The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 12, 1927, Page 8

MOL ALP Hughes, the Capitalist Legal Tool C HARLES EVANS HUGHES, former governor of the state of New York, associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, republican candidate for president, secretary of state in the Harding cabinet, and at present senior member of a law firm, has been holding a series of lectures at Columbia Uni- versity on “The Supreme Court of ‘the United States. To be sure, Mr. Hughes is considered an authority on the constitution and the law of the country, and yet, while he was reading his prepared manuscript, one could see the elusiveness and the dual charac- ter which the term “law” implies. What is the law of the country? Mr. Hughes gives his own interpretation, admits however, that its application is not always satisfactory. He gave an illustration: “The law condemns a nuisance, and yet a nuisance may be a right thing in the wrong place, like a pig in a parlor.” What is the purpose of the law? Mr. Hughes “to protect property and to establish justice.” How is this accomplished? “By the due process of the law.” This last is Mr. Hughes’ stock- in-trade. It is all very simple, the judge explains. Congress makes the laws and the courts interpret them. If the people don’t like the laws then let them make use of the ballot box. Hughes congratulates the country for being for- tunate enough to possess that wonderful document, the U. S. constitution. Our forefathers realized that we might get into legal entanglements and so they gave us a fundamental law of the country to guide ourselves. Nobody makes errors now and justice is given its due! He pities the unfortunate British people for not having a similar document. True enough, King John gave them the Magna Charta, but that manuscript is so elastic that every succeeding generation has interpreted it in a dif- ferent way. However, after showing how poorly England has provided herself wth a legal superstructure, Mr. Hughes admits that jurisprudence is very¥*confus- According to * ing and that the supreme court during its existence of over a hundred'years has not yet been ‘able to define the power of congress to pass laws regulat- ing state affairs and commerce. Much as these last questions are straining the intelligence of the “bench” yet, and matters pertain- ing to individuals, especially radicals, the courts, from a police magistrate to the chief justice of the supreme court, have seen their duty clearly and have interpreted the law so that no one may accuse them of vacillation. The “due “process clause” is invoked and, presto, justice has been administered. It was while discussing the freedom of speech and press that. the speaker referred to the war period of 1917. Here was a very specific case. A group of radicals were obstructing the government of this country in its conduct of the war. Hence the necessity for the.war time sedition bills. The “objectors and obstructors were sent to jail and the country won the war. (Radicals and near-radicals will do well to keep an eye on the past in order to know what will happen in the next war). It never occurred to Mr. Hughes to inform his audience why the “due process clause” was not used against cer- tain statesmen and financiers who, through political intrigues and under false pretenses, maneuvered this country into a needless war which killed a hundred thousand of its citizens and crippled twice that number, , Hughes is a conservative and so his advocacy for freedom of the press is limited. He praised the wis- dom of the founders of this republic to have es- tablished such freedom but also reminded his hearers that the same men had also founded the supreme court, to watch that the frail and delicate sense of freedom should not suffer abuse. When liberty he- comes license it must be stopped. To prove this he quoted the Citlow case and the supreme court decision in 1924. Here, no doubt, was the proverbial pig running around in a judicial parlor. The de- fendant was charged with having used the freedom of the press to “advocate a policy inimical to the welfare of the people; toe incite to do violence; to Two Chinese Generals HANKOW, January (By Mail).—The pomp and circumstance surrounding the reception of Chang Tso-Lin in Peking and his subsequent stay in that city make an interesting contrast with a similar event here in Hankow, when Chiang Kai-Shin, com- mander-in-chief of the Nationalist armies, arrived from Nanchang to confer with the Nationalist gov- ernment officials. In Peking, the ex-bandit chieftain from Mukden had yellow sand (an imperial symbol) strewn along the streets through which he travelled from the rail- way depot to his fortress-home in the West City. Soldiers lined all the streets through which his mo- tor passed. People stood along the way and stared. They did not, however, cheer. One correspondent said Chang Tso-Lin had everything in the way of a reception—except a welcome. oO CHINA IN REVOLT By EUGENE KREININ The cradle of ancient culture Is breaking the shell of servitude, In its lead of the oppressed, Towards the dawn of liberation From the yoke of. imperialism. Imperialism— The last attempt Of a dying capitalism, To hang on To the hinges of existence . . . And China aroused From a slumber of ages, Breaks the chains of domination. And the enemy Degenerated by delicacies— Wrung From the mouths of the workers, Is fed by an awakening people; With a reception— Bitter in taste, And lead in content ae And China opens Its milliofis of almond eyes; And the wings of imperialism Are breaking— : In the storm Nik Before the advent of the n new day .. In Hankow, General Chiang Kai-Shih arrived to be greeted by massed crowds numbering thousands, who cheered themselves hoarse and made all sorts of efforts in order merely to get a glimpse of the man. they call “liberator.” The Nationalist military chief walked through a close-packed crowd lining the landing-place. He had with him his aides and a small body-guard. But there was no yellow sand on his pathway. Nor was there any need for a lane _of soldiery. Chiang Kai-Shih, unlike Chang Tso- Lin, does not live in hourly fear of assassins. In Peking Chang Tso-Lin lived in a huge yamen, whose entrance was watched over by a company of soldiers day and night. Throughout all the many courtyards of his residence soldiers were on con- stant guard duty, Visitors penetrated to his private quarters only after passing the scrutiny of nearly a regiment of soldiers. This was not a method of. safeguard adopted merely because he was in-Peking. He is equally closely guarded when he is “at home” in Mukden. In Hankow, the Nationalist military chieftain lived in a small modern building in what is known as the “Model District” in the Chinese city. The guard of two soldiers which had been at its entrance before he arrived remained a guard of two soldiers after he had taken up residence. Some of his per- sonal hody-guards, to be sure, were in the main re- ception room of the building. But the writer, who had business with another official residing in the same building,, was not stopped or questioned by them. There was no atmosphere of apprehension. In Peking the Mukden warlord never ventured forth from his yamen unless three motor-loads of guards accompanied his own car, which had six guards hanging on the running-board with drawn seg in their hands. And he ventured forth seldom. In Hankow Chiang Kai-Shih went about in a limousine motor, with one aide inside with him and no body-guards at all. He went about eve®y day. He found time to attend a special theatrical per- formance in his honor. He smiled, bowed to ac- quaintances, took a seat democratically in the or-. chestra section and alongside a minor employe of one of the government ministries. He found time to attend a few dinners given by business men. He made speeches, telling them the aims of the revolu- tion, urging them to try hard to understand the new labor movement developing among the masses, At these functions—-and elsewhere—he indicated that he choose not to be called “General” or “Marshal” but plain “Mister” (Sien Sheng). There is no “swank” about Chiang Kai-Shih, nor yet any of the medieval pomp.and trappings which the old-style militarists of the north, affect. Nor does he write poetry while a campaign is on. He is —_Am s By FRED HARRIS disturb the peace of the’ community,” etc. (how familiar they sound), and so it became necessary to invoke the “due process clause,” and Gitlow was sent to jail. Thus speaks Mr. Hughes, the lawyer, the ex- ponent of that capitalistic monstrosity called corpus juris, the iron heel of the property class. Never have I seen a person who so compictely personified ths thing which goes by a hundred different names, jurisprudence, legality, lawfulness and so on, but which all mean the same thing, namely, the righ: to accumulate private property and to do this »y the system of wage slavery. Everything about Hughes is judicious, his im- maculate white dress shirt, white collar and tie, white vest and white whiskers. His very walk, pose and bow are judiciously measured. If it is true as some people would have it, that Hughes has used this opportunity to come back into the public-and be a possible candidate from this state for the 1928 presidential election, then.one must admit that even his entry into the political arena is from a legal standpoint unimpeachable. Well he may stand and say, “I am the law,” but strip him of his law and the man collapses. He lives with, by and for the law, the capitalist law, the law of exploiters, the law of legality for corrupt diplomacy and murder- ous wars, the law which is in harmony with the recognition of capitalist dictatorships, but which judiciously taboos a workers’ dictatorship. This law, Mr. Hughes’ law, is not a means to establish equality and justice. It is the law of capi- talism, the power of a few rich to impose their will and dictates upon a vast majority, who through a legal expropriation system have been made impo- tent, and who because of their helplessness submit to such dictates. To permit a continudtion of such exploitation legality is to dig our own grave. Laws are written by ruling classes to suppress the subject classes. As soon as the weak gain strength and overthrow their masters they then also overthrow their laws, By Our Chinese Correspondent a man who, while not of the people in his origins, is yet for the people. In all his public utterances, in all his personal contacts, he shows that his inter- est is for the plain people who make up the great masses of the population of his country. It is for them that he labors over the work of his campaigns. The streak of idealism in him makes him envisage not only a free and autonomous China, but a China whose people—the millions of laborers and peasants and small merchant#—shall be happier and less harrassed in the struggle for existence, better off socially, economically und educationally. That ideal, one gathers from men who know him well, is what strengthens him in his arduous work and gives him that perseverance which has already brought him and his armies so far as the road toward the unifica- BUILDING POEMS I watched a building being built. They had to dig the ground quite deep for its foundation. And there was a chaos of deep digging and of laying the foundation. Cranes and earth and rocks and trucks and stones and bricks and steel and pulleys—all I saw, and many workers at this giant task. It took time to build the building, but finished, it was beautiful. Clear-cut, precise, without foolish ornament, All that was without use was either thrown away or made over for other use. And I saw poems built like this. No frills, no posed ornaments, no insincere toys of sentiment, no affected exaltations—only frank as clear-cut steel, as true as finished buildings. Beautiful because they do not sham. - “These are the poems of the new United States and England, of Germany and Red China and, moth- er of them all, of Soviet Russia. The strength of the mighty poor are in these poems, and what they’ll do. These poems herald the poor and in earnest join their fight. These are the new, the youthful offsprings of their father, the poor. They know the low, strong voice of their father and therefore sing with him in solidarity and truth. These are the building poems—. they build the sky- seraping future, ~—DAVID GORDON.