The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 17, 1927, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TU AY, MAY 17, 1927 An “automatic plow” has been invented by F. L. Zybach, rail- road motor car inspector and farmer, | ing near Grand Island, Neb. By attaching a timed automatic steering device to a tractor, Zybach | is able to do his work on the rail road while his tractor plows his THATS WHAT COMES OF JUST PAKHING TOINGS uP! AN 18TH CENTURY ECONOMIST. Laissez Faire and Communism, by John Maynard Keynes. Inc., $1. Do ‘not waste your money or your time on this volume. The essays New Republic, that are printed between the two covers are more or less unrelated. One series deals, in a general way, with economic motives. The second series contains some sketchy impressions of Russia in 1925. The work contains no central theme and is not a unit in any sense. * * * Keynes’ essays on Russia, which were printed serially in the New Republic, suffer from two causes, Incidentally, Mr. Keynes was not in Russia long enough to grasp the meaning of the Soviet experiment. Funda- mentally, however, he is so unaware of the meaning of economic processes and sequences that he might have spent a decade in the Soviet Union and still have had no idea what it was all about. Keynes, like so many liberals, sees economics in three dimensions— height, breadth and depth. In his economic world there is little room for either motion or for growth (evolution). * * This limitation is well expressed in his essay on “Individualism.” “Laissez Faire,” he writes, “drew its sustenance from many different revulets of thought and feeling.” Its principles were formulated by “the political economists who sprang into prominence just at the right moment.” These economists, who happened along, “told us that for certain deep rea- sons unfettered private enterprise would promote the greatest good of the whole. What could suit the business man better?” * * Keynes makes the whole proces. accidental. He does not once suggest, in the whole essay, any possible connection between what the business men wanted (profits) and what the economists wrote. The same point of view is expressed in a later essay. Keynes pays his respects to Marxian socialism; “how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and thru them, the events: of history.” Again he assumes the dullness or brilliancy of an idea is the determining factor in its historie influence, fields. He is shown pointing to the device. Inset shows how the plow works from the rear of the tractor. or relating them. It seems strange that a man so intimately conversant with current economic facts and events should be unable to see any pattern connecting Yet Mr. Keynes can write these essays on the economic Chair Workers of Gardner, Mass. in Organization Drive GARDNER, M tinuing the wo f organizing a union of chairworkers in Gardner | begun so successfully on the 20th of | March, the workers now have regu-| lar union meetings every week and| have applied for a charter in the United Brotherhood of Carpenters | and Joiners. They are hopeful that their request for affiliation will be| soon granted that they may take their place in the ranks of the strongest | unit in the American Federation of Labor. At a meeting held o: the 11th of May in the Franco-American Hall Gardner’s very hopeful report was given by the financial secretary. | “During the past week” ran the re-| port despite the brow beating tactics | of the bosses, and in spite of the fact | that our organizer can only devote one day a week to the work in this | city, we have trebled our membership dur'ng the last five days. The sup- erintendent of the Heywood Plant has been calling all the workers whom he suspects of being in favor / of a union into the office and threat- ening them with the loss of their jobs. . But the workers have | been well warned and they ‘can lie to the boss as well as any boss can lie to them. Fool The Boss. The workers have formed a com-}| mittee composed of delegates from} each of the twenty factories in the/| city, and this committee is. proving its value as the rea] weapon for or- ganizing in the machine industries. Every week the committee meets! with the executive and reports on the work done in the factories during the week, and every week they turn in} more and more application cards for} membership in the union. Because | of the fact that only two persons | have access to the lists of membe@-| ship and that the strength of the or ganization is not made public at. the! membership meetings, the bosses are} |came the wage-cut and they cut my Picketing with the , May 16.—Con-; “I have worked for elght years in| the stock-room of the Heywood fac- tory?” he said, “and up till the time | the factory was reorganized I used) to werk a full week and at 45 cents | an hour. My pay was enough to} maintain me and my family. | “But when Henry Hornblower sent | the number employed in my depart- | ment by half and so arranged the work that those of us who were left had to do more work in three days than we did before in a week. Then wages 5 cents an hour which gave me only $12.82 one week and $17.10 the next . how could any man with a family live on this . ae did not pay my mortgage on the house and after I was five months behind on my monthly payments and I got a notice from Hornbowers and Weeks of Congress Street Boston to| leave my house if I did not pay up I got out. ° “My boss held the mortgage on my ” Professional | Patriots” The Keymen off America and the Military Order of the World War are the patriotic organizations which lin his efficiency men they cut down | are leading the war against the DAILY WORKER. The labor-smashing activities of these hysterically patriotic organizations are described in Professional Patriots, edited by Norman Hapgood and published by Albert and Charles Boni. The Keymen, led by Fred R. Marvin, who does a lucrative business “exposing the menace of Commun- ism,” claimed credit in 1924 of rendering “this nation munism which was manifested through the third ticket headed by LaFollette and Wheeler.” The Advisory Council of the Keymen includes of- ficials of the Associated Employers of Indianapolis, the National Founders Association, the National Clay Products Industries Association, the Citizeris Alliance of St. Paul, the Employers Association of Jackson,’ Michigan and the Builders’ Exchange of San Fran- cisco. In addition representatives from practically all the patriotic associations are on the council as well as the leading lights of the Chemical Warfare Reserve house and he did not kid me into believing it was my home . I guess I was not bribed.” Dressmakers By A. SOKOLOV In Memory of The Great Strike. and the Military Intelligence Association, According to “Professional Patriots” The organization announces that among other duties its members should be prepared to help stop the growth of Communism and Socialism, work for industrial free- dom, keep informed through the Information Bureau | of all subversive and radical movements, keep the In- formation Bureau posted on local activities of radical movements, and assist local newspapers to secure and print information that will aid in this character’ of work. The membership fee in the organization is $12 It was a cold windy morning when I decided to visit the trenches of class | struggle and participate in the dress- | makers’ picket line. At 7:45 a. m. I reached the Automat on 36th street and 7th avenue and stopped in for} my breakfast. con The restaurant was packed to its| capacity with dressmakers who were | sitting or standing and quickly con- | suming their breakfasts. They all) seemed very busy and, eating only | as a matter of necessity, they rushed crazy to know just what strength the | 5 of the hole. | workers really have. They have sent; The turnover of people was s0| in two stoolpigeons to find out what great that the stream of men and wo- is going on but they have had to g0| men was continuously marching out. | Away no wiser than they were at the | Jt seemed as if the Automat served beginning. |the dressmakers as a recruiting sta-| The workers who have joined the | tion for the start of the picket liné. | union so far are almost all American! [I followed the crowd and soon found | horn workers, and it is due to the ef-| myself on the picket line. forts of these hard working exploited | dail bal factory workers that the union has} begun to grow as it has. The work- ers of Gardner have proven the theory that the working class can and does throw up its\own leadership in time of struggle provided that the leaders of the working class can give them Hundreds of men and women in| ‘rows of two or four, like a well dis-| | ciplined army, were marching up and | | down along 36th street. Their faces |expressed seriousness, sincerity and | determination to fight. There could | be no doubt that those men were con- work to do. The workers of Gardner | scious of the struggle, that they were are confuting by their activities the jout to achieve their aim. oe theory that the American working) Along the walls of the factories | masses have been bought off by high| were stationed tens of policemen, de- wages, self-owned cottages, and auto- | tectives and thugs who watched close- mobiles. The workers of Gardner, as /ly every step of the pickets. It was do all wage-workers in large scale in-| suspiciously quiet. One could feel| dustry, replied to the pessimists, by|the approaching storm. | getting down to work and forming; “They are coming’—the word! a union. . . ‘They say th&t it) passed swiftly down the rows of pick- may be true that they are bought offtets, The eyes of the hundreds of men | | ernment.” per year which includes the daily information service of the organization appearing on the editorial page of the Commercial. } One of Mr. Marvin’s latest feats is reflected in an editorial in the Néw York World (May 8, 1926) under the title, Another Red Conspiracy Yarn: The Army and Navy Journal engages in a very curi- ous enterprise when it prints an article under the headline “Oil ‘Scandals’ Engineered by Radicals,”, by Fred R. Marvin. Mr. Marvin is introduced as editor in chief of the New York Commercial, who is “accepted as the best-posted man in the United States on the origin, nature, purpose, methods and systems of the various radical and subversive organizations now in- festing the United States and engaged in seeking to overthrow this government.” In effect, Mr. Marvin undertakes to make it appear, somehow, that the naval “oil seandals,” as he calls them, were part of a Bolshevist or Communist plot. How, he does not show. He does assert that after the Senate investigating committee set to work, “the pub- | licity work which followed was guided largely by the | Socialist and Communist movements in this country.” Any such statement can hardly be charged to a faulty memory. But, as Mr. Marvin tells the story, when the cases went into the Federal Courts the truth came out: “There was no scandal. No one sought to rob the Gov- Judge Kennedy, in the Teapot Dome case, he cites as holding everything was all right. But the Russian conspiracy resulted in preventing “fuel-oil tanks at strategic points,” and so on, from being used | for the benefit of the navy. Then in Mr. Marvin's text, under the heading “Schemers Win Their Desires,” comes this: “But the incident, played up as it was because it came with the magic name ‘scandal,’ accomplished what the original projectors of the scheme expected it would accomplish. . . The ‘strategic’ play of Zinovieff was a success.” What is the conceivable purpose of publishing such fluff? In connection with Mr. Marvin's articles the Army { ment. In the City of Mills By MARY B. TRASK. From the start Pinchak had been one of the leaders among the rank and file. An old man at the begin- ning of the strike, he had added ten years in as many months—one year for each skirmish with the officers of law and order.’ There had been a time when Pinchak lay ill in his dingy home, when the union doctor spoke gravely as he examined the bruises and cut which, it seemed, would never heal. They did heal, finally, and |in a few weeks Pinchak was back on the picket line, a remarkable service in defeating socialism and com-/ as undaunted as ever. But not quite as well. eso Mere x ae It was in the thirteenth month of the strike that he came into the office. I had not seen him for some }time; only when he spoke did I realize that this bent shaking old man was Pinchak of the ready smile, “best of the bunch.” He lowered himself slowly into a chair—closed his eyes as if exhausted by the effort. “Well, Fellow-Worker, what can we do for you?” “It is not me—it is the doctor who has said.” His English was a little more of an effort than formerly. I have the weakness and the doctor say it is that I must have more of the food and more of coal for the house.” No Money. We could do nothing. Relief money was almost non- existent. For the first time since the beginning of the strike we had been unable to pay gas bills—a month ago we had been forced to cut the relief almost in half. This, Pinchak knew. It was not to ask the im- possible that he had come. “I can not work—I have too much the weakness. But my boy is strong, and he wishes to go to the mill.” Beaten Back. Pinchak’s son turned scab! Mike had been among the youngsters what his father had been on the picket- line. He had thrown himself into the strike with all the enthusiasm of his fourteen years. But, if he did not work, how could his father live? “All right, fellow-worker. Let the boy go back.” It was not the first time I had heard such strange advice given. What else was there to do? But Pinchak was trying to make himself understood. “It is that from the union I want a paper to say he should work. A paper that he is not a scab.” Not much to ask of the union for which he had fought so long, surely not much—only a little paper. But it was a thing the union could not give. Knowing this, we argued without hope against each other. It could not be done. No Scabbing. “But, Pinchak, if he goes to work, everyone will know he has good reason. No one will blame him or you. \Let him go to the mill.” \\ Slowly, carefully, Pinchak got up. He reached his y ing hand to the man who had told him the de- ion. “The union can not give me the paper—it is of no matter. Thank you the same, fellow-workers.” He started toward the door—it seemed hardly pos- sible that he could walk alone. “You will let the boy go to work, Pinchak?” 2 He turned to us an expressionless face, “With no paper? No. My boy will be no scab.” There was no use in further pleading. We stood silent as he left. and Navy Journal ran an essay contest, the essays dealing with the “most effective remedy against paci- fist propaganda.” The announcement of this essay con- test contained the statement that “Army and Navy Journal will furnish information upon which the es- says may be based.” but that an average wage of $18 a week does not look like that to ther: - » . The workers. of Gardner know their own business hest and turned toward a group who approach- ed the factories surrounded by thugs | and gangsters. } “Seabs!'Scabs! Scabs!” shouted a} From Frigidaire to Furnace Room By DONALD MeKILLOP, for a stupid woman who follows to save us from the unnecessary work | over its sections. Mr. Marvin signed the announce-|Jenging situation created by the war? plans of eighteenth and nineteenth century life without recognizing either the part played by economic forces in the determining of laissez-faire and other schools of thought and without finding any connection between economic events. For him ideas happen along and economies occur as wantonly as snow- flakes float out of a winter sky. Mr. Keynes has a world-wide reputation as an economist, There is not a page in this work that would justify the assumption that he under- stands either economic forces or economic processes, —SCOTT NEARING. A SENTIMENTAL REFORMER. The Revolt of Modern Youth, by Judge Ben B. Lindsey and Wainwright ' Evans, Boni and Liveright. $2.50. One can see the moment he has completed the first chapter of this book, that Judge Lindsey likes to talk a lot, and does. The volume is worthless in all aspects save one—and that is, in its delineation of the conservative-liberal’s attitude toward sex matters among the younger gen- eration. The approach to the subject is thoroughly unscientific. The writing is perhaps the most sentimental balderdash that the last few years have produced. Very poorly connected and replete with repetitions and inci- dents that prove nothing except the obvious, “The Revolt of Modern Youth” has nevertheless been greeted by critics as “a human document” and “an enlightening bit of frankness.” That, I can say tight here, is all nonsense. Lindsey deplores the wide breach now existing between parents and children but offers no solution. “I am not attempting to offer solutions. I have no panacea,” he says. * * * . He recognizes the fact that parents are wrong in misunderstanding their children to the point where it becomes harmful both to the children and to them, but he forgives this because tradition dictates such a state cf affairs. And it seems that to Judge Ben Lindsey tradition is sacred. Everything is justified on that ground. But to create new customs, new social institutions—never! He attacks the views of churchmen on juvenile delinquency but adds that he does “not cite these cases as attacks on the clergy or the church.” The social causes that underly these conditions and that have produced this false sex modesty between people are never touched upon. The politician in Lindsey shows itself too, A great portion of the book is devoted to a defense of himself and his methods against the methods of people “who have tried to blacken my name with trumped up stories in the past and who would welcome the flimsiest pretext to do it again.” * * * His suggestions are always for individual remedies in the present social state. Beyond that he cannot see. Our suggestion in ending is that in the event of the book’s running into several editions, the name should be changed to “A Judge’s Lament” to be in perfect harmony with his treatment. —EDWIN ROLFE. FROM BARBARISM THRU CIVILIZATION. Where Is Civilization Going? by Scott Nearing. New York, Vanguard Press. Fifty cents. Scott Nearing has scored again! This time with a smashing attack upon the prophets of confusion and despair, the Menckens and the Spenglers, “They se capitalism toppling”; he writes. “They feel the foundation of civilization crumbling under their feet, and they have neither the knowledge nor the understanding to realize that the labor movement is already building & new social structure upon the ruins of civilization.” (p. 78.) . The book traces the progress of human society from the days of sav- agery through barbarism into civilization. The class struggles of the period of “civilization” are treated in some detail. Slavery was gradually replaced by the system of serfdom and the triumph of the feudal lords. Thru a series of bourgeois revolutions, such as the English Revolution of 1867, the bour- geoisie overthrew feudalism upon a world scale and capitalism entered upon its historical role. Capitalism has now entered upon its final stage—imperialism. “Accum- ulating economic surpluses, after the middle of the nineteenth century, pushes the whole capitalist system into the imperial world stage.” (p. 27) In this period the class struggle is pressing the working classes into working class,’ organization upon the industrial, political and co-operative sectors of the battle line. “In the course of these struggles the form of society is ynodi- fied.” (p. 32.) o “Each economic order builds a political structure adequate to Pp) le for its needs.” The immediate task before the world proletariat is the over- throw of the bourgeois state representing organized business, and the estab. lishment, in its place, of a workers’ state representing organized labor. In this struggle the War of 1914 was a landmark and a turning point. It “was a danger signal that indicated the growing weakness of capitalist imperialism. The system had reached a point where it was eating itself up in the course of gigantic competitive struggles. If the masses adhered to the system they would be crushed by it.” (p. 71) The turning point was the Russian Revolution of November, 1917. ‘ ) How did the forces of the organized world proletariat meet the ,chal- “War experience led the members of the Second International to accept ministerial posts and other appointments from the business class states. The Third International, on the other hand, has insisted upon emphasizing the class struggle. Furthermore, and unlike the Second International, the Communist International has mandatory power are pushing on to the formation of a powerfzl union in the chair city to protect their interests, Some Efficiency Expert. At the union meeting held in Gard- ner on Wednesday 11th of May a talk was given by Organizer Murdoch on the methods of Banking Capital in Industry, as illustrated in the case of the Heywood Wakefield Co. since that firm has passed into the control of Henry Hornblower, influential Boston banker. In the discussion that followed one old worker who has been employed in the sgh Earl aes eet eot tp. a pate ve the follow- | who were poi e pent rr laid 4 the right wing leaders, : _ me | ‘ few. It was immediately picked up by the rest. For several minutes the thunder-like outery of “Scabs” filled the garment district. Among the scabs were prominent leaders of the right wing. . . . Like wild beasts the police, thugs and gangsters threw themselves upon the pickets, clubbing them mercilessly and carelessly. But even then the dressmakers retreated in perfect or- der, trying to avoid too many ar- rests. In fact only a few were ar- rested that morning, and only those (Worker Correspondent) I had no adventure on Saturday night, only an experience. The ex- perience upset me more than the ad- venture of the previous Saturday be- cause I am no longer a good Chris- tian, It is impossible for me to be- lieve at once, in the chirstian tenet of loving my neighbor as myself. So, when it became evident that my mate and I would have to work until eleven o’clock at night in order to finish the job, the love of self made me curse inwardly at the state of affairs which pinned me down. The galling part of it was that the job could heve been done in half the time had it hot been 1 | | blindly the dictates of her husband. It would have required the miracle- working power of a Jesus Christ to convince that woman that the motor, which drives the compressor of the “Frigidaire,” would work silently in the bottom of the cabinet, and give no annoyance, whatsoever. She in- sisted it had to go in the cellar where her better half wished. This meant we had to cut through the stone wall of the cellar, the supporting beams and the floor above in order to lead the lines to the cabinet in the kitchen. Late Work Needless. When the husband arrived, we found him amenable to reason, but too late In this sense, it is the first real international. ... Polit- of cutting. It was poor consolation | ical internationalism is today represented by the “Third” or Communist In- to my outraged feelings to have the/| ternational, with sections in more than fifty countries. The Communist In- husband admit, when the motor was| ternational directs the revolutionary political movement in all parts of the running, that he didn’t think it could| world.” (p. 68.) be so quiet. These are samples of the general tone of this ‘volume, which it is-hoped It is bad enough in all conscience, | will whet the appetite and send the reader scurrying after the book itself. overtime on any other day, but work-| While it contains nothing profound, or even new, to the Marxian student, it ing late on Saturday is anathema to|is the best ane and brief statement linking up the class struggles of me because where I come from| antiquity and ‘ing the course of historical forces from the days when man Saturday afternoon is inviolable to| lived off berries and fruit and dwelt in caves up to the class struggles of bourgeois and Bolshevik alike, In| our own day. fact, those who get drunk only on Saturday afternoon say that Satur- i day is the day that God made. Sun- day being a holy day in Scotland, we are able to recuperate from the danc- ing or drinking of the previous day, —JACK HARDY.» READ THE DAILY WORKER EVERY DAY } | a | | j | | | | | | | | al | rs