The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 27, 1927, Page 2

Robt. W. Dunn Writes Brilliant Exposé of Civic Federationists W. Dunn, author of “American Foreign Investments,” “Company Unionism” and co-au- thor with Sidney Howard of “The Labor ,” has written for The DAILY WORKER a series of ar- ticles revealing in a brilliant man- Robert ner the sonneckions Lintlay hs |rison has made specific charges of fraud, misrepresentation, ares es = EPC R National Civic Federation, “labor P ; 5 ei official view is that ee eS aiatnee Wall ded subornation and misuse of public money. Banks, railroads and tha: Ainave eta tebe chad dnok the various organizations of labor: hating corporation owners, execu tives and patriotic plutocr: : These articles will appear in The DAILY WORKER begihning Monday, May 2. * * . i oie s Order a bundle to distribute to se ' , |money, the last row of figures arc a your fellow workers. They will Pappas oe ‘df bed RATS jcorrect estimate of what the insur- thank you for it. R, > ance trust premium income will JAPANESE PANIC EFFECT FELT ON | STOCK EXCHANGE The New York Stock Exchange, speculative center of the continent, was cautiously feeling its way yes-} terday following the sharp break in stock values the day before. Tens of | millions of dollars in paper values | were wiped out in a sudden break in the market while panicky sales exceeded 2,500,000. Fifty leading stocks tumbled for an | average of $2.81 as compared with | $2.93 on October 16, 1926, the last} bad break. | Financiers saw an intimate con-| nection between the depression of the Exchange here and the financial | panic in Japan. Recalling that the Japanese panic of 1920 preceded the American panic of that year by only | a few-amonths, they have been quiet-/| ly consolidating their position during | the last week. In the past two days their activities have been revealed by} the dden outburst of orders to} “sell” with hardly any buying. | Ordinarily it will take at least three months for the full effect of the Japanese panic, with its failures | THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 1927 % es * Vast Territory in South Engulfed as Mississippi Flood Bursts Levees In spite of efforts of thousands of men, working chiefly under the direction of the United States army en- gineer department, the Mississippi's great levee system has been giving way under the tremendous strain of | The top picture shows last-minute efforts to save with sand bags Reelfoot A short time after this photo was taken, wind and waves effected serious damage at the spot the picture was taken and warning was issued that the levee, protecting 90,000 acres | lion). jin Kentucky and Tennessee probably would surrender to the Father of Waters any minute. |left shows a house and shed, caught in swirling waters when a levee broke across the river from Hickman, | The break, itself, is pictured in the photo on the lower right. the stream’s unprecedented flood. levee, three miles below Hickman, Ky. at Dorena, Mo. Photo on lower Chickens, geese and furniture cesses eben en NCR aNesR Hep Adres | | public utility companies are involved in the swindle. ' Names prominent in financial and government circles have appeared from Among those mentioned have been Charles M. | Schwab, Haley Fiske, Albert H. Wiggin, Supt. of Insurance | James A, Beha and many others. |time to time. (By CHARLES YALE HARRISON) ARTICLE XV. lassailable, I have made it before this \time to various life insurance offi- {cials publicly and privately. The truth of the demonstration is self evi- dent. “Big Four” weekly-payment life in- surance swindle is complete, callous; and corrupt, The admitted assets of the “Big Four” are $3,600,000,000 (over three and a half billion). See N. Y. Insur- jance Report, 1925. The amount of jinsurance in force on December 31st | 1925 with this combine was a little lover $22,000,000,000 (twenty-two bil- Just to Pay Debts. |rious insurance authorities the assets Ley mcg “ X red are seen piled on the last vestige of dry ground, awaiting a rescut boat. Numerous workers on the Mississippi | 4° required “to meet the current in. levees have been reported swept to death. (Exclusive Central Press Photos.) ASSOCIATED PRESS CONFAB TORN Below Sea Level BY INTERNAL ROW OVER POLIGIES New Orleans Fears Bosses of Public Opinion Fight Over Old Guard | Control of Reactionary News Agency Mississippi Flood | NEW ORLEANS, April 26. — newspapers tell us. They might add | surance liability.” That is to say, a |reserve must be kept on hand suffi-| {ciently large enough to meet all claims, maturities and other pay- |ments to policyholders as they come due. Last year the “Big Four” paid to |their policyholders in claims, matur- lities and in other losses about 216 | million dollars. The total amount of |premium income from both depart- | ments, industrial and ordinary was |424 millions. This, of course, does not linclude income from rents, bonds, | securities, etc. The total income from “New Orleans fears flood,” so the|l! sources is $1,026,640,478 (over one) | billion), ‘Ble FOUR” STILL TAKES THO RESERVE WOULD PAY POLICIES PREVIOUS EVENTS OF INSURANCE EXPOSE | The following is the fifteenth of a series of thirty articles |exposing the fraud of weekly:payment (industrial) life insurance, | Previous articles have pointed out that there are 40 million weekly |Payment insurers in the United States and Canada, Mr. Har- The following demonstration is un-! It proves conclusively that the | According to the statements of ‘va-| amount to during the 32-year period of expectancy, They Still Collect. Think of it! With their present jassets disregarding any further pre- |minums, these companiés could pay jevery claim in full as they matured. | In spite of the fact that the pres- ent assets are great enough to take | care of all future poli¢y payments in |perpetuity, the “Big Four” will mulct the American worker inturing public jto the tune of Forty Billion Dollars. And yet they tell us with a straight \face that “the Inet premium is. that part of the premium mathematically |necessary to meet the present insur- lance liability” (Alexander). It Is Good Business, From the above fabulous figures ean be readily seen why buccaneers like Charles M. Schwab, Albert H. Wiggin and their asociated comrades jin arms are so eager to serve as \directors of the “Big Four.” One can jalso understand why ithe Chase’ Na- tional Bank sees to it that many of its directors are also on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Life. It is quite understandable. It is aif) |profitable business, There are bil- |lions of dollars to be invested. These men are interested in gigantic indus- trial enterprises which require loans and credit, But what interest have the 40,000,- 000 workers in continuing a relation- ship with Wall Street high financiers which results in hundreds of millions| \of dollars being taken from them in | overcharges, outright fraud and slick Buy The Daily Worker League of Nations to Postpone Disarmament Talk Until Next Fall LONDON, April 26,—The league of nations preparatory disarma- ment conference will meet again in the autumn to await a report from President Coolidge’s pro- posed tri-partite naval disarma- ment conference, it was stated in valuable preparatory work and has not hindered the prospects of the proposed tri-partite conference, amew pamphlet Including the discussion by outstanding figures in the Communist International on the great revolt in China by ] STALIN 1 BUCHARIN Wj MANUILSKY TAN PING SHAN 154 On China Read Also THE AWAKENING OF CHINA by Jas. H. Dolsen. A complete history of the awakening of over four hun- dred million people. With and debt moratorium, to be felt in| Frank admission that the, Asso-|to bring issues up for discussion at | that New Orleans always fears floods; Don’t Need More. | by oy ida photographs, maps and orig- 1 trade and financial circles.| sisted Press does not aim to serve | annual meetings had been regularly! the only difference is that now their |. The assets of 3.6 billions of dollars | manipulation? The answer is hard inal documents. ‘st flurries, as evidenced on the ne |invested at compound interest at 4% |to find. the rank and file of workers in its|suppressed by rulings of the chair.| fears seem about to be realized. Possibly some of our teste ti jhandling of news was made by Frank|He declared that the “Old Guard”| A dread of floods is part of the life Exchange, are the preliminary |for thirty years or at 6% for twenty | NOW 50 CENTS of the financial elements. Although building remains at a igh level, figures for the first quar- show automobile produc- ely at a much lower level than last year. March orders are 10 cent below last year’s. Steel another good barometer, are 5 to 26 per cent below 1926. New York} state employment is 5 per cent under | last year. The price level, reflecting in this case over-production, continues to sink slowly to the lowest level since 1921, Even coal prites are dropping steadily, despite the strike. There is no shortage of coal, in fact the Coal | Age composite price shows it at $2.11 as against $2.15 the first week of April. Can't Smoke Out Cal on Third Term issue, Editor Finds President Coolidge will “refuse to read” the le to be published in the Forum, national magazine, de- manding that he signify whether he is a candidate for re-election. This information from the presi- dent’s secretary at Washington fol- lowed the dispatch yesterday of the letter to him. The president also declined to answer 10 questions from a newspaper correspondent relating to the letter. Henry Goddard Leach, editor of “The Forum”, declares that the let- ter is “friendly and sympathetic in tone throughout, but minces no words in emphasizing that the American tradition is against a third term.” Refers to Hoover Rebuff. The letter also points out that B. Noyes, president of the Associated Press, at the annual mecting which! about a thousand newspaper owners attended at the Waldorf hotel Mon- day and Tuesday. Answering the declaration of -the| head of a competing news service! that the point of view of the reporter | is only the point of view of the paper | and that newspapers may be grouped | as having interests with the capital- ists or with the rank and file and| |reflecting this in the news columns, | Noyes insisted that the association of | jwhich he is president, the members} of which are practically all news- | paper owners and dependent upon} national advertising, has “no point of view.” | The policies of the Associated! Press, generally acknowledged to be | the most reactionary of the news services in this country, have re-| | sulted in “distinct dissent,” even with- | in its own ranks, Noyes admitted. | This “dissent” very nearly resulted in a terrific fight on the floor at) the annual meeting and was avoided ® versy to a committee. only by the railroading through of | resolution referring the contro-|about the girl who dislocated her| Which would just as soon change its | American Table of Mortality, which |spinal cord dancing the Charleston; | course and flow over the city of New/is grossly inaccurate, being based on Tress for many years was openly in position to a democratic reorgani- ion: the association should be controlled by 25 or 80 bondholders, Polachek | demanded: “The right of franchise in the po- litical world was sonce limited to property owne: Long ago that relig of aristocracy was abandoned. Why should the directors of the As- sociated Press be so anxious to con- tinue such an, undemocratic policy in an organization that SHOULD | BE the freest and most democratic in America—the Free Press of Amer- ica?” Former Governor Henry J. Allen of Kansas declared that “geology has produced no substance more imper- vious to outside influence than mem- bers of the Associated Press.” Touching on the intelligence of newspaper men, he mentioned as typ- ical of a considerable group, those editors who wanted “more news |which has controlled the Associated| of New Orleans, for the city is 15 feet below sea level and is only pro- | tected from the waters of the Mis- | sissippi by the great levees which| |\» Declaring the issue to.be waether "ow threaten'to break ynder the ter- | vifie pressure of flood tides. } Town Soggy. Whenever it rains hard in New Or- leans, the streets are covered with several feet of water. Years ago this water remained until it gradually seeped away into the ground. Men and women caught in a storm would take off their shoes and stockings | and wade home, Recently a pumping system has been introduced, Under each street is a canal; and as fast as the pumps | can operate the city is pumped out | after every rain. No doubt this sys- tem will be relied upon if the levees | break; but while pumps may be able to drain the city adequately after a | few hours of rain, it is a question ‘how much they will be able to ac- complish against a roaring flood. | The Mississippi has no banks to be | relied upon to hold its waters. It is a huge, ungainly, roving stream Charges had been made by Victor|what do we care about the news| Orleans as follow the path in which H. Polachek, an editor, that attempts | from Nicaragua?” New York’s Water Front News and Views of the Biggest World Port Foremen Are Used to Terrorize Men especially picked to terrorize the men| into complete subjection to company rules and discipline of the workers in| gangs and it is their duty to drive} This is worked in the following manner: some of the men are sent | below into the hold; here the bananas | jare stacked and then two men are The foremen of the United Fruit | Placed on the hatch where the bananas | emerge from the hold. The conveyor | is then lowered at a terrific rate of speed into the hold endangering the lives of the men in the hold thru its President Coolidge’s silence already | them into harder and more systematic | Speed of descent and the practical un- has led to suspicion that he is willing to accept another nomination, 1f it has the force and aspect of a popular | demand, adding, such were the meth- ods of Grant in 1880 and of Roose- velt in 1912.” efficiency of production thru. the} means of nagging, rotation, etc. | These men get a few cents more | ;an.hour for this work, The foremen! however have a good many petty! privileges and raise their social and| awareness of its drop, Pit of Stomach. Many is the time that writer has felt a terrible emptiness about the pit of the stomach as that heavy net or weight descended at an almost un- “Your support is indispensible to| working status for the purpose of | believable rate of speed and with ab- another man’s success,” the letter | drawing them closer to the company. | solutely very little warning of its ap- declares and says “your recent public | This is only one of the schemes which | proach so that escape from it was a rebuff of Herbert Hoover has been|is used to divide the men against | matter of only a hair breath glance. considered “as a rebuke to the indis- cretions of those who support your secretary of commerce for the presi- dency.” It declares that former Governor Lwden is “risking your displeasure and a rift in the party by building up support for his candidacy among the farmers of the west, but will be pow- erless against your control of the southern delegations.” Vice-President Dawes, “whatever his ambitions,” is compelled to main- tain an attitude of quiescence, the letter states, and concludes “you have | the power in your party and by silence you can both punish opposi- tion to your leadership and expose to jthemselves so that the efforts to| maintain any sort of union control or | solidarity will be broken up. | There are others as for instance | | the stirring up of the old and sneaky 'race and color prejudice scheme. | In this way they are able to get | | more production out of the men be- | cause when there is race or color pre- | | judice raised amongst them they will |not be making any efforts at | solidarity against the tyranny of the foremen and the bosses. Then there is the bucket and con- veyor system of speed up and In- crease of driving. By this method the company is able to extract the last ounce of weary energy out of the ridicule and failure any man who seeks to lead in your default,” ‘ men even at the very end of the terrible day’s grind. When this cargo is raised it is placed on an electrically driven con- veyor. This in turn is carried out to the men who are waiting for the cargo outside of the conveyor. They | then get this stuff in rotation. Follow In Turn, The horror of this system is that the men must follow in their turn no matter how weak or tired or sick they they may, be, You got to plug and plug until you’re ready to drop in your tracks and then there is the ever haunting fear the forman is around | the dock or watching you while you are unawares. The minute that you stop or falter in your work you're fired, no consideration or regard ever being extended since practically a martial rule prevails, | it has been forcibly confined by ex- | pert engineers for many years past. | Breaks Thru. The levees which protect New Or- | leans are like walls fifteen or twenty | feet thick, wide enough for a horse | and wagon to travel on, But a river | is a sneaking thief, and even before | it tries to swoop over the top, it will | be slowly seeking some weak chink in the wall and trying to widen it and slip thru in that way. Such a serious flood as the present |one has not threatened New Orleans in many years. Rescuers Quarrel. | Many new areas outside New Or- leans were flooded today from tribu- taries of the Mississippi rising be- yond their banks throughout the low- er Mississippi valley, Louisiana was getting its first real touch of the | flood disaster when breaks near | Shreveport in the Red River levees were reported, ; A crisis was expected today in a threatened split between the Red Cross and the Mississippi National Guard over the forceful evacuation of several small towns. Under orders to move persons from the flodded towns by force if neces- sary, national guard troops ‘were en route to these towns. These orders were sharply criticized by Red Cross officials in the field. Flood Near Helena. Helena, Ark., held its breath today as the levees showed signs of weaken- ing. Helena to date is dry and pro- tecting several thousand refugees but is surrounded by water. if M Cold, half-starved and half-naked refugees, marooned on house tops and in branches of trees in the flood area are being rescued by boats today and taken to Leland, Miss. Some are only semi-conscious from their ex- | posure, |years would exceed the 22 million dol- lar total insurance liability, assuming \that every policy would be kept up. What does this mean? Simply this: if every policyholder should die with {his policy in full force and benefit \for its face amount, all policies could |be paid in full without asking a dol- jlar in future payment. | “Expectancy.” The present assets are great enough |to meet all liabilities, for, policyhold- ers do not die all on one and the same day. As pointed out in a previous jarticle, the death statistics show that |the flow of mortality flows evenly jand in accordance to what the ac- \tuaries call “expectancy.” The aver- |age “expectancy of life” is about 32 | years after the date of insurance. | The following table shows the ex- ‘pectancy of life from age 20 to 50: Age Expectancy | 20 .. .. 42 years | 25 39 years } 30 35 years | 35 81 years | 40 29 years | 50 25 years | The above figures are based on the the mortality returns for the year 1868. It is being used by the “Big | Four” in the computation of premium \charges. It is more than 50% inac- curate, Its use is sanctioned and ap- proved by the New York State De- partment of Insurance. Not All Paid. However, we know that all policies do not mature for their face values. Only about 15% are ever paid on at all. Last year, as has been repeatedly pointed out in this series, 75% of the terminated policies were lapses. Only 1% were paid as matured en- dowments and 9% were paid in claims. In the ordinary departments the percentages were higher. This is an attack on industrial insurance. In effect this means that during the 82-year period of expectancy only a small fraction of the 22 billions now in force will be paid on. The rest will be forfeited at a terrific loss to the tens of millions of policyholders, who are now members of the “mu- tual” Big Four. Actually about 3 billions of the existing 22 billions will be paid from one to fifty years hence! They Draw Interest. Still these swindling companies have 3.6 billions of dollars on hand today to meet claims and losses which will never amount to more than 8 bil- lions of dollars fifty years from now. These billions of dollars are required, so we are told, for “legal safety.” Apart from the fact that the inter- est return from these “mutual” assets are great enough to pay all claims as they are incurred, The “mutual” pol- ieyholders of the “Big Four” will pay during the 82-year period of expect- ancy $15,568,000,000 in premiums, This does not include interest. With ype the following results: at oe ie fact that the “Big Four” earn 6% ( ) on their are also quizz fiends might know. Argentina Rail Workers Demand Pardon (Continued from Page One) | plicated the Morelli gangsters as the! criminals. If he dies early Thurs- | day, he will take to the grave with J) him the most. vital evidence in the) whole case. He has been reprieved twice and William Thompson, de- fense attorney for Sacco and Van- zetti, has requested the third re-| prieve. | Two Refuse Pardon Plea | In the meantime Sacco and Van-| zetti, sitting in Dedham jail, are) offering the most serious objections ||| to signing any application for a par-||) don. Attorney Thompson is devising | }some sort of an application for a jreview of their case which will not jcarry all the implications of a par-! Vanzetti has just asked that the! widest publicity be given a state- ment that he was aiming at one “de- fense” attorney in the infamous} Plymouth trial, for which he is now serving 15 years. In his eloquent statement before Judge Thayer the! day he was sentenced to die in the | electric chair, Vanzetti referred to a defense attorney who had practically | been a member of the prosecution. The Three Prosecutors Fred Moore, Callahan, Hill, the McAnarney brothers and Thompson were praised by Vanzetti, who de- elared that Lawyer Vahey was the traitor. Vahey is a relative of for- mer Prosecuting Attorney Katzmann, who handled the Plymouth case. Vahey, Katzmann and Thayer would gather at the Plymouth hotel in the evenings, going dver the case con- fidentially and planning the strategy for the next day. Forty-eight members of the faculty of Wisconsin State Normal school, Oshkosh, Wis., Dr. Calvert Magru- der, assistant professor of law at Harvard, Rev. William EB. Gardner of the Church of the Messiah, Back Bay and the Pittsfield, Mass. Brotherhood Temple are among the “higher minds” which appealed to Governor Fuller today for a review of the case, The Railroad Workers Union of Argentina, 100,000 strong, have handed to the United States charge d'affaires at Buenos Aires a demand for a complete and absolute pardon for Sacco and Vanzetti. Hewitt Must Die, JEFFERSON, 0., April 26,—loyd Hewitt, 16 year old Conneaut boy, and son of wealthy parents, today was found guilty of the murder of; A jury of eight men and four wo- men brought in the verdict at 1.24 p. m, today after getting the case at 11:80 a. m. The verdict automatical- ly carries a penalty of death, Read The Daily Worker Every Der. The PaILY PUBLISHIN combate’ 33 First Street NEW YORK COMPANY UNIONS | ee Robt. W OUNH With CONCLUSIONS BY don plea. i} WS Z. Foster The first booklet of its | kind issued. A most valu- able study of the growth of a new menace to American | organized Labor by a keen | student of the problem. | | | ! —25 CENTS On | Class Collaboration READ COLLABORATION— How It Works By Bertram D. Wolfe ' A new booklet re- cently issued all phases of this im- portant problem to workers. —10 CENTS } CLASS STRUGGLE | Vs. CLASS | COLLABORATION | By Earl R. Browder A brief but invalu- able study of the B. & O. Plan, Labor Bank- ing, Workers’ Educa+ tion and other pra of the enemies of bor to keep the ‘work- ers from struggle. —10 CENTS Read also the two NEW PAMPHLETS THE THREAT TO THE LABOR MOVEMENT Dunne ‘ —15 CENTS THE WATSON-PARKER LAW