The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 17, 1927, Page 6

(Keak Ge Katy, Torhen “e THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1927 THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Ci Ad Phone, Orchard 1680 “Daiwork SUBSCRIPTION RATES _ : By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New RGuahs $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per years _ $3.50 six months .50 three months $2.00 three months make out checks to Address THE DAILY WOR J. LOUIS \ WILLIAM F. DUNNE The 7-Hour Day. in the Sovict Union--A Mighty Blow Capitalism es of the Soviet Union! at World the m. A 7-hour wot f This is the gift of t to the Russian workers- Tenth Annive This r worker, no 1 The nd to the world’s working class on its t achievement is something that every it tongue he speaks, can understand. in the Soviet Union is not handed to the overnment of another class. It is the living em- ctory of the Russian masses, led by the Communist > of the Soviet Union, over their class enemies. It signifies 11 gress of the struggle against imperialism, nst disease, against the devastation of war the huge handicap of industrial backward- ness which was the legacy left by czardom. Contrast the v ig hours of American toilers with the new work-day in the Soviet Union: i The majority of the American working class has not yet won the 8-hour day. In many industries such as iron and steel and lumber, from 27 per cent to 75 per cent of the workers have a day of 10 hours or longer. According to the figures submitted by the executive council of the A. F. of L. to the Los Angeles convention, 23 per cent of the workers in slaughtering and meat packing toil more than eight hours per day; in machine shops 49 per cent work more than eight hours; in foundries more than 53.6 per cent work more than eight hours; in the automobile industry 62.6 per cent work more than eight hours; in cotton textiles 58.2 per cent work more than eight hours. The officialdom of the American Federation of Labor is mak- ing a great fuss about the 5-day, 40-hour week but even by its the succe against f. and invas exaggerated estimate it is able to claim this working period for | only 90,000 workers. To the capitalist class of Great Britain and continental Europe the announcement of the 7-hour day in the Soviet Union will sound like the roar of a barrage from ten million cannon manned by proletarians. Just at the time when the capitalist governments of all Euro- pean countries are striking at the unions in order to weaken the working class front so that the burden of the world war and the re-building of capitalist industry can be put upon the masses, just when the standard of living of the working class is being forced down so that interest can be paid on the billions loaned by Wall Street, there flashes across the sky the news of the great advances made by the most powerful enemy of world capi- talism. The national industrial economy of a country covering one- sixth of the earth’s surface is to be placed on a 7-hour work day basis for the masses. To world capitalism this will be a blow but little less damag- ing than the Russian Revolution itself. The Soviet Union has taken the offensive. It strikes with the mighty weapon of socialization and proletarian state power at a point where world capitalism and its agents in the ranks of the working cl can make no defense. 4 4 Labor Officialdom Leaves Mooney and Billings in Prison Without Protest No pardon for Mooney and Billings was demanded by the A. F. of L. convention. Some reporters so interpreted the action of the delegates in referring this question to the executive council but the reverse is true. Tom Mooney, Warren K. Billings and thousands of American workers had hoped that when the American Federation of Labor met in Los Angeles it would speak out for the pardon of these two imprisoned workers whom the bosses have been torturing for 11 years. Failing a pardon, many workers were of the opinion that the convention would authorize a nationwide Mooney-Billings free- dom drive. Hopes have been shattered against the solid front of reaction at the Los Angeles convention. What actually occurred was this: Fearing that the class appeal of this historic case will bring into being a mass movement which the A. F. of L. officialdom cannot control, the whole matter placed in the hands of the exec- utive council and affiliated unions pledged to take no action except that sponsored by the official leadership. This leadership will do nothing. If it intended to fight for Mooney and Billings, Los Angeles was the place and the eleven days of the recent convention the time. The class issue of the Mooney case and the mass movement that can be built around it are two things that A. F. of L. official- dom fears and hates. It would interfere with their efficiency unionism and class peace schemes. They saw 1,500 worker delegates assemble in Chicago in 1919 to organize a political struggle to free Mooney‘ and Billings. They will do all in their power to see that it does not happen again— even to the extent of letting these two militant union men die in prison, The Los Angeles convention betrayed Mooney and Billings i prepared to sabotage any movement that fights this betrayal. Every worker in the United States must be made familiar with these facts-—-and their sinister meaning for the labor movement. ; A mass movement to free Mooney and Billings will be or- ganized in spite of the cowardice and reaction of labor officialdom. It is more than probable that this will be the next channel thru which the struggle against the frame-up will express itself. A. F. of L. officialdom will not be able to stop it. SOLICITING THE BRIBE | says President Coolidge. By Fred Ellis Men of great wealth are public benefactors who share with the “common people” by donating to art, education and religion, > & | At the Scotch Annual Conference held May 7, 1927 in Alloa, the chair- ments in his opening speech concern- jing relations between co-operatives and trade unions. “The pathetic spectacle that the trade unionists evidently singled out for attack their own co;operatives in connection with the 1926 general strike, must have been highly amusing for the other side. To spike one’s own guns at the beginning of an attack is certainly a surprising but hardly a clever method to conduct a wage | struggle. There must be full under- man, Downie, used interesting argu- SCOTCH NATIONAL CO-OPERATIVE CONFERENCE standing between trade unions and co- operatives.” The centre of the conference dis- cussions was the agreement between the . Co-operative and the Labor Party. The chairman of the Co-opera- tive Party, Barnes, who started the discussion gave the same motivization for the agreement as at the congress in Cheltenham. The agreement was endorsed by 252 votes against 38. A resolution against the anti-Trade Union Bill and for the participation of co-operatives in the protest cam- |paign_ was adopted unanimously. WOMEN | | Left, Mildred By ELLA ZELNIK. I appeal to all the Women Councils and especially to the baker-women. Dear sisters, I am sure that you all know that through the summer months the most important work of the women councils are weakened. I appeal to all you, in the name of the bakery workers, to carry on the campaign for the union label. Our duty must be to demand from our dealers bread with the union label, be- cause this can give the union workers steady work. We go into a grocery or a dairy store and find more bread without the union label than with them. And this is the cause of a baker making two or three days work a week, from which anyone can draw a conclusion of what he can earn. It is hunger life! Only this is the fault of all the fellow-workers, who do not care what kind of bread they buy. Ask For Label. Many of our working men who eat in restaurants, have never asked what kind of bread is given them to eat. The same is happening in the Gro- cery Clerks’ Union, where the workers are carrying on a battle with the Losses, who keep scabs. ‘And the “For- ward” with the “Jewish Geverkschaf- ten” support the union-breakers. The Grocery Clerks’ Union is now carrying on a strike at 521 East 137th St., Bronx. Many of the workers are ruptured from standing all day on their feet and working long hours, and their work is very hard. They are exploited very much by the besses. ’ Doran, who perished on the Golden Eagle, an insuf- ficiently equipped Hearst plane, racing to Hawaii for the prestige of Hearst publications. Right, Ruth Elder, woman flier who made more adequate preparations, and broke the record for flying over water. Working Class Women, Join the Women’s Councils! Two Women Fliers—One Luckier Than the Other see These men must be able to speak English well, do arithmetic, read well and be able to speak, to a customer and for the paltry wage they get, they must be well and cleanly dressed. Your Son May Be A Clerk. We mothers, do not know, are not sure, whether our own sons will be grocery clerks some day. Therefore, T say it is our duty to help the Gro- eery Clerks’ Union in their present Class Women are picketing the above- mentioned grocery. A conference was held also for this strike on September 19,1927 of all the United Women Councils of the Bronx. There it was resolved that all the women councils of the Bronx should begin to take an active part in this strike and help the grocery clerks win .this struggle. For this reason many open air meetings are held everyday, the store is picketed every- day and arrests are made everyday. The United Councils of Working Class Women of the Bronx will stand with the Grocery Clerks’ Union until vie- tory is gained. isted fifteen years and will exist long- er to win the'struggles of the grocery clerks in this capitaiistic system. We, the U. C. W. W. appeal to the the women councils in the picketing. You can also join the United Coun- cils of Working Class Women at one of its councils which meets every Fri- day at 1570 Webster Ave., Bronx, at 8 o'clock in the evening. FARMERS “WHEN VIRTUE WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (FP). — Why should the American farmer sink er into every improvement methods? That question is posed by the Wash- ington Daily News, of the Scripps- Howard chain of papers. It offers no social remedy. 5 “The American farmer's efficiency,” its editorial says, “has increased 25 per cent during the last 15 years, the agricultural department announces. That means that each agricultural worker is producing one-fourth more food for the nation than he produced in 1912. “Ever since 1850 farm efficiency in the United States has been increasing steadily. In 1850 each farm worker cultivated an average of only about 11 acres of crops.. Today each worker cultivates an average of about 20 acres. in agricultural economic misery with| REAPS MISERY” number of persons engaged in agri- culture has increased 75 per cent and the total production in crops has in- creased 128 per cent. “Even the Wall Street Journal ad- mits, ‘When it is recalled agriculture’s gain in individual productivity has been largely concentrated in the past few years, it is evident the present vate of progress in agriculture is not far behind industry, if, indeed, it does not surpass it’. “But what has this efficiency got- ten the farmer? For growing two cot- ton shirts where he might be growing only one, for filling the nation’s gran- aries to overflowing, for loading the railroad tracks each year to the groan- ing point with fresh vegetables and luscious fruits—for all this his reward has been what amounts to bankruptcy. “Surely when virtue thus reaps only misery there must be something in the scheme of things that is sadly “In the half-century since 1875 the awry.” Letters F: vom A Case of Hydrophobia. Editor, The DAILY WORKER: I noted with an inward laugh, your allusion to my letter of about a month ago, in regards to my likes and dis- likes towards your sort. I also saw that you did not have the nerve to print my letter in full, and let some strike. Many of our United Working’ The Grocery Clerks’ Union has ex: | wives of the grocery clerks to help] of your readers see what an American thinks about them. I am very much flattered that you considered my letter of such value as to include a note of it in your column, Events of the day, although the name signed at the top of that column, be- ing apparently Irish, although I doubt that its owner can claim that na- tionality, makes me ashamed of the Irish that flows in me, inasmuch, a& one of my race would consort with-a) bunch of Russian mongrels. - You mistook my meaning in one part of my letter, whereas you an- nounced that the Marines were in Central America by the consent of the natives, I stated they were there by the consent of the natives (exclud- ing anarchists) of this country. I thank you for your ¢riticism of the grammatical and other errors in my letter, and also for your remark in regards to my being one of an ultra-patriotie species. My creed is that the government should make a grand cleanup of this country, and deport every alien who had been here five rs or more twithout becomi a mo. ‘Then every alien ‘who enters the U. S. should be required to declare his in- tentions become a citizen within and he s be put un- der direct police supervision until this had been accomplished. He should be furnished with an identification card which he should be required to present to the police authorities of every city |town or hamlet’ that he visited in those three years. t —Joseph Payne, Jr., Somerset, Colo. 1 a Owing tothe close watch kept on The DAILY WORKER by federal sleuths we deleted several paragraphs from this letter that would probably be held in violation of the post office Mencken On Sacco-Vanzetti. Editor, The DAILY WORKER: H. L. Mencken has again written on the delicate subject of Sacco and Vanzetti, a subject to be handled with especial care by those who would write for the New York World. In this second profound series of ob- servations, it is the subject of “radi- calism” and radicals which draws the ire of the learned sage of Baltimore, that deep student of economic theory and philosophy who expresses himself with the usual heavy-handed freedom of literary playboys on “the dull non- sense of Karl Marx.” Our friend does not deign to attack any single theory or doctrine for be- lief in which Sacco and Vanzetti were murdered with bloody savagery and refined perfection of torture. Not a single principle comes under the delicate probe of the scornful pudgy finger of this smug intellectual, the critic extraordinary of the American scene, and of all follies and foibles peculiarly American, Radicals are radicals, he says, be- cause they have lost their religion and seek in economic convictions a new belief. Radicals are radicals be- cause they are soft-headed, soft- hearted children who cannot compre- hend the realties of existence. They would have a world with “everybody as happy as the boy who killed his father,”—a | most interesting, sug- It may surprise some simile. to learn that their aim is the “salvation of the capitalist,” not his “butchery,” Mencken scoffs at the suggestion that Pennsylvania steel workers dur- ing the time of the twelve-hour day were unhappy. He personally has seen, and can testify to their drunken- ness and their happiness. The article ends with a wearily gentle and bored plea for free speech and freedom from danger of electro- eution for radicals. In the brief mention of Sacco and Vanzetti which begins this peace, they are accused of having been “heavy readers like all other radicals.” A little heavy reading on radical theories and movements is suggested regulations which prohibit the sending| for this noted critic.—Je - of ‘obscene matter thru the mails.—Hd. man, New ‘York City. | ee ee Current Events | By T. J. @ Flaherty F all capitalists in the United States followed the example of Owen D. Young, grand mogul of the Genere! Electric Company, in favoring a high standard of living—at least in prin- ciple—for American workers there would not be, any need for a William Green, provided Mr. Green needs an excuse. Mr. Young is one of the gentlemen who shackled the Dawes Plan on Germany, under which the German capitalists are compelled to pay reparations to the former allied powers at the expense of the stan- dard of living of the German work- ers. Being a patriot, Mr. Young would starve the workers of other countries but likes to see his proletarian com- patriots adequately fed. At ieast this is what we are asked to believe. * * * ig a recent speech delivered by Mr. Young, he declared that national prosperity and high wages go hand in hand. So pleased was Mr. Green with Mr. Young’s remarks that he read them into the minutes of the conven- tion. Mr. Young believes in a “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.” So does Mr. Green. Capital and labor are getting together with a vengeance. Of course labor is still on the short end of things: But no doubt a few more conventions, a few more anti- strike injunctions, a few more major offensives against the radicals, a few more wars on colonial peoples and perhaps one more big war with a power “worthy of our steel” and the rest of the capitalists will see things just as Mr, Young does. We now rise to place in nomination as honorary president of the A. F. of L., the hon- orable Mr. Young of the General Electric Company. * # * SWALD GARRISON VILLARD has an article in the current issue of “The Nation” on the presidential pos- sibility, Charles Evans Hughes. Mr. Hughes is one of the disappointments that are eternally dying in the liberal breast. Mr. Hughes at one time com- manded the admiration of Mr, Villard and others, even as Woodrow Wilson. When Hughes chased the insurance thieves from their lairs out into the sunlight, (but only to make them richer and more respectable) Villard lent him his powerful aid as owner and editor of “The Evening Post.” But alas, the G, O. P. fooled Villard. Thru the medium of the genial Wil- liam Howard Taft, the former gov- ernor of the Empire State was jacked on the supreme court bench there to petrify into a conventional conserva- tive. * * © RUT tough tho it was on Mr. Villard, it was tougher on.Mr. Hughes. Listen to his erstwhile admirer. “But few can measure adequately the blsw that it must have been to the pride of this ‘extremely proud man to know the true character of the cabinet at the head of which he sat at the right hand of the president.” Let us all retire to our respective wash rooms and shed our tears liberally for poor betrayed bewiskered Charlie, another “| victim of the “Ohio gang.” Fortun- ately, Charlie was not completely ruined, for according to Mr. Villard he neither drank nor played cards with them. There is still hope for Mr. Hughes. A clean shave and a soft collar might even yet redeem him. Villard is willing and waiting. * * * 'HE workers of the Soviet Union have no big-hearted Mr. Young to talk about higher wages and fewer working hours. They do the thinking and talking themselves about hours and wages. Thru the action of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union they are handing themselves a tenth year an- niversary gift of a seven-hour day. Hundreds of new schools and many new sanitariums are to be built dur- ing the coming year, unpaid taxes are to be wiped off the books and the number of peasants to be exempted from taxation is to be increased. Those enemies of the Soviet Union whe have held that the workers gained nothing from the revolution are in- fe vited to digest this information. * 2 & f SSRS. FALL and SINCLAIR go on trial today for conspiracy to de- fraud the government of its. of] sup- ply. While the trial is on, John D. Rockefeller will play, golf in /Florida and congratulate himself on being an honest man. Had Fall turned over the department of the interior/ to the Rockefellers instead of to Sin¢lair and Doheny” he might now be honorary chairman of the Y. M. C. A\ instead of a defendant before the bar. * . . OW that Calles has succeeded in crushing the counter-revolution, the New York World is ready to forgive him for the drastic methods he used. But he should be careful not te run into another revolt. There is a limit even to the patience of Mr. Pulitzer’s. sheet. Ask Heywood Broun. * * « RTHUR BRISBANE has made a remarkable discovery. “When one Frenchman dies,” he observes, “there is always another to take his place.” But when one French government con- tvacti a debt there is not another French government ready or willing to pay it. . e, * * ’ ones OBREGON stands a good chance of being the next president of Mexico, ; i | |