The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 15, 1927, Page 4

ee ro renee ane armmnee neonate a RUTLAND TNS * Page Four THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. ble Address: “Daiwork” Phone, Orchard 1680 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 years $3.50 six months $2.50 three months $2.00 three months out checks to rst Street, New York, N. Y. Address all mail an THE DAILY WOREER, 33 heed ane NGDAHL J. LOUIS - 5 . Editors WILLIAM F. DUNNE § Li -Business Manager BE , ‘ at the post-office at New York, N. ¥., unaer of March 3, 1879. Advertising rates on application. _ The Ohio Injunction Is a Blow at the Entire American Labor Movement. The worst blow yet dealt to the strike of coal miners, to the United Mine Workers and to the whole labor movement by a prec- edent established in injunction cases, has come from the federal bench occupied by Judge Hough in Steubenville, Ohio. Foreign-born members of the miners’ union have been pro- hibited from picketing under threat of arrest and deportation. For the United Mine Workers, an organization a majority of whose members are of foreign birth or extraction, this means a com- pulsory cessation of strike activity unless a policy of mas viola- tion of the injunction is adopted and the full resources of the union mobilized to support the struggle. Upon President Lewis and his official family must be placed the blame for this judicial ruling. They stand before the labor movement as officials of a union who at its last convention threw | the door wide open for just such destructive decisions. At In dianapolis last January the Lewis machine jammed thru legisla tion depriving all but American citizens of the right to hold office in the union andwJudge Hough undoubtedly had this precedent in mind when he made his ruling. Will the Lewis leadership really try to repel this attack on the very life of the American labor movement with its hundreds | of thousands of foreign-born workers? It will not. a These leaders may make a loud outcry and declaim against such highhanded proceedings but in their hearts they are glad, tor they are enemies of the union, enemies of the foreign-born | The Patty's Shortcomings, Mistakes and Problems workers who are its backbone, enemies of the American working- class. For more than five years the Lewis machine has been in a conspiracy with the coal barons to wreck the United Mine Work- ers of America as a fighting union and replace it with a “tame” union powerless to aid the miners and helpless in the face of the organized power of the operators. The Indianapolis convention was part of the conspiracy. We said so when it was in session and we now call the attention of the American workers to ths latest evidence of unity of the Lewis machine, the coal barons and the courts. Reaction is travelling at a mad pace—at so fast a pace that it appears now that most of the boasted liberties of the American! working class will be wiped out before a single effective blow is struck by the labor movement. But such black reaction as that shown in the Hough injunc- tion will set in motion the forces that will destroy it. It will de- stroy as well those labor leaders who have made possible such attacks upon the labor movement. The Ohio decision has shown that the defense of foreign-born workers is in reality defense of the labor movement and in this light the labor movement will have to make its preparations for the abolition of this destructive decision and the whole offensive against the labor movement that it signalizes. British Traitors in Desperate Straits, No one who reads of the fact that the British trade union leaders in session at Edinburgh passed resolutions condemning the government Arcos raid and+the breaking of diplomatic rela- tions with the Soviet Union should think for a moment that these renegades who are aiding Baldwin and Chamberlain in their war conspiracies against the workers’ and peasants’ government have had a change of heart. They broke the Anglo-Russian Commit- tee for Trade Union Unity in order to assure Baldwin of their support of any vicious measures he desired to instit~te against the workers of England. In addition to inviting new assaults upon the conditions of living and work of the English working class the Edinburgh decision to break with the Soviet trade unions objectively aided the war plottings of the tories. In this disgraceful affair the leaders of the so-called “left,” especially the slimy renegade, Ben Tillett, who never in all his life missed an opportunity to betray the British working class, were even more vindictive than Thomas and the right wing agents of the capitalists. After the break in the trade union committee the real senti-) ments of the rank and file of labor began to jar the complacency of the Edinburgh heroes of apostacy. The real left wing organ- ized in the Minority Movement made its power felt; a number) of elections have taken place and the traitors have been defeated. The retreat at Edinburgh was made for one purpose only— to endeavor to maintain their jobs as labor agents of capitalism. If these whelps lose out in their unions they will no longer be of service to their imperialist masters and so they have to pretend to deplore the Arcos raid and the breaking of diplomatic and com- mercial relations in spite of the fact that their. break with the Soviet trade unions was dictated by their policy of playing the imperialist game of the tories. : The rank and file of the British workers will easily penetrate this sham and will relentlessly proceed to hold these scoundrels responsible for their acts and eliminate them from leadership in the laboremovement. Edinburgh is a step from which there can never be any re- treat for these creatures, The Price of Pittsburgh Coal’s Prosperity. Pittsburgh Coal jumped 5 points to 6814 in response to favorable earnings reports and the prospect of definite betterment of its position in the industry, —Wall Street News Item. Coal and iron police clubbing, shooting and jailing striking miners, families evicted from their homes, hungry women and children, the smashing of the union, workers driven back into deadly hazards of shaft, entry and face at less than a living wage —all are translated into a 5-point rise on the stock exchange. “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty!” By WILLIAM F. DUNNE. | HE tremendous wave of support for’ |* Sacco and Vanzetti which grew in- to greater proportions as the hour of {their death neared exceeded by far that aroused in behalf of Tom Mooney a decade ago. Yet it was neither as well-organized or as effective as the movement which }saved Mooney from the California |hangmen nor did the official labor ;movement play as important a part. IDUT the huge sweep of the Sacco- Vanzetti defense movement, (it jmust be remembered that it came in- jto being in behalf of two unknown \foreign-born workers whose alleged |erime did not fall into the category |of labor cases) in spite of its obvious | lack of a national directing center and |the -attitude of labor officialdom |ranging from lukewarm appeals for |elemency to open hostility, in spite of |the democratic and pacifist illusions which weakened the movement and | brought it to the verge of collapse a | number of times, has shown that there jis a substantial section of the Ameri- ean masses which is not under the paralyzing influence of the official |labor leadership. HE fight made for Sacco and Van- zetti is only one of a number of | fecent occurrences showing that a fer- ment is under way in the ranks of | American workers and that the pres- jent situation gan be characterised by |developments along three lines which | show: . 1, Discontent with the failure of the official labor leadership to wage a more effective struggle against the bosses and some dissatisfaction with the policy of efficiency unionism and |trade union capital NOTE: This is the fourth install- ment of the report for the Political Committee made by Jay Lovestone, | at the recent Fifth National Con- vention of the Workers (Commu- nist) Party held in New York City. This installment deals with “The Party’s Shortcomings, Mistakes and | Problems.” * * * i , WHat is this problem before us? The problem before us is two- fold. When we speak of the bour- |geoisification of the working class, (we speak of the ideological bour- geoisification and material bour- geoisification. Ideologically the whole American working class is backward. If we want to organize a labor Party, we must win the masses in the belly of the Coolidge Party. This does not mean we must be- ‘come members of it, but the ele- ‘ments of the working class that are today following the Republican and Democratic parties. It is those ele- ments that are geoisified and whom we must win for |a labor party. Only a very small see- | tion of our working class has declared its independence ideologically from (the bourgeoisie. jterial side of bourgeoisification is | concerned—materially, only a small section of the working class is af- fected. Materially the upper layer, the skilled, the highly skilled, the labor aristocracy, is affected. | Let us not underestimate this ex. |tent of bourgeoisification. This lay- er consists of several millions of | workers who have had experience in |organization, who are educated working class organization, who are \largely native elements. Though it is true that the material corruption is | limited to several millions, yet the |effect of the corruption of these sev- jeral millions is to be measured not \only by the effect on these millions, but by the effect as a result of this on millions and millions of unskilled workers. No one needs underestimate this problem before us. But comrades | We must puncture this bubble, this \Hlusion that the! bourgeoisie is | spreading, the fraud that in America coming capitalist. Examine the claims of the bour- geoisie: They say there are 10,000,000 stockholders in this country. The fact of the matter is that there are only 2,358,000 stockholders in the Uni- ted States. Let us further examine \holders,: or only 5 per cent of them, | receive 51 per cent of the dividends, jand 1,269,000 or 5313 per cent of the total stockholders receive only 4 per ‘cent of the dividends. Then in addi- tion to this number we have also 100,- ‘000 widows and 100,000 students and invalids owning steoks bearing divi- dends. I have never seen a mass phenomenon of proletarian widows owning stock, | After 35 years of stock selling, the |total value of stock sold to the work ‘ers is only $700,000,000, Out of thi |amount more than half is owned by '269,239 workers. It is true that sav- ings and life insurance have in- creased, It is true that labor bank- ing has in recent years increased, But, comrades, when we speak of sav- ings accounts, let us not look at it one-sidedly. The very savings™ac- counts of the workers are a weapon! ideologically bour- | Insofar as the ma-} In, this figure: 120,000 of these stock-| Opposing Forces 2. Preparation for a new drive against the labor movement. 8. An attempt on the part of la- bor officialdom to regain some of i lost prestige and deceive the masses! into believing that this leadership is waging a genuine struggle against the bosses. HE ex ean Federation of Labor i ing the pressure which American ‘capitalism, with increasing rapidity, is putting upon certain sections of the labor movement and the working class as a whole. This is not to salaried officials a ing any meals or goin and rv It doe cutive council of the Ameri- y that the high- hemselves mi tatters mean, how- ever, that they are hearing rumblings | from the r and file which have direct connection with a whole series of recent developments. PRESSURE upon the executive £ council is of two kinds—from above and below. From above the capitalists are making demands that take further 0 Idom eps to stifle all expressions of discontent nd induce the workers to more ons to the capitalist: From below the workers are demanding, not ins tly as yet but the de- very mand can be heard, that officialdom undertake a more effective struggle in their behalf. As a result of these two forms of | pressure officialdom is performing some of the weirdest gyrations on record but which in essence are evi- dence of an internal struggle to h upon the best method of serving American imperialism in the present period. *in the hands of the capitalists, they+ become additional power — they be- come capital in the hands of the cap- italists, more weapons~ against the working class. A few words about the standard of i It-is true that the standard of-living. of the American workers compared to the European workers | lis much higher. No one -can deny that there are specific, objective rea- sons for this being so. But, com- rades, when we speak of the standard of living, and when we compare stan- dards: of. living, we must not com- pare the standard of living of the American workers with that of the workers in the European war-torn countries.. We must compare the Standard of livihg varying in this country as it does, period by period and insofar as it is a changing stan- dard in this country. We must com- pare the American worker’s standard of living of one period with the stan- dard of living at another period in order to get an understanding of this problem, And in speaking of the “high” American standard of living and savings of the workers we must not lose sight of the fact that in America there is practically no so- cial insurance of any kind. In Eur- {ope the employers and their govern- ment are compelled to pay at least, in part, for the cost of old age pensions, | ickness Cubes eae insurance. In the United States the workers are compelled themselves to pay out of their own wages and savings for all land standard of living of t! lcan workers and those of the Euro- | pean workers is not as great as the |surface indications would show. | Guard Against Wrong Estimate. /O sum up: we have seen that the |4 ideological bourgeosification af- ‘fects the overwhelming majority of ;the working class, If we do, we will |have a wrong estimate of this most {important problem. We must remem- |ber that in no country in the world there is no basis for a class struggle, is there so great a gap between the | that in America the workers are be- labor aristocracy and unskilled work-! ers. The American labor aristocracy is the aristocracy of the labor aristo- cracy of the world. In no country lare the workers used up so rapidly. \In no country is exploitation so in- |tense. In no country do workers be- come old so quickly. In speaking of the limits of bour- geoisification and the power of im- perialism, we must have in mind the international situation, America to- day is not in the positiort England was at its height of power. America is not practically alone in the inter- national field. America today is facing | incr g challenges from other imperialist powers. with us also today the Soviet Union. alism in relation to imperialism presents to us a problem of antagonisms which have ‘taken the place in international im- erialist relations of the pre-war Anglo-German antagonisms. Be- ‘cause of this situation, the period of power of American imperialism, the period of the ‘limited bourgeoisifica- ‘tion of our working class, is to be | much shorter than the British was. Wage Figures in This Country. if WANT. to speak about the wage figures of this country. - I speak feel- | bout in rags | § We have! Trends in the American Labor Movement as Shown by Recent Developments Evidences of Pressure on Official Labor Leadership From Two IT is evident already that some of the crasser forms of trade ynion capitalism and worker-employer ¢o- operation are going to -be discredited within a comparatively short time among great numbers of workers who have been waiting merely for so thing more» conerete than official | eulogies on which to base permanent conclusions. This process has already begun. | T is also evident that a considerable | section of the working cl in| and out of the umions—is becoming | alarmed by the continual failure of the leadership of the American Fede- | on of Labor to take any de ve| in the direction of organizing | the millions of workers in basic in- dustry and to combat effectively the {increasing injunction menace. Still further, there is deep dis- s action caused by the tematic destruction of democratic procedure within the unions, resulting as in the| United Mine Workers in utter di | | gard of all former provisions for rank and file expression. INALLY, the fact that a number of building trade unions in large cen- ters like New York, and the United Mine Workers, the most important union affiliated with the F. of L. are meeting defeat und ractical ‘trade union” leadership, is encourag- | ing a healthy skepticism as to the {wisdom of “constructive” policies. A These four factors, as the intention of the capitalists to begin a new} | drive on the labor movement becomes | | clearer, tend to loosen the grip of | | officialdom upon the minds of work- | }ers who pay their fancy salaries. of it not in the se the extent of bourgeoisification. I speak of the wages in this country merely to puncture another capital- ist bubble. The U. S. Department of Labor has just issued a report giving | the findings of its investigation of the wage figures. I will not go into the details of these figures, but this investigation (See Monthly Labor Re- view-August, 1927) clez stablishes that millions of workers in this coun- try, semi-skilled and unskilled and to some extent skilled, receive less than $25 a week. Keep in mind the fact that even according to the standards set by the anti-working class forces dominating the United States govern- ment, a family of five needed a mini- mum of $2188 annually in June 1927 to have a fair standard of living. This mi s a minimum average weekly re of $42 to $45 thruout the year. Even in New York state, the wealth- j iest state in the Union, according to the findings of the N. Y. State Hous- ing Commission, three out of every four working class families are re- ceiving a total wage which is below the minimum of subsistence level fixed by our bourgeois government. | When we speak of these wages, we discount also unemployment, sickness | and other such incidents in industry. | These circumstances which are i ‘a {herent in the capitalist organization | of industry would even lower the wage figures given us by the bour-| | geoisie. | Here we must also speak briefly ‘of | the diffusion of wealth, we find that) 6 per cent of those gainfully employed | of minimizing and 63 per cent, or the wage-earners, | own only 4.3 per cent of such prop- erty. It is true labor banks have in-| jereased in number. But in recent |months there has been a decrease not | only in the number of labor banks, but {in total of resources and deposito: \The whole system of class collabora- | tion, labor banks, home-owning, |schemes, “cooperatives” banking | | schemes are based particularly on this | period, the present temporary period |of American prosperity. | Such types of bourgeois experts as Carl Snyder, have themselves said! ‘that we cannot speak of these c | \collaboration schemes as permanent | |phenomena, but only as_ passing) phenomena of a moment situation | phenomena which will be in a lerisis with the first wave of serious ‘economic depression. The Engineer’s Convention. Brotherhood | Engineering Conven- tion: When this organization which was the father, the leader in labor |banking, steps forward and decides to go out of business, and when the man (Johnson), who a year ago held the lowly position of head of the trade union department of the Brotherhood lof Locomotive Engineering, has now} |become the president of the organi- | zation, there are significant develop- ments brewing. Comrades, we must beware, we must be on guard against these bour- geois influences of pessimism also af- |fecting our own ranks. Pes ie comments on the Locomotive Ms) jis a danger which our Party faces ja Party, not as individuals, not as groups. Only through a strong ideolo- gical campaign against bourgeoisifi- | cation, only through a strong organi- | rational, practical, anti-bourgeoisifi- . | Lord Dunsany’s “If” to Be Produced by Grand Street Players Following the Artyz heff play “Lovers and Enemies,” which will put on at the Little Theatre for special matinee beginning next Tuesday, the Grant Street Follies Company, will present Dunsany’s “If,” at the same theatre, opening on October 17th. “The G id Street Folli now cur- rent, will close on September 24th, to allow the players three weeks of re- hearsal. The special matinee of “Lovers and emies,” will be given on Tuesday, September 20th and 27th, and on Thursday, September id and 29th. The present group with the addition of Leo Bulgakov Eva Condon and Esther Mitchell will be in the cast of the Artyzabasheff piece. production of the be performances Owen Davis’ new comedy “The Triumphant Bachelor” will be pre- sented by the Chainin’s at the Bilt- more Theatre tonight. “If A Body,” a new mystery play by Edward Knoblock and George Rosener, will be placed in rehearsal next week by William B. Friedlander. Edgar MacGregor will stage the Aarons and Freedley production of Funny Face,” the new musical comedy by Robert Benchley and Fred Thompson in which Fred and Adele Astaire are to be featured. Letters FE vom | sa) CEA | MONA KINGSLEY vhich will have iltmore Theatre Little ‘Theatre : GRAND Ee 44th ra . W a B'way. STREET FOLLIES The LADDER POPULAR PRICES sway Wed i DESE EN. Y. & London's Musice with Robt. 1 Sensation Halliday & Eddie Buzzeli 1lth Mon CASINO 38 St. & Bway Mats. Wed. ang Sat. 2.30 Our Readers | ene \COPY OF A LETTER TO THE NEW LEADER Editor, New ender: What is news? On Sunday, the Sacco-Vanzetti funeral is held in Boston, and it is re-| ported on the first page of the New Leader. On Monday, 25,000 people stand for hours, part of the time in a heavy rain, in Union Square, New York, at a memorial meeting for Sacco and Vanzetti. Mrs. Sacco and members of the Boston Sacco-Vanzetti Defence | Committee are present. There is not one line about it in the New Leader. | Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the death masks of Sacco and Van-| zetti are on view at the Stuyvesant Casino, also in New York, and not less than 100,000 people pass in a steady stream pay their last respects to their death comrades. the New Leader. My astonishment at this strange Socialist Party evaluation of what is news should, I suppose, have been! lessened by the previous action of the Party’s executive secretary, in regard \F I called on} to the memorial plans. August Claessens Friday to enlist the Party’s cooperation. I showed him credentials issued by the Sacco-Van- through the hall to} Not a word about it in| *zetti Defence Committee of Boston, which he attentively examined. In Sunday’s Times he was quoted to the effect that the Memorial Committee, which I represent, was “self appoin- ted” and that the memorial demon- stration “had been repudiated” by the | Boston Committee. This was of course untrue, What, Mr. Editor, is news? And what is sabotage? Sincerely yours,—Clarina Michelson Sacco-Vanzetti Memorial Committee, 22 Bank Street, N. Y. C. | P. S. I am sending a copy of this ever, to the Times or the other capi- talist papers. | ee en On CMTC Deaths. | Editor, The DAILY WORKER: I noticed in the morning World a dispatch on the far famed and self- advertised “opposite the editorial” page. It announced with joy that al- most 40,000 men had trained in CMTC comps during the summer and that only three had died. Also that the rate was lower than that of other years. Truly a grim capitalist joke! To deny their dupes the peculiar joy of dying on a_ battlefield —Emanuel DAILY WORKER AT THE NEWSSTANDS cation campaign, can we avoid the dangers of pessimism for our Party, can we also make forward steps in the face of difficulties. We must not only have an ideologi- cal campaign, but also a practical or- ganizational campaign to meet this danger. We must have a much stronger labor party campaign. One of the most powerful weapons to overcome the ideological bourgeoisi- fication of our workers is to be found these forms of social insurance. Thus, | own almost 70 per cent of the income-| in the movement for a labor party. lthe gap between the wages, savings | Yielding property. 25 per cent of the} We must strengthen our own Party he Ameri- | gainfully employed own 95 per cent, | above all. The insurance against this toxin, this baccilus of bourgeoisifi- cation in the ranks of the proletariat, is in the strength of the Communist a Party. We must struggle against the trade union bureaucracy. We must build militant unions. We must fight Including Two | New Books ination of li S1A’S PATH Z“LNOVIBY + * ZVISM—Some Qu ALIN TRADE © View of the RUSSIAN REVOLUTION By A. LOSOVSKY A splendid little d International ALL FOR klet bor Books offered eived whic! TO COMMUNISM problems of 1h UNIONS THE ROLE OF THE LABOR UNIONS IN THE CL ae mR ee aren NOTE: in limited quantities, * and filled in LT NEF eam ene? re ame nanernrnameenarrnsannumvencmeey tlie peta: energetically for al insurance to be paid for by the capitalists and ad- ministered by the workers. We must expose the capitalist government as a strike-breaking agency, as an im- perialist clique. We must show the role of the banks. We must, separate th institutions from the trade We must fight these capitalist institutions. But wherever the conditions demand specifically for agitation purposes, we must tnrow out the slogan for changing such institu- tions into genuine cooperative institu- tio lopment of a genuine co- ement in this country ry powerful weapon reoisification propa- efforts of the capitalist (To | hoo brary. estions Answered. uder unions following the by the Se Unions. 50 CENTS retary of the 05, in this column on hand All orders cash turn as received. { Pete aera iamepeomnom meee letter to the labor press—not, how- §