The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 3, 1927, Page 6

t ‘ Page Six 7 f THE DAILY WORKER. NEW YORK. THURSDAY. NOVEMBER 3, 1927 THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Daily, Except Sunday $2 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per years $3.50 six months $2.50 three months $2.00 three months Address and mail and make cut checka to Phone, Orchard 1689 “Daiwork” dress: THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. ..ROBERT MINOR .WM. F. DUNNE EDITOR. “2%,, ASSISTANT EDITOR Entered as second-class mail at, the post-office at New York, N. ¥., Democracy in the Soviet Union The report of the First American Trade Union Delegation stresses the fact that “no opposition party is permitted in Russia.” “We tell the Communists,” ys the delegation, “that we object to this suppression as an offense against democracy.” The reply of the Communists is given but the important thing is that the delegation shows that its members believe there is a super- system called “democracy” which can and should be maintained no matter what the status of the class relationships and social forces are. “Democrac as a conception of ¢ ing at methods and rules for organizing society can be based only on the idea that all persons who make up a given society have equal privileges and powers. This conception has no place for the idea of a ruling class and consequently is at complete variance with the realities of modern capitalist society. J. P. Morgan has only one vote but anly a fool will argue that this puts him on the same footing as a worker. The demand for “democracy”—the franchise, election of of-| ficials, free expression of opinion, etc.—was a weapon of the ris- ing capitalist class against royalty, the aristocracy and the church. Even then it was not demanded for all sections of the population. The franchise was secured by the workers and farmers only after | long and bloody struggles. These are facts which every intelligent} worker knows. Even today the franchise is surrounded by restrictions in the} most “democratic” countries. In the United States the women As far as free expression of opinion is concerned, it is only} necessary to compare the facilities of the ruling class in the United States, and its supporters, with those of the labor move- ment. Freedom of speech, if for the moment we grant that we) have it in principle, means little if the newspapers, theatres, | magazines, movies, schools, etc., are in the hands of the capi-| talist class. If we extend the comparison of facilities for free expression | to those at the disposal of the Communists, who alone challenge | the whole system of capitalism in America, it becomes clear that) “democracy” does not mean freedom of expression for ail. oe as e have only won the franchise recently and residential qualifica-| tions debar millions of the masses from participation in elections. | is ' ’ Finally, the ruling class of the United States has the power, | orable Richard Washburn Child. Be- and has exercised the power, to suppress all expression of opinion which was only in opposition to its war policy—which did not even advocate social revolution. ‘ Let us not forget either that the Communist Party was de- clared illegal in 1919 by the American government long after the war was over and because it pointed out the only method by which social revolution can be achieved—armed struggle against the ruling class and the establishment of the proletarian dictator- ship. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union represents the in- terests of the workers and peasants. The state power in the Soviet Union is in the hands of the masses. A party which opposes in principle this role of the Commun- ist Party and the state power can be only a party which repre- sents other interests—other class interests. It must be there- fore a party which is hostile to the workers and peasants. Since these form a majority of the Russian population, as well as the Majority of the population of all countries, such a party could represent only the class interests of the old ruling minority in Russia. But Russia stands as a proletarian state in a capitalist world. It is inevitable therefore, that such a party would represent not NT ON THE COLORADO BATTLE FRO “Legal Picketing.” and Wall Street lawyer; he became assistant to Frank Vanderlip in war finance work and then, in face of the Bolshevik peril, he took charge of “Collier’s Weekly,” with its campaign for the deportation of the reds. The question arose, who was to be the next president of the United States, to carry out this national house- cleaning ? (Continued from Last Issue.) XI The Fascist Career ee are a number of great men in America whose careers have been made wholly out of this mili- tant Mammonism. I am going to in- |troduce you to one of them, the Hon- After the lapse of seven years we can say—with the backing of a unani- mous decision of the United States Supreme Court—that the nomination i eee | political parties in the Soviet Union are those who are opposed |to the masses having so much freedom. - | For us, and we believe for all workers, this settles the ques- | tion of “democracy” in the Soviet Union. | Democracy for the masses—dictatorship for the enemies of |the masses until all danger of counter-revolution has passed away, a government of the workers led by the Communist Party, the party of the proletariat, in alliance with the peasantry. |. This is the government of the Soviet Union and the worst | its most bitter enemies can say about it is that it does not allow! the capitalist class freedom to oppress and exploit the masses—| to bring capitalism back to Russia. |fore the war he was a minor novelist “Hand in Hand”---For What and For Whose Interests? Matthew Woll, vice president of the American Federation of |Labor, stopped off in Denver, Colo., long enough to give the | Rockefeller interests a little aid and comfort in their fight against |the coal miners of that state. only the interests of the remnants of the Russian nobility and | Th estrike is doomed to failure, according to an interview capitalist class, but the interests of world eapitalism as well. | of capital and labor” slime which enables him to slide smoothly Those who, in the name of democracy in the abstract arg | Ver the thresholds of such organizations as the National Civic clamoring for the freedom to organize opposition parties in the | Federation. Pete The strike is doomed to failure, according to an interview Soviet Union, are actually demanding that the class enemies of | : i rt workers and peasants be allowed, backed by world capitalism, |given by Woll to the Rocky Mountain News. It is of course pos- to have a voice in determining the policies of a government which | Sie Bh oC on win their demands and will be orced back to work. e United Mine Workers did not win their came to power thru the victory of the Russian masses over capi- : : a Neen strike either altho it was conducted in the most “sane and con- “The main question of the revolution,” said Lenin, “is the | Structive manner, question of power.” \ Vice President Woll, at a time when several thousand work- Likewise the question of democracy in the Soviet Union is | ers are engaged in a life and death struggle with the Rockefeller | not the question of democracy in the abstract but the question |CO*Porations, and have already smashed the company unions, | of democracy for a class—the working class. | could at agent kept silent if he did not want to do anything When the report of the first American Trade Union Delega- he ast: S ae - eed ms 3 tion begins to consider the question concretely, it shows that not}, Employe ; said Woll in Denver, have come to rica ton ase even a lingering loye for abstract democracy can prevent certain (#*t we do not try to bleed them of their last dollar; but are | realities of life in the Soviet Union overcoming its prejudices. merely asking fe decent pee ne ery the laborer,” : Lenin said in his “The Proletarian Revolution and the Rene- They have learned they profit by caring for their employes gade Kautsky” that: and as a result heads of the A. F. of L. and big business executives of 9 " ; 9 i ” “Proletarian democracy is a million times more democratic oe Ona Bangali nana x ps ; than any bourgeois democracy. The Soviet power is a million. This last statement will he gladsome tidings for the miners times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois re- ‘" piety pcre “big busin executives” and the federal courts public.” ; a are doing their best to. drive the United Mine Workers out of , Bo oe ‘ the coal fields, it will be a heartening message for the miners of “ogame of this seems to have been glimpsed py the dele- western Pennsylvania where “big business executives” and fed- “The great Stason of the ecvbin, wguthe delegation: “have eral courts, backed by coal and iron police have outlawed the sses oles Says 14 y wtf inde aeat tte ” Wa ing infinitely more political freedom than they had under the ezarist Pirie yy : ee are al ae oak — ia ie). They. dledeahemembers of the Savile welich aro 7 driven hundreds of miners and their families from their homes. sponsible to them. They can thus influence the decisions of the ae busine F executives connected with the steel trust and government to a degree formerly impossible.” its mines in W est Virginia have succeeded in getting a federal Here we have a comparison between the past and present fn nee outlawing the United Mine Workers’ Union in that Russia. Let us see what the delegation says when it compares ae ci resi i i conditions for the masses in Russia with conditions elsewhere: Ptr Say with thie ae on ones “Western liberals,” the delegation says, “and those opposed We are of the opinion that Matthew Woll and his associates, . ; er, now going on, are entitled to the tit! i i economic freedom it does not greatly benefit a man. The Russian xg iiice w iioaeccuns ase ; 8 i Leaders. workers possess this economic freedom to a degree enjoyed by More and more workers are coming to take this view as, to the workers of no other country.” : quote General Summerall, speaking at the A. F. of L. convention After all then it is not the Russian masses who are sup- rt in eulogy of President Green, they are struck by the “identity pressed and who want a political party other than the Communist of sentiment expressed” by labor leaders of tHis stripe “and cap- Party. Those who want the freedom to form anti-Communist | tains of industry.” . p oi ion SEN Ro eerie oa | most By Fred Ellis | | | | of Harding was a conspiracy to loot the oil reserves of the United States navy, as carefully planned and as definitely criminal as any pirate raid. Harding was the chief of the “Ohio gang,” and he was put in to let that gang loot the nation, as previously he had let it loot Ohio. The oi] men put up the money to carry the Re- publican convention, upon the under- standing that they would get the cabinet positions neceSsary for the stealing of the naval reserves. To elect their chosen one, the plutocracy contributed the biggest campaign fund ever known in our history; and this money was spent according to the new arts of propaganda learned in the war days. You remember the Vigilantes and their patriotic fervor? Well, here was another time to rally the writers and artists, the furnish: ers of ideas and inspirations, to per- suade the American voters to tum over their government to a pirate band. So, on a Saturday afternoon, the 25th of April, 1920, behold a special train of five parlor cars proceeding |to Atlantic City, loaded with George Ade, Rex Beach, Porter Emerson Browne, Edna Ferber, Jesse L. Lasky, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Booth Tark- ington, Charles Hanson Towne, Wil- liam Allen White—if that train had run off the track, American culture would never have recovered! They had a banquet at the most expensive of hotels, and next morning the New York Times reported as follows: “The mystery surrounding the iden- tity of the backers of the week-end party of authors, movie managers, magazine writers, publicity ‘agents, cartoonists and artists who arrived here tonight to hear prominent Re- publicans discourse on the ideals and policies of their party was partly dis-+ pelled when it was explained that the expenses of the junket were paid by Richard Washburn Child, one of its originators, with a special republican subscription from the republican na- tional committee.” Now, would the big chief of the Ohio gang fail to be grateful for a service of such distinction? The big chief would no more overlook it than he would fail to name the right cabi- net members, so that the oil men might have their loot. Do not be surprised, therefore, to find that a couple of months after the inaugura- tion, Mr. Richard Washburn Child is- named Ambassador’ Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Italy. He goes; and there falls to him the thrilling adventure ever dreamed by a literary red-hunter, While he is in Rome—knee breeches, court receptions, and all the glories— the Italian workers rise and take pos- session of the factories in Russian style. But they have walked into a trap, beeause Italy has no coal, and the British fleet controls the sea, and the American bankers control all the eredit in the world, and the would-be Bolsheviks of Italy cannot turn a wheel, some confusion, what to do next, a renegade Italian Socialist comes to Mr. Child; they are the ones to hire, you understand, because they know the movement they are going to wreck, and have a special bitterness against it—look at my ex-Comrade Joe Patterson! Mussolini’s proposition is the sim- plest possible. He will raise a slogan, and gather a band of young assassins and seize Italy for the bankers; only he must have money for the job, and will the Americans give him a loan? The Americans are just then in the 4 _ By Upton Sinclair jcartoonists and’ artists,” whom we While they are debating, in| | business of ‘subsidizing assassins all over the world—Kolchak, Denikin, Judenitch, Wrangel, Semenoff, Pet- Tura, Horthy, Pilsudski, Mannerheim, | I can’t remember all the names. It} takes but a few minutes to settle} such a question in these days of cables and high powered executives. Mussolini gets his loans, and more loans—during the year just past he got two hundred millions from Wall Street, and when his assassins are seattered by the outraged Italian workers, the American investing pub- lie will be left holding the sack— just as the French people were left after their bankers had led them to arm the Russian Tsar so that the French bankers might grab the iron of Lorraine; just as our American government is left after the House of Morgan led us into helping the French bankers out of their mess. | My morning mail comes, and here is a copy of the Labor Defender, with two photographs: “Italian Worker, Angelo Capanelli, before and after being blinded by Fascists.” It is still going on, you see, the work for which the Wall Street bankers have paid your money. I quote from the same paper: “Hundreds assassinated, thou- sands wounded, tens of thousands ar- rested and thousands of these sen- tenced to long prison terms. The di- mensions of the terror are almost in- credible—Mussolini’s regime puts the Neros and Borgias in the shade. Murders, arrests, tortures, long im- prisonment, searches, destroying and burning of homes and buildings; de- priving the opposition of their free- dom of speech and movement; ban- ishment and deportation to sparsely inhabited Mediterranean islands—” Flushed with rapture over such spectacles, the Honorable Richard Washburn Child comes home with the new gospel for America, and is made Fascist-in-Chief to the great central power-plant of reaction, the Curtis publications. He becomes, as you might say, their secretary of foreign relations, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the capitalist world; keeping in touch with the wholesale assassins of Italy, Rouma- nia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Fin- land and the Baltic provinces, China, Japan, India and Java, Mexico, Cen- tral and South America and the West Indies; surveying the job of slaugh- tering rebel workers, and portraying it to the American people as the sav- ing of civilization and making the world safe for demceracy. And just a word more concerning those “authors, movie managers, magazine writers, publicity agen left disporting themselves in Atlantic City at the expense of the Republican National Committee. Five years later the looting of America by the Repub- lican party bandits had become such a horror that Mr. Child’s old chief, Frank Vanderlip, was shocked into protest. He remembered the Vigil- antes, with their slogans of patriotism and publie service, and thought he would rally them for the grand patri- otic work of kicking out the looters of our heritage. The treasurer of the organization called them to a dinner at the University Club in New York; but alas, they couldn’t agree what to do—and so they did nothing! Would Ibe too cynical if I suggested that a few of them may have wondered who was going to pay the bills this time? And especially if the paymasters were prepared to give a life contract? It is a serious matter to ask a Vigilante to attack the interests which control every newspaper, magazine, and mov- ing picture company in the country where he has to earn his living! qreferred to oe a long rest from public op- probium William J. Burns, often with impunity in the papers as “the king of perjurers” has blasted his way on to the front page thru the medium of his activities in bribing a jury engaged in deciding the guilt or innocence of Messers. Fall and Sinclair, defendants in the trial which has just been wrecked by Mr. Burns. The notorious detective dis- patched a corps of his best stool- pigeons to Washington and but for the loose tongue of one of the jurors, Sinclair at least would probably have walked out of court free from any threat of punishment. * * * OTH Fall and Sinclair should be ~ fied with the results. The ror who talked too much will n short shrift in all proba- It being Burns’ business to fix juries and since his business is legal in the United he is not liable to suf- fer. It' will take as much time to connect Sinclair with the new con- spiracy as it did to bring him to court for the old, and by that time the im- portant witnesses may be dead. We,’ suspect that behind the indignant! frown on the face of the federal gov- ernment because of the attempt to: tamper with its court there is re- lief. * * * ae Teapot Done scandal was not disposed off by the suicide of Jess * Smith and the strange death of Presi- dent Harding. The ousting of Daugherty and Denby and the suits against Fall, Sinclair and Doheny did not eliminate the smell of crude petroleum from the White House. The noticeable twist in the Coolidge nose may be attributed to the constant ef- fort on his part to prevent the dis- agreeable political odors from the Teapot Dome cesspools to penetrate to his upper sinuses. * * * (EMESIS yesterday on the case of the two Chicago women who were sent to jail for monopolizing ,_ 7% all the votes in one precinct, we did® not finish the story. Chicago is® probably the most typical city in the) . United States and should set a good ° example to Mexico, Nicaragua and other countries in the way to conduct themselves. So they should follow the Chicago case closely and see whether the federal government shall send marines to the Windy City to see that elections are openly arrived at. After the «democratic judge sent the two women to jail for, steal- ing votes this is what happened. * * * A REPUBLICAN judge who knows as much about law as the Demo- | erat looked up the statutes and dis- covered that there is no such thing as a woman vote crook. It appears that in the days when the election law was placed on the books men were men in Chicago and chivalrous to boot. Perhaps they believed that a ; woman’s place was in the home and ; therefore not having a vote she could © not possible be a vote thief. * * * NYHOW a law is a law and this © judge issued a writ on the sheriff | ordering the delivery from jail forth- with of the two women. But this is a game two can play at and the Democrat issued another order equally powerful which had the women back) again. They did not stay in however* and the Democrat threatens to vit | the sheriff locked up in his own jail unless he obeys his orders. The “out again in again Finnegan” business is rather a relief from the threatened book-burning spree of Mayor Thomp- son, but you can depend on Chicago to make itself wondered at. * * * TILL, we have our fun here with the city administrators. A news sleuth in need of copy went on a statistical spree and learned to no- | body’s surprise that the police had, killed an unusually large number of) innocent citizens this year while both —the citizens and policemen—were in the performance of their duty. And strangely enough the reason for the increased casualties among the inno- cent bystanders was more police ef- ficiency in the art of shooting. * * * EFORE Commissioner Warren as- sumed office the figures showed 4 that the officers only succeeded fir) killing eighty out of one hund: law-abiding citizens fired at. Their holidays were reduced and hey proee ordered to do more practice. /Now it is almost a certainty that when a policeman shoots at a burglar’ escap- ing from a Thom McAnn shoe store ith his loot—an almost daily oc- currence—a_ street car conductor, a hot dog dispenser or, most likely, the shoe store clerk, will bite the dust ead of the burglar. Efficiency is splendid in principle, but when applied , to public servants with such sensi- tive, arti sensibilities as polices men are afflicted with, it defeats its own purpose. * . * 5 be skull of the president of Greece was splintered by a hostile bullet, but the gentleman is resting easily. We venture to guess that the hardy bullet did not come out of the collision! scathless. KOENNECKE OVER INDIA. | CALCUTTA, India, Nov. 2—An} airplane, believed to be that of Otto, Koennecke, the German aviator, flew over this city today in the direction of Rangoon. Koennecke who plans a trans-Pacific flight to San Fran- cisco, arrived at Karachi yesterday from Bendar Abbas. nf