The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 15, 1927, Page 6

— sae: i i ¢ Page Six ‘Ruthenberg Was an Able | Organizer of Labor for | the Social Revolution By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL. E. RUTHENBERG was an organizer of the work- *ing class for the social revolution. It was no ac- cident, therefore, that he held for ten years the posi- tion’ of secretary of the socialist party in Cleveland, Ohio, then became the secretary of the Communist Party, and afterwards the secretary of the Workers (Communist) Party, the position that he held at his death. Ruthenberg, however, did not confine himself at any time to the mere office duties of his position as secre- tary. In the socialist party there were many trained execu- tives who merely acted as the office boys of the poli- | tical leaders of the party. Such a secretary was J. Mahlon Barnes and later Adolph Germer who, as na- | tional secretaries of the socialist party, were merely | the obedient instruments of Victor L. Berger and Mor- ris Hillquit. This. situation was duplicated in the New York socialist party where Julius Gerber was the local “secretary” of Hillquit, Lee and others who dominaged the party. This was the socialist party conception gen- | erally of the role of the executives, * pea Even in the socialist party Ruthenberg was a different kind of secretary. In Cleveland he not only gave organ- izational direction to this section of the party, but he also | gave it political leadership. This lifted him head and shoulders above Max S. Hayes, for instance, also of Cleveland, prominent in the Américan Federation of Labor, whom the Berger-Hillquit forces tried to use as a foil against Ruthenberg and the revolutionary position he championed within the socialist party. Ruthenberg’s position in the socialist party, in the Communist Party and in the Workers (Communist) Party was a difficult one. Ifis not easy to attend to all the details of an organization, carefully watch over its finances, give care toward the development of its campaigns, and at the same time keep informed as to the political developments locally, in the state, nationally and internationally, so as to be able to formulate correct policies. Ruthenberg performed this task successfully. | Just how successfully we all know. | * * * Workers generally think of Ruthenberg as giving poli- | tical direction to our movement. I remember especially the day that a copy of his proposed program for the | Workers (Communist) Party, to be submitted to its first | convention, arrived in New York from behind the prison | walls at Sing Sing. The open party of Communism was | being organized in the United States, following a period of illegal existence. Ruthenberg was in prison. Never- | theless, he had his ideas on how the movement should be | developed. And his capitalist jailers could not stop him | from giving expression to those ideas, putting them on| paper so his comrades would know his stand. Few workers, however think of Ruthenberg study- ing account books, balancing figures that usually showed the party with a deficit that must be met quickly, care- fully planning to meet that deficit with some new ‘cam- | paign, and giving his own attention to the working out of the smallest details of such a campaign. | If these routine duties had been lifted off Ruthenberg’s | shoulders, giving him more time to study and follow) events, greater leisure to write about them, our party | would certainly have had a greater literature from the | pen of our fallen leader. It was he, however, who wrote | most of the party’s proclamations, who planned and’) worked out many of the. declarations on multitudes of | subjects offered at the various party conventions, who | put on paper the concensus of opinion expressed in | the meetings of the political committee of the execu- | tive committee, | It was this Ruthenberg, the organizer, who under- | stood so well the meaning of each new reader won for | Ahe party press, the value of every new member won| for the party. | * * * Recently the writer of “The Topics of the Times,” | a column that appears daily on the editorial page of | The New York Times, delivered himself of a few} thoughts under a title, “A Contrast in Funerals.” He wrote is follows: “The highly emotional interest shown by Communist sympathizers in the ceremony before the ashes of the| late Communist leader Ruthenberg, now being trans- ported to Moscow for interment near the body of Lenin, is brought into high relief by the fact that on the same day a crowd of mourners, smaller in number and moved more by grief than by belief in a social system, at- tended the funeral services for the late State Senator | Daniel J. Carroll. * * * Senator Carroll, beloved by hundreds of thousands throughout the state, was hon- ored by representatives of many organizations, Ruth- enberg, whose following in this country was small in comparison, received tribute from several thousand loyal followers. “Such disproportions as these have tended to give certain people an erroneous and exaggerated notion of the strength of the Communists in this country. * * *” * . . These utterances merely display the ignorance of | their author. The appearance of this mention of State Senator Daniel J. Carroll in The Times was probably the first time that most of the readers of that publica- | tion had ever heard of him. When a man’s funeral | is merely attended by the leaders of organizations, | with the membership of those organizations, if they | have any, absent, then it can be truly said that he has no popular following. The parasites that feed off the | « Organization to which he belongs, whether it is Tam- ‘many Hall, or some other corrupt expression of capi- talism, will turn out automatically. But it requires Some real appeal to win support of the workers gen- erally. The great numbers of workers who are eagerly at- tending the Ruthenberg Memorial Meetings is a tribute | “not only to Ruthenberg, but to his party,’ the Workers | (Communist) Party, and it is an indication of sym- pathy with, if not complete understanding of the Com- munist principles for which Ruthenberg fought and died. | * . . Every one of the men, women and children of labor, | who has attended and is planning to attend the Rathen- | berg memorials, represents not only himself alone. He may not be an official in an organization. But it may truly be said that every one of them is active some- where, in his shop, factory, mill or mine, or in his own immediate neighborhood, spreading the propaganda of! the ideas in which he believes, or with which he sym- pathizes. That is the story of the development of the revolutionary movement. | Three hundred new members were won for the Workers (Communist) Party at the Ruthenberg Mem- orial Meetings in New York City. The forces of capitalism fear every one of these new members, not as individuals, but as bétter contacts of the Communist mbvement with the American working | class. Ruthenberg saw the mecessity of every one of) those contacts. Remember Ruthenberg by getting new | members for the party. Be an organizer of the social “He had nothing to say regarding it revolution. Accomplish its routine tasks. That will also | @t this time.” A = equip the soldiers of the struggle for the political | interviewers did not offer him a con- ip of the working class. | and |den gained a little sense, he will have | dancers tract to write his opinion for pay,/- Kerensky Raising Money | Kerensky could not be bothered with this “uncomfortable subject.” By WILL DE &ALB. | Pessimistic and despondent, Alex- andre Kerensky, provisional presi-| The rest of Mr. Kerensky’s an-| dent and dictator of the Russian so-|swers were as vague as these. He cial-democratic government in 1917,| “believes it impossible to attain the arrived on a business visit to New|democratic ideal anywhere in the York last week. In an’ exclusive in-| world under present social condi-| terview with this writer, and in other | tions,” he said. This pessimistic interviews with other journalists, the | titude he held throughout his inter- | ousted tool of the petty bourgeoisie| views, (no doubt because he saw| admitted that he is collecting funds | good opinions being expressed with- | “for use against the Soviet.” out being paid for), but when he/ Kerensky had little to say of im-| started to write his signed and paid | portance; but what he said was im-| articles, he became optimistic, and} portant since his statements revealed | promised the re-awakening of Russia | his status in social revolutionary cir-| after the “temporary weakness of cles. When asked if he was collect-| Bolshevism has been dispelled.” ing money from bankers or from| Which means that after all, an workmen in America, he answered, | opinion is @n opinion, and its authori- | “I am happy to receive support from | tativeness can be influenced by a lit- every kind of person who believes in|tle present of shekels. Kerensky,| freedom,” during the next few’ weeks, will be! Silent Brooding. much in the public eye. At the same | rf ry | When the poitt: was siteaed ahd time, it should be remembered, his | the brooding pseudo-statesman was hand will be much in the public “, asked if he thought .it consistent $n | Rae O ‘relll-a “saviour” accept funds from both capitalists |must be a “saviour” you know. laborites, he curtly replied through a spokesman that he was ac- cepting funds from progressive be- lievers in freedom, and to refuse such support from his “sympathiz- ers” would be to neglect his cause. Perish the thought! This, and you ean bet your last dollar on it, Mr. Kerensky will not do. That was all Mr. Kerensky cared to say about his campaign funds. After all, as he told the ship news reporters and the immigration offi- | cials when he arrived here, his visit; TWO blocks away a night cafe.| to the United States was prompted| Couples arriving in taxis. Hats | solely by a desire to study our politi-| Checked for two bits each, Cover! cal, social and economic conditions| Charge one dollar. Near beer one/ But that, as a cynical customs in-|“0llar a short pint. Half cup of spector remarked sotto voce, ig what | coffee two bits. Inartistie dancing | they all say. And unless the, Amer-| free. ican millionaires have all of a sud-| ings also free, strongly reminiscent an opportunity to study American, Neanderthal. 1 banking systems. | Two blocks in another direction} Just what he will do with the funds | four husky, well fed bulls question | he and his business associate,.Mr. A.| “employed workers and load nine of | J. Sack, are gathering in, Kerensky | them into the patrol-car. | would not say for pulllication. “I| Out in the Hollywood district peo-| am anxious to collect not for individ-| Ple paying $5.50 for seats in a movie | ual causes, but for the democratic | house. | cause in general,” his exact words| (Next morning). Well dressed| were. When asked for a detailed ex-| ™ovie extras of both sexes, unable to | planation as to how the funds would|P@Y carfare in the near-hopeless | be spent to aid the democratic cause|@9st for work, panhandling rides in general, he merely stated that he | from Jewish vegetable-peddlers. | “was going to carry on his work.” Early editions of newspapers an- New White Hope. nouncing “our” Prosperity and spe- iy ia hale bawdinde Ae Ek RA cial sales of tailor-made suits at 8 - | $17.50, cratic” cause appears on the hori- zon! It should be noted that he, like all other “saviours,” appears not with arms outstretched, but palms upturned. When this writer asked for an in- terview, he was told. Mr. Kerensky was “too busy.”* In the interview granted, nothing of importance was | | | | { | Snapshots of Los Jie By JIM SEYMOUR. | A sale of good army socks st cight| cents a pair. | A block away an old man witn a} high forehead sits in a 'nch-room| where. coffee and three doughnuts cost seven cents. His shabby oxford |reveals the fact that the entire heel | is worn from his sock. | Foreheads of the of Puritan Family Scandal CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 11— | Mrs. Sarah Mildred Petitte Standish, | young Virginia beauty and wife of \Grenville S. Standish, Jr., society man and direct descendant of Miles Stang. | ish, ined was found guilty of a r seriou given out. An interviewer for the indefinite tara is the teapboss bee Associated Press met with the same |formatory for women. Sentence was fate. His interview lasted for only suspended, however, until November ten minutes. Other reporters were|5, and it was explained that if she turned away. But the very next|does not “become involved” before day, two signed articles appeared in| that time her record will be cleared, New York papers, covering two! Mrs. Standish was arrested with whole pages, written (for a hand-|Ormand Cook, Harvard law stu- Some remuneration) by Mr. Keren-| dent and former “best friend” of her sky. Mr. Kerensky has learned the | husband, in his apartment. He was new money-getting tactics of social-| arrested under similar charges, and democrats, as devised and practised ¢ | put on probation until No 4 by J. Ramsay MasDonald, M. P., and _ pence be ad Philip Snowden, also M. P. | What te D - | Convention. _ What Is Democracy? SAVA} , Ga, Highlights in Kerensky’s VANNAH, Ge. Match 14, (25) n |—The Georgia State Federation of ments tothe press were: Lab: ill t i i \ Q. Please define democracy. A, ut haat ee Democracy, or social democracy, is preenn Son the final development of political democracy. Q. The Bolshevists and Communists believe the other way around? A. (Through Mr. Sack,| censor), “I can only say what I be- lieve, not what other people believe.” Pressed by this writer, his spokes- man explained that “A free govern- ment can guarantee political freedom even though economic freedom has not been established.” Q. Do you believe in struggles, bloodshed, and direct action to es- tablish wider equality? A. No. I advocate moderation, balloting; and) “social evolution.” Q. Do you be- lieve it is possible for any social- democratic government to adhere to these principles at the outset? D. you believe that the opponents to so- cial progress can be defeated or con- ciliated by this means? A. Any government guarantecing freedom to the individual will be able to con- ciliate opposition. Pressure may be necessary, but not’ te an extreme measure, No Hope for Anti-Bolshevism. Q. Do you believe that the Bolshe- vik government will meet with a pre- mature downfall? A. So long as the present social conditions do not change, there is little likelihood that the existing government will change. When asked by an Associated | Press reporter if he could give a single message to the American peo- ple, what would it be, Mr. Kerensky replied he had no time to answer. When asked by this writer, he told me to see tomorrow’s newspapers. In other words, Mr. Kerensky has a message, but like the Western Union, he does not deliver it until he is first paid by the word, The Sablin plot, in which White Guardists and British Tories con- spired to disrupt the relations be- tween England and the Soviet Union, as exposed by the London Daily Her- ald, does not worry Mr, Kerensky. He said, when questioned about it. ‘state- Of course, since his THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1927 Views of expensive silk stock- |In her eyes RUTHENBERG So that’s you— There—in that urn! But you're not dead! You're of the masses, The flame-seared steel worker The coal-black miner The gnarled, stooped farmer Exploited but expectant youth The working woman in tears All breaking chains, That’s you! You're of the oppressed. Negro, Mexican, Hindu, Chinaman. And how your muscles bulge As you dislodge Imperialism’s iron heel From a billion necks To give the billion . Elbow-room To swing a gun! You're of our leadership. Hard as tool-steel And as cold Against those who Tho they live Are dead-rotten— Whose carcasses float about Polluting the streams Of labor’s struggles. As true to us as the sun in its course And as warm. You're of the International Revolution. And when the next imperialist war bg Gives birth to the shock troops Of the proletarian revolution You'll be there. You’ve helped start The biggest thing on earth— Winning the earth for the workers, You'll be there at the finish Because, tho you've died, You live in our movement. Your ashes go to Moscow : To enrich Soviet soil. Rich soil, Bountiful harvests In Proletarian Dictatorships. Ruthenberg! You’ve died! é But you’re not dead! e ‘ALFRED WAGENKNECHT. EASTER BELLS! Spring coming now with laughter of children And birds singing . . ; Laving the lean earth with a fatness Easter bells pealing: “Peace on earth, good will to men.” of green. Giordano Bruno heard them, John Huss listened, Sacco and Vanzetti, Tom Mooney, . Debs, heard them and listened, Saw the lithe spring come on fluttering feet, Sew the laughter of children, Birds singing, Inher eyes. Easter bells ringing now: “Peace on earth, good will to men.” “Christ hath arisen.” Debs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Huss, Bruno, and Tom Mooney, Peering through iron bars, Saying: “CLANG bang, CLANG bang! Hear the Easter bells! Hear them clang clang, Hear them bang bang, Hey bells, loud noisy bells, What in hell does all this noise mean, Anyhow?” —Joseph Kalar. VALI ‘. To pegeare! Ma CO nt IDEALIZING THE AGENTS OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM. American Labor and American Democracy, by William English Walling. Harpers. $3.00. William English Walling was converted to American capitalist democracy when the Wilsonian crusade to end war and make the world safe for Wall Street began. ‘ He and Samuel Gompers, co-workers in the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy, the trgde union section of the army intelligence service, did great things in hunting down toilers in boiler-factories, mines and shipyards who were not convinced that Woodrow Wilson was the savior of the human race, f a : Walling seems to have been even closer to Gompers than Chester Wright. These are about the only renegade socialists whom the wary old man ever allowed into the sanctuary and they were able to slip past him and over the threshold by virtue of a slimy covering perfectly adapted to such exigencies. The cover blurb on Walling’s latest book says: “The author aims to prove from the original documents that our labor movement has evolved a new political method, a new view of political gov- ernment, and a new policy for the government of industry.” What he succeeds in proving is that labor officialdom has NOT evolved a new political method but that it is using the oldest of all political methods of the leaders of labor, i. e., support of candidates of the parties of the ruling class with the hope that its loyalty will be rewarded by minor con- jcessions; that it has not evolved a new view of political government (and by this is meant American government) but that it believes or professes to believe that government is an impartial mechanism that can be used for the benefit of all classes in society—one of the oldest of all fallacies; that labor officialdom’s “new. policy for the government of industry” is the ancient one of voluntary co-operation with the boss—the industrial base of its political policy. * * * 2 Walling, it is quite plain, is trying to give a spiritual character to the be-diamonded, Falstaffian and corrupt leaders of the American Federation ot Labor and their policies. He tries to picture them as ever pondering over the weighty problems of American trade tnionism, planning ceaselessly to formulate a program that will lighten the burdens of the masses. As he proceeds with this scheme Walling’s book becomes more and more low burlesque. Civic Federation banquets with Matthew Woll and William Green among the speakers impinge on one’s consciousness as Walling elaborates his theme. Walling says, for instance, in the foreword on page 2: “Even before the war (during the high tide of pre-war progressivism) labor found that “government and laws have developed from an institution merely by virtue of and for the protection of property, into a medium for at- taining social ideals and needs beyond (the possibility of) individual realiza- tion. “This statement is taken from the proceedings of the A. F. of L. con- venton held in 1912 and it is nothing more than the rationalization of the support of Woodrow Wilson which occupied most of the time of Gompers and his henchmen during that year. The world war engulfed the American masses some four years later and gave the lie to such apologies for reaction. Because of his socialist training Walling realizes that he cannot present the official policies and leaders of the American Federation of Labor in their erude and sordid form, as they actually are an alliance with the capi- talist class and loyal to the capitalist system. He smells the stench of the Augean stable of the official American labor movement and seeks to drown it in the perfume of his sophistry. An example of the above is the passage on page 50, Vol. I, where Walling says, speaking of the attitude of labor officialdom toward capi- talism: “ “As a consequence of the balanced position of American labor on this question many extremists, both radical and conservative, have concluded that our labor movement does not oppose capitalism at all—and there are un- doubtedly certain points in labor’s position which, hastily analysed, might seem to support this conclusion. We read in the official organ of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor, for example, that it stands squarely for the de- fense and maintenance of the existing order and for its development and improvement.” *. * * This seems like a categorical statement about which there could not possibly be any misunderstanding. Anyone knowing the leadership of the A. F. of L. and its role as the labor agents of imperialism in the ranks of the workers knows that this statement means exactly what it says. But how does Walling explain it? By the following gem of jesuitical reasoning: : “We might conclude that the Federation stands for the capitalist sys- tem if we did not know that American labor regards the existing order as being fundamentally democratic and only incidentally and partially capi- ialistic.” (Emphasis mine.) Y In other words a few bad capitalists have polluted the pure stream of American democracy and the remedy is a return to “the good old days.” This is thoroughly reactionary and of course justifies the abandonment of the class struggle by denying that it exists. -There is no capitalist sys- tem, therefore there is no capitalist ruling class, therefore there is no such thing as the class struggle. 4 Does this appear to be drawing a conclusion not warranted by the evi- ‘enee? Then read further on the same page where Walling quotes Mary ard’s “A Short History of the American Labor Movement,” an official rkers’ Education Bureau publication endorsed by the A. F. of L. which tates that after the war “Mr. Gompers and the Federation adhered with- | out faltering to their established policy of accepting the capitalist system ind bargaining with it.” This again is certainly a definite statement of a well established faet, Sut Walling has a mission. He is out to gloss over the grossness of Ameri- ,can labor leadership, to show that it has some social conception other than getting what it can for its doubtful virtue like a collective Peaches Brown- ing, and so he has to make a difficult choice, i, e., to prove that these great leaders are merely fools or to show them up as loyal servants of American capitalism. : ene chooses the lesser of the two evils. He pictures them as fools, ie bays: . _. “But the truth is that the Federation does not hargain with the ‘capi- alist system’. It bargains wih capitalists—AND DENIES THAT WE ARE _ .AVING UNDER A CAPITALIST SYSTEM.” (Emphasis mine.) “You pays your money and you takes your choice.” If one is a worker ind prefers to be led by agents of the capitalist system—elect William Green, Matthew Woll and John L. Lewis. If one prefers to be led by fools who deny che existence of capitalism in America—eleet William Green, Matthew Woll and John L. Lewis, * . * Walling has done a good job—but not the one he thinks he did. An interesting ‘sidelight on the manner in which the labor progresses under the leadership of Walling’s “idealists” is found on Page of Vol. I. The motives which prompt these leaders to take one step f (that of stifling attempts to strengthen the labor movement) is clearly in the following: r “Senator Brookhart explained that the Progressive Political’ (the Cleveland Conference) ,had been organized, according to its William H; Johnston, chief of, the Machinists’ Union, to head radicals and socialists in the labor movement in an open confe} the radicals would be many times outnumbered and,to lead the and reliable part of the labor unions TO A SOUND AMERI FORM IN THE OLD PARTIES and in co-operation with the ” (Bm: phasis mine.) i sale Aa § “A sound American platform,” according to this authent retation, means only a platform which supports the ies of capitalism, We are willing to take Walling’s word for this. Again his ideAlists appear as intriguing agents of America’s plunderbund. | The book contains the best collection of documents yet compiled the rottenness and reaction of labor officialdom and for this reason it is valuable for class conscious students of the American labor movement, —_ » Written by an individual who knows the class about leade who are betraying the working class, the book is one of the best examples ‘ st Bipeeitian for the glorification of prostitutes that we have ever en-—