The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 22, 1927, Page 6

a a Page Six Chinese Womanhood in Appeal to the Workers) and Farmers of America| By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL. HE cabled reports girdled the globe in the early hours of Monday, March 21, that, “The Chinese Na- tionalists have entered the native city of Shanghai.” This inspiring event marks an important milestone in the forward march of the Chinese revolution. To the extent that the workers of other nations, where capital- ism still rules, understand the significance of this tre- mendous event, to that extent will they become valuable | allies of the Chinese workers and péasants in pursuing | their present successes to greater triumphs, driving all the foreign imperialists into the Pacific and establishing labor as the ruling power in their land. * * * The ultimate goal of the Chinese revolution may still be considered to be a long way off. Great obstacles must yet be overcome. The military force in the Shanghai settlement of the imperialist invaders numbers about | 20,000 trained soldiers, schooled to obey the commands | of the profit takers. These are the Hessians of a dozen | nations including the United States. “Dollar Diplomacy,” in defending the interests of the| American profiteers, has rushed 1,800 marines and 2,000} bluejackets to Shanghai. The warships of a dozen na- | tions, with those of the United States as numerous as/ the battleships of other countries, stand off shore with | guns ready for action. When the Nationalists took Hankow, the invaders were | not ready for drastic action against the revolution. The | imperialist diplomats have tried, by every trick of their | dubious trade, to postpone the taking of Shanghai. They | lied to the world by sending forth the impression that | troops and warships were not being sent to Shanghai, | “that they would be diverted.” Yet the American trans- port, Chaumont, under full steam rushed with 1,800 | marines direct from San Diego, Calif., to the important | Chinese seaport of Shanghai, one of three most vulner- able spots of American imperialism at the present mo- ment, Mexico and Nicaragua being the other two. Tricky negotiations were opened with the Nationalist leaders | in an effort to halt the victorious march of the Kuomin- chun forces down the valley of the Yangtze Kiang. If | the Nationalist forces could only be held at bay long | enough, then the spring waters would swell the banks of | the Yangtze Kiang and make it possible for foreign | warships to steam inland and take up more. strategic positions to threaten the power of the people. * * * i American labor, in common with the workers of other | eountries, must anticipate the next step of the impe- rialists by voicing in a determined manner their solidar- ity with the Chinese masses. It has been repeatedly urged that the Chinese in this country, many of them organized into the Kuomin- tang (the Chinese Nationalist Party), become more ac- tive in educating the workers and farmers of this coun- try, their natural allies, as to the conditions in China | and the nature of the support that American labor can | and must give to this struggle. It is therefore encouraging to receive a letter from Alice Sum, of the Women’s, Section of the Kuomintang, 394 Seventh Street, Oakland, Calif., indicating that prog- vess is being made in this‘ direction. The letter is ac- companied by a resolution. Both these documents are | herewith published in full as they not: only contain an | urge for action on the part of American labor, but rep- resent in themselves a new and historic development in the creation of a closer unity between the exploited masses of the United States and China. The letter is | dated Feb. 28, 1927, and reads: THE LETTER. “Dear Friend:—Many prominent Americans have ex-| pressed their conviction that in the near future the Chinese people will free themselves from all foreign | control, that the Nationalist Government which enjoys | the entire confidence of the people, will unify the whole country and that the Chinese nation will gain its inde- pendence and become a full-fledged sovereign state in | the family of nations, “There is one great danger at this time, and that is the presence of foreign troops and foreign warships in | China. The enclosed resolution calls for the withdrawal | of foreign troops and warships from China. “We sincerely hope that your organization will take action favorable to this liberation movement of the Chi- nese people. May we ask that you will be so kind as to notify us of the action that you have already taken or will take in this matter. Sincerely yours, Alice Sum. THE RESOLUTION. | The resolution offered is as follows: “WHEREAS: The Chinese nation, thru the National- ist Movement is now engaged in a final struggle to free | the four hundred million of its people and the Chinese government from the domination and control of foreign nations, and “WHEREAS, The present Nationalist Movement has | the support of the overwhelming majority of the people of China, and “WHEREAS: The Nationalist government supports and helps the organized labor movement of China, and *“WHEREAS: The Nationalist army has proven able to restore and maintain order in all the territory under | its influence, and “RESOLVED: That we, are in full sympathy | with the national aspirations of the Chinese to become a! nation free from foreign control, and be it further | “RESOLVED: That we are opposed to the sending of | American troops and warships to Chinese territory and | waters, and be it finally “RESOLVED: That copies of this resolution be sent | to the state department of the United States.” | . * . There isn’t an organization of any kind, of the work-| ers In the cities or on the land, that should not pass that resolution and carry out its simple request. Every reader | of The DAILY WORKER ought to make himself respon- | sible for bringing up that resolution and having it adopt- | ed in at least one organization of workers or farmers. . * * It should be an additional inspiration that this urge to action comes from Chinese women. On the day that the Nationalist troops were entering Shanghai, Interna- tional Woman’s Day was being celebrated at Kiukiang and Nanking, as it had been celebrated previously in many other cities, with giant demonstretions attended by thousands of women. Among the slogans at these mass meetings were equality of the sexes, down with polygamy, down with infant marriage, freedom of marriage and divorcee, women re-marrying should not be despised and women should join in the revolution, | The victory of Russia’s workers and farmers, that got underway with the overthrow of the Czar ten years ago this month, released the womanhood of that’country from | the burden of centuries. This emancipation of the world’s womanhood is being continued in China today, as a part of the greater Chinese liberation movement that aims toward the freeing of the Chinese masses from the imperialist yoke, thus weakening imperialism in all the home countries, a fact bed ashe f tetera us fe oppressed wage workers ani ‘armers. is should especially be true of My rer States. Chinese womanhood appeals to American labor today to enlist | proletarian play yet written in | ward proletarian drama, mainl, | she’s “Earth.” THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1927 What Is a Proletarian Play? EDITORS NOTE—The DAILY WORKER does not take any res- ponsiblity for the views set forth below. We think that the writer has covered:a tremendeus range of speculation in some 12100 words and that the questions he raises might well make even bolder com- rades quail. We feel about his article much as Bukharin did about Trient’s speech on the in- ternational situation at the last session of the enlarged executive of the Communist International Bukharin said: “On the whole, however, my im- pression of the speech was not un- favorable, Comrade Treinu pon- ders deeply about these questions, he is not always right, but in these days even to ponder is a virtue.” * * * By HARBOR ALLEN. SAID in a review of Em Jo Bas- she’s fervent Negro play, (now at the 52nd Street Theatre): “What is a proletarian play? Is it Karl Marx’ manifesto recited by a chorus in overalls, with two inte: | missions, on a Russian setting?” I have had replies, some of them hot. In due time there will be printed a symposium in this column on the question. So far as I know there has been no Eng- lish. Some plays have elements, hints of what a proletarian play will con- tain. The five playwrights in the New Playwrights Theatre are teased by| the question. They are willing to discuss it, argue it. In some of their |work they come close to writing working class drama. But two or three of them, the older ones, shy away from it. They are terrified by “propaganda.” “Propaganda isn’t at.” John Howard Lawson believes there is altogether too much “sloppy talk” about proletarian art. Maybe he is right. More than one fine movement has been talked to death. He says further that there is no working class audience for the English theatre. | And maybe there too, for the time being, he is right. As soon as there is a working class audience, as soon as it makes its wants felt, there will be working class plays. It is an old revolutionary maxim that the artist trails social upheavals; he can only reflect them, give them some elo- | quence; he cannot create them. The Jewish population of New York has made the biggest steps to- be- cause among them the left-wi: is most articulate, probably most intel- ligent and organized. Yet “Her Crime,” by Comrade Olgin, remains an idea rather than a play; and ex- cept for one or two scenes, a few characters, and an atmosphere, “Shop” is a stale melodrama. What else has America to offer? Still, the workers’ drama is coming What it will sound like, nobody can say for sure. But I suspect it will have many of the virtues of Mr. Bas- ‘Earth” is a fierce, hot study of religious frenzy. Its people are peasants. They talk with the ringing simplicity of peasants. Their emotions run untrammeled, a burning torrent. Deborah, the Negro mother, never reasons things out. She feels. Without building up a honeycomb of rationalization around her, she goes straight to the crux of the reli- gious fraud. If God is the God he is supposed to be, she says, he will be square, he won’t cheat, he won’t steal, “Earth,” | ; When he does, she is through with him. “Get yourself a God,” she tells {him, “so he can judge you for all}: the sins you've done.” | If it were not for its preoccupation with religion, and if it dealt with workers or peasants less primitive, “Earth” could qualify as a close ap- | proach to proletarian drama. At least }it has something of the form of a | workers’ play. Like it, a work- Jers’ play will be simple, farvent, }passionate. Like it, a workers’ play | will shun plot, sentimental love | scenes, picayunish reality; it will fly | straight for the big, the essential : jthings. Like it, a workers’ play will go out in the fields, the huts, the|)* | mountains, the haunts and homes and working places of the poor. And like | it, too, in the workers’ play there will be always the people in the back- | ground, the community; yearning, fighting, sharing joys and sorrows. And as we move toward this new |kind of drama, many of the older Yorms of plays are doomed. The Ib- r-|Sen problem play is doomed. The/| | Shaw satire is doomed. Already there | § | seems hardly any room for the pet- | tiness of “Craig’s Wife” or a thous- |and other teapot tempests in which | little people pound their little sex troubles against little drawing room walls. Why all this meanness, this | insignificance, when there are mobs on the street, and swarms in the sub- way? When there are circuses and parades and battles and strikes? The |individual doesn’t count. He’s too small; too powerless. It’s the peo- ple, the mass, the current of life that matters. Why, when there is this |organ to play on, this monster or- |chestra, why do so many dramatists prefer a tin whistle? | The tin whistle is doomed. Next |we will have romantic plays, sweep- | ing epics, glamor and turmoil on the stage. Maybe they will be such re- volutionary plays at Schiller’s “Rob- bers.” Mike Gold’s “Fiesta” (to be produced early in April at the 52nd Street Theatre) has captured in a comedy vein something of this sweep and color. Then, when Communism has triumphed, will come pedantic plays, like the old miracle plays, nar- row, propagandistic. Who is to say they will lack art value? It will be ja different sort of value, that’s all; |a folk art, the art of the ballads, of jearly paintings, of the songs of the | people. And still later there will be a renaissance. A Communist Shakes- peare will arise, an individual, yet-one of the people. In a secure, blooming Communist country, he will pour out | drums beating, violins humming, bas- | ses rumbling, bugles blowing. That will be Communism’s Golden Age. After that? Well, even Commun- ism must some day wither up, its blood grow cold. There will be satires, problem plays, intellectual discussions. New Shaws, new Ibsens will thumb their noses and sulk and sneer, And still later? New revolu- tion, new romance? The cycle goes on. Or is it a spiral; round and round, but higher and higher? Meanwhile, don’t let them kid you. The drama has its roots in life. When life is thin and sickly, the drama grows pale and tired. When life runs red and juicy, the drama stirs into dance and song and movement. Al- ready the sick child shows signs of new health. Already she waves an arm and skips a step. If you don’t believe it, see “Pinwheel” and “Earth.” In another 15 or 20 years, the drama will be roaring all over the theatre, a lusty child of a swaggering new society. ‘My Comtry "Tis of Thee | By NAT KAPLAN. And Then Jump!—A wag on the editorial staff of the republican Brooklyn Standard Union suggests that Mr. Coolidge, who is looking for a vacation site that is “high, healthy and accessible,” try the Woolworth tower. Pa) ae | Pardon My Glove.—Big business is responsible for ring decadence, More than one pugilist has been spoiled for his trade by an over- zealous press agent. Then along came the plastic surgeons. Now a pugilistic headliner, accepted by the haut monde, becomes as care- ful and self-conscious as an old time virgin at an old-time National Winter Garden performance. + RL Attention U. 8. €hamber Of Com- merce.—One hundred years ago, on March 26, 1827, Ludwig von Beeth- oven died in Vienna, The centennial of this event will be celebrated all over the world, Real 100 per cent Americans will look askance at this) tribute, this attempt to demonstrate that music transcends national tongues and barriers. Worse than that, the master’s atonal and polytonal departures anticipated the advent of our ultra-moderns, * * * Sweet Spirits Of Nitre!—‘“Is The Tabloid Press a Public Nuisance?” The subject of the March 15 radio de- bate between Herr Professor Oswald Garrison Villard and Martin Wey- rauch, assistant managing editor of the Graphic. The winner will be the tabloids’ cir- culation departments. * * * Opportunity —By far the most im- portant musical note of the year— transcending even the production of The King’s Henchinan—Eddie Mayo, | Brooklyn’s latest recruit to the seven | arts, can whistle in two tones simul- taneously. On Sunday he made his | debut as a WEAF performer. SNR g oe Columbia Counts Noses.—The re- cent census taken at Nick Butler’s schools at the up-to-date plant on Morningside Heights places the total at 35,229, the largest student body on this hemisphere. Unfortunately, the counting of noses disclosed more than |a few which bore mute testimony be- traying their semitic origin. And silk-stockinged Columbians are com- paratively humble. Now Princeton— there’s a place, small and fairly ex- clusive. 5 at And Severest Critic—The DAILY | WORKER Palm For Conspicuous |Service goes to Irving Berlin’s press agent, the guy who is responsible for the yarn about Berlin’s barber pal. * * . Proletarian Puzzle—Should it be “poor but honest” or “honest there- fore poor”? | The winner of this absorbing con- test is privileged to purchase the col- lected masterpieces of Arthur Bris- bane, editor and realty expert. * * * A Suggestion.—The Rand School |might do well to inaugurate a new course for right-wing “labor leaders” —‘Socialism As A Paying Proposi- tion.” LONE Ba he Ecclesiastical Note-—The’ high-hat, bigepelasied liberal rabbis who loudly ‘voice the fact that Jesus was one of our boys are among the first to rush to the defense of their christian fel- low craftsmen, assailed by Sinclair dope - peddling solidarity Seise Spanish Ship. KEY WEST, Fla., March 21.—The Spanish schooner Coral with twenty aliens and a crew of four on board was seized by Coast Guard Patrol Boat 278 at Loggerhead Key, twenty iniles north of Key West, toddy. singing, | | symphonies of action on the stage.) DAILY Los Angeles Breaks ItsBuilding Law | | ‘ cs SPREE) MY EX The city of Los Angeles, fearing earthquakes, and de- siring to enrich real estate owners in the suburbs, has a law strictly limiting the height of buildings. When the city wanted to erect a skyscraper for a city hall, a spe- cial election was necessary to get a permit. The building | costs six. million dollars. | Service Pins forWorkers | By ROBERT DUNN (Federated Press). “Rewards and incentives” are favored tactics of per- | sonnel experts of the big anti-union corporations. How |to make the worker hump his back a little more without any addition to the pay envelope has been developed into a science. Prizes, cash rewards, a share or two of com- |pany stock, a badge or a pin are among the devices used {to get more production with a minimum outlay by the company. First there is the “service pin” for long service with ithe company. At Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. the re- | |cipients of these gimcracks have been organized into a) Service Pin Association,—its purpose being announced by | the company ‘to “further loyalty, efficiency, co-operation and general welfare and happiness.” After 5°Years’ Toil. A worker receives one of the pins when he has been with the company 5 years or when he has become a graduate of the Flying Squadron Course. A member of the association may even subscribe to one share of stock, but if he “leaves the employment of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. to go on strike” he is compelled to surrender his stock—and presumably his pin. When he returns to work, after the strike has been crushed by the Corpora- tions Auxiliary Co. or some other spy company, “he will be considered as a new employee.” The Lorraine Mfg. Co., with cotton mills in Rhode Island has no association but it hands out. “honor” pins to faithful employees. After 5 years the worker gets one star in his pin, after 10 years, two stars. After 25 years he receives a medal “studded with real jewels” and after 40 years, if he is still “loyal” and has not gone on strike, he receives a badge covered with “eight real sapphires.” What the hockable value of these glittering baubles is not set forth in the company’s literature. “The Order of Service.” Standard Oil Co. of California has established among its workers “The Order of Service,” which bestows a pin on those who have served long and faithfully. Diamonds appear in the pins awarded for the longer periods of slavery. On the worker who toils 30 years very special honors are showered. The ritual is explained in a com- pany booklet called the “Standard Oil) Spirit.” It tells} that in the case of a 30-year man “the presentation of the pin is by the president of the company. No matter! where the employee may be stationed he and his wife, if jhe has one, are invited to San Francisco at company ex- |pense for the presentation.” In addition to these trinkets handed to the men for long services, the companies have a‘host of other prizes —for athletic superiority, for crack gardening, for ex- | cellency in boy scout work, for the best Charleston danc- ing. All these prizes of course are given in connection | with various recreational and sports activities run by the company’s service department. Champion Coal Heaver. | But the most common rewards are given for big pro- | duction, and for special feats of workmanship. A worker | \in a Bethlehem Steel Corporation mine in West Virginia | pulls a gold medal for being the champion coal heaver jin his mine. A similar reward is given to another miner | |who handles 538 tons, of coal in 12 working days, “a! prodigious record, experts declare.” Wall Street financial papers boast of these production | stimulants. One of them recently predicted that the day is coming when as much interest will be aroused in con- tests with champion players in golf, football, swimming and tennis. Make $100,000, Other prizes are given to workers for “suggestions.” The workers are urged to drop these suggestions relating to production, efficiency, shop methods, ete. in a box. Every few months the company gives prizes ranging from $5 to $50 for these suggestions. The company may clean up $100,000 on a $10 suggestion, but as the official organ of the Utah Associated Industries says, “It makes the workers feel they are an integral part of the institu- tion.” This open shop paper adds: “Outside agencies (labor unions) that would interfere with the pleasant re- lations between management and men find no footholds in such an institution because the eoployes are sold to the boss and to the whole institution,’ SEND IN YOUR LETTERS The DAILY WORKER is anxious to receive letters from its readers stating their views on the issues con- fronting the labor movement. It is our hope to de- velop a “Letter Box” department that will be of wide interest to all members of DAILY WORKER family. Send in letter today to “The Letter s” The ORKER, 88 First street, New York City. = | ploited, underpaid workers. # | henchmen. | Wilson, the former miner, had the honor, through his subordinate, the Com: WHITE COLLAR SLAVES. Clerical Salaries in the United States (National Industrial Conference Board, 1926). This study is by an organization that has always been hostile to labor. Nevertheless it is of value because there are few existing statistics on the wages of the white collar worker. The figures of the Conference Board destroy any remaining illusions that these workers are better off economically than the factory workers. The bulk of the clerical workers draw such salaries as: $15-16.50 for typists (an experienced typist may get as high as $22); $16+19 for file clerks; $18-20 for general clerks; $20-22 for stenographers. Women form the majority of the white collar slaves and’they are more exploited than\the men. Very few women are in the “upper strata” of com- paratively well-paid workers. For routine clerical jobs women average from $6 to $10 less a week than men doing the same work. Not that the men get :| such high wages, for in six general clerical jobs in which men predominate the average given by the Conference Board is somewhat less than $25 a | week. This is more than two dollars less per week than the average which the Conference Board has figured for factory workers. The Conference Board always gives the “cheerful” side of labor statis- tics but even so we can get an idea from these figures of the extent of ex- ploitation of American white-collar workers, There are over three million office workers in the United States—about 8% of all gainfully employed workers. A negligible percéntage of them are organized. One of the great tasks before the American labor movement is the organization of these ex- CY OGDEN. MAKING LABOR HISTORY SAFE FOR LIBERALS A Short History of the American Labor Movement, by Mary Beard. Vol. 5 of the Workers’ Bookshelf. George H. Doran. $.50. The American Federation of Labor has never been so eager to preserve the stolid and peaceful nature of its organization. Radical changes of any kind are notoriously foreign to the temperaments of its officials and their The most recent offensive of the Green-Woll machine against the militant members of the labor movement has taken on really heroic proportions. Mary Beard, wife and collaborator of Charles A. Beard, with the uncon- scious humor and penetration which is often characteristic of research scholars who make a virtue of being on the sidelines, provides the low- down for the conservative nature of the American Federation of Labor. Talking about that caricature of the American labor movement, the A. F. of L., at the time of the passing of Sam Gompers, she says: “Tt was a giant machine which Gompers and his counsellors bequeathed to the next directorate—a machine with a mind operating, American fashion, in such fields as BANKING, CREDIT, INSURANCE, INVESTMENTS, and economic research. Its notion of its manifest destiny was running close to that of the nation.” * * * This is amazingly true, of course. That’s probably the reason why the A. F. of L. hasn’t time to organize the millions of organizeable workers in the United States.’ It is also the cause, no doubt, for its decision to “post- pone” action on the organization of the automobile workers, after it had decided at its last convention in Detroit to do that job at once. Steel, packing, metal, mine, lumber, textile, boot and shoe, telegraph | and telephone, electric light and power—workers totalling over 25,000,000 could be organized if the A. F. of L. officials weren’t so busy operating “American fashion, in such fields as banking, credit, insurance, and invest- ments.” * * * } Mrs. Beard’s little book, published by the Worker) Educational Bureau, which has on many occasions received the official bléssings of the A. F. of L. (also $25,000 from the Carnegie Foundation), is in the same class as Selig Perlman’s “History of Trade Unionism in the United States,” and other bits of “research” aimed to prove that American workers are, have been, and probably will be “conservative” for many years to come. In fact, Perlman’s job was so scholarly that he devoted the last/chapter to a sneer- ing attempt to prove that there can never be a joint movement on the part of the workers and farmers of the United States to free themselves from capitalism. * * bd Rinks Acairtesie " The purpose of this book is to prove to those who “sympathize” with the labor movement that its history isn’t as bloody and violent as many good folks have been led to believe. The author’s attitude tcward the A. F, of L. is a fairly accurate reflection of her attitude toward the whole history of labor in the United States. So eager is Mrs. Beard to impress upon the minds of her liberal readers that the American workers are fundamentally pure of heart and sweet of spirit that she even recites with evident approval the many instances where the official labor movement has avoided “entangling political alliances.” She relates that “the A. F. of L. naturally sought to win from the public und employers sympathy for its policy of upholding labor standards. It therefore welcomed, in 1900, the formation of the National Civic Federation, an association of prominent business men, financiers and professional peo- ple. Labor leaders joined the organization with great enthusiasm.” * * * Thus Matthew Woll, one of the vice-presidents and acting president of the National Civic Federation, now has the opportunity of battling for the interests of the American workers in joyous co-operation with John D. Rockefeller, etc. * * * The part of the A. F. L. machine in supporting the late war is praised enthusiastically in this book intended for workers. “The loyal stand of Mr. Gompers and the American Federation of Labor was immediately appre- ciated,” . . . How proud she is of the fact that “labor was a real factor in the shaping of policies of the nation.” And what is more thrilling than “the rise of the Secretary of Labor W. B. Wilson, a former miner, to a positive influence in the cabinet.” In another portion of the book Mrs. Beard doesn’t fail to mention that missioner of Immigration, “to enforce the act of 1918,” excluding undesira) ble aliens from the United States. “And in the autumn of 1919,” she re lates with matronly pride, the officers of the A. F. of L. made an attach) on the Communists and other radicals in the labor movement, disclaimin; on the part of organized labor any sympathy with revolutionary theories o activities.” Mrs. Beard has performed a genuine service for the FRIENDS of labor movement, —SENDER GARLIN, THE SPECTRE OF WA