The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 12, 1927, Page 6

rr Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 1927 ( 'AS HENRY FORD REPORTS HIS ACCIDENT | The Movies--They Don’t Satisfy | PART 3.—ONE PICTURE WITH PROMISE. A: young composer is writing a serious symphony and | a less serious pantomine. Poverty does not permit him | to finish these, because he has to do all kinds of hack | work for cabarets and j bands, His artist-sweetheart is helping him. A friendly | physician gives him the advice “to marry for money” | which would enable him to devote himself to serious | creative work. A fiancee is at hand, it is a pupil of the | omposer, the daughter of a_ billionaire. | The composer visits the billionaire, the family of the | latter return A typical family of upstarts. | The daughter. rical; the son—a degenerate and | hypochondriac; the mother—a vulgar gum-chewing wo- | man; the f: a man who every minute interrupts his | “social ation, to take up the telephone to buy, | to sell, h the stock market and to add to his billions. have a luxurious palace with scores of s insipid ornaments, and a player piano inding off the latest jazz pieces. , presented in a caricatural form, provokes the disgust of both the spectator and the composer. However, under the influence of the physician and his sweetheart who self-sacrificingly renounces her own happiness, the composer offers over telephone his “hand and heart” to the billionaire’s daughter and is accepted. Great Dream. Altogether tired out and unnerved, the composer falls asleep on his chair. A terrible, crazy dream follows. This is 250 per cent of “Lake Liul” and Meyerhold, plus the American chapter of Maiakovsky’s “150,000,- 000,” multiplied by Bedlam and Coney Island. It is impossible to describe the entire dream. One can only single out some particular details. In his dream the composer has married the billionaire’s daughter, and is drawn into the whirlpool of the disgusting life of bourgeois philistinism which is presented as even more foolish, noisy and empty, than it is in reality. The cigar and the telephone of the father-in-law as- sume improbable proportions; and so does the foolishly | shaped necktie of the degenerate son, as well as the | tasteless ornaments of the daughter’s dress. Instead of scores, there are hundreds of lackeys. The father-in-law draws his son-in-law into his office. In the middle of the screen, against a dark background, | there appears a rectangular platform, straight in the air; above it elevators are running up and down; buf the elevator into which the father-in-law and his son- in-law enter, is motionless; the counterweights are mov- ing instead. A conference of the directors of the enterprise. The composer is telling an instructive tale of how he has worked up from a worker to a millionaire—a satire upon the widely current autobiographies and interviews of American get-rich-quick millionaires. Bad Conditions. The composer's hopes for a quiet life and for bearable conditions for his work after his marriage with the billionaire’s daughter vanish. There is neither time nor place to work-—-he has to “make money,” to receive scores of his wife’s great aunts and nephews, he has him to give him an opportunity to devote himself to art. | And when his wife has torn to pieces the unfinished manuscript of symphony, the composer decides, upon | the advice of his friend, the physician, to kill his wife and her family. There is a weapon at hand—his own paper knife that had assumed improbable dimensions. He swings the knife (he only swings it and does not} would have been done in an ordinary ion) at every one of his tormentors. overed. Policemen start out to chase | © screen is empty; there is only one} policemen is running on it waving their in a threatening way; they are running but re-| main on the same spot. | Capital Too Stupid To Die. The screen is empty again; the composer is fleeing, after having committed the crime; he is running—but remains on the same place. The forces of the composer give way; the screen shows both .spots—presenting him and the policemen; they catch and drag him to court. . The setting of the court is fantastic. The judge—that is the same father-in-law with a wig on his head, sit- ting on a high platform; the cigar and the telephone are right by. The jurors—a jazz band in silk hats. The witnesses—the mother-in-law, the wife, her brother. They have not died from the blows—capitalism remains alive, Would Offer Proof. | The composer defends himself: if they only would hear his symphony, they would understand. But he cannot produce his symphony—the manuscript has been torn; so he will show them at least his pantomine. The jurors pull out their pillows and indignantly lie down to sleep, the composer plays, everything disappears— the screen shows the pantomine. | The pantomine has been concluded. The court de- | clared the composer guilty. He is indignant: “I am going to appeal to the higher court.” All Courts Alike. This is very simple. The same floor with the billion- aire father-in-law rises; that is the superior court. The composer is finally declared guilty and is condemned to a life term of hard labor in a jazz factory. Next we see the jazz factory. Iron cages, like in a menagerie. Wheels are moving under the ceiling, trans- mission belts are flying, the factory is in full swing. The cages are occupied by artists, poets, musicians. One of them houses the composer. The spectators—again the billionaire and his family. Upon their request the artists compose for sale “artistic” products while the public is looking on. But when the composer’s turn comes, he refuses to write jazz music; he has to finish his symphony some time. In vain. This is the revolt: of a weak human being behind bars. They tell him: “You have to work here to your very death!” The Sun Appears. Sa Then he prefers to die immediately. This is easy. The physician (the same as before), and his sweet- heart are ready to help him. The familiar paper-knife appears. It has become larger still. It flashes through the air. Not one knife—a thousand knives, No, these are no knives—these are simply sun rays that had penetrated the studio through the window. The ‘dream is over. The rays have awakened the composer. After that—everything happens as it ought to happen in’ a respectable American film, The daughter of the Hillionaire refuses to marry him, the sweetheart returns; the composer gets, from somewhere, a check for a con- siderable sum--everybody is happy. Too Much Dream. | This is a film that is unusual for America, But even here there are not a few genuine American features. The short duration of the reality as compared with the dream; the excessive caricaturing of the millionaire’s family, which suggests the idea that this is only an exception and not a type; the petty-bourgeois treatment of art, as illustrated by the pantomine, the happy end- | ing, virtue being rewarded with money and a wedding. | ‘This is only a step, and not a very courageous one, | towards the creation of a real screen art not contam- inated by bourgeois ideology. And maybe it is only half a step. re ram ne The Daily Worker Every Day |him, But the notice of his death in Henry Ford, expecting to be summoned any day to testify as an “hostile witness” in the suit against him of Aaron Sapiro, had an “accident.” He says he was pushed off the grade while riding in a coupe belonging to his ewn company, by two men in a Studebaker. Boys who say they saw the scene, report that they saw Henry run off the grade, and that some one was in the car with him. The “accident” ance on the witness stand. effectively postponed Henry’s appear- America and the Inexorable Law of Imperialism By C. LYONS. E HAVE travelled a long way since the days of 1917 when we entered the World War to fight for “democracy.” It would be pretty dif- ficult now to convince the majority of American workers, in the event of a war with Mexico or Nicaragua, that. we are fighting for idealistic reasons. For even the most gullible have learned to be somewhat skepti-| cal. OWEVER, the idea of fighting some kind of menace has not as yet been fully exploited and we have seen recently the rehearsal for the | staging of the “Menace of Bolshe- vism.” It didn’t exactly “go,” but who knows, our newspapers can ac- |complish wonders and they may be able even to put that across. N the New York Times of March| 31st a news item appeared to the effect that the capacity of the Pan- ama Canal has nearly reached its lim- it and the two alternatives for meet- ing this problem are: (1) construc- tion of a third lock to be added to the Panama Canal or (2) the build- ing of a canal across Nicaragua. hie something about Nicaragua. Altho “through the so-called Bryan-Chamorro treaty in 1916 the Nicaraguan government gave to the United States the right to construct a canal across Nicaragua, connecting the Atlantic with the Pacifie oceans |... political disorders in Nicaragua would make it difficult for this gov- ernment to carry out the project, es- pecially if an authority hostile to the United States were established.” | (Quot. N. Y. Times, page 1. March | 81, 1927, boldface type mine.) HUS we have a whole story in a nutshell! OW we know (if we didn’t be- fore) why the U. S. marines are | performing the patriotic duty of help- jing Diaz keep out of office Sacasa, | whose legal right to the presidency of Nicaragua can be disputed only by avaricious imperialists and _ their tools, ‘HE “Nicaraguan question” is still | hanging fire. But the national consciousness of the Nicaraguans has been aroused. Diaz will not have as |easy a time in making presents of |the resources of Nicaragua to the U. S. imperialists as Chamorro did. Sacasa and the newly awakened nat- | ionalist elements will put up a fight. | If Diaz and his clique have the pow- jerful guns of the U. S. behind them, | Sacasa has the backing of the major- \ity of Nicaragua (if we may take the last elections and recent victorious battles as a guide), L is not necessary for the U. S. gov- ernment to declare war in every in- stance. It has sufficient forces in Nicaragua now to keep Diaz in power and to protect American interests (railroads, banks, etc.). LETTERS FROM OUR READERS Wall Street And “War Heroes.” Editor, The DAILY WORKER: I’ve noticed pictures in the papers of boys who are leaving for China to kill Chinese, who are revolting against American and British ex- ploitation. The boys look very cheer- ful; they won’t look that way when they get back. I fought in the World War and I | came back sick and broken. I’m out of a job now. But they won’t get me again. I’d rather kill myself than fight Wall Street’s battles again, Capitalism threw me out like a dirty dog, after I fought it’s battles. That’s how it treats “war heroes.” ‘ Brooklyn, N. Y., April 1st. | ute and my tears to yours—for I am | acutely conscious that'there has pas- | sed from our comradeship a friend, |a worker, an uncompromising fighter | for the workers’ cause, a man whom threats could not scare nor flattery corrupt. He is one of those who live though he is gone; Peace to his ashes—but his flame burns on! Ted Robinson (Columnist of Plain Dealer), | Cleveland, Ohio. aaa abe | Editor, DAILY WORKER: Hail to | the comrades who send out the ‘slo- |gan: “Hands Off China!” Get busy, William Pozniak, World War Veteran, | Comrades; all opposed to war for pro- Tribute to Ruthenberg. To the Editor of The DAILY WORK- | 4; ER: It is not for me, whose work and thought have proceeded along such} different lines to usurp a great de- | gree of time and space in paying} tribute to our late Comrade, C. E.| Ruthenberg. But it was my fortune} to be associated with him at one} time—during the period when we | were fellow members of the Twenty- | fifth Ward Branch, Cleveland Local, | of the Socialist Party. | It was there that I became ac-} quainted with his real charactér, so} far different from the one with which | the newspapers slandered’him. His force was not less but greater, be- cause it was contained within a quiet habit of speech and demeanor. He did not exaggerate, he did not rant, he did not sneer, He knew his facts, and was conscious of the strength of his position. It has been’ ten years since it was my privilege to be associated with the papers brought me a shock of |fiteers join in huge protests before ‘it is too late. Why should the workers of one na- on kill off the workers of another nation? Let those who profit by war do the fighting. Shake hands with China across the seas, Workevs of the world unite! Della M. Farmer, Salem, Ohio. Go Easy on Farmer Warning to Egg Men CHICAGO, April 11 (FP).—Don’t exploit the ‘farmer too ruthlessly while he’s down or you will lose by it in the end, is the warning former secretary of agriculture E, T. Mere- dith extended to the big Chicago egg men at a trade meeting April 6, He explained that if the farmer is drained dry he will be unable to buy manufactured goods and then the city workers will lose their jobs and purchasing power and nobody will be left to buy eggs from the big Chicago egg men. Go easy, said Meredith to his hardboiled hearers, and be a little fair with the farmer, personal grief. Let me edd my trib-/ It will pay later on, Ford and Sapiro---Brothers Under the Skin PART Il } The agreement for the formation of the Burley..To- bacco Growers’ Association, as read into the record, showed that no organization was to be formed unless the growers of three-fourths of the Burley tobacco in Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee and Ohio became mem- bers. Prior to the organization of this association, the witness testified, he explained the contract to divisional meetings of bankers in three cities and to public meet- ings of growers in 12 cities, He added that the as- sociation was formed with about 60,000 members. * * * The following are excerpts from a letter of protest written to Ford personally by Walton Peteet, former secretary of the national council of the National Farm- ers’ Co-operative Associations, after the publication of a Sapiro story in which Peteet was mentioned: “This is intended as a personal letter to you because I have become convinced that your employes on the Independent either ignorantly or wilfully are pursuing in your name a course of action wholly at variance with your policy and philosophy of life. The subject-matter | is important enough to receive the attention of a man as busy with large affairs as you are, if truth, justice and honor between men are cardinal virtues. “Your attack on co-operative marketing by farmers is another matter. Of my personal knowledge, I tell you that many of the statements about it in the Dear- born Independent are untrue and the philosophy and aim of the movement have been grotesquely misrepre- sented. “It is strange indeed that your employes should, in| your name, seek to destroy a movement which seeks to) do for agriculture what you are trying to do for indus- | try. It seems to be another case of paid writers writing | what they think will please and twisting the facts to| that end and keeping you away from men who know the real facts. But the co-operative movement can take care of itself.” This portion of the letter was admitted in evidence over the violent protest of Ford’s attorneys. * * * Sen. Jim Reed has spent hours bringing out the size| of the fees Sapiro received as attorney, expert and or-| ganizer for the various co-operatives, The jury must have seen the irony therein. The largest total of fees paid by any organization over a year’s period to Sapiro! is undoubtedly niggardly when compared with the fat| retainer Missouri Jim must have received from Ford for his services (and his reputation) in this one case. And the total income of Sapiro for all the years in question in this case would be pin money to Reed's client, Ford. There would be no irony in this of course if Reed were not trying to bring out the extent of the exploitation of which he charges Sapiro is guilty. Ex- ploitation being not only charged but emphasized, the comparison is almost automatic. . * * * Behind this case is jealousy, the uncompromising ab- | solute jealousy of a man of power in this anarcho-cap- | italistic system in which we aim to overthrow and al- most immeasurably improve upon. Though Ford has made his billions and his reputation as an industrialist, he has always remained part farmer. He is not of the type of the landed aristocracy of pre-revolutionary | Russia, or the type of the slave-owning gentleman- |planter of the Old South in the United States. He is |the son of a Michigan dirt-farmer. It remained for | Henry Ford’s son to break at heart entirely away from |the soil. First Henry Ford developed the tractor. It} was partly country sentiment that caused him to name| |it the Fordson tractor. He wanted his son, too, as he | believed, a benefactor to the farmer. Then he experi- | mented in fertilizer, in the effect on the soil of the rota- |tion of crops, Through machinery, chemistry, zoology |and arithmetic he would introduce the eight-hour day and the equivalent of industrial efficiency into the pro- duction of crops. In his effort to get control of Muscle Shoals he foresaw himself privately benefitted finan- cially and publicly acclaimed as the farmer’s friend. {Since to be publicly acclaimed as the farmer’s friend would also in turn benefit him financially, this was so |much the better. Ford had developed a hatred of Jews, | presumably because when he was in a desperate finan- \cial situation two or three years after the war certain | Jewish banking circles refused to lend him money on j his own terms. When Sapiro became prominent as an | organizer of farmer co-operatives, Ford saw in him not | only a rival for the position of farmer’s friend, Aaron | | Sapiro was also Jewish. Sapiro had contacts moreover | with certain Jewish financiers. Jokes may even have |been cracked in the Ford offices about the nice fer- \tilizer Sapiro, Barney Baruch, Eugene Meyer, Jr., and | other Jews would make if mowed down by a Fordson \tractor. At any rate, the next best thing was to attack |Sapiro’s motives, character and very race in the Qear- | born Independent. That was the kind of thing Ford bought the Dearborn Independent for. Whether the |Dearborn Independent told the truth about Sapiro’s motives and character or libelled him is for the jury | to decide. All we need to know is that the Dearborn Independent would never have concerned itself about} Sapiro, the farmer’s friend, if Henry Ford had not set }out to become the one and only farmer's friend. | * * * i} | { To Ford, organization for the sake of exploitation has |become a mathematical abstraction. Toward the or- |ganization of 100,000 which he controls he is as in- human, in the strictly psychological sense, as a man jcan become. Putting it in another way, ‘this organ- ization of 100,000 men is as inhuman to Ford as the |machines they operate. To Ford, the men are subor- {dinate to the machines, The machines remain, They continue to run. So long as the machines continue to operate the men may come and go. Their coming and going simply raises the question of the cost of the labor turnover as shown on the monthly balance sheet. These facts are significant only when we realize that Ford himself is a product of this final stage of capi- talism, the stage of imperialism and both vertical and lateral trusts. In this stage of capitalism Ford could not attain his success by other means. He is at the same time a product and a leader of the capitalist class, Puns are pleasant diversions. Then Aaron Sapiro and Henry Ford in this capitalistic school are class-mates, The economic analysis must be the final analysis at! this time in these matters, And Henry and Aaron are brothers under the skin, Sapiro, on the marketing end, and Ford, on the producing end, are merely on dif- ferent ends of a cross-cut saw. Both are cutting their profits out of the labor of others, And it can only be said for Sapiro that partly in the name of a racial minority he has fought back against the anti-Semitism of Ford. Even then it must not be forgotten that the anti-Semitism Ford has been manifesting against Sapiro is in general directed against the Semitic finan- cier, the Semitic capitalist. Sapiro is of Ford’s. econ- omic class, Ford’s capitalist class. They are brothers under the skin, There is only one other kind of Jew that would g under this skin of Ford's. That is the Communist Jew or the class-conscious left winger or progressive in a trade union. When the American Federation of Labor starts organizing the automobile industry there will be Jews on the picket line, shoulder to shoulder with the Eist Bgary Herds father and his geandtethce lenry Ford’s father is grandfather went with to husking bees, |Ness man, IN U.S. A. How Red Is America? by Will Irwin, J. H. Sears & Co., Inc. |A YELLOW JOURNALIST DISSECTS THE “RED” PROBLEM $1.50. 4 A member of a socialist local in the days when sueh institutions # existed in the United States, one evening startled his comrades who were in branch headquarters discussing how many capitalists could be purchased to his satisfaction in three words. Most of the assembled niembers couldn’t ‘out of business for a million dollars, by asking them to define socialism if they would and wouldn’t if | they could, so the.irate member declared that socialism would never make |any headway in America until it could be explained to the workers in ‘three words, left headquarters in disgust and returned to the catholic church. Had Will Irwin been in that club room atthe time, the seeker after synthetic knowledge might have continued to pay dues a little longer. fill the order in one word. Irwin could Irwin has written a book for the brainless banker and the tired busi- In a style which is a cross between the fiction of a private de- tective literate enough to use the English language, and that of a war correspondent trying to prove that the accidental killing of one preacher in Shanghai was a massacre and that the slaughter of 600 Chinese was a Chinese outrage, Irwin essays to tell how the “Reds” of various brands came and went in the United States. * * * -Irwin holds no brief for patriotic organizations like the National Se- curity League or the American Defense Society. They did not pay him to write a book exposing the “Reds.” He is not an extremist. This erudite | author tells us that Marx and Engels at one time favored the common own- ership of women, tho he declares that afterwards Engel became a cham- pion of woman suffrage. Mr. Irwin is twice wrong in the same place. Irwin knows that Foster’s first name is John, not William, tho without the William, Foster would not mean any more to the average reader than Ford without the Henry. * * * On a few facts Mr, Irwin works off his anti-radical spleen for 219 pages. The book is not worth a stick of chewing gum. —T. J. O’FLAHERTY. Mr. The Labor Lieutenants of American Imperialism, by Jay Lovestone. TREASON’S REWARDS AND ITS METHODS. Daily Worker Publishing Co., 10 cents. The Threat To the Labor Movement; The Conspiracy Against the SN LRT * Trade Unions, by William F. Dunne, cents. Labor “leadership” in the United States has become a vested interest. Despite the fact that Sam Gompers and others have indignantly denied that labor is a commodity, the trade union officer sells his labor power These officials consider themselves highly They place their commodity for sale in the labor mar- just as well as any worker does. skilled individuals, ket. Daily Worker Publishing Co., 15 — Hence the membership is made to bid against the employers for the purchase of this commodity, for the hiring of these “able” men. ~ * * In The Labor Lieutenants of American Imperialism is to be found listed categorically the various rights, privileges, salaries and some of the inci- dental swag enjoyed by the ruling quacks of the American Federation of Labor. * * * Most of the $100,000,000 paid annually by American trade unionists to their organizations goes towards the payment of wages “expenses,” and Quite clear, incidentally, will then become the motives behind the present campaign against left-wing control of the trade unions. salaries of high-priced officials. (Pres. Bro. Locomotive Engineers, $25,000; Pres. Railroad Trainmen, $14,000; Pres. Teamsters and Truckdrivers, $15,- 000; Pres, UMWA, $12,000.) With labor “leadership” thus on the auction block the present con- spiracy against honest trade unionism inspired by a coalition of employers, reactionary union officials, the government, and the capitalist press, with moribund socialists tagging in the rear, appears quite logical. In The Threat To The Labor Movement, Dunne shows by documentary evidence, whose authenticity cannot be questioned, that the campaign against all progressive tendencies in the labor movement which was launched at the A. F. of L, convention in 1923 has entered a new phase in which there is a more open combination of these forces than ever before. *. * * Three reasons are given by the writer for this new offensive: (1) The desire of the capitalists to suppress all struggles which interfere with the development of American general dead level of docility; (2) the desire of the trade union officialdom to force on the unions a policy which will make them the docile organizations which the capitalists will accept; and (3) the desire of both the capitalists and their labor-agents to drive the most con- scious and active left wing workers out of the unions and destroy their influence in the labor movement because they are trying to rally all workers tor struggle on a program of immediate and necessary demands, * * . Both pamphlets are written in an easy, lively style. THE NEW CANDOR IN SEX. 1927, available in English. The unique combination of frankness and sobriety, mingling of naturalness and charm, make “Sex And The Love-Life” not only eminently readable but, in the best sense, instructive, They are crowded | with facts vital to every worker who is eager to be informed of the em- battled forces that are at work in the American labor movement. i SENDER GARLIN, Sex And The Love-Life, by William J. Fielding. Dodd Mead/‘& Co, Fielding’s work takes its place at once as the most lucid and persua sive presentation of the tingled facts of sex and love and marriage now ‘ the fine inter- Every vital fact of conceivable interest to-men and women is cited and illustrated and dwelt upon for the enlightenment of the sexually-benighted (whose number is legion). The author assumes both the permanence and high desirability of mar-| * ridge as a monogamic union and on this basis proceeds to give sane hints to married lovers for the creation and continuance of sexual felicity. His of love makes for an especial honesty in treat- Nothing is so wholesome nowadays (thanks to the “science” of psychoanalysis) as the bright frankness of the intelligentsia regarding the emphasis on the ment. hysiolo; sexual question, When wo bear in mind tho audionco of rapreaned, modest, self-conscious, ‘mon and women for whom “Sox And Tho Love- Lifo”' 1s intended, wo can approciate its importance scientifically, hygienical- SAMUEL D, SCHMALHAUSEN, and orotically ‘SIlitora! ly and therapeutically,