The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 11, 1927, Page 6

Page Six cae THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY. NOVEMBER 11, 1927 eu THE DAILY WORKER "" VERSATILE STOOLPIGEON Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Daily, Except Sunday | 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Phone, Orchard 1680 | Cable Address: “Daiwork” iss Se | SUBSCRIPTION RATES é i By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New pore $8.00 per year $4.50 six manths $6.00 per years $3.50 six mont! $2.50 three months $2.00 three months THE DAILY WORKER, 83 First Street, New York, N.Y. | Of MDIEOR tas sas \.s..2+1-ROBERT MINOR ASSISTAN g. “WM. F. DUNNE dintered as second-class mail at the po; the act of M at New York, N, ¥., ander} ¥. i Armistice Day--1918, 1919, 1927 * “to make the; Armistice Day—the end of “a war to end war, world safe for democracy.” | In the United States Armistice Day, 1918, meant the contin- | uation of the war on the working cl. and its organizations which had been launched with the declaration of the war. { The outright terrorism which had marked the drive of the, American capit s and their agents against the masses, cul- minated on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1919,”in the attack on the I. W. W. hall in Centralia, Washington, by American Legion mem-' bers and other tools of the lumber trust. { Until a more decisive clash of class forces occurs in the United States, militant workers will identify Armistice Day by this bloody struggle. | Four American Legionnair aid with their lives for their enlistment in the murderous work of the lumber trust. Wesley Everest, a world war veteran and a member of the I. W. W., was lynched by a white-collared mob after the most horrible torture, eight members of the I. W. W. are still in prison in Walla Walla penitentiary altho there is no doubt even in the minds of their enemies that they and Wesley Everest fired and killed in self de- | fense. Likewise, there is no doubt that the casualties suffered by | the attackers served to prevent raids on the other halls and meet- | ings—murderous raids which had become the fashion in 1919.) The labor movement owes a heavy debt of gratitude to the mem- | bers of the I. W. W. who fought and died and went to prison} rather than submit tamely to the sadistic rage of the lumber trust | thugs and hangers-on wrapped in the folds of the American flag. | The International Labor Defense meets in its Third Annual Conference in New York City, Saturday, November i2, the day after Armistice Day and eight years after Centralia. Clear across the continent from the city where the mangled body of Wesley Everest was dragged thru the streets to be hung from a bridge, after bestial mutilation, on Nov. 11, 1919, across the continent from the prison where eight lumber workers today wear away their lives because they fought for their class, the defense and release of the Centralia prisoners will have first place on the order of business of an international organization of workers. As for Wesley Everest, he needs no defense. relief. But the last memory of Everest, face to the foe, empty gun in hand, defiance on his lips, no fear but only a mocking! smile in his eyes-——will inspire the conference, as it inspires all militant workers, to new efforts and new and greater achieve- ments in behalf of all working class fighters. Long planned and deliberately executed, the raid on the I. W. W. hall in Centralia bore every mark+of the fury with which the lumber barons of the Pacific coast regarded the organization of the lumber workers. ! ' All other methods having failed, murder was the last resort. Read the following record of systematic incitement of vio- Ience against the I. W. W., its members and sympathizers sent out privately in an official bulletin to members of the Employers Association of Washington over the signature of George F. Rus- sell, secretary-manager of the association: June h, 1918.—‘‘Provide a penalty for idleness... . Common labor now works a few days and then loafs to spend the money earned.... Active prosecution of the I. W. W. and other radicals.” April 30th, 1919.—‘*Keep business out of the control of radicals and L. W. W....Overcome agitation....Closer co- operation between the employers and employes....Suppress the agiiators.. .. Hang the Bolshevists.” May 31st, 1919.—“If the agitators were taken care of we would have very little trouble... .Propaganda to counter- act radicals and overcome agitation....Put the I. W. W. in jail.” June 30th, 1919—“Make some of the Seattle papers print the truth... .Get rid of the i. W. W.’s.” July 2nd, 1919.—-“Edueate along the line 4 '’ the ‘three R’s and the golden rule, economy and self deni . Import Japanese labor... . Import Chinese Jabor. July 31st, 1919.—‘Deport akout ten Russians in this community.” August 31st, 1919.—“Personal contact between employer and employe, stringent treatment of the I. W. W.” October 15, 1919.—“There are many I. W. W.’s—mostly in the logging camps.” October 31st, 1919.—-(A little over a week before the Centralia raid.)—‘‘Run your business or quit... Business men and taxpayers of Vancouver, Washington, have organized the Loyal Citizens’ Protective League; opposed to Bolsheviki and the Soviet form of government and in favor of the open shop. ...dail the radicals and deport them... .Since the Armistice these radicals have started in again. Only two communities in Washington allow I. W. W. headquarters.” December 31st, 1919.-—“Get rid of all I. W. W. and all other un-American organizations....Deport the radicals or use the rope as in Centralia. “Until we get rid of the L W. W. and radicals we don’t expect to do much in this country... . Keep cleaning up on the I. W. W....Don’t let it die down... . Keep up public sentiment... .” (Quoted from Ralph Chaplin’s book “The Centralia Con- spiracy”—one of the most authoritative and best written records of a historic struggle of the American working class ever published. No worker can say he knows the history of the American labor movement unless he has read this book.) On Armistice Day, 1919, the seeds planted by the lumber! trust press agents sprouted, grew, blossomed and brought forth crimson fruit. But for once in America workers more than held their own. Most of the dead and wounded came from the ranks of the enemy. 3 * The workers who were captured were prisoners of war but in Centralia that red day the rules of “civilised” warfaro did not oo He needs no}| Money Writes (Continued from Last Issue.) | XVI. The Tattooed Novelist |THE fundamental. fact to bear in | mind concerning capitalist culture jis that it maintains a large class of |people in luxurious idleness; the jcream of labor’s product is skimmed |off and fed to this class, which ren- |ders no service whatever. It is not merely the number of these people, but the fact that they represent the | goal of aspiration for the rest, and so what they do and say and think becomes the standard. Capitalist art is an art made for parasites, and ex- ists by glorifying and defending para- sitism; it mirrors the most worthless | elements in society, and serves to in- |erease the vices upon which it feeds. | Our fashions in clothes, for example, |are furnished to us by the keepers |of French mistresses; whatever these |blasé persons find alluring is what ‘our wives and daughters will wear in |the coming season—our wives and |; daughters would rather be dead than behind the times. |ing pictures—what goes into them is decided by the keepers of mistresses in Hollywood; these financially and | sexually potent gentlemen put their | favorites upon the screen, to display | their “charm’—-with the result that a large part of our school children jare set to acting like little harlots. | | | | The novel is cne of the principal | channels through which the ideals and manners of “smart” society—that is |to say, the idle and wasteful part of |the community-—are fed to the ;masses. Every stenographer and | telephone girl wants to read the “lat- t thing’”—meaning the newest bit |of depravity which some clever brain |has devised to amuse the chatterers lat fashionable tea-parties. Fach sea- |son’s sensation must be more “outré” | than the last: we are more bored, and |it takes more to shock us. A gen- co “Sister Carrie” was sup- because it showed a man and n living together without mar- it is “The Captive” g sed, because it shows omen living together without age. Ten years after being sup- pressed, every such book is a By Fred Ellis script. This alone ensures you per-} “classic,” and its standards are taken |manent fame, becayse language is | of the colored folks of Harlem, who |as a matter of course by all enlight- | made to conceal thought, and the pur- Or take our mov-} ened persons. I have in my hands a publisher’s circular, sent me three years ago by my friend George Sterling; on the margin is written,-in George’s round even hand, “Can you imagine this bird?” The circular quotes an article by Burton Rascoe entitled “Personal- ity Plus,” dealing with the author of an ultra-fashionable novel, “The Blind Bew-Boy.” This author pos- sesses, we are told, “a bland and sa- turnine countenance which lights up into a grimace of merriment now and then, showing widely separated teeth. He is tall, white-haired, youngish, with a head that inclines forward from erect shoulders, and a nervous way of moving his head in intermit- tent slight jerks when he is talking. He has a disconcerting way of looking very intently at a person to whom he has just been introduced and asking him some unexpected question or making some remark for which there is no ready rejoinder. His own re- partee is deliberate but acid and wit- ty or sombre and unctuous, according to his moods”’—and so on, until you have had enough. Three years have passed, and this “bird,” to use George’s irreverent phrase, has become the latest fashion in elegant perversity. The copy of “The Blind Bow-Boy” which lies be- fore me is marked “Seventh Large Edition.” It is published by Mr. | Knopf, who puts up the money for my friend ’Mencken’s war on pro- | hibition, and’ who gave Mr. Herge- sheimer his red suspenders in Paris. Higher than such a publisher no nov- elist can climb, so let us see how to please him. | First detail: write all your dia- logues without quotation marks. | Everybody else uses them, so this | will make you different. As Second detail: look up in a big dictionary about fifty words that you never heard before. Thus, psittacus is the Latin word for parrot, there- fore psittaceous means _parrot-like. And dehiscens isthe Latin word for gayig open, so you refer quite casu- ally to the duke’s dehiscent jaw. It jwill take you half an hour to find | fifty such words, and’ another half (hour to work them into your manu- nn | | apply. It was class war. Wesley Everest, prisoner of war, was ‘tortured and hung. The other | tortures inflicted upon them. J. W. W. prisoners had horrible Armistice Day in the United States, for the ruling class and \its dupes, is a day for glorifying the end of a war which marked ‘the victorious advance of American imperialism into the strug- gle for world domination. To the memories of those workers who ‘died for Wali Street and its government, the ruling class allows ‘some respect to be paid. Wall Street will need more cannon- | fodder soon. \ But for the workers of America the grave of Wesley Everest | symbolises the war, not for Wall Street, but against it and all it |stands for. | Strong, bright-eyed and unafraid, Everest, the embodiment ‘of the best the American working class has produced, faced the | powerful enemies of his class. | To build a labor movement that like Dverest will be strong and unafraid is the task of those who carry on the traditions given us by all the American working class fighters who have died at their tasks, whether in the mines and factories, at their desks, or |on the field of open struggle, Defense of our fighters. Relief for their dependents. Organization of our class in powerful unions and in a mass labor party. Struggle against American imperialism on all fronts. These are the leon of Armistice Day, 1927. i pose of art is to show the artist’s superiority. Third detail: take a walk down Fifth Avenue and stop in the highest- priced beauty-shop, and note the French names on the bottles of cos- metics and perfumes. Stop at a jew- eler’s and a curio dealer’s, and learn the latest fads — all this for your lady’s boudoir. Get a couturiére to give you the names of members of her trade in Paris—or make up the names, it doesn’t matter, so long as they are French. Get the names of a dozen writers of cultured indecency like yourself, so that you may describe your heroine’s reading table, and have her sweep the fashionable volumes to the floor with a gesture of elegant | boredom. Now you are ready, except that you need an unusual name—Campaspe, let us say—oh, splendid! And a plot? Let a father launch his innocent young son in the world with unlimited money, and a collection of the most depraved companions who can be found for him. Why a father should do this is obviously a mystery, and the adventures of the youth will pro- vide no end of innocent fun. The su- per-elegant Compaspe, the mother of two children, takes her fashionable male friends for a motor-car ride to Coney Island, and they bring home a lady snake-charmer, and in the course of the evening the snake- charmer is discovered in bed with one of the fashionable male friends, and the hostess of course is glad to know that her friends are making them- selves at home. The English duke with the dehiscent jaw remarks, in the presence of the ladies, that if he invited to his theatre-party all the people he slept with, the theatre would not hold them. When we read things like this, we know we are among the very creme de la creme; seven large editions will not be enough, and the great capitalist lit- erary organs will not be able to find words to praise such delicately per- fumed excrement. ‘| And then “The Tattooed Count- ess”—a title alone worth seven more editions. Carl Van Vechten, the au- thor of these master-works, was raised in a small city of Iowa; a ter- rible place, as seen by a music-critic on a great metropolitan newspaper. Back in Iowa people object to promis- cuous cohabitation, and so Mr. Van Vechten seeks to acquaint them with the urbanity and freedom of Europe, where a rich society lady, daughter of a banker and widow of a count, may live the life of a “dame galante,” ihaving as many lovers as she wishes, of all ages and occupations and sta- tions in life. This “tattooed countess” comes back to her home-town in Iowa, her heart having been broken by a recent passionate love-affair with a strolling opera tenor, who wanted nothing but to get as much of her money as he could and spend it on a younger mistress. Through the eyes of this Countess Nattorrini we see the horrors of our American crudity, and watch a’charming lady of fifty teach the graces of Europe to a new lover—seventeen years of age! Ger- trude Atherton, reviewing this book, hailed the arrival of a great novelist; but she had to admit that the hero struck her as “a trifle tso young to inspire tumult in even an elderly and predatory countess.” But the review- er adds, “as no one agreed with me, doubtless this may be a purely per- sonal prejudice,” Thus doer age ab- dicate to youth, and moral standards crumble, Anything to keep up with the times—even a tattooed By Upton Sinclair And then “Nigger Heaven”; a story are now supplying America’s require- ments in the two arts of music and dancing. The mulatto heroine of this novel might have stepped out of a novel by Louyjsa Alcott, so good and pure she is; except for that singular penchant, shared by all the Van Vechten ladies, for reading the liter- ature of elegant perversity. Mary Love is a librarian, and labors to im- prove the literary tastes of the eleva- tor boys and- waitresses of the city; | but alas, they prefer Zane Grey and Harold Bell Wright to Aldoux Hux- ley and Cabell and Cocteau and Proust and Morand. At the end of the story the elevator boys are still ele- vating and the waitresses are still, waiting, while the hero, who has adopted Mary Love’s literary tastes, is shooting bullets into another Negro in a drunken cafe row. So maybe this is a novel with a moral purpose -—to warn people against reading Al- doux Huxley and Cabell and Cocteau and Proust and; Morand—and Van Vechten! « Just recently our literary “bird” flits to Hollywood—following the pre- vailing fashion for birds of fine feather—and duplicates the perform- ance of Joseph Hergesheimer among the “shapes in‘ light.” He stops at the Ambassador, our most fashionable hotel—“Everybody stops at the Am- bassador,” he tells us, and I mention it for the benefit of my wobbly friends, when next they are released from San Quentin; they can get a very good room and bath for only ten dollars a day. The ‘lady stars gather to exhibit their charms, and our fashionable author scatters ad- jectives over the pages of “Vanity Fair”: “the joyous childlike. . .the effulgent orchidaceous. . :the gay and dangerously attractive. . .the saucy . . the blond. . .the barbaric and sul- lenly splendid. . .the fragile nun- like. . .the wistful. . .the dashing in- souciant. . the amazing. . .the incom- parably charming. . .the dark and lovely. . .” All of which fills me with grief for my lost opportunities. Here I have been living near Hollywood for twelve years; I have been there not less than a hundred times, and met not less than two score of the lady stars of the screen; and out of all those meetings I did not get one single thrill, nor one single idea worth putting into fancy language! (To Be Continued.) The Death of a Clown. Mee the famous Hippo- drome clown is a popular suicide. That is, our best editors are waxing philosophical over his voluntary de- mise. Had he been a cub reporter or a college student gone mad from listening to a goose-step professor, a different editorial attitude would have been adopted. Sermons would have been delivered on the demoral- izing effect of jazz on our youth or the evils of prohibition which drive the rising generation into the arms of dishonest bootleggers. Because our youth must be trained for the machine, and the devil knows how many profit-making ideas die with our yearly crop of juvenile suicides. Marecelline was a sad but mirth-pro- voking cynic, who endeared himself to our prostitute editors, who salve guilty consciences with the ointment of futilitarianism. Since nothing doesn’t mean a damn in a thousand years why not be a social pimp while the going is good. The best intel- lectual tools of our ruling classes are notoriously cynical, but unfortunately ey don’t commit suicide, No \ ide \ Red Rays R. Haley, Fiske, president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Com- pany, may consider the advisability of establishing scientific institutes of dentistry to take care of his policy holders’ teeth, at a reasonable profit, says Arthur Brisbane. Thus Fiske would kill two birds with one stone. |The company would make a profit en the business of keeping teeth in order |and would also contribute to the |longevity of those whose teeth were |fixed, thus insuring more premiums |for the Metropolitan. Whenever a |capitalist essays a philanthropic | move it is reasonable to assume that there is a nickel under the heel. ae * * RE is another typical Brisbane- ism: “Two aviators in the Ameri- can marine service were murdered in Nicaragua when their machine made a forced landing—killed by a crowd of twenty to one, after desperate fight- ing. This is the sort of things that starts wars. The killing of ofe man, the Austrian heir apparent, was the spark that started the big war. No war will start this time, because Nicaragua is teo small. An elephant can’t fight a chipmunk. And besides the government of Nicaragua had nothing to do with it.” What a faker this man Brisbane is? Everybody knows that this “elephant” of ours has been fighting the Nicaraguan chipmunk for months and is at war with Nicaragua as surely as Germany was at war with Belgium from 1914 to 1917. * * * ERE is a pastor after my own heart. Even tho he may not save many souls from the devil, he is al- most sure to have a good time at his business. He is the Rey. J. B. Ennis, pastor of the Gainesville Methodist Congregation of Perry, N. Y. The Rev. Ennis noticed that many of his followers had left the fold, so he put the following advertisement in the local newspapers: “Lost Strayed Or Stolen—A large flock of the Metho- dist sheep. They have been gone for some time. When last seen they were browsing along the Road of Indiffer- ence. Anybody finding these sheep please bring them home, if possible and you will receive ample reward. Jf they refuse to come home drive them into the nearest fold and lock the door and report to the under- signed. Rev. J. B. Ennis. Plenty of fodder will be, provided Sunday.” * * * j Waco HECKSCHER, the noted philantHropist, has agreed to pay Frieda Hempel, the operatic soprano, $250,000, following a suit by the said Frieda for breach of contract against Heckscher, who had contracted to pay the diva $48,000 a year for the rest of her life provided she did not do any more “divaing” for cash. It ap- pears that the millionaire came to his senses some time after he made the promise, but the diva was always there. Why should she strain her ton- sils howling at an audience when a big ticker and tape man was willing to keep her in chow, for a little soft crooning to order? * * * 7 ENATOR JAMES A. REED of Mis- souri w&nts to have the govern- ment.returned to the people. The senator is of the opinion that there are too many crooks in high places today. We agree with the senator but with the reservation that there are no more crooks in government today than there were one hundred years ago, comparatively. After reading of the exploits of Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall, we are decidedly of the opinion that our modern poli- ticians are no worse than their po- litical forebears. They all graft, some legitimately others illegitimate- ly. But their peculations come out of the sweat and blood of the workers. That is the important consideration for us. ° * * Nor only has William Hale Thomp- son of Chicago made a name for himself as chief bull-baiter to his ma- jesty, the king of the Anglo-Saxons, but he has blossomed. out as a first class prophet. “Bill” is a fine fellow as politicians go. He is democratia and his big, spacious hands can slap a shoulder at one hundred yards. A man like Thompson is bound to ga far in a city like Chicago, * ah f ie is as a prophet that Mr, Thomp- son shines brightest. Years aga during the reign of Theodore’ Roose- velt, a fellow by the name of Lorimes got in bad, because he plundered a big bank in the Windy City. Robbing banks was not then as popular a sport as it is today, so Teddy being a man of the people refused to dine with Lorimer. This caused Thompson ta predict that a better president than Teddy would one day dine with “Billy” Lorimer. And so it has come to pass, Lorimer and Thompson dined with Calvin Coolidge a few mornings ago and the dead past has buried Its dead. * * * Bors the democrats and republicans in New York State are gloating over the results of the elections. Ac+ cording to the publicity sent out by both organizations, both won. This is not so far-fetched as it may appear on the surface. The capitalist polix ticians in both parties will continue to function in the interests of the bosses, for good money. The workers who elected them will slave for little more than a bare existence, Ft i % / Se