The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 19, 1927, Page 6

e The Murder Mood of Michigan "H thousands of workers on the streets. of Detroit as a result of widespread unemploy- ment, the legislative chambers and public auditor- i-ms of Michigan are loud with an intensive law- -and-order campaign. . There has never been as much agitation from the big and. little employers for capital punishment in the history of the state. Hanging appears to be the preferred method of exterminating the men and boys of the working class who turn bandit, The electric chair and lethal gas are not popular. For the first-time since the originial Michigan pun- ishment law was repealed, many years ago, a capi- tal punishment bill passed the state house of repre- sentatives this winter. Sponsors of capital punish- ment at Lansing, hearing the tramping feet of the unemployed and hearing the choleric fearful de- mands of the open shop employers, entered into a kind of contest in and out of legislative sessions to see who could most. adequately describe the puna- tive efficacy of premature violent death. And the gallery, occupied largely by the wives or other female admirers of these tin-horn tribunes of the ruling class, these trumpeting hucksters of the spoiled fruit of a decaying social order, applauded shrilly at each demand for the noose, The judiciary committee of the state senate has the bill under consideration now. This committee appears to be dubious about reporting it out. In the senate proper the fate of the bill would be. uncertain should the powerful capital punishment lobby which is operating in Lansing force it on the floor, T!e whole criminal code of Michigan is certain to be tightened up in this law-and-order campaign. A bill resembling the Baumes. Law of New York State is before the legislature, It differs materially fror:. the New York law only in that the penalties it prescribes are a little less severe. One purpose of the proposed new Michigan code is to shorten the distance between the scene of a crime and the cell assigned to the man who happened to commit the crime. The proposed method of shortening this distance is to eliminate certain portions of the present legal processes. In the language of this law-ditid-order campaign these portions that are to be eliminated are “mere technicalities” or “techniceal loopholes thr :gh which the guilty escape.” Granted, how- eyer, that the court is antiquated, unscientific and inefficient, these “technical loopholes” are never- theless details of the legal process which have gradually been evolved as safeguards for the ac- cused against unscrupulous prosecuting attorneys, police officers and judges, intent upon their own careers. They have a special value as such, no matter how tedious they may cause a trial to become. They are there for the protection of the innocent man who might otherwise he wrongly con- vieted, even if there exists a risk that some guilty men may go free at the same time because of them, Fear that an innocent man may be convicted is not being expressed in this campaign. The demand is not for social justice. It is not even for certain or accurate justice. It is for summary justice, quick justice. It is a compromise of legal form with the method of extra-legal direct action em- ployed by the Ku Klux Klan mob. It is as much of a compromise in that direction as the industrial- ists, the bankers, the merchants and the profes- sional groups believe it wise to essay at this time in Michigan. And it should not be overlooked that it is only the amateur gunman or thief, the embittered or discouraged worker having his first desperate fling along the predatory path, who will be summaily delivered to the jailer under the proposed summary criminal ¢ode. The experienced professional gun- man with the high-priced jury-fixing lawyer will suffer little additional inconvenience, nor will the wealthy psychopath with criminal inclinations. The significance of the preposed criminal code lies not so much in its specific language and mach- inery as in its spirit and implications. This is true notwithstanding certain features that are obviously somewhat drastic in themselves. Michigan tradi- tions have necessitated caution, The truly historical prestige of the right of every man to a trial by “a jury of his peers,” for example, is being definitely undermined. Under the pro- posed code a defendant may waive a jury trial and elect to be tried by the judge sitting as both judge and jury. The provision in the existing law for a jury trial in all cases is a “technicality” or “loop- hole” which the new code would not eliminate but would qualify. And many factors in the situation in Michigan at this time show clearly that implicit in this proposed qualification of the concept of a “jury of ... peers”’there is a tendency to go much further. The jury concept is basic in traditional Jaw. For the law makers of the ruling class to sug-. gest openly by statute that a defendant in a crim- inal trial recognize his judge as being also his jury of peers means that juries have become unpopular with the ruling class, It means that what the rul- ing class would really like to do is deprive the dut- lawed worker of the right of a jury trial altogether. Inseparable in its implications from this lessen- ing of the prestige or status of the jury concept, for example again, is an agitation in Michigan at this time for life-appointments for judges in county and municipal courts. The economic or class basis of such developments as this is often difficult to identify. The basis here is clear, however. In the first place, Michigan has its Criminal Syndicalism Law. Many members of the Workers (Communist) Party are defendants in pending cases under this law now. It is the law under which Comrade C. E. Ruthenberg was con- victed. The proposed criminal code would effeet prosecutions under the Criminal Syndicalism Law equally with prosecutions under any other law, as far as general legal processes are concerned. And while the lobbyists of the employers are telling the employers’ political favorites to enact a capital punishment law and a mere “workable” criminal code in the State House at Lansing, Con- gressman John B. Sosnowski, of Detroit, is busy at Washington. First he reads a paper charging that the Communists are threatening revolution in his home state, Then he introduces a resolution in the national house of representatives calling for the appointment of a congressional committee to inves- tigate not only the plans of the Communists proper but the alliance between the Workers (Communist) Party and any number of miscellaneous organiza- tions. Certainly neither speech nor resolution was original with Congressman Sosnowski. This would be true on personal grounds alone. But for other more material reasons his speech in the hall of congress is like the folk-song. It belongs to a group. It is the expression of a group in a certain situation. And the group here is the Detroit group of industrial capitalists. Under their windows they hear the hurrying feet of the unemployed, undis- ciplined but not beyond discipline; unorganized but not alien to the organization. Congressman Sosnow- ski is summoned. Hesis given ‘his instructions. The propaganda figures and phrases of the predatory group are put on paper for Congressman Sosnowski to take to Washington. Even if most of the other congressman doze at their desks Congressman’ Sos- nowski does as he is told. The Communists, aecord- ing to the Congressional record, are threatening revohition in Michigan. In Lansing another bill is introduced requiring that the national constitution be studied along cer- tain patriotic lines in certain grades of all public schools in Michigan. The National Association Against the Prohibition Amendment is supposedly a generally liberal organization. But this legisla- tive first cousin to the anti-evolution law of Klanish Tennessee is introduced by this ‘association's Michi- gan representative. Still another bill would re- quire daily religious services in the public schools. STRANGE FLAG AHOY! . The capitalist pirates who have been plundering China for generations look askance at the banner of liberty under which the Chinese are marching te victory. _——_————— ——————————————————— Tt was reported out favorably by the educational committee of the House. Prior to the opening of the present session of the legislature the Detroit Board of Commerce sent urgent communications to all Detroit churches. The organized employers wanted an alliance with that element in support of their legislative program. The Detroit clergymen protested at the tone of the communications. They charged the tone was pre- sumptuous, This was reminiscent of a situation in Detroit last fall. At that time the Board ef Com- merce with considerable success undertook to coerce Detroit pastors into refusing their pulpits to speakers from the convention of the American Federation of Labor on Labor Sunday, so-called. But when the capital punishment bill and the pro- posed new criminal code were introduced at Lansing this winter the clergy were in line, with the Board of Commerce spokesmen. Reporters assigned to cover their sermons wrote columns. citing and am- plifying Biblical sanctions for the proposed criminal code. And the clergy filled the mail bags with letters placing God’s blessing on the most popular of all improvements on the old-fashioned cross. . .. Protestant and Catholic clergy alike. An unusual bill awaiting disposition at Lansing provides for an excessive prison sentence specifi- eally for possessing a stench bomb, which its spon- sors say is a common weapon in industrial disputes in Detroit. The penalty for the actual use of a stench bontb is from five to 15 years, for the mere posecssion of such bombs or the material for them, two to five years. Conviction for damaging property with explosive bombs would mean 10 to 26 years, wien BD hw _ off older, higher-wage employes. ‘had worked several years ut their machines. By STANLEY BOWEN That there is a growing appreciation of the class basis of legislation in general and the present law- and-order campaign in particular is shown by letters being written to editors of capitalist dailies for publication. Of course most of the letters that are given publication are law-and-order letters. Most of the letters by class conscious workers are basketed. But now and then a letter calling atten- tion to the economic basis of crime and law is printed. The following letter appeared in the “Public Letter Box” column of the Detroit News: “To the Editor: I am in favor of capital punish- ment providing the authorities manage to reduce the number of thousands of unemployed. “We have no dole for our unfortunate unem- ployed, One can not imagine what a willing worker, now unemployed through no fault of his own, will do in desperation after being unable to procure work, “Work is no pleasure but thousands, seeking it, are willing to line up in the cold before 6 a. m. 4nd the result is usually, ‘Nothing doing’ or ‘No help wanted’, “Crime has reached its highest peak since the army of unemployed has increased to tens of thou- sands.” Henry Ford is an employer who is expressing opposition to capital. punishment. A _ full-page editorial against it was recently published in his magazine, the Dearborn Independent. But in an experiment which really amounts to an alternative to a criminal code he gave jobs a few weeks ago to 5,000 boys 18 years old or thereabouts. This, he said. was a humanitarian, socially-conscious effort on his part to save the boys from criminal careers. And a very short time thereafter he began laying Many of these Many were the fathers of families!) But Ford had become a criminologist, not to say a capitalistic strategist, who was feeling the competition of the General Motors Corporation. The older men were turned out without notice into the streets. Many of them now see around the throats of their children the tight- ening of the noose of hunger. CURIOSITIES OF NATURE READY-MADE STEAM: Everyone is more or less familiar with the way fountains of oil and gas occur in different parts of the world, offering great quantities of fuel without the trouble of mining. But in a few places, nature has gone still further and saved even the expenses of furnaces and boilers, offering ready-made steam power. In some regions which are distinetly voleanic in nature, jets of steam are found issuing from elefts in the rocks under e nsiderable pressure. Both in Southern Italy and in Sonoma County, Cal., attempts have recently been made to utilize this steam for driving station- ary engines, etc., and both places report complete success. * * * AGRICULTURE AND THE AIRPLANE: Few people realize yet what an effective aid to agricul- ture the airplane can be. In Soviet Russia in 1923- 24 when the Society of the “Friends of the Air Fleet” was carrying on a membership campaign, great stress was laid on the use of the airplane for spraying fields with insecticide. Recently the U. S. army (which occasionally does semething use- ful when time hangs heavy on its hands and every- thing is brimful of law and order) reported on some experiments it had made in sowing seed by air- plane. A large area in Hawaii had been devastated by a forest fire and was to be re-forested. Two planes covering an area of four square miles, sprayed the land with 24 bags of forest seed. It was estim- ated that it would have taken two men working by -hand ten years to. perform the same amount of work.as the planes accomplished in an hour and a half. * * * A CRAB THAT CLIMBS TREES AND EATS COCOANUTS: Although this sounds pretty much like a pink elephant with wings, the fact is that such a crab does exist. It inhabits the South Sea. Islands, and those who have seen the film “Moana” will remember it as the ugly-looking creature that the little boy smokes out of its hole. Cocoanuts are its preferred diet and it will climb palm trees 1 feet high to get. them, bringing them down a: _eracking them against a rock or dropping them from the treetop, carrying them up, and dropping them again, until the nuts are split open. The white planters protect their cocoanuts by putting tin sheeting around “the base of the trees, but the natives can’t afford such luxuries and have to rely more upon their imagination for settling accounts with the crab. About forty feet from the ground they plaster a little bank of earth and leaves around the trunk of the tree. Going up, the crab easily climbs over the little obstructions and gets his co- coanut, But it seems that he has neither a good memory nor a good judgment of distance. As soon as he reaches the little bank of earth on his way down and feels it under his feet, he concludes that he has reached the ground and lets go of the tree- trunk with the result that he erashes to earth and is killed, --N. SPARKS. \