The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 5, 1927, Page 4

_ of its servants to lie, browbeat and finally make war, Page Four THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1927 THE DAILY WORKER « i Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (in New York only): By mail (outside of New York): $8.00 per year $4.60 six months $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.50 three months $2.00 three months Phone, Orchard 1680 Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. ¥. J. LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE ‘ BERT MILLER i Editors -Business Manager ‘A. CAPITALI PITALIST BIRD OF Entered as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 0, 1879. —_ ~ = ee ; Advertising rates on application. ieee = seer The Farmers’ Dilemma and the Way Out Yn a recent statement to the Washington bureau of the Fed- erated Press, W. A. Anderson, chairman of the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, gave the following reasons for the steadily decreasing living standards of the farmers: (1) High protective tariff on manufactured goods increas-| ing the prices farmers pay for these commodities. (2) Excessive transportation charges. (3) Monopolies which arbitrarily fix prices of commodities. This is another and rather roundabout way of saying. that the farmer is in the grip of a system in which he exercises but little influence. Anderson should also have given as another and perhaps more important reason the fact that the farmers a class are paying interest on more than $8,000,000,000 of mortgages—trying to bear a burden which is crushing them to the earth which they till for little reward. This burden grows heavier year by year. The days of cheap land are gone as well in America, while the products of the immense rich Russian areas are now coming into the world markets in ever greater quantities, Even a casual survey of the position of the American farmer is sufficient to disclose the utterly foolish method followed by the great majority of them to better their conditions. They sup- port, except in rare cases as in Minnesota, either the democrat or republican party—the parties which are the class political ex- pression of the railroad, banking and manufacturing interests, the instruments by which they manipulate the power of the gov- ernment in their own behalf. Most farming sections are strongholds of the republican party—the party of high tariff. The farmers have switched at| times to the democrat party only to find that the legislation it| passed favored everybody except the workers and farmers. The} last democrat administration drove the masses into'a war in the| interest. of the house of Morgan, the biggest banking concern in} the world and the farmers and workers are still paying for this remarkably profitable adventure in behalf of their class enemies. | Tradition has a strong hold on the American farmer. He is} very much afraid of all isms except capitalism but this is the ism responsible for his woes. He cannot continue to support the parties of American capi- talism without becoming peasantized—reduced to serfdom. Traditions are hard to break when the whole propaganda ma- chinery of the most powerful ruling class in the world devotes its entire time to maintaining the fiction of the non-existence of classes in America and the identity of interest of all members of that great, glorious and free family—the American “peepul.” But the iron logic of economic pressure is breaking the hold of tradition as in Minnesota and even with a trade union leader- ship which fights the idea of a break with the parties of capital- ism and the organization of a powerful party of workers and farmers, the farmer is coming to realize that he must fight side by side with the industrial workers aganst a common enemy. A militant leadership for the labor movement and the farm- ers will be found aligned with te workers. There is no other way out of the mire into which both groups of producers have been shoved by false leaders and the pressure of a system organized for bankers and industrial lords. Foreign Affairs—The New Taboo of Wall Street’s Medicine Men “Private meddling with the vital foreign relations of a coun- try is something that cannot be tolerated,” says the New York} Tribune in an editorial castigating Senator Borah for daring to attempt to discover the truth concerning American relations with Mexico. It can be said in passing that the very cursory investi- gation made by Borah disclosed the fact that American diplomacy differs in nowise from the diplomacy of other capitalist countries, i. e., that the state department from Kellogg down is a combina-| tion of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled liars and ligkspittles of | the industrial and financial lords. Borah’s investigation is hardly “private meddling” since he is chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. but| , if he were only a private citizen it still would be his duty to ex-| pose if possible a conspiracy against another nation and the American masses—a conspiracy which was and is leading to war | with Mexico in behalf of Standard Oil and of Doheny—-one of America’s most outstanding crooks and grafters whose methods’ of accumulation are a little too raw even for his fellow robbers. | Just now the imperialist press is dirécting its fire at Borah. | But its target is really the right of criticism of government by | the governed. The restriction of this privilege to a low minimum | and its fina! abolition is something desired most ardently by the capitalist class. In this period of imperialist adventures, when the true mo-| tives for conquest of weaker peoples and the brutal facts of the | conquest itself need concealment, we can expect a new drive on such liberties as free speech, press and assemblage, The ficld of foreign affairs is to become a sort of forbidden territory, as in Great Britain since her rise as a ruler of colonies, into which none may venture except those considered 100 per cent loyal. As American imperialism expands and in consequence comés oftener into conflict with colonial peoples and imperialist rivals, foreign affairs take precedence over all but the most im- portant matters of domestic policy. ; There must be no timidity in exposing the plots of Wall Street’s state department and no capitulation to the desire of the ruling class for the ‘.bolition of all restrictions upon the power Get Another Subscriber for Your DAILY WORKER. | |that seems so safe but will result in its’ ultimate de- struction. RECORD TRIBUTE IN 1926 By LELAND OLDS (Federated Press). IVIDEND and interest payments by American cor- porations in 1926 amounted to $4,335,912,000, ac- | cording to the U. S, department of commerce. The huge |sum distributed to the owners of America in cash ex- ceeds by $258,588,000, or more than 6%, the cash hand- | out of the previous year. It is without question the largest cash tribute ever exacted by an owning class in the history of the world. This enormous return to the small class which lives by owning stocks and bonds would have provided a full year’s wage to about 3,250,000 factory workers. If divided equally among all the farmers, factory workers, railroad workers and miners employed throughout the country it would have added more than $250 to each family budget. The 1926 dividend and interest payments mark a gain of 27% over 1920. They represent an increase of 144% over 1913 when stock and bond holders received a cash income of $1,777,236,000. Total dividend and interest paynfents in each year since 1913 were: 1918.. +++. $1,777,236,000 1914, + 1,785,376,000 1915. +» 1,865,112,000 1916. + 2,135,028,000 +. 2,389,140,000 1917. : - 2,724,782,000 1918. 1919. 8,189,168,000 1920. 3,414,876,000 . 1921. 3,341,808,000 1922. « 8,399,720,000° 1923. 1924. 1925. 1926. +++ 3,385,216,000 «+ 3,840,588,000 ++ 4,077,324,000 + 4,835,912,000 Total........$41,862,236,000 Dividend payments in 1926, taken separately, amounted to $1,120,392,000 while interest totaled $3,215,520,000. Corresponding figures for 1913 were $818,056,000 divi- dends and $959,180,000 interest. Dividend payments have increased only 34% while interest: payments have in- creased 235%. In other words the owning class in Amer- ica is becoming a coupon-clipping class without direct responsibility toward the people which produce its lavish income. The average rate of dividends on industrial stocks has been slowly but steadily increasing. In 1913 the average annual return was $5.23 a share. In 1917 it reached a wartime peak of $6.68 and was again $6.59 in 1920. Then the rate slumped to a low of $4.40 a share in 1922. In 1925, however, it passed all previous records with $7.09 a share. In 1926 it reached $7.58 a share. If account were taken of the stock dividends which have intervened the return on actual investment would show much higher. Railroad dividends at $330,336,000 surpass all previous records. The cash income of stock and bond holders over the], 14-year period covered by the table totaled $41,862,- 236,000. About 70% of this stream of gold flowed to less than 1% of the population, to the class which can live in luxury: without giving any service in return. Attempts to justify such huge payments to the idle rich on thé ground that they furnish new capital break down because corporations are today retaining enough in undivided profits to provide for all necessary expan- sion of the country’s industrial plant. The country to- day faces not a shortage but a surplus of new capital. The resulting crisis can be avoided only by diverting a large part’ of the profit stream into wages. PREY | FO How To Abolish Crime.—The American press—and in particular its Washington correspondents—are utterly lacking in a sense of humor. They report without a flicker of amusement one of the most farcical official documents in the history of American im- perialism, The creature of the American lumber interests in Nicaragua, Diaz, has sent a formal “request” that the United States establish a protectorate over his country. He wants a treaty in which the U. S. should “guarantee the sovereignty of Nicaragua.” In return for this guarantee he is willing to give up all pretense of sovereignty. For instahce, the U. S. is to have the legal right to intervene at any time; it is to put its own people in charge of the financial and technical affairs of that country, ete. Diaz's logic is exquisite. “As matters now stand,” he writes, “the frequent intervention ‘of American armed forces in our territory is directed exclusively for the protection of American and foreign lives and property. We have therefore reached the conclusion that we want to derive for ourselves some benefit and permanentiadvantage from American intervention, which we have thus far found inevitable, and at the same time transfer it from its present somewhat vague de facto basis to a well defined de jure status with clearly stated responsi- bilities and apparent benefits for the intervenor and the inter- vened.” That’s great stuff! There lurks in it a/ suggestion to cities like New York and Chicago, where crime is rampant. By legalizing (giving a “well defined de jure status”) robbery, murder, etc., all crime and criminals would automatically be abolished. OTNOTES =a By EUGENE LYONS = | TWELVE On reading in the papers about twelve London clubmen who have applied for permission to fight for Chang J'so Lin, the Manchurian dictator, against the Chinese Nationalist army. Twelve monocled parasites Stand in'a row Be-spatted, high-hatted But nowhere to go. Twelve silly young asses, Tired, yawning and bored Every damned one of them, Gentleman, Lord. Like Gilbert and Sullivan’s Burlesquish fools, They vow that they want to be Chang Tso Lin’s tools. They’ve chosen their company Better than they knew. Chang and these gentlemen Make a jolly fine crew. Twelve British carcasses “SUPERIOR”, “you know” May soon rot in China-land Where bright poppies grow. —ADOL¥ WOLFF. In Defense of New Jersey.—Organizations of bird and ‘satel lovers are protesting against the wholesale slaughter of crows in New Jersey. These crities should not be too harsh on the state. The war on the crows was undertaken only as a last resort. The heart of official New Jersey is tender enough. The critics forget an exciting demonstration of tender- ness recently and we had better recall it to their minds. Over in New Brunswick a farmer was accused of not feeding his cows enough. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals obtained a warrant against him. State troopers arrived on the farm to serve the warrant. When the farmer hesitated to accept it they shot at him, whereupon, he retired to his house and barred the door. The animal lovers, however, were resolute. They laid siege to the house, crippled the farmer, murdered his sister and nearly destroyed the house, But they saved the cows! So there you are. The Society for the Prevention, etc., is defending the troopers who face a charge of murder. Let the aforementioned critics always remember these martyrs to the cause of kindness to animals, Workers Theatre and The Frock Coats——The advahce announcements of the New Playwrights Theatre were full of courageous references to “proletarian art . . . Communist interpretation . . . workers’ theatre . . Maierhold’s technique,” etc., etc. “We are trying hard to give radicals a theatre of their own,” said one statement. “... We want to write and pro- duce plays for the workers, who are the best audience. . . .” But the pub- licity department of this epoch-making theatre completely forgot the labor press in its official opening. It catered. to the frock coats in orthodox fashion. The bourgeois press was invited, of course, and quite proper. They sneered at the whole thing, quite as expected. But the labor papers and the labor news agencies were forgotten. The Federated Press, the official Soviet news bureau, the publications of the unions were ignored. The conductors of clever columns in the capitalist press were invited. But the conductors of eleverer columns in the workers’ press-—this one in particular—were not. Materhold will learn of the opening, if at all, from the bourgeois press, be- cause his own press was forgotten and reminding them did no good. Proleta- rien art movements will do much better as soon as they stop kow-towing to the silk hats, ‘ FROM A GALLERY OF FUTILITIES. 1. An Urban Poetess, She sprang from the asphalt of city streets. She grew up among tenements and skyscrapers, thunderous traffic and shoals of humans. But these things could not crush her poetic soul. Her thoughts were fragrant as a lovely countryside. Her inner vision saw green fields spread on rolling hillsides like cloths for a picnic of the gods. It saw virgin forests buzzing with an in- tense animal life. It concentrated upon the exquisiteness of a single flower, the tracery of veins on a single petal»... . But having been raised in the city she had no words for these visions, However vast it might be to her emo- tionally, a tree was but a tree to her verbally. Except for the domesticated roses, sweet peas, carnations one may buy at a florist’s she could not call flowers familiar- _ ly by their names. On the other hand, she knew from her reading the names of trees and flowers which she had never seen . . . such exquisite, exotic names some of them too... And how is one to write poetry without these things? Where, she asked herself in dismay, will you’ find a poem worthy of the name without birds and _ flowers and brooks and cows in it? Which explains what her admiring frie:\ds for a long time failed to understand—her sudden devotion to the natural sciences. It was a practical masculine sort of interest wholly at variance with her poetic nature, they said. The fact though is that she has thrown herself ardently into the study of biology, botany, zoology . . . devours articles on agronomy and animal husbandry . . « In a word, she is acquiring the raw material of poesy, and once she feels that she knows her ground will step out boldly as a poetess, no Ruthenberg Explains the Criticism of Socialist Party by the Left Wing By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL. T is inevitable that the death of our comrade and leader, To. E. Ruthenberg, should again bring to the fore- front the differences between the Socialist Party of- ficialdom, typified in Morris Hillquit and Victor L. Berger, and the Socialist Party’s pre-war left wing, that developed into the American Communist Party. Ruthenberg was the standard bearer of the clash with the socialist parliamentarians, He was the leader of the } struggle to win the Socialist Party membership for a revolutionary position, to wage a conscious struggle against capitalism. It was this long effort, through the ten years from 1909 to 1919, that fitted him so well for the mantel of leadership that fell upon his shoulders in the young American Communist movement. It may be said that of the millions who now read of his death, multitudes will ponder, “Why did Ruthenberg break with Hillquit and Berger and help build the Com- munist Party?” * * « Ruthenberg joined the Socialist Party in January, 1900. Within two or three months after joining the party he became one of its officials, serving it in some official capacity up to June, 1917, without pay. He be- came a paid employe of the party in the month that the espionage act went into effect, when war conscrip- tion was put into force—June, 1917, taking up the cudgels against war and militarism more actively in 4 the hours when many socialist officials were anxious to drop dangerous party duties, following the adoption of the St. Louis Anti-War Proclamation. It was during these months of the American partici- pation in the war, the months following the Bolshevik triumph in Russia, that the differences within the So- cialist party crystallized ne sess oe to the split of 1919. * Ruthenberg set forth those differences while on the wit- ness stand in the capitalist court, in New York City, when he was on trial charged with holding views hostile to the American capitalist government. Under direct examination by I. E. Ferguson, also on trial, but who acted as one of counsel, Ruthenberg had explained that the socialist locals in Ohio were over- whelmingly left wing. In answer to the question by Ferguson, “Can you tell us what was said by the left wingers with regard to the Socialist Party at that time (early part of 1919)?” Ruthenberg replied: “The criticism was of the platforms of the Socialist Party, which included a great number of so-called im- mediate demands. These demands dealt with immediate changes which the party advocated, such as, for in- stance, the abolition of the senate or the limitation of the. hours of work for children, or industrial insurance, accident insurance and similar reforms. The criticism was that the Socialist Party through the advocacy of such measures was misleading the working class into a belief that they could secure their emancipation from oppression and exploitation to which they were sub- jected under the capitalist system, by achieving the enactment of such measures, The Ieft wing ‘contended, and the criticism was, that the.party should assume the position of demanding merely one thing, and that is the abolition of the capitalist system, and as the first step toward that end, the transference of political power from the capitalist class to the working class.” The examination then continued: ‘ “Q. Did this criticism state an opposition to better- j ment of conditions of workers now? A. No, it did not. . “Q. Was it then simply an opposition to the Socialist Party doing one sort of thing or another? A. It was opposition to the Socialist Party laying emphasis in its propaganda campaign, propaganda and educational work upon these measures as against the ultimate aim for which the party was supposed to stand.” oe: a cae * *. . “Q. Go on and state other criticisms that you know that were made, if any, of the official Socialist Party by the left wing? A. Also that the Socialist Party empha- sized the participation in the elections and the election of certairi officials; that it had become more or less a | vote getting machine to elect certain persons to public | offices, rather thah an organization which sought to bring about a fundamental change in the social system. That, in contradistinction to the emphasis on the election of certain candidates, the left wing believed that emphasis should be placed upon the industrial organization of the workers.” “Q. What do you mean by that? 4. The organization into unions, into industrial unions, and use of the indus- } trial power of the workers if their struggle for a change | in the social system. It was the position of the left wing j that, under the existing political and social conditions in the various capitalist countries, that with the control of the newspapers, the control of the educational insti- tutions, the control of all the means of information in the hands of the dominant class, the capitalist class, that the effort to achieve political control through election campaigns was fruitless; that the working class should rely upon the point at which its power could be organized and used directly through the industrial form of or- ganization, and through such use of that power as would develop under the change in the social system and the | social developments.” E | * * . “Q. What is an industrial union as you have now used the term? A. The organization of all the workers irrespective of craft into one union. | “Q. Of all of what workers? A. All the workers em- ployed in a certain industry. ‘ “Q. The organizations of the workers of the par ticular industry in the industrial union of that indus- try? A. Yes, sir, and the combinations of those indus- trial unions into one union. i “Q. And in what sense do you use the word ‘indus- trial action’? A. . In the sense of using their power to’ withhold their services to achieve their gwn ends. / “Q. By that you\mean strike action? A. Yes. “By the Court. | “Q. To achieve what end? A. Those which they | were organized to achieve, “Q. And what are those? A. The effort was to i change capitalism into Socialism, | “By Ferguson. { “Q. Now, what do you mean by that? A. To change the purpose of securing profits, the machinery of pro- portionate to the whole population, owns and uses, for the purpose of securing profits, the machinery of pro- duction and. distribution, into a society in which the ownership of the machinery of production and distribu- tion would be in the hands of all of society.” It was thus that Ruthenberg blazed, in a capitalist courtroom, the way to a correct ine creasing masses of partes Habs ak! the program, as opposed betrayal Socialism “achieve that md Fatinchorg: Sh Ue billet napty sod bende sop nberg, on his led his comrade the nation over, “Let us carry on to the victory!” ‘