The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 1, 1927, Page 6

4 i ij ra i { —_ ; ice Six ‘missioner Gabaldon said: _ and “progressive” congressmen and senators. THE ished by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO, i Daily, Except Sunday > 89 First Streot, New York, N. ¥. Phono, Orchard 1680 — IPTION RATES By mail (outside of New York): $6.00 per year $3.50 six months | $2.00 three months y) By mail (in New York : | months “$8.00 per $4.50 six $2.50 three months mail and make out ¢! THE DAIL R, 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Neale mihi mines “hae Editors | | ess Manager ——— 3 Sth Entered as secon New York, N. Y., under Baffled British Toryism The British imperialist press adopts a tone of baffled fury} in its comment on the note sent by the Soviet Union in reply to} that of Sir Austen Chamberlain. | According to the London correspondent of the New York Times, “hypocritical,” “impudent,” “insolent,” “evasive,” “menda- cious” and “defiant” are some of the adjectives used in their com-| ment on the Soviet reply to the British note.” | The “diehard” organs run the gamut of abuse but the Daily| News has a more realistic tone. It says: “Tf we were to break with Russia tomorrow we should lose, ab we can ill afford to do, a useful market and one with incaicula-| ble potentialities, and instead of destroying the anti-British cam-| paign of a government which fanatically regards Great Britain as. the main obstacle in its ideal of world revolution, we should imerease it a hundred fold. There is no escape from the dilemma.” "The Daily Express is also cautious: “Russia, whatever we may think about her hateful political | and social system, remains an enormous part of the world. She) would not mysteriously disappear if we broke off official rela-| tions. On the contrary her efforts at propaganda and subversion | would be relieved of all pretense of restraint.” | The New York Evening Post tries in its editorial comment to inject a comedy note. It pictures the writers of the sede Union note as burlesque diplomats. But this view, it is apparent | from the extracts quoted above, is not widely held in Great) Britain. As the Daily Express says in effect, after all Russia is) THERE. The workers’ and peasants’ government of the Soviet Union is the most tremendous fact in the world and the second | great fact, as British imperialism is learning to its sorrow, is) > fiat it is an inexhaustible source of inspiration to the oppressed | masses ruled by Britain, The third fact is that war on the) Soviet Union is not popular among the world’s working class and | would in itself be a powerful factor in bringing into being new] uprisings in British colonies. | “ The conclusion is that unless British imperialism is prepared | to stake the empire in a war which is a challenge to the whole | working class and all colonial peoples and from which the social | evolution would quite probably arise, it has to recognize the) Soyiet Union as a force more powerful than the British empire. So far Great Britain has come off second best in the exchange | of notes and while we do not believe in omens, we are convinced | that she will suffer the same fate in the far more serious busi hess of war. | British imperialism may as well understand that in talking| to the Soviet Union it is not talking to the representatives of unarmed and helpless masses but to a government which has the most loyal population in the world and whose crimson banner Over one-sixth of the earth’s surface. o Independence and the Chinese Liberation Movement | The Filipino nationalists are talking right out in meeting| the Chinese revolution has shown to the hundreds of mil- of colonial people that imperialism’is far from invulnerable. | ing at a dinner given to welcome him back to Manila, Com- S To abdicate now from the ideal of complete independence "when the Orient is on the crest of intense nationalisme—Java and Sumatra agitating the overthrow of foreign control, India clamoring for the right to stand by herself and China fight- ing against alien interference—would be the blackest stain on the escutcheon of the Filipino people. Up to a short time ago the Filipino independence movement was based almost entirely on. the promise of independence con- tained in the preamble to the Jones Bill—a promise which the Coolidge administration has repudiated in fact if not in words by the introduction of the Bacon Bill and the report of Carmi ‘Thompson. The Filipino masses, if their leaders have told them the truth, swill understand now that the 50 or more U. S. warships in the Far East are a demonstration against their efforts toward independ- ence as well as a threat to the Chinese liberation movement. * But if the new defiant and more realistic attitude of the Filipino leaders is to mean anything it must be given practical expression in the organization of a powerful labor and peasant movement. This is the base of the Chinese liberation movement and this) fe ig the main lesson to be drawn from it by the Filipino masses. y| The financial editor of the New York Eyening Post 6 trolled by Thomas W. Lamont of the house of Morgan) sa¥s? : All in all the McFadden measure is a distinctively con- structive measure and is so regarded by a majority of the Wall Street authorities. © This is the bill which Coolidge signed while vetoing the farm Welief bill. Both bills were passed by a united front of bankers » The bankers got theirs and are much releved. The farmers, itis to be hoped, have been relieved of their confidence in men and methods which make bankers beneficiaries and farmers bankrupts. Get Another Subscriber for Your DAILY WORKER. DAILY WORKER |the dim past. A Socialist 1 By ALEX BITTELMAN. OF the many contradictions that have been disturbing the socialist party of America since and after the imperialist’ war, one particular con- tradiction is coming to forefront of | late with ever increasing intensity. This is the conflict between general | pre-war philosophy of the socialist | party based on the principle of the| class struggle and its actual prac- \tices during the same period which| constitute a betrayal of the class struggle and a surrender to capital- ism, | This contradiction between the class struggle theory (however confused it ray be) and class -collaborationist | of the American socialist party is demanding a solution. This} demand ‘had been voiced on several) oceasions by various elements in the| Obvious fact that the primary strug: | party: right wing, center and so- called left wing. But no solution had been found up fo date, except that the reformist practices of the socialist party are becoming ever more domin- nt while its theory of pre-war days| receeding farther and father into } Even a cursory glance} at the symposium ran in the New Leader (socialist weekly, New York) on the task and future of the socialist party would be sufficient to prove} THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUBSDAY, MARCH 1, 1927 Search of a Workers’ Party { ing to suppress their ennui and salve their social consciences.” The mistake that Budenz seems to be making is this: that together with the futile, middle class parlia- }mentarism of the socialist party he also proposes to discard the correct, the working class, the revolutionary use of parlimentary action as advo- cated and effectively practiced in the interests of the struggle against cap- italism by the Communist parties in all capitalist countries, { | Socialist Party Surrendered to Trade) Union Reactionaries. } HE second mistake that Budenz makes is his half-truth criticism of the industrial policies of the so-| cialist party, | Is it true, as Budenz says, that the S. P. “has all too long neglectedsthe | gle of the American workers for con- trol of. industry is still on the indus- trial field rather than in the halls of congress?” It is and it is not. What is true in this statement? It is true that the S. P. has all too long ne- glected the primary struggles of the American workers. But it neglected these struggles on all fields, political as well as industrial. And it’ did so| |for the reason that it ceased to be| |a working class party and hence| ceased to be interested in the strug-| our contention, A detailed analy: | of this symposium would undoubtedly | gles of the American workers, prim-| prove very instructive even to many|ary and others. This is how Budenz| of the members of the socialist party,|must be supplemented to make his| particularly its few proletarian ele-| statements reflect the whole truth. | ments, and for this reason we shall} | yet come back to this symposium at! B UT even this is not a complete} some future date. Here we shall deal statement of the case. For while only with one of the articles in the | it is true that the socialist party had | symposium, the one by Louis Francis | 2° Positive policy in favor of the) Fudenz on the socialist party and the | Sttuggles of the American workers trade unions (New Leader, February | it had invariably had a negative pol- 12, 1927). | icy which worked against the strug- | gles of the American workers. | Speaking more concretely, it means | this. The socialist party, as a party, has abandoned the sphere of indus-| | trial struggles, and by doing so has | left the field completely in the hands| of the reactionary trade union bu- reaucracy. But this is only one phase. The next phase is more posi- tive. It shows the socialist party (as a party and through its various leaders in the unions) in close alli- ance with the most reactionary and corrupt elements among the trade | union bureaucracy. The recorded his- tory of the -American labor move- ment during the last ten years will prove conclusively that every time a conflict arose between progress and reaction in the unions, most of the socialist party trade unionists and the party as such were invariably lined up on the side of reaction and against progress. ND the third mistake that Budenz makes is when he says that the primary struggles of the American workers for control of industry “is | still on the industrial field rather | than in the halls of congress, and probably always will be.” This formulation is confusing. What does one mean by struggle for workers’ control of industry? means a struggle against capitalist’ control of industry, i. ce. a revolu- tionary struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist system and the estab- lishment of socialism as a step to- wards Communism. That such a re- volutionary change cannot be accom- Wants S. P. to Penetrate Unions. Louis Budenz criticizes the socialist arty for ignoring the industrial struggles of the workers and the trade unions. He says: “If one comes to a survey of the position and activities of the social- ist party in America from the view- point of furthering the industrial struggle. . .plenty of facts can be mustered to show that the party | has not done all that it should have done. . .Lost in the mazes of par- liamentarism, it has all too long neglected the obvious fact that the primary struggle of the American workers for control of industry, is still on the industrial field rather than in the halls of congress, and probably always will be. Hence. Budenz coneludes, the social- ist party must turn its attention away from parliamentarism and. toward in- dustrial action and trade unionism. cretely, he proposes that the so-} jalist party begin to penetrate the| trade unions, which he considers “the hief hope of the workers,” promote he struggles of the unions which should include the socialization of in- dustry with workers’ control “as the full fruition of the workers’ hopes,” and also to work for a labor party. He holds out before his party the in- dependent labor party in Great Brit-| ain and urges the S. P. of A. to at- tempt to play the same role in Amer-| ica. | What kind of penetration is it that| Budenz is urging upon the S. P.? He xplains as follows: “Now, it is perfectly clear that this is a plea not for the CAPTURE of the unions by certain socialists or radical groups or leaders—a pol- icy doomed to complete defeat— but for a PENETRATION of the | unions by a radical philosophy, based on a sympathetic desire to attain victory for the workers now | and in the future. Fine Sentiments and Poor Reasoning. It seems to us, from the article under consideration, that Budenz is being moved to his reflections. by something which is both basic and vital for the workers and the labor movement. But his reasoning is deeply confused showing a lack of clear understanding as to what he really wants. Take his criticisms of the socialist party. Not only are they incomplete with regard to presenting a true pic- ture of everyday socialist practices but they fail totally to expose the basic reasons for these fon-working class practices. Is it true, as Budenz says, that the S. P. got lost in the “mazes of par- liamentarism”? Yes, it is. But is that the whole truth? No, it is not. make Budenz’s statement reflect whole truth, one must formulate it this way; the socialist party got hopelessly lost in the mazes of petty- bourgeois, middle-class parlamente oe ism, This is what happened to the socialist party. It abandoned the po- sition of class struggle political ac- tidh, including the revolutionary use of parliamentary action, and substi- tuted for it reformist parliamentar- ism. It ceased to be a political party of the workers and degenerated into a parliamentary club of petty bour- geois reformists. UDENZ must have had some such feeling himself when he qualified his article as “gq plea for activity among the real workers as the first objective of the radical movement, rather than highfalutin lectures before little groups of middle class folks, seck- Congress Today! revolutionary use of parliamentary struggles is of vital importance. Bat the basic thing to remember is that the struggle for workers’ control of industry, if. it is to be suc- cessful, must inevitably lead to a struggle for power and the establish- ment of the proletarian dictatorship. This is a political struggle (not to be confused with pure parliamentar- ism) in which all the struggles of the workers on the industrial field find their concentrated expression. | It is quite true that this conception of the class struggle is not the conception of the socialist party. As was shown above, the socialist party has aban- doned the proletarian class struggle altogether. But this only proves that the entire plea of Budenz was sadly misdirected. The socialist party can no longer respond to pleas which call for working class action of any kind. A. Slogan Full of Dangers. UDENZ proposes penetration of the unions “by a radical philo- sophy,” but warns against the cap- ture of the unions “by certain social- ist or radical groups.” He considers the: latter “a policy doomed to com- plete defeat.” This slogan of “pene- tration but no capture” may sound nice but it is full of dangers. More- over, too strict a devotion to such a policy inevitably leads to comprom- ise with and surrender to the reac-| actionary bureaucracy, which makes} penetration sheer mockery. | O attempt really to penetrate ‘the | unions with a radical philosophy | “based on a sympathetic desire to at-| tain victory for the workers,” means | to .engage in the most intensive struggle with the policy of class col- laboration, compromise, betrayal, corruption and surrender to the bosses which is now dominating the American trade union movement. This means a life and death struggle vgainst the reactionary trade union bureaucracy." Why? Because any attempt at progressive action in the tiade unions, however mild provided it is sincere and consistent, meets the bitterest and most unscrupuious attacks of the reactionaries. The lat- ter stop before nothing to stem the advance of progressive and working class ideology in the unions. Isn’t Budenz aware of that? Isn’t he familiar with the history of the American labor movement? Right now, today, the trade union reaction- aries are bending heaven and ea:th te expel, destroy and rid the unions of every progressive element even at the cost of destroying the unions? What lesson, can we learn from even the recent experiences of the pro- gressives and left wingers in the Miners’ Union and in the Needle Trades Unions, to mention only two? HE only lesson to be derived from these and similar experiences is this: that in order to make the unions what they ought to be—or- gans of struggle for the interests cf the workers—the unions must be | plished from within “the halls of congress” is quite obvious, although in the preparation of the working; wrested completely out of the hands of the reactionaries and placed where It) they belong, in the hands of the rank: and file, led by a progressive and icft wing leadership. This must be the program of every true and honest progressive in the trade unions. This is the program of the Trade ‘Jnion Educational League. And it is to these elements that Budenz must turn} for a solution of the problems which confront the American trade union movement at the present time. Editors of The DAILY phone td Your contributor, S. A. Garlin, in School: A Memory,” commits a mis- of his article by submitting an in- dictment in general terms rather than a verifiable bill of particulars. great many readers with whom I dis- cussed the article want to know: 1. Why and how and when was Benjamin Glassberg (the Brooklyn high school teacher alluded to) dis- missed? There is a story current that he was discharged upon the ex- press demand of Morris Hillquit, who| refused to defend the Rand School in a very plain case involving an in-| vasion of its civil liberties, unless it! purged its staff first of “left-wing-| Query: » Is this story true or. false? If false, what are the true, facts in the ¢ase? Until quite re. cently, I thonght this account of Glassberg’s dismissal so plainly cal- umnious that I didn’t take the trou- ble to make inquiry, 2. When did the incident of the three typists and office-clerks occur? Were they the only ones connected with the school who were asked to consent to a redurtion of pay, for the good of the cause? 3. Your contributor mentions “fat salaries.” Just how “fat” are they and who gets them? I should think that all parties concerned would be glad to have the facts plainly stated. JAMES FUCHS. » The Rand School: | A Letter from James Fuchs and a Reply The Facts Are Available. My comment on the Rand School sions with documentary evidence. It “revolutionary” decadence. I am convinced that the implica- A|tions of my article were justified|in the New Leader.” from the facts with which I am famil- iar. As to a “verifiable bill of par- ticulars,”—such a request is quite le- gitimate. There arg several individ- uals formerly on the instructional staff of the Rand School and also on its board of directors who can speak with personal authority on the points raiseq by James Fuchs. I am sure that they would be willing to make their knowledge public. Might I suggest, parenthetically, that during the early period of the Rand School its directors were in the habit of boasting of the large number of cloakmakers, iron workers and printers who attended their classes, Of late, I understand, they have be- come proud of the number of per- sons who come to the lectures on literature and poetry possessing an A. B. degree.—S, A. GARLIN. Judge Wants No Publicity. Fifteen-year-old Kasia Mahoney, daughter of Justice Mahoney, is tied to the parental apron-strings, “Please don’t ask me anything,” recs Mahoney admonished repor- ers, Read The Daily Worker Every Day WITHDRAW ALL U. S. WARSHIPS FROM NICARAGUA ! NO INTERVENTION IN MEXICO! INDUSTRY AND SEX THE NEW MASSES for March displays itself both at its best and at its worst. The absurd symposium on the “correct proletarian, revolutionary attitude on sex” is being continued, and the jazzy, pseudo-Mercurian “Peaches and Scream” kind of frothy humor is still conspicuous, * * * Powers Hapgood reveals himself to be both clear-headed and’ modest in his article “Gangsterism Rules the Miners.” Hapgood—Harvard ’20, Phi Beta Kappa, and a nephew of W. R. Hearst’s Norman, Hapgood—has worked in the coal mines of Great Britain, Japan, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the United States. He was a delegate from a local in western Pennsylvania to the recent convention of the United Mine Workers of America, held in Indianapolis. The technique of the Lewis machine in dis- posing of the progressive leadership was unique and courageous, First, the officialdom refused to give young Hapgood his seat as a duly elected delegate to the convention, Then he was beat up by the thugs of the ruling clique with monotonous regularity. + * * Powers, with a tolerance which is exasperating, recites the events during the sessions of the convention, He tells, with great vividness, of the machinations of the reactionary mine-union leadership in preventing criti- cism by the minority. “Meanwhile,” writes Hapgood, “the wage agreement is nearing its expiration. As usual in the labor movement, no matter how bitter the factional quarrels, internal dissensions will be subordinated in the event of a strike, and a united front can be expected from the miners.” (Maybe. Refer: New York needle trades). wee Michael Gold has some rhapsodical comments which he calls “Loud Speaker and Other Essays.” This is just the medium fdr him—free, spacious, and anarchic. His stuff is always sweeping, vivid, and full of fine ses but he is sometimes hysterical. His essay “Knockout”. is a neat example: “it must come it must come his body is red as eczema he | looks sick he can’t see his eye is a jelly O good his legs like lead Kis arms like mountains drowned in sweat and: despair he staggers under the terrible white lamps he knows the world is a beast and nothing can soften Americans but the knockout it must come it must come cowardly clerks flunkey bricklayers tip-whining taxi- drivers sneak thieves pimps coke fiends newspapermen lawyers parlor whores society dames all pant for tragedy.” ow Ne i Floyd Dell, V. F. Calverton, and Upton Sinclair all contribute to the discussion on the Subject of “Sex and Revolution.” Dell singles out two gifts of the machine age: (1) The freedom from the patriarchal yoke of the previous generation which the younger generation has achieved; (2) The machine age “has destroyed the old patriarchal concept of the im- portance of virginity in young women; and with their giving up their old-fashioned care for ‘purity,’ commercialized prostitution tends to become obsolescent.” Calverton’s paper entitled ‘Sex and Economics” presents once again the example of a writer who has the correct method of analysis, and the lack of horse sense to apply it to specific situations. _ After a labored “historical survey” of the attitudes of the best minds since Aristotle on the subject of sex, Calverton, with the heavy artillery of terrifying scholarship, concludes with the friendly admonition that revolu- tionists must be as revolutionary in their attitude toward sex as they are toward the “private-property-ethic.” | * * % _ Upton Sinclair's prescription on the sex problem is a little lacking in vigor because he says that to answer the question “What is the correct revolu- tionary proletarian attitude towards sex,” with general principles is the only alternative to the writing of a book. “But the trouble is,” writes Sinclair, “it will sound like preaching, and I understand this is not good form among your readers.” __ After making a distinction between “revolutionary proletarians and triflers and poseurs,” Sinclair asserts that the best thing that revolutionists can do is to have sound children—if they intend to have any at all. Eis, ele |. “The New Masses” is devoting thousands of words to this mighty sub- ject—in a noble effort to thrash it out, Last month it gave Charles W. Wood permission to write 4,000 words on it. And his article wasn’t so good, either. It seems to me (and I speak with great humility) that there are other themes on the contemporary battlefield equally vital and momentous. HS Oe The artists are fortunately represented in full force in the March num- ber. Hugo Gellert, Louis Lozowick, Art Young, and Otto Sogolow are all here. William Siegel has a fine drawing. But the most compelling is the one by Diego Rivera, which describes the distribution of land among the Mexican peons. is eae sae | There is an interesting story by Joseph Freeman dealing with the decay of the Russian monarchist “nobility.” There are some bright book reviews by Kenneth Fearing, Charles Erskine, Scott Wood, and John Dos Passos, Also an absurd poem entitled “Empire” by the author of that popular one-act | play, “Lima Beans”—Alfred Kreymbourg. * % SENDER GARLIN. | A LITERARY COMPLAINT “In your BOOKS column this morning,” writes A. Henry Schneer, “you have a comment by H. F., to the effect that the books by Floyd Deil, V. F. Calverton and Upton Sinclair are the ‘only books published in the U. S. which attempt to tie up literary with social movements.’ “May I correct this statement? Not. merely because it is not an exact one, but primarily because we do not wish our readers to ignore the signif- icant work of Randolph Bourne (“History of a Literary Radical”); of Van ae ag vad fee ay Pempeyck gst etc.) and one of the most signif- icant and timel¥ lances of the most recent of this i on, Godin ee school, Lewis Mumford “While it is true that the Bourne-Brooks-Mumford group do not accept the sociology of historic materialism, they do NOT accept the pragmatic acquiescence of political democracy. In fact they are breaking new ground an exceptionally interesting and well-| was obviously “impressionistic.” It| against the vested interests. We should not ignore this group who are in- written article entitled, “The Rand| was not my job to fortify my impres-| digenous to this country. Nor should we accept blindly the writers whom H. F. mentions with so much gusto. Does he forget the Greenwich Village take common to a good many radical] was merely my desire to describe a| Streak in Floyd Dell, or the Milton-fiasco in “Mammonart,” and the Russian- publicists—he impairs the usefulness| particular kind of atmosphere of. aa or of Calverton? We are not trying here to discourage either group; ‘or both have their functions in present-day America. the: pacifiain’ of Deland Sinclair, ree O5 Pot Sorkes nor yet the socialistic articles of Calverton ~ * * * Schneer is correct. I did omit Randolph Bourne, Van Wyck Brooks ‘wis Mumford, all of whom made valuable contributions to i social ccttigns of literature. Bourne, however, was a courageous pioneer, who pointed out E it cy epee Mee ir i peraintaier of literature; and Van Wyck rooks’ studies are considerably diluted with sexuo- ‘hol have not read Mumford’s “Golden Day.” eee ee Furthermore, I do not accept blindly the works of Sinclair, Cal and Dell: I quite agree with Schneer when he says that they “are no ous guilty of scientific ignorance, but morose, weak in their underst of Marxism-Leninism.” What I mean to say, however, is that these men are the only ones who have consistently tried to interpret literature in social terms, They have often been guilty of grotesque’ errors. (Calverton, for Hertnca Li iid econ aig by ches and Edith Wharton as “proletarian artists. ut they happen to have a monopoly on the s of literature in this country. cB sen pans 3 aR The Face On The Barroom Floor. Bury Director Suicide. / LOS ANGELES, Feb, 28.—Funeral -|services for Lynn F, Reynolds, mo- tion picture director who killed him- self early yesterday morning, will be held Monday afternoon at a Holly- wood mortuary chapel. The masonic rites will be observed and interment will be in Hollywood. Coroner Nance today signed a death by suicide cer- tificate, i al ea) eo’ : Nie Nicholas Murray Butler Is icady | Roll in the Subs For The DAILY To Serve The Customers. f HANDS OFF CHINA! ——eaaSS SSS