The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 3, 1927, Page 7

my, LEARY AND LABOR 4 EARY of the ‘World’ is a model reporter,” John cae 1 LL Sullivan, newly re-elected president of the New ESSIR | York State Federation of Labor, once told the pres- ¥ : ent writer. Leaning forward until his portly stom- ATS. ane ae ach wrinkled, the labor leader and Civic Federation member explained, “He gets things right.” _ Sullivan is not alone in his high opinion of Mr. John J. Leary, Jr., dean of New York labor re- porters. The socialist “New Leader” recently re- ferred to him as a newsfaperman “who can be classed among the best in town.” Thinking workers, accordingly, will be interested to know what such a highly praised man believes is labor’s future and whom are the men he admires. The furriers know that every time those esteemed’ Civic Federation members, Matthew Woll and Hugh Frayne, wished to justify their strike-breaking ac- tivities and efforts to smash the Joint Board, Leary quoted them at length. In fact many times all Leary did for his day’s work was to write a “lead” and ‘paste it on top of a Woll er Frayne statement. Now, it develops, Leary admires another master strike-breaker. In the “World” of August 28th, he sings praises of Premier Baldwin’s determination in phshing through that Trades Union Bill which the “World” once editorially said took away .with one sweep all the rights Britisk labor had won in fifty vears of hard fighting. Leary, however, speaks for the leaders of the American labor movement. . He tells story after story to the effect that Brit- ish labor is demoralized’ because its leaders are “more or less openly” accused of taking graft from the “Arcos House and the Communists of Russia.” Where did he get these tales? Proudly he boasts theyare “reports from London to leaders of the American movement from sources that are cepend- able and which have proven to be accurate in the _ past.” Reading them, one wonders if Laetys is still earry- ing on the Woll-Frayne-McGrady graft-fiction eam- paign in an attempt to smash the Furriers’ Joint Board. But no, he is not. Leary ‘and the Civic Federation members, whose spokesman he is, hope there will never be a Labor Party in America. To discourage all attempts form one and thus take voters away from Tammany Hall, Leary seeks to discredit the British Labor Party. Listen: - “There is, as I have said, confusion in the movement and distrust of leadership that may in some. measure at least explain the determination of Premier Baldwin in pushing through the recent bill that, among other things, ends the collecting, willy nilly, of funds for th Labor Party from mem- bers of trade unions. One wonders, in the face of all reports, if in opposing this part of the law the Labor M. P.’s spoke quite as much for the rank and file of English labor as for themselves.” Leary voices the hope that this confusion may end in a “swing back to straight trade unionism” as advocated by William A. Appleton; once secre- tary of the British Federation, “It would not be inconsistent if in accepting American production methods our English cousins adopted American trade union methods,” he con- cludes. The abandonment of the Labor Party in England would mean that the workers could once more vote for Liberals and Tories who, of course, never take any graft. No more than Tammany officials. — Leary strikes us as being almost as profound an optimist as the late Judge Gary. The open shop - confederates of Woll, Frayne and Sullivan in the Civie Federation certainly must bé chuckling to think that’ American trade unionism is held up as a model for countries much more widely organ- ized.’ But if the masses of organized American work- ers were not hoodwinked into believing that their unions were the best managed in the world and that voting the democratie ticket was voting for labor, how long would Green, Woll, Frayne, Mec- Grady and Sullivan keep their jobs? ~ And if the workers supported a Labor Party how could their leaders graduate into fat Tammany jobs as James P. Holland did last year when he resigned as head of the State Federation to accept Mayor Walker’s appointment to a six-year term on the Board of Standards and Appeals? But there won’t be a Labor Party if Leary and me the “World” can help it. Doubtless he was instru-- mental in persuading the present weak-kneed so- cialsit leaders to take Woll, Frayne and McGrady close to théir bosoms in spite of the vitriolic things Eugene Debs used to say about Civic Federation members. Smart. boy, this Leary. He gets things . “ight.” And tens of thousands of workers read the “World”! ; While we are talking of the*“World,” it might be interesting to list a few other things it does no ys. It features storeis of how the ezar died bravely (just think, those damn Communists killed him!); what Marshal Ferdinand Foch thinks of a “doctrine as pernicious as Communism,” and how he planned to wipe out “the menace of Commun- ism”; and advertises for the benefit of New York police officials how. Chicago and Boston alienists GOLD PRIKED Gain | fi try to find radicals TREES: pointing out the flaws of the two systems. | When Representative Albert Johnson, chairman of the House Immigration Committee, made his wild threats against aliens participating in Sacco- Vanzetti demonstrations, the “World” placed the story in a two-column “box,” along with a picture of Johnson, directly above a one-column story tell- ing that 500,000 New York workers had been ‘called out for a protest strike that day. That the “World” later editorially decried John- son does not alleviate the fact that on the morning of the strike it used the bombastic congressman to intimidate aliens. And to correct the impression that Sacco and Vanzetti may have been innocent because they pro- claimed that fact just before they were killed, the “World” front-pages @ story of a hard-boiled re- porter who claims to have seen no fewer than were executed. either Leary or the “World”? We resist the temp- tarion to make a pun. O Chinaman! O, Chinaman, Chinaman, with your wise, diagonal and quaintly squinting eyes! Tell me your strange tale out of the perfumed East— tell me of junks in purple seas with bellying sails of gold covered with fantastic pictures; tell me the noble legends of your esteemed forefathers; recite for me the gay and glittering maxims of your wisest philosophers, and the poems of the greatest of poets who sang the glories, of vanished dynasties and of painted girls who danced before old kings; reveal to me the mysteries of your jeweled shrines and most sacred pagodas hiding their jade tops among the stars, and of the twisted dragons that guard the tombs of your reverend ancestors; tell me of revolution, of red-bannered armies and of a mighty giant lifting his head from slumber into the sunlight of a new way! O; Chinas, Chinaman! Here are my shirts and my collars; Saturday I must have ween O Chinaman! These are all I can give ‘you, some soiled shirts and collars to wash and a few pennies in payment and hell a if they’re not finished of time or if one collar is lost, O, Chinaman! Yet you, should t urge you, might tell me all things ‘out of the wisdom of the ages of the East, gleaming, half-hidden, in your wise, : . diagonal and quaintly squinting eyes! —HENRY RBICH, JR. uy ass eighty doomed men proclaim innocence before they — Can any woker give a tason why hé:should read, The Farmer and Labor Day By ALFRED KNUTSON HE vast masses of farmers in America are still sticking in the old political rut, they are still led to believe that it is advantageous for them to make an alliance. with country bankers and the small busi- ness interests in general. Ouly a small section of the farming masses have ‘today come ito, the realization of the futility of col- - laborating: with the capitalist ‘forees which are,doing their best to rob the farmer of the fruits of his toil. The farmer, however, is disgusted with his own eco- nomic condition and becoming more and more dis- gusted with organizations and movements which are endeavoring to give him “relief.” That is, for the first time in many years he is at least begin- ning to discover that there is something wrong about the methods used by the advocates of farm relief. He is not so easily fooled into believing what the capitalist politicians are telling him: He examines farm relief proposals more critically than before and though he still lingers in the old rut his entire per- spective in velation to his ‘own problems is now undergoing big changes. The opportunities for getting the farmer up on his feet and to fight in his own interests were never better than at the present time. Of course, we must realize that nothing can be done to rouse the farmers into action unless live, energetic. driving forees are built up amongst them. . The masses of farmers in this country do not understand the city industrial worker and one of the big reasons for this misunderstanding lies in the clever propaganda of the capitalists which sep- arates them by telling them that they have nothing in common, either politically or economically. The farmer, the capitalists tell the worker, hires la- borers and he is, therefore, a capitalist, is inter- ested in having the city worker pay as.much as possible for farm products, and consequently is an exploiter with nothing in common with the city worker, And the farmer on his side is being told that the city workers are responsible for the high prices he mu&t pay for the qnanufacture? articles he buys because of the high wages paid to the farmer. The real truth, which is that the capitalists are exploiting both the farmer and the city worker, is never told by tne capitalist press because if he did his game or exploitation would come to a sudden end. A big service can be rendered the revolutionary movement in America by continually enlightening both the worker and the farmer as to their identity of interests, all the time pointing out who the real robber is, and farmers must learn to work to- gether and solve their problems by a united front of both classes with the city workers taking the leadership in the major struggles against the capi- talists. On Labor Day the farmer should demonstrate to- gether with the city worker. I do not now have in mind the September labor day which is not the real labor day but a day set apart by the capital- ists to strengthen their hold on the robbery of la- bor, but the First of May, which is the real workers’ and farmers’ holiday. I was in Russia in 1924 on the First of May and saw both the farmers and the workers celebrate this day of days*in complete solidarity. After they established a-workers’ and farmers’ government over there they have no trouble at all in getting the farmers and workers to work together harmon- iously, on both the political and economic fronts. We should strive by all our might to do the same thing here. When the First of May, 1927 comes around let as many farmers as possible join the city workers in demonstrations. for the unity of the workers of the whole world. Because of its tremendous importance in bringing the farmer and city worker closer together we should strive to organize such joint demonstrations, no matter how small these may be to begin with. This should be one of our special tasks-for next May Day in as many sections of the country as possible. Farmers and city workers, unite!