The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 15, 1927, Page 6

Page Six Railroad Workers in the Soviet Union Lead All in Support of Their Press By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL., + Na railroad workers in the Union of Soviet Republics are the most prolific readers of all Russia’s toiling This is shown by the support they give their About 37 per cent, nearly two-fifths of the more ‘THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, THUR: SDAY, SEPT. 15, 1927 | Current Events ai (Continued from Page One) the heat of the day in the wide open | spaces. And since Coolidge appears | to be groomed for the seat once graced | |by Elbert H. Gary, as head of the | United States Steel Corporation, the strikebreaking president has no cause {for cavail. The arrangement should prove satisfactory all round. * * * BS Ireland the peasants insisted that their priests should be well fleshed and be able to include meat in their diet while the peasants might have to ‘The Reply of the Workers to the Murder of Sacco and Vanzetti By MICHEL HOLLAY (Paris). NEYEX has the world proletariat been so profoundly stirred in its million masses, never has the world ex- perienced such a passionate storm of indignation against capitalist, reactionary class justice, as in these days after the murder of the two workers Sacco and Vanzetti which had been dragged out for seven long years. The world proletariat which is experiencing to its own eost the terrible effects of the American methods of rationalization, which after severe struggles was forced under and is still being forced under this economic yoke, the world proletariat instinctively felt that this ‘vile murder threatens to become the beginning of a second one million members of the Railroad Workers’ be content with boiled potatoes and in | Stage, the stage of rationalized capitalist barbarity. Union ar of the publications of their organ- lieu of a more substantial condiment | The international working class has instinctively per- ization, pe of the Gudok (The Whistle), the be forced to resort to: the subterfuge ceived that all revolutionary workers in the prisons of union’s daily that now sts a circulation of 415,000 of pointing their potatoes at a salt the capitalist countries are threatened with the electric copies : herring hanging from the rafter, This | Chair; for it knows that the methods of torture of the a * * | meal was known as, “potatoes and | Prison of Sing-Sing have already found eager imitators To be sure r 37 per cent are readers of the point.” The more precocious Ameri- |!" Poland, Roumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Italy ete.— union’s publicatio for the purpose of thi om- |can workers and farmers may not be imitators who will regard it as their immediate task to parison, ss are taken as the basis to |so considerate about the comfort of introduce this latest achievement of bourgeois class jus- show the el of the workers in the different | their evangelists and bush baptists, | tice, the conversion of the former “death minute” into trades and in but they do insist that their ex-presi-|2 chain of many “years of death.” —_ * * * | dents fare well. So, while the farm- The petty bourgeois democrats, social democrats and Next tc come th ers are scratching their brain arma- | ‘T@de union bureaucrats talked of “murdering of justice,” tied with the th telegraph w + their pre ment in despair over their economic | plight and the workers are in con- | stant dread lest the wolf of want | should come snarling to their doors, | they find satisfaction in the knowl- of “trampling underfoot the conseience of humanity”... But the slow torture to death of these two innocent workers in Schattendorf, after the mass murders in Vienna, after the series of murders of so many Commu- nist workers—all this, together with the close protection yeas of the. American Embassies by the police of the interna- ’ Teachers lets! ape the capitalist tool they| tional capitalist class, fas cased the interna- Printer | eerved to suppress them in the in-| tional proletariat to realize that here it is something Paper | iiveteate of capitalism, is economically | more than a “justice scandal,” that here it is a system ea ae | secure for we ren of Be life. of political strangling of the working class. It was the | | . realization of this fact that caused the conscience of the aes 2 Ah | i fee HALE THOMPSON Was | international proletarian class to flame up. ea sie ee eee | proposed as republican candidate| The mass demonstrations in Geneva, where the work- Build t. s (salesmen), 7 per cent. health employes, 6 per cent. | Municipal workers, 5! per cent. Miners, 5 per cent. Chemical workers, 5 per cent. ‘ Food workers, 5 per cent. Loca! transportation, 4 per cent. | Restaurant employes, 4 per cent. River and sea transport workers, 3.4 per cent. . * * trades, 7 t é eed —By WM. GROPPER. vaaeeceree American Imperialism Decrees by the fact that the river and sea transport workers, | who come at the bottom of the list, made an heroic effort to maintain a daily paper of their own, “On the Watch.” It did not succeed, however, and had to be di continued, being replaced temporarily by a weekly pub- lication. But this is a far advance from the slave days | of “The Volga Boatman.” * * * In order to get circulation for trade union publica- tions in the United States, the membership here is usu- ally given the union publication en masse, being paid| for out of the dues. } organ with the largest circulation in this. country, man- | ages to keep up its list of readers, since many railroad | unions subscribe for their members en bloc. But ‘“La- bor” is in no sense the organ of the railroad workers. In the Soviet Union, however, the workers subscribe for the official organs of their industry. The railroad worker pays four kopecks a copy for his “Daily.” The monthly subscription of the Gudok is 65 kopecks, or about 32'4 cents, for 24 issues, which averages a little less than three kopecks per issue. The yearly subscrip- tion is about $3.80. * * x Thus the circulation of a Soviet labor daily is bona fide. It is not made up of dead heads. The papers are| not thrown away. There is no waste. An additional fact showing the great interest the Soviet workers take in their publications is revealed in the fact that papers are not mailed directly to the work- ers’ homes. Some effort must be put forth to get them. “Gudok,” the railroad workers’ organ, is sent out mostly in bundles, to railroad shops, railway stations, roundhouses, wherever the railroad workers are to be found on the job over the Soviet Union. The bundles are taken in charge by the local agent from whom the workers get their individual copies. If the worker is} sick, or incapacitated, an effort is made to get the paper | to his home. | Otherwise he gets it on the job himself.| * * * Here in the United States the number of readers.of a publication is estimated at four times the number of actual cibers. If this percentage held true in the} Soviet Union, the 415,000 copies of the “Gudok” issued | daily would suffice for 1,660,000 workers in the indus- i try. But on Jan. 1, 1927, this year, the union had/ 1,087,200 members, which is another revelation showing | the Russian workers to be inveterate readers. | * * * | There are 27 different railroad systems in the Soviet Union and an effort is made to give a special edition each week for every road. This is done by making over | one or two pages of the regular edition, putting in news of local interest. | The circulation of the paper is also considered on the} basis of the three great geographical divisions, the Mos-| cow, Donetz Basin and Kursk-Ukraine districts. But “Gudok” is not just a trade paper for railroad workers, interesting them only in their own peculiar eco- | nomic problems. . | I went over a copy of “Goduk,” under the guidance of | its editor, Ivan Pirogow, and its foreign editor, Victor | Fin, in their office in the Palace of Labor, in Moscow. | Thus we find the first and second pages almost en-| tirely given over to general news and articles. There | is much ne sived by telegraph, with leading articles on “The F 1 ¢ in Japan” and “The Interna tional Economic Conference in Switzerland.” These lead-! ing articles are short, in the nature of cryptic editorials, ‘at one far distant railroad center an Aviation Circle has been organized with a membership of 40 men and 10 women. * * * e is a “Party Life Section,” where the railroad are educated in the activities, the history and) functions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. There is a “Peasant Section,” a “Co-operative Section,” | a department called “Helped by Gudok,” of which I shall} write more later; another department headed “Our Life,” | as well as space given over to the theater, book reviews | and even the movies. There is a minimum of space fo| advertising. | I shall also have more to say later about the 20,000 | worker correspondents of the “‘Gudok,” who send in an} average of 600 letters daily, letters that help put life) into every section of the paper, providing an endless | stream of material for its every page and “corner.” I shall review in another article how this material is handled in the editorial office of “Gudok.” Thus “Labor,” the weekly labor }nations intervene in the dispute be- | sentiment is also affirmed by Senator | with England to guard the canal, for By H. M. WICKS. ‘OMME G upon the report that Dr. Eusebio Morales, former foreign minister of Panama, sug- gested”at Geneva that the league of tween that nation and the United States over the question of soverignty of the Canal Zone, Secretary of Svate Kellogg declared emphatically that “the teague of nations has nothing whatever to do with American con- trol over the Panama Canal zone, now or in the future.” This a mere repetition of sthe at- titude of American imperialism since the infamous Roosevelt steal of 1903-4, when the United States launched the canal project. From that day to this the Canal Zone has been under the blight of American despotism. The government of Pana- ma has. become the creature of Wall Street and the political minions at Washington have rut! ly used the} armed forces of this country to hold| in subjection the inhabitants of the zone. The state department, reply- ing to the alleged statement of Morales, condemns to perpetual sla- very those unfortunate enough to exist within the Canal Zone. This Claude A. Swanson, ranking demo- cratic member of the foreign rela- tions committee, whose political career cannot be distinguished from} the Coolidge gang and who introduced the world court resolution in the sen- ate. That resolution and the bitter struggle that ensued upon the floor of the senate exposed in dramatic re- lief the common political line followed supporters of both in behalf of their Street bankers. the Wall masters, Swanson went even further than the state department and revealed the strategic position of the Canal for military purposes: \ “One reason why the United States must have a navy on a parity with Great Britain is so that the United States can discharge its international obligations in connec- tion with the use and neutrality of the Canal. The United States does not feel that, in consideration of this international obligation, it should have a navy inferior to Great Britain, which would prac- tically put control of the canal un- der the British navy. The United States will not tolerate any inter- ference in this matter of the Pana- maintenance of a big navy. Certainly; it does not require a navy on a parity | the simple reason that British would not dare concentrate her full naval pow in a struggle for the control of this territory. Its navy is used to defend every outpost of its far-flung empire. The United State needs its | navy for precisely the same reason that’ British imperialism needs its big navy-——to inflict the bli¢ht of its pre- datory parasitic imperialism upon the colonial and semi-colonial countries. Swanson, by bringing up the ques- tion of naval parity with Britain, publicly announces that the dominant wing of the democrat party is in full and complete accord with the repub- lican administration policy of the Coolidge-Mellon regime as exempli- tween the United States and England. The leaders of both the old parties | perceive clearly that the conflicting interests between the two giant im- perialist powers of the world can never be settled around conference tables. At the same time both Britain and the United States perceive that the greatest menace to imperialism in general is the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics and the revolution. In addition to defending their present. imperialist conquests both of these powers, in varying de- grees determined by their own special interests, strike to destroy the Rus- sian and Chinese revolutions. fact is ignored by such politicians as Swanson. In this connection it is timely to! recall the fact that American im- perialist policy in China is the direct opposite of its attitude toward the Southern Republics. In the case of the Western Hemisphere the Monroe Doctrine is used to close the door to} the aspirations of European imperial- ism. American imperialism demands undisputed domination of the two American continents. (Wall Street by its tremendous economic power is rapidly bringing the British dominion of Canada under its domination.) In the case of China the Wall Street gang demands the “open door” in or- der that it may strive to oust the other powers from that vastly rich territory and secure undisputed domination of it. When and if that goal is realized it will close the door against other powers as it does today in the Latin-American countries. The apparent contradiction between its policy in China and in Latin-America can be easily reconciled when it is understood that the aim of yankee imperialism is to dominate the whole world. And in carrying out this aim the United States certainly is not going to permit, for a moment, any nation or group of nations to threaten its supremacy in countries under its domination. The canal itself is of tremendous military importance inasmuch as it affords a means whereby the Atlantic and Pacific fleets may merge for any concerted action necessary to main- | tain and extend the rule of Wall Street over the republics to the south. In a world war it would also be in-| valuable as an aid in -fascilitating heavy concentration of forces either! on the Atlantic or the Pacific. American imperialism and any sug- gestion of challenge to yankee dom- ination meets with determined resist- ance at Washington, Certainly at a time when the ravaging of Nicaragua by American marines assumes particularly repul- sive forms with the murder of nativés proceeding day after day in order to conquer more territory for a second canal the American banditti is not going to temporize with those who question its domination of its first canal. * * * is impossible at this moment to perceive, through the maze of intri- gues and the cabals of the league the real motives behind the declaration of Morales. It is doubtful if it is a deliberate provocation on the part of Chinese | This | systematic | Perpetual Slavery for Panama Wace a sm «ts former foreign minister of Panama as an aid in combating the influence of the United States upon smaller na- \tions that have raised embarassing questions regarding the domination }of the'league by the big European powers. ~*~ # * |. There is also the possibility that | Morales is playing the game of that section of the American imperialists who favor this country entering the league of nations in order to wrest domination from the big European nations and use it for its own inter- national brigandage. The question might purposely have been brought up so that supporters of the league in America can have their political marionettes raise the question in congress, and at least, revise the world court resolution so that the United | States can take it place in that body which furnishes the legal cloak for the international pillage that is carried out in the name of the league. In this connection it is amusing |to note the indignation of the so- {called liberal senator, William E. | Borah of Idaho, chairman of the sen- ate’ foreign relations committee, who joins Kellogg and Swanson in declar- ing that the question of Panama is a question for the United States only. Borah, who shared with Jim Reed of Missouri the leadership of the anti- world court forces is not astute enough to perceive the deeper cor- rents of international duplicity and, although his position as defender of the middle bourgeoisie impels him to | fight against European entanglements in general he is frequently found in the camp of the most outspoken im- perialists. * * * eeeiak there is, of course, the pos- sibility that Morales speaks for those small Panaman business in- terests who object to the establish- ment by the United States of com- mercial houses in the Canal Zone. It was this clause in the new treaty between the United States and Pana- ma that aroused the greatest an- tagonism when it was before the Panama congress for ratification. While the majority of native capital- ists of that nation are agents of yan- kee imperialism there are small petty | bourgeois groups who seek an in- dependent existence, which they are denied in case of monopoly of com- mercial business by the government | of the United States. Even granting business men could be utilized in the league by the Wall Street gang in order to reopen the question of the world court of the league of nations and insist that the defense of the “neutrality” of the canal necessitates | this country having Official repre- sentation on that tribunal. On the other hand British diplomacy may use such prejudices to endeavor to |weaken the influence of American imperialism and for its own specific ends, * * « AT there is no revolt on the part of the Panama_ government lagainst Wall Street and that it is still subservient to Wall Street was evidenced by the comments of the of- ficials of that government who de- clared they could not understand why for president of the United States in a resolution at the convention of the Illinois Federation of Labor now in | session at East St. Louis, Illinois. | There is little likelihood that the reso- | lution will be passed unless Thompson has been exceedingly generous with his money since his return to city hall. That a delegate should have the nerve to propose such a resolution at this convention gives us a good idea of the retrogressive development in the Illinois labor movement in the past six years. , oe * and corruption it is well to call attention to the sorry mess uncovered in the New Jersey State Federation of Labor, when a former treasurer of that body testified that the fed- | eration has been subsidized by open shop employers for several years. The grafting of the fakers was exposed when a suspicion began to grow that the treasurer was not splitting the swag equitably with his partners. In view of the sabotage of the Passaic strike by this gang and the almost unanimous hostility towards that struggle by the heads of the A. F. of L. it would not be a great strain on human credulity to assume that an investigation of the relations between labor fakers and employers in every state in the union would reveal a condition as bad or worse as the one that blew the lid off the New Jer- sey trade union manhole. In view of this revelation in New Jersey, it is not surprising that the reactionaries should fight tooth and nail against the efforts of the progressive ele- ments in the trade unions to organ- ize the workers. When the open shoppers think it worth while to pay one faker $100,000 for preventing the organization of the workers it can be seen that red-baiting is a remun- erative profession. Let us hope the explosion in New Jersey will be fol- lowed by similar explosions wherever the poison of corruption has infected the trade union movement. ———_—_—_—_——_—_——————— that the question of United States soverignty is {purely academic” and deals only with whether the “United States possesses rights of sovereignty over the canal zone or only such rights as it might exercise if it were really sovereign.” Such a stand is | to be-expected from a spokesman of a government that in the most venal and servile sense is the pliant tool of Wall Street despotism. It is only a short time ago that the armed forces of the United States rescued the Panaman government from the fury of its own population and that government remains in power today only by virtue of Wall Street support. Less than two years ago, in Oc- tober, 1925, armed forces commanded by Brigadier General C. H. Martin, under direct orders of General Las- siter, in command of the zone, let | loose upon the population of Panama City the most frightful terror in sup- pressing tenant demonstrations tend their funerals. stored by the gunmen of imperialism and the vassal government of Wall Street was secure. After two days of ruthlessness the only sound in the streets was the tramp of the iron heel and the muffled groans of the victims of the outrage. In spite of the twaddle of Kellogg and Swanson about the civiliing role of the United States the record in Panama is that of ravager of small nations. The way to fight American! ‘imperialism is not by futile appeals to the league of nations but by or- ‘ganization of the Latin American na- | tions into a powerful anti-imperialist \bloc as,an instrument for a direct fight against the marauders. This will not be done by the political tools of Wall Street but by the oppressed ers stormed the Palace of the League of Nations and the American hotels, the blood-baths in Leipzig and Halle, the hundreds of thousands of workers who demonstrated jin Berlin, Hamburg and other German towns, the enor- mous excitement in Moscow, Leningrad, Charkow and thruout the Soviet Union, the strike and protest move- ments in the United States, the general strike in Mex- ico, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, the mass dem- onstrations, often accompanied by bloodshed, ,in Lon- don, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Liege, Oporto, Stockholm, Basle, Copenhagen, the disturbances in Sid- ney and Japan, the burning of the American flag as a symbol ofuclass justice by the South African workers, the storming of the American Consulate in Casablanca (Morocco), the bloody mass demonstrations in the cities, of France, the street fights in Paris, all the protest dem- onstrations in thousands of towns in the world, where everywhere the class-conscious proletariat stood at the head, are a signal, a warning to the bourgeois class exe cutioners: No farther! HAT in many cities (London, Geneva, Halle, etc.) and: especially in Paris, the classical city of spontaneous. outbreaks of popular indignation, it came to bloody fight- ing, is the expression of the tremendous excitement of the toiling population of the whole world. And if the bitterness in Paris and in the whole of France marked the highest point of the wave of international indigna- tion, this is due to the energetic campaign which has been conducted for the past six years by the Communist Party of France for Sacco and Vanzetti, a campaign which made Sacco and Vanzetti brothers of every French worker and which at last swept along with it even the social democratic and Left bourgeois press. This indig- nation is due in some measure also to the increased class repression in the last few months against the French working class and its advance-guard, caused by the first attempts at rationalization and the increased prepara- tions for war. After the postponement of the execution on the 11th of August, the press and agitation campaign of the Com- munist Party of France set in with increased energy, while a considerable ebbing of the campaign was noticed in the social democratic and Left bourgeois press. The “Humanite” called upon the workers to-be ready for action; not to allow themselves to be lulled by the “hope of a pardon.” The revolutionary trade unions (C, G. T. U.) carried on an energetic agitation for the boy- cott of American goods and the sabotaging of the Con- gress of the American Legion. jpeke proposed to all proletarian organizations, includ- ing the reformist trade upion central and the Social- ist party of France, that a joint action be undertaken in the event of Sacco and Vanzetti being murdered. The “Populaire” and the “Peuple” (organ of the reformist C. G. T.) and its organizations, which were tremendously excited when, on the 8th of August, the C. G. T. U. or- ganized on its own account an imposing strike of the entire advance-guard of the French working class, were now given the opportunity of demonstrating their inter- ,, national solidarity. But they, the centrals, rejected the proposal! For how deep this campaign for saving Sacco and Vanzetti from the clutches of their class enemies, how deep the slogans of working masses, is proved by the great manifestations, the bloody street fights in the French towns; the will of the workers to continue the fight is proved by the measures which the social demo- cratic town councils were compelled to adopt:,they had to fly the flags on the town halls at half mast;. they had to refuse the subsidies for the official reception of the American Legion. In fact the Left bourgeois “Quot- idien” was compelled to adopt the slogan of the C. P. of France: “The festival is at an end!” (this refers to the festival to be held on the 9th of September in honor of the American Legion), it wrote on August 24th in its article. * “The festival is at an end,” but the fight still goes on in France, and must go on in the whole world in order to liberate all our cl; comrades. ~~ ada Eisele | (iF SEEMED HAZMLESS FoR AWHILE ~ 14 ‘ ? a WY; i : Panama is but f ti against high rents. Labor head- | ee ect interpreting the foreign news from the standpoint of| ma Canal from any source whatso- eke one of many nations | that Morales may speak for the small quarters were sacked, workers were , BY ‘%, Be the worker in the Soviet Union. | ever,” a sharing a common fate of victims of | capitalists of Panama the fact re- savagely butchered in the streets, the | rye) iN ; ee There are numerous “Corners” or “Departments” ap-| Swanson, one of the luminaries of ne most ruthless despotism .extant.| mains that his action can be used by/tenant leaders were jailed, the sup- ga Te tela hs ee y f + pearing regul. Here is a “Military Corner,” other the Wall Street republican-democrat | t has special significance inasmuch | the powers for their own ends. Cer-| pression even extended to the rela- ‘ Roe ie \ | sections given over to “Railroad Guards,” “Rifle Clubs” coalition in the senate, avoids stating | 9* abe position on the canal makes it/tainly the class. prejudices of a|tiyes of the victims who tried to at-| renee Se H or “Aviation Circ One two-line item records that the real motive for demanding the|2 Very Sensitive nerve center for| spokesman for the Panama small “Order” was re- Stas oh The workers in the Soviet Union subseribe for and read their publications. They also write for them. These are facts to be remembered, fied by Hugh Gibson at the Geneva naval conference that revealed in|tin Chamberlain and his associates dramatic form the antagonisms be-| will weleome the statement of the Ze Britain, but it is certain that Sir Aus-| Morales made such a plea to league) and bleeding masses of workers and members. The editor of the semi-| peasants who must rise against the official “Panama American” asserts | combined agencies of yankee tyranny. .