The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 23, 1927, Page 6

| Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 1927 SO dai table ab ncinmitty ema nllaaer agate MI was Green Will Not Hold Alliance With the Bosses |Basin. We arrived at two in the af-| |ternoon, expecting to have some one | | meet us at the station, show us thru} | the mine and put us on board the By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL. HREE interesting statements were made by William Green, president of the American Federation of La- bor, in the anti-left wing meeting held at Beethoven Hall, Monday night, under the guise of a special gather- | ing of the Central des and Labor Council. They were in eff follows: First:—"“This is a struggle of Communism versus | Americanism, of the philosophy of Moscow against the high ideals of the United States government.” Second:—“We are wondering whether or not there is a civil government in New York City?” Third:—‘“If the Communists win out in the trade union movement, then there will be a new president of the American Federation of Labor.” * * There is no contradiction in these statements. They all grow of the same position, an acceptance of Amer- ican capitalism and its government, interpreting any d agreement with the philosophy of the present social sy tem of profit and private property as the worst treasoi + | built, |night train for Kislovodsk. Things |should have gone through in true | American style—but this was Rus- |sia. We misunderstood our instruc- tions and our trade union guide pre- sented himself after many telephone mess Ss, about four o'clock. He laughed when we told him our plans, but agreed ‘to put them through to the best of his ability. A Russian Mining Town. Gorlovka, a mining town, but not the mining town we know in America, with its streets flanked by shanties, one family to a room, and its grimy, sordid, hopeless air. Not the mining |town of families turned out of the | company-owned shacks for daring to | strike. |. As we turned down the main street to have dinner at the restaurant, | (there was a fine new one being| but this one was clean and | Being satisfied with things as they are, fighting every warm, and served a good meal for | effort to achieve progress, the officialdom of the Amer-|95 cents) we heard a band playing | ican Federation of Labor wars on the left wing as bit=! ang presently there came around cee | terly as the United States government attacks the Com- munist movement, as tenaciously as world imperialism struggles against the Union of Soviet Republics. * * * It is not difficult to parallel the speech made by Presi- dent Green at Beethoven Hall, Monday night, with the vindictive and malicioug propaganda being spread at that very moment by a hostile world imperialist press against the triumph of the People’s Armies in successfully tak- ing over Shanghai, China’s greatest seaport. x * * The greatest clash of social forces takes place when @ new society challenges an old and is close to victory. Under those conditions the old order, utilizing every ‘weapon to save itself, stoop to every possible lie and stops short of no misrepresentation in the propaganda that it spreads to protect its waning power. The best example of this has been the decade-long at- tack on the successful revolution of Russia’s workers and its, now ten years old. The big fact was that the old social order had fallen in the struggle with the new. The truth was kicked into the gutter by the world reac- tion in an effort to misrepresent and hide this triumph. Identically the same process is being repeated in the attitude toward the victories of the Chinese masses over their age-long oppressors. Thus the New York Herald- Tribune, citing one example, carries the headline, “Shang- hai Mobs Repelled by British; Looting Rife; U. S. Marines Join Guard.” This is an effort to smudge the achievements of the Chinese revolutionists. It seeks to fan prejudice in this country against the revolution, thus building a basis for a possible intervention on the side of the old order. If any looting has been done in Shang- hai, if there have been any disorders, they have all been committed by the allies of the imperialists, the Shantung forces with which the invaders hoped to hold Shanghai against the People’s Armies. It is significant that the imperialist allies included counter-revolutionary Russians, deposed dukes, admirals, generals and princes who had been defeated and driven out of the Workers’ Republic by the Soviet Power. * * * All this may seem to be a far cry from President Green speaking at a gathering controlled by the reac- tion in New York City. But once Green is accepted as the defender of capi- corner of the street a little proces- |sion. Just workers, headed by a | workers’ band. . .bareheaded. . quiet they marched. They were bu ing a fellow-worker. A plain pine| | coffin on the shoulders of two sturdy | workers. The coffin was open and jin it, with hands crossed upon her {bosom and a white kerchief neatly \tied about her thin gray hairs, an jold woman—a mining woman—sleep- | ing. | | The Old Abuses. | | She had seen the impossible hap- | pen, and now she was dead. She haa} |lived through ‘the days when men, | harnessed like animals, had drawa| | wagons of coal on hands and knees, | from the pit to the mouth and back jempty to the pit for more coal~ {twelve hours at a stretch. She had} seen pregnant women, half naked,! | dripping with the damp of the mine, | dragging their nine months through |the darkness. She had seen little| |children slaving to add their few) | pennies to the family income. She| {had lived in the mine barracks— forty to the room—and hauled the} jicy water to scrub off the thick soot | that clung to every pore. } The New Conditions. These things were gone now—per- haps they had never been. It was six hours’ work in the mine now and| a hot bath with soap and towels for{ every worker before going home.| There were nine hundred new homes, {with three and four rooms apiece, | with a garden and trees and elec- |tricity and coal free. Women who | were going to have babies had four months’ holiday with full pay—two months before and two months after the baby came—and there were nur- talism, and he admits this himself and is proud of it,|series where working mothers could then the alliances that he makes and the flood of|leave their older babies and know billingsgate and falsehood that he turns loose against /that they were cared for by trained - rank and file workers in the left wing of the needle ¢ the left wing can be easily understood. - * * Green waxes hysterical in his efforts to charge that the left wing in the needle trades has subsidized the police force to secure “protection.” This of course sounds fantastic to an audience that has just heard Edward F. McGrady, Green’s personal red baiter in New York} City, state that A. F. of L. officials were receiving the | fullest support of Police Commissioner McLaughlin and | Mayor Walker. Such a contradiction, however, does not | trouble Green, nor does it bother any of his fellow of- ficials who trouble little about the facts. The old story | of huge sums.of money from Moscow is trotted out, | by Green, by Matthew Woll, by McGrady, in their ef-| forts to open the treasuries of the local unions in New York and thus finance their work of destruction in the trade unions and mould every worker’s mind to an ac- ceptance of their reactionary position. * * * The fact that the “Welcome” sign for A. F. of L. officials appears on the doormat before Police Com- missioner McLaughlin’s office, while at the same time trades, or merely sympathizers of the left wing, are in| il or prison for having acted as strike pickets in the| ttles of the union, is proof enough to convince the| masses of workers where their interests lie and who is| the support of the police. Green’s confession of failure is contained in his wail that, “Civil government is on trial.” Green isn’t satis- fied with the “satisfactory” co-operation he is getting from the police force. He wants more. He wants the city government to use all of its power to club labor in the fur industry into accepting the program of the A. F. of L. reaction. Many of the workers in the needle trades came here | from foreign shores. Many others are descended from | these immigrants. Green, in the spirit of czarism, tries|the world has ever had is straining to accomplish what the czar failed to do, to straight- jacket the thinking of great masses of people. ’ In his day the czar saw new ideas being accepted otal the workers and peasants in Russia on an increasing | scale. \ Czarism fought every sign of discontent among the | Russian people with the same viciousness that Green jploys in warring on the left wing. In Russia the Ger had his own jails, his own army and his own gov- ernment. In the United States, Green applauds when workers are put into the jails of the master class, he applauds the military training camps of the capitalists, he boasts of the assistance given by the police force | in the metropolis, he claims as his right every protec-| tion of the capitalist government because he is a part) of that government. | * * * But Green does not feel Safe. Otherwise he would) not hold out even the possibility of the left wing, which | him means the Communists, winning the leadership | ‘the American trade union moyement. Green says, | nurses, fed and put to sleep and | watched by a doctor. Labor Goes to School. Up on the hill, facing the new homes, was the new Palace of Labor with a new school, an auditorium, a ie) GORLOVKA gymnasium, The home of the former mine manager was now.the club. The boys and girls went there evenings and studied and played and learned to do their part in “Building Social- ism.” (There are 376 such clubs with 41,000 members run by the Miners’ Union.) All these things had come in two years—many of them within six months—the new Safety Station for instance, from which mine rescue squads could reach any of the five mines in fifteen minutes—the station which was helping to make mining safe for husbands, fathers and brothers (The last explosion had been during the revolution in 1917). Down to The Mines. Three young giants showed us their | handiwork. One, the leader of the club, one an engineer in the mine, and the third the head of the Cul- ture Work of the Trade Union. We went down into the mine at eleven o’elock at night—climbing and slid- ing through the diagonal narrow shaft, stretching from support to sup- port and throwing out clouds of coal dust, so that by the time we reached the bottom we were black from head to foot, inside and outside. The descent took us half an hour in ad- dition to the ride down the elevator and the walk to the diagonal shaft. The miners are supposed to make it “monkey fashion” in five minutes. When we again reached the top the third shift was descending. They were white and we were black. We stripped and scrubbed. It was one o’clock., The boys had ordered tea and sandwiches for us. At two we went through the “Saifety Station.» At four they called for us at our ho- | tel. Russian Hospitality. We heard the sound of the clat- tering droshkeys® each with two horses, coming down the cobbled streets. There was only one driver to be found at that time of the morn- ing. One of our hosts drove the sec- ond droshkey. Our train was to come in at five, but there was no one to sell us tickets. One of the boys dis- appeared. In ten minutes he came back accompanied by the station master— in Russia the G. P. U. He had pulled the officer out of bed to have us properly cared for. Our beds made up, we slept until awakened at our next station. We were met by the representative of the G. P. U. as a result of a telegram from our Gor- lovka friends, Building Russta, It is the energy of boys like these that is rebuilding Russia—the dis- ciplined energy of the Young Com- munists. Boys like these have re- duced illiteracy among miners from 42 per cent to 11 per cent in 5 years. They have almost doubled the mem- bership of the union in seven years from 200,000 members to 339,000. They work in the mine in the day- time and in Committees at night. They are the ribs of steel on which the framework of the Workers’ Re- publie rests, and after them are com- ing the Comsomols and the Pioneers, whom they are teaching. With their bare hands they have built it and with their bodies they have defended it. It is as strong as youth and as inevitable as history. WALL STREET AND HARVESTER TRUST FORCE FARMER TO QUIT SLOUCHING AND BE A ROBOT (By LELAND OLDS, Federated Press.) Speeded robots operating mechanized farms—not human farmers at a | living wage—that is the demand of Wall Street. Capitalist imperialism wants mass production of food on a low cost basis rather than the extension of tariff protection to the farms. That is the real meaning of a flock of statements by manufacturers that paved the way for Coolidge’s veto of the McNary-Haugen farm relief bill. They want more machinery en- abling fewer workers to produce all the food required. Corporate forms will be devised to market the product on a trust basis. Perhaps the trans- formation of the co-operative Sun Maid Raisin Assn. into a private cor- poration shows the way. Factory Farms. The initiative in mechanized farm- ing comes from Wall Street through its great farm equipment corpora- tions. Says Vice Pres. E. J. Gittins a Morgan’s Case Threshing Machine 0.3 “We are living in a machinery age when the highest mechanical talent | jits capacity to make the future more jeompletely mechanical. Notwith- standing statements to the contrary, mechanical progress in agriculture will continue more rapidly than in any other industry, measured from the standpoint of effect upon human oc- jcupation. The manufacturer must continue to furnish the initiative in developing equipment to progressive- ly reduce production cost. Uses of the tractor and combine (harvester and thresher) are already quite revo- lutionary in effect, not only in direct farming operations but upon other industries. » More Combines. The rapid ‘spread of these com-| bines is remarked by the Kansas board of agriculture, First success-, fully demonstrated in 1918 there were for quantity production on acreages still covered by native sod.” Crush Little Farmer. As in the soft coal industry, a period of farm overproduction will ruthlessly eliminate the small inde- pendent and will develop huge farm- ing corporations. Capitalist agricul- ture, on a mechanized Ford basis, will take its place among the big in- dustries, In the 3 years 1923-1925, farmers bought more than $1,000,000,000 of machinery. The department of com- merce comments: “Those farmers who cannot survive must look to other lines, just as manufacturers and mer- chants do who cannot compete suc- cessfully. All progress has had this result. Workers have been contin- uously thrown out of employment by improved methods of production. The result of this machinery movement will be to force more people into towns and cities,” Individualism Goes. The industrial revolution in agricul- ture is on, The manufacturers of combines are putting their machinery on the farms without asking any down payment. The farmers pay half : the price out of the first harvest and half out of the second. Easy for those that succeed. Meanwhile the Coolidge veto serves notice that the old individualist agriculture will have ne lang is against the inevitable revo- ution, Smith Creates New Body. CLUB LIFE GROWS IN SOVIET RUSSIA— BUT THEY ARE WORKERS’ CLUBS By ANNA LOUISE STRONG (Federated Press). ITH the general increase of standards of life, the past year has witnessed a remarkable growth of social life and recreational opportunities in Moscow. Man does not live by politics alone. The Russian| worker is interested not only in revolution, but. also in| athletics, orchestra practice, chess clubs, amateur! dramatics, most of which he had no chance to enjoy be- | fore the revolution, Since all life in the Soviet Republic centers in the} working group, social life grows around the workers’ jelub. With the rapid increase of trade union funds, these clubs are becoming institutions which bear com- parison with social centers and recreation parks in any land—even the far-famed recreation parks organized at much greater expense by the city of Chicago. Concert Club. I visited in December a concert given at the club of the railway workers of the Moscow district. It is a former ruined munition works, recently remodeled at a cost of $360,000 from trade union funds into a gigantic clubhouse with 100 rooms for clubs and classes and 3 large assembly halls, one of them nearly equal to the grand opera house of Moscow. A dozen varieties of trade training, civics classes, chess clubs, orchestras, | choruses and dramatic circles, contested the rooms with voluntary societies such as Friends of Aviation, Friends of Children, Peasant-Connection committees and similar forms of social work. A 3-room day nursery cared for children of mothers coming to night classes. Many types of social life went on in this building, z Even more impressive was the open-air recreation park known as Profintern, which I saw last August, serving as a summer park for 11 worker clubs with 25,000 members. It served 3 basketball games at one time, with tennis, swimming, several open-air choruses, hiking, excursions, rowing, dramatics, open-air library and chess clubs. Its attendance was 5,000 a night; its atmosphere was marked by spontaneity, friendliness and leisure, yet perfectly ordered relations. Good organiza- tion, without a sign of anyone bossing. Working Out Policy. O reads complaints of clubs whose managing’ com- mitt: ‘spent all their money on a restaurant and made no provision for culture,” and of others where “they hand you nothing but lectures and propaganda when the young folks also need relaxation and fun”; and of others where the older workers complain that “the club is full of a shouting, dancing crowd of young folks and there is no chance for a worker who wants a quiet cu'iural evening with his family.” Worker clubs are run by the workers, and are try- ing to satisfy the needs of a varied humanity with an untried democratic management. The worst of them | have at least the feeling of new life and endeavor, while the best offer a social life which in friendliness, spon- taneity and democratic adaption to the. cultural and social needs of workers have perhaps never been equaled. ‘The Daily Symposium Conducted by EGDAMLAT. THE QUESTION. What do you believe is the cause of the present wave of suicides; among college students? THE PLACE. Columbia University campus. THE ANSWERS. William Gaynor, freshman: “The study of philosophy, I suppose. More athletics might be a good cure.” R. Kelly, sophomore: “I don’t believe it can be blamed on philosophy, much. No person with any strength of character can so easily be swayed by pessimism. In most cases it is due to outside causes such as affairs of the heart, financial difficulties and the like.” Miss L. Garland, graduate student: “There are sev- eral causes. Primarily, material extravagance—road house parties, night clubs, et cetera. It might also be due to the fact that most of us have broken our old faiths without accepting any new ones in their place.” L. Felshin, extension student: “It is due to a lack of general culture. There are not many things to fall back upon in times of worry and depression.” Dr. Elliot Ross, Neumann Hall, instructor: “There is no wave of suicides at the present time. It has been greatly exaggerated by the newspapers. Statistics com- piled by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company show that there are no more suicides this year than there have been in the past.” Assistant janitor of one of the university buildings (who for obvious reasons thought it best not to disclose his name): “The trouble is, them kids have it too soft. If instead of loafing they did a hard day’s work, it would keep their minds off suicide and other mischief.” (The DAILY SYMPOSIUM would appreciate sugges- tions for questions, from its readers——Egdamlat). Baby Believed Dead Is Saved “Tf the Communists win over the trade unions to their 2796 in use in Kansas in 1922, 5441 position, then there will be another president of the in 1925 and 8274 in 1926. Last year Federation of Labor.” That is one of the|the board reported 2863 new com- few truthful utterances that Green has made, in addi-|bines, More than 80 per cent of the to his open confession that he upholds, unwaver-| Kansas wheat was harvested by ma-| , the government that has been guilty of the most |chinery that 9 years ago was an al-| warfare against the coal miners of this country | most untried experiment. The board ‘on scores of industrial battlefields. Green belongs to | concludes: | ‘the coal miners’ union. But in this union, as well in all, “With the reduction in manpower, the membership moves toward a class position.| required for harvest periods and the, Green will be isolated with his fellow officials in| increased efficiency possible in han- @ company of his allies, the capitalists. That is |dling large scale operations with the they belong. t largest machines, the field is opgned ALBANY, N. Y., March 22.—Gov. Smith yesterday signed the Thayer bill providng that the new water con- trol commission shall consist of the state engineer, a deputy conservation commissioner and a deputy attorney general. Before the reorganization of the state government, this com- mission was composed of the conser- vation commissioner, state superin- tendent of public works and the at- By using the same method that kept Albert Frick, young man with paralyzed lungs, alive for 108 hours, Dr, A. J. Ehrlich has brought back to life 20-months-old Justine Braley of Chicago. The child had ceased breath- ing when doctors and nurses used their hands to pro- duce respiration until the lungs began functioning. Ad- renalin and en also were used. Photo shows Mrs: torney general, (Braley end her child, with Dr. Ehrlich, FOOTNOTES By EUGENE LYONS SPRING COMES TO THE CITY: March 21, Autumn we know by its slush and sleet, Winter by its icy cruel sting; Summer we know by its fierce red heat— But only the calendar tells us ’tis spring. bia | NEWS Art Shields, director-general of the New York offices of the Federated Press, makes his contribution to the sensational tempest in a teapot started by this column’s unkind words about the opening of the New Playwrights Theatre. The promptness | with which this department championed his cause resulted in two good seats for the F. P. at the second opening of the N. P. T. The least Art could do therefore to show his gratitude is to help fill this column, which he does in the following unsolicited tes- timonial: Dear Gene: The question is whether the workers and peasants got what was coming to them at the New Playwrights Theatre. « Now that the smoke is clearing away let us see what happened. The battle began when you charged in this column that the Barons of the capitalist press enjoyed the right of first night at the wedding of art and proletarian at the Playwrights Theatre, and that the columnists of the workers and peasants were offered their whack only on nights following—after the theatre had already been well whacked. Back came the press agent of the theatre with the defense that the workers and peasants got what was coming to them— and who could ask for more. It is said in the defense that a number of workers and peasants did indeed get into the feast; others ‘Were invited in telephone calls that went astray, and still others were not considered to lust after that sort of things. But you appear to think that if any workers and peasants did get there they were hidden under the forest of high hats. As for me I was one of the uninvited when John Howard Law- son’s “Loud Speaker” went on first and from what my friends tell me I was unlucky indeed. If “Loud Speaker” were even half as good a proletarian play as “Processional” it was great stuff, though it may have gone over the high hats. But those who missed “Earth” need not be weeping unless they are class-conscious Nordics, and walking the streets of Man- hattan I do not see many such. “Earth” seeks to picture the Negro of generations ago, writhing in the clutches of superstition and emotional instability. I would not say that it was a true picture of even that early period, and still less is it applicable to the New Negro, the Negro of today, a maker of steel in Pittsburgh for the machine era. That is not to deny that there was a breath of defiance in spots that gave hope for something strong till the play sunk in the morass of repetition. But the real treats are coming later; we hope. It’s a good bet that Mike Gold will furnish some real proletarian revelry in his’ La Fiesta. Dos Passos has entertained workers before and we are ready to take a chance with Farogoh and the rest. All that remains is to give the workers and peasants what is coming to them—their right of first night. —ART SHIELDS. While on the drama we confess having sat through “The Virgin Man.’ Yes, on passes. All we can say is—in the words of that tearful old ballad—it is more to be pitied than censored, COCK ROBIN. I Who hates the Communists? —lI, says the pope, They’d wreck all my dope. —I, says the king, My neck they would string. —I, says the knave, The fool and the slave. Who hates the Communists? —I, says the grafter, It’s me they are after. —I, says the pimp. My game they would crimp. —I, says the crook, No thieving they’d brook. —ADOLF WOLFF. The Sorrows of Saviors——Tough is the lot of the artist in this land infested with too-generous millionaires and with workers whose memory is in good condition. Too much money and the inconsiderateness of scene shifters in remembering that they used to slave 18 hours a day are among the stumbling blocks to “proletarian art” cited by a rising young dramatist. Specifically, he writes: “Most of the talk about a‘proletarian theatre is kosher pork. You can’t have such a theatre until you have a place where you can do as you like; where you are not hampered by too much or too little money; where there is no Tammany union (which makes no distine- tion between Shubert, and, say, the Habima and is ready to strangle you because it hasn’t forgotten the days when it labored 18 hours a day); etc.” The quotation—lest you think we exaggerate—is from an article by Em Jo Basshe, author of “Earth,” in last Saturday’s issue of The DAILY WORKER. The original we have pasted into the sixth volume of our cole jection of samples of “Left Wing Hokum,” Ask Us Another, Dear Footnotes to the Noose: Are you interested in literchoor? Here goes: 1. What has become of the indignant gent in the Times book review section whose most blistering wallop at a book was: “The young author, who seems to have composed his manuscripts on a typewriter—”? , 2. What does one answer to the sweet ladies who ask earnestly; “And now, young man, what are you burning up to write next?” _ 8. What breach of etiquette in the presence of newspaper critics has Eugene O'Neill committed that they have to use even Sidney Howard in the hope of eclipsing him? 4. If Rudy gets this spirit stuff going, do you think there will some day be divorce suits against astral sheiks, as in John Howard Lawon’s “Loud Speaker”? 5, How much more ought a press agent for a dead spirit get? —BENZINE BENNIE. * * « M Dear Benzine Bennie: x The editor suspects you are related to Alkali Al—at least a chemical cousin—and instructs me to answer your queries, so: here goes: t . 1. Didn't you know? He is third assistant sales manager for the Remington Typewriter Company and wants us to thank you for remembering him. 2, Midnight oil. , 8. Answer on Page 7 of this issue. 4, That's advertising for “Loud Speaker.” Can’t put it over on yours truly, i 6. Prices for my services upon request, The last spirit that eae T soaked hard, but competition has forced the scale down lag rr Ye r JAKE, THE DEMON REPORTER,