The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 8, 1927, Page 4

into the changing social life of today. THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1927 MARRIAGE AND PROPERTY RIGHTS. THE COMPANIONATE MARRIAGE. By Judge Ben Lindsey & Wain- wright Evans. Boni & Liveright. $3. REN LINDSEY is a man of courage and understanding. He judges life s he finds it and has the backbone to declare his findings in the face of social prejudice and corruption. For his honesty he has been removed as judge of the Denver Juvenile Court by the ku klux klan. Lindsey’s book The Revolt of Youth, based on his experience in that a great contribution to a better understanding of the cked younger generation. The present book The Com- nionate Marriage is a fine expose of the hypocr jealousy and property ideology which prevail in sex li But the judge writes no mere expose. He wishes to popu- larize a definite plan for a social reform which he calls companionate marriage In this book are related a great many interesting before him in the domestic relations yurt he conducted in Denver. All these happy and un- ppy affairs bring out a number of salient truths. For it economic ne y forces the wide-spread practice of bootleg .gal prohibition; that many young people re- or for worse into all eternity, as innumerable couples on in years, in of compulsory continued married life and take for- , while pretending all’s well; in short, which cai Judge Lindsey instance, t birth contre sent the ide our existing | irk unde bidden r > mary \ that the wi of sex life is ‘ated with superstition, dishonesty, rot- tenness. Judge Lindsey, therefore, earnestly calls for a change in tharriage to con more with human needs. He wants the companionate This, he s childless marriage fo » long as the part- to be such. To make people feel like law-abiding citi- icing birth control, Lindsey demands that the dissemina- knowledge of contraceptives be made legal. He also thinks it ary to allow divorce by mutual consent so long as a couple remains child . His argument is, there being no children, society can have no possible interest in forcing two people to continue married. These ideas are sensible enough and are certainly required for saner living. The trouble is that the strength of the for this reform bucks up against, are enormous. The doctors who make infinitely more out of the present anarchy in.sex life than they could make out of giving a little simple information on contraceptives, are dead against it. The ose maintenance depends to such a large extent upon the in- tricacies and intrigues of marriage and divorce maneuvers under the present laws, throw up their hands in horror. The churches whose stock in trade is ignorance, call out hell-fire against the proposed reform. The capitalists—the mine owners, for example, who are not troubled about mine explosions because of the plentiful supply of worke: what would they y to legalized birth control? Finally, the politicians of the capi- talist state, zealously guarding all these private interests, have their jaws set against such innovations as Judge Lindsey’s. In a word, the great bulwark of capitalist society based upon property rights, private gain, profit-fleecing, blocks the way of the judge’s pro- posed jreform. Or, to put it differently, Judge Lindsey’s companionate marriage involves a superstructural change based on human needs, while the fundamental structure of American society still remains rooted in private profit. The judge has a hard job on his hands—as have all re- formers patiently pricking away at the superstructure of capitalist society. What a great contrast between the painful travail necessary to bring even the slightest reforms under capitalism, and the ease with which major reforms have taken place in Soviet R . Here is demonstrated the truth that with one revolutionary swoop the foungation of superstruc- tural rubbish is cleared away also. Institutions founded on private in- terest lose their raison d’etre. Changes come almost of themselves. So in its"sex life Russia is arriving at a basis that accords with living needs. I: has gone much further in the direction of human requirements than Judge Lindsey’s companionate marriage contemplates. Doubtless Judge Lindsey knows about the prodigious changes going on in Rus: Such changes are brought about the same way, funda- mentally, everywhere—even in America. —SUSAN GREENE. THE MYTH OF COOLIDGE PROSPERITY. THE COOLIDGE PROGRAM: Capita Exposed. By Jay Lovestone. Price 5 cents. IMULT: SOUS with the opening of congress appears this pam- phlet that, because of its adequate, concise and yet comprehen- sive analysis of present conditions in the United States, blasts the myth of Coolidge prosperity. It is a handbook for workers who de- sire facts instead of f rding the condition of their class. The pamphlet is a reply to Coolidge’s address before the Union League Club of Philadelphia and anticipates ‘the address to congress of the principal Wall Street puppet. It is not confined merely to a restatement of the fact that the government is the agent of the imperialists, but presents unimpeachable proof of that fact, expos- ing its ramifications in various parts of the world. The illusion of high wages is also exploded by a recital of statistics that proves that the vast majority of the inhabitants of this country are receiving: less than a living wage, while the in- tensity of exploitation throws workers on the scrap heap with the rest of the industrial wreckage more quickly than in any other country. “The Coolidge Program,” by Jay Lovestone, is the second of the series of Workers Librayy publications, and the price is so low that workers cen buy them in lots and distribute them to their shop mates. —H. M. WICKS. list Democracy and Prosperity Workers Library Publishers. A VITAL AMERICAN NOVEL. A GOOD WOMAN. By Louis Bromfield. Frederick A. Stokes Co. $2.50. NE feels from the very beginning of this book that the author is not doing his work full justice in the choice of his title. His theme is broader. Ii is true, a “good woman” dominates the story.” A good, chris- tian, criminally righteous woman. She dominates also the lives of other people, including her son, interfering in their actions, directing their paths in a manner that from the beginning one senses unerring tragedy. Yet it is not only a picture of a “good woman.” It is also'a panoramic, vivid view of a whole section of American life today. The story is told with power and is painted on a background of a mid-western steel fown, with a real feeling of social consciousness and the forces that mould the lives of these people. In the main it is not a story of the workers in the mills. misery, their struggles are simply and sympathetically woven into the background of the story. Thruout one senses not only this sympathy but an intimate knowledge of it as well. In the drama of a long drawn-out, th the attending tragic tonsequences to the workers, the the situation in vivid scene nd yet without losing sight of something bigger which he sees in the aspirations of labor. Splendidly done is the reaction of the pa e “Town” that lives on the “Mills” when the workers go on strike; the rising of the patriots who form the vigilantes, the clamor of the church and the rabidness of the press that rises to the defense of the “sacred rights of property.” It is a gruesome picture of the rottenness and hypocrisy that is bred of this social strata in the industrial city. A Good Woman is no biting, critical exposure of all this, One rather glimpses all of it between and behind the figures in the drama as it unwinds itself, and here and there even throws these facts to the fore- ground, Yet you are aware that this is the soil from which the drama must spring. - The book is the work of a fine writer seeking to give us some insight There is a sureness about every jtep of it. The individual characters are authentic apd alive. The back- and is one phase of industrial America today, ! ~WALT CARMON. am io They, their Cecil Rhodes, India and British’ By WILLIAM F. DUNNE. Another betrayal of the masses of workers and peasants of India is be- ing prepared by the official leader- ship of the British Labor Party head- jed by Ramsay MacDonald. The Baldwin government has ap- pointed a commission “to investigate |conditions in India, go over the In- jdian constitution and recommend cer- tain changes. Not a single Indian is on the com- ion but two members of the La- | | mis: {bor Party the labor | Donald—Stephen Atlee. under Mac- and Major government Walsh “Mother Indi The appointment of this vommis- sion follows the wide distribution of Katherine Mayo’s book “Mother In- |dia”, imperialist propaganda and spe- {cial pleading for British rule in India of the most vicious kind. There has been some criticism by Ellen Wilkinson of the bill creating the commission but as the London that criticism was made for political capital rather than serious opposi- tion.” Ramsay MacDonald has stated that he supportS the government in creat- jary position is under attack by the labor party. It is stated that not since the di cussion on the betrayal of the general strike have the inner differences in | the Labor Party been so clearly de- fined as on this question of outright support of British imperialism by La- |bor Party leaders. The position of MacDonald is an open scandal in the labor movement and the official labor party leader- ship and right wing union officialdom is not helped by the endorsement of the government’s Blanesburgh report, recommending “readjustments” in the unemployment relief by Margaret Bondfield and other labor leaders. Weak Opposition. But the opposition to cooperation | with the government in planning fur- |ther suppression of the Indian na- tionalist movement, is weakened by |the extremely unclear and cautio nature of the criticisms it is making. Ellen Wilkinson, for instance, writing in the New Leader, makes no cri- ticism whatever of those labor offi- |cials who are playing Baldwin’s game jbut confines herself to criticism of |the government. She even manages to get in, relative to another matter, some praise of MacDonald. “One would hardly have thought |that this government need have gone lot as the result of its Comm |the Indian Constitution,” says Ellen Wilkinson, Lord Birkenhead is warned |that “if he imagines that 300 millions lof people in India are going to sub- mit to the sort of bullying superi \which lost Britain her |colonies, his pride is likely to receive |a rude shock. The only answer which | the Indian leaders can give to a com- |mission which includes no Indian |names is the boycott which is already threatened.” (Our emphasis.) Typical Comment. - Ellen Wilkinson’s comment is typi- ‘cal of the imperialist tinge which is to be found in all the speeches and ar- ticles of British labor leaders with | the exception of the Communists and | their supporters, Wilkinson puts the problem as one for the Indians and not for the British labor movement and does not forget to mention the danger of losing India as a colony. Instead of threatening the tory government with action by the Labor Party and the unions Wil- kinson leaves all the fighting to be done by the masses of India. The Record of Labor Officialdom. | The British Labor Party leadership \is saturated with the virus of imper- jialism, It is recorded that no more arrogant messages were ever sent by a British premier to colonial peoples than those of MacDonald to and India when he headed the goverh ment and it is likewise a matter of |record on the word of Bert sell that whatever formal |been made by official British la party leaders against the inv: |China and the Indian atrocities, was made under pressure from the rank jand file of the workers. In their fai! to support the co ion of jgression, in their support of the |perialist program for keeping s#hem jenslaved, the official leaders by their {deeds echo the statement of Cecil | Rhodes, the arch-imperialist, quoted }by Lenin in Imperialism: “My chief idea is the solution of the ; social problem, that is, in ovdgr to save the inhabitants of the United | Kingdom from a murderous civil war, we the colonialists, should secure new territories for the purpose of sctiling [the surplus population on them, for |the purpose of having new territories in which we can dispose cf the goods | produced in our factories and brought |up from our mines. 1 have always Jin Britain but in all other imperialist are—former ministers of | ing the commission and his reaction- | Communists and left elements in the | ‘out of its way to look for trouble, but! it is certainly going to find quite a} China } | Labor Party Leaders The Communist Position. nations—makes war upon the colonial | ialist rulers. The result is that with|ten by Lenin, states: |the aid of these elements, imperialism] «ppe policy of the Communist In- ‘colonial peoples and workers at home in subjection. The Bri 4 |therefore is betraying not merely the | National inequality and Indian peoples in this particular in- | cannot be abolished.” stance but the British working class | as well. ples, to discredit the British labor | ma’ movement in the eyes of the Indian/|ples its own. masses, is directly in opposition to} |policy are. the imperialists. | | utmost, Bertrand Russell admits frankly | Widia ng heen called bys Baten that the influential official leaders of | correspondent of the New York Times|the British labor movement are im- |stabeemen, site brightest jewel o ie observes, “The comments of the La-|perialists. Their action in engorsing | hCr® OOCCR. i the joint | borites were a sufficient indication | the Indian Commission, a newinstru- |C11C/al labor Jeagership Is Seas { the | One of keeper of the crown jewels and hangmen of the Indian workers and ants. ment for riveting more tightly {chains of imperialism on the Indian} masses, confirms this statement, | P°* made shamelessly in the columns of |= a \the Jewish Daily Forward. | More Contributions to Ruthenberg Daily Worker Sustaining | Labor Party between the official lead- | Fund jership and the growing left wing un- | hae tae |der Communist leadership. It is|T- Samosevich, Grand Rapids... 25 |probable that mass pressure may |R. J. Warn, Grand Rapids, Mich. .26 |force elements of the type of Lans-|B- Faulkner, Grand Rap‘ds, Mich. |bury, Wilkinson, ete., into open if fee-|F- BS ees, eer eat ble oppositi is stion. 1s. erbioff, Gran apids, Mich. ede nae augstion F. Jasinski, Grand Rapids, Mich. .2° Paulson, Grand Rapids, Mich. Lehto, Mass., Mich.... K. Chaplik, Berkeley, Mich. E. Curry, Kansas City, Mo. St. Nucleus 1, San Jose, Cal. Leaders and Masses. MacDonald’s open approval of the | | tory maneuvre against Indian inde- pendence will widen the rift in the! | Fer the British workers, since the| Gg, |support of the government’s Indian |], |program by MacDonald, it will be) 5, \clearer that nowhere do the basic dif-| J, | ferences between Communists and so: cial democrats appear in more ‘defi-| p, Dinny, Detroit, Mich. . |nite form than on issues which in-! 4. Ronoff, Detroit, Mich jvolv e the relations between the work-| 4. Todoroff, Detroit, Mich | ing ¢ in imperialist countries and| N, Razasoff, Detroit, Mich......1.00 |the masses in the colonial and semi-|, Chirleff, Detroit, Mich. | colonial countries, |J. Hirsh, Cleveland, Ohio. - 10.00 | The social democrats reject the al-|K. Dimotroff, Cleveland, Ohio. . .1.85 ance between the workers and col-' Nucleus No. 11, Cleveland, Ohio. .3.00 onial peoplés.” Whenever possible, as{S. A. S., Seattle, Wash... .* 4.00 in Great Britain now, the social demo-|Theo. Black, New York, N. Y. $1.00 |crat: leaders work hand in hand with |E. Molner, Bronx, N. Y. ........ 1.00 | The second inter- | B. Brasth, Astoria, L. L, N. Y. 1.00} | the imperialists. |national is an imperialist agency. ie | eet Baskin, New York, N. Y. . MUSIC AND CONCERTS" 1.00 i HAMPDEN’S THEATRE -— SUNDAY AFT., DEC. 11th | B’way, Bet. 62 & 63 Sts. At 3 P.M. | THE CIVIC GRAND OPERA ASSOCIATION | Presents | - LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, ? . By DONIZZ®TTI é With ZABELLE ARAM, — Mlle. SONIA ROSOVA will give a group of dramatic dances. MICELI Stage Director, CAV, Prices: 1,50, 2.00, 2.50 | Conductor, G PUGLIA TSe, 1.00, : Pat The Communist International, in | peoples instead of fighting the imper-| the thesis of its second congress, writ- ‘keeps in subjection millions of work-|toynational on the national and col- | jers and peasants in the colonial coun-| onial questions must be chiefly to | tries, robs them, gives a.small part of | bring about’a union of the proletariat jthe loot to its allies in ranks of the|,4q "working masses of all nations | working class movement and strength-|,4q countries for a joint revolution- | Comedy Theatre, Dec. 22. The Actor- ens itself -sufficiently to keep both) a,y struggle leading to the overthrow |ef land owners and capitalists. For |only such a union can assure the vie- | sh Labor Party leadership|tory over capitalism, without w ich oppression \hearsals of Robert Emmet Sherwood’s | of | period. The British working class cannot | ing of “The Love Nest,” To strengthen the grip of |free itself if it follows the colonial the imperialists on the Indian peo-|pclicy cf its. rulers, if it does not e the cause of the colonial peo- It is a double betrayal that is be- |the interests of the British workers. |ing perpetrated by the MacDonalds, | |The only ones who benefit by such a | Hendersons, Clynes, Thomases and | signing the sets and costumes. ‘all leaders who fail to fight it to the | | | Broadway Briefs | | Keating, for a fortnight of special 5 holiday performances, which will be 5 |given on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 5 = | mornings, and Sunday nights (Decem- 1 By Bayard Veiller_ with BROWNSVILLE ATTENTION CONCERT Saturday Evening, Dec. 10th 122 OSBORNE ST. | Excellent program of musical” numbers and classical dancing. AUSPICES: WORKERS’ YOUTH CENTRE. || BROWNSVILLE ATTENTION Defeat the Imperialist War Against Nicaragua LENINISM TEACHES US: The victory of the working class in the advanced countries and the ion of the peoples oppressed by Imperialism are impossible without libe the formation and censolidation of a cofmon revolutionary front. proletariat of the oppr mo impe never be fre The Workers (Communist) Party asks“you to join and help in the fight for: ‘The Defeat of Imperialist Wars. Smashing Government by Injunction. Organization of the Unorganized. A Labor Party. ‘The Defense of the Soviet Union and Against Capitalist Wars. ‘ Workers’ and Farmers’ Government. Application for Membership in Workers (Communist) Party (Fill out this blank and mail to Workers Party, 43 E. 125th St., N. Y. City) |said that imperialism is a question of Name wi haey tevae Son ha jthe stomach. If you do not want a, ie civil war, then you must become im- mrdarens er PGE MIR AL Sets ie Cag Or A ae Ct ko A ogi A ae aden (Our emphasis.) | * St. City State Following the Rhodes Policy. Lg eee i In accord with this simple dase: | Made apes fh % URAC Ma r the official labor leadership—not only; __- {Enclosed find. $1.00-for initiation fee and one mon rhe formation of a common revolutionary front is possible only if the | ing countries supports directly and resolutely the ment for’ national independence of the oppressed peoples against the | m of the mother country for a people which oppresses others can “The Love Nest” Coming to Comedy | Theatre December 22 The group of players recently seen in Dunsany’s “If” at the Little Theatre, who call themselves the} Actor-Managers, have begun re- “The Loye.Nest,” and will open at the Managers . have incorporated,’ and | have concluded plans for a producing | program which will carry them through the remainder of the season. The Comedy Theatre will be the home the organization during that} Immediately after the open- prepara- | tions will begin for the production of | “Maya,” the play by Simon Gantillon | which had a run at the Champs Elysee | Studio Theatre in Paris last year.) Ernest Boyd has made the transla- tion and Aline Bernstein is now de- The third production will be “Flipote,” by | Jules Lemaitre, to be followed in the} spring by the annual “Grand Street | Follies,” for ‘which, another name will have to be found.\ The tentative one is “So This is New York!” | The cast for\“The Love Nest,” will include, besides June Walker, Clyde! Fillmore, Guy Phillips, Paula True- man,, Mare Loebell and Albert Car: roll. | Winthrop Ames makes his first publie excursion into the field of magie'on Christmas night when in the Booth Theatre he will present and Friday afternoons, Wednesday ber 25 and January 1). “Escape,” Galsworthy’s play, will continue at |the regular evening and Wednesday and Saturday matinees at the Booth. Esther Howard, the comedienne of “Sunny,” has been engaged for “The New Moon,” the new Schwab and Mandel operetta due here around the holidays. “The Cocoon,” a comedy of morals, adapted by C. M. Selling from the original manuscript by Camillo Scholari, is the play which the Civic * With George M. Cohan in “The Merry Malones” at Erlanger’s Theatre. Players Guild will unfurl at the Inti- mate Playhouse in the Bronx, on De- eember 26. The Laboratory Theatre will be dark Monday, Tuesday and present Knut Hamsun’s “At the Gate of the Kingdom” tonight. . This is the first of Hamsun’s plays to be produced in English in America. S. N. Behrman’s play “The Second Man,” produced here by the Theatre Guild last season, opens in London in January. Noel Coward, will play the role done here by Alfred Lunt. The opening date of “Marco Mill- ions,” by the way, has been set for January 9, at the Guild Theatre. It will alternate with the production of “The Doctor’s Dilemma” now current at the Guild. “The Prisoner” by Emil Bernhardt, called in literal translation, “The Ravaging Lamb,” has been put into rehearsal by the Provincetown Play- house. It will open on December 27. Sam H. Harris has acquired “Con- gai,” a drama of Indo-China by Harry Hervey and Charleton Hildreth from the novel by Harry Hervey. 45 St., W. of B'way Eves. 8:40 BOOTH Matinees Wed. & Sat. at 2:40 Winthrop Ames ESCAPE resents | John Galsworthy’s with Leslie Howard New Play i Theatre, 41 St. W. of B'way [National [ysisiuc. ats Wed.@sat2-30 “The Trial of Mary Dugan” ANN HARDING—REX CHERRYMAN The Desert. Song with Robt. Halliday & Eddie Buxsell nd Year IMPERIAL THEA., 45 StiW.of B’way Eveaings 8:30 Ma Wed. and Si 2:30 _AWALLS :-: eee with MUNI WISENFREND- | John Golden Th,.W.58 St.Mts. i Wed. &Sat. 2:30 Thea., 65 W. 85th. Ev. 8:30 GARRICK Mats, Thurs. & Sat. 2:30 BASIL SYDNEY and MARY ELLIS with Garrick Players in the Modern | TAMING of the SHREW | saab a os | | DRACU. Bway, 46 St. Evs. 8.30 Mats. Wed.&Sat, 2.30 in the new Frances Starrs:"" _ IMMORAL ISABELLA? with JULIUS MeVICKER » W. 48th St. Mats. Wed. & Sat. RU eae. y— The Theatre Guild presents PORGY so Th., W. 42d. Evs. Republic yyiic Weaésa Pe Kea Bernard Shaw’s Comedy = DOCTOR’S DILEMMA < Th., W. 52d, Evs, 8:20 Guild fiaisvThurs.&Sat,,2:20 Max Reinhardt’s “Jedermann” (Everyman) CENTURY 2'stsCg'™ Pane Tgp Mats. Fri. and Sat. at 2. Chanin’s W. 45 St. Royale. Mts. Wed., ‘All Performances Except Mon. & Thurs. Winthrop Ames “Mikado” Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Co. in Eves. Only—“1IOLANTHE” Thurs. Eve. “PIRATES OF PENZANCE” Mon. ERLANGER'S fig “ihurs. a Sot THE MERRY MALONES with GEORGE M. COHAN ‘lep’s Thea. W.43 St.Ewa.8.30 Henry Miller's yritivecs Thurs. @ Sat Grant Mitchel in Geo. M. Cohan's American Farce THE BABY CYCLONE ‘Wm. Fox presents the Motion Picture SUNRISE » W'stnnags By HERMANN SUDERMANN Symphonie Movietor 2 ; Thea, 42a St., W. of Times Sq. yWitr DaiLy, 2:39 a SPECIAL---Daily Worker Buy your tickets at The DAILY WORKER office, 108 East Mth St. and help The DAILY WORKER and this theatre. | “THE CENTURIES” By Em Jo Basshe The Fall and Rise of the East Side Masses A Beautiful and Thrilling Play The New Playwrights Theatre 40 Commerce Street Performances Every Night Except Sunday Matinees Saturday Afternoon A New Playwrights Production t Night, Thursday, Dec. 8.