The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 27, 1927, Page 6

— slits — a t Aet ot et Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. le A Phone, Orchard 1680 dress: "Daiwork SCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside « $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per years $2.50 three months $2.00 three mont> : | make eut checks to Street, New York, N. Y- and mail and J. LOUI WILLIAM F. DU BERT MILLER. Entered as se . Editors ..Business Manager New York, N. ¥., ander The Situation in Colorado The most important development in the Colorado coal strike| is the fact that the Aguilar local union of the U d Mine W rk- ers with some 400 members has joined the ranks of the strikers. It is evident from the reports, both to The DAILY WORKER and the Colorado press, that the United Mine Worker officials found it impossible to prevent this action. The Denver Post for Oct. 20 say: ; ’ a “That the I. W. W. might win over the United Mine Workers membership at Aguilar, despite the efforts of F. J. Hayes and | Felix Pogliani, was indicated. . .. Members of the union com-| mittee announced afterwards they would recommend that the} union join in the demands of the I. W. W.” This is proof that the strike has real mass character and is| based firmly in the exploitation and oppression in the Colorado | coal fields. : ; It is further evidence that membership of the United Mine Workers, tho small in Colorado, is by no means entirely domi- mated by official reaction. As far as our information goes, the I. W. W. is not making an attempt to split the United Mine} ‘Workers in that state but is concentrating on unorganiz ed ter- SE “LAST LEGS” THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1927 Lawyer Axtell says that the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics “may drag along for fifty or a hundred years in an isolated state, but it will never get anywhere.” © ‘ritory while at the same time trying to bring out the U. M. W.| of A. membership in support of the strike. | The whole situation is proof of the correctness of Com-| munist and left wing position—that great numbers of unorganized | workers can be mobilized for struggle for better wages, improved \working conditions, abolition of company unionism, the SPY, | \blacklist and gunman system characteristic of basic industry in VI. ithe United States. Unorganized workers will respond to honest} The Excrementa of militant leadership. Czardom. The failure of the United Mine Workers’ officials to organize} ‘these workers over a period of some thirteen years can be ac- counted for only by their timid and reactionary policy and the fact that the miners have no confidence in such leadership. | The miners can see but little difference between the type of | unionism now preached by U. M. W. A. officialdom and the com-! t r pany unionism of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. } 2 the unwholesome oe ee a The uprising of the miners has driven the Rockefeller- yar nel wira forces are political ai owned state officialdom frantic. It is clear from the stories in| “’y,4 cannot understand a plant ex- the Colorado press that continual conferences are being held by} cept you kmow the soil and climate (Continued from Last Issue.) HE reader will say: “You promised a book on present-day literature, which make present-day liter- the coal company and state officials to decide upon a plan of ac-|in which it has grown; and if present- | tion |day American art is poisoned with ‘ pe \ pessimism, and if t of our leadin; The Denver Post for Oct. 20 says coal company officials con-! Scare os ee aye oan nie template “a formal demand on the state of Colorado for troops) selves to death, the reason is be- to break up the I. W. W. picketing and intimidation, or an er (cane they live in a world from which fort to bring in strikebreakers.” |truth-telling and heroism have been § * * |banished by official decree, and there The chances are that both lines of action will be taken—|;. nothing left but to jeer and die, especially if the strike continues to spread to Rockefeller proper-| It is the great Fascist magazines ties. and g houses of America The | With their which determine American literature nd art; it is theirs to say who shall The strike is of an exceptionally militant character. ‘ press reports that husbands, wives and children are going to jail) for picketing and that the women appear to be even more de-/pe great, famous, rich; and any young | termined than the men. | er who defies them has his com- With the state and county governments aligned against the |?! a ered ee vous nO 2 ROE strike, with the Rockefeller press carrying the most vicious kind ©. ci frien uinperte ence of inflammatory stories, with the majority of the strikers foreign the bourgeois excursion- born, and with such determination among the masses, the Aes E ates They are never so crowded at. there is set for one of the historic struggles of the American labor ese ate a Bea a! movement. : _ .,.. |any young author who imagines that The struggle of the Colorado miners should be an inspiration|he can bear to starve longer than to the miners in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and | the world can bear to let him starve, ; » . iners - meet: ake.|is welcome to try it.” Ohio. If the Colorado miners can break the front of the Rocke-|"* | Sec on the Weice heee ee |w: land here you are back on the soap-| answer is, I want to show the} irect Wall Street control, | living, pondering this book and now and then my mind wanders, and I discover myself repeating a list of names. It is something that rises to |the surface of my consciousness sev- eral times every week, invariably the |same names, and in the same order: “Harper’s, Scribner’s, Century, At- lantic, Leslie’s, Cosmopolitan.” What does it mean? It goes back thirty years in my life to the days when I was begin- ning to write; it is a list of the great magazines which then constituted my | hopes of survival. Poor pitiful youth, 1 stood as much chance of “landing” anything with one of those magazines as I stood of making a flight to the moon; but I continued to mail manu- scripts to one after another—I kept a little notebook and sent each manu- seript to the list of magazines, and checked them off one after another— that is why, thirty years later, the list runs through my mind, as invariable as the days of the week, I must have spent hundreds of hard-earned dollars on postage stamps, and the rejection slips I accumulated would have filled a trunk, save that I watered them 4vith tears of vexation until they were reduced to a pulp. One of the stories born of those days of torment is “A Captain of Industry”; rejected by forty or fifty magazines and publishing houses, and now one of the most popular stories in Russia, having been issued in scores of editions. I remember taking it to the Macmillans, and Mr. Brett was kind enough to let me see his reader’s report. “What is the mat- ter with Mr. Sinclair?” it began. I was tempted to answer, “The matter with Mr. Sinclair is that he hasn’t had a decent meal in months.” But \feller companies and government, then organization is possible | in all the non-union fields which are the base of the coal ba for their war on the United Mine Workers. Making the Best of Morrow Discussing the arrival in Mexico of Dwight W. Morrow, the Mexican press seems to labor under no illusions regarding the na- ture of his selection as ambassador though its conclusions are rather too optimistic. His formal resignation from the House of Morgan does not impress the newspapers of Mexico so that they regard him as a mere ambassador, a messenger for Wall Street, instead of one of its outstanding figures. The Universal derives a sort of sophisticated and cynical sat- isfaction from the arrival of Morrow: “Commenting on the appointment, we state that for Mexico it is satisfactory to have for the first time an opportunity of discussing our viewpoint with a prominent member of that North American plutocracy to which we refer with such concentrated resentment every time we raise protests against what we consider the injustices of Yankee policy. “Therefore, we say, it will be better to treat directly with one of the exponents of that class dominating North America than with an intermediary, however distinguished he may be.” The Excelsior congratulates the country that Morrow is not a diplomat because “American diplomats have not gained promi- nence for their spirit of fairness.” * While no one would expect a barrage of insults from the na- tionalist press of Mexico, the observations of the two most fre- quently quoted papers, indicate a spirit of compromise that is not reassuring to those who realize the necessity of constantly being on guard against the machinations of American imperialism. That the arrival of Morrow and the comment of the press are interpreted as omens favorable to Wall Street was indicated by the reaction of the stock market. Pan-American Petroleum touched a new high mark on the exchange, while the common stock of the American Smelting and Refining company, which has large mine holdings in Mexico, had a net advance of more than two points, and bonds of the National Railways of Mexico rose more than one point. three fields are especially significant in view of the fact that they | occurred on a generally falling market. Oil officials having in- ‘ terests in Mexico are optimistic, according to reports of the finan- ‘ cial writers, which means that they believe that Morrow and the | rest of the Wall Street gang will be able to induce the Mexican by rons en These rises of Mexican securities in| a |government to reverse some of its decrees on oil and mineral | lands. The workers and exploited masses of Mexico should be ever _ vigilant against the first sign of compromise with reaction. The |Communist Party of Mexico, as the defender of the historical in- terests of the working class as well as their immediate interests, is perfectly correct when it urges the arming of the masses as the best guarantee against the menace of imperialist conquest, whether it. assumes the form of debauching the government from within or open intervention. In their struggle against American imperialism they will have the unlimited support of the Commu- nists of the United States who will strive with every means at hand to mobilize the masses against the monster. The Viciousness of the Baumes Law The Baumes law of New York state which decrees that a |person who is convicted for the fourth time of a felony shall be sentenced to life imprisonment has been adopted by a large num- ber of states and is known as the “habitual criminals act.” A furore has been caused in the state of Michigan because a woman of 52 years of age and the mother of eleven children must be sentenced for life because of petty larceny. We are already fam- iliar with the case of the Michigan man, having been convicted on three previous occasions was sentenced to life imprisonment because he had a pint of gin on his person. Confronted with an increase in crime since the world war and unable to overcome the social forces that produce it, the rul- ing class imagines that by terror and the ferocity of sentences it can overcome the effects of its own decadence. In their des- peration they hark back to the torture system in vogue at the \close of the 18th cenury. Aside from the horrible effects upon the individual who falls into the clutches of the upholders of law and order, such laws become of*imraediate concern to the working class inasmuch as they permit the ruling class to imprison for life persons who have {been three times convicted of even minor offenses. The familiar frame-up against workers becomes much easier of accomplish- ‘ment. Every intelligent worker should fight against these laws and for their repeal by striving to create a powerful labor party pledged to take this dangerous weapon out of the hands of the labor exploiters, Money Writes one did not say things like that— not in those far-off days, when the second-worst of all offenses was to be poor, and the worst was to let} anybody know that you were poor. The people of those days were in- terested in “manners.” They shut themselves off in tiny social groups, selected upon the basis of similar} incomes, and devised a set of minute! differentiations of costume and be- havior, to distinguish themselves | from all who were not members of | their group. The most desirable | groups, those who hed the most money, developed the most fastidious | manners, and were the most fussy— | especially the ladies—about every de-| tail. To try to get out of your group! was called “climbing,” and to fall from it was called “disgrace;” both were unpleasant, and the truly dig- nified behavior was to stay “in that state of life to which it has pleased god to call you.” That didn’t leave much to write stories about, so the taagazines of my boyhood were per- ishing of anaemia-—the editor had to lie awake nights worrying, for fear he might give offense to some maiden aunt, and cause her to with- draw her subscription, and speak un- favorably of the magazine to other maiden aunts at the church sewing circle. If you want to know what the literary world was like in those days, read Howells’ “A Hazard of New Fortunes,” which tells about a writer and his spouse who rose to the heroic effort of moving from Boston to New York; you will be thrilled by this “hazard,” you will share the anxious tremblings of this most proper of young couples—such is the genius of Howells, which made him the darling of anxious trembling young ladies, at that period in life where they took the great step which determined their social status for- ever after. When I was a youth, Howells was one of the great editors, and the best of them; he had “stood for” Stephen Crane, and I had the fond hope that might “stand for” me. But alas, I did not come under the Howells for- mula of “realism.” The business of a writer was to show things as they actually were, never as they might be or ought to be; life was static, it was being, not becoming suffering, not willing or doing. And this for- mula covered, not merely the novelist but his characters; you might tell about men who got drunk and went to the devil, and about girls who were seduced and became prostitutes, and you would be in the best Russian tradition, and Myr. Howells would fight for you against the maiden aunts. But if you used your brains to find out what social forces caused men to become drunkards and girls to “go wrong”—if you even portrayed any character who used his brains to such a purpose—then you were banned by the formula, and the doors of the literary world were shut in your face, This called “realism” of the Russian writers was the spiritual re- action to ezardom. The Russian did nothing but get drunk and consort with prostitutes for the very good reason that if they did anything else they were arrested by. police agents and shipped in a convict caravan to Siberie; the reason why writers por- trayed only drunkards and_prosti- tutes was that if they portrayed any- body else, the censor would ban them, and if they defied the ban, they would join the convict caravan. The case of Dostoyevski tells the story— a young man full of hope and enthu- siasm, they treated him to the nerve- shattering experience which you may read about in his “Memoirs of the House of the Dead.” Whereupon he submitted himself to his holy masters By Upton Sinclair and wrote about nothing but prosti- tutes, drunkards, epileptics and relig- ious mystics, and now the British bourgeoisie, impersonated by ‘Arnold | Bemett, hails him as the greatest of all novelists, so great, in fact, that it is a waste of time to mention anybody else. The czardom with all its works is dead in Russia; that country is in the hands of new men, who believe that it is possible to act, and to bring about social changes by the human will. So the creative forces of art are released, and it is possible for Russian novelists to be interested in men who think and put their thoughts into action. It is only in Britain and America, where the money-masters still swing their lash, that critics gather the excrementa of czardom, and set them up on the altar of art to be worshipped as di- vine relics. We think of America as a place of freedom and growth; and it is true that in the superficial things of life America changes like a kaleido- scope or a lunatic’s dream; everybody has a new jazz tune every night, and a new model of car every year, and fashionable young people change their lovers as often. But when it comes to fundamental things, the in- ner spirit that really makes life and art, you find that America has be- come another “House of the Dead,” where all things are fixed and the Constitution and the Bible take the Place of the czar’s excrementa as objects of worship, The constitution becomes “the greatest document that ‘ever emanated from the brain of man,” and our capitalist press has devised 4 tropism whereby several millions of school children make speeches in praise of it, and the one who praises most blindly gets a vau- deville contract or something of the sort. The bible is the inspired Word of God, and any teacher of biology who subtracts a jot or a title from it is arrested and fined, or more merci- fully turned out to starve. And what is the purpose of this new idolatry? Simply that the money masters may keep the power to give orders and be obeyed. Constitntion- worship means that a group of el- derly corporation lawyers, known as a Supreme Court, have power to make the law of the land anything the corporations want it to be; the | existing law they interpret to suit the money-masters, and when the people protest and pass new laws, they call these laws “unconstitution- al,” and the people believe it. Behind this regimen of the dead hand, works the living fist of big business, col- lecting from a pious and diligent working class the heaviest tribute that has ever been taken in any part of the earth at any period of history. This fist is armored with the clubs of policemen and the rifles of militia, with the latest devices in armored cars and machine guns and poison fas bombs. Behind the fundamental- ist cassock you find the strangling power of ostracism, plus the black- snake whip and the lynching noose. Such is Fascist America; and these masked forces confront the young writer, and say to him, with the ut- most politeness and amiability, write what we want written, and we will heap upon you all the honors that your talents deserve. The young writer being for the most part guile- less, and utterly untaught in public affairs, believes the great statesmen and the great judges and the great editors and the great preachers of his country. H lets them take him into war to validate the loans of J. P. Morgan and Company; and then, j1 do not envy you, when he discovers how he has been bunkoed ,he takes to booze and motor cars and jazz-parties and the writing of “smart” conversation. (To Be Continued.) | Current Events. By T. J. O'Flaherty has opened a campaign to make Lloyd George { Loz? Rothermere premier of England. It was the wily Welshman who steered the empire \thru the hazardous days of the war. tly the er is again in | dang: Mr. Bald is too conserva- \tive and too enmeshed in the toils of | tradition. The tories will not do. | The Labor Party, tho loyal to the em- | pire, is after all, a workingclass or- | ganization and the ruling classes of Great Britain are not taking any ;ehances. So Lloyd George may be | called in to do some pinch hitting. | oe ie: {J LOYD GEORGE is a liberal, but | nevertheless he is an imperialist | He is a clever demagogue. He can }make the masses believe that they jare running things better than any- body else in England. Of course he \is only concerned with the safety of the empire and incidentally with his |own wellfare which is bound up with that of the empire. * * * WEEK ago a public subscription /*“ for an industrialization loan be- |gan throughout the U. S. S. R. All | sections of the population are doing |their best to contribute to the suc- cess of this loan, the object of which |is to promote Soviet industry. In all |the factories, etc., the workers have {started committees and are organ- izing collective subscriptions. Facil- ities are provided for payment by in- |stalments, similar to the methods used for War Savings Certificates in this country, except that in this case the subscriber receives the bond after his first payment. A large number of workers are subscribing sums equivalent to a month’s wages and more. * * oe British are a little bit ahead of us when it comes to the matter of “industrial peace.” You know the kind of peace we are having in Colo- rado just now. Well, the lord mayor of London has issued an invitation to prominent labor leaders to a banquet at the Mansion House at which sev- eral Sirs and Lords will speak. And enclosed with the invitation is a pamphlet entitled, “The Way to In- dustrial Peace,” a lecture by the so- cialist, Philip Snowden. Since “in- dustrial peace” began to grow in popularity in Britain, the wages of the workers have fallen. * * * Tear between here and Albany is likely to suffer a decided set- back as a result of the refusal of Theodore Roosevelt to amplify his charges made at the G. O. P. conven- tion in Rochester that Al Smith and the alleged red light-district in Albany the second, might be given more rope by his leaders if he did not have to go to Washington to testify in the Fall-Sinclair, Teapot Dome suit. If have a distinct recollection of hearing something about coming into court with clean hands. If young Teddy’s wings did not show so many petroleum stains his moral indignation might be worth more votes north of the Harlem River. * * 2 GOLONsE Charles A. Lindbergh, the first man to accomplish a non-stop flight from the United States to Europe has just returned from a three-months tour of the country un« der the auspices of the Guggenheim Fund. Guggenheim is one of our bige gest and busiest brokers and has spent much money on Lindbergh for purely patriotic purposes. The fact that Guggenheim is very much in- terested in Brazilian copper and that his copper slaves may some day need the supervision of American airplanes jhas nothing to do with Mr, Guggen« heim’s interest in aviation. He is just a patriot. —— i The Stenogranher’s Boss. | Sitting at my desk, \gazing at the rolls of fat f \that undulate above your wilting | collar, |my contempt outweighs my envy, | | Although your voice, es jauthoritative and gruff, a is somewhat arresting; and the way you grimace and worry your cigar - is most impressive, \ still your hollowness and a ase is somewhat apparent. Safe in your becushioned ’ and deferential environment, » one must concede that you manage rather well the various poses demanded by your role, outside of it one must question your adaptability. Your furtive vices and heavy em phasis upon material values, makes you a very typical specimen of your kind, I suppose that when you eat i your color heightens to the roots of your receding hair, and grunts of satisfaction serve in place, of your vocabulary. Oy on the whole, —C. A. Marriott. BUY THE DAILY WORKER | AT THE NEWSSTANDS | 1 are almost synonomous terms. Teddy .