted “on all loc&l activities of these subversive movements, that it, in turn, may furnish special informa- tion to aid ‘key’ men and women to expose and combat such activities. He also kept his eye out for speakers who might come into his community to preach the gospel of Marx, Tolstoi,| Christ the Carpenter or La Follette, Seeing, smelling or hearing of such |an “inside agitation” he notified Mr, Marvin by wire or telephone. Free Advertising In return the Key Man enjoyed many favors. The Searchlight direc- tor promised to keep him in touch “through personal letters..so that certain information which it is not always wise to put into print” might: be supplied him. And if an address, an editorial or a sermon was to be written Marvin shipped, along the canned information that would make the local luminary overnight an au-| thority on the various shades and! | shadows of the pink-red movements. Mr. Marvin was alleged to be in| earnest. He once wrote to Sidney Howard, the playright: “All we are secking to do is to save America for Americans and preserve American ideals and institutions as against an invasion of foreign ideals and institu- | tions, diametrically opposed to all we hold near and dear.” In pursuit of this aim he made several pamphlet contributions to the literature of high-pressure patriotism. These in- jclude: “The Menace of Bolshevism,” | \“Are These Your Friends,” “Boot- legging Mind Poison,” “Underground with the Reds,” and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” No Key Man could ‘function effectively without these | masterpieces in red-white-and-blue. | All Looked Red In the Commercial’s daily column |under the heading of “Activities of! | Destructive Movements Seeking Di- |rectly or Indireely to Overthrow the Government of the United States” we found listed under some 78 different “file numbers” such alarming de- fenders of violence and overthrow as; Plumb Plan League; Garland Fund; Churches, “Radicalism in-”; Co-oper- atives; Federated Press; League for | Industrial Democracy; National Coun- |cil for Prevention of War; “Youths’ Movement,” and other secret, sly and seductive hand-maidens of the Third International! Destructive Free Speech! Marvin’s “facts” on these various “underground” movements to paint the White House crimson were quite as accurate as his reference to the American Civil Liberties Union as “that branch of the general move- ment to destroy this form of govern- ment and confiscate property which deals with the question of free speech.” On another occasion he refers to the same liberal organiza- tion as “one of the many ‘legal’ or- ganizations of the illegal Communist Party of America.” , THE DAILY WORKER open shop associations, associated, in-| dustries, and employers’ associations | the “low-down” on the progressives| in their community, “Low-down”. in| fact’ was thd word he used when he} wrote to the Secretary of the Asso-| ciated Industries of Montana in 1924) Walsh. Mr. Marvin has been trying) ever since to explain away the im-| plications of that compound word. Of corse Mr. Marvin backed those stal- wart red-blooded—to use Mr. Marvin’s own: phrase—defendérs of American-| ism, Wm. J. Burns and Harry Daugh- erty. He struck out manfully against angelic political figures, Unfortun-| ately he lost. Burnsyand Daugherty | were cut down by the Reds. They) are now enshrined as martyrs to the| When Joseph Hofmann was five y: ical bridges, houses, etc. The Arkwright Club, an associa- tion of millionaire mill owners, has introduced in the Massachusetts’ legislature a bill to provide that tex- tile mills be permitted to work on a fifty-four hour basis and a ten-hour day. The present law provides for a forty-eight hour week. In order to throw the workers into a panic and to bring pressure to bear on the legislature, many large mills anounce that they are closing down. ° Scare Stories. The Manomet Mills’ of New Bed- ford, Mass., the largest cotton yarn manufacturing plant in the country, operating 318,000 spindles and em- ploying between 4,500. and 5,000 workers, has announced that as soon as the stock in procéss is run out that the mill will close indefinitely. In Salmon Falls, N. H., a big mill employing the entire working popu- lation of that town, about 2,000, is greasing its machinery and -has opened bids for the sale of the prop- erty. In Ware, Mass., the Ware Mfg. Co., employing 2,500 workers, an- nounces that it will close down. The Otis Co. has announced that unless taxes are reduced and a 54-hour law enacted that it will méve south. The U. S. Worsted Co. mill in Lawrence, Mass., has announced that it will close down in February. In Salem, Mass,, the Pequod Mfg. Co., employ- ing 3,000 operatives, increased its working hours to fifty-four (regard- less of the “law”’) notwithstanding that this mill is 100 percent organ- ized in Local 33 of the U. T. W. Try to Shift Tax Burden. At the same time the mill owners are conducting a drive for the abate- ment of taxes. The Tremont & Suf- folk Mills recently filed .a petition for an abatement of taxes with the Board of Assessors, ‘This mill has a valuation of $6,073,550 and paid $159,456 taxes_in 1926 or about 3.7 percent. While demanding wage reductions, longer hours and tax exemptions, these mill owners who made from 300 to 600 percent profits during the war and afterward, are the benefi- ciaries of an 80 per cent protective tariff. A New England. Textile Confer- ence of workers is being called by it to meet in Boston Sunday, Febru- ary 20, 1927, and the following pro-' gram will be brought up: 1l—To send a delegation to the Massachusetts Legislature to pro- / Mr, Marvin threw open the edi- ESS nee |e ee ee wh test against the passage of the 54- sical genius, and soon after toured Europe. recognized inventor, and now has over seventy practical inventions to his credit; he manages three electrical engineering laboratories. When he was young he played with toys, but rejected wooden soldiers in favor of mechan- , torial page of the Commercial to the, Marviti conception of patriotism. Boss Likes Him Of course this peer of Searchlight- consoli-| vom every state. He reprinted their| ers has the approval of the kings dated with the New York Journal of} @ttack on labor and in turn sent them) and archdukes of finance and indus- try. He has been commended in signed statements by the Presidents of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Southern Pacific Railroad and kin- ssue “of the New York Daily| tequesting information on Senator) dred humanitarian societies. Thanks to such eminent backing the results obtained by Keymanism are phenom- enal. For example we are told by Fred himself that: “In 1924 we ren- dered this nation a remarkable serv- ice in defeating socialism and Com- munism which was manifested through the third ticket headed by} | all, subversive critics of these two] La Follette and Wheeler.” And in the following year the Key Men fought the Child Labor Amend- ment and its labor and progressive supporters to a standstill. * ‘ | HOFFMAN, ANTI-MILITARIST, MUSICIAN, AND INVENTOR ears old he was recognized as a mu- When he was ten, he was a NEW ENGLAND TEXTILE CONFERENCE By JOHN J. BALLAM Secretary National Textile Workers The mill owners of New England are determined to force their workers to accept the same conditions that prevail in the cotton industry in the South, where child labor, the sixty-hour week, unrestrained exploita- tion and wages averaging ten and twelve dollars a week is the rule. Progressive Committee. hour bill and to send a similar dele- gation to Washington to demand an investigation into the textile indus- try of New England for the purpose of determining, why the mill owners do not pay a wage sufficient to main- ‘ain living standards under the 80 per cent tariff protection afforded this industry by the U, S. Govern- ment; 2—To form local textile progres- sive committees in every textile town in New England to organize re- sistance to the wage slashing and 54-hour week campaign of the bosses, " 3—To set up Unemployment Coun- cils of Textile Workers in every city where mills have closed down and to demand: (a) Work to be provided by municipalities and the state at prevailing union rates of wages; (b) Maintenance of unem- ployed or locked-out workers by special: unemployment fund to be created out of increased taxation on property; (c) Opening of food stations for the unemployed; , (d) Provision for free fuel and clothing. (e) Moratorium on rents of dwellings during period of un- employment. (f) Provision for free feeding of children in public schools. 4—To call a conference for the united action of all existing textile unions and for the support of the entire labor movement for the pro- tection of the hard-pressed textile workers. be The textile industry has always acted as a barometer for the rest of the working class. The present drive to reduce wages, increase hours and to intensify production in the textile industry is a fore-runner of a gen- eral drive in all other machine in- dustries thruout the country. | These drives have usually been preceded by closing down of factories in order to produce an unemployment. situa- tion and to starve the’ workers into submission. If the textile barons can succeed in making their slaves accept lower wages and longer hours, then the oil, mining, automo- bile, rubber and other industries will follow suit. All labor’ must awake to the danger and organize for re- sistance. The American Federation of Labor and the whole labor move- ment must come to the assistance of their fellow workers in New Eng- land, 800,000 mill workers in 3 cities and towns. The Story of Keyman Marvin — | At The Michigan Trial | It will be recalled that ‘brother Marvin figured as Burns’ confidant and general errand boy at the Com- munist Mat in Michigan in 1923. His “inside stuff” on the reds was head- lined by the open shop organs, his addresses’ were applauded by em- ployers’ luncheon clubs, the prosecu- tion was bombarded with his solicited and unsolicited advice. He wrote ar- ticles for the press, calculated to send shivers down the spine of all com- fortable folks, and he used the De- partment of Justice files at will to secure this garbled and confidential information. “Limacharsky” Babies His conception of the*truth is in- dicated by such “tips” as he whis-| pered to his readers from time to) time. Among these have been the following: That the Soldier Bonus) was a Soviet Scheme (his. own words) that “Limacharsky” is the man who sovietized the babies in Red Russia; that “The Daily Worker of Chicago does. not deny it is a Com-| munist paper”; that the Teapot Dome congressional inquiry was planned in Leningrad; that if the Red Army should land at Hoboken tomorrow the students of Northwestern University would refuse to defend our shores that the Third International is a di- rect descendent of the Order of the Illuminati; that the Progressives in Congress are “destroying angels”; and that “modern industry cannot survive in its, present form, nor any form, if the Brookharts and La Fol- lettes realize their ambition for power.” All of which is very terrifying. Waves ‘The Palm “There is one statement I always 1iké to make,” says Mr. Marvin in a dithyrambic mood, “and that state- ment is this”: ‘This is my country; mine. From the waving palms of Florida to the stately pines of Wash- ington, this is my country; from the towering Statue of Liberty to the sun-kissed Golden Gate, this is my country and I love it. From the des- erts of Arizona to the snowy hills of Maine, this is rhy country, mine, and I am going to stick to it, and fight for it from hell to breakfast.’” Keyman Mythology Somewhere along the path from hell to breakfast Mr. Marvin has} found time to disseminate the myth concerning the “nationalization of women” in the Soviet Union. He has attacked the Russian-American In- dustrial Corporation organized by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, as) “a plan to gather in money for radical propaganda in the United States.” He has included under his ban as being a part of the red revolutionary movement such diverse societies as the’ Mooney Defense Fund, The Wal- ter Mills Correspondence School, the American Textile Workers (a Key- man phantasy), the University Work- ers League (whatever that is) the Cloak, Shirt and Reffers Union, (sic) the Irish-American Labor League, The Foster Publishing As- sociation (no such animal), the Gol- den Age Lecture Bureau, the Czech- oslovak “Mavian Federation (sic again) and the Labor Bureau, Inc., the last being what Marvin calls “A Foster organization.” For some rea- son he omitted Foster’s Industrial and Detective Bureau and the Caviar Import Corporation both of which are patently inspired from the Krem- lin. Hates “Red Pacifists” Since R. M. Whitney, author of the “Reds in America” passed on to a Heaven peopled by 100 per cent property-owning, tax-paying, home- loving Americans, the mantle of maintaining the morale of the mili- tant employers’ associations, has des- cended on the shoulders of modest and highly inaccurate Marvin, He stands high with William Frew Long of Cleveland of open shop national repute. He contributes a hair-raising series on our red-pacifists to the Army and Navy Journal. He dishes up the. scare heads that in- duce-the Rotary boys to order out the militia “to shoot the rascals down.” He calls every carpenters’ strike “a lesson in revolution.” He makes the Chamber of Commerce boys’ 25-cent Coronas tremble in their teeth as he depicts the flood of anarchist-com- munist literature sweeping away all that is “near and dear.” His mes- sage of strike-breaking and labor union baiting rewards him not only with stout applause but with a mod- est living—or did until the Commer- cial. became a corpse. “Among the scores of professional agitators who are zealously stirring the employers to the white heat of class consciousness, Mr. Marvin cer- tainly deserves honorable mention. He may not be as well-salaried as Ralph Easley of the National Civil Vederation or as richly cultured as Soap Box Jack O’Brien late of the National Security League and frame- up men at Passaic. But he stands up well among the current evangel- ists of Fascism. We desire herewith to hand him the platinum Key ring suitably inseribed, and to inform all readers that the present address of “Key Men of America” is 145 Nassau St. N. Y. City. If you care to join Mr, Marvin will be glad to receive your application at this address. Contributions to the cause gratefully acknowledged. Graduation time was at hand, and all the grave old seniors had the job of choosing their future careers, Dad asked Bunny if he had made up his mind, and Bunny answered that he had. “But I hate to tell you, Dad, because it’s going to make you unhappy.” : “What is it, son?” A look of concern was upon the old man’s round but heavily lined features. “Well, I want to go away fora year, and take another name, and get myself a job as a worker in one of the big industries.” , “Oh, my God!” A pause, whi Dad gazed into his son’s troubled eyes. “What does that mean?” “Just that I want to understand the working people, and that’s the only way.” “You can’t ask them what you want to know?” “No, Dad, they don’t know it themselves, except dimly. It is some- thing you have to live.” “Good Lord, son, let me help you! I’ve been there. It means dirt and vermin ‘and disease—L thought I was saving you from it, and making things easier for you!” “Lknow, Dad, but it’s a mistake; it doesn’t work out as you, thought. When a.young fellow has every- thing too easy for him, he gets soft, he has no will of his own. [I know what you’ve done, and I’m grateful for it, but I have to try something different for a time.” “You can’t possibly find any- thing hard enough for you in the job of running an oil industry?” “IT might, Dad, if I could really run it, But you know I can’t do that. It’s yours; and even if you gave it to me, Verne and the oper- ators’ federation wouldn’t let me do what I’d want to do. No, Dad, there’s something vitally wrong with the oil industry, and I can never play the game with the rest. I want to go off and try something on my own.” “You mean to go alone?” “There’s another fellow has the same idea, and we’re going to- gether. Gregor Nikolaieff.” “That Russian! Couldn't you pos- sibly find an American to associate with?” “Well, it just happens, Dad, that none of the Americans are inter- ested.” There was a long pause. “And you really mean this seriously?” ’ “Yes, Dad, I’m going to do it.” “You know, son, the big indust+ ries are pretty rough, most of them. Some of the men get badly hurt, and some killed.” “Yes; that’s just the point.” “It’s pretty hard on a father that has only one son, and had hopes for him, You know, I’ve really thought a lot about you—it’s been the main reason I worked so hard.” “I know, Dad; and don’t think 1 haven't suffered about it; but I just can’t help doing it.” Another pause. thought about Vee?” “Yon.” “Have' you told her?” “No, I’ve been putting it off, just as I did with you. I know she won’t stand for it. I shall have to give her up.” “A man ought to think a long time. before. he throws away his happiness like that, son.” “I have thought, all I know how. But I couldn’t spend my life as an appendage to Vee’s moving picture career. I should be suffocated with luxury. I have convictions of my own, and I have to follow them, I want to try to help the workers, a first I have to know how they ‘ee! Pad é AG “It seems. to me, son, you talk like one of them—I mean the red “Have you _ones,”” * “Mayhe so, Dad, but I assure you, it doesn’t seem that way to the | reds!" » Again there was a silence. Dad's supply of words was running short, “I never heard of such a thing in my life!” “It is really quite an old idea—.’ at least twenty-four hundred years.” And Bunny went on to tell about the young Lord Siddhart in far off India, who is known to Western world as Buddha; how he gave up his lands and his treas- ures, and went out to wander with. a beggar’s bowl, in the hope of find- ing some truth about life that was not known. at court. “The palace which the king had given to the prince was resplendent with all the luxuries of India; for the king was anxious to see his son happy. | sorrowful sights, all misery, and all knowledge of misery were kept — away from Siddhartha, and he knew not that there was evil in the world. But as the chained elephant longs / for the wilds of the jungle, so t! prince was eager to see the wor! and he asked his father, the king for permission, to do so. And! Shuddhodana ordered a jewel-front= ed chariot with four stately hor: to be held ready, and the roads to be adorned where his son would pass.” And then | seeing the bew! look on Shuddhodana’s face, \ to la “Which would you rather I came, Dad—a Buddhist or a Bol- shevik?” x * And truly, Dad wouldn’t have know what to decide! (To be continued.)