The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 19, 1927, Page 4

| | { ( Page Four THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1927 THE DAILY WORKER 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 $4.50 six months $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.50 three 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 SR TARE RY atten bescsseessseeseeeees dalitons BERT MILLER .. Business Manager Entered as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 8, 1879, 2 Advertising rates on application. as Phone, Orchard 1680 re The Commune Lives The graves of the Communards of Paris in Pere Lachaise have been draped with red by the French Communist Party—the bearer of their tradition of heroic revolutionary struggle—on the fifty-fifth anniversary of their seizure of power in the name of the workers. The Communards raised aloft the banner of the working- class and that banner waved for seventy days—long enough to prove that the workingclass has the will to power, the strength to take it and the courage and ability to construct a state form suited to its needs. It is true that the revolutionary state powe® of the workers which later made possible the glorious victory of the Russian masses appeared in the Paris Commune only in an embryonic form. But its ultimate development and the mighty role it had to play were clear enough for Marx and Engels to point out unerringly to the world’s workingclass the form their struggle for power must take and impossibility of victory without the destruction of the capitalist state and the erection of a working- class government on its ruins, The Commtine made many mistakes but these mistakes we remember today only that we may not repeat them. In the absence of a disciplined Communist party, in a period when capi- talist development in France was still in its childhood, surrounded by enemies, with no alliance with the peasantry forming the great majority of the population, it was impossible for the Com- mune to hold and extend its power. There was weakness and vacillation within the leadership of the Commune, it hesitated to take the necessary steps to break the resistance of the rulers such as taking control of the financial apparatus. It was too much on the defensive. But the Communards formed the first government of the workingclass, they defended it with arms in their hands and they died that the revolution might live. The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics stands today voicing with millions of throats the challenge that the Commune hurled to capitalism only with thousands. “The spectre of Communism is haunting Europe,” wrote Marx and Engels into the Communist manifesto in 1848. With the rise of the Paris Commune the spectre took solid form nor did the crushing of the Commune by the combined forces of French and German reaction lay the ghost. It is no ghost that walks today giving the capitalist rulers endless nightmares but the living embodiment of the class strug- gle in the brains and muscles of hundreds of millions of workers and peasants in the imperialist and colonial countries. New China bears the stamp of the Commune as does Soviet Russia and as in the Commune the youth of the revolution is in the vanguard. March 18, 1927, finds the classic form of the state power of the masses organized in Shanghai and in the Soviet Union it leads 150,000,000 people inhabiting one-sixth of the earth’s surface. The Communards did not fight and die in vain. They live in the workers and peasants who are carrying on their task and in the Communist International—the leader of the world revolution. Lenin, born the year before the rise of the Commune, who lived to build the greatest monument of all to the heroes who lie in Pere Lachaise, said that: “The cause of the Commune is the cause of the social revolu- tion, of the complete political and economic liberation of the workingclass, the cause of the proletariat of the entire world. And in this sense it is immortal.” The Coal Miners Face a Fight Every day brings additional proof that the United Mine Workers of Ameri¢a, after three years of steady encirclement by non-union fields, at the expiration of its contract March 31, is faced with a fight for life. * Those who know the leadership of the UMWA will not find it strange that John L. Lewis and his fellow officials have sounded no warning of danger nor made any preparations for an organization drive in the non-union fields which alone can save and build the union. The Ohio operators have stated that they will deal with.the union only on the basis of a, wage cut, there are indications that Illinois and Indiana operators will insist on a wage cut or a modification of the Jacksonville contract that will mean the same thing, the western Pennsylvania operators show plainly their intention to destroy the union and in eastern Pennsylvania Lewis has agreed to a continuation of work pending negotiations which means a defeat for the miners. The national agreement for the central competitive field on which all other agreements were based, and which the miners fought years to obtain, is being cut to pieces. Surrounded by non-union fields the UMWA cannot fight successfully the tremendous power of the operators. It must either organize decisive sections of the non-union fields or accept, perhaps after isolated struggles, much poorer terms: than are contained in the Jacksonville agreement. The process of strang- ling the union with non-union mines will then continue. It is a mathematical certainty that unless an organization campaign is made the chief weapon against the coal barons that the union will be beaten in negotiations, greatly weakened and finally destroyed. The program of the “Save the Union” bloc headed by John Brophy is the program that will beat the coal barons. It means that the union shall take the offensive, bring into its ranks at least 100,000 miners in West Virginia, Kentucky and western Pennsylvania, strike if necessary to prevent a wage cut and the worsening of working conditions. Outside of the UMWA the left wing must and will do all in its power to put the full force of the labor movement behind the miners. ariel emtnre-noes me a of Negro Workers as Well as White Labor By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL, E. RUTHENBERG, because he was a leader of the + working class, stood out also as an uncompromis- ing champion of the rights of Negroes, of whom the overwhelming majority are workers. Ruthenberg was not a race leader. He was a class leader, struggling for the emancipation of the workers of all races, * * * Ruthenberg’s teachings and his leadership in the American working class struggle will be more appre- ciated by Negroes and workers of other races in the days ahead, as they become more conscious of? their own class interests and unite for the class fight. . * * A race leader is not necessarily a class leader. In fact, exactly the opposite is too often the case. This is especially true of the Negro race, where the leaders are usually those who have achieved so-called “success” under the present social system. This “success” usually means getting control of property or rising in some profession. The Negro business man finds a cleavage developing between himself and the Negro worker. The same is also true of other middle class Negroes who develop the attitude of middle class whites toward the workers of both races. Thus race leadership often clashes with class leader- ship, which has no interests separate and apart from those of the workers. Only race leadership that grows out of the working class mass does not come into col- lision with class leadership. * * . The writer of the column entitled “The Week” in The Defender, the Negro weekly published in Chicago, pays quite a tribute to Negro workers in reviewing the in- ‘cident of the successful fight made by John F. Raison, a Negro, in forcing the board of education at Toms River, Berkeley township, New Jersey, to: admit his ten-year-old son to the local public school. * * . The fether pointed out that his son, Frank, had been attending the Toms River school for the last two years. On February 1, last, Frank and 21 other Negro children were taken out of the Toms River school and moved to a school established in a Negro church at Bushwick. This church building has walls without plaster, as pointed out in The DAILY WORKER yesterday, it re- tains moisture, is cold and damp, poorly heated and un- sanitary, and drinking water there is kept in an unsani- tary galvanized pail. The writer in The Defender, in speaking of the fight that was made, declared: “You should have been glad that there were men and women of your race in that community with backbone enough to refuse to send their children to the ‘Jim Crow’ school house. They said they’d keep them at home first. And they did. They defied the truant officers to act. “Humble, hard-working wage-earners, were the par- ents who made this bold stand, Not a ‘leading Negro’ among them. But they had too much respect for them- selves and too much love for their children to let them be humiliated and shunted off into a tumble-down, ram- shackle school house, while the white children enjoyed the fat of the land. “Whenever you see a firm stand like that taken, look for just such hard-working, plain-living folks behind it. Don’t start looking for any of your ‘big leaders’. You'll waste too much time in the search.” But the same issue of The Defender, that contains this eulogy of Negro workers, also contains an extraordinary display given to the campaign mass meeting held by “Big Bill” Thompson recently at the Eighth Regiment Armory in Chicago, Thompson is the republican can- didate for mayor. He has a long line of Negro “leaders,” as well as white “leaders,” old party politicians all, in his retinue. e The “leaders” who are denounced by The Defender, in New Jersey, are applauded, and all have their names published, in Chicago. Yet they are no different. Thompson is a crafty white politician, whose slogan in the primaries was “America First,” the pet cry of all the open shoppers. Thompson has supporting him such Negro politicians as Oscar DePriest, Louis B, Ander- son and other lawyers who have been elected to the city council, where they have usually voted anti-labor, for the. simple reason that they are allied with anti- labor interests, that plunder the workers of all races. ; Fie ee Let the Negro workers of the nation, and white workers as well, take a lesson from the Negro wage earners of Toms River, New Jersey, who waged their own fight. Probably without knowing it, but just as effectively, nevertheless, they were waging the struggle of their class, When the writer in The Defender says that, “The white children enjoy the fat of the land,” “he is not entirely correct. Go into any working class district, in any large city, and the public school conditions approximate those to be found in the Negro neighborhoods. ‘The school buildings are usually old, with plenty of portables scat- tered about, the facilities are of the worst, the sani- tary conditions bad. It is generally accepted for the children of the working class, as well as Negro chil- dren, that “anything is good enough for them.” Go into the middle class districts, or the neighbor- hoods of the rich, and the school conditions immediately change. There the best conditions are to be found. * * * The struggle for better public schools has always fal- len on the shoulders of labor, just as the original es- tablishment of the public school system was effected by the growing strength of the workers. But progress was not achieved by looking for “leaders” among the capitalists, either big business ‘men or their political agents. y * * . . If Negro workers in other sections of the land learn the lesson of the Negro wage-earners of Toms River, New Jersey, they will turn instinctively against the so-called “leaders” of their own race, unless they are working class leaders. Those “leaders” who try to lure them into the ranks of the capitalist political parties are their worst enemies. DePriest and Anderson are their enemies as well as “Big Bill” Thompson, who has never tried to lift the condition of the great masses of Negro workers any more than white workers, be- cause to do so would seriously affect the capitalist social system that he supports. * * * Ruthenberg understood the necessity, not of offering a hand-picked leadership to the Negro workers, but of awakening the Negro workers to a realization of their class position in society and waging the class struggle to win their way to victory. Thus, in the great Negro neighborhoods of America’s great cities, there should spring up the demand for the labor party. Ruthenberg always saw in the labor party a unifying instrument, not only for the workers and farmers, but for workers of all nationalities and races. Ruthenberg was a class leader in this drive toward unity, understanding alike, because he was a Commun- ist, the problems of the Negro as well as the white workers, va Ruthenberg the Leader! | SOMETHING GOOD OUT OF VIRGINIA . By WM. PICKENS. T seems that the “Angry”-Saxon Clubs of Virginia | 4 have not been quite able to enroll the whole state in | their program for unconditional white superiority, judg- ing from what we have just observed and heard in the city of Roanoke. They have a just judge in Roanoke, and when a white lawyer carelessly used the word “nig- ger” in a court trial, that judge as carelessly remarked: “Contempt of court,—ten dollars fine, sir!”—That’s good: an insult to a client or to any other person in a civilized court, is an insult to the court. A Frame-up Fails. A scavengering “prohibition agent” turned up in the same court with a colored bell-boy whom he had arrested in an hotel as a “bootlegger.” The judge inquired and found out that the circumstances were as follows: That said prohibition officer had taken a room at said hotel as a guest,—and as a private citizen had asked the servant, the bell-boy, to go out and get him a little aaeet “liquor,” giving the bell-boy the money to get it with. The Just Judge. The boy, the servant of the hotel’s guests, went and did as he was asked. Finding this to be the nature of the case, the just judge remarked to the arresting of- ficer: “This boy is discharged—he was only a servant to do the bidding of the guests,—you, sir, are the really guilty party,—you are trying to get a fee by taking ad- vantage of a servant boy, Get out of my court, sir, and I don’t want such buzzards as you ever to darken the door of this room!” Even Solomon could not have given a juster judgment than that. - Negro Assailant Freed. And while I was in Roanoke the other*day, what do you suppose I witnessed? You won’t believe jt, but a white man who ‘had been badly beaten by a Negro, was fined $50 and costs, sent to jail because he could not pay the fine, and the Negro was exonerated. Of course, the evidence in the case showed that the Negro was justified, ~—but such evidence would not have saved a Negro who had beaten a white bully in Mississippi or Georgia. The Negro had really protected two white women, whom this white bully had met on the street and was beating up. The woman and her daughter had been accosted and one of them taken by the arm by the white, who had a little bad liquor in him. The woman slapped him,—whereupon the brutal white proceeded to administer a terrible beat- ing to the two white women,—with other white men look- ing on, who did not interfere. Punished White Bully. The affair was occurring in front of the colored man’s place of business. Seeing that the white bystanders did not help the women, he did not dare to. But after a while the women broke away from the belaboring brute and ran into the colored man’s place of business. The colored man now felt at liberty to protect his own place of business and shut the door on the pursuing bully, who promptly broke the door glass and came in, and was as promptly knocked back thru the opening by the colored man. The bully came back a second time, and made one great mistake: he called the colored man’s wife, who was busy phoning for police, a bad name. Then the colored brother, to use his own words, decided “to put the real KAZOOT on the white bully,”—whatever that may be. A Woman Helps. Anyhow the powerful brown-arm knocked the bully back thru the opening a second time,—then reached out and pulled him’ back in, so as to knock him thru it a third time. Meanwhile the older white woman picked up a wrench and mauled said bully over the head, so that he would lie still ‘for a little while. | The police came, arrested the Negro,—but talked | apologetically to him,—took him into court next morn- ing,—and, as we have said, the JUDGE, who really is a judge, proceeded to fine the white bully who had been very badly beaten up. “Chivalty of Southern Manhood.” One will think: “Of course,—under that evidence,—the Negro was protecting white women.” But do you know that some of the bystanding white men came into court and lied: saying that the Negro attacked the white man without provocation—that the bully had not bothered the women,—that the bully did not even break out that glass? And when the Negro was administering the beat- ing to the brute, some of the men who had not helped their own women, shouted: “Why do we stand here and allow a nigger to beat up a white man like that?” This is the “chivalry” of that stripe of “southern man- hood.” It seems to us that the chivalry was all under the hide of the Black Knight. The Daily Symposium | Conducted by EGDAMLAT. THE QUESTION Should Marcus Garvey be released from jail? THE PLACE Seventh avenue between 125th and 135th streets. THE ANSWERS A. Warren Williams, federal employe, 278 West 119th street: “Yes. I don’t believe he was given a fair trial. He was jailed through prejudice. He might have made some mistake in his real estate ventures but they were due to his over-anxiety for his movement. He surely did not defraud the people consciously.” | A. M, Smith, 203 West 138th street, N. Y. U. student: “No. The government was justified in imprisoning Mr. Garvey for fraud. The basic principles of the Universal Negro Improvement Association are, in my estimation, unsound and impractical.” Robert Ford, 60 East 132nd street, investigator: “Yes. He meant well for the people. He violated the law without being aware of it. He certainly is sincere and enthusiastic about. his cause.” L. C. Patterson, 313 West 139th street, bell hop: “Yes. Garvey was engaged in great work for the race. He has been punished enough for the mistake he made. If given an opportunity I’m sure he'll make good again.” Wie Mrs. Dixon, West 138th street, domestic: “Yes. He wasn’t given a fair trial. He did more for the colored people than any other race leader. The colored people should: demand his relase.” Goes Swimming 3s at Three Below ey saacorracaneranesaab > | | FOOTNOTES ns OY KUGENE LYONS semen TO THE | NEWS | For the man of ordinary sense life has resolved itself into a struggle against the advertisements. As he forces his way through the jungles of bill-boards, car-cards, newspaper spreads, sky-writ- ings, etc., he knows that they are all the bunk. But how escape their, attack? flash on and off before his eyes. that he has escaped their power. Advertisements shriek in his ears, pull at his coat-tails, Sometimes he flatters himself But one day he takes stock of his life and habits and discovers to his dismay that he is actually reg- ulating his life by the bill-boards. Clothes, food, cathartics, thoughts - are decided for him by the ads. Long after the things he learned in school books are forgotten he still remembers ‘that Dutch Cleanser chases dirt. Long after the name of his first love will have escaped his memory he will still remember that Lucky Strikes are toasted, * * * The story of Ralph Jones is a case much in point. It is a tragic story and one that deserves to become an epic of the advertising Maybe several milleniums hence, when the remains of this epoch will be dug up, his story will be revived as an ancient saga. Men will tell how way back in the advertising age the world was overrun with signs and slogans which blossomed from roof-tops and smudged the skies and filled men’s books and papers; they grew in friezes around their homes and their trains; they gathered like moss on stones and fences; they cluttered the world so that there was scarcely room for anything else. They will recount how man- kind, having conquered nature, was in turn conquered by advertise- ments. * * * THE LAST MAN. An Epic of the Advertising Age. Jones was a sensible man, maybe touched by sophis- tication. He looked down upon the rabble. He despised their ways and their tastes. credulity. He sneered at their And he had good enough reason for his su- perior attitude, for he wrote advertisements for a living. Naturally he considered himself immune to their influ- ence. One morning, over his breakfast, it occurred to him just so that four out of every five have pyorrhea. It was a silly thought and there was no reason why he should think it. Then he laughed. Laughed out loud, as though he were an actor on a stage. He recalled that it was not a thought at all—merely the echo of one of those silly advertisements. So he turned to his newspaper, relieved. But almost the first news that struck him, in large bold type, was that four out of five have pyorrhea! This time he only smiled. The thing was distinctly annoying. to meet him. him so suddenly. Later as he stepped to the street a great sign rushed For amoment he was dazed, it came upon It seemed to shout at him, and the words it shouted were: Four out of every five, ete. By this time quite angry, Jones rushed into a subway kiosk and soon he was jammed into a car. He could turn neither to right nor to left. He could not ,so much as move his head. And facing him in this imprisonment was a car sign which told him that four out of five, ete. e After luncheon that day Jones went to the cracked mirror over the washbasin in his office. He went with a sense of guilt. Making sure that no one was looking, he opened his mouth wide and studied his teeth. A shudder passed through him. Could it. be? He was unable to work that afternoon, or to eat his dinner, or to sleep a wink, And next morning he went to see a dentist. He issued forth more calm. He was not of the four. He was the lucky fifth. Strange is it not, Jones re- flected, that on a four to one chance he should win! Had the tale remained at that point we should have nothing more than a happy ending. But luckily for our literary principles that was far from the end. It was indeed only the beginning. Shortly after this episode Jones learned that nine out of every ten have trachoma. He received the news with a sinking feeling. At first he tried to laugh it off, but gradually it got the better of him. Since it could do no harm to consult an optician, he decided to do so. This time he was really astonished. He was the tenth man! Nine must suffer in order that he, Jones, might be well. It seemed almost miraculous. The more he thought of it the stranger it appeared. He was even a little frightened. Why had fate singled him out for such attention? Why should he of all men be the fifth in every five and the tenth in every ten? He began to wish that it might be otherwise, that he might be more nor- mal, closer to the run of his fellow-men. Subsequently, realizing that ninety-nine out of every hundred suffer with some form of anemia, he felt reas- sured. At last he would find a point of contact with the rest of mankind. There was only one chance in a hun- the physicians, though he coaxed and pleaded, would not dred that he might not. But to his unspeakable sorrow confess to the least taint of anemia in his system! * * * It was at that point that the gruesome truth came to him. He understood now that he was not like others, could never be like others. He was doomed for ever and ever to be the Last Man! In every group, in every class, he was the one exception. Scared out of his wits, poor Jones begangto test this truth. And it always worked. What- ever nine or 99 or 999 of his fellows did or suffered, it was his fate to be the 10th or 100th or 1000th who did otherwise and suffered not at all. Such isolation was intolerable. The sense of bein the chosen of the gods—of being in some way respon- sible for the ills of others—was too heavy a they for} ° a timid and modest man. the advertisements to remind him of his cruel lot. days became a long-drawn anguish. And wherever he looked 4 Finally he could stand it no longer. He decided to end it all. That, he knew, would prove easy. Had he not heard that 99 out of every 100 suicides do not succeed? Did he not know it as a fact that 9 out of 10 revolvers miss fire? For once being the last man was useful to Jones. He felt that he would be the 100th whose suicide did succeed and the 10th whose revolver did work. And he was. The ease with which it took place was. the final proof of his tragic fate. And with such a prelude they will come to the story of Jones: f | s