The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 2, 1927, Page 4

Page Four THE DAILY WORK THE DAILY WORKER The Question of Leadership in Published by te DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO, Daily, Except Sunday €S Firet Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Addrezs: “Daiwork” SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (in New York only): By mail (outside of New York): 68.00 per year $4.60 six months $6.00 per year 98.50 six months $2.50 three months $2.00 three months tea Poe) REPRE Ne SES PALS 5 ALS A Address all mail and makb out cnecks to THE DAILY WORKER, 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. J. LOUIS ENGDAHL } WILLIAM F. DUNNE BEPT MILLER Phone, Orchard 1680 Entered as second-class mai! at the post-office at New York, N. Y., under) the act of March 8, 1879. Advertising rates on application, | =>. Shadow Boxing Against Trustification of War Industries. Exceedingly laughable are the sombre speculations in the columns of the capitalist press regarding the attitude of the fed-! eral trade commission toward the recent colossal merger of the duPont Powder Trust, the General Motors, United States Steel| and the chemical and dye trust. That this action is a violation of the letter of the Sherman anti-trust law no one can doubt, but the enforcement agency, the department of the government that is supposed to supervise combinations of industrial capital, filled with loyal lackeys of the great combinations. The federal trade commisSion has been systematically reor- ganized within the past decade to such an extent that it is merely an apologist for great mergers. Never before in the history of the world have combinations of capital developed at such a rapid} pace as in America since the world war. Under the aegis of finance capital enormous mergers in industry and public utilities | have taken place and all of them have been sanctioned by the government thru its federal trade commission. To imagine for a moment that this latest and greatest of mergers will meet with the disapproval of the commission, is in- dulging in fantasies. This is not an ordinary merger—it is a merger of war industries. executive committee of the imperialists and big capitalists, is not going to interfere with the consolidation of the industries of the warmongers. Incidentally there is another industry that duPont is heavily interested in and that is the aircraft trust. Already General Motors is in a position to turn out the great motors for planes by a few changes that will enable it to reconstruct its plants from a “peace” basis to a war basis in a few days. It is also noteworthy that these great trusts all maintain an aggressive anti-labor policy. There is no effective labor organ- ization among any of them. They employ hundreds of thousands of ‘semi-skilled and unskilled workers, among. the lowest paid in the country, and the American Federation of Labor officialdom ‘is doing nothing to organize them. The majority of these indus- ri?l slaves are foreign-born and denied even the privilege of the deters. ce: .chise in elections. Hand in hand with the enormous concen- «ation of these industries grows the demand for registration of i foreign-born workers and other means of can be held in subjection thru tyranny, tion to the warmongers. Certainly under such conditions the labor officialdom, if it served the interests of labor, instead of crawling in the most abject manner before the imperialist butchers, should launch a nation-wide drive for the organization of the millions of workers in these industries. Since we can expect nothing from them, it) is strictly up to the left wing, the militants in the labor move- ment, to take the lead in an organizational drive that has the two- fold objective of building up the labor movement and creating or- ganizational machinery with which to wage an effective fight against the war danger. Geneva and “International [ll-Will” The Geneva conference hangs on apparently for but one reason, i. e. neither Great Britain nor America is willing to take the public blame for the failure to reach agreement and the for- mula which is to be given out as the reason for adjourning the conference, has not been agreed upon. The Geneva conference has failed only in the sense that it has not been able to fool the masses into believing that the great | powers sought to disarm or even limit armaments below the level which each nation desired for itself. Called by the American gov- ernment, the Geneva conference was in the nature of a diplomatic offensive against its most powerful rival—Great Britain—and it has failed only by not being able to make as clear as American imperialists desired, the need for huge naval armaments. A dispatch from Rapid City gives the view of Coolidge as follows: “Even if it fails, as is believed almost certain, the Adminis- tratign expects the conference to end without producing any in- ternational ill-will.” Had President Coolidge said “without producing any addi- tional international ill-will,” he would have been wrong, but his statement would have had some shadow of realism. The truth of the matter is that the Geneva conference was the result of “in- ternational ill-will” growing out of the world rivalry of the two great imperialist. nations, with each seeking to appear as the in- nocent victim of the other. The ending of the conference will not of itself create ‘“inter- national] ill-will.” But the conference has made clear to millions that Great Britain and America are fighting one another for world domination. The extent to which this conflict develops in tensity in the near future depends upon the course which the struggle for oil, for trade routes and for hegemony of the Pacific area will take. The “international ill-will,” the euphemistic phrase which the president uses to describe a life and death struggle for world power, was present at Geneva in a'sharp form and the end of the conference will be simply one more milestone on the road to im- perialist war and whose outbreak only the revolutionary action of the working class of the world can prevent. regimentation so they thereby assuring subjec- READ THE DAILY WORKER EVERY DAY has | The United States government, as the} . NEW YORK, TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1927 the Coal Miners’ Strike | By WILLIAM F. DUNNE. |THE Boston Transcript, in a recent long editorial dealing’ with the coal mining situation, remarks: “Since the first of April the strike | of the union miners in the bituminous \coal fields has been under way. Up | to this time, it has been the strangest | strike on record. While it as in effect during three of the first six months of the year, the total pro- duction of soft coal from Jan. 1st to! 7 June 30th was larger by 5,000,000 | tons than the production in the same | period last year.” IT is indeed a strange strike of which one of the leading organs of capi- talist reaction on the Atlantic sea- board can speak with such cynical urance. The strike is under a leadership (John L. Lewis and his of- ficial family) whose loyalty to Amer- ican institutions cannot be ques- tioned, a loyalty which has been | proved in the long campaign against] Communists and left wingers which | | this leadership has waged. ted Mine Workers of America must undertake a campaign in the union which will make the entire member- ship conscious of the danger. This campaign must be directed both against the coal operators and against the Lewis machine and be of such a character that it will convince non-union miners that in the United Mine Workers of America there is a force of sufficient power to guar- antee them against betrayals by the Lewis machine once they have joined the union miners in their struggle. HE pressure for intensive organ- ization work in the big non-union fields must be increased and suffi- cient sentiment created and. organi- zation set up to carry out mass or- ization campaigns in these terri- ories in spite of the resistance of the Lewis machine. The rike must be made a na- tional strike in every sense of the word and coal production cut down so that it will no longer be possible | for the capitalist press to record glee- | st fully the fact that the miners’ strike | HE strike then is a regular strike and has not “been fomented by trouble-seeking elements”—the usual | official excuse for the lack of ef-{ fectiveness of a strike—and it is to| be assumed that the United Mine| Workers of America are getting the | — full support of the American Feder tion of Labor and that the strike is being conducted in the “practical” manner which is the boast of seen | ean labor officialdom. | | HE strike, however, is not stopping the production and the bosses are | \not worrying. It has been in pro- gress for four months yet the capi- talist press can report that a plenti-| ful supply of coal is in sight and that the non-union mines if pressed can produce 50 per cent more tonnage than at present. It is obvious that the “practical” | methods of the official labor leader- | ship are not getting results for the |miners. It is no longer possible for | | the Lewis machine in the United Mine | Workers of America to conceal its incompetency by hurling broadsides at the “reds.” ie organization of the unorgan- ized fields is the problem around which the whole question of policy | and tactics in the miners’ strike hin- | ges. The Lewis machine cannot | claim that it has not had this issue brought to its attention since it was the principal demand of the “Save the Union” bloc headed by John Brophy in the last election. The machine, however, has failed to pre- pare in any way for such a campaign with the result that after four months of striking the union miners see pro- duction increasing instead of decreas- | ee Boston Transcript continues: “Up to this time, there has |been a demonstration of the ability of the country to get along without the help of the United Mine Workers. Not least in interest among the ques- tions raised by this strike which the | public has so largely forgotten may | relate to the future of that organiza- | tion and the fate of the policies which it has pursued under the leadership jof John L. Lewis. The fact remains | that the American people do not ad- mit that they are at the mercy of} the union miners and mention of a coal strike does not throw them into \a panic.” eee then has been the resust of the Lewis policies. The once power- ful United Mine Workers of Ameri- ca, whose strikes have made labor history, under the Lewis leadership has become an organization which in- stead of being denounced by the capitalist press, has become an ob-| ject of ridicule. The Lewis machine makes no seri- ous attempt to organize the non- union fields, it does not declare a gen- | uine national strike and call upon all |coal miners to join its struggle but it does make war upon the militant section of the membership. | Es of fighting the coal opera- tors it fights those members who | point to the danger the union faces and demand that the full strength} of the union be thrown into an or-| ganization drive in the non-union fields. The United Mine Workers will lose its strike and suffer a disastrous de- feat which will have a devastating effect upon the whole labor move- ment unless it begins to fight in the way it did before the strangling grip of the Lewis machine was placed up- on it. ND here it is necessary to say a few words relative to the attitude of some of the progressive leaders— an-attitude reflected in some sections | of the rank and file. This attitude | is that nothing can be done until the | Lewis leadership, having ruined the | | union, has discredited itself to the | | point where it will collapse. This attitude‘is extremely danger- | ous because it is based upon the theory that loss of the present strike is inevitable and that it will be pos- sible to build the United Mine Workers of America up to its previ- ous strength in a short time follow- ing the loss of the strike. yt practice this attitude is translated into inactivity which plays into the hands of the Lewis machine and the coal operators. It is the exast re- verse of what must be done if the United Mine Workers of America is not to become a shadow of its for- mer self, | is causing the bosses no worry. what- ever. F i wu clear the -progressive elements in the ion fail at this time to make their position, and do not do WILLIAM PICKENS. Accord England and her inventors are plan-! ning.to use fewer men and more mechanism and machinery in war. That’s good news: instead of draft-| ing so many human lives for waz, we can then draft more iron and steel, and other hard goods and munitions. Battle “tanks” can be controlled by radio and sent toward the enemy’s lines with no man aboard. Even the guns can be directed.and fired by ra- | And when the enemy blows up } the tank, perhaps also by use of his | dio. man-less artillery, we will lose only a tank. The day will be won by the | S| side whose tanks and other materials | |may last the longer. Airplanes, with no human flyer aboard, controlled by | radio station somewhere on the} ground, can be sent over the enemy’s lines to drop deadly bombs into his territory. Perhaps we can get more “generals” and other officers to en- gage in the fighting, when the fight- | ing can thus be done from far back of the lines and out of reach of the enemy’s guns, except such guns and bombs as the enemy might send to- ward us in the tanks and planes. Anyhow it would take much fewer men to conduct a war: the generals, colonels, majors and ligz{enants would be about sufficient. The mass of man- kind could stay back at home and go to work—and to the movies. * * . One fellow has even invented a model of a battleship which can be entirely controlled by radio, with no sailor or marine aboard: it can be steered forward, backward, in any direction, and its guns can be ele- vated, directed and fired. When such warships as that are put on the ocean, there will be some point in limiting naval armaments to certain maxima of tonnage, for the result of the war will depend directly upon who can last longest in explosives and floating steel. War will be reduced to its low- est and truest terms: the biggest. Current Eve © the survival of } everything in their power to rally the| Theatre Guila to Do; |Another O’Neill Drama! J. C. Nugent who! does a good deal | of writing and acting has just fin-| shed two new plays—both comedies. | membership for struggle, they will] be responsible for the defeat of the) union and no amount of exposure of | the black role played by the Lewis | machine will enable them to escape | this responsibility. The crisis in the coal miners’ anion is part of the crisis of the American | labor movement. The policies of the | official leadership are resulting in de- feat after defeat and only the most energetic work on the part of the} conscious section of the labor move- | ment headed by the Communists can | a defeat all along the line be averted. | HE crisis in the coal miners’ union | is particularly acute because, with a leadership which prefers to per- secute the militant membership rather than fight the bosses, it is in open | struggle against a powerful section} jof the capitalist class backed | by the whole weignt of capitalism. With such leadership the United | Mine Workers of America cannot} jwin. The leadership of the strike jaauee be taken by those elements | |which have consistently put forward | the program for which a majority of | the membership voted in the last | election campaign—the program of | the “Save the Union” bloc. | American But, won’t it be fine to have naval | tles with nobody but the generals and | other officers? Then, indeed, we shall | | not have to conscript men but only to | conscript property. “Quotas” will) then consist, not of lives, but of ma- | | terials: the steel trust will have to |supply its quota of steel; the muni- jtions trust its quota of munitions; | !the water power trusts their quotas \of electricity, ete. And whenever re thus attacks property. as almost its sole vigtims, war will become a crime, | and will stop, or be stopped. | ever our casualty lists begin to relate, not how many sons of mothers have | lost their lives, but how many tons of | | the steel trust’s steel, how many gal- | lons of the oil trust’s oil, and how | | many kilowatts of the power trust’s | electricity have been sacrificed in the | jlast great battle, there will be a dif- | | fer ent attitude toward war. For prop- | | herty is sacred. When the products of | the trusts can be conscripted ‘instead | for this condition and for every death | of being sold in war, instead of their | | wanting to bring on a war for pro- | |fits they will avoid a war as they would avoid a commercial and finan- cial panic. * * * Here’s hoping that England and her | rivals will advance mechanized war | methods to such a degree that there | will be no more human slaughter but | only property destruction, only “me- chanical death.” The CAUSE of war has always been goods. Why not let goods become the sole VICTIM of war? If we can have mechenism and au- tomata to do all the fighting and “dy- ing,’ then perhaps the chief horror of war will be shifted from the mul- titudée to the millionaire, and instead of sacrificing millions of “doughboys,” we will need to sacrifice only a few dozen “dough-men.” A war that de- | stroyed only the property of the rich, would do more to prevent war than would any treaty. As a peace-maker, science may ultimately prove to be superior to religion. nis By T. J. O’FLAHERTY (Continued from Page One) is a fitting reply to the pacifists, so- cialists and liberals who have been protesting against the holding of demontrations in favor of the two condemned men. The Communists have right along insisted that only the mass power of the workers exer- ted thru demonstrations and strikes would force the judicial killers of Massachusetts to halt the execu- tioner’s hand. Sacco mercilessly flays those who would put their faith in the capitalist hangmen. He scourges the present social system on the threshold of doom in language that‘sears and blisters, What a con- trast. between this revolutionary soul and the canting hypocrites who ex- press implicit faith in the governor of Massachusetts, the tool of the New England capitalists? a ae 'N last week’s New Leader the Rev- erand Dr. Norman Thomas, once a preacher of the word of his partic- ular christian god, now a preacher of the word of the great god Hillquit, wrote: “I am a bit skeptical of the psychological effect of big demon- strations with the chance they give to the lunatic fringe during these days when the governor and his com- | mission having finished their hear- ings are working on their separate decisions.” The socialist Thomas is opposed to demonstrations: lest they disturb the judicial spirit of the members of the goyernor’s commis- sion. The rebel Sacco has no faith in the justice of capitalist commis- sions. His faith is in the working class, Aco last Sunday the New York police showed plainly their hos- tility to the workingclass movement and its standard bearers. A number of workers who attended the Sacco- Vanzetti demonstration in Union * * * The militant,cloments.of the Upi-.Sanare. marched to. City.,Hall carry-lof “Mushbrain” for.ars cay ing banners. They were attacked and beaten by policemen. It did not mat- ter that the procession was orderly. They were punished for daring to bring the plight of their fellow- workers dramatically to the attention of the masses. * * bs RTHUR BRISBANE is a happy mortal. He is convinced that America—he means American im- perialism—is just. Here is a gem from his famous and remunerative column: “We want nothing that be- longs to anybody else and we don’t let anybody take anything that be- | longs to us. Eventually we shall | have a government that will. approve of spending money wisely for defense and preparation, as well as of saving it unwisely for no reason in partic- ular, Then everything will be 0. K.” How consoling. * * . F course we don’t want what the Nicaraguans have or the Filipinos or the Porto Ricans. Or the Haitians or the Mexicans or the Panamanians. Or the Chinese or the Cubans. We don’t slaughter Latin Americans and | Chinese wholesale because we wish to rob them but for the same reason | that Oliver Cromwell slaughtered the | Irish. Cromwell killed to save souls. | No doubt Wall Street has an equally altruistic motive. And as for allow- | ing others to take what we have away from us, nix on that stuff Arthur. What do they think we are? Christians or somethin’! Yes, sir, we'll be O. K. when we have a gov- ernment that will provide for hun- dreds of thousands of war planes that. ean rain death on those who rebel against our kindly ministrations. Had we had enough airplanes Arthur, those pesky Nicaraguans would have never rebelled. So you see war planes are not warplanes after all. They are peace pféfie, but only when you have enough of them. This is enough The first is titled “The Kidder,” and the second “The Fighter’s Wife” a domestic comedy of a box-fighter’s ife. \ The theatre Guild may do another! by Eugene O’Neill, his drama “Strange Interlude.” This is not of- fi but rumor, which is always ac- tive on Broadway, has it as a fact. “Marco’s Millions” by O’Neill is slated for production this season by the Guild. play Rehearsals for George M. Cohan’s | new musical show “The Merry Ma- lones,” are now going on at the new Erlanger’s theatre where the play | opens in September. “Burlesque,” a play by George | Mauker Watters and Arthur Hopkins, will be presented by Mr. Hopkins at his Plymouth theatre Monday night | August 22nd. Hal Skelly and Bar- | bara Stanwyck head the cast. “An Urgent Lady,” by Lynn Star-| |ling, author of “Meet the Wife” is| slated for showing at the Waldorf | | theatre on Labor Day, by Hoy al Mechanized V Warfare | | Grisman. “Mr. Who’s-His-Name,” now sig] g to a recent press story, | battles without any men and land bat- {ing in London, will be done here by A. H. Woods and Lee Shubert. Lyniie | Overman, May Vokes and Lennox Pawle have been engaged for the leading roles. About Blocking Streets. Dear Sirs and Brothers: Having read in the Worker the ar- Letters From Our Readers When- | ticle “Garages Crowd Street, Chauf- | |feur Hits Child,” I want to congratu- late you on the sharpness of your story. Even the garage owners’ jmonthly magazine, “The Protective Review,” the workers, has frequently applied to the police against the congestion of traffic in the streets. The City ad- ministration, especially the Mayor ; and his Commissioner, are responsible that is recorded. Where we are at 124th St. and 8th Avenue, a butcher and market and Five and Ten Cent Stores and two- | scab-hiring garages have the street | blocked all the time. But unless the wage earners pull together and pro-| test, all the papers in America can- not change this condition. And to show how Labor is hated I have on my shelves four years of the Protec- tive Review issued to over ten thou- sand garage owners and attacking the efforts of the workers who are struggling to organize. These maga- zines show the workers what they have to do if they are to free them- selves from the bosses.—Thomas Foster, Garage Employees’ Ass'n. Inc., 2801 8th Avenue, N. Y. C. * 8 To The DAILY WORKER: Just got through reading your paper and seeing where the good Mr. John F. Hylan the former mayor of the City of New York is taking a hand in the subway strike and has much to say. And criticizing mayor Walker and is warning Mr. Walker and his appointed pofice commissioner Warren, that the people of New York will not tolerate any police violence towards the striking subway workers; it is bad enough to be compelled to strike for a living wage, but to have the police acting under orders from Warren—brutally clubbing peaceful strikers is a condition that the people of New York will not tolerate. It was good enough in 1921 when the milkmen of New York went out on strike, compelled to stike for a living wage—Mr. Hylan then mayor of New York also Mr. Copeland then Health Commissioner, and some of * which attacks sections of} Who is featured in “Old San Fran- | cisco” at the Warner theatre. ~ AMUSEME | Little Teele "GRAND : STREET SD PUES. 3) FOLLIES 7 he LADDER All seats are reduced for the summer, Best Seats Cort Theatre, 48 St., | B'way. Matinee Wednesday. |Let’s Fight On! Join — | The Workers Party! | In the loss of Comrade Ruthen- berg the Workers (Communist) Par- ty has lost its fcremost leader and the American working class its staunchest fighter. This loss can only | be overcome by many militant work- ers joini , the Party that he_ built. Fill out the application below and | mail # Become a member of the | Workers (Communist) Party and carry forward the work of Comrade Ruthenberg. I want to become a member of the Workers (Communist) Party. Name Address errr rr errr reer rrr Terry ses ecereeeeederscenescose | Coeupstion’. sisviseessecvscteasccus Union Affiliation... Mail this application to the Work- ers Party, 108 Hast 14th Street, New | York City; or if in other city to Workers Party, 1113 W. Washington Blv., Chicago, Ill, Distribute the Ruthenberg pam- phlet, “The Workers’ (Communist) | Party, What it Stands For and Why | Workers Should Join.” This Ruthen- | berg pamphlet will be the basic pam- palet thruout the Ruthenberg Drive. Every Party Nucleus must collect 50 cents from every member and will receive 20 pamphlets for every mem- ber to sell or distribute, Nuclei in the New York District will get their pamphlets from the Dis- trict office—108 Kast 14th St. Nuclei oztside of the New York District write to The DAILY WORK- ER publishing Co., 33 East First Street, New York City, or to the National Office, Workers Party, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill. eset eeeneeeeeee the tools of the capitalist who call themselves A. F. of L. told the work- ers the night before the strike at a meeting which was held at the Madi- son Square Garden to go home and goon a fishing trip and that they will settle the strike for them, which re- sulted in having a policeman on every wagon, Not only did the policeman protect the rat, but acted as a rat himself by delivering the milk to the door; the result was the strike was lost an a company union was formed, Mr. Hylan is pulling enough wool over the workers and the peoples eyes to make it look like a tug of war. From a worker.— M, Schwartz, New York City. splendid pocket cloth- time: ESSAYS OF REVOLT By Jack London EUROPE IN By Scott Nearing THE REVOLUTIONARY GERMANY, ENGLAND, By Wm. Z. Foster By Mark Fisher reading for and filled in = NOTE: AT PPECIAL PRICEY? All on Revolution These four attractive: books—one in a had at a reduced rate if purchased at one Inéluding two of his splendid short stories REVOLUTION EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION A total of 95 cents worth of most interesting 75 CENTS OL CCT Books offered in this column on hand * in limited quantities. aod bound edition—can be (Cloth Bound) —.50 —10 CRISIS (of 1918-21) IN ITALY AND FRANCE —.25 —10 All orders cash turn as received. |