The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 31, 1927, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Phone, Orchard 1680 SUBSCRIPTION RATES. By mail (in New York only): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $2.50 three months By mail (outside of New York): $6.00 per year $3.50 six 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 BERT MILLER........... Editors Business Manager Wntered as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. Y., under BP the act of March 8, 1879. Advertising rates on application. The Lewis Machine Shows Its Inner Weakness. The Lewis machine was defeated last Wednesday afternoon. It did not lose permanent control of the convention, thanks to the organizationa] control which enables it to count votes as it pleases, but for almost two hours the rank and file speakers roared their disapproval of the machine proposal with respect to Section 25 of the constitution. If there is such a thing as a spontaneous revolt, this is what it was that swept over Vice-President Murray, Van Bittner, Cap- tain Percy Tetlow and other heavyweights of the administration. Section 25 reads: The board shall have power to levy and collect assess- ments when necessary but no assessment shall be collected ior more than two months unless authorized by a refer- endum vote of the members. The constitution committee had proposed that the words “but no assessment shall be collected for more than two months unless authorized by a referendum vote of the membership.” This deletion would have given the Lewis machine authority tc levy and collect assessments at will. Suddenly the convention was in an uproar. delegates were shouting for the floor. then the machine speakers tried to stem the tide. Murray tried to stop one young, rotund and good-natured not. Rank and file Some of them got it and They could looking delegate but was told to his face: “I represent. my local union and I am going to speak.” He did. So did manymore. The delegates from the anthracite were especially acrimo- nious. about assessment. every month*in my local now collecting dues,” “Let us enforce the check-off and we won't have to worry We are spending four or five hundred dollars ’ said one speaker. The well-known progressive leaders took no part in the fight. Apparently they were quite satisfied with the way things were going and wanted to see how much fighting spirit there was in the convention. Finally Murray forced a vote. There was a clear majority against the committee report but Murray declared it carried. There were hundreds of demands for a roll call. 30 per cent. of the delegates must vote in favor to secure a roll call. Murray talked the expense, etc., but when he called for a show of hSsas8 more than seven"hundred miners’ fists were vaised—almost half of the delegates voted for it. The machine tellers counted 498 and said it was not the re- guired amount. Murray adjourned the convention. As the delegates crowded. thru the doors into.the open air there was a steady murmur of curses and complaints. “So this is what we get for supporting the constructive pol- icies of those s——-s of b——-s,” said one. “I’ve never been a Howat man but by god—,” said another. “I didn’t vote for Brophy but I hope he runs again, that’s all,” said a third. Writing on January 26, we said: “What the opposition . . . will accomplish if it catches the machine off guard for a moment is to defeat it by ex- _ posing its political weakness on the convention floor.” This has been done. The whole convention has seen the machine cowering before a rank and file onslaught and forced, to save itself from disgrace-| were hailing him as the exponent of ful defeat, to thwart openly the expressed will of the rank and file.|progressive political thought and re- Every honest delegate is drawing his own conclusions—and they are not complimentary to the Lewis machine. There are two reasons for this sudden loss of control over the convention. They are: (1) The issue was one on which the machine felt sure of victory and consequently neglected to stage the usual red-baiting scene. (2) The granting of unlimited power to levy and collect as- sessments is a practical question which every delegate can under- stand at once. Tf the left wing is able now to take the lead in a fight for) reconsideration of a vote which every delegate knows was crooked the Lewis machine will be in a bad way. Its artificial majority from non-existent locals will enable it to count votes in its favor but something more than mechanical majorities are needed to preserve the political prestige of the machine during and after this convention. That prestige was damaged badly on Thursday afternoon. Get Another Subscriber for Your DAILY WORKER, The worst has come in China. The Chinese priests have organ- ized into a union, adopted a wage scale and declared that they | packed up and gone home. But Hin- will not say another darned prayer until the bosses acceed to their demands. It’s about time the American religious trusts should begin evacuating their missionaries. China cannot be fooled by Great Britain’s specious peace ‘anguage. The Cantonese declare they cannot understand why Britain needs 20,000 troops to conduct negotiations anywhere ex- tept on a battlefield. We have suspicion that the Chinese will not be caught with their spurs off. Join The Workers (Communist) Party. ‘Spring of 1925, Hindenburg, the car- Tne Awakening of Mary Sagorsky By C. SARA SHERMAN SP WENT ONING years of toiland grind in the Botany Mills, made Mary Sagorski look like sixty, though she is scarcely forty-two. Mary comes from Poland; hardly speaks the English language, yet she has been in America since she was a child. She is big with large breasts and large hips. Her grey hair pulled tight back in a ‘knot by a few rusty hair pins. Into Child Slavery. But Mary was young once, yes, even good looking. She came to Passaic, N. J. at the age of thirteen,| healthy, robust, almost too big for her age, She might have gone to school, but being the, oldest of a family of six, she had to get a job, and so her career in the ‘Botany Mills began, working ten and twelve hours daily for $3 a week. This, however, did not discourage Mary. She did not think she would have to work for long, for soon she would marry John Miholosky, whom she had met on the steamer from Poland.| Even night school was _ impossible} for Mary to attend, since her father worked in the day while her mother worked on the night shift, making her the mother of the younger chil- dren, eA Wearing Out at Seventeen. When she became seventeen, she| married John. By that time the ro-| bustness, the rosy cheeks and her strength began to give way, and where the red blood. used to rush,| patches of rouge hid the growing pallor. One year of love and Mary gave birth to a little girl. She had to give up work. But the family had! to live, the doctor’s bills to be paid, baby’s clothes, etc., and within afew months we find Mary back on the} night shift in the Botany Mills, more worn than ever. Nineteen, only a! young girl, and already she was broken with flat feet and rings un- der her eyes. Gave to The Church. Years dragged on—Mary and John worked. Their family increased. Mary loved her children, respected he husband, went to church every Sunday and on holidays, gave all the pennies she could to the church and waited for the good God to help her as he would all good people who trusted and believed in him. By the time Helen, her oldest girl was thirteen, Mary had already four children, and John’s earnings, $10 a week, did not suffice to support the family. Helen, like her mother, went into the, Botany. Suffering and misery increased day by day. Mary’s only thought was, “will the meagre earn- ings enable her to buy enough food for the family, to pay rent, gas bills, THE DATLY WORKER, | life. Mary felt her very life going. | the workers. The bosses have enough. doctor’s bills, and from time to time some clothing. But life must go. on—jthat anything the Star Spangled Germans. In 1914 the world war broke out, Fatherland, Democracy, Liberty Bonds, Patriotism, with finally con- scription in 1917, taking Mary’s two! sons to France to fight the Hun for the Stars and Stripes. The Mill, Owners, who are German, had sud-| denly turned patriots. Flags, flags! all over. A star was hung up in the! Forstmann-Huffmann plant for Mary’s son who was killed in the Marines. It was Peace on Earth andj Good Will toward men. , Then Armi-) stice. Hurrah!! We had won. Peace! Peace. Peace and readjustment...! Pre-war conditions...War tax. Wage cuts. Speed up systems, /roduc-) tion. | The money-hungry mill owners! who had made tremendous profits out of the war, were without con- sideration for the workers, On Mon-' day morning, October 9, 1924, a no- tice was posted to the effect of yet another 10% wage cut. | No Confdence in God. This meant actual starvation, and| Mary who in all her life had never} complained and devoutly believed in God and trusted that he would help her, felt at last a hatred toward all those responsible for her miserable It was no more a question of a home, tho she had dreamt of one ever since she was seventeen. No, she never could save enough to buy the first mortgage on a shack in Garfield. This time she began wondering how she would be able to pay the rent of the shack on Mattimore Street, where she now lived. It was not milk and cream and meat, but bread for her children! Bread!! This wrong must not be done to Why doesn’t the Merciful God punish them for treating the people like this? Determines To Live. The more she thought of it, the more determined her NO. That No became louder and louder, With fists clenched and teeth biting into her lips to the bleeding point, she had felt somethng had to be done. She will not starve, and more so, she will not let the children starve. Their life is miserable enough. But what shall she do? Mary had never known the value of a union, in fact she was against it. The boss always told her that they were not good, and besides he would fire all the people who would dare to belong to a union, and even the priest discouraged organization. But now some of the workers in Botany said, “We must organize.” and she listened to such talk ffor the ‘first NEW YORK, MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1927 time in her life. This time she felt’ greedy bosses didn’t like must be all right, must be good for ‘poor people. Mary had enough proof now, for didn’t the bosses cut the very life of the people by this wage cut? Meet On Icy Streets. “Wage cut back! Union! Strike! Strike! was all Mary could hear. This was almost twelve months back in the cold of winter that the workers as- sembled on the icy streets to discuss their cause and determined -to tight for their rights. This big, clumsy, over-worked ilary awoke suddenly, and in her eyes, those eyes that had almost given way, reappeared a sparkle now. She became alive. Her body became too heavy ior her sprightly spirit. She picketed the mills, alvendea the mass meetings, block meetings, women’s council meetings, and like a young girl in her teens this wornout woman! moved her big, clumsy body with al miraculous speed. it always seemed to her that she was nov doing enough tor the strike. Thousands Unite. tier back, bent by the toil of many years, suddeniy straightened out and she began to see the sun. “Oh what a beautiful world,” she said, She saw that in this world there are many things and enough life for all, and she was sorry that she had let her life pass so miserably, without any of the good things of life, and like a true mother, her brain worked fever- ishiy, and her heart swelled at the thought that at least she was fight- ing that her children might have the things she had missed. They shall not pe fooled as long as she was. She will tell them. i When she attended one of the big mass meetings in Belmont Park and saw all the workers, thousands of them, her very being was moved. She had faith in herself and in the many thousands of workers struggling with her. She listened to the speakers with all eagerness. They said that “the people make all the things in life, and that in spite of that they have nothing, but hunger and misery. “This,” she said, “must not be so,! it is wrong.” On the picket lines she seemed to feel best, she was sure that this was the place to wage the fight in. At’ the very mills where she had worked, where she had given her very life, that was the place to strike back. She did not feel depressed or beaten, but instead a spirit of conquest and cour- age possessed her. Yes, Mary Sagor- ski, who never sang before, now at the age of forty-two began to sing. All the workers sang. They sang their hopes of freedom. Their deter- mination to win it .. .“solidarity for- ever.” The Cabinet Hindenburg Wanted By JURI VICTOR The “democratic German Republic”) now has its most reactionary cabinet.) The republic, established in 1918 by} the Noskes and Scheidemanns, who thus got the monarchists and junkers) out of a deep international hole, has moved steadily towards the right un- til today the ministerial combination! may even make Wilhelm in Doorn! feel better. It is all the work of that’ great strategian, Hindenburg, who, while the liberals in all countries publican patriotism, was busy pre- paring warm: berths for his friends, monarchist nationalists. For doing lip service the republic and for accepting Stresemann’s Locarno pol- icy, these representatives of the rich land owners and mining industrial- ists have obtained four portfolios in the new government, two of which are the best outposts for the oppres- sion of the working class. German political developments in the last two years could be made the finest, large-scale object lesson in! the operations of democracy. In the didate of the nationalists and peo- ple’s party, was elected president on a frankly monarfchist ticket against Marx, the candidate of the republi- cans, democrats, social democrats and centrists. Since then Marx has been Hindenburg’s prime minister more than any other man. Last summer 15,000,000 Germans, a majority of the electorate, voted for the expropriation without compensa- tion of ex-noyalty. This was 100% proof that the Reichstag did not rep- resent the masses. It should have denburg wrote a letter, the cabinet shivered before the ‘grand old man,] and the princes continued to get their subsidies—with the help of the social- democrats. That reichstag, which acted contrary to the will of more than half the voters, still sits. Last November the third Marx cab- inet was forced to resign on account of the opposition to Gessler, minister of war, under whony the reichswehv is the hearth of anti-republican prop- aganda and the refuge of militarism and reaction. A majority of the Get Your Union to Telegraph Congress Today! \by the great corporations. reichstag voted against Gessler and the ministry had to quit. Today Gessler is back in the cabinet and a na, ovscy of the same reichstag which voted against him two months ago will now. vote for him. One reason is the perfidy of the Catholic Centre. Bosses Control Radio | “Free as the air” doesn’t mean so; much as it used to, since the inven- tion of radio, telegraph and telephone | have added a new use to the space, above and around) us, and a use that is by the nature . of the cost of the apparatu: required to exploit it, with fewexceptions limited to the pos-| session of the rich and of govern- ments. Radio Telegraphy is said to have in- creased the diffi-| culties of secret diplomacy, by en-| ticing ambassadors | and other political agents to employ a means of com-) munication in) which opponents! can listen in, and -by making it im-| possible to prevent’ small sending sets, from being: erect-| ed. which can dis-| tribute important, information until traced down ae sealéd, However, during | the British Gener-' al Strike it was! discovered that all the radio sending apparatus was con- trolled by the employers or the gov-| ernment, and used for propaganda purposes by them. Also in America, attempts to set up Jabor broadcast- ing sations are hindered by the fact that the best wave lengths, and the most powerful stations, are hogged Another is the insistence of Hinden burg that there be no tampering with the “armed forces of the nation.” The reichswehr must continue — as heretofore—to admit only out and out monarchists and to train Fascists se- cretly. Sooner or later the workers in Germany will realize that at bot- tom the social democrats are to blame for the resumption of power by the reactionary Right. In 1918 the So- cialists might have made as clean a sweep of things as the Bolsheviks had made in Russia. But they be- lieved in democracy, in “freedom.” Their only terror was against the Communists. The result is a regime of Hindenburg, Gessler, Hergt, Graef, Stresemann and Marx. Control Courts. To the nationalists have gone the two best weapons for the oppression of the working class. Graef, right wing nationalist, is minister of jus- tice. He takes over 4,000 political prisoners and can be expected to in- crease their number. While the demo- crats and social democrats supported the cabinet, a rigid regime of anti- proletarian justice was maintained. Now a quiet reign of terror is ahead. Herr Walter Graef will be ably sec- onded by Dr. Oscar Hergt, leadcr of the nationalists, who, as minister of interior, will have the job of se curing “Ruhe and Ordnung” in the land. The workers are in for a pe riod of reaction which should open the eyes of the social democratic rank and file. i The new Marx cabinet has only 2 flimsy majority. It may last a lon; time;. it may fall within a very shor period. Marx can, on certain issucé. depend on the support of the bour- geois democrats and on the benevo- lent neutrality of the social-demo crats. As long as he sticks by the leagur of nations and a rapprochement wit! Poincare, Herman Mueller and Hi fording will let him do what he wants in internal politics, The social-dem- | Nationalists Military and | ocrats are now in “His Majesty's Hin- denburg’s opposition.” They will be | very polite. Of course, they would | like to get into office to taste a few of the plums. But since this is fur- ther away than ever, they can be re- lied on to behave. WITHDRAW ALL U. S. WARSHIPS FROM NICARAGUA! NO INTERVET:ON IN MEXICO! the American, magnate came among these Britshers with as much tact and grace as one of his long-horned steers from the south western plains. He wasn’t going to put on any society flummery, he was an old cattle-puncher fro: Oklahoma, and if “Old Spats and Monocle,” as he called Great Britain’s leading oil magnate, didn’t like him, by Jeec he could lump him! Bunny attended a ban- quet at which a group of the rivals sat down together, and it seemed to Bunny that Verne was more noisy and more slangy than even at his own dinner-table at the Mon- astery. There was method in it, the younger man suspected; Verne frightened these strangers with his wild western airs, and that was the proper mood for negotiations! They had needed our navy damn bad a few years ago, and had got it free of charge, but they weren’t go- ing to get it that way again, and Verne was the feller to tell them so. The next time, it would be the oil crowd’s say about the battle- ships—and the same with the dol- lars, by Jees. There was a new deal in Ameri- ean diplomacy since the war. The state department had taken charge of foreign investments made by our bankers, and told them where to go and where to stay away from. The bankers had to obey, because they never knew when they might need the help of the marines to collect their interest. What it meant in practice was that a few fighting men like Vernon Roscoe could go to foreign business men and say, let me in on this and give me a share of that, or you can whistle for the next loan from Wall Street. The procedure is known to all cattle men, they call it “horning in”; and after a few of the Britishers had been “horned in on,” they learned what the little fellows had learned back home—who were the real masters of America! VII Dad of course had no trace of interest in seeing the place where men had had their heads. chopped off five hundred years ago; and Bunny tried it, and found that he didn’t have much either. What Bunny wanted was to meet the men who were in danger of having their heads chopped off now. There was a great labor movement in England, with a well developed system of workers’ education, supported by the old line leaders; also a bunch of young rebels making war on it because of its lack of clear revo- lutionary purpose. “The Young Student” had been exchanging with the “Plebs,” and now Bunny went to see these rebels, and soon was up to his ears in the British struggle -——a wonderful meeting at Albert Hall, and labor members of Parlia- ment and other interesting people to meet. A couple of papers published in- terviews with the young oil prince who had gone in for “radicalism,” as the Americans called it. And this brought an agonized letter from Bertie. She had been beg- ging them to.come over to Paris and meet the best people but now, here was Bunny, six thousand miles away from home, still making his stinks! Couldn’t he for God’s sake stop to think what he was doing to his relatives? Eldon just about to get a promotion, and here his brother-in-law coming in and queer- ing it all! You could see Bertie making a strong moral effort on paper, controlling herself and pa- tiently explaining to her brother the difference between Europe and California. People really took the ved peril. seriously over here, and Bunny would find himself a com- plete social outcast. How could Eldon’s superiors trust him in deli- eate matters of state policy, if they imew that members of his family were in sympathy with the mur- derous ruffians of Moscow? Bunny replied that it was very ead indeed, but Bertie and her hus- band had better repudiate him and not see him, for he had no inten- tion of failing to make acquain- vance with the labor and Socialist vnovements of the countries he vis- ited. Having got that off his chest, Sunny sat down to write for “The Young Student” an account of all the red things he had seen and the red people he had met so far, The little paper was coming, and Bunny was reading it from the up- per left-hand corner of page one to the lower right-hand corner of pag: four, and finding it all good. Yes. Rachel Memies was going to make a real editor—a lot better one than , HANDS OFF CHINA! | Upton Qaclair Bunny himself, he humbly decided She had started a series of paper: valled “Justice and the Student,” liscussing the problems of the ounger generation. She saw it all © clearly, and was so dignified and persuasive in manner—not angry, s the young reds so easily got! liven Dad was impressed, yes, that was a clever girl; you wouldn't hink it to look at her—but those Tews were always smart. Also the labor press service was coming, with Dan Irving’s Wash- ngton letter and other news from the oil scandal. And very soon Bunny saw what Verne had meant by predicting the collapse of the investigation. The whole power of attorney general’s office had been urned against the insurgent sen- ators. Barney Brockway, backed against the wall, was fighting for the life of himself and his “Ohio gang.” Secret service agents had raided the offices of the senator# conducting the investigation and rifled their papers; they were rak- ing up scandals against these men, sending women to try to “get” them, preparing a series of “frame- ups” in their home states—every trick they had rehearsed on the Communists and the I. W. W. now applied to the exposers of the oil steal. Presently they had one of the senators under indictment; and just as Verne had predicted, the big newspapers came to their senses, and took the crimes of the oil men off the front page, and put the crimes of the reds in their place. There was quite a bunch of “magnates” now in exile; Fred Orpan, and John Groby, and all those who had formed the Canadian corporation, and distributed two million dollars of bribes in Wash- ington. Dad and Bunny would lunch with them, and they would have confidential telegrams, and it was curious to watch their reac- tions. They all made a joke of it~. “Hello, old jailbird!” would be their greeting; but underneath they were eaten with worry. Among other developments, the new president was preparing to throw them over- board, in anticipation of next fall’s elections. He, Cautious Cal, had never had any oil stains on him— gh, no! oh, no! The oil men would jeer—the little man had sat in the cabinet all the time the leases were being put through, he had been the bosom friend of all of them. The first time any of Verne’s crowd en- joyed the exposures was when the Senate committee began digging in- to a file of telegrams which showed the immaculate one as heavily smeared as the other politicians; he had been sending secret messages, trying to stave off the exposure, trying to save this one and that. But now he was getting ready to kick their agents out of the cabinet, and how they did despise him! “The little hoptoad,” was Verne’s regular description of the Chief Magistrate of his country! (To Be Continued.) “Chicago.” The hit of the new plays is “Chicago,” which has taken New York audiences by storm. It was written by a young newspaper women, Maurine Watkins, who was a “sob-sister” at the famous Loeb- Leopold murder trial last year. Bill« ed as a “satirical comedy,” it is all of that and much more. In addition to giving an accurate description of centemporary events in Chicago, (or New York or Detroit) it is highly entertaining from the opening scene to the close of the play, Roxie Hart, capably portrayed by Francine Larrimore, murders one of her “gentlemen friends.” She is are vested, brot to trial and acquitted, That is the plot in short, but as t is unwoven, we glimpse behind the scenes from the second the police ser- geant places her under arrest until her ultimate release. The preparation for the trial is a gem. Roxie’s lawyer is shown telling her what to say on the witness stand, It is followed by a courtroom scene vastly superior to that in “An Amerie can Tragedy”. When the jury brings in a verdict of “not guilty,” softened by her cro- ‘odile tears and the buncombe of her attorney, shots are heard outside the court-room, A new murder case! So the reporters, photographers and ‘sob-sisters” are off to prepare a new ‘ine of dope for the great America / eading public, Sylvan A. Pollack, Don't Delay! |