The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 22, 1927, Page 10

+. a ppeone to show who. § lish-is. He Page Ten Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Daily, Except Sunday $3 First Street, New York, N. a SUBSCRIPTION RATES _ , By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New os $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per years $3.50 six months 50 three months $2.00 three months “Address and mail and make out che t THE DAILY WORGER, 33 First Street, New York, N. ~ J. LOUIS ENGDAHL } WILLIAM F. DUNNE § BERT MILLER Phone, Orchard 1680 ddress: “Daiwork” Editors ..Business Manager at New York, N. ¥., red as se under s mail at the p the act of ond-' Trade Union Delegation To the Soviet Union The reactionary offensive has begun against the First Amer-} ican Trade Union Delegation to the Soviet Union, its report, and its recommendation that the Soviet Union be recognized by the} United States. : The New York Herald-Tribune has fired the first gun in what in all likelihood will develop into a barrage as the full signiti- cance of the report and the tremendous mass interest it is arous-| ing begins to be noticed and understood by the common enemies of the Soviet Union and the American working class. Silas B. Axtell, a lawyer who went to the Soviet Union with the delegation has, been chosen by the Herald-Tribune as the champion who is to rescue the fair but frail heroine, “Lady Amer- ican Democracy,” from the clutches of the ogre “Sovietism.” In his statement to the Herald-Tribune Axtell takes the op- portunity to state that Russia “was the most dismal and unhappy | place I ever was in and I hope that the kind of government they are endeavoring to build will be confined to Russian territor forever.” For workers. especially those who have had experience with the average member of the legal profession, it certainly will not seem a devastating indictment of the Soviet Union that for a lawyer it is a “most dismal and unhappy place.” An attorney who gets a fat fee from Andy Furuseth’s Sea- men’s Union occasionally, Axtell probably was astounded and alarmed to discover that the Marine Transport Workers’ Union in the Soviet Union does not have to employ lawyers since the government is THEIR government and owns the entire transport industry. As quoted by the Herald-Tribune, Axtell’s statements are not very impressive. Even armored and weaponed for the fray as he is, the Herald-Tribune champion seems by no means to tip the scales as a heavyweight should. We do not know what charger he will choose for the combat but if his stature can be measured by his statements a Shetland pony would carry him with ease. The important fact is not what Axtell says but that he says it at a time when the movement for recognition of the Sovie Union has reached a big impetus from the report of the trade union delegation, and the American working class is showing signs of realizing the need for defense of the Soviet Union against imperialist aggression. We can expect the batteries of reactionary A. F. of L. of- ficialdom to begin to thunder soon. But from all indications they will be silenced this time by the growing sympathy for the Soviet Union among all sections of the American working class. The Herald-Tribune and its champion will be answered by the American workers and farmers and altho it is considered rather low to strike a woman, Lady American Democracy is going to get some hard jolts when she gets in the way of the mass movement which is rolling up as the knowledge of the mighty role of the Soviet Union spreads in the ranks of the workers. Polish Fascism Bars British Miners’ Leader The refusal of the Pilsudski government to allow A. J. Cook, secretary of the British Miners Federation, to enter Poland to at- ténd the International Miners Congress, is a sign that British im-| perialist influence is still strong in the Polish fascist government. Britain’s imperialist rulers hate Cook as the one outstanding trade union official who did not join in the betrayal of the gen- eral strike and the miners’ strike. They do not wish his fiery speeches to be heard in international congresses of trade union- ists and especia'ly not in a miners’ congress. The refusal of a visa to Cook also is an intimation that Polish fascism, bolstered up by the recent loan of $72,000,000, floated principally in the United States, is preparing a new onslaught on the working class, the peasantry and national minorities, and does not want any keen and militant workers’ representatives from another country, and especially from Great Britain, to wit- ness its brutal acts. The absence of Cook and W. P. Richardson, his fellow-dele- gate who refused to go if Cook was barred, will make it impos- sible to hold a session of the Miners’ Congress. This is probably what the British capitalists and their Polish allies were really aiming to accomplish. Only the treachery and cowardice of the reformist leaders of the socialist parties of Europe and of the International Federa- tion of Trade Unions (Amsterdam) make such discrimination against workers’ representatives possible. High on the list of these agents of capitalists are the official leaders of the British labor movement who hate Cook and all he represents more bit- terly than do the imperialists. Letters From Our Readers Editor, The DAILY WORKER: In a recent issue of The DAILY WORKER, there appears a news item is a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen and not only is he an arch-reactionary union member, but from W. Virginia, signed by one,|at the time when the student body Murphy, under head, “Speaker Says|of Brookwood had a meeting to send Brookwood Teaches Goose Step.”|a delegate to the proposed Student Then the last paragraph reveals that | delegation of the League of Indus- a student by the name of English/trial Democracy to Soviet Russia, made a speech saying that one may|English was one of those that was come out of Brookwood anything but | opposed to sending a delegate and a progressive union man. also stated as long as affairs in Rus- Tho a student from Brookwood I/sia continue as they do now, he will am not interested in shielding Brook- always be against it. wood, but I do want to point out the| At the close I wish to say that the inconsistency of that assertion. jeditors of the DAILY WORKER English was a class-mate of mine|should'be more careful before publish- at Brookwood, and therefgre I know|ing such “news.” him well. I will only cite \ few illus-| For a better trade union movement, ye A i be THE DAILY WORKER IN pitas The Reactionary Barrage Begins Against the First American THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1927 « [CIE SEL Mri athe Ue PEM Ate _—By Fred Ellis “Give me liberty or give me death!” —- & y ALEX JACKINSON efelded cver knickers. His shirt is| | BOSTON like an old man trying to fer a at the neck. His sharp, | look young by dressing loudly. On clean cut features are visible behind = if re eee | his dirty face. i stand tall, | Every few minutes he gulps down buildings, towering over narrow. side- a lamp of saliva and cries in shrill Here shop windows are richly | voice “Boston Herald . .. Post . . . One sees behind the pol-| 7vening papers!” as he walks} Frankie is experienced in the ways jof commerce. When a eems to be in a hur him a ollar bill, short-changes him.) of perfume, fashionable fur coats,} the correct change, then allow a coin hand carved pieces of bric-a-brac, and|to remain between his fingers as he tatues encased in luxurious|hands it over. After each success he places the “easy” money in a ser jarate pocket and grins. aze into Frankie seldom smiles, he just with ajgrins. It’s less complicated. His Satisti bits instill|face is animated by a grouch. bd ot : ae ; coo | never seems to leave him. He is nurs- jthem with a fac pride. They BeC ling a> grudge gpainst’ society,” for in it symbols of WEALTH! SU-| Frankie is becoming conscious of | PREMACY! The things Boston is an | many tl He doesn’t tell anybody animated example of. But elsewhere | but its Sacco and Vanzetti he’s un- one cannot escape an odor of decay | consciously mourning for. They were which bites into your nostrils. The | his friends, tho Frankie never saw . is old. In parts it fairly stag- them. They are a legend, a heritage gers under the weight of its senility.|'¢ lim. Something they left over he Common is a park, lying in the | 1ves His mind. Frankie doesn’t heart of the city. In the center stands know what it is yet, but he will learn a stone monument from which free|*°0"- He sees it thru a mist, but concerts are dispensed in the summer- | 8°° he will see clearly. a Frankie is of the young, Boston time. The heavy roof rests on twelve : 2 ae large pillars, around them, placed in belongs to the old. He will never a. Grele: are clongennupainted part forget Sacco and Vanzetti. He can’t. } Boston benches. Here the unemployed read Re ae . ‘ ee thru the want “ads” each morning. KS Picture of crowds. Crowds Some of the loungers are down and|P*° eting the State House. Powe Bs Anis ers-by for a| Moving in the streets rotate in his "Aristocratie Bostonians only | ™d. That was a Ep iege, Ptankic j ‘ ‘And, it | ‘%88 there too selling papers. He re- STOR ah eee MeO ANG Di The fe- members the crowds and the head- pital 92 shisticated. They| limes “Sacec and Vanzetti to get re- vale Sees ances tha ley alee pricver “Sacco and Vanzetti in death are burdened with the upkeep of the ease then (Bacco and, Vanzetti ey ern ea Tt was a fight, and the spirit of it : West of the park runs Beacon gripped Frankiey Now he wonders Street. The State House, a long, saul Sacco: and Vanzetti gre FOR ROC} per Sd bididingwith fa etl sa He thinks they are, and it hurts edged dome, visible for blocks faces} ; ; this street. The surrounding vicinity| Frankie lives on Corning Street, in is the residential quarters of the elite. |@ house facing the roof of a garage The sidewalks on which the variously |@"4 @ streteh of railroad tracks. shaped dwellings stand are red|Thcre are entire blocks of such build- pricked and clean to a fault. The|im@s. Clay flower pots rest on win- houses, all different in architecture, |©¢W sills and almost every house has stand with their spotless exterior, |, “Furnished Room” sign hung out. their curtained windows and iron|The rooms are old, dingy, ill smell- jing. One toilet and one bath serve the lust which killed Sacco and|Six or seven families. A putrescent etti, Shady elm trees line the | dor is in the air. The shutters are | |eurbstones, which are covered hy {Painted green. ! golden leaves, brought down by the| In these rooms men walk about in| |}eutumn winds. their underwear, smoke corn cob| | Eastward, the Common is bounded] Vipes, and allow their ashes to fall |by Tremont Street... . An adoles-|'mmolested to the floor. At times cent Broadw: yearning for maturity.|they also worry about paying the Or this street, more than on any |rent. cther, promenade THE CHOSEN.| Here children urinate in gutters, | Continuous streams of them. gush up|*nd babies cry lustily. Here too and down the sidewalks. Traffic is|buxom housewives cook in a single ways at ful! tide here. Electric}porcelain pot, and raise large fam- | signs, jutting over roof tops guide|ilies. Boston denies the existence of |them onward. Women, whose pow-|these streets, but they are there, | | | selected streets walks. decorated. w panes ys of irri dazzling bits of jewel escently col. Well-dressed pedestrian lows and wal! eeling. | out bum d-ou use this park for short ew door-knockers as a constant reminder of |dered faces would crack should they |many of them, and the tragedy of it dare smile, whizz by. Men shift their|is that these very inhabitants brag eyes. They survey their swaying|With greater gusto of Anglo-Saxon buttocks and tell their wives they ad-|Superiority; and all the viciousness wire their hats. Frauds, all of them, | that it embodies. these biological imitations of people.}| Frankie comes to these streets each Tt is too bad that something violent|right. He walks home thru the sec- doesn’t happen to disturb their calm!tion where the other half live. One poise, their assurance of security,| avenue divides them. He is conscious their spectacular equilibrium, of the contrast. Before it was merely On a busy corner of this street|a difference. Today it is a challenge. stands Frankie. Frankie is a news-| Frankie’s mcther is janitress of the boy. A large bundle of papers are}house they live in. Her body is mis- lying on the ground directly under] shapen after bearing six children, Two his feet, Another bunch is in his} were miscarriages. She is prematurely } hand. He holds several others for}old, and speaks with an Irish accent, ready distribution. He is a young} Ais father is an emaciated man of kid. His fingers are long and al-|sixty. When he was able to work he ready tobacco-stained. His feet are|was a window cleaner. A married Herman Gordon, |covered by cheap golf stockings sister gecupies one of the three rooms |on a hard cot in the kit Sie § A Boston Commoner’ who {of time, syml A Visit to Metropolitan Museum By DIEGO RIVERA. (Diego Rivera a leading figure in Communist P. y On the other hand, all this con- trasted with the strong plastic beau- skyscrapers. This was to me the city on his tend the 10th anniver: shevik Revolution. e the following view: | museum to} WORKER reporter.—Ed.) | Se Bee: My brief visit to the Metropolitan eum proved very depressing to| me. Out of the strange profusion of} world masterpieces and colossal ex-j} rliness and bad taste side} , grev vivid picture of the} role that America is playing in the| world today. | | The Metropolitan Museum, which has drawn to it the greater part of the! greatest art treasures of the vario! lands of the earth in a short period! d to me the present} world domination of the United States. Countries that have created! great art cannot retain it in the face: of the all-absorbing, all-consumi power of American millions. Million- i who know nothing of art except ef things because they are high| The Armed Peasant—by Diego Rivera priced—who do not even know the| elumentary fact that. great art loses| symbol of the power of labor to con- its force when torn out of the envir-|struct a new world far above the con- onment in which it was created and|ventional “art appreciation” of the out of which it grew—reach out like | money kings. Unlike that it is not the tentacles of a gigantic octopus to} parasitic but creative. It does not all corners of the earth and clean|rob from the rest of the world but them of all the precious treasures of| builds for the world to possess. It centuries, to hang them next to things| will not be long before it gives the as ugly as “Washington Crossing the ; world a plastic beauty that is pow- Delaware.” erful and new. wands preted fsa El Sete Mexican Festival —By Diego Rivera. her husband. children go to school. The other two He reads of the shows imported from New York and tells his mother about them at supper, when he be- comes eloquent. : She cuts him short... . “Stop your babblin, Frankie, ’tis not for the likes of us that these things are made.” Frankie doesn’t answer her. In the streets he watches the tailored mannequins pass by him and he smiles. He knows it won’t last long—this division. The laugh is on them, They think it will. His smile turns to a bitter sneer, as he cries “Boston Herald ... Post... Evening papers” .... In his soliloquies he takes more freedom and jeers at his customers, A little past midnight he takes back whatever papers he couldn’t sell to a Jewish newsstand keeper who employs him. There Frankie selects the Daily Worker for “Ed” which he isn’t allowed to sell on the streets. He folds it under his arm and slinks dott. Since he began earning money, Frankie was given a cot all to him- self. At night his thoughts wander thru illusory regions. He used to dream of becoming a circus proprie- tor, but Sacco and Vanzetti made him realize that the poverty into which he was sucked has no such easy ex- its, Each evening Frankie brings home & newspaper. He reads what he can understand in it, admires the car- toons and gives it to “Ed,” his big brother-in-law. “Ed” is a plumber, and a class conscious worker. Frankie gets this paper for him. Together they talk about the class struggle which “Ed” explains to him. The kid lives with a bitterness gnawing at his heart. He sells papers amidst wealth and lives in poverty. Around him he sees theatre displays, dresses, nice furniture, and he a} ty that is developing in the city of | Current Events By T. J. O'Flaherty ° NE of the most important events |“ of last week was the opening of |The New Playwrights Theatre on Commerce Street with “The Belt” by Paul Sifton as its first production. | Commerce Street is situated on. the | western proletarian frontier of Green- wich Village and “The Belt” is a pro- | letarian play. St. Luke’s Place, where | Jimmy Welker makes his home is in the immediate vicinity and a certain | philanthropist whose first. name. is | Denny quenckes the thirsts of truek- drivers, longshoremen and motor- cy¢le policemen at a corner not far gistant. Indeed, unless the cast of | “The Belt” are as different from other |members of the profession as “The Belt” is from “Getting Gertie’s Gar- | ter,” Denny might do worse than pass seme of his business cards out among the thespians. His. services might contribute to the gayety of the act- | ing. * * * i i} | | A PROLETARIAN critic . of the drama in collaboration with other amateurs is laboring over a serious review of this play, but in the mean- | time this oppertunity is seized upon to let those who have not already | been informed of The New Play- | wright’s Theatre and its mission that \a visit to 40 Commerce Street is ‘worth |while. There are no electric lights \ over the entrance but there is a large red flag which is just as compelling. ‘Tt was rather interesting to watch | Otto Kahn, banker, philanthropist and | patron of the arts entering the thea- tre on cpening night with the sym- bol of his future doom (as a capital- ist) waving over his head. * * * if was still more interesting to watch the reaction of the workingclass |andience that attended some of the dress rehearsals. Perhaps if mem- |bers of the audience were asked to write a criticism of the play that {would pass the blue pencil of a pro- \fessional dramatic critic, the num- ber that would pass such a test would he very small. Yet whenever the author in his attempt to give a graphic lecture on class-collaboratien d the killing effect of the speed-up system stumbled in the wrong direc- tion the audience stiffened like so many English butlers at an afternoon teayc. = * * * PUNNING into an avowed labor jas play in a legitimate theatre is as | weleome an experience as finding a | pearl in a cafeteria oyster... No mat- | ter how week and stumbling a labor play may be ‘ts worker-patrons will | treat it kindly as long as it has good intentions. They will take the same , attitude tewar it that our sup- |vorters take towards The* DAILY | WORKER. Technically poor com- pared te the bourgeois papers the | workers feel that it is their own and > | that it is only as immature as the |labor movement which — it repre- sents. The theatre that aims to serve {the best interests of the workingclass will be given similar support, and whatever criticism it may~ receive, will be helpful, friendly and construc- tive. We hope the day is not far dis- tant when the left wing of the labor movement will make it possible for a real proletarian theatre to survive without the aid of outside “angels.” * * * WESTERDAY’S newspapers carried | the news that John D. Rockefeller, |Tr., had donated $250,000 to the Bap- tist Church Extepsion’ Society of Brooklyn and Queens. The same news- papers tell us of the strike of the | Rockefeller exploited workers of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. John’s slaves are demanding more of the fruits of their labor but John D., Jr. fears that if he gives enough money to his employes to enable jthem to live somewhat decently, |there will not be enough left to save the souls of the Baptists. Perhaps the Baptists will agree to say prayers for the souls of the strikers who may he killed by John D.’s gunmen. * * * | MILAS B. AXTELL, attorney for th. Seamen’s Union, who accompani the Trade Union Delegation ta ‘th | Soviet Union expresses disagreement jwith the favorable report made by jthe majority of the delegates. Mr. | Axtell says that there is no freedom. of speech in Russia. The first tim |T heard of Mr, Axtell was in 192) | when I was secretary of the Jame | Larkin Defense Committee. An ac! |ine-secretary of the Marine Firemen,! | Oilers’ and Watertenders’ Union spoke |at one of our meetings pnd on the following day he received a letter | from Mr. Axtell with a clipping from |one of the papers that mentioned his ;uame in connection with the meeting. Mr. Axtell conveyed a gentle hint to the acting-secretary of his client union that his standing as a respec- table trade union ‘functionary might be impaired by continued association with the defense committee of a Communist. The — acting-secretary took the hint. It appears that Mr. Axtell is still in the active service” of the red-baiters, z * * * THE little real estate deal between the pope and the Fascist Party is ff for the time being. The mystic bark of Peter's suce » ; float at the Tiber’s years to come, x tionary organizations can terms,