The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 21, 1927, Page 4

Page Four THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 21, 1927 THE DAILY WORKER Published by tie DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. | Daily, Except Sunday | 88 First Street, New York, N. Y. | SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (in New York only): By mail (outside of New York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year 98.50 six months $2.60 three months $2.00 three months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y¥. J. LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE BERT MILLER........ seeeeceees Business —— Entered as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 8, 1879. Advertising rates on applica’ Reaction Hits Snag in Building Trades. The action of Local Union Number One, Plumbers Union of | Brooklyn, in defeating attempts to establish the principle of ar- bitration of basic questions like the five-day week, will be wel- comed by every worker who has been sickened by the shameless display of reaction recently in the needle trades and other unions. The 1,700 members of this union of highly skilled workers made their protest so emphatic that the international union of- ficials were forced to recede from their stand. The support given Local Number One by the large Bronx local shows that the spirit displayed by the Brooklyn plumbers is no sporadic flare-up but is the product of deep discontent with existing conditions and the methods employed by the union officials to meet them. The injunction secured by the union officials against the bosses is just as ineffective as might be expected. The injunc- tion is the bosses’ weapon and can not be used successfully by labor organizatio: It weakens the morale of the workers and creates false confidence in the impartiality of capitalist courts. Only officmls who are too close to the bosses to be of much value to the workers will attempt to use the injunction as a major weapon. The rank and file plumbers have shown their dissatisfaction with such methods and the officials have replied, according: to reports, with threats of revocation of charters. It is noticeable that right wing union officialdom, when the membership shows every intention of fighting the bosses, always turn in anger upon the rank and file instead of the employers. The struggle in the local building trades, not only because of the militancy shown by the workers, but because it comes at a time when the right wirg is making every effort to prevent it, is of national importance. In addition to these strikes and lock- outs, there is a wave of other smaller’strikes and organization movements which have the possibility of developing into more important struggles. In certain ‘sections of the labor movement the worker-em- ployer-cooperation scheme seems to have hit a snag.. It will pay the left wing to watch closely even the smallest signs of a revival of militancy and prepare to give direction which will broaden them into real mass movements against both the capitalists and their labor agents in official union positions. " Growth of Chinese Communist Party. At the congress of the Chinese Communist Party held in Hankow beginning May Day figures were presented by Chen Tu that proved the rapid growth of the Party from a small and de- termined revolutionary group of only 994 members at the last congress in January, 1925, to 57,967 members. In the same period the Young Communist League increased from 2,365 to 35,000. In the trade unions and peasant organizations the growth was equally remarkable. In 1925 only 150,000 workers were organ- ized in the trade unions, whereas the unions now have a member- ship of 2,800,000. The peasant unjons increased in membership during the same period from 200,000 to 9,829,000. The student unions have a mémbership of 420,000. Most figures are dull and uninteresting, but these figures eloquently testify to profound social changes that have taken place in China. Nowhere else has there been such an astonishing growth of the labor movement in a period of less than two years anda half. The last conference of the Communist Party of China was held on the eve of the great strike that broke out in Febru- ary, 1925, and soon became general throughout the industrial centers of China. In that strike the Communists emerged from a small group sornewhat isolated from the mass of workers and peasants into the one dynamic force in the labor movement. They became the leaders and organizers of the masses. By applying correct tactics and throwing their energy into the Kuomintang, the nationalist liberation movement, they be- came the motivating power in the campaigns against imperialism; in building up the army they were the most energetic and had the advantage of the advice of comrades well-trained in the art of insurrection: ' By virtue of their position as leaders of the working class and because the proletariat is the only force in China that is cohesive enough to lead an independent political existence, the growth of the labor movement kept pace with the growth and influence of the Communist Party. In China, as well as in all countries where history has placed revolution on the order of the day, the Communists have shown, | by their superior leadership and self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of labor that they alone are capable of directing the revolu- tionary forces against the power of the master class. A party rooted as deeply in the masses of the workers and peasants assis the Chinese Communist Party cannot be extermi- nated no matter to what monstrous extremes the imperialist butchers and their Jackeys go in their desperate efforts to forge the chains of slavery upon the masses. The past achievements of the Communist Party give assur- ance that the liberation movement in China will drive forward against the imperialists to the establishment of a workers’ and peasants’ government. yi and age ar- “Breaking Chains” ranged by the I. L. D. Downtown Makes LL.D. Converts Branch will be held tonight at the Downtown Workers’ Club, 35 East} AKRON, Ohio., May 16. (By. Mail) Second St. Feldman’s Union Band will | “Breaking Chai moving ’ picture play until early morning. Progressive Dance Tonight. The progressive group of the Excav- ators Union will hold a concert and dance tonight at the United Workers’ Cooperative, 2700 Bronk Park East, for the benefit of the cloakmakers progressive news- le. Admission epic of the Ri in Revolution, was presented here last night by the In- ternational Workers Aid, to an en- thusiastic audience of 700 workers. Carl Hacken, organizer for the In- ternational Workers Aid, outlined the aims of the ofganization and its role in the class struggle. At the con- clusion of his talk, over a dozen workers filled out application cards 'for membership in the’ organization. - t By WILLIAM F. DUNNE. { N gee World Economic Conference at Geneva has been turned into an event of first class political impor-} tance for the working class by the | delegation from the Soviet Union. Into. the sessions devoted to | strengthening the capitalist economic front against the workingclass, the extension of trade agreements, negotiations between gigantic inter-| | national trusts, discussion of tariff problems and preparations for plac- {ing still more of the burdens of | “stabilization” upon the masses, the Soviet Union delegation has pro- jected the two questions: (1) Does the capitalist world recognize the existence of another | system opposed to itself which has | maintained itself for ten years? (2) What are the intentions of the capitalist governments—peace | or war? |JJERE in the United States there is undoubtedly a strong tendency to under-estimate the importance of | the appearance of the Soviet Union |at Geneva and the negotiations that |have taken place there. But Euro- | pean diplomats, who had planned to turn the Geneva conference into an offensive against the Soviet Union, | and who heard gleefully the news of the raid on the Soviét Union Trade delegation offices in London, know | that just as the raid itself has be- |come a boomerang smiting sorely the | heads of British imperialist govern- ment, so has the Geneva conference | become a forum from which the So- |viet Union delegation broadcast to | millions of workers the contrast be- | tween their policy of peace and the | war policy of the imperialist nations. | THE bluff of the imperialist nations |* has been called, Their represen- | tatives know only too well that sub-| stantial alleviation of the economic | diseases of Europe, without Russian | participation, is impossible. They whistle to keep up their |courage, but the clear formulation j; put forward by the Soviet Union| | delegation has gone straight to the| | hearts of the European workingclass. | Gregory Sokonikov put the issue |squarely: Either economic relations | with the Soviet Union or armed in- tervention as in China—war or peace. |The responsibility rest upon the im- | perialist governments, not upon the | worker’ and peasant’ government | of the Soviet Union. | | THERE are other important aspects | \* of. the conference which have not | ‘escaped the notice of the capitalist | press correspondents who know} something of the labor movement. It| jis, when all is said and done, in the| | labor movements of the various coun- | | tries that the Soviet Union finds its strongest allies. | The New York World correspon- | ¢ dent reports: | “Meanwhile agreement between the Russians and the International Labor Office, whose leaders are mostly so- cialists, has been advanced by private conference. Heretofore the leaders of the Second International have been |the most active opponents of the Third, but now some of them are de- termined to secure Russian coopera- | tion in their work.” IS is another way of saying that the mass pressure for support of the Soviet Union and its anti-im- perialist struggle is forcing even sections of the reformist leaders to abandon their position of unrestrained hostility. In its directions to its various sec- tions for their activities in connection with the Geneva Economic Confer- ence published in International Press Correspondence for April 28, the fol- lowing paragraphs are to be found: “The order of business of the Con- ference does not contain a single question representing the require- ments of the working class of Evr- ope. The unemployment problem has been barred from the agenda. On the other hand, the Conference will be used for the purpose of preparing an attack on an international basis against the wage and labor condi- | tions of the working class, an attack | which the workers of the world can only meet by the creation of an in- united and militant | ternationally trade union movement: | “But it is not only for this reason | that a watchful eye must be kept jon this Conference by the working | elass. Tt is In close connection with the menace of war, which it is the, duty of the international working | class to combat. At the same time there can be no doubt that the il- lusions entertained by the Second In- ternational will be cruelly dispelled | by the outcome of the Conference. Furthermore, the Conference demon- strates to the working class the existing imperialist ant ‘which contain the germs armed | conflicts between imperialist groups and which can be solved only by the overthrow of the capitalist order of economy.” THE assertions quoted above, written long before the oCnference con- vened, have been borne out fully by events at its sessions. The presence of the Soviet Union delegation has brought out sharply the insoluble contradictions in capitalist economy from which arise the rivalries that make imperialist war an ever-present danger. The presence of the Soviet Union delegation and their ultimatum to The Soviet Union Delegation at Geneva Exposes the Aims of World Imperialism the economists and diplomats of world imperialism has dramatized again, for the. whole working class, the existence of Soviet State, chal- lenging world capitalist on every point of its program. The Soviet Union delegation, (aided greatly of course by the desperate acts of British imperialists who have convicted themselves of trying to provoke war) administered a politi- The Forward Crowd J, Ramsay By H. M. WICKS. IS is the age of internationalism. Face to face with the interna- tional bourgeoisie and its most loyal and valued flunkeys, the second in- ternational, stands the international proletariat. But as capitalism itself, even within a given country, does not enjoy) uniform development, there arise antagonisms within the ranks of the two historically opposed clas- ses, so the unequal development on an international scale gives rise to groups and grouplets within the in- ternational organizations of the capi- talist class and its auxiliaries, such as the socialist international. In countries where capitalism is I weakened because of inexorable econ- omic and political forces the social- democratic parties and. their leaders, the heroes of the second inter- national, are catapulted into posi- tions of responsibility where their task is to save what they can of the wreckage in order that capitalism may have a new, if short, lease of life. Such was the condition in Germany after the world war, when the} Scheidemanns, Eberts, Noskes and others launched murderous attacks on wholesale scale against the working class in order that their masters, the capitalists, might maintain control of the governmental machinery and thereby protect their right to the private ownership of industry. In England the ruling class also has to rely upon their good and faithful servants of the second and Amsterdam internationals to aid them in their fight against the in-; creasing militancy of the working class. The rule is that in those coun- tries where the impact of the class! struggle has weakened the capitalist class the social-democrats play im- portant roles as defenders of things as they are. In the United States, because of the fact that the ruling class here is powerful and arrogant and feels it- self capable of dealing with its own slaves, it doesn’t require the aid of the MacDonalds or Thomases or Clines or Scheidemanns to maintain power. In the European situation the capitalist class is firmly convinced that it needs the aid of the reaction- ary leaders of the second interna- tional in order to maintain power. In the United States: the capitalists feel that they for the most part, powerful enough to do without such aid, or if it is required the Greens, Wolls and Lewises serve their pur- poses. So the main task of the yel- low socialists today is to try to per- suade the capitalists that they need them to hold the working class in chains. Since the onty remnant of the old socialist party extant in the United States, aside from Victor Ber- ger’s outfit in Milwaukee, is that group around the Jewish Daily For- ward and since the masses of Jewish workers are swinging to the left and deserting the American representa- tives of the second international, there is grave danger that the last vestiges of the discredited socialist party will be wiped out before its leaders have a chance to prove to the capitalists that they ean be depended upon to more or less heroically de- fend capitalism when it can no longer stand on its own feet. Through theoretically pledged to carry out in this country the policy the parties of the second international carry out in Europe, historical development. | unprincipled office holders who have has relegated the American so- cialists to the miserable role of boot- lickers of a labor aristocracy that developed independently of the al- leged political parties of labor and that plays the role of agent of the capitalists that the ‘socialists ‘in other countries play. . * * IN New York the socialists are do- ing the dirty work of the Greens and Wolls, by leading the attack against the rank and of the labor movement. But are not meeting with marked success; the petty bourgeois elements that sup- port the Forward gang have no roots in the working class—they have long ago graduated into all sorts of business-men. Aside from the petty bourgeoisie, only paid thugs and gangsters still follow in the wake of the Forward, and re- cent events point unerringly to the fact that long before the socialists here have a chance to defend the master class in its last extremity the workers themselves will have dis- posed of them. In waging a fierce fascist cam- paign against the left wing in the cal defeat to capitalism at Geneva. It is the task of the Communists to state so clearly that every worker can understand the tremendous significance of this defeat in a period when British imperialism has been trying secretly for months to set up a war front against the Soviet Union which would appear at Geneva in the preliminary form of a united boycott by the capitalist nations. Too Much Even For| MacDonald needle trades, the only industry in which the socialists of New York ever.had the ghost of mass support, the Jewish Daily Forward, and its English speaking prostitutes of the type of James Oneal, were forced at first to call to their aid the riff-raff, the rag-tag and bob-tail elements of the defunct counter-revolutionary forces of Russia and finally, after the failure of such scoundrels and liars as the notorious menshevik, Abramovich, and the comic-opera ex- premier, Kerensky, they tried to use the politically bankrupt, J. Ramsay MacDonald, for their purposes. ae * 'T was a good scheme. There was | nothing wrong with the strategy. | Unfortunately for the Forward gang, | it didn’t work. Certainly J. MacDonald would never balk at the job of de-| fender of a right-wing movement | against, Communists. His record in Britain has proved his love for that | sort of thing. He is the defender of | the official -right-wing bureaucracy | in the British labor unions. When| J. H. Thomas is in a tight fix he! can always rely upon: MacDonald, the} former leader of the Parliamenta: labor forces, to come to his aid. | If Bill Green or John L. Lewis were | in distress, J. Ramsay would defend, them without hesitation. j But the Forward gang is not the American labor movement. It never was even an important part of it and never will be. In fact it is not a part of the labor movement at all these days. It speaks for the labor bureaucracy in the needle trades, a forlorn outfit of incompetent and been defeated by the rank and file | and who only hold their positions: through the practice of fraud and) violence against their own member- ship. The main support of the For- ward gang comes from people who at one time, when the Forward first started on the lower east side, were workers, but have evolved into other walks of life. While the Forward remained on the lower east side, its supporters moved up-town, to the Bronx and Washington Heights and} graduated from the ranks of the| workers. Respectable petty shop-keepers, petty clothing and shoe manufact- urers, grocery vendours, pawn- brokers, rabbis, advertising writers, movie show proprietors, restaurant- keepers, high-salaried officials of the United Hebrew Trades, thugs and gangsters, the right wing ‘leaders of the needle trades, labor. bankers, lawyers, doctors (chiroprattors, pullers, psycho-analysts chirojo- dists), garage proprietors, and all the innumerable petty business out- fit and its official organ, the For- ward. When celebrations are pulled off to commemorate some such thing as the thirteenth anniversary of the founding of the Forward, at which MacDonald was advertised to appear —but didn’t—this aggregation with their numerous progeny turn out in full force. They do not bring their offsprings in order that they may learn some- thing of the struggles of the work- ers, but in order togshow them off. Since the parents have managed ‘to get away from the shops on the east side, they want their precocious youngsters to get farther away so they yearn for them to become violin- ists,, saxaphone or piccolo players, operatic singers, contortionists, bal- let dancers, pole vaulters, six-day bicycl@ racers, Al. Jolsons and Eddie Cantors, orchestra conductors, lit- erati—in short anything but workers and revolutionists. Forward celebra- tions furnish opportunities for the youngsters to display before their, fond mammas and pappas their bud- ding genius. | was just such an affair at which the distinguished J. Ramsay was advertised to appear. He, who had consorted in knee breeches and silk stockings with the royal family of Britain; whose eminence is un- challenged among the best people of England was to appear as court jes- ter for pickel peddlers, sandwiched in between them on the program like Will Rogers in Zeigfield’s Follies be- tween Faray Brice and Gallagher and Shean. This was the dismal pros- pect that faced MacDonald. What to do? He left Engiand in order to avoid being in the absurdly ridiculous po- sition of being kicked out of political life by his own party, the Indepen- dent Labor Party, because of his treachery to the working class be- fore, during and since*his term as 8 re BY LUGENE LYONS FOOTNOTES ie cen| ae TORY ANTHEM Some gentlemen from Scotland Yard They called at Moorgate Street; Their etiquette was perfect, And their voices they were sweet; In the gentlest Cockney accents They detained the Russian Reds— They drilled some safes, they bust some walls, They punched a couple of heads. You may talk of Alexander, And Hector and Hercules; Of MacDonald and Lysander And heroes such as these. When the sun sets on the Union Jack, And Die-Hards die too hard, The guardians of the Empire They rush forth from Scotland Yard. They drilled some safes, they bust some walls, And yet ’twas NOT a raid; They merely sought a document Lost, stolen, or mislaid; They know the Reds at Moorgate Street Had learned some secret stories; Thank God that Britain in her need Is governed by the Tories! At home the Empire’s in a mess, 5 In China, in a fix; But Birkenhead has hiccoughs And the Cabinet has Hicks! Though Arcos has no documents For Scotland Yard to get, Thank God that Mr. “Zinoviev” Resides in London yet. Last time we were in trouble He composed a lovely letter; This time, no doubt, he’ll help us out (Let’s hope he’ll do it better) The China situation’s bad, The home one is no beauty, O Downing Street expects each spy To do his noble duty; J. F. Ramsay MacDonald, all considered, was a bad investment for the Jewish Daily Forward. He made a bad crack about not want- ing to “shout socialism from the housetops.” That was a hard one for the so-called socialists who paid his fare to swallow. Then he refused to comment on the Sacco-Vanzetti case, which the socialists are ostensibly supporting, upon a silly pretext. * * * Kerensky is turning out better for them. And so far as we know cost them less. At least the Forward probably did not pay his fare. He was good “front” for right-wing rallies and teamed up nicely with Matty Woll. But towards the end the A. F. of L. seems to have played him a little too strong to suit even the Forward crowd, This crowd, it happens, has maintained that it favors recognition of the Soviet Union by the American govern- ment. But now the A. F. of L. executive—on the basis of Ker- ensky’s information—has reaffirmed its opposition to recogni- tion. ~ A Professor Complains.—Harry T. Collings, Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania (the same citadel of learning which kicked out Scott Nearing), bewails the difficulties of life in Brazil. In an article on the cost of living in South America, published in the current “Current History,” he complains thus: “Every family, even of the middle class, must have at least one servant and usually two, since the social customs of the country do @ not permit the wife to do housework. A servant’s wage has now risen from $15 to $25 a month in the larger cities and wages rep- resent only a part of the cost. The food for servants, entirely dig ferent from that of the family, costs a considerable sum each month,” There must be some way out of this sad difficulty, professor.. Let’s see. How about training the servants to do without food? This process may in- volve a number of casualties, but no great economic experiment has ever been accomplished without some sacrifice. Or—as an afterthought— not have the family, even the middle class family, share the servants’ food What the War Was About—The “Montreal Gazette” carries ‘this story out of Chicago, dated May 11: “Two young engineers, who have worked shoulder to shoulder for more than four years in the peaceful haunts of one of Chicago’s largest industries, today compared notes to discover that they once iri each other’s life to achieve the grim ends of battle during the war. * “These men both cited for their bravery by Canada and Germany are Harry Ratcliffe, 28, whose home was in Winnipeg, and William Seligman, 29, formerly of Frankfort. , “Comparing notes, these two men revealed coincidence as. strange as fiction. During the great battle of Paschandaele, ~ Ratcliffe, a corporal of the Little Black Devils, 27th Battalion, Ca- / nadian Expeditionary Force, and Seligman, a private of infan' regiment 368, Imperial German Army, discovered that they were léss a fifty yards from each other on that eventful day of Noveni| r » 1917. | » “From his secret vantage point, Seligman recalled he managed to mow down one Canuck machine-gunner after another. But there was one intrepM gunner that he could not oust from his gun which was spitting death to the Germans. i “That man, he is certain, is Ratcliffe, who routed the Germans in that war encounter. So fierce was the battle that Seligman was | one of the 15 men out of 97 who escaped after failing to oust the sturdy Canadian machine-gunners.” ‘The story does not tell how these two heroes feel about it now. But i they have any sense they must feel extremely foolish, . TTT premier of Britain. Fleeing to these|to some of the Forward shores, he was to be made still more| which enabled them to pHooree} ridiculous by playing the clown be-|save their faces before the fore a mob of the petty bourgeoisie. | bourgeoisie, but that is all. 5h No wonder he suffered a severe at-| MacDonald has come and gone, but tack of diplomatic illness and re-| the left wing remains, stronger than fused to come within a hundred| before he came, because forces miles of the celebration of the thir-|which the yell socialists .can tieth anniversary of the Jewish | neither overcome pees understand, are Daily Forward! shaping themselves so that Abe sg Cahan, Morris Hillquit, James Oneat & Co. will never have the oppor- tunity to play in this country the filthy role that the European leaders of the’ second internationat have played ae se oa the world war—tha' volunt executioners of the working class, * 1O, as far as the voyage of Mac- Donald was concerned, ‘it was al- most a total loss to the Forward and its hangers-on who hoped to regain some of their waning prestige, On the night that he lett for Eng- land, MacDonald paid a short visit Wy